Prophecy and Prayer

Wow.  Tonight was really encouraging.  God really had everything planned out to catch my attention, and I’m sure He caught a lot of other people’s attention too.  It started this morning when I was suddenly struck by the realization that I felt distant from God.  It’s not that I feel like He’s far from me, I just feel like He’s standing right next to me, but I have my back turned toward Him.  Well, when I stepped outside it was raining, and I suddenly thought of a couple songs that talk about rain: Let It Rain and Grace Like Rain.

Let It Rain:

Let it rain, let it rain, open the floodgates of heaven.

Grace Like Rain:

Hallelujah, grace like rain falls down on me.  Hallelujah, all my stains are washed away.

That got me thinking, and I remembered that God doesn’t care about my past—He cares more about what I’m doing right this instant—and this time I actually understood it.  No matter how many times I’ve tried to run away from Him, He still calls me back expectantly.  That realization was an answer to prayer that would be elaborated on later on today.

The rest of the day went by pretty much as usual until around 5.  The guys in the Redcoat trumpet section had a get-together for about an hour, and then I had dinner and went back to my dorm until the UGA brass band concert at 8.  While I was in my dorm, I started working on arranging another song for On That Note.  (On That Note is the acapella group I’m in that started this semester, for those of you who didn’t know.)  This one was written by my friend Jon Joiner, who is on the worship team at the UGA Wesley Foundation, specifically in Freshley, so I’m really excited to work on it.

Then I went to the brass band concert, which was great!  It would have been even better if it hadn’t been during Freshley.  But thankfully, the concert was less than an hour, so I got a ride to Freshley and was able to get there in time for the last song of an extended worship session and for small group.  And boy, what a song it was!  It was Revelation Song, which is probably one of my favorite worship songs.  And the Spirit was very present at Freshley tonight; it was obvious as soon as I walked in that He had been filling the room all night.

Then came small group time.  In my prayer leadership small group we talked about prophecy.  It was kind of funny because I had a conversation with my friend Josh about prophecy last year, and I had already heard everything that we talked about tonight from him.  It was cool getting that affirmation that what I believe about prophecy is supported by others within Freshley.  But even better was what came next.  I was hoping we would get a chance to “practice” prophesying for each other, and we did!  And the best part was that there was absolutely no way that we could interfere with the way we heard God’s voice: we were given a number and told to write down our prophecy/encouragement for that person without knowing who the number was assigned to.  We had no way to make up a prophecy because we didn’t know who we would be asking God about.  We just had to trust that He was telling us what we needed to tell the person we were supposed to be prophesying over.  Well, the encouragement that was given to me was that I am a child of light and that God will free me from the trap that is set for me and allow me to come to Him wholeheartedly and be redeemed, rejecting Satan’s lies and accepting the Lord’s truths (Ephesians 5:8, Psalm 31:4-5).  Like I said earlier, God answered my prayers to an even greater extent than I deserved.

But He didn’t stop there.  As I was praying and writing, God gave me a set of verses that seemed to refer vaguely to witnessing.  Basically what He told me to say was that even though witnessing may be hard with a particular person and it seems like you’re suffering, don’t give up, because God didn’t give up on you.  James 1:12 says that God has promised the crown of life to those who love Him and who have stood the test, and Philippians 4:1 indicates that those who come to know Christ through us are our crown, so together the two verses are a hint that God is promising to save the lost person in answer to the prayers of the person I was prophesying over.  He also wanted me to give encouragement to continue showing God’s love and to work diligently because He won’t leave the faithful without a reward.

Well, when we found out who we had been prophesying over, I gave my paper to her, and she told me that her boyfriend isn’t a Christian and it’s been a struggle.  The fact that what I said was exactly what she needed was really encouraging for me.  But prophecy isn’t about what we say or about saying the right thing for the right person at the right time.  If that’s what we focus on, then we don’t really see the big picture of prophecy.  Prophecy is one of God’s ways of sharing truth with us, and we should want to get to know Him more through prophecy.  Prophecy shouldn’t be our main concern; we need to focus on the Giver of prophecy.  It's not about me, it's about Him.  Anyway, I was thinking about it when I got back to my dorm after Freshley, and it hit me: God didn’t just give me an eerily accurate prophecy about a person who needed to hear exactly what I had to say.  He gave me a promise to share.  He gave me the promise that if she perseveres with Christ’s power, He will save her boyfriend!  The last thing I wrote on my paper was, “Your friend’s resolve to reject Christ is shaking!  Stay confident [that God will move in him]!”  That came straight from God, because I had no idea who I was talking to or who I was talking about.  If that’s not encouraging, I don’t know what is!

And then to top it all off, another friend told me that our prayers for her roommate are being answered, slowly but surely.

Lord, let Your will be done!  Come quickly to keep Your promise!

"For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm."

Psalm 33:9.

I was reading the story of the centurion and his servant in Matthew 8:5-13 when something suddenly occurred to me.  This story has always been strange to me; I could never make any sense of the centurion's words or why Jesus was so astonished by his faith.  But it finally clicked just now.  The secret lies in the beginning and end of verse 9: "'For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me... I say to my servant, "Do this," and he does it.'"  I believe the centurion is specifically talking about his servant who is paralyzed, saying that the servant always obeys his commands because the centurion has authority over him; in saying this, he acknowledges that Jesus has authority over him, so he relinquishes his authority over his servant and gives the reins to Jesus.  He knows that, because Jesus is the ultimate authority, whatever He says goes, so his servant will obey Him if He gives him a command.

And what's more, the centurion recognizes Jesus' identity as the Sovereign Lord, the God of all creation.  In verse 8 the centurion says, "But just say the word, and my servant will be healed." As God spoke the world into existence in Genesis—just as light came into being at His command—all of creation, even mankind, must submit to His authority.  If God were to simply command the servant to be healed, he would become well.  He wouldn't even have to hear Jesus give the command in person because the Holy Spirit would speak the command to his spirit.  Creation didn't even exist yet when God commanded the world into being, and it still obeyed; so why shouldn't something that already exists be able to hear and obey the Lord when He speaks?

The centurion's faith is so shocking because he truly acknowledges not only Jesus' identity as God, but also the fullness of God's sovereignty.  He understands that nothing is impossible with God, and he holds tight to that truth.  Even the Israelites in the Old Testament didn't have that kind of faith.  Repeatedly they abandoned the Lord because they felt hopeless in the wilderness.  They forgot that the Sovereign God was with them—no, they didn't forget that He was with them; they forgot that He is omnipotent.  They lost faith in Him, not that they didn't believe He existed, but they didn't believe He could help them.  But the centurion didn't forget.  He trusted the Lord, so his faith was rewarded.  As Mark 11:24 says, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."  The centurion believed in Jesus' sovereignty, and he was granted the blessing of seeing His power in action.

I pray that we would all have the kind of faith the centurion had.  Let's remember Jesus' simple command in Mark 11:22: "Have faith in God."

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth."

Matthew 5:5

I think this verse gets misinterpreted a lot.  So many people have the wrong idea about what the word meek means.  According to Mirriam-Webster, meek means “deficient in spirit or courage: submissive; not violent or strong.”  We understand that Jesus is often called “meek and mild,” but Jesus was not weak, and He most definitely was not deficient in spirit (although, if we go back to the first beatitude, we could say that He was poor in spirit and rich in the Spirit, but I don’t think that context applies here; in the first beatitude, ‘spirit’ refers to self-sufficiency, which is contrary to being dependent on the Holy Spirit; but in the dictionary definition of meek, ‘spirit’ refers more to hope and joy).  Jesus was strong in the Spirit—and He still is—and He was bold in proclaiming the gospel of salvation and the coming of the kingdom of God, even to the point of causing violent division between Christians and their persecutors.  So if Jesus was meek, then we must find another definition for the word that fits who Jesus was (and is).

Now, this first definition of meek is actually the second definition in the dictionary.  The first is this: enduring injury with patience and without resentment: mild.”  That sounds a lot more like the Jesus we know, doesn’t it?  But I think there’s even more to it than that.  It might just be me, but when I hear “enduring injury,” I get the impression that whoever is enduring injury has the ability to decide to not endure injury.  In other words, the meek person has the power to put an end to his own suffering, but he chooses not to for some reason, whether it be to protect others from harm or to encourage them in their present suffering or simply to show his love for someone.  I believe the true, biblical definition of meek is the complete opposite of Mirriam-Webster’s second definition: a meek person is one who possesses great power, given to him by the Spirit, yet refuses to use it for his own benefit in favor of the rewards that will come with the fulfillment of a larger purpose.  A truly meek person is one who sees the big picture, God’s perfect plan, and submits to His will even when it calls for personal suffering.  And when the Lord does call him to suffer, the meek man will “endure injury with patience and without resentment.”  He will not grow angry with God for causing him to go through trials, and he will be patient with his persecutors and show Christ-like love to them.

