17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
-ephisians 5:17-20

A lot of these thoughts are from a random chapel speaker at a summer camp i am at. Credit to him. The thing that stands out to me in this is that paul, in episians, over and over again talks about " finding out what pleases god, what his will is, ect" and then follows up each one of those commands with, " always give thanks, live in thanksgiving, ect." So, if we are to search out the will of God and then commanded to give thanks in everything i think the two are pretty closely tied. i heard this and then thought, " i'll start giving thanks in everything." in less than 24 hours i realized that this is going to be a lot harder than i thought. I was supposed to have the afternoon off here and ended up working until 8 at night throwing hay bales. side note: i do feel much more manly after throwing 1500 bales of hay. a few hours into throwing hay bales and stacking them and not even being halfway done i have the worst attitude in my heart. I was grumbling in my heart with things like, " i am not even supposed to be here, i am supposed to be off, ( insert self centered thoughts about what i deserve) " then there was another staff member, one of only a few not grumbling who just says, " you know, i really couldn't care if this takes all night and into the morning. we're helping this farmer out. so, it's all good. we're in ministry right now."

Hearing time speak those words, each one was like a brick hitting my heart, since he lived out every bit of what he said. Yeah, i have to work on giving thanks a lot more. Since, in the end, i am learning about what i deserve. The one thing, the only thing i know i deserve in life, and i can say this with no doubt in my heart, is hell and separation from God. Anything past that is grace given by God, since anything except hell is not what i deserve. In the process of throwing hay and getting blisters and migraines, that is still a blessing from God. It is all a blessing.

In the end, my purpose, your purpose, God's will, is for us to work for His kingdom and work on expanding His kingdom and combat satan. We are in a war and we are serving a king, King jesus. We are members of His kingdom and we are meant to spread the joy he has given us and spread the eternal community we are in. It is not just to show people something better, but also to make people aware of what we deserve, hell, and what we can have through a gift, Heaven. Something i would ask you to pray for me and for yourself is for God to challenge you and me to see things in an eternal perspective.

it is raining today and it is a glorious rain.

They think I'm churchy, they think your boy a lame
Yeah, I live for Jesus, I'm unashamed
They talking reckless what you expecting from a walking dead?
You try to give them life, they want that death instead
But 1st John make it clear what they wanna hear
Here go that overdose, gon' stick It in they ear
I got my prescription, It's all-consuming
*Eat His flesh, drink His blood, Holy Communion
I know the Truth is hitting home like Barry Bonds
Yeah my God runs the streets like a marathon, yes
I'm a believer, yes, I rep the Kingdom
They ask me where to find the Lord, they ain't never seen Him
Homie God ain't got no longitude and latitude
He's on another level you can't put a ladder to

-lecrae

There are a few things God has been hammering on my heart. well, more than a few. a whole lot. Mostly it has to do with specific issues dealing with my pride, arrogance, intolerance, and how much i just love to flaunt myself. So, um, yes. with that, lets delve into my crap.

I am at a ranch in PA right now, a pretty extreme conservative ranch. I have worked with people from this ministry off and on for about three years now and they have all been whole hearted servants of jesus and i have always been judgmental in my heart towards this ministry. There are some legalistic people here, there are are people who have never been in the world and have no idea what it is like to minister to people who have been hurt by people who judge in the name of jesus. However, i realize i judge judgmental people. I judge, shun, and alienate people that i think will judge me or non-christians. This is the worst response ever and one that is horrifically sinful and a smear of the gospel. Yes, they may not love like they're supposed to, but i am so sinful as well. In response to their sin, i sin more, and even before they do something, i assume motives in their heart and sin against them before they have done or said anything.

This is an absolute horrible representation of christ's love for the church the members in the body christ rules. Regardless of their sin, regardless of my own and how right i may think i am, my testimony, more so than actually loving non-christians, is my love towards my christ bound family ( john 13). The most compelling witness is one done out of love and the staff here, inspite of what i think is a legalistic approach and they thing i live with too much liberty ( both of us are probably right) we are meant to love without fear and neither of us are living outside the bounds of the bible in our beliefs, but my own pride gets in the way of actually building relationships with people who are stricter in their beliefs. hmmm, yeah. i am sucking at the whole unity of the body jazz.

