wow.

That’s all I have been thinking today.

Wow. Our God is so awesome. 

Last night Tyler and I prayed out loud over each other.  Something that we have never done.  It was awesome.  And much needed as well.  That’s the definition of brotherly love and spurring one another on.  Hopefully it will become habit.

I tell you that because it directly impacted my day.

I was sharing with him about things going on in my life, some trivial, some not so much.  Either way, things that are important to me.  He listened, as he always does, and spoke truth, again, like he always does.  

I talked about my internship.  See, until this week, I feel like I have wasted my time there.  I had all of these hopes and ideas of what it was going to be like.  I thought I would teach these people who Jesus was and I had every intention of making it known that there was something “different” about me.  That I lived for something more than this world.  

It hasn’t happened.  There is no excuse other than me not having courage and being lazy.

There is a girl there that needs Jesus.  We have occasionally talked about church and having a relationship with Jesus.  She is interested.  I can tell.  Jesus is working in her heart.  She has made it clear that she wants to go to church.  She wants to learn.  My response was always, “You should come to NewSpring.. it’s awesome and you will love it.”  I got really convicted about that.  It’s not about NewSpring, it’s not about any particular church for that matter.  It’s about her meeting Jesus, no matter where that happens.  She is nervous because she would be going alone.  Her fiance doesn’t want to have anything to do with religion and church, much less Jesus.

I shared this with him last night.  We talked about how I was going to engage her in conversation this week and inspire her to go somewhere… ANYWHERE.

Today, she came up to me and said that she had talked to him last night, and he agreed to go to church this Sunday and asked if I could meet them there.

This BLOWS me away.  Talk about an answered prayer.  Jesus rocked my world today.  I almost cried at my desk.  

So Sunday, we will be at NewSpring Greenville together.  Jesus is going to do something with them Sunday, I can tell.  He has already started.

God is awesome. 

So awesome.

oh..

and if you want to pray for me.. this is how:

Focus. I need it.

Constant growth in my relationship with Jesus.

Courage to tell people about Him.

I need an accountability partner.

That I would recognize sin in my own life as easily as I do in others.  I need to worry about my own sin.

And for constant joy and happiness that only He can give me.

 

Awesome.

My chains are gone.

I’ll keep this short.  

This verse lit me on fire tonight.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11:

“Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor practicing homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

We are set apart.  We are different.

This simple fact floors me.

I am new. Bought by the blood of Jesus.

Thank God.

My post-dinner blog.

Tonight’s activities were full of drilling, screwing, sanding, and cutting. Yes, I do know how to do those things. Maybe I can’t build a house yet, but you gotta start somewhere.

You see, IKEA does not have the headboard I want in stock at the ATL store. So, I figured I would have it shipped to me instead. How much was shipping you ask??

…only $250. Did I mention that the headboard was only $149?

No thanks IKEA Shipping Department.

Instead, I decided some father/son bonding time would be better… So tonight we started building the headboard. Hope it is done by Friday.

I am off to bed. SYNNEX calls in the morning.

I’ll leave you with this… you can consider it my prayer request:

Colossians 4:2-6.

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

My pre-dinner blog.

Today was long. I thought 5:30 was never going to come.

Before my internship, I thought I was ready to be in the “real world” with a “real” job…. no thanks. I’ll take being a college student for another year. Don’t get me wrong, I really like my internship, but the hassle of waking up and going to work everyday, I don’t like it. And yes, i said hassle. To me, it is a hassle, and that shows my immaturity.

…I’m okay with that. I’m only 21. I’ve got plenty of years to work after college, so I’ll soak life in until then.

On a different note, I am patiently awaiting the arrival of my new phone. Verizon says it will be two days. FedEx says one. I knew I loved FedEx.

To Grant and Tyler: 3 days.
…I don’t even know if you are reading this, but if you are, I hope you are both as excited as I am.

That’s all I got for now.

Well hello.

So I decided to welcome myself back to blog world today… it has been far too long. I don’t really have any good excuse for my prolonged hiatus, so I’ll just say that I am a slacker.