Now look at the blessing Jesus gives the meek: “for they will inherit the earth.”  This is interesting to me: a man with great power can conquer the world and take it for himself; but a meek man, one who has great power but refuses to use it to benefit himself at others’ expense, will inherit the world and be given it by God.  And the gift of God is far more valuable than our own wages, because “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

We have been given great power by the Lord.  According to 2 Timothy 1:7, “God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a Spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.”  In the famous words of Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben, “With great power comes great responsibility.”  We have been given the Spirit not just for our own benefit, but also so that we can benefit others.  So let’s use the power He has given us appropriately. Our job is not to arrive in heaven; it’s to make sure it’s crowded when we get there.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

Matthew 5:4

It's been a while since I've posted anything, and I've been feeling like I need to get back into writing/typing again, so here's another installment from my notes on the Beatitudes (which I should have finished a long time ago).

In this verse Jesus speaks about "those who mourn."  I want to start by defining the word "mourn."  According to Dictionary.com, to mourn is to feel or express sorrow or grief over misfortune, loss, or anything regretted; to deplore or lament; or to regret deeply or strongly.

Now, what exactly are we mourning?  A close relative's death?  Well, while the second part of this verse, "for they will be comforted," seems to imply that "those who mourn" are mourning someone's death, I believe the blessing is intended for those who mourn about something different.  Let's take the Dictionary.com definitions piece by piece.  The words "deplore" and "lament" essentially mean "express sorrow or grief," as in the first definition.  So when we mourn we express sorrow or grief.  About what?  "Misfortune, loss, or anything regretted."  Well, James tells us to "consider it pure joy" (James 1:2) whenever we are faced with misfortune, and when it comes to God's will, there really is no such thing as misfortune because everything is intended to bring glory to God.  What I really want to focus on is the part of the definition that mentions loss and regret.  What do you regret?  Why do you regret something?  We regret bad decisions because they result in bad consequences, right?  I'm sure we can all agree that sinning is a bad decision.  Why?  Because it separates us from God.  It is harmful to us and dishonoring to Him—He has designed us for far greater things than the pleasures of this world.  To submit to the desires of this world is to stoop to a lower level than we were made for, to settle for less than we, as God's children, deserve.  That's insulting to the Lord!  He doesn't make anyone who only deserves the things of this world and nothing more.  Sin causes us to be separated from God, the worst loss anyone could ever experience.  So we mourn our sin—we regret sinning—because it has removed us from the presence of the Lord.  We mourn because of our spiritual death.  But thanks to Christ, we have been raised to spiritual life!  We no longer mourn our spiritual death, but we still mourn our sins because they continue to create a barrier between us and our heavenly Father, preventing us from coming into the close relationship He desires.

But our own personal sin isn't all we mourn.  We also mourn for the lost and for their sin that continues to blind them, preventing them from acknowledging God and turning to Him.  We mourn for those who will never accept Christ.  We lament for the depravity of the people of this world, praying for a move of God that would bring a revival.

Now let's go on to the blessing.  Jesus says, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."  How exactly will those who mourn for sin be comforted?  How can comfort be brought to those who mourn for the lost?  The Lord comforts us with the cross of Christ!  Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, and He rose from the grave as a sign that we who were once dead in our sins are now alive in Christ for all eternity!  Jesus conquered the grave, and the power of sin and death has been extinguished.  We are no longer defined by our deadness in sin, but by the life of Christ.  Because Jesus is alive, we too are alive!  What a great comfort that is!  And when we mourn for the lost, God comforts us by sending His Spirit upon them to save them.  And in turn, He comforts them with the knowledge that they are now alive; and when they mourn for the sins of others, He comforts them by saving those they mourn for; and it becomes a never-ending cycle (until Jesus returns, of course).

So let the sobering thought of our sin lead us to mourn every act that prevents us from drawing nearer to the Lord, and let's mourn for the lost, pleading with God to save them.  Let's mourn with the hope and assurance that we will be comforted!

In Spirit and in Truth

I've always wondered what Jesus meant when He said that true worshipers would worship in spirit and in truth.

"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." ~ John 4:23-24

Yes, He meant, at least in part, that we would no longer worship in any particular place, as we see in verse 21 (we still do at church, but we are not required to worship only at church); but I've always felt that there was something more to this statement.  What is it about spirit and truth that makes a person's worship authentic and meaningful?

As I was trying to fall asleep last night (at 2am, no less), God started throwing all these random revelations at me.  I didn't get to sleep until almost 5 because of all the thoughts God was giving me.  It was a little frustrating because 1) it was late, and I didn't really want to write everything down, but I didn't want to forget, so I ended up writing down all my thoughts, and 2) there were so many thoughts, and so many of them were so vague, that it would be impossible for me to describe all of them, let alone remember them.  So many of revelations God gave me—all the different things in the world that point to God's existence and the fact that He made everything to work according to His will—were just vague pictures that I couldn't think of the words to describe.  It's like when you're trying to describe a person to someone, and you can picture the person clearly in your mind, but you can't come up with the words to put that picture into the mind of the person you're talking to.  The thoughts, the images, would only make sense in my own mind.

But anyway, around 2:30 or 3 in the morning, God decided to answer the question, "What does it mean to worship in spirit and truth?"  And actually, He's still answering it for me right now.  But I'll give last night's answer first.

When we worship in spirit, we worship because we want to.  If you look back at verse 24, Jesus says, "God is spirit."  Why does that matter in this context?  Well, let's change the word spirit to love, because we all know the Bible says that God is love (1 John 4:16).  So now verse 24 reads, "God is love, and His worshipers must worship in love and in truth."  So we worship God because we love Him, and worship Him by showing our love for Him; in fact, our worship is the display of our love for Him.  But now I'm talking in circles: Worship is our display of love, and our display of love is worship.  In other words, every act that shows your love for God is an act of worship, whether it be selfless giving or being joyful in trials or comforting the broken; and when you worship God through prayer, through song, through thanksgiving, through a cheerful heart, through showing love for His creations, you are showing both God and the world that you love Him.  Worship is love, and love is worship.  (From that perspective, you can judge your own worship by saying that if you are not worshiping in love, then you are not worshiping at all.  Just something to check in your own heart.)

Now, what does it mean to worship in truth?  Well, just as worshiping in spirit means that we worship because we want to, worshiping in truth means that we worship because God deserves our worship.  God truly is worthy of all praise.  Or, to put that another way, truthfully God is worthy of all praise.  So we worship God in truth, declaring what is true about Him and praising Him for it; we worship in truth because what is true about Him makes Him worship of all praise.  And I'm talking in circles again: We praise God for what is true about Him, because what is true about Him makes Him worthy of praise...  Like I said earlier, I'm basically trying to describe the face of God with mere words that can never portray an image in the same way that I see it.  So I'm sorry if all of this is confusing.
 
If none of that made sense to you, really all you need to take away from this is that we worship God because we want to and because He deserves it.

If you've read my post about the sevenfold Spirit, then you know that my understanding is that the seven spirits are the spirits of Righteousness, Peace, Truth, Love, Wisdom, Power, and Life, which together make up the single Holy Spirit.  So let's take those spirits and apply them to worship.

We worship in (the Spirit of) Righteousness.  As we are sanctified in Christ, and as we live out our calling to be righteous as our heavenly Father is righteous, our worship comes before the throne of God as pleasing incense.

We worship in Peace.  As the Newsboys say in their song Strong Tower, "When the winds come hard against us, You are steadfast, You are true.  When the ground beneath us trembles, Your Foundation never moves!" and "When the enemy surrounds us, closing in as darkness falls, though his armies rage against us, they can never scale these walls!"  Or as King David puts it, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging" (Psalm 46:1-3).  Even when everything seems to be falling apart, even when it seems like the whole world is against us, when we remain steadfast in the peace given to us through Christ, our trust in the Lord pleases Him as acceptable worship.  And when others around us see our peace in hard times, it draw them to worship God as well, whether they realize it or not.  And with peace also comes patience, the willingness to make peace with our enemies, even when it's the most difficult thing to do.

We worship in Truth.  As I said before, we worship God because He deserves it, but also because that's what we were made to do.  We were made to worship something or someone, whether it's God or something of this world.  We have to make a daily decision, a moment-by-moment decision to worship God, because He is the only One worthy of praise.

We worship in Love.  Again, as stated before, we worship because we love God—because we want to.  This is how the thought process for the new details began: As I thought of God being spirit and God being love, the words spirit and love fell into place as the Spirit of Love, which brought to mind the rest of the qualities of the Holy Spirit.

We worship in Wisdom.  We worship God because we know that, if we delight in Him, He will delight in us.  Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow His precepts have good understanding.  To Him belongs eternal praise."  Even here, wisdom and the worship of God are interconnected.  As we worship the Lord, we will gain wisdom, and as we grow in wisdom, we will worship God even more because of the new knowledge we have of Him.  We worship Him because there is no better thing for us, His creations and His children, to do.

