A Brother Coming Home/The First and Second Great Commandments

I got a phone call yesterday from a friend who I had not talked to in a long time. He has had many hard struggles with God, but knows that Jesus is his heart's true desire. And he's fighting hard now to come home to God. I cheered him on, prayed over him even though he is far away from me, and told him God's grace is always sufficient if we are willing. He's been the kind of Godly man who, after falling a long time ago, made me sit there in awe as if, If he can fall, who couldn't? But years later, I've lost that awe and discovered that true love with God isn't based on "strength," "knowledge," or really anything else. It's based on Jesus and his heart and love and grace. The fruits of the Spirit, the ones about love, grace, patience, joy, and everything else good, those are the fruits of life and little joys of relationships, with God, with my wife, with our daughter, and with just about everyone else I've every came into contact with. The pop terms today like "anointed" as if, he's so anointed, is just so out of context. There's only us and the Holy Spirit. Honestly, if Paul said he was the least of sinners (and remember it was the Holy Spirit who wrote the letters, not Paul but only through him), and frankly if anyone would be considered anointed it would be him, then what's the point of calling worship leaders, church leaders, or any one else "anointed" in a way that elevates someone in God above others?

Now it is God who makes both us and you firm in Christ. He anointed us. 1 Corinthians 1:21 (NIV)

That was actually our message today by a very wise man who has a family of 7 children and lives in Thailand running a house of prayer for the Thai people (Chiang Mai House of Prayer). He said don't go running to someone or some ministry, even though you will be blessed by it, go get your heart's desire. Which should be Jesus. And get him through worship and prayer. And that's following the first commandment. And through that, we let everything flow which we need to follow the second great commandment, to love our neighbors as ourselves. This man told us today that even though there are more missionaries in a city in Thailand than anywhere else in the world, only less than 0.5% of the people are believes in Jesus. And that's because all the missionaries focused on their ministry as their main project in life. The waiting list for counseling for pastors in Thailand (ie those pastors who are burned out and need Christian counseling) is 2 months long! The pastors' families are falling apart, their marriages are gone, they are broken and depressed. Why? They made their entire life about the second commandment. He said when they changed their ministry to prayer and worship, everything took off. People started falling in love with Jesus, not with some ministry project.

Now loving our neighbors, bring healing, loving on the neglected, hurt, and rejected is extremely important. So important, that it's the second great commandment from God. The only thing above it by God's commandments is to passionately love Jesus as our heart's desire.

We need to practice prayer together, worship together. Real worship and prayer from our hearts. I've always struggled with this one. It's hard for me to feel like it's not contrived when I pray with others. Today, my wife and I prayed together, out loud, at the same time. And for the first time, I felt like I was praying with someone else. As close as I've been to Jesus inside me, and as many prayers as I've been apart of in church and hymns sung, I've never felt as close and bare to God as I did today praying with my wife. It was like he was here and we were all one talking together, worshiping Jesus together. It was a taste of life with God in Heaven. I love my friend who is coming back to God, but I love him because of my love with God. And when we share that mutual love we both have for God in conversation over coffee, we became great and close friends. I invite you to learn to pray with others as you would pray to Jesus alone in your heart. If you already do, then I guess I'm finally catching up! And if not, try it! It's a taste of life with God in Heaven :)

God bless you and be near to you

Being Free!

One of the hardest things to do consistently is to live free because of Jesus. So often Satan and his angels' big goal is to make us think we are still enslaved. He wants us to think we are in bondage to the world, to ourselves, maybe to some old pain that has not been healed, and in bondage to the situations we so often get ourselves into. And yet that is anything but the truth. Jesus said,

"Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land." Song of Songs 2:10-12 (NASB)

and

"How the oppressor has ceased! How his insolence has ceased! The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of rulers, that struck down the peoples in wrath with unceasing blows." Isaiah 13:4-6 (NASB)

"I will go before you and level the mountains, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron, I will give you the treasures of darkness and riches hidden in secret places, so that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name...I am the LORD, and there is no other; besides me there is no god. I arm you, though you do now know me, so that they may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is no one besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other." Isaiah 45:5-6 (NASB)

If only as God's Beloved we could live free all the time, the world would see us and know Jesus. We need to let this verse be our identity, instead of the thousand identities and emotions fallen angels throw at us daily:

"You are the light of the world...No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:14-16 (NASB)

You are the light of the world. You! That's not some universal statement applied only to the whole church, it's also applied to each beloved of God. Tell your heart, I am the light of the world and today I will let my light shine before others so they may see my good works and give glory to our Father in heaven. Be free from all the hurts, pains, and trappings of the heart as well! Remember this verse:

