Receiving my brother's blessing

I'm hanging out here on facebook this lovely evening and I see multiple reasons for celebration.

Announcements of engagements.

Pictures of weddings.

Babies being born.

Dreams being fulfilled.

For some time my response to these things is an outward celebration and an inward jealousy, but the Lord has been speaking to me about this for some time. And by some time I mean over and over again for the last 8 or 9 years.
Romans 12:15 says this:


Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.

Paul is instructing the Romans in Christians gifts and behavior in this passage. And he slips this one in there. Out of the blue, really. As to say, "Hey, don't think higher or lower of yourself compared to your brother, but live life together! Victories AND defeats!" I have observed that many christians share the tendency to get secretly jealous when we don't get our victory, our dream, our husband, our wife, our kids.

I know the feeling. It sucks when someone gets something you want. You can even end up wounding your own heart over it and grow bitter against victories. It could even be a reason the church lavishes itself in dismay and false humility.

I heard a speaker once share a story about a family with 6 or 7 children. I don't remember. Enough where your typical military family food budget has to be stretched thin every week. And once a week on shopping day, the mother would either take one of the kids with her or bring one of the kids a treat when she arrived home. And when this happened, the kids learned that one was not loved more over another, but rather it was simply another's turn. If not today, soon the next child will have the chance to receive a treat, or go grocery shopping with mom.

And in our christian walk, it's the same. Because your freind got married and you didn't, doesn't mean God loves you less or forgot about you. It simply means your turn is coming.

So when the weddings come? Dance. Dreams fulfilled? Laugh in victory. Success marks people? Throw a party! And the babies show up? Well, I guess babysitting now and again might let you share in the joy and relieve the parents from it for a few hours. Christians are marked by our love for one another. So let's celebrate in love!

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever.

Psalm 23:6

Knowing the depths of an Unknowable God

A little while ago, I was driving up with a friend from San Diego to Pasadena for a conference. Near the beginning of the drive, we were talking about life, Jesus, and whatever. In the middle of the conversation she brings up something she went through the night before. She was lying in bed having frantic thoughts of wanting to go deeper with God because there was so much more of God to have. And by frantic thoughts, I mean Panic attack status. Not your run of the mill, 'That'd be nice' thoughts. More of a heavy breathing, my life is falling apart without this mentality. My first inward response was something to the effect of "Lady, you are kind of freaking me out", in a very sarcastic tone. And as life goes on, I forgot about our conversation and my friends bedtime freak-out. I am driving in my car today and God brings up this memory of my friend telling me this. But in the oh-so elegant way God does, I have a matrix moment where everything hits me in 3 seconds and all of a sudden, I can preach a message on it. I start to ask myself this question, why do I not have this attitude? I start to realize the depths of God I have never explored and this hunger groans from within me. Then the thought really hits me... "WHY DON'T ALL CHRISTIANS HAVE THIS ATTITUDE?!" The presence of God falls on me in the car in such a way I almost take out with my car your local Mammoth jogger jogging down the street. Yeah, you should have seen his face when he almost went to go meet Jesus. He gave me the hawaiian peace sign. In Ephesians 3:18-19(NKJV) we see this: 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. First off, Paul is asking God that we may be strengthened in our inner man so Christ may dwell in us so that we can comprehend first the entire volume of the love of God. And exactly what does that mean? To be able to fathom the unfathomable. Something that is in of it self the very nature of our creator. Love. To understand the thoughts, actions, emotions, and very nature of the One who created the universe. I thought to myself, why do I not seek more of this. Not simply understanding with my mind, but understanding in my heart. To have more and more of the revelation of the very heart of Christ on the cross. Having that understanding completely wreck me and consume me. Not to say that I or others haven't experienced it to some degree. But my issue was, was I settling for the finite when I serve a God of the infinite.? And in the later part of this verse, Paul connects knowing the love in fullness with having the very fullness of God within us. Now this is my thought; If the fullness of God dwelling within us is connected to knowing the love of God that surpasses knowledge, how much of God's love am I willing to search? To ask for? To understand? To experience? I feel like this is a beginning marker in my journey. A remembrance stone or altar unto the Lord. Like when Jacob raised the stone he used as a pillow and anointed it with oil as a stone of remembrance. He named that place Beth-El which literally means, "House of God". I will probably be writing on this subject a bit more as my journey unfolds as a stone of remembrance of sort. Not to simply reemphasize the importance of His presence, but rather as a challenge of How much of God do you really want? Enough to get through the day? The week? This life maybe? Or do you want the entire fullness of God? The ever expanding wells of His Spirit? The unknowable depths of His love? I too, like Paul, pray that you would "know" the love of Christ that surpasses "knowledge".

Learning to live from a right place we should call home...

I've always had an interesting spiritual life. It seems I believed more of the right things when I was first saved then I did as I "grew in Christ". When you're a kid, you believe your dad can do anything. When you first become saved, you have that same impression. That our Papa God can accomplish anything.

Well, at least until your older siblings "educate you on reality". Then you start coming into what people call real life. A life that is full of working, making money, and creating a legacy. To translate that into the christian life, it's simply, doing good, getting people saved, and making people remember the things you did so they do the same.

But there seems to be much more then that. Jesus said to enter the Kingdom, we have to become like little children. When did that ever have to stop. Being in the Kingdom of God is suppose to be like being little kids. We are suppose to believe our Daddy can do anything. We are suppose to have faith.

God never has recognized evidence as a currency to trade to be blessed. Faith has always been the currency of Heaven. God has always hid a part of himself, in every aspect of life to push us to faith. As to say, "Ok guys, you guys claim to know I'm here, but are you willing to believe", and instead we make things up and fill in the gap ourselves instead of just believing.

