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.

Religion is God.

Religiously.  A word so casually and overly spoken in our society, used in a wide spectrum of contexts from, “He plays his Xbox religiously” to “she uses her phone religiously”. Breaking down the meaning of the secular slang statement the word religiously reveals a common definition—extreme, always, large quantity, much.  It’s a word used to describe an action done a lot and for a long period of time.  When using that word and definition in relation to the original Webster dictionary definition (set of beliefs), it fails to correlate. The majority of the church today cannot be viewed with the definition of religious the secular world uses.  We lack a radical and always commitment to a thing that the boy playing Xbox even has.  He is committed to his video game, never stopping, never resting but continuing in the times of frustration and doubt.  My analogy may be lame, but 14 year-old (and even 40 year olds) can understand the idea of being addicted.   The church has begun to turn God into a Sunday morning commitment rather than an everyday, all day lifestyle controlled by the One most high.  We fall back into the idea that God has created this world to satisfy the things we want instead of realizing we were made to glorify Him; all of him 24/7, forever and ever—religiously.  We have lost the true definition of religion.  It is not an aspect of our life, or personality trait, but rather the central essence of our being.  It is everything we are and live for.  Religion is God.  He is ours to make known to those who do not yet have a relationship with Him. 

The word has been altered and I seek to understand the original meaning and lifestyle it is meant to define. Colossians 1:17-18 states “And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. ¹⁸ And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.” God is the beginning; He is the brain of the operation, the controller of all things. At first glance it sounded self-explanatory; God is above all. Since He created the world it is only fair he becomes the ruler. But to decipher what this statement looks like is complex.  God is above all and rules all…what does that mean for His people? If we are His grasshoppers, what are our duties to satisfy his reason for His creation?  God owns all and one day every knee will bow to His power and truth, but life is meant to willingly give away our failed humanity in order to receive the Spirit of truth and fulfill glorifying Him in every part of our life. 

I know I sound repetitive, but I offer no apologies because this truth is the answer to living the minutes on this earth, yet it’s a topic vastly disappearing in the present days of our Church.  We are called to be a body controlled by the Almighty.  Called to love Him religiously.  Glorify Him religiously.  Follow Him religiously.

Freaks in a Jesus way.

It's a beautiful thing seeing so many freaks in the prayer room. You have your shakers, your jumpers and your screamers. Or the one that gives me most joy: this old man who wears the same jean shorts, white crew socks and bleached spotted slippers (Est. Before my birth). This man defies all culture popularities, but he knows it doesnt matter, he just raises his hands to the Lord, hours on end. These people become a reminder to my soul about the reason of our existence...to give God glory in everything we do, to love Him with all our mind, soul, heart, and strength, to speak the unpopular message, to rejoice in worship over the beloved in anyway that looks. Jesus calls us to be freaks in the eyes of our nation because to him it's normality. We are in love with a God who's entire being is set apart from that of the majority of this world. We are called to live a lifestyle that looks normal to a supernatural God.

I can't help to think of the thoughts that were going through peoples' head when Noah was building an ark. Noah was building a foreign object for a nonexistent rain flood for an invisible God for 120 years. Oh how (if they had them in his day) he must have looked like a perfect candidate for an insane asylum. Or how about the time Joshua was instructed by God to lead his people around the city of Jericho for six days then on the seventh day walk around it seven times, blow trumpets, shout and only then will the walls of Jericho come down. What!! What freaks they must looked like, men of war walking around the walls for seven day so they can shout and in that instant destroy the city. Then Jesus, the man that walked on water, fed five thousand off of two fish and five barely loaves, the man that says, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me..." And also says "whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." What kind of message is that? Okay follow me, give up your family, your job and die to this world, then you will find the meaning of life. They must have thought he was nuts because everything he believed in contradicted everything they lived in.

The truth is the guy with the bleached shoes, Noah with his ark, Joshua with his shouts, they are all doing something right-they're worshipping, and acting in obedience, giving up everything and leaving all dignity outside the spiritual realm of loving Jesus. When we do this, when we act in full obedience and devote ourselves to worshipping an invisible God, thus giving Him all the glory, it will look different to the darkeness that surrounds this world. I want to be that freak that people say is not okay. Not for self-glory, but because if I look like a freak in this world, my heart is set completely on the things of an eternal one, living a normal life in Jesus' eyes. I cry out for God to destroy those last parts of my dignity. I want to live fully in His world, the world He created us for, the world He desires us for to rest in.