"In that day," declares the LORD, you will call me my Husband; you will no longer call me my Master. Hosea 2:16

That day comes when we finally arrive home to Jesus and we are forever wed to him (Revelation 19:7-9). Let that free you! Knowing that your Prince is on the way! And if the bride imagery of us with God is too much for men, remember that it takes both male and female to image Jesus and he far transcends both. Just read Song of Songs chapters 4 or 7 & 8 and see God's beauty. We are saved, we are redeemed, we are engaged to our Lover, we are children of our Father, and we have the Holy Spirit with us every moment we are here on earth. He will never leave us because he is crazy about us. So today, live free! Delight yourself in Jesus and he will give you your hearts desires (Psalm 37:4) and let others see your light and they will see God's image in you and want to draw near to the Original, Jesus. By doing this, you will fulfill the two commandments that the entire Bible hangs on.

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, " 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Matthew 22:35-40

Notes from the Underground II

I actually know a couple of pastor dudes that do the exact same things as this guy does. lol! Good times.



And lastly, here's a quick Garfield Minus Garfield. I just had to post one more of these. They're hilarious. Oh, Jon. You need help friend.

(http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/post/555847417/try-garfield-minus-garfield-the-book-go-on-go)

Love Forever: Dating My Wife and Thoughts on Love with God

Whelp! It's 3:49 am and I'm studying for my BIG math test in about 4 hours. I'm taking Partial Differential Equations at OU and we have a test over Laplace Transforms, Fourier Transforms, and Separation of Variables to solve partial differential equations. And I think I'm ready to take it? Maybe? We'll see. But I keep thinking about the big vacation our family, along with my parents, are taking this October to New Mexico. I absolutely love the desert southwest. I think it's one of the most beautiful places God made. We stay at this Hyatt resort north of Albuquerque called the Tamaya Inn. And it's just incredible. And it's cheap too! The whole inn is designed such that you never know that you are actually just outside of a huge city. It feels like you are alone in the desert. To the east are the Sandia mountains. Which my wife and I, when we went last year, would go out to the back patio and sit on the chairs and look at while we had our breakfast. I'm excited to play with my girls in one of the two pools they have (Hopefully, the weather will still be nice enough to go swimming in early October). And also to go to this little place called The Range Cafe. It's an oddity of the surrounding city. They have a wall with about 40 signed plates of all these celebrities who have been there. From actors like Will Ferrell to politicians like Obama, it seems that this cafe is the popular place to go to if you are famous and in New Mexico. When you eat the food there, you understand. It's literally the best food we've ever eaten before. It's New Mexcian food, so it's all New Mexican cultural food. And it's just amazing. They put chili sauce on everything and it's just wonderful. I could go on about New Mexico forever, but I'll stop with a note on Santa Fe. This little town about 30 minutes north of the Inn has the third most art in the city in the entire world (behind Rome and Paris, maybe?). All of these local artists sell their works on the street. They have these street vendors there who make the best fajitas you've ever had (That's a traditional Santa-Fe style building in adobe above ^). The whole thing is just an awesome experience. (And one last thing, one of the most awesome experiences is driving in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night. No lights in any direction, 100% quiet. It's just you and God and about a billion stars overhead. It's something you can't experience anywhere else)

One of the things I can't stand about still being in school is being awake in the middle of the night to study. It's the only free time I can get to focus on my work, but it's no fun because I'm away from my wife. I am nuts about my wife. I follow her around the house and she can't get away from me. I won't let her! :) And you know, I spent years and years waiting on Jesus to bring me my wife and I mentally understood back then that marriage with her would reflect me and Jesus' relationship. But it's not until you are married that you understand that even more. Worship takes on a whole different form. Like if God lived in our house too, physically, I would follow him around too. Because I'm even more crazy about him. And that would be worship. Not so much because following someone around is worship, but just because your heart already worships them that everything you do with them, whether it's sitting on the porch having a cup of tea on a rainy day or going swimming on a hot summer day, is just worship.

