Romance?

Do you ever get so caught up in the things you do as a Christian that they easily define your relationship with God? Do you find yourself not being fed from these things you have, the sermons don't come alive to you anymore? You've got condemnation for not praying as long as you probably should? You got a couple weeks off track in your Bible plan? You find yourself trying to sneak out before someone asks you to help clean up the church? You cringe at the thought of being asked to lead out in prayer, or step up and lead for the group?

I was just thinking about how easily we get caught up in these things, and even the trap of pleasing man. It's like deception. The thing about deception is....you don't know you are being deceived. And sometimes when your walk with God is so frustrating because you don't realize that in some form or another you've been going through all the motions to please the pastors, your leaders, to seem like the anointed one.... or because you know those are things you are supposed to be doing. But here's something important. Have you ever experienced a true intimacy with God? ROMANCE!!!!! Do you know what it is to feel so passionately in love with God?

I don't know.... I'm just so excited for this summer. To fall so deep in love with God. More than I ever knew was possible, more than I ever understood before. I was thinking about interns and every experience, and how God constantly whispered the words "more intimacy with Me" to me. And I kept saying yes God I love You that's what I want. But I've just recently received such a huge revelation of what true intimacy with God is. And it's helped me to see why so many of us struggle through our walks with God, and feel like we've resorted to compromise, or even backsliding in ways we've been able to convince ourselves were okay. I'm not referring to anyone in particular, and I think honestly no matter how strong of a Christian you are, including myself, we all deal with this on some level.

So here's the thing. Do you have a true romance with God? God created us to be with Him. God wants to romance you. You know any guy or girl can try to win your heart, but what about God? He's the author of pursuing someone, he's the best at knowing what makes you get butterflies in your stomach. If you can't see that about God, begin to ask God to reveal that side of Him to You. FALL IN LOVE WITH GOD, He is madly in love with you already, and desperately wants you to know it!!!

Forget every burden you have, every bit of condemnation, every pressure, and just begin to ask God to reveal His love to you in a more intimate way. Maybe at first it doesn't make sense, but if you really want to have a relationship with God that will transform you radically you'll get desperate enough to find a way to receive it. And you know what? It's okay to wrestle with God over it until You understand it (Genesis 32 Jacob wrestles with God for the blessing). Take the time to be genuine with God the next time you pray. Set the prayer cards and routines aside, and speak to Him as if He were sitting right next to you. Have you ever heard someone say time plus words creates intimacy? It's true. :] If you don't already have a goal for this summer, and even if you already do- you should aspire to fall in love with God for real. Past the zeal and temporary highs that help us run for a while, past the things we do to please God, past what you even understand as relationship, as God to take You deeper into His love. YOU CAN NEVER REACH AN ENDPOINT WITH GOD, even if you feel like you are in love with Him, there is an unfathomable amount of His love you have yet to experience. SO FALL IN LOVE WITH GOD!!!!

"And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel [the face of God], saying, For I have seen God face to face, and my life is spared and not snatched away." -Genesis 32:30 AMPLIFIED BIBLE. Wrestle with God until the burdens, obligations, stresses, and cares are gone, and you can get down to just being with Him for the intent of being with Him. You can easily lose yourself, your passion for the house of God, and your love for God, if you don't understand intimacy with Him. And from that intimacy will come the pure desire to do all those things, minus the burdens etc.

