The Magnificent Storyteller

It’s the moments that I fall on my face in adoration that breaks my heart the most. The moments where every song I hear is turned into a testimony of loving God and longing for more of Him. My favorites are those where I’m laying left cheek smashed against the surface of my fairly new 20 dollar IKEA carpet, mouth on an old fashion bible (remember the ones with pages that have actual ink that can smear if touched before dry), and I am literally and metaphorically eating the Word of God. From an outsiders perspective I probably look strange and awkward, but to me it is natural, to me there is nowhere I’d rather be then consumed by the Spirit. I feel like I am in the middle of storytelling time where I am the listener and God the magnificent storyteller.  Except it’s not stories, it’s truth. It’s real life spit out.  Where God says His throne is heaven and the earth His footstool and every word, every letter, sounds like He is actually breathing it into my ear. The small “house” sounds that seem to begin only at night when the world is hushed silences and I am left with a voice that is not my own. And when the fan begins to blow too fast and my body turns numb from the artificial wind I cant’ stand up, I can’t move—I don’t want to leave that beautiful taste of His word and the humming of His voice.  His breath is breathtaking and that makes me laugh in irony. The God that the world misconstrues as being nothing but nice is also a righteous condemner to the evil and that fascinates me.  To some that may sound harsh. To some I may look like a lover of people suffering. But to that some I ask do you know God? To that wondering some I give them the opportunity to open a Bible and read every part (not even skipping over the family names). Forget the John 3:16, its been engraved in every brain and In-N-Out cup in America. Try Isaiah 66:24 where the dead bodies worms will not die or Joshua 10:11 where God kills more of the world with hail than by the swords of the Israelites. I am not forgetting the grace and love of Jesus or why He died on the cross I am doing just the opposite; I am exposing the truth that God is magnificently righteous, that He is the creator of all things, that sin has corrupted the world and in the end Jesus will come again to bring justice to the wicked and every bone and piece of flesh that make up an individual will know the true beauty of the King.  

[Real time posting: August 11, 2012 1:03 am]

A Collection of Cries

Your love is all that matters. It is all the matters. How can the nations forget, how can we turn our eye from the magnificent wonders of this man. The One who turned water to wine, food from nothing, the Son of the God who split the seas for the Israelites then closed them to annihilate the Egyptians. The One cast down to earth to capture the righteous, destroy the wicked and yet all we fear is bankruptcy and horror films produced by lost souls. 
     
Awake, awake o sleeper He is coming and then the world will fully feel His power. Where will we be when that man with fire in His eyes and hair as white as snow comes to destroy the deceiver and chaser of darkness. Scripture says beware for he "will come like a thief in the night" (1 Thessalonians 5:2 ). We know not the day or the hour so let us become a generation sober; awakened for when that moment comes where life as we know it ends. The reckoning is approaching and all people walking in light and darkness will be judged--no one can escape. Kingdom come and wipe away the tears of the faithful. Open the pits and the wicked will fall in. Fall with the false prophet, the Anti-Christ, the deceivingly-colorful dragon into the place with unquenchable thirst, the fire forever burning. 
    
Let us turn and run after Him. I will sing His song with His sweet voice as the melody. And when my lungs get tired and my faith weary I will remember He died hanging on a tree for me and the fuel will ignite me once more. 

I want to waste my life loving You, God. You whisper, "I am here" and my heart falls. You say follow me. I say "okay". You say '"Seek my face.' My heart says to you, 'Your face, LORD, do I seek'" (Psalm 27:8). I want to forget the things of the flesh, and meet the Onething that will turn meaningless lives into lampstands for the kingdom of Heaven. I long for a movement, a revival of the nations from darkness to light in search of the city in the sky who's maker and builder is God. 