The pastor at our old church said once, women want you to make them dazzle. How true! My wife and I were at Target the other week and she saw this romper that she really like and caught her eye. And so I stopped by on my way home from work later and got it for her. Needless to say, she LOVED it. It made her dazzle. And she took my breath away in it. Just like when we go out on a big date and she gets all dressed up, wearing a beautiful dress just for me. Wow, is all I can say in those moments. And it makes me all think, this is what God wants with me in Heaven. He's showing to me in my wife how he is going to look to me in my eyes. He is showing to me how he wants to be pursued and how he wants me to desire him and in a very real way, make him dazzle (not that he needs to be made to dazzle, he already does. But he does desire us to pursue him and that includes some dazzling :) 2 Thessalonians 1:10 says that Jesus will be "marveled at among all those who have believed." (NIV) God really, truly has set his image in us as women and men. I could never escape that from knowing my wife and how beautiful she is. She has God's fingerprints all over everything she is. God is a being of incredible beauty. And let's admit it, galaxies and stars and volcanoes and whatever else nature has to offer is great and all. But none of it cuts to the quick of the heart except for maybe in some transcendentalist moment when one too many pots of coffee have been drank. And men should pick up on this immediately. What really goes straight to the heart, is the beauty of our wives (speaking from the point of view as men). And God is not some natural wonder to check out; he has beauty that will keep you up at night dreaming about being in his arms. I don't think Yellowstone or my last tour at the natural history museum made me dream of passionate embraces with God. To men, I would say pursue your wives more than ever, make her dazzle, and through the process you will learn more intimate things about God than you ever thought possible. And if you not married, dream, dream, dream about God's beauty and pursue him in the waiting time! To women, I would say embrace your beauty. Completely, fully. And embrace it as you have been given the very mirror reflection of God's own beauty (one that his lovers will literally just stop and stare at when he returns). And embracing your beauty doesn't mean running to the vanity of mainstream media who say beauty is losing 10 lbs or wearing this eyeshadow, etc. It means embracing your beauty and believing you are beautiful. And you are pursued by Jesus. Our God who is crazy about us, desires us, and would do anything for us. Even die for our sins to save us. All to one day marry us.

Autumn is on the Way!

My wife and I went to Hobby Lobby the other day and they have their fall aisle all ready to peruse. So we slowly strolled down it, taking in the fall decor for this year. I LOVE fall. It is pretty much my favorite season. It's so beautiful, with the leaves changing color, the sky being crystal blue, the cool air filtering in from the north. Oklahoma is a beautiful place in the fall time. When I was a lot younger, I used to play the The Sims and anyway I found the soundtrack on Youtube and it reminds me so much of autumn. I listen to it and imagine me and my wifey and daughter all cuddling up with Jesus on the couch as the leaves fall outside and the cool air comes in. One of the things Jesus put in my heart as a reminder of eternity with him was a fall romance with himself. I want to share two of those songs and maybe you will hear what I mean, one from Jon Foreman (the lead singer of Switchfoot) and the other a song from The Sims:





One thing Jesus has really put on my heart lately is others in the church and those he is trying to reach to bring to himself. I have always felt like I have a heart towards those who feel like they are an outsider, like they are always on the outside looking in. Probably because I have felt like that myself most of my life. And something I would just like to say on that is if you are feeling like you are looking through the window out in the cold at the family inside, cuddled up around the warm fire as they laugh and converse, it's not true. And those feelings are only temporary. They are a result of living for a finite time in this world. In reality, everyone who is God's beloved and saved by Jesus will one day be lying around the fireplace sharing themselves and enjoying love with God and each other. No child of our Father is left outside in the bitter cold, but we are all going to be snuggled up closely to our Daddy and with our Beloved Jesus by the warm fireplace. Many of us have lived through times of loneliness and times of almost exile in this world, but those times are simply temporary and they are, in the most important way, an illusion. We always have our rich, inviting intimacy with Jesus. The best way to weather a lonely time like that is to snuggle up all the closer to Jesus. Our Lover God is incredible, wonderful. Being near to him is pure joy and happiness.

When Jesus returns, it will be perfect. We will not only know him fully, but each other also and we will never have to let each other go also. Every day I wake up and leave my wife to go to class, then to the office. Not in Heaven. There, I can finally wrap the arms of my very spirit around hers and never have to let go. We will always be together in Heaven. We will have incredible friendship and love with all of our brothers and sisters in God. And we will have a wonderful, passionate romance with God himself. One that will go to the very core of our hearts, bring us to tears because of the beauty he pursues us with (imagine everything with him: the late night picnics, playing in the snow, swimming in the summer heat, cuddling around the fire, telling him you love him face to face). Imagine your heart's desires fulfilled finally with Jesus as your Sweetheart, living in our Father's house with him and everyone else in this wonderful family he has given us. Psalm 37:4, Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you your heart's desires (NIV). We have an incredible forever after with Jesus.

