Finding out where you are; Matthew 12:33-36

A tree is known by it's fruit. Am I bearing fruit? If I am abiding in Him than yes. (John 15) "If I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in my heart that God raised Him from the dead, I will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses resulting in salvation." (Romans 10:9-10) So why don't i see fruit all the time, because if He is in me after confession then he should be in me, the hope of glory and I am abiding in Him. This is where the heart comes in. God is always in us once we live out Romans 10, but when we don't see fruit, it's not that he is not there, and not within us. It is just that we believe a lie which leads to sin. Our heart gives into that because we don't know if he is in us or not (lack of faith in who he is and who we are).

Well if you truly live out Romans 10 and live out the gospel he is in you, the hope of glory. Jesus is Lord, Christ in you, the one who is always faithful to abiding. Do we believe this? Do we also know that it's not about us? Let Him bear fruit through you, He wants to. Are we aware that He wants to or are we hiding the goodness of the Lord behind a lie that our heart has given into? How do we know where our heart is?

"Out of the overflow of the mouth the heart speaks." If God abides in you, you can be affected by Him or a lie, so when we speak out of pride and selfishness then that is probably a good indicator of where your heart is. Be aware of what you say. If you want Him, choose Him and walk in faith confidently. Words reveal character. Listening is sometimes better than speaking.

"But I will tell you every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it on the day of judgment." Again be aware of what you say. But don't be silent out of fear, but out of awareness of who God made us to be. Why speak careless words and why speak mindless chatter? Does this advance God's Kingdom? No, then why do we still say it?

Glorify God in all things. Focus your whole being on Him. The Holy Spirit will help you see where you are at

A letter

This is a letter I wrote to my milledgeville family and these are some things I learned from being around them, if you want to know how to love and be part of something great go to school at georgia college and hang out with this crew!

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am writing to you from not only experiences in your church, but from my heart. A lot of what I have learned and seen throughout my years being with your church has taught me to live. It has shown me the goodness of faith, not only why I should have faith, but why I should walk in it. It has been by the way you have lived your lives, I have seen Jesus in ways that blow my mind, my perspective, my thoughts, and my dreams. You have taught me to know Him, not just about Him. You taught me that prayer changes things.

I am talking to each one of you. If you are in Milledgeville, I am talking to you and you specifically. You all have shown me God in new ways, and in that respect, I am indebted to your devotion and love to the Lord and your care for my heart. You all are such a unified church and family. You have made yourselves a tight family and now you are the foundation for your church, so now that you have laid this ground work, God’s kingdom can come in an almighty way. Everyone in Milledgeville can know God because of this foundation, if you allow Him to be known. It starts with one person at a time. It starts with relationship. Seeing people the way God sees them. It is watching Him work on people’s hearts and not yourselves. It is living from heaven’s perspective. It is seeing every single moment as a holy moment, no matter if it is good or bad. Be thankful in all things, he has given you every moment for a specific reason. Embrace change. See yourself the way God sees you. The truth is God is within you all, so if you feel like you haven’t done anything to influence my life, you are wrong. He deserves more credit than we give Him, and because He is in you, I give you some credit for being obedient to Him and by making him come alive in your awareness of Him. That love and passion he has given you, you are definitely letting it shine, no bushels in this house. This is what I want to discuss with you. Your identity in Christ.

He is alive. He is the ground of your being. He is your homeland. If you want him, look within yourself. Stop searching other places, you don’t have to go anywhere. Stop adding things to your life, you have all you want and need inside of you. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Amen. This life is all about letting go and letting God. It is about subtracting, not adding. When you let go, you will be more aware of Him and in that you will see Him more and more. This intimacy with Him and seeing how He is in control of all things and moving throughout it all will birth you into action. You have all you need. His grace is enough and more than that. These things sound too good to be true, don’t they? God lives in me and that’s all I need? It is to focus on Him and be aware of Him where he is? See what he sees? Do what he does? All life is, is about Him and somehow these fruits from the spirit just become alive to others? It all sounds too good to be true. Well it is too good and it is way to true.