We worship in Power.  Three verses come to mind: 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Luke 10:19, and Matthew 5:5.  "But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.'  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong"; "I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you";  "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth."  The last verse seems to contradictory to power, but it really isn't.  Thanks to the study on the Beatitudes that I went to several weeks ago (the notes for which I still have to finish typing...), I have come to understand meekness as the possession of power but the refusal to use it to elevate oneself, but rather to be humble and lift others up.  So while meekness may seem to be a lack of power, it's really a possession of power and the refusal to use it for one's own benefit.  So we worship in power in this way: by denying any power in and of ourselves and, instead, claiming Christ's power to brake the chains of sin, and by glorifying God by using the power given us to lift up the lowly, among other humble uses of that power.

And, of course, we worship in Life.  We worship with our everyday actions.  We worship with our joy, our livelihood, and our eager willingness to do even the most menial tasks.  As we worship in the other six gifts of the Spirit, and as our daily lives show that worship, our mere existence becomes an act of worship because we habitual bring glory to God, and also because people praise God when they see us joyfully living for Him.

So let's not worship God in the temple we call church or on the mountains we call self-righteousness and self-sufficiency—the lie that we can please God in and of ourselves—but let us worship and live for Him in spirit and in truth, by the power of the Holy Spirit alone.

What is "the sevenfold Spirit of God"?

"From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder.  Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing.  These are the seven spirits [sevenfold Spirit] of God." ~ Revelation 4:5

A few weeks ago I was reading Revelation when I came across this verse.  It confused me because I always hear about the Trinity, but I never hear about the seven spirits of God.  It was weird because it sounded like something that people could easily misinterpret in order to make Christianity seem polytheistic.  But after some studying, I've come to a new understanding of this verse and of the sevenfold Spirit of God.

I started by going through the Bible and listing a few things that mentioned the number seven:

• seven days - six days of creation and the seventh holy day of rest (Genesis 1:1-2:3)
• seven seals (Revelation 6, 8)
• seven trumpets (Revelation 8-9, 11:15-19)
• seven bowls of God's wrath (Revelation 16)
• Sabbath year (Leviticus 25)
• forgive seventy-seven/seven times seventy times (Matthew 18:21)
• seven angels of the seven churches (Revelation 2-3)
• The number seven is a symbol of perfection.  The sevenfold Spirit shows that God's Holy Spirit is perfect, above all else.
• the seven heads of the beast out of the sea (Revelation 13:1)

When I got to this last verse, a thought occurred to me.

The devil's number is 666, while 777 is considered lucky or holy and is associated with God in biblical times.  Satan always comes second in his battle with God, so each digit of his number must not be higher than or equal to God's number; 666 is the highest number below 777 that does not contain 7, 8, or 9.  For this same reason, the beast out of the sea has seven heads, setting himself up as God, but one head must be eliminated because God will not allow His glory or His name to be taken by another.  But Satan will restore the seventh head so that it seems that he really is God.

After getting back on track, God started to reveal some things to me about the purpose of the sevenfold Spirit.  When I first started thinking about the question of the seven spirits, my first thought was that each spirit represented a particular characteristic of God.  So when I came across Revelation 5:6, things started falling into place with that assumption.

"Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders.  He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth."

This led me back to Revelation 2-3 because it seems that seven angels had been assigned to the seven churches.  In other words, it appeared that the angels had been "sent out into all the earth."  But it wasn't until a friend mentioned Hebrews that the answers started becoming clear.

Bear with me.  My thought process through this whole journey was really scattered.  When I went to Hebrews, I remembered the verse that talked about the "spirit of sonship."  Somehow that made me think of 2 Timothy 1:7 ("For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline"), and from there, I started thinking of different instances where the Bible mentions a spirit of something, and then I expanded to other verses describing certain emotions or attributes that come from God.  For example, 1 Corinthians 13:13: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love."

Finally, after throwing around different qualities of the Spirit of God, I narrowed the list down to these seven, which seem to match up with the seven churches in Revelation 2-3:

1. To the Church in Ephesus: The Spirit of Righteousness

The Church in Ephesus pursued righteousness to the point of intolerance of anything less.  However, in their pursuit of absolute righteousness, they lost sight of their own unrighteousness and their need for a Savior.  They lacked humility, which comes from the Spirits of Truth and Love—the Spirit of Truth reminds us of our utter depravity compared to the Lord's utter perfection and holiness, and the Spirit of Love leads us to lift others above ourselves; thus the combination of the two results in perfect humility.  It is only through Christ's righteousness that we can be truly righteous, and the Ephesians lost sight of this fact.  So God called the Ephesian Church to humility to return to perfect righteousness.

2. To the Church in Smyrna: The Spirit of Peace

While the Church in Smyrna faces persecution, the Lord comforts them and gives them peace in knowing that He still cares for them and is in control of everything.  In Revelation 2:9 Jesus says, "I know... your poverty—yet you are rich!"  Just like Job, even when they are struck with poverty, they remain the richest people in the world because they claim the blessings of God their Father.  He assures them that there is no reason to be afraid, and just like the Israelites in Exodus 4:31, the Church at Smyrna takes comfort in that the Lord acknowledges their suffering and in His promise of relief and a better day that is to come.

3. To the Church in Pergamum: The Spirit of Truth

Despite persecution, the Church in Pergamum continued to hold fast to the Truth of Jesus Christ.  When lies surrounded them, the Church valued the Truth above all else.  Unfortunately, Satan had managed to deceive them with some of his lies, convincing them that he was telling the truth.  So here Christ calls them out to reject the enemy's lies and return to His Truth, the only Truth.
Another interpretation may suggest that, even though the Church in Pergamum knew the Truth and accepted the enemy's lies as contrary to the Truth, their pursuit of the knowledge of the Truth did not necessarily lead them to act according to the Truth.  In other words, as King Solomon proved, the pursuit of wisdom does not inherently equal the pursuit of righteousness.  Just because you know the Lord's commands does not mean you will automatically obey them, and this was the downfall of the Church in Pergamum.  So Jesus called them to repentance and to add to their pursuit of Truth, the pursuit of righteousness.

4. To the Church in Thyatira: The Spirit of Love

To the Church in Thyatira was given the Spirit of Love, but in their ever increasing desire for love, they lost sight of what true Love is.  They allowed the world's definition of love to overtake God's definition, and they forgot that true Love calls for discipline and gentle correction.  Like the Church in Pergamum, the Church in Thyatire allowed the world to lead them away from the path of righteousness.  While they continued to show God's love, worldly lust had crept in as an addition to their definition of love.  And instead of hating the sin and loving the person, they loved the person and condoned the sin, even to the point of allowing the sin to take a hold on their own lives.  So the Lord called the Church to repentance and to a remembrance of true Godly Love that rebukes sin as a father disciplines a child.
It seems that we in America have fallen in the same way as the Church in Thyatira.  We have become apathetic toward the eternal consequences of sin, and we overlook each other's sins in the name of love.  Yes, we are to accept each other and love each other despite our faults, but we are not to overlook our sins and leave them unconfronted.  We are to encourage each other and lead each other in the pat of righteousness as the Spirit of God directs us.

5. To the Church in Sardis: The Spirit of Wisdom

In Sardis, poor choices were being made, even among the Church.  And even though the Church's poor choices seemed to make them prosper, they were still killing themselves.  So God gave them the Spirit of Wisdom.  Although their earthly wisdom made them prosper, earthly wisdom is nothing in comparison with Godly Wisdom.  Only a chosen few had received the Spirit of true Wisdom, and they would find their place in heaven.  So the Lord called the whole Church to return to the knowledge of true Wisdom that would save them, rather than earthly wisdom that only brings temporary prosperity.

6. To the Church in Philadelphia: The Spirit of Power

In this case power is better interpreted as persistence because even when the Church had little strength, they continued to remain steadfastly devoted to the Lord.  But the Spirit of Power does not only consist of perseverance.  The Church in Philadelphia also demonstrates boldness in standing firm in their beliefs despite the false teachings forced on them by the members of the "synagogue of Satan."  Even with their little strength, the Church was able to stand strong by the Spirit of Power.

7. To the Church in Laodicea: The Spirit of Life

The Church in Laodicea is different from all the others in that they have yet to discover and receive the Spirit of Life that has been given to them.  They are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold; they are lifeless.  The vivacity of Life is not in them, and they remain spiritually dead.  The Spirit of Life, of passion for Christ, has already been given them, but we see in Jesus' statement in Revelation 3:20 ("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") that, although the gift has been given, it has yet to be received.  Only those who open the door to Him, who receive the Spirit of Life, will enter in through the gates of heaven and receive eternal life.

These seven spirits together are the requirements to enter heaven, and it is by the Holy Spirit alone that we receive these gifts.  That's why they are called the sevenfold Spirit.