In my mind, I figured that summer would be my best time to keep up with blogging and deepen my quiet time and personal relationship with Jesus. Not to mention I thought I would read books that are on my reading list… a reading list that I just created… so obviously I’ve not read any books.

Oh how the summer turned into something different.

I have fallen slack to reading. Fallen slack to spending time with Jesus. Even fallen slack to praying. Sickening huh? I agree.

I’ve been putting things before Jesus for quite a while now, and this past weekend, the man set me straight. NewSpring woke me up. Fancy that the sermon was called Wake us Up. I prayed before going in that God would twist my heart so hard in my chest that it would leave me in physical pain. I knew I needed help from Jesus again. I needed Him to clean me up… again. I knew I couldn’t do this life alone. But dang had I been trying. Well… he rocked my world. After the service, I was rather short with my friends and made a beeline for my car. I needed to cry. And I don’t like it when people see me cry. I am a guy, we don’t cry. Then I realized that men that know Jesus, they cry. So I did. Haha.

I was somewhat bitter for the past month. I had been praying for rather specific prayers, from friends to personal growth, and they were going unanswered. I couldn’t figure out why Jesus was letting me suffer. But deep down, I knew. I was treating Him as if He were an option in my life, calling on Him when I needed Him and being uninterested the rest of the time.

Last night I prayed, “God, I am opening your word, show me something. I know it’s been a while, but show me something, something I HAVE to hear.”

Isaiah 1:15-20.

“When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. ‘Come now, let us reason together’, says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.’ For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

I’ll just say that He took care of me with those verses.

All this praying and He couldn’t even hear me. All this agony I had been feeling deep down… cause I am good at keeping pain deep and pretending, it’s a flaw i have… it was all gone in that moment. I knew what I had to do. I had to confess. Confess my sin with my own mouth and my own heart.

I did. And He heard me.

So today is a new day. Today I start fresh. Again. And for the last time. I can’t do it alone. I don’t know why I try to.

So that’s that.

On a lighter note, I move into my apartment this week with two of my best friends. I am super pumped. It is going to be an awesome year. I love these guys. They are like brothers to me and I’d do anything for them. They know that. In my opinion, it is a blessing that I get to live with such God-fearing men. Jesus is going to use us as a team this year. I know He wants to. We just have to have the courage and determination to let Him.

Anyway, I am going to attempt to get back into this whole thing. I won’t make any promises or commitments though. I’d rather prove myself than to make false statements about some blog that may not happen everyday, but I’ll give it my best shot.

Holla.

My debt.

I am a sucker for music. I have known this for a while.. but recently it has been a new outlet for me.

A few weeks ago, Grant and I did a Discipleship Now weekend where we led a group of middle school guys. Yes, middle school guys. Needless to say, there were three days full of farting, video games, and staying up late.. extremely late. But it was a blast and those guys were awesome.

Anyway, the material at this d-now weekend was really interesting and eye opening, even for me as a leader. The topic of the week was worship.

Worship.

What does it really mean to worship? Sometimes I get caught up in the idea that in order to worship Jesus I must be reading my Bible or constantly be in prayer. While this is so true, there are tons of other ways that I can worship Jesus. For me, music is one of those ways.

I have always been the person that listens to every word in the song so that I can know exactly what it is the person is referring to or singing about. So much so that I find myself analyzing everything about the song. I need to know what the person is feeling, why they are saying what they are, what the purpose is, and what the outcome will be. I think every song has a story. Every song has a meaning. At least the music I listen to does.

I do this when it comes to worshiping God through music too. Last night at NewSpring a particular song really got me. I’ve heard it a thousand times, but last night.. it was different.

Jesus Paid It All.

“O praise the one who paid my debt, and raised this life up from the dead.”

Those words ignite my soul. They awaken my dead body and allow me to remember just where it is I come from.

Sin.

My sin had left a crimson stain covering my body. A stain that only Jesus can wash away. For that, I praise the one who paid my debt. Without Jesus, I would be dead. Spiritually dead. When I met Jesus in the seventh grade, He washed away my crimson stain and raised my life from the dead.

