Rain... thunder... lightning...

Rain falls... thunder rolls... lightning makes the night become day. God. No other is capable of such greatness. Some might call it rain. It is God. Some might call it thunder. It is God. Some might call it lightning. It is God. Beyond these things, it is good, because it is God.

Sorrow fills my soul this night. These are the times when you come to know who true friends are and come to doubt others. Do these others have an agenda? Do they love so that I might do something? Or do they love because they are called by Christ to love with no condition? Do they really love at all?

Children, women, men... all over the world... dying from hunger. In pain. Loving. Being strong. Even with death near. Do we care? Do we know? Do we love?

Answering the call of Christ is not to love when it is convenient to us. It is to love when it pains us most. When we'd like to not love. When we'd rather turn our eyes to a more joyous time... to pretend for a moment that pain is not there knocking on our door. Through this, we must love. To follow Christ is to love in the dark corners... in the homes of sorrow and pain... in the places and to the people we'd rather not encounter. It is not easy. Yet it is our call. To love Christ is to do these things. To ignore these things is to ignore our Father's desire for us.

We must never surrender to any way of this world, even for a moment. To have a moment where we strive for anything less than perfection is to spend a moment outside of true desire to follow Christ. For Christ calls us to come and die from our old life and be born into a life of discipleship. Do we know this? Do we seek this? Do we strive to be this each and every day?

To truly follow Christ, we must love with our all every moment of our lives. This is our call. It is not new - it is everlasting and alive today, just as Christ. He lives within us to remind us of His love - that we may share this love with all whom we encounter every second of every day.

The love of Christ fills my heart with joy this night. Joy that overpowers the burden of sorrow. When we cry out to Jesus, He will guide us, He will comfort us, He will love us like no other. He alone turns darkness into light... a light that can never be bright enough. It only grows, as we let it dwell within us and become brighter with each day we continue to follow Him. May we learn by this example, so that we might be the hands and feet of Jesus upon this earth - to share His love with those who need it most - and by spreading the Kingdom upon this earth, prepare the way of the Lord.

Praise be to our God, for He is worthy. Hallelujah. God is good.

all praise be to you Jesus,
chris

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Time to Unload

Whew. It's been a while. I'm becoming very frustrated with some stuff, so I'm going to use this journal entry to unload a lot of different stuff that's weighing me down right now. Some of it is things about others frustrating me... some of it is stuff about me that frustrates me... some of it is good stuff that fills my heart with joy beyond belief. With that said, here goes...

Selfishness irks me greatly. In others. In myself. Why do we allow ourselves to become so self-centered that we become ignorant to living our lives for others? Why do we put ourselves before others? Why do we veer so far away from living a life of serving others with every breath that we take? People wanting things just because they 'want it their way' annoys me a lot. When I see it in myself it annoys me even more. I pray that all of us might do less and less for ourselves and more and more for others.

Worship is not a song. Going to church or experiencing worship is not 'going for the music' or picking a church with the best music. Music is something we enjoy... we call it "praise and worship" all the time, but something deep inside me leads me to believe that we're letting it replace real praise and worship. The disciples didn't hang out in nice buildings with cool sound systems trying to find the best music to minister to people. They "praised and worshiped" the way Jesus calls us to live... by loving God and loving others, and taking that message to the multitudes. It wasn't through a song, but in living it out in their lives and going beyond words... bringing their words to become a reality. That is our challenge. Our worship cannot be comprised of a song we enjoy singing. True worship is giving God everything that we have of worth - namely, our lives. That's the nature of the word... worth ship. In Jesus' time, if you were a fisherman, your ship was everything. No ship = no food, no money, no sustenance, no life. If you brought your ship to Him and gave it up to Him, that was offering everything. This is what Jesus calls of us in true worship. Repeating words that somebody else wrote to a tune that we really enjoy and that excites us is not what God ever asked for. Living our lives in the way that He asks us to is exactly what He asks for. Let's not let songs and theatrics take us away from what true worship and discipleship is.

To truly seek, you've gotta truly seek. Too many of us are letting things slide and yet trying to lead others and thinking that we know more than we do. Read. Study. Pray. Meditate. Let His thoughts fill your mind and your own thoughts ebb away. To serve our God best, we must learn as much as we can from the story He has left for us through time. We are being very poor stewards of our own time and of others time to try leading others while neglecting to lead ourselves to a life of holiness. We must seek the Word before we attempt to describe and paint it for another.

It never ends. Too many of us are content with where we are. We find a spot that we feel comfortable and stay there for as long as we can until someone else shoves us out, and then we find another spot of comfort. Never stop searching. Never stop seeking. Never stop working to bring the Kingdom to where we are on earth. Becoming a Christian is not a one-time event where you say a prayer and it's over. Truly following Jesus involves just that... following Him. When you follow someone who is literally everywhere, that journey never ends. It will take you to the ends of the earth and beyond. Never become comfortable... that is the first sign that you are slipping. Let God be your guide, and never be afraid to jump on the journey He takes you on. Keep going. "Oh, if this should be the last day that I have before I breathe the air of heaven let me live it with abandon to the only thing that remains after my last day here on earth." Keep going. Never stop. God never stops. Why should we?

Apathy is a killer. Maybe apathy isn't the best word. I don't know. This attitude makes me want to lie down and cry in pain: 'We can never be perfect, so it's okay if we don't do stuff right! Plus, if God's really in control, it'll all work out and it doesn't matter what we do.' If that is true, then why would God send his Son to bring us a message of how to live and because of such dying upon a cross for the sake of bringing us this message and living it out in perfection? If we're so dead set on us not being perfect, why would Jesus say to us, "Go and be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect," or why would He say, "Love others as I have loved you," if He didn't think we were capable of these things? "Time's up! God's kingdom is here. Repent and believe the message." Believing is doing. Is the message coming alive in your life?

Don't let anything ever come between you and your desire to praise God with your life. Let all good things come only from the love you have for your Father and the infinite love He has for you. Do all things in the light of His glory. He is here. All is well. Believe. Do. Bring the words to life through your own life. Embody what is true and holy, and never seek anything less.

All glory be to God, for He is good. Hallelujah. He is good.

seeking to love with all of me,
chris

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