Notes from the Underground

So it was late, 1 am, and my wife couldn't sleep. We're hanging out and she thinks it would be a good time to take a solid professional picture for my resume for after I graduate college. I think it turned out pretty well (above ^). I've been wanting to do some just relaxed blogs about life in general with God, so I figured I'd throw one or two in a week. I was amped about last week when Starbucks officially stated that it would have free wi-fi at their stores! Shaweeet! We're going to give it a try a little later today after work I got a bag of their Summer Blend (which is just their usual Gazebo blend renamed) and it's been good to me. I'm planning on picking up the new Starbucks Ethiopia Limu coffee. It looks good. Hopefully it will be!

On another note, my wife and I are currently discussing what is indie. And what is not. I found a ridiculously indie house remix of Death Cab's Soul Meets Body on Youtube:

I contest that this is the most indie house music ever compiled. Most likely by a genius living in either Portland or Seattle or mixes on the side of learning Koina Greek and interpreting Romans and Corinthians by a candle light with a pot of Pike Place Special Reserve Blend on his desk. My wife said, Meh. And then said it was probably made by a 20-something guy with his Casio mixer who is still living in his parent's basement in Dallas. He has been out of work since the beginning of time and has no plans to ever get his life started. And if he drank coffee, it would probably be something like Folger's or Maxwell house. Never Starbucks.

I disagree. And so I am posting it on my blog :p

One last thing. Which is quite possibly one of the most brilliant commentaries ever devised. If you've never seen it before, check it out. It's called Garfield Minus Garfield. Which is Garfield with everything removed except for John. So here he is. John. Alone. And talking to himself.

So funny.

(http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/post/347584520/try-garfield-minus-garfield-the-book)

Finding It

In life we have these moments, where it's almost transcendent in what is going on around us. We are completely caught up in something bigger, all around us. It's happened to me only a handful of times. Several times in worship, our wedding day, when our daughter was born, listening to the right song at the right time with my wife, hearing our daughter laugh for the first time, dancing with my wife at prom, the sunset and twilight time just before night and the way the sunshine reflects off clouds in the sky, and several other moments. It's when what is going on is so close to life in heaven with God, that we just get caught in the flow and enjoy life. And I'll admit, I've spent a lot of time thinking about those times, pondering how to get them back and find them once more. How difficult that is! God set eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11), but he didn't say we would actually have it for good in this world. He did bless us beyond what we can imagine, but we are images of God himself. We have an unending desire to worship God, to be caught up in the romantic ecstasy of his arms and his touch, and we need life with him in this world! Bad. It's like what Jimmy Hendrix said, "There ain't no livin left no where." The world wants to market ecstatic experiences (getting drunk, sexual promiscuousness, basic sin, etc) as life, but it's not. We need to fight back against this world and pursue Jesus in the process. There are two main things I like to do to fight back against this (because as humans, we all have the innate desire for ecstasy, for joy, for life, and we need to figure out how to get it with God right now):
1) I need a time every day alone with Jesus where we are together. Where I can surrender to him and enjoy him and worship him and let him enjoy me. And that is my daily ecstasy in worship. I have to have a connection to Jesus and life in him. Or else I am a mess. Do whatever it takes to get time with our Lover Jesus every day. Get alone with him, surrender to him, worship him, enjoy him. Tell him you want to worship him and you want him to come into you and enjoy you. He will! And it will literally be the most enjoyable, pleasurable thing you can do. You will begin to discover how vulnerability is one of the most joyful things and how letting Jesus come to you is how we let the Lover of our Souls have intimacy with us. Be intimate with him, be close to him. There's nothing more enjoyable then being bare before our Lover and feeling how much he desires us. It is enough to leave you shaking to your core.
2) We need to replace the thoughts, fantasies, and day dreams of life in this world with thoughts, fantasies, and day dreams of life with Jesus. Imagine being finally in his arms. Imagine what it will be like to hear him whisper in your ear, I love you. To hear him call you the names he dreams of calling you, my darling, my beloved, my heart's desire. Imagine the kiss and the drive home to the castle in the Prince's arms.
3) We need to celebrate with each other. We are building the memories of eternity right now. I can't stand the slogan that we should live life fully every day because we will never have this day again. I don't believe that. Because we will live forever and have our heart's every desire. I believe we should live life fully every day because we have life and that's what we are suppose to do with it. Life it to the fullest. Max it out every day. Get your friends in our family of God and love on them. Love on your family and tell them you are thankful for them. Image Jesus to the fullest to every one you know and see. Give more then you've every given. Love more than you've ever loved. For the shear reason that you are alive. And in the process and midst of all this, God gives us moments where we find it. We find life with Jesus.