Know that there are two kingdoms you can serve: Yours or God’s.
If you ever serve yourself, you are probably questioning, Is God who he says he is. For example is “God really good? I don’t know so I will take control of it myself.” Or another doubt we can have is, am I really who he made me to be? and because of that doubt you take control. Answering these questions with a faithless heart can lead down a path of self righteousness and self seeking. And every decision we are ever faced with leads down one of these two paths: your fleshly path or God’s.
Now “the good news” is that God has created us so that we were really made for his path all the time and that is also the path that is most satisfying. Now you may feel that his path is not most satisfying in the moment, but it is the best for you. He knows the best way to love you. If you feel that it is not satisfying when you go down his path, then that means you are just being made more like him and he is building up your faith. Now we end up taking our own path, the faithless selfish one, because we don’t truly believe he has the best for us. We end up taking control because we always want answers, we don’t want to feel like we are left in the dark. When we take control, we can have the results turn out the way we want them to. We feel momentary satisfaction, because we are getting results on our time table. We imprison ourselves with our thoughts and our mind then it controls us. It “feels” ok to be put in prison because we know what is ahead of us. You were not made for a prison of the mind or selfish decision making. You were made to be free. It is for freedom Christ set us free, so do not submit yourselves again to a yoke to slavery. (Gal. 5:1) Your thoughts are not who you are. Your mind is not who you are. You are God’s and He is in you.

Do not let judgment bring you down, nor pride. If there is any quarrel amongst your group, know that it is a two way street of loving. If there is any “heat” you have between each other, open communication is the key. But meeting with the Lord before you speak is more important so you see them the way the Lord does. Know the Lord loves you and know you are already taken care, expect nothing in return from the ones you meet with to have open conversation. Love like you have love from the Lord. Remember you are all unique and you all leaders to someone in some way. But more importantly you are servants. If you cast judgment that is going to rip up your relationship with them and how you view that person. If you have a negative judgmental perspective on someone that is going to have some effect when you come in contact with them. If you feel they are not living out who they are (how God’s see them) tell them that, but they always have the identity that God have given them and that is Christ in them. So see Jesus in them.

Keep loving and unifying the other parts of the body (other ministries) in Milledgeville. If you are not moving or they are not moving you might be slowing down some kingdom advancement. Just like the foot can’t go anywhere without the leg. God’s kingdom has no divide and he wanted himself to be known to all. Your heart for unity and family is straight from the Father’s heart. Keep excelling in this and keep excelling in growing your family, by again seeing them the way God does, by pulling/calling out the Jesus in everyone.

I talked to brother Ben Battles and first I want to say you are in good hands. If you don’t know him, He is most attractive by his words of wisdom and acts of love. He is not phased by words or things of this world, he only moves to the beat of God’s heart. If I have learned something from him and our relationship it is his humility and servanthood. Having said this, he desires your church to be fully immersed in His presence, fully immersed in communing with every part of the body, and seeing everyone, whether they have faith in Jesus or not, as God sees them, the reward.

If you want to know how to break apathy or feel that your church isn’t moving to further the kingdom, walk in faith (act even if you don’t feel anything, God is there, He will show up and let Him love through you), prayer (talking to Him, Knowing Him) (John 17:3), and fasting (getting rid of things that are around the heart that aren’t of God, a life of surrender, the greatest way to love).

You have really been a people that know how to love. You are the best lovers I know, I give you these challenges or things to think about throughout this letter because I know you can handle it. God is so proud of you. You have the source of life in you and with that you can change Milledgeville forever and your time in Milledgeville can go down in history because there were a bunch of scrubs like yourselves decided that you would lose your life so God may be glorified, some people call this a revival; Jesus calls it normal Christianity.

I pray that God would release a grace and anointing on your heart to love Him with everything.

Be still and know He is God.

I love every single one of you with all my heart! You are so close to my heart, I will most definitely write you brothers and sisters again.

Seeing God Gen. 1:26

I apologize that I have not written to you brothers and sisters in awhile, school has been hectic finishing it up, but I have some requests of things to write about and I will get to those later, thank you for waiting patiently. I love you all.

This blog post is about seeing God in everything. Now some people may see this as pantheistic. I am not saying all is God, but I am saying that his creativity, his workmanship is in all things. I think there is definitely a difference in Him and his creation, but I also believe in Genesis 1:26.

If we see God in everything and see things the way He does, we will be preparing the way for heaven on earth. There is creatvity that is from God in everyone. It is finding his personality in all things he created and calling those things out in a believer or a non-believer. It is having dove eyes for the Lord (look at old posts if you dont know what dove eyes are), but having dove eyes for Him you see things as they are. You see reality. What would happen if we saw God moving in and around us all the time and through everything? What if we could go wherever the spirit was telling us to go? What if we were able to call out God in someone who doesnt know Him and encourage them in that way? To see them as a person of peace and not some enemy. Hate the sin not the sinner. How does God see that "sinner"? He sees them as someone in his image, in his likeness. The question is do we? Everyone is the prize for God. He does all he can so he can have us at the end of the day while still truly loving us. Be praying that God would illuminate things of Him in others, so they can be awakened to God wanting them, wanting them so badly he gave them creative characteristics like Him.
I pray God would remove everything that stands in the way of love. Preconceptions, Judgments, Lies, Labels from the world, etc.

