Coming Home Together

There's going to come a day where there no longer exists pain, suffering, starvation, mission trips will be replaced by vacations, and all will be good. Everyone will be fully alive in Jesus and we will, as George MacDonald wrote, "be good merry children in the great house of our Father. I think then we shall be able to pass into and through each other's very souls as we please, knowing each other's thought and being, along with our own, and so being like God." (The Heart of George MacDonald). How wonderful! Lately, I've been looking at Impressionistic art. That's a Degas above, "Ballet Rehearsal." It captivated me when I saw it; not just because I have a daughter who might be one of those girls above, practicing for the big show, but also because of what it images. It images a soft, beautiful time. A time where nothing is wrong. All is well. So well, there is even a violinist off to the side playing music for the girls to rehearse to. Do we not long for this type of moment in our lives? Yet it is so hard to be found. Moments like these will abound in heaven with Jesus though.

In this world, the timid, non gifted girl in high school is shoved to the library even though in her heart she would like to be at the ballet practice. Same thing on the opposite side of the world for the Thai prostitute who caught a glimpse of a ballet when she was a teenager, just before she fell into the darkness. In our Father's house, we will all be alive. The most untalented "nerdy" girl, as the world labels, will be the star of the show who receives roses from her Daddy. So will the starving girl in Sudan and the 40 year old prostitute in Asia. They will all be there, fully alive and restored, body, soul, mind, and heart. And so will you!

You will be there if you are saved by Jesus' blood and you will be fully alive in your heart with God, our Spouse, right there enjoying your heart's desires with you. If you want to do ballet, why not have Jesus teach you? He's the best at it :)

We put ourselves into saving people, preaching the gospel, "going to the nations," but what is our end goal through this? What does a world saved for God look like? Some kind of earth transformed into an ontological light that shines toward God? No, not really. God has put eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). All of our hearts. And he wants us to share what we have with each other, here and in heaven. He wants us to not just share the news of Jesus' salvation, but also how Jesus will restore their hearts in intimacy with himself. And that gives everyone hope, because they can finally delight in Jesus, and know that they will get their heart's desires through delighting in him (Psalm 37:4). And this is the rub of sharing Jesus with others, we have to find out their hearts. What do they desire in their hearts? Whatever it is, through the process of sharing Jesus being The Way, we need to know their heart's desires so they too can know God will give them to them in this romance with Jesus.

When it's all done and we are in our Daddy's house, we will all be one, imaging our Lover Jesus to one another all the time. In those who do ballet, we will see Jesus' gracefulness on the stage reflected a thousand times over in a nightly performance at the theatre (had to do the "British" spelling of theater there. Lol). Those who do music, it will be like listening to God play the violin when we go to the concert in Heaven. We will be taught by God (Isaiah 54:13), and do everything with God our Beloved Spouse. And we will enjoy each other's imaging of God through it all. Not only that, but we will know each other fully. There are no secrets in Heaven, no one "out of the in-crowd;" we will all be best friends in our Fathers house. We will all know each other and be known by each other fully (1 Corinthians 13:12). Like MacDonald said, we shall be able to pass through each other's souls and know one another. It will be a festival of love in Heaven, never ending, forever multiplying our oneness and intimacy with our Beloved Jesus and our Father together with one another in everything we do. Even ballet performances and nights at the theatre :)

Please Help!

God brought me to tears as I watched a video a couple weeks ago on Sudan and how children there badly need food. My wife and I have decided we are going to start giving some of our tithe towards feeding severely malnourished children in impoverished countries. It took me years before I really got judged on how I was selfish with my money and being responsible for what I earn. We could talk and talk on personal responsibility with money, but really the important thing as brothers and sisters in Christ is that we help feed these poor children and families. $10, $20, $30, or more is plenty to keep these children alive for another day. I sincerely ask you to consider in your heart giving a portion of what you earn towards this cause. There are people across the world starving to death that need our help as Americans (and therefore, for the most part, inherently better off than the rest of the world). Right now, there are an estimated 4.3 million people in Sudan who need help because of the drought that is occuring there. I really like Rod Parsley's ministry for giving to Sudan and other places that are in need of assistance for food (they are monetarily ethical from what I have read in their church statement). You can give to help feed Sudanese people in need of food here (http://orders.rodparsley.com/Order_First.aspx?ostr=y949kUtrP8c%3d). Also you can help support the fight against sex trafficking here as well (https://orders.rodparsley.com/Order_FirstB.aspx?ostr=zsYxAcyP6Q0%3D) [warning: if you are sensitive to content concerning the fight against sex trafficking, I believe on this site they have an audio testimonial from a woman who used to be in the trade come on automatically when the site comes up]. And you can also get more information on the fight against sex trafficking here (http://www.allthingsnewcampaign.org/) [again, the content can be intense at this site as well as stories of ex-sex slaves are told on here] and if you would like to buy jewelry from women that used to be in the sex slave trade in Thailand, you can at this amazing site (http://www.nightlightinternational.com/) We bought some jewelry for our moms for Christmas from this site, it was very pretty and very special. Definitely check it out as the profits support women leaving the prostitution lifestyle to support them and get them back on their feet.