By looking at the seven Churches, we can see the strengths and weaknesses of today's Church.  In Ephesus we see our perceived self-righteousness and our need for a Savior, yet we also see the Church's desire to pursue righteousness in all forms.  From Smyrna we learn the peace of the martyrs and of the poor and broken, just as we learn the martyr's strength and perseverance from Philadelphia.  Pergamum shows us the willingness of modern-day Christians to twist the truth in order to fit their desires, and also their desire to chase the things of this world despite their knowledge of the Truth.  But it also shows the Church's unshakable grasp on the Truth among those within the Church who do not conform to the ways of the world.  Thyatira, as previously mentioned, shows us the typical American religion of living one's own life without judging others and allowing others to stumble and grope in the dark until they learn for themselves, but it also shows the love that God shared with us and that we are to share with our neighbors.  Sardis demonstrates the wisdom of the world and of the Spirit and shows us the difference, so that we can see that only God's wisdom is supreme and can save us.  And finally, Laodicea, sadly, seems to be America's model Church, leading so many Christians to be lukewarm and to think that they are true Christians when they really aren't.  Like Jesus said to the Church in Sardis, He now calls to us, "You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.  Wake up!" (Revelation 3:1).  But we can take hope in knowing that the Spirit will draw us to fullness in Christ, and that we will receive the blessings the Lord promised to all those who overcome.

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Sorry if this was a little confusing.  I just copied my personal notes from my notebook without paying much attention to what I was typing.  If I need to do a better job explaining, let me know.

Also, by no means is this the only explanation of the sevenfold Spirit of God.  This is just what God revealed to me.  I hope this helped someone in some way.  If not... well, it was an interesting, thought-provoking journey, so I enjoyed it.  And it gave me a better understanding of who God is and what He wants for me, so that's what counts, right?

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Matthew 5:3

Well, I meant to type up these notes weeks ago, but that didn't work out too well.  So, finally, here's the first installment in my notes on the Beatitudes.

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"Blessed are the poor in spirit..."  Who are the poor in spirit?  A lot of times when I read this verse, I automatically think of people in poverty.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's just because of the word "poor."  But that's not right.  The verse says "poor in spirit," not just "poor."  The poor aren't the ones who will inherit the kingdom of heaven, although often the poor are also poor in spirit; so indirectly, poverty leads a person to inherit the kingdom of heaven.  But what does "poor in spirit" mean?

As we studied this verse in our Bible study group several weeks ago, a thought came to mind.  I had read something just a few days earlier about a certain passage that makes a clear distinction between the words spirit and Spirit.  The spirit of a person, is just that: the person's spirit, his soul, which he strives to keep pure as he goes through life.  The Spirit, on the other hand, is God's Holy Spirit, the Spirit that resides inside us and works in us to purify us, to make our spirit more like His Spirit.  It's important to notice, then, that Jesus refers to the human spirit in this verse, not the Holy Spirit.  "Blessed are the poor in spirit," not the poor in Spirit.

So with this new understanding of the word spirit, we can look deeper into this verse.  There are two main points that I've found in the phrase "poor in spirit."  The first is this: that the poor in spirit realize the brokenness of mankind, our utter depravity and our need for a Savior.  The poor in spirit realize that they have turned away from God, and that apart from Him they can do nothing; apart from Him, there is no good thing in a man.  They realize how lowly they are, so they turn to God and beg His forgiveness, seeking the sanctification and righteousness that come from His Spirit alone.  They acknowledge the truth that it is only by the blood of Jesus Christ that we can be saved; nothing we do ourselves can earn us entrance into heaven.  So the poor in spirit seek the riches of the Holy Spirit.

And the second comes from that last statement: the poor in spirit are rich in the Spirit.  While a man's will remains, there is no room for God's will to take hold in his life.  God must have the man's entire life, or else He will not have it at all.  So the poor in spirit empties himself of his own human spirit so that he can be filled with the Holy Spirit.  Like Chris Sligh's sings, the poor in spirit say, "Empty me of me so I can be filled with You."  The man dies to himself so that he can live for Christ (Galatians 2:20)—rather, so that Christ can live through him.

So who are the ones who inherit the kingdom of heaven?  Who are the poor in spirit?  Those who acknowledge their depravity and confess their sins, those who abandon themselves and their pride in favor of the Spirit of the Lord, and those who live not for themselves, but for Christ and through Christ.

“We live by faith, not by sight.” ~ 2 Corinthians 5:7

In marching band/drum corps, a lot of what goes on has to do with trust.  You play your part and march your part of the drill and hope that everyone else does their part well.

Today it suddenly struck me that marching band is a good example of what it means to be a Christian.  I had never really thought about it until I went to my high school’s special exhibition for the parents at the end of band camp tonight.  It rained while they were supposed to do their show, so we went into the gym instead, and the band just stood still and played through the music.  Well, just as they were getting ready to play the fight song, lightning struck.  The drum line played the roll off: Dut dah crash!  Dut dah crash!  Drrrrr dut dah crash!  And suddenly the lights were out, right as the band began playing.  Now, this is a high school marching band.  Lowerclassmen make up the majority of the band.  The expectation in this situation—attempting to play the fight song in a pitch black gymnasium—is for the whole band to freak out, minus a few calm people.  Well, to everyone’s amazement, the whole band continued playing.  The band has only had the music for the fight song since Tuesday.  Of course, some of the upperclassmen had it memorized because they played the same part last year, but a lot of people had never seen their part before Tuesday.  Yet, they had enough of it memorized, and they were confident enough that they were able to continue playing along with the drum line keeping the tempo, even though they couldn’t see the drum major.

So it hit me as I was driving home that that situation is just another one of God’s ways of showing that He has everything planned out perfectly, and that everything works according to His will.  Just as the band continued to play, doing their own part to the beat of the drums, trusting that everyone else would do the same, we also live by faith according to the beat of God’s heart, trusting that the rest of the body of Christ will do the same.  And even on the field while marching, the marching band continues to march blind, unable to see anything behind them.  They keep their eyes forward and let the people behind them take care of themselves.  In the same way, we press forward toward the goal Christ has set before us, and we leave our past behind to take care of itself.  We remember the past so that we don’t backtrack and run into it again, but we never look back, always continuing forward.

Being a band geek, I just had to share this.  It’s cool how God uses everything to prove His existence and to show His people how to follow Him.

“For with you is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.” ~ Psalm 36:9

Today at church Chris, one of the worship leaders, said something about the sun and how we can’t look directly at it because it’s so bright and it would burn our eyes.  And I thought, “If the sun is bright enough to cause eye damage, then how much brighter is the Son’s light?  He is so holy and full of light that we would die if we tried to look directly at Him in all His glory.

Psalm 36:9 is saying that God’s light is what makes all light visible.  In other words, the sun’s light is darkness compared to the Lord, the Light.  If God didn’t exist—if Light didn’t exist—we wouldn’t be able to see the sun or anything we see by its light because God is what makes light visible.

If the sun gives light to the world, and God gives light to the sun and all the stars in the universe, how great must our God be!  The light of the sun is only a glimpse of the incredible glory that belongs to our Lord.

I don't know why I ever found the Old Testament to be boring.

It points to Jesus in so many more ways than we'll ever be able to imagine!

"Take two onyx stones and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel in the order of their birth—six names on one stone and the remaining six on the other.  Engrave the names of the sons of Israel on the two stones the way a gem cutter engraves a seal.  Then mount the stones in gold filigree settings and fasten them on the shoulder pieces of the ephod as memorial stones for the sons of Israel.  Aaron is to bear the names on his shoulders as a memorial before the Lord." ~ Exodus 28:9-12

Hmm...  Sounds kind of like Isaiah 9:6:

"For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders.  And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

The whole Bible is one big story that points to Jesus.  When you read it that way, it becomes so much more meaningful.

Three in One

What makes a triangle?  Its three points and three sides, right?  But it’s still one triangle.  The Trinity is like that: three identities, but just one God.  And water is similar.  It can come in three states: solid, liquid, or gas.  But no matter what state it’s in, it’s still water, even if it’s ice or vapor.  Whether you’re referring to God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit, you’re still talking about God either way.  And what’s also cool about the states of water is that the Father is like vapor because He can’t be seen and He remains in heaven, the Spirit is like liquid water because He fills us and flows through us and around us, and the Son is like ice because He physically manifested Himself on earth as a tangible human being.

The Trinity

I was on Tumblr (my other blog with all the same stuff I have in this one, but much more community based; it's like Facebook-style blogging... or maybe more like MySpace, since it's a world-wide community based on usernames and personal interests) yesterday, and a question came up about the Trinity and who we should pray to: Jesus or God.  The resulting conversation was really interesting, and I learned a lot, so I thought I'd share it.  Enjoy!

