Things That Have Happened Since I Last Posted:

*Moved into a new house.

*Made progress on the Phil Rice worship record.

*Practiced with the Neighborhood, overhauling all of our songs to be more keys-driven (synth bass, etc.) due to the temporary loss of the bass player (full ride to Berkley in California for grad school).

*Attended a few prayer meetings, one of which consisting of me getting pretty much zapped by Holy Sprit. It was awesome... needless to say.

*Continued having great talks with Brett, Stephen, and Phil about how the Lord is moving.

*Witnessed the 'Spiritual Water Level' of Norman Community rise to a place of a heightened awareness of the Lord's Presence.

8.8.08

Today is great. It started for me around noon. Last night I stayed up until 4:45 with my roommate Joe, reminiscing on the past year. This year has been nuts. SO freaking crazy. Anyway, that has nothing to do with what I'm about to type. I'm just gonna type out today's page of 'Utmost for His Highest' because it was incredible today.. okay? okay.

"If the Son of God is born into my mortal flesh, is HIs holy innocence and simplicity and oneness with the Father getting a chance to manifest itself in me? [1] What was true of the Virgin Mary in the historic introduction of God's Son into this earth is true in every saint. The Son of God is born into me by the direct act of God; then I as a child of God have to exercise the right of a child, the right of being always face to face with my Father.

[2] Am I continually saying with amazement to my common-sense life- why do you want to turn me off here? Don't you know that I must be about my Father's business? Whatever the circumstances may be, that Holy Innocent Eternal Child must be in contact with His Father. Am I simple enough to identify myself with my Lord in this way? Is He getting His wonderful way in me? Is God realizing that His Son is formed in me, or have I carefully put Him on one side? Oh, the clamor of these days! [3] Everyone is clamoring- for what? For the Son of God to be put to death. There is no room here for the Son of God just now, no room for quiet holy communion with the Father. Is the Son of God praying in me or am I dictating to Him? [4] Is He ministering in me as He did in the days of His flesh?

Is the Son of God in me going through His passion for His own purposes? The more one knows of the inner life of God's ripest saints, the more one sees what God's purpose is- 'filling up that which is behind of the affliction of Christ.' There is always something to be done in the sense of 'filling up.'"

[1]: God is actually manifesting Himself in the flesh the same way He did in Mary... Sorry to piss off people who think of Mary as someone lifted higher than any other human.. I just don't believe that. For me to believe that would mean that Jesus isn't being presented in the same powerful way that He was when He was born in the physical realm. If the spirit realm is more real and more present than the physical realm (which I believe completely), then Jesus being made 'flesh' via our lives as vessels means Jesus is at least just as present now as He was 2000 years ago. So I guess in that sense we are at least just as privileged as the Virgin Mary.

[2]: My mind gets me into trouble. I think logically about what God is doing, and I lose my balance. It happened just last night. I allowed my common sense to be deceived by Deceiver, and it wasn't until I allowed Jesus to speak to me via my heart- not my mind- that I realized the reality of what was going on. 'My Father's business' is crazy. It doesn't make sense. It never will unless we allow Holy Spirit to give us the Mind of Christ, which goes against all our human thoughts, ideas, convictions, motives, and especially logic. We will never be able to conjure up Jesus' thoughts as our own, so let's stop trying.

[3]: It just hit me as I read it: Just like the crowds were chanting, 'Crucify Him!' 2000 years ago, Enemy once again has the masses crying out for the death of Jesus. It's more intense now, though, because Deceiver has captured so many minds and has them chanting this phrase in a much deeper, hidden way. I'm not talking about the street corner Marilyn Manson fan flipping off church buses. I find that to be rather cute compared to the toxic, Spirit-quenching sermon to help the congregation feel comfortable with their Spirit-quenching lives, enabling their materialism and passivity. Some of these sermons I've heard make me want to expose the real message behind them: 'Crucify Him! Live your comfortable, glazed-over, Christian™ life and kill Jesus! Become so irrelevant and Spiritless to a point where you are driving people away from Him just by the way you are living. Just make sure you tithe...'

[4]: Let's ask that next time we pray... 'Jesus, are you as present and touching people through me the same way you did when you walked here in your flesh?' 

142

Psalm 142:5

'I cry to you, O Lord;

I say, 'You are my refuge,

My portion in the land of the living.'

