My Quest for Love continues

 
       God has had me on this quest to learn how to love for quite some time now. Close to this time last year He was teaching me how to love unconditionally and it totally rocked my world. It wasn't an easy lesson to learn. He was teaching me to love people that have hurt me despite the hurt. My tendency, and I think it's most of our tendencies, is to withhold love from someone when they've hurt me. It's a protection thing. I don't want to just throw my love around when people are just gonna keep hurting me. But if you look at the life of Jesus, He loved. End of story. There was no, oh but in this case the hurt was just too great and He needed to "guard his heart" or protect himself from getting hurt again. No! Even when He was beaten passed recognition and hanging on a cross He still turned His face to Heaven and said "Father forgive them for they don't know what they are doing". That is the greatest example of love, and you know what He got in return? They continued to make fun of Him and hurt Him. There was no happy ending to that day. He died, and His killers were totally ok with it.

   Here I am again, reliving what God taught me last year but this time on another level. This time He showed me another aspect of Love. Love associates with EVERYONE! Even if you don't agree with the way a person lives, how they act, how they talk....Love still loves even them! Those people that go to church and say all the right things and then turn around and act totally different, those people who live a lifestyle that doesn't glorify God, the sinners, you know the person you really dislike that is the last person you ever want to love. Our tendency is to say we shouldn't associate with people who could potentially corrupt us. BUT!!!! Let's once again look at what Jesus did, oh that's right! He hung out with the liers, cheaters, adulterers, murderers, and poor people. He didn't care about His reputation. They deserve love just as much as the "perfect" people, if not they need it more! Jesus laid down his reputation to love the unloved.
  
     I have no doubt in my mind that there were times when Jesus didn't feel like loving His enemies, I mean He was human, but the difference was, He knew how to live by the Spirit. He didn't allow His flesh to react the way it wanted to. He always followed what the Spirit said to do. If we are living by the Spirit, He will not only lead us to love those we don't want to love, but He will give us the strength to walk it out. The Holy Spirit never tells you to do something you are not able to do. It may not be easy, but you can do it!
  
Unconditional love is hard. It's a huge process that I dont know if you can ever even get completely right. Especially when there are people in your life that are just so challenging that they try your ability to love to no end! And we all have someone like that in our lives. But God says were still supposed to love them and Jesus showed us that it's totally possible! And not only Jesus, but the Bible is full of examples of people that learned to love even the most challenging individuals. It is not impossible!
 
     There are so many aspects to love and I'm seeing that the more and more God opens my eyes to them. He's even showed me that my love for Him can be conditional. I mean, how often on a sunday morning your tired or don't like the music or the teaching and you decide God isn't gonna get your worship and praise then? That's conditional love. I'm not happy so I'm not gonna make you happy. Love isn't easy, but it's what we are called to.

When it's all said and done, God isn't gonna ask us how much we did with our life, how much money we made, or how pure and sinless we were....He's gonna ask us, "Did you learn to love?"

"Except the Lord that build the house......"

   There is nothing I find more interesting then reading about the history of the Untied States of America. We are such a privileged, God ordained nation and how we came about and have continued to keep going has been nothing short of a miracle. I'm currently reading "From Sea to Shining Sea" by Peter Marshall & David Manuel. It is the second of a series of three about God's plan for America. It is the most inspiring piece of literature I think I've ever read. So as I'm reading you can expect me to post things things that jump off the page at me. Here is today's tidbit. It takes place in Philadelphia in 1787, a year after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. After much bickering and fighting about what direction to take our new nation, Benjamin Franklin took leave to say what was on his mind.

"How has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understanding? In the beginning of the contest with Britain when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers, sir," he looked at Washington, "were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of superintending Providence in our favor...And have we now forgotten this powerful friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?

I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: "that God governs in the affairs of man.' And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?

We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it, I firmly believe this. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little, partial, local interest; our projects will be confounded; and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, or conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business."
-Benjamin Franklin

   Mind you, Benjamin Franklin was not a christian. He was known for his Rationalist views and he was the last person anyone would have expected to make such a statement.
   God, I pray that you raise up a Benjamin Franklin in our government today. A man that see's the importance of you in governing our nation and will stand up and boldly speak about the future of our country without the hand and wisdom of God guiding our every decision, even if he may not be fully convinced himself.