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Anonymous:

One question: If Jesus is the son of God, and God is the father, which one do I pray to? Like when I'm saying grace or something, do I praise the son or the father? Is Jesus an intercessor that relays prayers between me and God, or can I pray to him to directly answer my prayers? Forgive me, I know I said "one question" but I'm really trying to understand this concept.
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Bethany (uniting-all-christians):

I’ll try to answer this the best I can…
Matthew 6:9 says to pray to the Father. “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name,’”
You don’t necessarily have to say “Father” though… because the Father is also God, Lord, etc.
However, we’re supposed to pray to God in Jesus’ name.
“And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” -John 14:13-14
Jesus does connect you to God. When Jesus died on the cross for your sins, THAT’S what made it possible for you to have a relationship with your Father :)
Hope this helps! If you’re still confused, please come back lol. God bless you<3
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Anon:

Ok I get what you're saying, but still a bit confused. If anything, I'd say that having to pray in Jesus' name takes away from my connection to my ultimate Creator. The way I see it is instead of sending 100% of my praise or prayer to God, I'm giving off a percentage of that to Jesus because I'm associating him with God. I guess my question is more on the lines of who takes credit for everything that happens? Jesus or God? Which ever one does is the one I'm completely submitting to, not both.
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(after a few comments about the Trinity all being the same God, saying that by praying to One, you are praying to all three)

Anon:

Thanks to everyone that replied to my question! I'd still say that there's no way that God can be on the same level as Jesus, even if they existed as a trinity. God existed way before Jesus and He created everything including Jesus, so how can I place both of them on the same level? It doesn't make sense to me. After all Jesus was human, so it confuses me even more to say that I'm allowed to place a human being on the same level as God.
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Me:

John 1:1-2 & 14 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."


Even though Jesus was a Man, He was (and is) also God. God did not create Jesus. He created His body. But Jesus has always been with God, and He has always been God. When you make God and Jesus out to be two different beings, that's when you start running into trouble with asking, "Which one should I pray to?" The thing is that they're not two different beings. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three in One. Like someone else said earlier, if you pray to One, you pray to all three.


You absolutely can pray to Jesus, because He is God. But if you always associate Jesus with the Man and God with the Spirit in heaven, then you're separating the Trinity. In that case, praying to Jesus would be exactly like praying to a person. Jesus was just a Man. Yes, He was also God, and yes, He was a perfect Man, but He was a Man all the same. Praying to a man is just praying to an idol. We, as Christians, have to get out of the mindset that Jesus is the Man and God is the Spirit, because that's confining them to their locations: God is in heaven and Jesus was on earth. When we understand that Jesus is God and that God is Jesus, then we can pray to Jesus as if we're praying to the whole Trinity. But if you pray to the Man who performed miracles, taught humility, died on the cross, and rose from the grave, you're worshiping an idol. Pray to the Spirit of God that filled His body, because without the Spirit, Jesus would have been an empty shell of a man.

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Anon:

Hi, I'm the anon from the "uniting all Christians" blog. Your answer seemed to make the most sense, so thnx for that. However, if we're not supposed to focus on Jesus as the man, then why are there so many depicted pictures and statues of him, or his body in this case? Isn't that the whole point of the cross? Because Jesus, the man, died on the cross, it became a strong symbol of Christianity?
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Me:

Hey, anon!  Thanks for the question and encouragement.

To tell you the truth, I think the whole thing that started the spread of the cross as a symbol of the sacrifice Jesus made was idolatry.  Not to bring down anyone who wears a cross around their neck, but it is what it is.  Of course, the cross is a great reminder of what Jesus did for us (I have one sitting next to my computer), but we have to be careful that we don’t start worshiping the image rather than the Person—the God—who gave the cross its meaning.  (Basically, if you can’t pray to God without clutching your cross necklace for dear life, then you need to put that cross away for a while.)

People worship in different ways.  For some, it’s painting.  For others, it’s sculpting.  For some, it’s composing.  For others, it’s acting.  Whatever the method of worship is, we usually don’t intend to make those things into idols.  We use diverse forms of worship to remind others of what God did for us, not so that they would worship the art we make.

This is a little bit off topic and will probably just make things harder to understand: Jesus died for our sins on the cross, but He also did much more than that.  He actually descended into hell.  I don’t think anyone will ever understand how that’s possible until we meet Him face to face.  But I’m going to take a whack at reasoning through it.  Jesus was a Man, so He had a soul and a spirit, just like every person.  (The Bible makes several distinctions between the spirit of a man and the Holy Spirit of God.)  The spirit/soul of a person is what goes to heaven or hell (although the Bible also says that we will be given new bodies when Jesus returns).  This may not be biblically correct, but if it helps someone understand, then God can redeem it and use it for good (that same idea applies to what I said earlier about the different forms of worship not being intended to serve as idols): Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit, but He also had His own human spirit.  That human spirit was what descended into hell, because the Holy Spirit, being perfectly holy, could have nothing to do with evil.  After all, God can’t be separated from God.  So Jesus’ spirit—Jesus the Man—went to hell, carrying all the sins of the world.  But because He had lived a perfect life, His human spirit was spotless and served only as a carrier, dropping off our sins in hell.  The cross was the least of His suffering because He paid for our sins in hell, but when all of our sins had been paid for (because, no matter how many sins we commit, all our sins are numbered and there is an end to them), Jesus’ spirit was found to be pure and righteous, deserving to be set free from hell, kind of like holy parole that only God can earn.  So His spirit, having escaped from hell, returned to His body on the earth, and He was carried up into heaven by the Holy Spirit, who had reunited with His perfect human spirit.

Sorry if that made things a thousand times more confusing.  Remember that that’s just my idea of what when on “behind the scenes.”  My point in saying all of that is this: The spiritual side of what Jesus did for us is far more complex than we could ever imagine.  Because nobody has ever fully seen or experienced what goes on in heaven and hell and returned to tell about it, nobody knows exactly what heaven or hell are like.  So we’re left to imagine it, and we have to resort to using things we do know so that we can describe what we don’t know.  That’s why the cross and Jesus the Man have become such huge symbols in Christianity: The cross is the worst form of torture imaginable to man, so we use that to symbolize the infinitely worse torture in hell that Jesus suffered for us.  Nobody has seen the face of God in heaven (we’d die if we did, because He’s so holy), but Colossians 1:15 says that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation,” and Jesus said in John 14:8, “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.”  So because artists can’t paint God the Spirit, they have to paint God as Jesus the Man.

Sorry to make an essay out of this, but… In closing, the images and symbols used in Christianity serve not as idols to be worshiped, but as reminders of the One who deserves to be worshiped.  Don’t let the paintings and sculptures of Jesus define the God you worship and confine Him to humanity, but let them remind you that the Almighty God saw it necessary, and even desirable, to become a mortal Man like us and to suffer for every wrong that we ever committed and ever will commit, so that we could spend the rest of eternity with Him.

I hope that helps a little.  Sorry if that was too confusing.  Haha.  If it was, message me again, and I’ll try to do a better job of explaining.
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Anon:

It's me again! Thanks for the long reply, it did clarify some things up for me. So you're saying at the end of the day that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all God, even though they're different entities and are referred to by different names? The way I see it is that there is one God and even though we don't see Him, He makes His presence felt through every intricate detail of life; whether it's through scriptures or messengers or even prophets that can perform miraculous things, it is God's way of making His presence felt. Which is where Jesus comes along; a human being chosen by God to deliver the one true message of monotheism that has always been delivered by all of God's chosen individuals. That makes Jesus and all other chosen ones a mercy to all of mankind, however, we must understand the ultimate source of that mercy, which is God, and worship Him alone. We can praise the Lord for blessing us with individuals like Jesus and Abraham and all the way back to Adam, but we must not confuse who is the All Mighty and who are His blessed servants.

The Trinity really does make monotheism so complex when it really isn't. There is one God and only one God and we owe Him 100% of our worship. No intercessors in this life, no one to speak on our behalf, and definitely no one to remove our own sins. We have a relationship with God, and we can speak to Him whenever we want, and we can repent and ask for forgiveness so our sins can be removed. There isn't anything or anyone in between the creation and their Creator.
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Me:

I'm glad my rambling made sense to you!  But I think part of what I said might have been a little misleading.  I said that Jesus' human spirit was what descended into hell to pay for our sins.  But that doesn't make Jesus any less than God.  Yes, Jesus was a Man that God chose to send to preach salvation by repentance, but if God hadn't been in Him, then He wouldn't have been sent.  In other words, the Person of Jesus only existed because God chose to manifest Himself in His body.  Luke 1:35 says that the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary so that she would give birth to Jesus.  Think of it this way: Humans give birth to other humans, right?  (I would hope so.)  Babies are born by the combination of the genes of the father and the mother; therefore, the baby only exists because the father and mother have come together to form one being.  In the same way, if God were to give birth, His child could be nothing other than God.  To use evolution as an analogy (I don't believe in the theory of evolution, by the way), humans don't give birth to apes that are less than human; so God can't give birth to anything less than God.  So Jesus was born fully God because He was God's Son, and He was fully Man because He was Mary's Son.  Mary's humanity gave Jesus His body, and God's... Godhood? gave Him His Spirit.  As C.S. Lewis puts it, "You don't have a soul.  You are a soul.  You have a body."  Jesus was God in the flesh.