The beauty is they have been more accepting and more loving then i expected, since i didn't really expect an atmosphere of love and honesty. reality is these people, however odd i think a lot of them are, are honestly serving jesus and trying to expand his kingdom, teach the gospel fervently, and make disciples. Which is exactly what i try to make my life about. funny how that works. It's like they worship the same God, exist in the same body, and life with the same spirit in their heart that i do. Oh...yeah... we're brothers. It has been so convicting being loved by the ranch and seeing how wrong,how sinful, and wrong my heart has been for so long.

I also have began to realize i like to flaunt my suffering. when i am struggling, i mean, i am good at getting through stuff and enduring really rough times, but i love to flaunt how i endure things, how i can get by with nothing, and i manipulate people for attention and pity when i am struggling so i can make myself a saint or a man being killed for a cause. We aren't meant to flaunt suffering, we're meant to count all things a joy. not to be a person disillusioned with reality and just blow everything off, but i do believe suffering is god's mean of sanctification, which isn't a pretty process to go through. However, what do i place my affirmation in? what do i place my security in? Guy's typically, when going through identity crisis's, which may last for only a few hours or as long as weeks, turn to porn, lust, and masturbation as a way to affirm ourselves when we loose our security. No joke, when guys loose track of what they place their security in we will start to lust more intensely and loose the desire to fight sin. However, i am learning more and more just how intensely my identity is in Jesus as my King who saved me from the wrath of God and brought me to my father.

With my identity growing in my king and as a fighter for His kingdom, i am realizing all suffer, all things good and bad, are for Jesus's greatest glory and God's greatest good for us. With this said, Jesus never bragged about his suffering, he never flaunted it, if anything he hid it. We are not meant to be miserable creatures suffering in poverty and depression, but working towards something, just miserably doing so. As another christians, i want to challenge you to ask yourself these questions: " what do i enjoy and what do i do when i am most insecure?" the reason why is when we truly begin to find what gives us joy we will begin to see so much more of God. God created us to expand His community and bring Him glory. With that, with live in an eternal slavery where we are dead, unable to enjoy and connect, wallowing in sin. God didn't like that, he hated it, so he tore himself apart to save us from His perfect wrath that we deserved. Then, on top of God taking our punishment, God reached into the grasp of hell and pulled me into His freedom. I am free to enjoy things, i am free to live, to create, to love, to pursue, and to worship. I think if you find what you enjoy you will find how to further know God, since he is loving, wrathful, just, and gracious. the great thing is, inspite of my sin, God sees Jesus's record as my own and takes me in as his son, as rulers with Jesus. If that doesn't want to make you fight and live, nothing will.


To see God's holiness in a new way each day; i see my sin in a new way each day. God is the image of perfection and the more i see of perfection the more i see my sin because i begin to understand more and more what sin is by seeing what perfection is. It is a painful process, since i am sinful and God is perfect. Please pray for me to fight with a crazed passion for what the kingdom is, i learn to love and serve the body instead of judge and be bitter, that the kids that i am about to work with will be opened, and that God will continue showing me sin while showing me equally how much grace i have been given and how much more i will be given.

that was long winded, but Jesus does a lot and makes me talk alot. he also makes me get all giddy like a little kid again. I am giddy right now.

Fight.

I love paint. i love my kids getting to paint me. This was a normal day for me. Basically my summer was epic all the way through and it isn't done yet.

Before-the-sun-comes-up thoughts from Ella: "Hey, Dad, when you live under a rock, the dirt gets in your eyes." that two year old is already dropping the truth.

pretty normal day for me. breakfast with my RUF minister, brother is asleep on a cot in the kitchen, driving to PA to work at a survival camp in a few hours. Yeah. it is better than average. it is pretty epic, however strangely normal. Jesus must really love me, since i am really seeing His gifts everywhere.