Another one of the charities that provide for people in bad need is Action by Churches Together (http://www.act-intl.org). There are conflict and displacement in the Congo, earthquakes in China, flooding and cholera outbreak in Zambia (these are wonderful people; we had the Zambian vocal group come to our church to sing acapella worship, Zambian style, which was so beautiful!), Haiti is in need from the earthquake, floods and landslides in El Salvador, and much more. Many people need our financial help and if you make a note to ACT, they will donate 100% of your money straight to the cause (not to overhead). There are many more organizations out there too if you have a preference to support someone else. The important thing is that we do help with something. Prayer is always the strongest thing, much stronger than money, but if you feel in your heart you should give, please do so. (And if you have a family, adoption is always an option too! Either from America, or elsewhere! My wife and I want to adopt a boy from Africa and a girl from Latin America. After I went to Honduras and saw the little girls there in the ghetto and heard they will be pregnant by the time they are 14 and now I have a beautiful daughter, I badly want to adopt and save a girl from that)

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit tonight, tomorrow, and this week! (Philemon 1:25)

Love! Passion, Freedom, Joy in Jesus' Embrace. Living as Jesus' Beloved

God is love. 1 John 4:8

The greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)

There is nothing greater in life than being in love with God. Nothing more intimate, nothing more joyful, nothing more pleasurable than being in Jesus' embrace. It is really something you must experience for yourself. To know God intimately, more so than how Adam knew Eve when they had their first children. This is the spiritual intimacy Jesus desires with us. A closeness and joy in his embrace that John Eldredge and Brent Curtis said is "an intimacy much more sensuous, much more exotic than sex itself." (The Sacred Romance. p. 161) A lot of people might have reservations about this kind of intimacy with Jesus. Words like intimate, naked, romance, passion, ecstasy are rarely used today to relate our communion with Jesus and if they are it is only in some vague spiritual sense of transcendent, ontological "highness." Definitely not in the torrid-love-affair-at-the-Four-Seasons-in-Turks-and-Cacos-sense. But it's completely Biblical. God calls himself our Bridegroom many times in the Bible (Song of Songs, Isaiah 54:5, 62:5, Jeremiah 3:14, Ezekiel 16, 23, Hosea 2, Matthew 9:15, Matthew 22:1-14, Matthew 25:1-10, John 3:29. 2 Corinthians 11:2, Ephesians 5:29-32, Revelation 19:7-10). He wants to serenade you and woo your heart (Zephaniah 3:17) He wants you!

If you haven't let Jesus into your heart and your life as your Lover, it is the most incredible, wonderful, joyful experience in the world. And don't let the thoughts of, "Is this ok?" or "I don't think God loves me like that" or even "I could never be God's beloved spouse" get in your way. Instead, get away for a short time with God. Go alone to your room, like he told us to pray (Matthew 5), don't take your phone or anything else except your Bible and maybe a journal too (if you like to journal), and ask him, "Jesus, I want to be your lover and for you to be my Lover." And let the Holy Spirit take over you. Tell him, "I surrender to you Jesus." Worship him and invite him into you as your Lover God. Enjoy the most intimate love relationship you will ever have for eternity. And if there are times when he seems distant, please don't give up! Jesus desires you, pursue him and he will have you. Knock at his door and he will let you in (Revelation 3:20). Fall into his love and feel how much he loves you, how much he enjoys you. "As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you." Isaiah 62:5 NIV.

Why Would It Be Any Other Way? Why We All Have Had Stockholm Syndrome and How to Get Rid of It

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33 NIV

How true is this definition from one of my bookmarked fav sites J Wikipedia concerning Stockholm syndrome:

Stockholm syndrome is a psychological shift that occurs in captives when they are threatened gravely but are shown acts of kindness by their captors. Captives who exhibit the syndrome tend to sympathize with and think highly of their captors. When subjected to prolonged captivity, these captives can develop a strong bond with their captors, in some cases including a sexual interest.

Lol. Sounds like a bad relationship. Right? This is the blog I’ve wanted to write for awhile. Not for any other reasons than, 1) we’ve all struggled with things that terribly hurt our hearts and 2) there are a lot of people who struggle with this right now. And it needs to be talked about.

So let’s do it.

Many people have been terribly hurt in this world. Jesus was right when he said we will have trouble in this world. A lot of people take horrific heart wounds at the hands of ex’s, many of all ages have been hurt by their parents who should have provided in one way but failed to, friends stab their friends in the back, brother goes against brother, sister against sister. In the middle of this, if the hurt is coming from a loved one like a significant other or a parent, many can develop almost Stockholm syndrome-like symptoms. Case and point: people in relationships who throw away their purity just to keep their boyfriend or girlfriend from breaking up with them. And they rationalize it by saying, they are in love. I’m a married man with a daughter and I can say securely, that is not love. I waited on my wife, I never had a girlfriend before her, she was the first girl I ever kissed, and she was worth every second 10x over of the wait (as hard as it was at times). If you are girl or a guy in a relationship like that and the person you are with you know you are not destined by God to be with as your husband or wife, run like heck!! Get out of there and save yourself. Save your heart, save your body, save your mind. Leave and run as fast as you can. Jesus lived as one of us and was tempted in every possible way. And he said for us to run away from things that want us to sin, especially sexual sins against our own body and others bodies, and hurt our relationship with God (Genesis 39:12) Our bodies are suppose to be temples of the Holy Spirit, and we are to be intertwined with God in spirit and body all day in worship. And that is how we are to get enjoyment and joy in God and worshiping him. Let Jesus’ words woo you, not some guy or some girl or just want to use you for their own pleasure. They honestly don’t care about your heart, regardless of what they say. Leave, run, go! The Holy Spirit will help you pack your bags. And he will help repair your heart (he won’t leave you alone in pain by following him. He’s our God). Jesus said,

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father. Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family."Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." Luke 9:57-62 (NIV)

If you are in a relationship like this, leave. You are worth more than you can imagine, or anyone can. God sees you as a beautiful princess or a strong prince fit for hiskingdom as his spouse, not someone else’s. Which is why he says that we will not be married in his Kingdom in heaven (Matthew 22, Mark 12, Luke 20) We are all Jesus’ and only his to do with as he pleases. And what he pleases usually is what pleases us and gives us joy and pleasure. But if you’re stuck in the mud with someone like this, run away. I say this as a brother in our family from the Father.

Maybe you have already done that part. Now, long after the dust has settled, the war has been fought and is over, the ache, the pain, the memories, the thoughts, the complete and utter brokenness is still there and our lives become like one living in a lean-to composed of the wreckage of what used to be. Here are some thoughts about how to burn it all and get healed:

1. Remove everything that reminds you of what happened. Delete the music, burn your notes/papers/pictures, stay away from places, times, and things that bring back memories. Get rid of it all now, if not sooner. And make it a important to God by saying it is a sacrifice to Jesus. We are to sacrifice all of us, including our pain, to God. So burn it as a sacrifice and it will be pleasing to our Beloved Jesus.