De-friending the World

          I don't want a fix. I want a full obsession. I don't want a two hour church session I want an everyday lifestyle. I want the Sunday mornings to be silent compared to the rest of the week. I don't want to be looked as radical, but want the all-day prayer sessions, hands raised and screaming "Jesus" moments to become a normality. I desire to dwell in a place where God will be in everything and the whole world rejoices. But the world is so opposite from everything that matters. From everything that will withstand from that splitting of the sky, from that moment when the alarm will sound and each soul will bow down and see what the elders saw when they all fell down. The Scripture says "God is a consuming fire, a jealous God" (Deut. 4:24), yet we turn our eyes to the things of one minute satisfactions, forgetting the one that added bones to our dust pile. His word says do not befriend the world for those that do our enemies of the Lord, yet popularity is at the focus of our life search. addicted to increasing the number ticker on our virtual friends on profile pages; as if the bigger the number the more powerful we are. There's even an unofficial score card; 500 friends: weak, try harder, 1000: average, but no uniqueness, 2000+ all the world should meet you-an idol. Yikes (red flashing light), what happened to running from idolatry? What happened to the land flowing with milk and honey? Where is the one crying in the wilderness eating all those locusts. This is a generation murdered by the deception of fame and fortune. 
           We are called for more than this. More than jobs with cool blue shirts and unending discounts or 6-figure salaries, more than a message notifying one more "friend" was added to that freakin list. We must turn our hearts back to the maker of everything. Let's be a people built upon the rock. A people that screams and walls fall down, a people that walk through the desert for 40 years moaning, but meeting God. I want to be the one screaming on the side of the curb about His return and the runner passing by joins in. The image of His second coming compels me to scream louder, maybe on different curbs.  The one the world denied, the one that was condemned for our sins, the one who died on a regular tree will split the sky and the world will never be the same. 
          Its a complicated thought to not befriend the world we currently live on, but I wish nothing more than to turn my heart towards His kingdom built by light dwelling in a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. Oh how God will never be hidden. I desire to de-friend this world and gaze upon the lover of my soul. It is the backwards, upside down reality that to lose is gain, to die is Life that I crave. The Man that gives sight to the blind is my beautiful obsession. Break the chains of our love to the world and bring us a wedding in the sky. The Spirit and the Bride say come. 

Threads of truth sewn together...

            It's been a year and I am back in the serenity of this dwelling place. Same sound. Same smell. Same 2am vacuum cleaning. It's beautiful. My heart jumps as the Spirit enters and the familiar thoughts of never wanting to leave return. For the next three days I will soak in the holiness of God's truth; praying to understand more of His righteousness and commandments. Written a year ago in this exact spot. I began an experiment to let God wholly direct my prayer, my thoughts, my breath to create a work of His art. Individual words sewn together to create the fabric of His truth. This is what was built by the maker of everything...

Satan you are going to die, because Jesus is leading me home.  God is righteous. It's the pleasure in loving You. Oh your voice is sweet. Beautiful God. It's the desire to fully love You. Living Spirit. Cry out to Him day and night. Who is like You. I choose this life of faith. Your heart, your desire for the flawed. Die in flesh to live in Christ.  I will be satisfied with joy forevermore. You are my great reward. You're who I long for my beautiful inheritance Jesus. Holy. Open our eyes to Your power. Rain will fall on the righteous and the wicked. Strengthen Your bride. Let the nations fear You. Rise up in her spirit. You walk among the lamp stands. Let us know your abiding presence. Servant of all. Devastating beauty. Manifest Your power, release Your glory. God of the Exodus. Arise. Grant us boldness to speak Your word. There's no plan B. The only One. All flesh is grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of Our God with stand forever. We are grasshoppers. Nothing and emptiness without Him. Fill us. Revival. I will bless Your holy name for all my days. Let our worship be like fragrance. Healer. Let us soak in Your presence. I want to see You. We will bring Glory to Your name. Open my eyes to see Your glory. Hope lives. The humble is blessed. You look at the one who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at Your word. Make my heart boil. I want to boil over You. What God has joined together let no man separate. Rend the Heavens and come down. Take away everything that hinders. Let us receive the kingdom of God like a child. No one is good except God alone. Pour out Your Spirit. I'm alive in your hands. Eternal life. You are Lord of lords, King of kings. Reign forever. Wake up. People get ready Jesus is coming. You are the great I Am.

He will give new names...