Album Update!

The Oil to Fire band! Only the most awesome band ever!

   Hey Everyone! I know it's been quite some time since I've posted an update. As most of you can sympathize, life gets away from you. Learning how to balance everything is something that you have to re-learn each time you enter a new season of your life. Well, blogging just did not take priority.

   I am happy to announce that we have successfully completed our six weeks of prayer and worship! We got all of the recordings and after 16 hours of working, Corey and I narrowed it down to what is now the line up for the "fire" portion of the album. It's exciting to start seeing this project come together and I'm so excited to see it finished completely! I know God is doing something through it and it's so exciting to be a part of it!

  Well I know this is short but I will try to do better at posting updates! Things are moving! Keep your eyes peeled for exciting pics, video and updates on the album! We hope to have a release date soon!

Oil to Fire night 2 recap!

Once again, another great night of prayer and worship! Corey and I each had our personal time with God during the day and He once again gave both of us vision and direction for the night. We prayed for Education in America! We prayed for each school district, all the teachers, all the students! We prayed for God to move in our schools! It was great! We even had the privilege of praying for teachers in our midst last night. We have quite a few homeschool families and even public school teachers! We will continue to keep them in prayer as they educate the next generation of leaders in our nation!

This is such an important topic because of the very fact that if we do not properly educate the younger generation, then we are partly responsible for how our nation turns out. We really need to take education seriously. It is our job to invest ourselves in our children. Not only just in schools but in our churches as well. It is absolutely vital that we take interest in serving the children in our church and raise them up to be mighty men and women of God. Our government may try to keep God out of our schools, but are we gonna deny children the right to learn about God in church? That's where it's supposed to be, but too often we get caught up in our selfishness of needing to get something out of church for ourselves, instead of church being a place where we can serve and build each other up. Children's ministry becomes second to our own personal growth. When we are spending time with God daily and getting filled up from Him personally, thats when we look at church with a servant mindset rather than a consumer mindset and that's when church becomes what it's supposed to be. The family of God serving each other and building up one another in Christ. So there's my little tangent on that.

Be sure to join us again next week! Same time and place! God is doing awesome stuff! You don't wanna miss out!

Oil to Fire night 1 recap :)

 Last tuesday was amazing! I was kinda nervous at first, I mean you never really know how something like this is gonna go. Corey and I know that we are called to prophetic worship and the way we feel led to lead in this way is to pray and get God's heart for the evening and then just see what happens! As far as the "Oil" hour goes, we sat down about 10 minutes before we were gonna start and asked God, "what do we do?" We don't really plan out our songs. We wait for God to lead us. So, I really shouldn't ever be surprised but I'm just always so impressed with God. Corey got the song "Wrap me in your arms" and I got the song "Embrace"! I just love it. At first I was kinda bummed because I was thinking "aww man, it's not the same song". Then I thought about what the songs were and just started laughing. I'm so impressed with God and how He does things. So we had our direction and just went for it. And it was so great! I love just being able to sing whatever God puts on my heart in that moment! It's so cool! There's really no other place I'd rather be. It was perfect.

The "Fire" part of the night was just fantastic! I couldn't be happier with the band and how they have just taken the vision that Corey and I have and just made it their own! They did amazing! It was such a great time of prayer for families in America! I know God is moving through them. Prayer makes such a difference! I think we really underestimate it sometimes! But it moves God's heart when we take time out of our busy schedules to come to something like this to cry out for the important things in the world! How much do we want to see change! How much sacrifice are we willing to make! I don't think that 2 hours of prayer is too much sacrifice. Jesus gave His life. That's what I want to give.

I look at what God has called me to, and I'm just in awe. Really He knows me so much better than any person ever will, and even myself! He has guided me to exactly what He knows I'll be good at and what I'll love. He's never gotten it wrong! Yeah, sometimes I think He's absolutely out of His mind, but He's way to good to not follow. He always makes it work. ALWAYS!
Well I hope to see you at Oil to Fire next week! Were gonna be praying for EDUCATION!!!! I can't wait!