2. Replace the void with a romance with Jesus. When, not if, you think about the past (or Satan tries to make you think about it) replace it with passionate, bare worship of Jesus in your spirit and heart. Give yourself fully to him. Romance him and let him romance and woo you. Replace the pain with pleasure of being completely naked in Jesus’ arms and being free finallyin a romance with your Lover. Read Song of Songs and put you and God in the story and daydream about how crazy he is about you! Get rid of the old and put on the new. Get lost in a passionate love affair with the Son of God.

3. Surround yourself with new things. If your friends or family keep bringing it up, tell them to not to talk about it with you. If that’s a problem, take a hiatus from them. Surround yourself with Godly people who will help with the restoration of the heart. And pour out yourself to someone you love. Let yourself have a good cry. “It is better to go to a house of mourning than a house of feasting.” (Ecclesiastes 7:2. NIV) And then let go. And begin anew. With your Lover Jesus by your side you can take on the world. Replace those old, painful songs and movies and places with new, beautiful songs and movies and things and places. Begin new associations. Begin new life.

4. Once you have won the war, and you will win because God always gives us the victory in our wars, don’t be bitter towards those who allied against you. Don’t harbor hatred or pain (that’s a tough one to do, btw), but let it go to Jesus. He will take revenge for you. Paul wrote in Romans 12:19: “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. The original verse Paul took that is from Deuteronomy 32:25: It is mine to avenge; I will repay.
In due time their foot will slip;
their day of disaster is near
and their doom rushes upon them." (NIV)

Jesus just wants you to move on and completely forget that pain and past. You also are not required by God live peacefully with them. You can completely live apart from them and never be around them again. It says, “If is is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” Romans 12:18. (NIV) If not possible, ie if it causes you any pain, let it go. God will take care of them (as far as salvation, health, revenge, and prosperity and life goes). It’s no longer your concern or business. It’s God’s. Sometimes we obey Jesus Christ by notgetting involved any longer.

I sincerely pray as a brother in our family with our Father and Jesus our Beloved that if you are in this kind of situation, you will escape and be healed by our God Jesus Christ. My very best for you and yours and in Jesus find life and love once more and be set free from the sins in this world. Why would it be any other way than living completely freely in Jesus’ arms? Life is perfect there, forever and ever.

Faith

We are having our first rain of the summer right now in Oklahoma (subtracting the few popcorn storms we get during June). I love the rain. I'm sitting out on the porch listening to it drip quickly into the flowerbed. The birds across the street at the school and finding breakfast. The air is comfortably warm and damp. It's just a pretty, rainy morning. I've been having this problem with God lately. For some reason, I just can't get close to him. It's me and it's my fault; I know that much. But that wonderful intimacy that I have with him is just "on pause" it would seem. I go through this frequently in my relationship with Jesus. I'm still not sure why he allows me to go through it or allow me to do it to myself and us. But part of me just echoes David in Psalm 63:1, "In a dry and thirsty land where there is no water." I'm not really concerned about it being a detrimental problem for us; I have faith we will break through it and be close together. Perhaps later this morning.

"I slept but my heart was awake...my lover had left; he was gone. My heart sank at his departure." Song of Songs 5:1,6 (NIV)

We all have things in life that just get through our heart's armor. And usually that is enough to break our day down with God. Mostly just because of the emotional reaction we get from thinking on the problem. If I was acting frustrated or snippy to my wife because my daughter is upset and I'm trying to do the laundry while also doing my math homework and work at the same time all the while performing a balancing act with the laptop, a stack of folded towels, and a cup of coffee, which I only would take on that much stuff at once because I'm ridiculous and just need to chill out, sit down and take a strong whiff and sip of coffee, breathe, and take one thing at a time, well then it's hard to find God and worship him when I refuse to sit down and chill. The more I take on at once, the harder it can be to surrender to Jesus. I know a lot of other people do not have that kind of problem, but they are dealing with one we all have as humans. And that's being deeply wounded by the heart and being stuck in that pain. How awful that is! And if you are going through that this morning or still have a bad taste of pain like that, I sincerely ask Jesus to completely heal you and take that out of your good heart. Folded towels and spilled coffee is nothing compared to taking shots in our hearts. Maybe from a painful breakup, or a parent who went out for a pack of cigarettes and didn't come back. It's things like these where we need Jesus' healing in our hearts more than ever; we need his presence and his touch and through that we have faith we will be healed. Or be transformed so that we don't care about spilled coffee and towels and what not.

One of the best ways I've uses to come out of the desert on a rainy, summer morning (how ironic, right?) is to talk. If you feel the Holy Spirit inside you slowly coming to you and asking for you to pursue him, then go for it! :) Drop everything and go for him! Because nothing else is really as important as he is. And then talk to him about it. And worship him and surrender to him. Or, if he is still distant, talk to your friends, your brothers, your sisters, your parents in our family of God. "Two are better than one." And if you don't want to have just two friends, have three! "A chord of three strands is not quickly broken." (Ecclesiastes 4:9,11. NIV)

And always have faith. Our beautiful Lord Jesus is not going to leave anyone. He is our lovely God, our Lover, our future Spouse. Our Heavenly Father will not just go away. When we are in the desert, we just have to have faith that he will be back soon.

And he will.