So, something jesus has really been working on in my heart is the love for His church, which i am in any christian is supposed to be in. There are so many books coming out, at kind of a disturbing rate, calling a person to pursue an individual jesus and stop living in the church. I have a lot of weight set into the saints of old, because they suffered more and from their writings have such a deeper understanding than i do of who God is and their relationship with Him is one i long to have. I want the deepness they have. I am not a revolutionary, i don't really know if we really have any revolutionaries among us in the realest sense. A revolutionary is a person who completely overthrows something and puts something else in its place. I don't know if we can be revolutionaries, since everything, according to solomon, has been done already. regardless, i am not really in an overthrowing mood. Reform, probably, but overthrowing is really complicated and i am lazy.

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died.

She is from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.
- the church is on foundation

i hear over and over again, " the church has issues." yes, it does. so do you, so do i, along with your mother. We all screwed up sinners and the church is a whole bunch of screwed up sinners coming together to live in community. so, you have a whole lot of screwed up people coming together. Should we really expect anything else? all my work places, school, job, and boy scout troops have issues and are extremely difficult to work with and cause strain and hurt. more importantly though, i am realizing just how important the church is. paul talks about how the church is the body and jesus is the head and how we are to have unity in the church, but i really don't see much emphasis on a lone ranger mentaility of me and God. actually, i don't see it at all. jesus went to gathers that were organized, worked in communities, paul set up organized churches with leadership authority inside the churches he was founding, but he never set out to make a one person church. I am finding more and more just how much God commands us to live inside community and work inside a community he has established and died for. It's kind of a big deal.

the church is jesus's bride, it really is, and we are in it. Jesus was willing to die for his bride, the church, and we are hesitant to live inside it because of, in comparison, petty concerns. Staying in the church is rough, i have my issues with the church ( actually a lot)however, that doesn't really matter, since jesus did die for the church. The end in my mind is i cannot rationalize away that jesus died for his bride and the form that the church is in now is the institutional congregations we have around. I cannot save the world from any ill, i cannot save the world from any great social concern, but i do know community changes from the inside and starts with my heart. I do know that i can complain until i die, as can you, and not change a thing. the more convicting thing is to serve to the best of your ability and actually give a damn about people and convince them through your testimony and actions that there is merit to what you say, since my changed heart is more of a testimony that my theology. We rarely argue about the love that lives in us, but we sure will argue over when we let someone go through baptism or confirmation.

I am pretty sure there are bigger issues than when, where, and how people gather to worship, since we are meant to be in a community of believers, loving each other as jesus has loved us ( john 13) so people see our love for each other and knows that love is a sign that jesus lives in us and we are following him. I cannot worship with a community alone in the woods, i cannot worship with a community and sing praises at a starbucks, everything is worship, but not everything is worship in a community of believers. this summer has been huge in my life, since i have learned just how much the holy spirit flows and works through Jesus's church. I guess it really makes sense, since if you're existing inside the body you are going to find the head, jesus. Everything in our body eventually, in someway, is controlled or connected to our head. If you want to find jesus in a new and stronger way, exist in the body and pray, pray hard, that god will put you in a place in the body and show you himself in the body. the scary thing is he listened when i prayed this and answered it. i used to be the biggest opponent of the church, but am learning everyday how much i NEED the church and can't actually exist in a healthy spiritual state without the church. the church's primary purpose is to proclaim, grow, and exist in the eternal gospel of Jesus. that there is an eternal consequence to our choice to live in this gift of grace offered to us, there is a war going on right now over our friends, family, and our children and the world they will be in.

basically, go hard. It is a war and jesus is God who died and rose. He lives, and that is reason enough to go hard to the point of insanity. i am not a revolutionary in the sense where people say they are revolutionizing christianity and making it an individual pursuit, but i am a revolutionary in the sense that I live in daily defiance of what satan's kingdom demands. We really are in an all out war fighting against the harshest and most evil of all slaveries, an eternal slavery. The purpose of God's kingdom is to take people out of this slavery and move them into freedom. This might be why stories like william wallace ring so true in our soul, because we were designed for freedom that Jesus gives us.