Allotment

Ration

Inheritance

Fortune

Endowment

Share

Distribution

You are all-sufficient for me. Everything else is a refuge of lies and a portion of no value.

Choosing Brokenness or Resenting God's Blessings

This is a moment in my life where I'm being blessed immensely. And that terrifies me.

Sometimes I hate seasons of blessing. It means God is testing me to see if I'll choose brokenness over the success or provision He is giving me.

I'm not saying we should act like God isn't blessing us when he really is. I'm not saying we should be passive with the blessing He is giving us either. Which is why this crap is so hard. Which is why I hate seasons of blessing so much. Sometimes.

I just know how I've squandered the Lord's blessing in my past, and I know how good it feels to be desperately hungry for the Presence of God only to be filled just to the point where He is all you know. It's much better for Him to be your only source than for His blessings to be the things you find strength in. Even though they're from Him, they're just things. It's like how we shouldn't worship angels, but only God.. Sort of. We shouldn't rely on the presence of angels (or a relationship with a loved one) for our joy. 

As I've said before, and I LOVE saying this: Pain from the Lord is so much better than pleasure from anything else. Even the things He's given us.

I read this today while I was walking with Jesus:

Psalm 144 (I'm gonna have to do a couple future posts on other parts of this Psalm, it's great)

v. 9 'I sing a new song to you, O God...'

I'm entering into a new place in so many ways. My 'song' (the way I approach Him) can't be the same as it was before, just longing for things to be familiar again. I must accept that God has brought me to a new place and now I have to allow Him to reign over it the same way He did in my past place, knowing it will feel and look much different.

vv. 12-14 (paraphrasing) 'Lord, bless the crap out of me, make everything great in my life. Make every aspect of each area of my life successful and good. Fill my stomach and my storehouse, even make my livestock comfortable as they give birth.'

Crazy. I usually think I'm being selfish and shallow praying like that. But what's cool is that in a verse before these two, David says that God is the one 'who gives victory to kings, who rescues David his servant from the cruel sword.' This makes me give David a little more slack- he's praying for God's blessing over his life after having experienced His Provision and Love in a huge, intimate way. I trust that David's asking for the blessings was out of a pure heart that wanted to worship the Lord with the blessing, and asked this of Him out of a knowledge of His Goodness and Authority to be the only one who could provide it in a way that would keep David safe from squandering it.

When God blesses us during an intimate relationship with Him, He gives us good things that cause us to worship Him and seek Him more. Well, maybe I should say He gives us good things that we have the option of choosing to find fulfillment from the blessing itself or the Provider. But when we choose fulfillment and happiness from the Provider, the blessing acts as amplification in that exchange. SO good.

I'm in a place of asking the Lord to help me handle blessings the right way. I'd say I'm a pro at being broken. I can take beating after beating and not run to the world's band-aids. But that's not really as noble and impressive as I just made it sound. It's actually pretty weak. I just know that God is the only one who can satisfy, so one could really just say I'm running to the only band-aid that works. 

The place where are hearts are tested are the places where God blesses us. Sure, it's good to have run to God when you were hurting instead of alcohol, weed, sex, porn, whatever. But I'm finding (now that I'm experiencing it) that a deeper, truer test of the heart is happening right now as God is pouring out so much blessing on me that I don't have enough room for it (Malachi 3:10). His hand is outstretched, and there's a blessing in it. It's beautiful. It's exactly what I told Him I wanted, every detail, that one time when He asked me what I wanted in a blessing-- every single detail. Now I have a choice to look at it- ITS SO BEAUTIFUL!!- or at His Face. As Stephen Pyle once told me, I am to pray: "I don't know what to do, but my eyes are on You." EVERY time we don't know what to do, we must fix our eyes on the Lord. That is ALWAYS the right thing to do.

People in the Bible are CONSTANTLY faced with this option (I didn't realize it happened so much until I read it from a place of brokenness), and I am a believer of the idea that if something is repeated in the word of God, it's pretty freaking important. So let's not take this lightly.

Here's the last verse of Psalm 144 that I found myself repeating over and over today:

v. 15 'Blessed are the people to whom such blessings fall! Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord!'

It feels like if I were David and I was to write a Psalm 144 I would have written: 'Tested are the people to whom such blessings fall!'

Luke 12:48 '... Everyone to whom much has been given, of him much will be required...'

Dangsies. Talk about responsibility.