Never will I leave you,
Never will I forsake you. Hebrews 13:5 (NIV)

Hope

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

I was about to write on faith, until I read that faith is being sure of what we hope in. So I thought it should probably wait. It's a good question though: What do we hope for? I've thought about that of myself and what do I really hope for in this world. I've come to these three things that I've been hoping for:

1. We are lovers of Jesus, so we hope to be one with him in spiritual intimacy as his spouse one day. So often we get bogged down in either the daily grind (if only the daily grind was just when we made our morning pot of coffee, things would be easier), or we get sidetracked by other "bigger" things in life (eg school, work, relationships, duties to ourselves or to others, and everything else). When deep in our hearts, we are continuously longing for that bare intimacy with God, always one with him in our souls and our minds. If only we could have that always. And we hope for a day when we really will have him, all day long. We will be on a perpetual honeymoon with our Lover where we are always one with him in intimacy.

2. We love each other and so we hope our brothers and sisters in our family of our Father made strong and beautiful in Jesus and see everyone come alive in God. How much we want this? We "invest" so much of our time in conversation, time, and prayer to Jesus so we can see others become who they were meant to be in Christ. We want truly live in a world were we see God imaged in the other members of God's family, all the time. For then we are surrounded by God's image and filled with God always. What a wonderful world we hope for!

3. We love others and so we hope to see our city fall for God. We hope to see our country serve God. We hope to see the world come together as one and worship Jesus as His beloved. We go to third world countries and play with children that live in ghettos so they will see our Father's love and how much he wants them to be in his family. We hope in seeing evil die and God's love flourish everywhere. And in this hope we sacrifice ourselves. We are led by the Spirit to be sent out to ghettos of nations where no one goes so they will know God's love.

Jesus said if we had faith as small as a mustard seed, we could move mountains. It's true. We can become fully alive in Jesus, fully restored, by hoping in his love for us. We hope in Jesus' love for us as our Lover. And so we can say, "I am my Lover's and my Lover is mine." (Song of Songs 6:3. NIV) For those just discovering the intimate, burning love Jesus has for us, we hope in him drawing near. And the same for those in the spiritual desert. We hope Jesus will come near and love us, enjoy us, desire us. And he does. We hope in his salvation and we are saved by him. We hope in our God and we find life. And then we truly live as God's beloved. We live imaging him, fully alive as his lover. We hope in our God :)

Faith, Hope, Love

This weekend, my old neighbor who lives next to my parent's house had a friend, a guy who raises "award-winning" irises, give him a TON of his irises. Well, my old neighbor had WAY too many, so he asked my mom if she or I would like some of them. I, having the green thumb that I do, said I'll take as many as I can get. We got 41 award-winning irises. It took me two hours to plant them yesterday. I can't wait till next Spring when they bloom! :) One of my good friends lives two houses down from me and my wife, and he's got the "picture-perfect-suburban-lawn" (ewww) and I always joke around with my wife that his yard and flowers are ugly compared to mine. Well, he might have some clean cut grass, but he doesn't have award-winning irises in his yard. 41 of them at that! Yeah, our yard in front of the house looks like a corn field with all of the iris stalks just chillin...

I always feel like a work-in-progress. I have this thing where I don't usually feel like I've accomplished anything. I feel like I just finished some stuff, and then there is some more stuff still to do. But there is hope that one day I will be finished. Like my garden. Like my relationship with Jesus. Like school and work. Like myself. Etcetera. The most important thing in life is worshiping Jesus. We need him bad. We need his love and intimacy. Paul said, "Faith, hope, love; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13) We need, crave, desire God's love. We must have intimacy with our Beloved Jesus. We need our identity to come from our relationship with him. Today, spend some time with Jesus and ask him to show you who you are through his eyes. He thinks you are beautiful, wonderful, incredible. There is no one else he would rather listen to talk over coffee, no one he'd rather share a beautiful sunset, go swimming with in the hot summer sun, cuddle with on a winter's eve, or take out on a date to a midnight picnic under the stars than you. Let this free your heart! You are the beloved of the Son of God. You are the one he wants to marry. The one who has captured his heart. Be free from the darkness of this world. And be free from the darkness that's been put into your own heart as well. I really want to write a blog on this, and maybe I will this week, because we've all gone through hardships and pain in this world. And the romance with Jesus offers perfect healing. If you are going through loss, loneliness, pain, or hardships of the heart, let this romance with Jesus cover it and heal it. Give yourself away to Jesus and give away that pain. I know what that's like because I've been there myself. Most of us have. And bare, close intimacy with Jesus' Spirit, opening our hearts to him in surrender, is what we need for healing.

Faith and hope are the other two qualities we need oh so badly in this world. When we live fully with faith that Jesus will one day sweep us, we are not shaken by little things in the world. Who really cares if we get stuck in traffic and are 2 minutes late to work? It's easy to turn the other cheek when we are caught up in ecstasy with the bare intimacy of his Spirit. And we don't fret and worry over the details of tomorrow when our hope is in our marriage with God's Son. Be free from this world and live life today! Be a lamp on a lampstand for others! They need it and we need to live fully alive in our God Jesus Christ. Love freely, live for God and give of yourself to others! Viva la Vida in Jesus!

Getting Out of the World

One of the hardest things is to really break free of the world and of ourselves and truly live out of our love relationship with Jesus. I'm actually just now ending a cycle myself of this week which involved me backing off from my romance with Jesus because of busyness with work and school. Every day I find myself desiring the romance with him (it permeates my thoughts throughout the day), but so often I find myself not pursuing him. Why?? What is going on here?

I think there are a lot of reasons as to why we don't pursue him, even though we truly do desire him. Some are for laziness, other reasons are for sins, others for wounds to their hearts, but no matter what it is, it always results in distance between us and God. We need him. I was walking to class today and I was listening to this song by Santana from years ago which I listened to then and it always made me daydream of my romance with God. It's a Latin song and I would imagine me and Jesus dancing to it romantically, passionately. I felt this sense of pride in our relationship. Not bad pride, but the pride of "boasting that you know and understand God." I was happy and proud of our relationship which we've built over the years together. I love Jesus so much.