Jesus said that all things are possible with God. He also said all things are possible to him who believes(Mark 9:23). We are to be as christians, leaders in all we do through faith. Our journey starts with faith, and with every step we should not know whether we'll make it, but rather believe we will. When we pray for healing, we should not know that they get healed, but rather believe they will. You can know and not believe. It's really easy, people do it all the time. Especially christians. You can know God is good, but do you really believe it? You can know that God has a mate for you, but do you really believe it?

What am I saying? I guess what it comes down too, is what God says, something you choose to believe? Or something you simply choose to know. Will you act upon that which hasn't been so it may be?

Hell and the grave and the power of His love

I see in myself judgements...

Judgements against people, their actions, what they speak, and heck, even their driving skills(I'm a bus driver if you didn't know).

But the more I spend time with our Creator, the more I realize His priorities. I realize that He has ways of dealing with our stuff, in an order that He Himself decides for what time and purpose.

Take my Ma for example. She is 60 years old, had a stroke 15 years ago, and became a christian about 3 years ago. When she first became a christian she read the bible every day, would always ask "why" about everything that was taught but would always tell me, her son who is "the radical christian", God bless you and keep you. Shortly thereafter the man who led her to Christ was accused of child pornagraphy and was forced to leave the ministry. No evidence was found on him but with a public accusation like that, you can say goodbye to your ministry.

But my ma didn't react and blame God for this whole incident. Don't get me wrong, it broke her heart and she believed the cops in the town she lives in were just looking for something to do. But my ma learned early on that we don't blame others for our mistakes. She still believed God was good and refused to let a public incident shake her faith

To this day, she still professes Christ, goes to church, asks questions and all that stuff.

God took action early on in her born again life teaching her to rely solely upon Him who is faithful as opposed to the man who led her to Christ. My ma still cusses, tells dirty jokes, and throws tantrums when I can't drive down and drive her to the big city but that's all unimportant right now.

God is creating in her a character that is based off of HIS plans. Not ours, so many times in our lives we think we can do a better job of dealing with problems in life and people then He can, whether we realize it or not. But in a culture where we allow mistakes, we have grace for the sins that don't directly affect or harm one another, we allow God control as long as we are open to His spirit to speak to us.

As a youth pastor I deal with kids left and right who are radical christians and do stupid things, or kids who are professed athiests, agnostics, or who quite aren't ready to surrender everything to God. All these kids make mistakes and say things that aren't "Godly". But I realized early on it's not my job to "christianize" these kids then let them come to youth group to be used by christ.

Isaiah himself professed unclean lips and God cleansed them. Jeremiah claimed being a youth and useless and God told him to can it and speak what God would put in his mouth. I have seen barely saved kids pray for the sick and see them healed. I have seen a passion rise out of kids who are 3 weeks old in the Lord that has more fire then most of the adults in my church.

God's priorities for us is foolishness to our minds because we don't see the whole picture. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for disciplines and reading the bible, and prayer and all the things of christianity that make us firm and solid in the Lord, but the moment we start to run the show is the moment revival stops. It's the moment God lets a bunch of uneducated laborers try to build the eiffel tower or the pyramid of Giza.

God is a God of order but His order for life, the church, and Holiness won't always agree with the theologies that have been spoken by the smartest men in the country. I think God takes more delight in the heart of a 5 year old who tells his mom in the middle of worship "I love Jesus" then the man who does his daily devotions in hebrew and greek.

Much love

Living love through signs and wonders

A few weeks ago I watched this movie that was a sequel to a movie called "Finger of God." Finger of God was a movie about one man's journey of exploring signs and wonders. The entire movie brings him from seeing gold dust fall, mana appear out of people's bibles, to deaf ears being opened and knee's being fully healed. After going to conferences with Gold dust, He goes to Bethel Church, and eventually ends up with Iris Ministries in Africa with Heidi Baker. In the end of the movie, There is a scene where a homeless guy walks up to him and his friend and asks for money. They say yes but first can we pray for you. The homeless guy's knee ends up getting healed and he walks away almost skipping completely forgetting to get the money.

He ends the movie with the conclusion of the reason signs and wonders exist is because God wants to show the world He loves them.

"Furious Love" was the sequel. And it was all about the Love of God invading the darkest most wretched places on earth.

I'll let you watch it for yourself but the whole movie inspired me and helped rework my thinking. I just remember thinking, "I always press in for signs and wonders, but do I ever just love?"

Jesus was the kind of guy who loved seep out of everything He did. Whether is was hanging out at a party where there were drunks and prostitutes talking to Him(And most likely gnarly sin happening in the next room over), or He was commanding a lame man who had been lowered through a roof in front of Jesus to "Pick up your mat and walk"

This always perplexes me in the sense of, people highlight such points and implications in scripture but they never decide to add all the points up and look at the whole picture.

We are the body of christ and therefore reflect portions of Christ love and grace and goodness, but christians in so many arena's downplay the validity of unity and refuse to act as a community of believers, even when we don't agree.

Jesus is the perfect theology and if what we believe or walk out doesn't reflect the character and nature of Jesus, I would say something is wrong with what mountains we choose to die on.

Blabber I know but it's my first blog. My whole point is, Jesus was the example set by which we are to live by, if you respond to your brother without love, you do not act as Jesus did because God is love. Mockery and hidden gossip counts as well. If you are just trying to find someone to agree with what you see is wrong, that's not how Jesus acted, that's simply you trying to find comfort when life is uncomfortable.

I like Kris Vallotton's saying "As christians, we were never meant to be comfortable, hence the reason God sent us 'the comforter'."

To bring it back to the top, Signs and wonders are what I pursue because that is my calling as I believe every christians calling to a degree(I give you permission to disagree with me). But if these or anything else come out of anything other then love for God and love for another, you will walk in a realm that will take you straight to hell, or at least pretty darn close.