pardon the choppy writing. i am going 48 hours with no sleep at this point and have another day to go before sleep can greet me.

so, i think the thing that i learned the most of over the summer was humility and love for fellow believers. i have always struggled with accepting christians who were judgmental, which is ironic, since i am struggling with judging judgmental people. I grew up being judge by christians because i took the gospel seriously and i got rejected by christian communities for that. For years i have responded by not showing the grace i was given back to them. One of the things i am learning is just how much i am forgiven constantly. i am a sinner and i still sin. I require constant forgiveness, since i am prideful and i think that i have all the answers. I don't have all the answers, the ones i have are from seeking jesus's face and when he has shown me my failures and pulled me out of my failures and into living in His successes.

Week five i quit having my prayer times, i quit reading my bible, i quit seeking jesus in my relationship with kids. i was not a counselor, i was not a mentor, i was a facilitator. i did a good job and my kids had fun. Kids do not need the cool counselor, they do not need an awesome time, these are good things to have, but they need to see jesus and need his grace just like i NEED that. i ended up taking my kids aside and apologizing to them, since on the last day of camp i got a huge wave of conviction from jesus that i had not been representing jesus, but myself the whole week. I pray jesus used me that week, but i wasn't seeking Jesus that week. it was a huge dose of humility that i really do require forgiveness, i really do need forgiveness to live. The grace my kids gave me was contatgious, since they had no hesitation to forgive me, i don't think most of them noticed. However, grace is like a dance: you will never really understand why people smile and keep dancing until you jump in the dance. from the outside, it makes no sense, however from the inside you never stop dancing. living in a midset of grace, living in the grace of jesus is what keeps me going and gives me joy, since it is a gift. I not only am taken from hell bound, better than acceptable, i am given the status as a king. a son of god, i am family with god.

people may have skewed views of freedom, people may disagree with me. regardless of what someone does to me though, how i treat people should not be dependent on what they do to me. in the end, everything we do is meant to glorify and work towards the expansion of God's kingdom. that is my life's purpose and how is my rejection of someone, how is my anger towards someone, how is my fear, lack of courage, timidity, and lust expanding God's kingdom? it isn't. We are meant to love without fear. My bitterness towards anyone is not loving and it is not loving without fear. On top of that, in john 13 jesus gave his disciples the command to love one another as jesus loved them so people will know that they were his disciples. that is the mark of jesus, a community based on selflessness and love for one another. It doesn't say with any exception of conservitism or liberalism. just love other believers as i have loved you so people will know i am a disciple of jesus. bam. i don't do that. i need to.

lastly, jesus really does love me. there are nights it is so clear that god really does listen, there are times when life works in such a manner that i know jesus really did die for me, god really does love for me, and the holy spirit really does work in the hearts of people and myself. the promises God made really were true and he really does live them out. God is faithful.

and a poem i wrote over the summer. to explain a few things: the bitter end, in the literal sense is when on a sail boat you reach the end of your rope and it is slipping, since you will have to risk your life to get that rope back to control the sail. that is why people use it to talk about their lives and when they're at their end. Also, have you ever realized jesus is the ultimate thief? we were in satans hands bound for hell and he reached in and took us out of his grasp. He filled satans hands with himself, since sin's punishment really is to be put in satans hands, to die, separate from god, and live in the hand of satan. Jesus stole us from satans hands and filled out place with himself. with that said, here's the poem.

when you reach the bitter end
you fight to gain and inch
as you struggle against the wind
and pray not to flinch

we think we’ll win
we think we’ve never lost
and but we never saw out sin
or understood its’ cost

i never had a chance
since i was bound for hell
and could only see heaven in a glance
i was predetermined to fail

we fight and still drift toward our death
until a man talked about a gift
from a man who committed the ultimate theft

hell had it’s hands wrapped on humanities ship
guiding us all into its’ depths
while quietly whispering past sin, guilt, and shit

hell hands had to be satisfied
a man, a god, filled hells hands
so we may be justified
and fulfill his secret rescue plan.