I've been studying Genesis 6 lately. There's a TON of talk on these verses with prophecy scholars lately. And I love hearing that stuff, but the heart issue is so important here as well. Where there are prophecies, they will cease and only love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8). If you're not familiar with this story, here it is in a nutshell:

Some angels, allegedly 200, lusted after women and came here, married them, and had children which were half angels/half humans. They were giants and later would even fight the Israelites for the Promised Land (Numbers 13). This was right before the Flood also. So imagine God, our ageless Pursuer, our Romancer, and he's pursuing humanity to be his beloved. And right in the middle, what happens? He gets betrayed by his angels. They don't want God's beauty any more, they want women. It was probably similar to a girl having her best friend steal her boyfriend and leave her in the dust as they drive off in a Camero to go off and party without her. It broke God's heart. Genesis 6:6 says God's heart was "filled with pain." (NIV) His friends the angels stole his beloved and cheated on him with us. And then the Flood happens, redemption, and hundreds of years later Joshua leads the Israelites into the Promised Land and they wipe the children of the angels off the face of the earth. Revenge sucks for evil, right? It's an odd story especially if you do not have a bent towards the sci-fi (because that's what it sounds like, but it's completely Biblical). And as odd as it sounds, that's an image of the battle we all still fight spiritually in our hearts today. God, who is the most sexual being from which we image our own sexuality, calls it like it is. When he sees us not pursuing him and instead pursuing something else like purposely ignoring him to watch tv or listen to music when he wants to be with us or completely pushing him away so we can do what we want with what we want to do it with (whether it be passive or active), it's adultery to God. The city of the Antichrist in Revelation God sees as the Great Prostitute (see Revelation 17). When Israel turned away from God he said they were lusting for the lewdness of their youth in Egypt (Ezekiel 23). And who knows what is going on spiritually? We had a sermon on witchcraft a couple weeks ago at Frontline and we looked at Saul "wisely" (*sarcasm*) calling on a necromancer to raise Samuel from the dead so he could inquire as to how he can keep himself from dying in battle. And it really causes you to think. We are in the midst of a romance with Jesus, but when we go through dry spells and are lured away from the embrace of Jesus to other negative emotions of the heart and sinful positions (even if it's just ignoring Jesus) we cannot escape the reality that Satan and his angels are going to do what they can to seduce us from our Lover and they can and will do it if we give them the chance. Jesus doesn't just call our unfaithfulness in explicit terms, but also our faithfulness. Jesus desires us. He wants us to enjoy him. Imagine him longing for us, saying

Awake, north wind, and come, south wind! Blow on my garden that its fragrance may spread abroad. Let my lover come into his garden and taste its choice fruits. Song of Songs 4:16 (NIV)

Life can really be like The Matrix; in some ways. We are involved in a passionate love affair with the Son of God. "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry" (Psalm 2:12. NIV). Angry at what? Angry that we are kissing someone else other than him. He is a Jealous God, jealous for us and he desires us as his beloved. Our hope for life and salvation is in being thrown into his arms helplessly, letting him take us away in the torrent of his passion and love for us. As twisted as this soap opera with Jesus and then Satan and his angels can become, evil is nothing compared to our Beloved Jesus Christ. The children of the fallen angels were annihilated, as Satan will be as well. In the end, we will live happily ever after in Jesus' arms. What we want with God we will have. Jesus desires us fully for himself forever and ever so we may enjoy his love and his beauty in spiritual intimacy and worship of him for all time. Jesus wants us to want him. To enjoy his beauty as he unveils it to us. He wants us to come after him and pursue him, not the angels, not anything else in this world. He wants us to want him.

Just as he wrote of his beloved in Song of Songs 8:14,

Come away, my lover, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the spice laden mountains. (NIV)

Aufheben

"But the tent where they serve is just a copy and a shadow of the real one in heaven." Hebrews 8:5 (CEV)

So many things in this world capture our hearts. A summer breeze, a cool pool, a beach, palm trees, vacation at a hotel on the beach with palm trees, an escape to a mountain villa for the weekend, love. That last one gets everyone though. Love. Every single human being craves it, needs it, has to have it. It's the ultimate leveler for being human. Every one is on common ground with love. And not just parental love, filial love, philanthropic love, vague spiritual love; the one transcendent love that everyone wants, needs, desires is romantic love. It's overpowering in every single method, every single outlet of life, every application in the heart. Humans were made for this. And we are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).

How can we interpret this?

We image God. Genesis 1:27 says, " God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them." (NASB) How do we image God? In our gender. God, who is Spirit and does not have a body, we image him in our souls as male and female.

"God is Spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth." John 4:24 (NIV)

We live in a world were we are given images of what is to come with Jesus in eternity. We are given marriage in this world as an image of our marriage with Jesus. We are given our spouse to see an image of what we are seeking in Jesus, what we are to specifically complement in God's heart and worship in him forever as his spouse. We are given intimacy here on earth so that we can have the slightest foretaste of intimacy with Jesus. We are given vacations here and dreams of going to dramatic resorts in California or Fiji in the image of us ruling the world with Jesus and having the freedom to love and live the world he gave us as heirs, with us in his arms the whole time. We long for intimacy, badly, whether physical, spiritual, emotional, or mental, all throughout the day, because we are meant to be one in intimacy with Jesus all the time regardless of what we are doing. That's the beautiful part of having spiritual bodies in eternity with God, we can have intimacy with Jesus all the time. Physical intimacy requires husband and wife to physically be together, emotional intimacy requires at least both people to be within ear shot, mental intimacy does as well. Spiritual intimacy is a different matter. It is the combination of all three and mixed inside of us. God has proven he can be more intimate with us then the closest of earthly lovers can be, all the while he is physically spiritually present in heaven, not on earth. In eternity, our bodies will be spiritual. Spatial location will not have the same sense of importance, neither will temporal location. We can finally "get lost" in Jesus, in our Lover, without worry of what we have to do tomorrow. We won't have to get up and go off to the office or to school. We can truly rest forever in our Beloved's arms for all time. And rest we will in his arms. Peter Kreeft said, "This spiritual intercourse with God is the ecstasy hinted at in all earthly intercourse...Earthly sex is the shadow, and our lives are a process of thickening so that we can share in the substance, becoming Heavenly fire so that we can endure and rejoice in the Heavenly fire." (http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/sex-in-heaven.htm) We really are in a process of learning things so that we can love God in intimacy with him all the time, truly worship him all day long, all night long, which is how it should be (No doubt among any Christians on the fact that God is and should be worshipped always). Eldredge sums it up in Journey of Desire as,