The truth about living

What we know in our hearts is often the most valuable tool of testing for God to use to strengthen us. I believe that if you live your life submitted to the will of God and the authority He has hand selected for you to be under- no decision you make will ever cause you to be swallowed up in regret. There is a principal I have loved even before I knew what it was, and that is not loving my life unto death (Revelation 12:11). This whole year God has put this upon my heart and opened revelation as to what it means, testing me in so many areas, to refine my heart and push me deeper into my calling. If no thing can separate me from the love of Christ, the word of my testimony will truly allow those around me to overcome. That is powerful, and do you know why? Because more often than not, it requires the blade to sink deep inside of your heart. And when the blood comes flowing out, do I tell the surgeon to stop operating on my heart, or do I say finish what you started no matter how bad it hurts, no matter if I don't understand why your doing this, even if you told me it would feel, look, or seem different, I trust You to finish operating on me.
I have a passion to fulfill the calling that God has created for me. And I am learning increasingly more and more that things will be placed into my hands so that I can experience something to help me relate to others, refine my character, and even show God that no matter what that thing is I can be fulfilled with or without it. God will never give us more than we can handle, and that includes the extent of our revelation on something. He will open doors to us as we show ourselves faithful. He will close doors in order to open new ones. He will ultimately be sovereign and holy over EVERYTHING we allow Him to do in our lives. And doctrinally, if God is flawless and without contradiction we can trust Him undoubtedly with every thing inside of us. The Bible says that without a vision the people perish, or cast off. With a vision for your life from God, every obstacle is able to be achieved because you know you are working towards something. If you don't know the direction you are headed when something stands in your way, when something is pulled out, when something is pushed in, when something is broken, etc- you begin to question why you are even doing anything, and before you know it you have wandered down every path except the one that was lit up bright and clear- pointing you to where you should have been going all along. A bruise is better than a broken bone. A few tears is better than thousands. Allowing God to test your heart is so invaluable in the shaping of your destiny. You would not fulfill half of your potential without making sacrifices to God. How can God win your heart if you aren't willing to lay everything down for Him? In a test and sacrifice there is reward. Do you believe that? Does not the Bible say that God would pour out a such a huge blessing that you could not CONTAIN it? If every word of the Bible is pure and true, you better believe that God is going to reward every decision you make to further His kingdom and to have not your will but His be done.

John 12:23-28 Amplified Bible

23And Jesus answered them, The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified and exalted.
24I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains [just one grain; it never becomes more but lives] by itself alone. But if it dies, it produces many others and yields a rich harvest.
25Anyone who loves his life loses it, but anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. [Whoever has no love for, no concern for, no regard for his life here on earth, but despises it, preserves his life forever and ever.]
26If anyone serves Me, he must continue to follow Me [to cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying] and wherever I am, there will My servant be also. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.
27Now My soul is troubled and distressed, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour [of trial and agony]? But it was for this very purpose that I have come to this hour [that I might undergo it].
28[Rather, I will say,] Father, glorify (honor and extol) Your [own] name! Then there came a voice out of heaven saying, I have already glorified it, and I will glorify it again.

the unexpected.
the expected.
the collision of the unthinkable and thought out.

Do you think life is beautiful, when it looks as if someone took their paint buckets and smashed them against a huge wall? Colors, colors, an explosion so non-delicate it's beautiful.

and then with everything the words ......" "

[ at SF airport on the way to DC. ]

so this is what it feels
L I K E .

an adventure of understanding each experience. a culmination of just the little things that take the time to shape into the definition of self.