I'm not an actor, but let's pretend I am.  I go backstage and put on my costume, then I come out on stage as the Cowardly Lion.  Am I the Cowardly Lion?  Yes.  But am I really?  No, I'm Michael, just an average person playing the part of the Cowardly Lion.  At the end of the day, I'll take off my costume and resume acting like myself.  Does that make me any less Michael while I'm acting as the Cowardly Lion?  No.  Behind the scenes, God made a body—a costume—for Himself and came to earth in the form of a Man as Jesus.  Was He a Man?  Yes, but only for a time.  In reality, Jesus was and is God, even while He was a Man.  And at the end of His time on earth, He ascended into heaven and shed His earthly body to reveal the fullness of His true identity as God.  He wasn't any less God while He was a Man, but He chose to play the part of a Man while still existing as God.



Yes, Christian monotheism is very complicated, but if we understood everything about God, then He wouldn't be an infinite God, would He?



You're on the right track with your last paragraph, but you have to be careful about the way you say that.  You're right that there is nothing separating us from God... anymore.  Because Christ served as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, our sins are paid for and we are now wholly righteous in God's sight.  But if we have not accepted Jesus as our sacrifice, if we have not laid our hands on the Lamb as the Israelites did (Leviticus 4:24), then our sins have not been passed on to Him, and we are still guilty of all our sins.  We are completely separated from God until we repent and come to Christ.  Yes, we can speak to God directly whenever we want, but only because Jesus cleansed us of our sins and tore the veil between us and God (Mark 15:37-38).  But now, because of Him, the Spirit now lives in us, and we can never be separated from Him again.  As Paul says in Romans 8:38-39, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neithe the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."


I hope that helps, because none of this was from me.  I never could have come up with any of this stuff, especially the whole thing about birth and acting.  So I have to thank God for telling me what to say.  This actually helped me a lot too.  Haha.

Have a great day/night, and God bless!

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There may be more to come.  We'll just have to wait and see.

I am because I AM

"God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: "I AM has sent me to you."'" ~ Exodus 3:14

This is probably one of my favorite verses of the Bible.  For the first time in history, God makes Himself known by His name: I AM.  YHWH (Yahweh).  The LORD.  This was the name that the Israelites dared not speak nor write because it was considered too holy to be uttered by mortal lips or written by mortal hands.  But why is that His name?  Why is God simply "I AM"?

Well, I started thinking about verb conjugations last night as I was reminded of the post on the Beatitudes that I was supposed to be writing.  And as I traced I am back to to be, it hit me.  When we introduce ourselves, we say, "I am [insert name here]."  Notice how God's name enters that sentence?  Here's why I think that is: because in Him, we find our being.

I'm not talking about identity here.  I'm talking about existence.  Think about it: God made us.  We exist because He exists, and only because He exists.  Without God, we would cease to be; in fact, we never would have come into being in the first place.  I am because He is.

A few years ago I saw a video by Rob Bell where he relates the Holy Spirit to breathing.  In the beginning, God breathed the breath of life into man—a part of Him, His breath, entered into man.  The Spirit consumes us and gives us life, just as our breath does.  And in the same way that the Holy Spirit is the breath in our lungs that sustains us, God is our being.  His existence allows us to exist.  That's why we have to say His name when we say ours.  If He didn't exist, I wouldn't be able to say, "I am Michael."  I would have to say, "My name is Michael."  And that kind of takes away the human element.  I no longer exist as a being; I only have a name.  My name isn't who I am.  It's like the saying, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  You could call a rose a rock, but does that make it a rock?  No, it's still a rose.  So if God didn't exist, I could say that my name is Michael, but that wouldn't change the fact that I don't exist.

Even when we ask someone else, "Who are you?" we are taking God's name and applying it to that person by conjugating the verb to be.  To be is God.  That sounds nice and poetic, and Paul even says something similar when he says "to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21), but it's such a profound idea that I can't wrap my mind around it.  I can't explain that four-word sentence except by saying that God is present in every moment of our existence.  But I know this: I exist because He exists.  I am because He is.  I am because the I AM is.  I am because I AM.

The Beatitudes

I've been meaning to type this up for three weeks, but it just hasn't happened until now.  So we'll see if I remember everything.  If not, then God must not think those forgotten ideas were necessary.  Either that, or He's waiting for the perfect time to reveal them again in the future.  But anyway, here it is.

So three weeks ago at Hillside's Thursday night college Bible study, we studied the Beatitudes.  It was interesting because there's so much more to learn from Jesus' first statement in the sermon on the mount than you might notice at first glance.  To start, what are the Beatitudes?

After Jesus had called His disciples and had begun His ministry of healing, He went up on a mountain to give His famous "Sermon on the Mount."  This sermon takes up the entirety of Matthew 5-7.  The Beatitudes are found at the very beginning of this sermon in Matthew 5:1-12.

"Now when He saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down.  His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them, saying:

'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

'Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.'"

Actually, let me stop there.  For the next few days, I'm going to try to make (relatively) short posts for a change.  So I'm going to take each statement of the Beatitudes one at a time, since we talked for a long time about each one of them at the Bible study.

So for today, I just want to present this idea (not my own; Ross Wesely mentioned it at the Bible study, and he was referencing what he had heard from someone else): beatitude is a weird word, isn't it?  What does it mean?  Well, literally, it means "blessedness."  But is Jesus really just saying, "You will be blessed if you fall into one or more of these categories"?  There has to be more to it than that.  There's a reason He's advertising the blessings that come with these qualities: so that we would strive to fit His description of the ones who will be blessed.  He wants us to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to be meek, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be merciful, to be pure in heart, to be peacemakers, and to be persecuted because of righteousness and rejoice because of it.  If you break down the word beatitude, you can separate it into the words be and attitude.  To be is a verb.  Great, thanks for the grammar lesson.  Now look at Exodus 3:14: "God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: "I AM has sent me to you."'"  I am is the first person conjugation of the verb to be, right?  So if you replace the be in beatitude with I AM, or in other words, with God, the Beatitudes now become "God-attitudes": the attitudes of God, the behavior of the Lord, the manner in which Jesus carried Himself.  Jesus was the most highly blessed Person to ever walk the face of the earth.  Why?  Because of who He was, not only in His identity as the Son of God, but also in the type of Person people saw Him as.

The Beatitudes aren't just Jesus' way of saying, "Guess what?  If you can describe yourself as any of the things I'm about to mention, then good job!  You deserve a pat on the back."  They're a command with a promise: "Become the man (or woman) I am describing, and you will be blessed.  Allow My Father to mold you to be like Me, and all these blessings will be yours.  So what are you waiting for?  Get to work!  Come to Me, and I will send My Spirit to dwell in you to guide you in My footsteps."

Where I Belong; Cory Asbury

I miss Freshley.

That was my first thought when I listened to this song today (as well as the other two I posted earlier).  I miss the joy I feel when I’m around all my Christian friends from the UGA Wesley Foundation.  I miss being able to hang out with them every day.  I miss living five minutes’ walking distance from them.  I miss the music and the messages.  I miss small group discussions.

But why was that my first thought?  Why do I want to end this separation so much more than closing the gap between me and God?  I haven’t been spending as much time in the Word and in prayer as I would like to.  But the thing is that, if I really wanted to spend time with God, I would do it.

Father, help me set my priorities straight, and give me a desire to seek Your presence above all else.  After all, it’s where I belong.

So Good to Me; Cory Asbury

Restoration; David Brymer

Wow...  Powerful.

Limits

God gave us limitations so we could see that He has none.

The Eye of a Hurricane

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.” ~ Psalm 46:1-3

Take Me to Your Leader; Newsboys

 

“I don’t know why you care.  I don’t know what’s out there.  I don’t know how it’s done, just take me to your Leader, son.  I see you’ve got the joy.  I’ve seen you live it, boy.  It’s real, it’s free, it’s fun, so take me to your Leader, son.”

By God's Grace

So often people say their hearts break for those in poverty.

They sympathize with the poor, the homeless, the orphans, and they mourn for their helplessness and the little attention they seem to receive from the world.

But can we honestly say the same thing about those who are in spiritual poverty?  Do our hearts really break for those who don't know Christ, for those who don't have the Holy Spirit, for those who have not received God's "glorious riches in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19)?

God just really convicted me of this right now.  So much of my prayer life is devoted to physical restoration and sanctification, among other things (please don't get the wrong impression; most of the time my prayers aren't just lists of things I want God to do), but I spend very little time, comparatively, praying for the lost.  My "heart breaks" more over the homeless people I talked to in downtown Athens than it does over my atheist friends.  I just get frustrated with them for refusing to see the truth, instead of showing them God's love and praying that they would become more open to the gospel.  And that needs to change.  So please pray that God would help me set my priorities straight.  And while you're at it, go ahead and pray for that friend you're trying to bring to Christ.  Ceaseless prayer and a life of love will do much more than all the Apologetics you could ever throw at them.

