Open the Door

How many times have you woke up, got a cup of coffee, sat down to read, looked across the room to an empty seat, looked at the sun rising out the window, and felt the joy of the unspeakable freedom of a new dawn?  


Well that's me right now.


How many times will I get to do this?  Will today bring me a new revelation about this awesome gift in front of me? So many questions flood my mind.  My worries, my doubts, my fears, my hopes and dreams.  Will I be strong enough today to fight whatever is thrown at me?  Will I remember to eat lunch?  Will I remember to feed Jack my cat?  Probably not.  But more importantly as I juggle all of  my thoughts I come to a special one.  What am I here for today?


You see for years this question lurked in the back of my mind.  Silent, or maybe even just stayed unreachable.  Maybe I didn't want to "go there" because of the doubt that I wasn't worth being here.  Maybe I even woke up, looked in the mirror and said unknowingly, "I'm not that important so why bother".  Well, today I want to approach an answer to "why am I here".  


Before I tease the idea any longer, the answer has exploded through the life which has come to me through Jesus alone.  For some, this statement blocks attempts to continue reading on.  Understandably that will happen, for the Bible says, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing (laugh at the thought of Jesus), but to us who are saved it is the power of God. For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.'

      "Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?       

"For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

So to say, my life is full now that Christ is in me and is now fully understood as I have given my life to Christ is something I have come to find through faith in what God has spoken to me.  I am not writing actually to convince anyone or "save a soul".  I actually sat down to write about how much I love my friends, but other thoughts flooded my heart.  

Now I'll share how a great God speaks to a weird 24 year old. As I sit, there is a seat in front of me.  For the last few weeks now I have played as a child plays, but in the morning.  I have toyed with the idea of an imaginary friend.  I know that through what God has slowly taught me (since I'm a slow learner), Christ is here with me always.  So I have literally opened my front door in the morning, welcoming in Jesus and giving Him the seat in front of me.  Yes, I too thought I was going mad.  But just that simple strange, weird, or awkward attempt at making Jesus more real, has made Jesus more real in my life!  

I want to know more about Jesus.  I don't want the stained-glass picture or the mosaic or the long-haired friendly Jesus with two thumbs up, but the REAL Jesus.  I have assumed for far to long that Jesus was this almost unreachable God-man, loving, yes, but not extremely personal.  Man has He tossed those thoughts in the wind.  As I walk throughout my day I see so many icons of Him, or vague ideas or even in church sometimes I feel like I am brought so close to Him but then only hear about a story and how I can apply it to my life.  But what about this Jesus figure, this God-man that so many Christians believe in?  Do the stories I read and hear about change me into wanting to be like Jesus or was is it Jesus Himself who is in me and has changed me?  I know that the more I think about the stories I think about how much I love Jesus, not the story itself.  He is so cunning, so creative, so wise, so funny even, so passionate, so witty and of course loving!  I love the guy! I love my God! Today think about how you want to learn and seek the real true Jesus, and not just what has been painted for you to see Him as.  Because He is so real!  

So as I sit with Jesus across from me, He too enjoys the morning (oh and He doesn't need any coffee, but He drinks it anyway), but not just this morning, but the whole day.  When I am done with my coffee, He actually lives in my heart, teaching, guiding and truth be told- He makes me laugh about crazy things that He created in this world.  I love Him.  Maybe this is you.  Praise God!  Share this.  NOT THIS BLOG!  (because God knows I am not a writer)  Share the real Jesus with people you know.  Not just as evangelists have 'expressed' how to speak and act door to door, but be real!  God didn't create you to be real and intentional with only other believers.  We have the same personality no matter where we are and who we're with, if not we are being fake!  Someday maybe soon, the enemy will have a force against us so strong that he may kill Christians left and right even more so than already.  Learn now how real Christ is and how real He is in your life.  

Seek Him and you WILL find Him, He's so awesome!