something happened yesterday. I'll never forget it. And how it affected today- I knew it weighed eternally. i love interns, i love being one, i'm so glad for the essence of what it is and all it has to offer, and all it allows me to give. i was thanking God for speaking to me to do it when I was 15, I didn't know exactly why but I knew I was to do it, and there's something powerful about that- about me trusting God that much....He truly has become my Father, an image that was so distorted in my mind has become this beautiful picture. when i look back its crazy for me to think that i made so many huge decisions in these past three years in the midst of rebuilding my life off of chaos, brokeness, and mess after mess from all the events of my past. the grace of God works in the most amazing ways. behind the zeal that explodes when the presence of God first becomes evident in your life, there is still your own will....and I'm just thinking about how mine became God's hands down that night in august 2006, and how from that point on nothing in my life would be the same. is it weird to be stunned by your own self? i've been a christian for almost 10 years but it wasn't until the past 3 that my life started to make sense, that I understood who God wanted to be for me, that I realized He loved me when I no longer believed in love.....and how so much love brought me to the place I currently reside. I know, I know I'm rambling..... but I'm unbelieveably thankful at this moment 12:41 am, wide awake. I can't exactly put to words the way I'm replaying life in my head, and seeing it. It's just crazy to think that you can feel something you've never felt before and know that you can trust your whole entire life when you follow that...and I'm not talking about regular feelings I'm referring to God and the way He speaks through them. and I knew my experience this year would change my life in a way I couldn't predict or expect. but I expected something life-transforming, and if you don't already know this your expectation profoundly determines what you will receive in this life you GET to live (an expectancy on God, minus selfish ambition) . Because I already had my position in leadership, my accountability to Pastor Casey and Charlotte, my connect group, my disciples, my prayer life, my areas of serving, my passion, etc I knew this would be a deep work that would form my character, strengthen my maturity, and tune my life in closer to the Holy Spirit. All those things would be refined, corrected, tested, but there was something more I couldn't place my finger on. Every experience opened up another door, took me in a little closer, opened my eyes a little wider, broke open old wounds and strengthened me, showed me things I never knew I'd see, oh my goodness I can't describe what I want so badly to say! And I'm looking back at all the things I went through, each revelation it produced to show me what it meant for my life, my future. And Pastor Casey was right when he said there's something you'll get in interns you can't get anywhere else-- there's things that will happen in interns that take most Christians years, if not their whole lives to receive. This is how it feels................................................................. beautifully indescribable but described inside of myself in a way that leaves me amazed and in awe. These vital parts of my identity could have taken me decades to attain, but now they are mine and I will use them to advance the kingdom of God in every way possible.

bruised knees.

1 Corinthians 13:12 Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

That feeling like maybe you weren't thinking hard enough. Time to clear out some time, take a breather, and focus in a little harder. My heart just keeps beating faster and faster. In actuality and truth tonight we were running, hardly but enough to get away from them; and here I was heart pounding no breath but enough to barely scrape by. Who'd thought maybe the way I somehow comprehended (or interpreted) these recent experiences would manifest physically. They'll have no remedy for this diagnosis, so I'll keep pouring out the blood of Jesus all over me. I keep placing that bottle of man-made remedies from surface to surface...yet to break the seal and use. Do you think it will help? I do confide, it hurts, but praying, praying, and seeking I need more substance than a few slippery pills. They'll take pictures of my heart in the coming days, but will it capture the source of each beat, the motivation to keep that blood pumping? Lately I just know I'm alive. But I want to pull out this life of mine under a bright light and start marking it up. Colors, colors, brightly colored markers. Lines, circles, x's, notes, the way I see it and the way I'll go about exploring, revising, and continuing. And I kept looking all around but in familiar comfort I knew exactly where my gaze would reside. I couldn't really even be afraid even though I knew we were running. Maybe I'd just laugh at capture, I somehow wish someone was recording me tonight....and even my insides. I'd like to understand myself too. And now I am back at home in the quiet of the night, secluded but not alone. I know YOU'RE hearing me Jesus, I'm going to keep talking. In some shape or form I realize every person on this earth will have to feel this at one point or another. Created uniquely but some things we are not divided from, we can all have in common. Perhaps....unfortunately, this is not a heart to heart and I will go no further in explanation as to what it is I mean.

so i deleted half the stuff i wrote....

I was thinking that....
The sting of persecution dulls with the medication of truth.
I trust this was defining, simple yet impacting.

[H E A R T -blessed are the pure in]
[[GOD-for they shall see]]

if we see Him, we must be able to gain more understanding of how He looks at us. && as we see Him.....our own eyes in unity with His? Do we begin to see like He sees--- I believe we do. Catching that glimpse, or observing without limit is all up to the extent of our purity. What gritty things we frequently let get between us and God.... from the small to big, impurity is impurity....and scratch the sexual purity cliche---purity hits the bone...extends over everything we are, it's often more than we fathom.

EmergencyRoom.