LEAP Update Part 2

I was going to mention this in my first post, but I forgot.  A couple months before school let out, I was in the Russell Prayer Room and two people from House Church (not officially a part of UGA’s Wesley Foundation, but the majority of people involved are in Freshley/Wesley) walked up to me and prophesied over me.  (They didn’t say they were prophesying, but it was encouragement, which is prophecy.)  They both talked to me separately without any communication between them, neither of them had ever met me before, and both of them said the same thing: I seem like someone who should be a teacher.  Up until I talked with them, neither one of them had ever heard me speak, and I really doubt they’d seen my blog or heard anything about me from our mutual friends; yet, they both thought that I should be a teacher, specifically in Christian matters.  They suggested that I be a small group leader or maybe go on to be a preacher at some point.  When I thought of being a Christian teacher, the teaching position that seemed to fit me the most was the job of being a missionary.  But they insisted that being a small group leader would be a start on that road.  Well, at that point, I had already made up my mind to be a Freshley prayer leader rather than a Freshley small group leader, and I was sure that God had called me to that decision, so I was a little hesitant to make any changes.  But then they clarified by saying that they actually meant that I should be a small group leader at my church, not Freshley (although Freshley wasn’t completely ruled out).  I thought about it for a minute, and when I thought of being a church small group leader, I thought of Mr. Kyle Smith, my freshman and sophomore year small group leader at Northstar.  I couldn’t picture myself being a Northstar small group leader.  Then I thought of TNT, my high school youth group (junior and senior year), and came to the conclusion that being a small group leader there would be a much more plausible option for me.  Well… guess what?  I was a LEAP small group leader at Northstar for middle schoolers and high schoolers all this week.  Prophecy fulfilled.  And there’s still much more to come.

So… yeah.  Here are some pictures from this week.

Blue Team’s awesome flag

MM’s baptism!

Blue Team’s Cingular advertisement: Dodgeball edition

LEAP Update

Wow, wow, wow.  WOW.  God is INCREDIBLE!!  This week has been amazing!  I would say that this has been the best week I've had in a long time, but I don't think two weeks from Adventure Week (VBS) and Atlanta Fest, and three from Pandamania (VBS) qualifies as "a long time."  Four months from the Jamaica mission trip does count as a long time though, and since VBS was with kids less than half my age, I count that as a separate experience from LEAP and other youth group/campus ministry stuff.  So this has been the best week I've had in a long time.  Haha.

I just have to throw this out there before I say anything else: I was wrong yesterday.  Someone in my small group did sign up to get baptized.  Only four people out of the 100+ at LEAP got baptized today, but still, that's four people making a public declaration of total commitment to Christ!  And MM was one of them!  I can't even begin to say just how excited I am about that!  And we (as in everyone at LEAP, not my small group) even had one kid come to know Christ as his/her Lord and Savior!  Hallelujah!  I can barely contain the joy I feel after today, and I don't want to!  If someone out there prayed for us after reading my post last night (or even before then, or without reading my post), know that YOUR PRAYERS WERE ANSWERED!  (More exclamation marks!  Woo!!)

Okay, so here's an updated summary of the week (a.k.a. an additional chapter in the story of my life, because this is in no way short enough to be just a summary).  Each day this week, we started off the morning with stretches and an exercise to get us all awake and ready for the day.  In other words, we danced.  More specifically, we did the Wop and the Carlton, and we watched the Dougie.  Yeah...  Haha.  It was interesting.  At least the majority enjoyed it.  After the morning dance party, we had TAG: Time Alone with God.  Everyone got a devotional for the morning, written by one of the members of our church, and we spent half an hour "alone with God."  We spent time individually praying, reading the devotional, studying the given Scripture passage, and answering the questions in the devotional, and then we discussed the devotional and shared our thoughts within our small groups.  Coincidentally (more accurately, as orchestrated by God), the TAG devotions were very well coordinated with the guest speaker's sermons, which had to be planned by God because there was no communication between the guest speaker and the person who wrote the devotionals, which is really cool.  Anyway, our group discussions started out kind of slowly at the beginning of the week, which was expected because everyone was still getting to know each other, so they didn't talk all that much.  But we got a few good responses, and the group started talking more and more as the week went on (which was a good and a bad thing at the same time, although it was never as bad as it was good, thankfully).

After TAG, we had our session, where our guest speaker, Chad Cannon, gave the message.  The word and worship were great all week, but I really felt God speaking through Chad and through the praise band today.  Ironically, God spoke to me by one simple act by T, who had given me a little bit of trouble on the first day.  (Funny story: T was late on Monday, and apparently I don't look old enough to be a LEAP leader, so, since he missed the introductions, he thought I was just another student and treated me accordingly all day Monday.  But when he finally realized that I was his small group leader, he started behaving better, and we actually became pretty good friends.  I'm actually looking forward to seeing him at church on Sunday.)  My pride often keeps me from raising my hands in worship, which really annoys me, but when T, who didn't really seem to get into the rhythm and movements of the music this week, lifted his hand, I couldn't help but lift my hand high right next to him.

Then we went to our small groups to talk about the message.  The topics, in order, were God's holiness (Isaiah 40:25), brokenness (Luke 7:36-50), being "living stones" (Joshua 4), and boldness (Acts 5:29-42).  We talked about how our little respect for God's holiness is so much less than what He deserves and how a greater respect for His holiness would change how we think about Him and how we serve Him (I thought it was interesting when Chad pointed out that a triple statement of something in the Bible is considered to be of utmost importance, and nowhere in the Bible do we see it written "love, love, love" or "mercy, mercy, mercy" or "grace, grace, grace"; although, grace, love, and mercy are very important, the only time we see a triple statement of an attribute of God is a proclamation of His holiness: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty" (Isaiah 6:3)), and how, even though God is not like us and is far above us, He calls us to be like Him through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit; we talked about how brokenness led the woman in Luke 7 to humble herself by entering the presence of the Lord with accusing Pharisees staring at her, knowing who she was, and how true brokenness over our sins and for all the lost people in the world would compel us to submit to God's power and allow Him to work through us to bring others to know Him; we talked about how, like the stones that testified of God's miraculous work of salvation in Joshua 4, our lives should be a testimony to the work of the Spirit in us, and that words should not be necessary for people to know that we are Christians (as Lee Strobel put it, "Don't tell me what you believe; show me how you live, and I'll tell you what you believe"); and we talked about boldness in sharing our faith, understanding that Christ's love will make us want to share the gospel with people, and that everyone has influence on someone, so a lack of influence is not an excuse for hoarding the gospel for yourself.  The messages and discussions were great, and today was especially cool to me because, when we prayed, we went around the circle and prayed for specific people who we know are not Christians.  After I opened, the entire small group finished the prayer with all the things I wanted to say that I forgot, which shows how the Spirit really does pray for us and is always giving us the words to speak.

After small group time, we had our rec time.  Monday we played capture the flag (we got second place), Tuesday we did a (ridiculously long) relay race (the last shall be first, so we really came in first place... haha), Wednesday we played dodgeball (second place again), and today we had the dodgeball championship (team aqua versus team red (the red team got first place yesterday, but the aqua team only lost because they tied with another team and lost in a tie breaker game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, so they were really undefeated)), and afterward we played tug-o-war.

Then we had lunch.  (I don't really need to explain that, do I?)  And then we did our service projects, which, since I already explained our projects for the last three days, brings us to today.  Today was kind of strange.  I looked up the directions to our service location at the Dallas campus of Northstar Church (and by that I mean, my mom looked up the directions and showed me); unfortunately, I guess I didn't take a good enough look, because we ended up passing it.  We finally got there about fifteen minutes late.  In typical God-like fashion, though, we finished what usually takes about five hours in just under two.  And Brad, the pastor there (and my former high school pastor), gave us some Northstar Dallas shirts in thanks.  Then, since we were done so early, he gave us the address of another place that needed some help.  Sadly, our GPS, Brad's directions, and the directions of the owner of the place seemed to conflict with each other, so we never made it there.  We just went back to the church instead, and we picked up trash along the trail by the back parking lot.  Needless to say, we did a lot of driving today.  I think God was messing with me because I said yesterday that I was excited about driving again.  Haha.

We finally got back to Northstar (Kennesaw, not Dallas) around 4:30.  (Well, technically, more like 4, since we were picking up trash by the parking lot, but we actually went inside at 4:30.)  Then we did baptisms at 5.  I don't think I've ever been as excited for baptism as I was today.  Each of the four people who got baptized had special significance to me in some way (not necessarily by personal acquaintance though).  The first kid was the brother of one of the LEAP leaders who my brother and I have known since we started going to Northstar five years ago.  The second was MM from my small group.  The third was one of the LEAP leaders who felt the calling to be obedient and set an example and recommit her life to the God who has set us apart from the world.  Those three were the only ones who signed up to get baptized, but when Nick (former middle school pastor, current high school pastor) opened the baptism pool for anyone else who felt the urge to get baptized, one more kid stepped forward.  The air was thick with the Spirit!  It was awesome!  Seeing God move in those four to bring them to be baptized... wow.  That was exactly what I was waiting for all week.  I just didn't know it.