Praise God for that.

That to me is powerful.
That to me is life-changing.
That to me is worship.

It’s a heart condition.

I read something yesterday that really hit me. It is one of those things that you know.. like deep down you know this, but sometimes it takes reading or hearing it again for it to really mean something to you.

So here it is.

Everything earthly is meaningless. Everything.

Ecclesiastes is teaching me this. My selfish pleasures, desires, things I am chasing after… they are all meaningless.

Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 really made me digest this. I refuse my heart no pleasure. And when I look at my life at the end of the day, most of the things I have done are meaningless.

This is a huge challenge to me. When I am laying in bed at night and look back over my day, I should be able to smile knowing that the things that I did and said were so pleasing to Jesus. That I allowed Him to use me to further His kingdom today.

Jesus can use me. He can use you. No matter our sin. We just need to let Him. We just need to ask Him. He is waiting on us. Waiting on us to stop what He has told us to stop and start what He has told us to start. We have to get the junk out that is filling our hearts. And then be careful what we put in it. I have learned, what we put into our heart is ultimately who we are and what we worship. Believe me.

Who are you glorifying?

My new outfit.

So here is the third post on Colossians. Again, it speaks directly to me.. and I love it. God is shaping me.

Colossians 3:12-14. Go read it.

When I read this, it made me wonder.. what am I wearing? Do I wear my new outfit that Jesus gave me? Or am I still wearing the same old jeans I’ve been wearing forever?

Compassion. Kindness. Humility. Gentleness. Patience.

Man. All the things Jesus was. Is it even possible for me, or us, to wear those clothes? Absolutely. What better way to show people who Jesus is than to demonstrate these things.

The second part of this passage talks about forgiveness. Something that recently I have realized that I struggle with. I was explaining to Charlie that I forgive people, but I don’t forget the things that they did. And he said this to me, “Then have you really forgiven them?” The conversation was over. I had nothing else to say. He won because the answer was clear…

No.

Forgiving someone would mean that I erased it from my memory. That it never had an impact on how I treated the person that hurt me. That I had let it go completely. I struggle with that.

Jesus forgives me. He erases what I have done.. and thank goodness for that, I would be screwed if he didn’t. So, since I am forgiven, I must forgive in return.

And above all else, LOVE. Love will make all these things work.

Remember what your Mom always taught you, if she raised ya right:
Treat others how you want to be treated.

Love you people.

This blog is for me.

As promised, this is the next series of the Colossians posts I am going to be making… sorry it is a little late.

Colossians 3:5-11

Before I start talking about these verses.. let me be the first to say that I am a hypocrite. I struggle in all of these areas and will admit that sometimes these earthly things rule my life. Yes, rule. I am not perfect. Like Dustin Willis said at FCA, as Christians, we will miss the mark several times in our lives… so just know, I miss the mark. Every single day. This is something I am trying to work on. With all that said, here goes.

Read the passage and come back……

Now, here is my advice.

Lay it down. All of it. Everything that causes you to stumble, everything that pulls you down in your walk with Jesus. Get rid of it. Verse six says, “Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.” While the debt for our sins has been paid through Jesus, I believe that God does allow us to feel certain emotions and convictions as a learning process. Lots of times, this conviction is enough for me. Enough to stop. Enough to repent and go running back to Jesus. But sometimes, I let Satan too far in the door and he sets up shop. I let things that should convict me.. things that used to convict me, not even phase me anymore. That is nothing but letting Satan win. I need to get up and stand my ground.

When I began my walk with Jesus in the 7th grade, I took off my old self, and put on a new armor. I am being renewed. I am gaining knowledge. I am growing. Sometimes I miss my mark. Sometimes I let Satan get too close. I let anger, gossip, language, lust, etc. get to me. I fall into the trap.

But guess what. Jesus died for me. I do not have to live in this sin or this guilt.

Jesus wants to change me. He wants to mold me into the leader He is calling me to be.

I need to let go of my sin and let Him help me. He does not need me. He can get someone else to do His work. I need Him. I don’t want to forfeit my calling for things that mean nothing in eternity.