A little fire has recently built up inside of me.  A rope has wrapped around my waist tugging me towards a certain place and I am letting it.  I am walking with that tugging rope rather than it draggin me face first, feet following and bruises everywhere. Its a thing thats been missing for awhile.  I like the tugging part. The need to seek for something more is refreshing and makes me want to walk with that rope even faster. I am stuck on wanting something more and to do that I have found myself stepping back to the beginning.  Not the one the world praises with useless New Years resolutions.  But the real beginning.  The one with the creation, it's reasoning, and the beginning of humanities love and purpose. I am going back and again re-seeking that first love.  I am again realizing that the only thing I need to know in this world is Jesus.  

See I recognize peoples disbelief at miracles, or attempting to know a Man you cannot see; finding the truth and reward of the ultimate sacrifice. It's ultimate for a reason and the decision leaves you, at first, ironically empty handed. Stripped of the life you have created and the memories put in a scrapbook (or for some of us a box titled "projects to finish"). But what I don't understand is people's complete lack of focus and fear on death.  That they can just wake up every morning and not think about what happens when they die. I just want to slap people in the face, give a little walk up call, a tap of pain and scream, "OPEN YOUR EYES, THERE'S MORE THAN THIS!!!!" How does the world not see that.  How do they just walk around aimlessly going to work, planning giant weddings, having kids, dancing at clubs on a Saturday,  making turkey sandwiches for lunch and be satisfied.  I understand there is a false grace message out there wrongly assuring everyone they will enter heaven but even those compromisers lack the fear of death and drive for more. The fear stems right from the Book of Revelation.  It's right there in Jesus' promises and persecutions and yet the world sees nothing (or mistakes it for that ridiculous, vein popping frustration of the false grace message) It speaks of nonbelievers breaking into pieces for their inequities and lack of repentance; even the "lukewarmers" He will spit out. But to those that turn and believe, to those that overcome, they will be given a white stone, "with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it." How does that not just stop the world in awe.  How has everyone not fallen to their knees lovesick with that eternal promise. I can't even grasp what it fully means that names will be rewritten for only only the receivers to see, but I know I want it. That is the essence of what I currently yearn for and hope to always run after. That intimacy. That love between the father and I.  To be in a place where I am so freaking close to Him that we only share my new name.  In a world where the search for ones independence reigns I long for dependence with God; to go back to the beginning and glue myself to my First love.

 Oh how I wish people would stop screaming in their own microphones in hopefulness that the world will see them and start listening to the One that is constantly and forever screaming and yearning for us. 

Where the veil begins to lift.

Every time I read more of His word I understand why I have never felt normal.  It excites me to find worth and purpose, but slightly frustrates me that I was not awake to His truth earlier. It's clear why the main excuse for wanting to die was loneliness. Why I never felt a part of anything. I really was lonely. I really didn't fit in and I, unknowingly, was already dead. Paul says it. The reason for the confusion that is. Right in the second letter to the Corinthians he reveals to them the truth of mankind. He says, "In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." That's the key to having the veil lifted. To finding the God of Truth. It's to realize that this world is under oppression. This world is not bowing to the God of rightousness and holiness.  That emptiness I felt, the constant lost utterance I walked with was an actual bleeding cry out to return to His feet. When we  learn the upside down truth of the real and righteous life, Godly fear sets in, His parables are unlocked, and the reason for existence begins to make sense. God is a process. He is an infinite rope, an everlasting plethora of knowledge,and the only way to keep unveiling more is to keep running His created race. It's  to examine our hearts, alter the focus, delete the distractions and at full speed run. I want to continue to know Him more.  I want to love Him continuously and abundantly until there is someway my heart literally hurts. Paul again spoke of the lifestyle that men who fall for Jesus inevidently acquire, "We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything. Oh how I want to feel that joy. Like the put on a smile, tears streaming down the face type joy, and yet the world sees nothing of me. Every day it makes more sense. We are not to be same colored robots with similar beats, but an aroma of fragrances speaking the Word of the Lord and revealing the magnificent beauty of Christ. I am so freakin marveled at this God.