And actually, there was more that I didn't realize I was waiting for.  Nehemiah 8:10 says, "the joy of the Lord is your strength," so Satan must have been whimpering in fear when he saw me at the end of the day.  We finished off the day (and the week) with what's called the LEAP Bash, where we have a bunch of inflatables and water games to just have fun with.  I was standing by the bubble fountain thing (very descriptive, I know), "supervising."  In other words, I was "helping keep everyone safe," and I used that as an excuse to not get dragged into the water games.  Well, I left briefly to get a drink from the water fountain inside, and when I came out, there was a girl standing where I had been standing.  After a moment, she asked why I wasn't doing any of the games.  I gave that same explanation.  Then we got into a long conversation, and somewhere along the way she convinced me to go on the slip'n'slide.  I didn't notice at first because of all the noise, but out of nowhere she pointed out her accent, which was almost unnoticeable.  (Again, I won't give her name, but her initials are IW.)  She was adopted from Latvia about five or six years ago and has only been coming to Northstar since this past February.  (She went to another church before then.)  The more we talked, the happier I got for her because she became good friends with my friend Matt, who was her small group leader, and a couple others in her group, and she is beginning to like Northstar a lot more now that she has made some friends there.  (It's sad that nobody stepped up to become her friend in the four months before LEAP, but what matters is that she has friends here now.  And she has some of the best too.  Matt was one of the major welcoming forces when I was new at Northstar, and he, along with my friends Tanner, Michael, Craig, and Dusty, were the ones that really took me in when I hadn't made any friends here yet.)  And having those friends (and I'd like to count myself among them, not to be prideful) will definitely help her a lot as she finishes up middle school and goes through her high school years.

Something about the fact that she's adopted just filled me with joy.  I can't really explain it.  Maybe it was because she was the one who brought it up by pointing out her slight accent.  Maybe it was her joy in knowing that someone in America, who had probably only met her once, loved her enough to take her into their family.  Maybe it was the peace she carried with her that just seemed so contagious.  But whatever the reason, God gave me the joy I had been praying for all week, and boy, did He pile it on top of me!  Through meeting and talking to IW, through talking to MM yesterday and through her baptism today, through hanging out with T and BK, through the joy and thankfulness of the heads of our work sites, through God's word spoken through Chad, through worship with the praise band,  through the joyful service of Katie, Matt, and all my fellow LEAP leaders, and through the thankfulness and love my small group showed me and Katie in return for our service and love, God gave me new joy, hope, and strength to continue growing in Him and to share the gospel of His grace, love, mercy, and of course, His holiness with everyone around me.

So, just as this has been an encouragement to me, let this be an encouragement to you (or a prompt if you don't know Christ), showing you that God is moving and working in amazing ways in the generation that's rising up right now.  Our God is not dead... He is surely ALIVE!

LEAP 2011

Okay, so this week I have been helping at LEAP, my church's annual mission camp/community service week, serving as a small group leader.  I just want to start off by THANKING GOD for this week and for my group and co-leader.  If you know me personally, then you know that I tend to be pretty quiet, just keeping my thoughts to myself most of the time.  (Unless I'm writing/typing.  Then I'll just ramble on and on, and you'll have a hard time getting me to stop.  Haha.)  Well, I'm really thankful for my co-leader Katie because whenever I don't have anything to say (which happens a lot), she does.  And she does a great job relating to the students in our group, showing God's love to them, and keeping them engaged in whatever activity we're doing.  I can't help but think that maybe I'm not really trying to show God's love, and I know that I should definitely rely on Him more to express that love through me, but I also know that I shouldn't compare myself to others and be envious because "it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His purpose" (Philippians 2:13).  That comparison is from the enemy, and I know that the Lord is allowing me to serve and show His grace, love, and mercy in other ways specific to who I am.  And I'm thankful that Katie is there to serve in the ways that I can't.  It's amazing how God can use anyone in any way to serve His purposes.

Anyway, on to my small group.  I won't give names, so I'll just give initials (from oldest to youngest): (the guys) A, BK, BP, T, H, (and the girls) K, S, J, MM and MN.  They're all great (in their own ways, of course).  T, BK, MM, and S seem to be the ones I'm investing in the most out of the group.  Not that I'm completely ignoring the others and that they're not important to me; T, BK, MM, and S are just the ones that I talk to/relate to the most, so God has been using me to minister to them, whether it's by listening and talking to MM about school, or exchanging names of various Christian bands with BK, or talking to BK and S about marching band, or just hanging around T and occasionally letting him mess with me.  And of course the students are making friends with each other within the group.  MM and MN seem to be hanging out a lot, which is a good change from Monday when MN was kind of off by herself a lot.  And apparently H has become A's son.  They even strike the same poses on command without discussing it beforehand.  Haha.  And Katie and J became really good friends within the first day, which is awesome because J already seems to have that fire that comes from the Holy Spirit, and having someone to mentor her through the rest of middle school and high school will be very helpful for her.  So yeah, it's been really enjoyable so far.  I can't believe tomorrow is already the last day of LEAP...  I don't want it to be over yet.

Since we've already done so much this week, I'll give a recap of the service we did.  And by "so much," I mean, "two days of attempting to find work to do and only one day of a consistent supply of jobs at one location."  On Monday my group, the blue team, went to Durham Middle School to move furniture and clean classrooms and offices.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), a group of guys was already there, and most of the work that the school originally had for us was already done.  So we finished up with all the cleaning, then headed over to Frey Elementary right next door to join the orange team in doing the same thing.  Since the orange team had already been working at Frey, the inside work was almost done by the time we got there, so we all ended up pulling weeds outside.  We split up into smaller groups of four or five and turned it into a competition to see who could fill their trash bag with the most weeds.  (My team won.  Just saying.)

Then yesterday we went to Wellspring Treasures.  I was entertained simply by being able to drive the group there in one of the big church vans.  Haha.  (And I'm looking forward to doing it again on the way to Northstar Church's Dallas campus.  Simple pleasures.)  Anyway, we all enjoyed working at Wellspring (as far as I know).  Cindy, the owner, was very nice and appreciative, and she is also a member of Northstar herself, which is cool.  Wellspring Treasures, which is a part of Wellspring Living, is a non-profit Christian organization that mends and sells gently-used clothes, furniture, and accessories that have been donated to them, and they use the money to support a restoration project for girls and women involved in human trafficking.  It's definitely worth checking out.  Basically what we did was typical volunteer work at the store (you can sign up to volunteer on their website here).  They were reorganizing the back of the store, where they do all the mending, so some of us reorganized shelves, some painted, some steamed clothes, some rehung clothes in their proper places, and some did other miscellaneous jobs.  And before we left, we got to write some Bible verses on the wall in the back room.  Then Cindy prayed with us and sent us on our way with some popcorn and a bag of hotel shampoo/soap/lotion/etc. to give to the church for MUST Ministries.  The time went by very smoothly, we got a good amount of work done, and we had a fun time doing it.

Then today we went back to Frey Elementary.  Again we found that we didn't have very much to do, which was a little disappointing because not only did we have little to do, but the "Yellow Plus" team had nothing at all to do at Durham, so they ended up joining us like we did on Monday.  But it turned out that, even though there weren't many jobs for us to do, the few jobs they had for us took a good amount of time, specifically taking inventory in the book room.  Most of us got to pull weeds again before we joined the inventory team, though.  (I actually enjoyed taking inventory when I got to it, because apparently I'm a fast writer according to a couple kids in my group, so I sped through my part of material.)  While we were pulling weeds, I got to talk to someone from Yellow Plus (initial: D) who was in my brother's small group at LEAP last year.  Something about it just filled me with joy and peace.  Maybe because she was telling me about how she was a little stressed about starting her college application process this fall, and when I told her not to worry about it too much and to just let God handle it, she said that that was the best advice she had gotten on the topic.  That didn't give me joy because of pride; it gave me joy because she understood that dependence on God is the best way to handle any situation.  And maybe because she's also visiting UGA this Friday and strongly considering going there.  (Go Dawgs!)  Haha.  Anyway, when we were finished taking inventory, we went to Acworth Beach to pick up trash.  We had about half an hour to kill, so we split up into four groups, scoured the beach and the park for trash, then met up at the playground to just hang out until our bus driver came to pick us up.  And I also got to talk to the bus driver on the way to the park and on the way back to church, which was cool.

Well, that's what we've done so far.  Tomorrow the blue team is heading over to Northstar of Dallas to help set up for their service on Sunday, and we'll be working with Brad Parkhurst, who was the high school pastor at Northstar of Kennesaw my whole time in high school, so that should be fun.  And tomorrow night we're having a special baptism service, which is exciting.  Nobody from my small group has mentioned wanting to be baptized, but we just have to keep praying for them.  And we can still rejoice in knowing that at least someone will be baptized tomorrow.  It doesn't matter if that person comes from my group as long as someone comes to know the Lord as their Savior!

So please be praying for all of us: for me, for Katie, for our small group, for all the other leaders and students, and for the praise band and the guest speaker as we prepare for the last day of LEAP.  Thanks, and God bless!