"To give yourself over to another, passionately and nakedly, to adore that person body, soul, and spirit-we know there is something special, even sacramental about sex. It requires trust and abandonment, guided by a wholehearted devotion. What else can this be but worship?...We worship sex, because we don't know how to worship God. But we will." (p. 134)

Knowing this, knowing the incredible intimacy/love/life/joy/happiness we have coming with Jesus and now what we can have with his Holy Spirit, how can we do anything other than worship him all the time? Out of this comes extreme joy. It's why Paul wrote:

"sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs....singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Ephesians 5:19,20; NASB)

Jesus wants us to be spiritual intimate with him at all times while we are here on earth, so that we can rejoice in the spiritual love and intimacy he will have with us his spouse in heaven. And then, we can rejoice in him in everything we have with him in our love relationship. The Wedding of the Lamb is described by God as being the image of the most intimate experience we know on earth, the consummation of a wedding. And it's not just the new things Jesus has made for us in our new home with him in the Father's house. It's the old as well. It's what we have in our intimacy with him right now. Just as intimacy grows in marriage with time, so it does with our relationship with God. Our spiritual intimacy with him here and now only increases our joy and happiness and pleasure with our Spouse in heaven. What God has planned for us is truly beyond our dreams. But we can add to it with our love and worship of him here and now.

"The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and over our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old, which I have laid up for you, oh my beloved." Song of Songs 7:13 (NASB)

Jesus has planned the most incredible honeymoon for his spouse; and over the door to the bridal suite, the one that's in the villages with the vineyards that he will take us away to for our honeymoon with him (Song of Songs 7:11-12) are all the pictures, the love notes, the tears cried over wishing we could be with him and he with us, our entire relationship with him and how we worshiped and loved him. The consummation of the marriage is not just being happy to be with God finally in paradise. It's the consummation of our courtship with the Prince Jesus here and now.

It is this that Jesus calls us to begin with him. To begin and continue our love relationship with him. To worship him as our God. To love him forever. Forever and ever :)

Dreaming of Him

This weekend was a wonderful weekend. I have the most wonderful wife in the entire world! She didn't do a Father's Day for me, she did a Father's Weekend for me. It was a whole weekend of celebrating me! I felt so special; she made me feel incredible (which she does every day, by the way! Thank you very much!) What didn't we do? She let me sleep in both days, put up signs in our house saying, "Happy Father's Day," gave me some new sound-isolating Skullcandy headphones (they are awesome), a beautiful picture of her and our daughter for my office, two wonderful cards from both her and our daughter that I put on my desk, and we had a pizza night and watched movies. And she got me some Father's Day Starbucks (both days!). It was soooo coool!! It felt like my birthday, or Christmas morning. Then my parents bought me a brand new North Face backpack which I badly needed for my books for being a math teacher and being a college ctusdent, plus they gave me a couple new books (I got Hemmingway's A Farewell to Arms-I'm alrady pretty far into it, it's so good-can't believe I didn't get around to reading it sooner; and a throw back book Star Trek: Insurrection, which is back to my days as a boy who played Star Trek with the neighborhood boys and built models of the USS Enterprise), and a couple new office clothes. And my father-in-law came over for breakfast and brought us breakfast sandwiches, cherry cream cheese pastries, and dark roast coffee. It was just awesome! I love Father's Weekend! I have the best wifey in the whole wide world!!!

Today is Monday though. God keeps reminding me, "Remember me." My daily encouraging emails are on remembrance, the Scripture i read today is on remembrance. Everything is pointing towards remembering. After such an incredible weekend of joy, and then crashing into the weekday, it's hard to remember Jesus. Remember the passion with him. Remember the joy. The ecstasy at his touch. How difficult it is to remain in intimacy with God during this transition. Sometimes remembering is one of the most difficult things for us to accomplish in seasons of transition. Remember! Remember the joy he brought you when you worshiped him, surrendered to him, enjoyed him, gave yourself to him. And how he gave himself to you. Remember the joy of the touch of Jesus' hand.

Remember a conversation like this between you and Jesus?

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20 (NIV)

Eat and drink until you are drunk with love. Song of Songs 5:1 (CEV)

But my lover wouldn't take no for an answer,
and the longer he knocked, the more excited I became. Song of Songs 5:4 (The Message)

I love what John of the Cross wrote in his commentary on Song of the Soul and the Bridegroom (Stanza XXIV):

this bed of the soul is the bosom and love of the Son of God, full of flowers to the soul, which now united to God and reposing in Him, as His bride, shares the bosom and love of the Beloved...This union of love with God is therefore most appropriately called a bed of flowers, and is so called by the bride in the Canticle, saying to the Beloved, “Our bed is of flowers.”

We live in between two worlds. One perfect with Jesus and our family from God and then this world, which is a second-class derivative mixed with life and banality. Our souls and hearts long and desire for a romance with Jesus, yet we are like a car stuck in the mud of time sometimes. Unable to free ourselves into Jesus' heart and passion for us. Jeanne Guyon said it well in Song of Songs of Solomon:

When the Bride, or rather the lover (for she is not yet a bride), has found her Bridegroom, she is so transported with joy, that she is eager to be instantly united to Him. But the union of perpetual enjoyment is not yet arrived. He is mine, she says, I cannot doubt that He gives Himself to me this moment, since I feel it, but He is to me, as it were, abundle of myrrh. He is not yet a Bridegroom whom I may embrace in the nuptial bed, but a bundle of crosses, pains and mortifications; a bloody husband ( Ex. iv. 25), and crucified lover, who desires to test my faithfulness, by making me partaker of a good share of his sufferings.

