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i love Jesus CUlture and their style of worship and how it draws me in and stirs me up to worship our Awesome God! this year for my birthday i got a christian bookshop voucher and it was obvious that i was going to get WE CRY OUT by Jesus Culture. this is one of my new fav songs (i have been listening to their stuff online but hadnt heard this song….) My Romance – i love it because the main lyrics are “Unto You be all the glory.”
in the style of facebook updates…. I really like zechariah 3 and the picture it is for all of us – once dirty and guilty – now clean and clothed and innocent by the grace and love of God! God’s love is everlasting – do you know he is real and that he has made a way and will accept you?
i love this song. love love love.
okay i love the God who teh song is about 
) love love LOVE!
The truths that I know best I have learned on my knees. I never know a thing well, till it is burned into my heart by prayer.
-John Bunyan -
Here, then, is the real problem of our negligence. We fail in our duty to study God’s Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy.
- R.C. Sproul -
The Word of God is God’s words to us - his instruction, his guidance, his encoruagement – but more importantly – it reveals who he is.
that we should foresake it for other things, tempory things, fleshy things is a shame.
that we should put it last on the list is a shame.
its a shame because we miss out on the richness of hearing God’s voice and learning more about who he is.
Draw near to me, says God, and I will draw near to you.
sure it is *work* but it is glorious work with glorious rewards.
it transforms us and renews us and encourages us and inspires us.
we are very blessed to have the Word in written form. men and women gave their lives that we may have such a book. lets be people that dont let the dust gather, that are not lazy but apply the nike principal to it… just do it.
as christians i believe that we are called to be DEMONSTRATIONS of the grace and love of Jesus – that we are light, salt, witnesses, ambassadors and all that…
by demonstrating the love and grace of God we are showing people around us WHO God is, what he is like and how he works in our own life – how he relates to us and how we relate to him.
in a way we prepare the way – we show the way – to God.
“You’re the only Jesus that some will ever see.”
of course the Holy Spirit is at work in someone, calling them, speaking to them etc – but the Holy Spirit uses us to demonstrate God in real life. like how Jesus was God in the flesh, dwelling with humanity, we too, who have God alive in us, are dwelling here in our communities.
this song sparked my thoughts on demonstrating God, on preparing the way for Him, on living our lives for Him and with Him through us.
“I have but one passion – it is He, it is He alone.” Count Zinzindorf
i love how sometimes a thought just jumps into your mind at random moments! driving in the car i often have random thoughts – i mean random God thoughts that make even me go “wow i like that.” so i try and keep a pen and paper nearby to pull over and write it down….
my thought:
what helps us walk the narrow road is not watching our feet on the path but fixing our eyes upon our Great God.
this was in part inspired by the Kelanie Gloecker song i was listening too in the car which has a bridge that says “I’ve tasted and seen that the Lord is good”.
You see sometimes we forget about who God is and his love and his greatness and then we can become overwelmed by the path ahead of us and the struggle to walk the narrow road, in obedience and refinement and holiness and in relationship with God.
we look at our feet and loose perspecitve and heart. if we fix our eyes upon our Great God and know who he is and his love and greatness then we have perspective that enables us to keep pressing on and to walk a life in holiness and pleasing to God.
[disclaimer = i dont mean we live by experience to experience, buzz to buzz, but in day by day, constant relationship wtih God, spending time and disipline and relational time in his Word and worship and church and walking out his ways and hearing him and talking to him....]
Hebrews 12:1-2 So we must get rid of everything that slows us down, especially the sin that just won’t let go. And we must be determined to run the race that is ahead of us. We must keep our eyes on Jesus, who leads us and makes our faith complete.
i love stories like the one that follow – testimonies of how God uses us – and though we may nt see the results until eternity we can be confident that God is at work in us and through us to change lives and draw people to Him. we should focus on faithfulness, not on numbers and results that can be evaluated…. really it is our faithfulness that really does matter…. we do not always see the work that God does in someones heart as we talk to tehm, as they go away and think about what we say – be it from a pulpit or over a cup of coffee or standing in a line somehwere… as christians we should be prepared and be DOING in and out of season sharing God’s message of Good News – the msesage of hope and forgiveness and reconcilliation to God…
“For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them.
And this is the wonderful message of reconcilliation he has given us to tell others..”
2 Corinthians 5:19
Henry Ward Beecher was a prominent American abolitionist and pastor during the middle nineteenth century. In 1837m he graduated from Lane Theological Seminary outside Cincinnati, Ohio. He became a pastor at a small church in Lawrenceburg, Indiana that same year. One cold winter day, he exchanged pulpits with a neighboring pastor. The snow drifts were so high; Beecher barely made it to the little church.
Once he reached his destination, he went into the church to find nobody there. He took his seat in the pulpit, and one individual arrived, looked around and sat down.
The twenty-four year old Beecher wondered if he should preach. He decided he would and for the entire service, Beecher preached to a solitary congregation on one.
After the benediction, Beecher quickly went to meet the man, but before Beecher could reach him he had gone.
Twenty years afterwards, Dr. Beecher visited the village. A gentleman came up, calling him by name.
“I do not remember you,” said Beecher.
“I suppose not,” replied the stranger, “but we spent two hours together in a church alone in a snow storm.”
“I do not recall it, sir,” asked Beecher, “When was it?”
“Do you remember preaching twenty years ago in such a place, to a single person?”
“Yes, yes,” said the doctor, grasping his hand, “I do indeed, and if you are the man, I have been wishing to see you ever since.”
“I am the man, sir; and that sermon saved my soul, made a minister of me, and yonder is my church. The converts of that sermon, sir, are all over Ohio!”
I was given another vision. This time Joshua the high priest was standing in front of the LORD’s angel. And there was Satan, standing at Joshua’s right side, ready to accuse him. But the LORD said, “Satan, you are wrong. Jerusalem is my chosen city, and this man was rescued like a stick from a flaming fire.”
Joshua’s clothes were filthy. So the angel told some of the people to remove Joshua’s filthy clothes. Then he said to Joshua, “This means you are forgiven. Now I will dress you in priestly clothes.”
I spoke up and said, “Also put a clean priestly turban on his head.” Then they dressed him in priestly clothes and put the turban on him, while the LORD’s angel stood there watching.
After this, the angel encouraged Joshua by telling him that the LORD All-Powerful had promised:
If you truly obey me, I will put you in charge of my temple, including the courtyard around it, and you will be allowed to speak at any time with the angels standing beside me. Listen carefully, High Priest Joshua and all of you other priests. You are a sign of things to come, because I am going to bring back my servant, the Chosen King. Joshua, I have placed in front of you a stone with seven sides. I will engrave something on that stone, and in a single day I will forgive this guilty country. Then each of you will live at peace and entertain your friends in your own vineyard and under your own fig trees.
Zechariah 3
- i read this last night and whenever i read it i am so mightily encouraged. and so i thought i would share it with you…
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