P.S.- If you see God moving in everything , even in bad times, they will not be bad times. Focus on what God is doing, not things that have already happened. You were made to gaze on his face and intimacy with Him. This will give you life and life to the full. What a joy! No more need to strive, just be. Enjoy Him, he always enjoys you!

Faith/Wisdom and Logic

Faith is the only way to walk. Faith and true wisdom work hand in hand. They are the same. We walk in faith and wisdom. When we walk in faith we are being the most wise, because we claim we don't have everything figured out, but we know someone that does (The Lord). Socrates thought this way when he was on trial, he talked against the people in the city because they claimed to know everything, but he said he was the wisest because he was claiming that he didn't know everything like these leaders in this city.

But there are some people who walk in faith because people told them to, but they may not be aware of the implications and the holiness that comes with true faith. That's where I think some logic or thinking can help. Not saying it is needed but it can help.

Now I think God can also use Logic for good. I don't think it's the solution, I don't think it's life or death, but it can be good. Yes, the mind can be maipulative, but God is using all things for our good.

Logic can be used to show the goodness of faith. People can walk in faith and not know why or they can get a logical understanding through the word or why faith is so good to walk in. Logic can show it's purpose. God gave you a brain to get closer to Him. Use it, but don't ever and I mean EVER let it be your master. Your thoughts are not who you are! God shows who you are. He reveals the goodness of all things and he can use your mind to do it. He can reveal the goodness of faith through what he gave you. Whatever you are doing in life, God can be using it for good, even though man and this earth can make it look bad.

http://gfc.tv/snellville/2010/12/advent-love/

check this video out, me giving a sermon back in december about love out of the overflow and out of obedience. just copy the title of this post and put it as your url. Hope you enjoy it.

Knowledge/Understanding and Wisdom/Revelation Acts 1:1

This is a continuation of Do and teach. So read that first if you haven't.

Knowledge and understanding are not bad things it's just not the place we want to teach from. We want to teach from wisdom and revelation which comes from the Holy Spirit. We can take Knowledge and understanding and meet God with that head knowledge and receive wisdom and revelation from Him. It's going from a place of "knowing about" things to actually "knowing (yedah)" them. "It's taking the things we know and bridging them over to the unknown"- AW Tozer. Knowledge and understanding are good things and they can be the beginning of something great, it becomes a great platform to jump off of, but lasting fruit does not come from that place. It comes from God, when you encounter Him and let him teach you. Let the scriptures be illuminated to you by the Spirit.

For example: The Pharisees always taught out of knowledge/understanding of the law, but they never saw it with God's eyes. Jesus saw where the Father was going when the law came into place. He met with the Father then taught from that place of wisdom and revelation. Crucial difference between Pharisees and Jesus. Jesus had the Father's perspective because He met with him and taught from that place instead of some words he got from a book or some things he heard from the mouths of the surrounding people.

A Leaking Vision can cause an Apathetic Heart

This is something I picked up on when I was talking to Josh Perkinson, Maeghan Keaton (my wonderfully amazing girlfriend), and Lauren Lisle. So thank you peeps! I was washing my hands when I thought about all this stuff that I shared with them.

Some ways an apathetic heart can be produced is not trusting in God or the vision that leaks out of the minds of the body. So vision needs to be constantly brought up. Where are we going? Where does God want us to go? What is His vision for us?

I have been in a lot of questioning when it comes to what God wants for my campus. Then I just asked him. If we look at it scripturally, He wants his people, so he not only wants the campus he wants the city, the nations, and the world. He wants people to KNOW Him. So if that is his heart, why not go love what he loves. So our vision is going after the city and for everyone to hear the gospel. Walking towards God's heart is being obedient to God. If we don't see the whole city know Him in our time (4-6 years in college) we are still successful because we are walking towards what He cares about and we are walking towards the vision he gave us. Our measure of success is measured in our obedience to the Lord. If we become like the shephards of the east and go after this vision ourselves, than we are successful. Let's Go! Go Love! Be Love! Live like Jesus!

P.S. God delights in you, so it's not about doing, just have faith that he already sees you as a great success and a great reward. He does all things in His power to have you, you are his reward. He loves his people.