When in need of remembering God's embrace, make time with him a priority. Break away from the world for a few minutes, and remember. Do something that will draw you back to the intimacy and ecstasy of being with God. And remember what it felt like when he knocked on your heart because he wanted to come into your soul and feel your embrace. This is our God, our Lover, who desires us and never wants to be separated from us.

Dying for Thirst in His Embrace

I have found throughout my life that no matter what I do, where I am, I have an omnipresent longing inside of me. It's been a driving desire through the years. I've come to the conclusion, there is no way to actually fulfill this permanently in life. It's all a desire for romance with God. For as long as I can remember as a teenager, I have always wanted just my wife. I never dated anyone other than her, she was my first kiss, my only girlfriend, my only bride, my wife for all time. I never wanted it any other way than that. And it would be perfect, I always dreamed. And I put my heart in Jesus' hands for that, and I got it :) Marriage and romance with your wife or husband is on the path to marriage with Jesus. My wife is my image of Jesus; my picture of his beauty in every way. She's incredible; she makes me think "whoa, this is my wife" when I see her. It's exactly the way I feel about Jesus except even deeper. Now, years later after I received Jesus into me as my Lover, I still find myself waking up in the desert, pining away for God's presence. I need Jesus. We all need this with God. There aren't any synonyms in the English language close enough to needing Jesus. We crave, need, must have, desire, pine, long for, etcetera intimacy with God. I need him to give me a rush of joy from his Spirit when I surrender to him throughout the day, every day. Lately, just to get a whiff of enjoyment of his Spirit, I tell him throughout my day at the office and school, "I surrender to you." And as Peter Kreeft said, it is exactly like a woman surrendering to a man in earthly intimacy. It is our souls surrendering to Jesus' Spirit and letting him come into us to love us and enjoy us and through the process we receive joy from him being inside us and we respond through worshiping him with our words - it is our only way of 'touching' God back with our souls. Surrendering to Jesus, enjoying him being inside you, and worshiping him is the most enjoyable thing you can do. Try it!

After days (or hours) of feeling like you're strung out on God and being intimate with him through surrender and worship, completely spent on him spiritually, emotionally, and physically, the longing for more takes hold. We start to think, "Is this it? I want more. I want to get as much of God as possible." Many people say that lust has no end to its capacity to consume. Very true. But lust is simply desire turned toward an(some) object(s) which are either not God or something not in his will for us to indulge in. Holy desire has no end and burns just as hard as lust, because they are the same thing. Desire is simply what we consider lust but pointed towards Jesus. We are physical beings; we have bodies made from the dust. And we have souls that can be deeply involved with intimacy with Jesus. But our bodies are not spiritual bodies. And so very quickly, we realize our dilemma. We are unable to physically hold and touch our Beloved. We live criss-crossed between two worlds. Like Psalm 63:1

My soul thirst for you,

My body longs for you,

In a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. (NIV)

We live in a dry and thirsty land. We need spiritual water, we need to be able to touch him, feel him, hold him, kiss him back. But we can't. Not now anyways. One day, yes, but until then, we must thirst for him. And live in the thirst and desire for Jesus. It's the number one thirst we will never be able to satiate until we are with Jesus in Heaven.

As the Nighttime Begins...

God is a passionate God. He is a jealous God. He is a vengeful God. We live in a world where millions of people are in physical bondage in some form or another. Many will not be rescued, but die in their physical prisons. Children and women are held prisoner by evil of the worst absolute sickness, sold for sex to the highest bidder. Violence, hatred, wars, rumors of wars...Earth is filled with evil that is slowly eating away at humanity's chance for survival into the future. Millions are in physical captivity, and billions are in spiritual captivity. Held captive to their own lusts, exacting revenge and satisfaction of themselves on the other helpless ones in the world (Think it's not too bad? Take a flight out of the US and visit a 3rd world country. America is not just an exception, it is the exception) And this slavery is right in our own country too. The blackmarket is rampant with Satan and his demon's devices of revenge against God. Many people today think that we can change this. Philanthropy is the newest fad; in the liberal and conservative camp. But the Bible is very clear on what we are called to do and what we are capable of doing. We are called to stop it under the Holy Spirit while knowing this: WE CAN'T STOP IT BY OURSELVES. If we could, Jesus never would have put his Spirit on John to write the book of Revelation. It will take Jesus' return to stop this madness. In each other and in ourselves.

We must join hands, as brothers and sisters, warriors in the Kingdom of God, angels beside us, the Holy Spirit inside us, and walk into the darkness. There are billions of people starving physically and spiritually and they need Jesus Christ right now. They need the Savior for themselves. And we have to bring Jesus to them. We are the lampstand; it's nighttime and if we do not let the Spirit's light shine through us, how will anyone find their way in the dark? God entrusted us to each other in the Second Great Commandment in that we will love each other as we love ourselves. We love ourselves enough to keep in the bosom of our Lover Jesus; we must love others enough to bring them with us to our Father's house. We are warriors of hope, life, love, and healing; we are warriors of our Father, we are warriors of Jesus, we are warriors with the Holy Spirit today and tonight. We must fight until there is nothing left and Jesus takes us home. Our quest is nothing less than the complete reconciliation of the world with God. To those wrecked by natural disaster, we must bring restoration and hope. To those destroyed through slavery, we must bring freedom and healing in Jesus Christ. Jesus said he wouldn't return until the Gospel was preached across the world:

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Matthew 24:14 (NIV)

All this is about Jesus Christ. He is to us the Lamb of God (Revelation 5:6). To this world, to those who have forsaken him, hated him, not known him, and destroyed his earth and his children, he will be known as The Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5). A God who has passionately loved us as our Lover, who also is the most powerful being, with power beyond power, he will exact his revenge on those he loves that have been hurt. The poor children and families in Sudan that are dying of hunger, he will not let stay hungry forever. The women and little girls being transported across continents to be sold as sex slaves, will not be in bondage forever. War is not eternal. God is. And he will come home one day. To us, we know him as our passionate Lover, our Lamb. But to everyone else, he is the Warrior Lion. A final battle is coming. And it will be called The Day of the Lord.

Here is a montage of just some of the verses that have speak of the day of the Lord in them:

Proverbs 21:31, Isaiah 2:2, 2:6, 2:11, 2:12, 2:17, 3:18, 4:2, 13:6, 13:9, 13:13, 22:5, 24:21, 27:1, Jeremiah 7:32, 9:25, 23:20, 30:8, 30:24, 46:10, Hosea 3:5, Joel 1:15, 2:1, 2:11, 2:28, 2:31, 3:14, 3:18, Amos 2:16, 5:18, 5:20, Mark 13:20,1 Thessalonians 5:2, 2 Timothy 1:18, to name a few...

It's destiny. God coming home to earth where he will establish heaven forever with us (Revelation 21:2). And him rescuing and establishing justice against those who are not covered in his Son's blood. The battle will be a "day of tumult and trampling and terror in the Valley of Vision" (Isaiah 22:5. NIV) It's destiny.

As Christians, we live with this nightmare around us. Our hearts break for others who are dying at the hands of a godless, nihilistic world. In body, in spirit, or in both. We are given God's Spirit in us and are made in Jesus' image to love others just as we love ourselves (even those we fail to that standard so many times - I know I have more times than anyone else). But it can be so hard, almost futile in some ways. There are always people dying from hunger, people dying from sin, people dying at the hands of others. Even though if the world accepted Jesus and gave up their money we could fix many problems instantaneously. The problem is that will not happen.

God our Father wants his children safe with him. He's coming to make it so. Very soon. Jesus is our Lover. And he's been involved in a one-sided broken romance with millions of people who have turned from him and chosen this dark world, begging them to chose him. That is why God has not returned yet.

2 Peter 3:9, The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. NIV

But he won't let Satan and his demons continue this madness on his earth forever. He is a jealous God, filled with passion toward his beloved, and rage towards his enemies.

Jesus will return one day and passionately sweep his beloved off our feet and into our wedding and honeymoon with our Spouse! And then it will begin on the earth. World War III will break out, pandemics will be let loose, inflation will go through the roof, the world economy will be destroyed, and through the mania, the Antichrist will take power. And that's just 1/2 of the first chapter of what happens during the end times. Jesus was very honest when he said in Mark 13:20 that if he didn't cut short the end times, no one would survive.

Half way through the seven year tribulation upon the earth, Satan will lose his final war in the heavens to the Archangel Michael. And then it is said by the Spirit,

"Therefore rejoice, you heavens

and you who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea,
because the devil has gone down to you!
He is filled with fury,
because he knows that his time is short." (Revelation 12:12, NIV)

God will use Satan to begin the end. And then Jesus will end sin and madness himself when he returns in power to take his kingship of the earth.

And it will begin as soon as he comes home to take us to his Father's house forever.

But, in the meantime, we must fight.

Surrender and Joy

The most joyful thing we can do is to worship Jesus. I've been reading Peter Kreeft's writings on his website (http://www.peterkreeft.com/featured-writing.htm), which I highly recommend checking out. And I've loved several things he's said about our intimacy with Jesus here and now:

In the very act of self-surrender to God there is joy. Not just later, as a consequence, but right then. It is exactly like a woman's voluntary sexual surrender to a man...The symbolism is not "sexist" either. It holds for a man's soul as well. Only when lovers give up all control and melt helplessly into each other's bodies and spirits, only when they overcome the fear that demands control, do they find the deepest joy. Frigidity, whether sexual or spiritual, comes from egotism. (http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/joy.htm)

We have been given the most intimate gift we can from Jesus Christ. We have been given his Holy Spirit to live inside of us. Our bodies are his temple (1 Corinthians 6:19). How intimate is this? What Jesus desires with us is an intimacy so beyond the most fantastic physical intimacy that exists on earth, that we only know an earthly shadow here of a heavenly existence with God. He wants to be weaved together with us, made one, forever and ever. And through our surrender to him, we worship him. And though that act, we receive more joy then through anything else possible in this universe. It is a sip of the cup, a scent on the wind, of the spiritual intimacy we will have with God in heaven.

This reality of worshipping God, his desire for us, gives us new cause to purity. Truly, how can we let anything impure enter us or come out of us when our Holy God Jesus Christ desires spiritual intimacy with us, one so pure and so holy and so perfect, that earthly intimacy pales in comparison in joy and ecstasy. We must be set apart and live for our God, holy and pure in his sight. We must try our best, even though we know the only way we are made worthy is by Jesus' blood covering us and our sins. Then, and only then, are we pure enough to be made one with Jesus Christ through his Spirit intwined within us and our bodies made into his temple. Only then, can we be his temple.

Today, enjoy Jesus! Surrender yourself to him. Give yourself to him. All of you. And you will feel instant joy, instant happiness, instant pleasure with surrendering to God. It blows away "Christian blessings in the world." The raise at work, the unknown doctor's report about last weeks checkup, the troubles of life in this world and all the things we desire to be blessed with, they all fade away in the joy of surrendering to Jesus' Spirit. Let his Holy Spirit have you, take you. Give yourself to him and find true joy! It's the most incredible joy you will ever feel. You will feel known by God. Which is a wonderful, vulnerable feeling.

"Take me away with you-let us hurry! Let the King bring me into his chambers." Song of Songs 1:4 (NIV)

And where is our King's chambers? They are in us, inside his temple. Our surrender to Jesus in our souls says to him, "Take me away with you! Hurry! Bring me into your chambers Jesus Christ!" And Jesus will take our souls to him in our surrender with him. It is wonderful, joyful beyond belief. Worship Jesus and find the joy he gives in surrendering to him.