So to answer my question, "Why am I Here", I'll answer with this, I am here not for myself or others but because God loved me so much He gave me life and now I get to learn all of my life about Him till the day I see Him face to face!  

Woe is me!

God,

I want to write to you, because I know you are here, and because you know me.

Because of both of those reasons I am broken and fearful.  You are God and are everything amazing.  I am a mess, a complete pile o dead twigs, not even a flower budding in my dead vines. I am rarely ever a useful bud or a living shoot.  I am striving and trying to grow but have been getting so confused by your pruning that I often give up or become to lazy to think about how you actually are helping me grow.  I get scared because of my lack of fruitfulness because I am most likely not doing to well in pleasing you.  I want to be your son whom you are pleased to watch and listen to at all times.  I am definitely not someone you are pleased with at all times.  I am a mess, and by mess I mean lost.  I am never remaining in your love, nor obeying you.  I think I am, feel like I am, think people think I am, but really are not.  I am fake.  I am a lie.  I am something like a huge actor, whom people love but is nothing charming off-stage.  I am always telling myself I am remaining in you, or feeling like people think I am, but never really are.  I am very distant.  Very lazy and horribly focused.  I need help staying focused!  

I want to be clean, new, impressive to you, holy, fixed, real, excited that I am in your love.  But I walk out of your love so often.  I get confused, get misguided, lose track, jump off the path, push you out of my mind.  I am disobedient.  I am sorry Lord.  How come you are still here with me?  Even at my darkest moments of anger, bitterness, lies, hatred, doubt, laziness, confusion or fear you are still there with me.  You never leave me.  Although I knew all while in my fit I could hear your voice, I turned my ear away from you though.  Like I am some kid being told to stop playing with his toys and come eat.  You know I need food and deep down I know I do too, but I just want to do what I want to do.  I heard you saying 'come eat', but I said maybe later, I want to pout awhile longer.  I heard, 'you are heir to my fathers inheritance' and I agreed but didn't care to get out of my pitiful fit of disobedience.  I heard, 'but i love you'.  And I stopped in my tracks and listened, turned back and for some reason kept on.  I am not what I feel I should be.  

I hear so often 'you're a wreck, sooner or later you'll be forgotten' and 'you know better, don't listen to your heart "he" doesn't know what's best for you'.  What have I done to myself?  I am a mess within a mess.  I listen to lies and forget how to listen to the truth.  I forget to remain in His love.  Even through all of my fits of anger, fear, confusion, etc. are in the middle of preparing a lesson for youth group.  On John 15 mind you.  O what a fake I am found to be in my lonely front room.  I hate how I am given credit of being solid enough to teach but I myself am seeing how fruitless I really am.  I should have so much fruit, I should be solid.  I shouldn't be getting angry, upset, frustrated and bitter for getting a ticket for an expired plate, or for not getting a job that gives me joy, or for having to pay out the wazoo for car repairs that came out of nowhere.  So often I hear 'WHY ME'.  'What did I do?'  Why am I such a confused, bitter young man.  I'm not even a bitter old man, I'm already bitter and almost 24.  

God, I hate what I know you hate in me.  I want to be better, I need to be what you want me to be.  But I get in the way so much!  I want to be your son, but I'm more like the distant cousin that never comes around.  I'm like the forgot rotting dish in the back of our fridge.  I am so messed up.  I am not right, because I have not remained in you.  At a time when I should be blissfully filled with peace, I am weighted down by my selfishness.  You know Lord, I just read over the last week 1&2 Samuel and 1&2 Kings, Ezra..and I get it so much better now!  How you are the true vine and how "Israel was planted as the vine, entirely true...but became a wild vine, turned to bitterness" Jeremiah 2:21.  And how now you are my King!  How you are now the true vine.  The vine, not just a random shoot, but the vine.  And not just some random story either, you knew what you were talking about! I hate how I forget and get distracted.  Help me to remember to remain in you and to know that you remain in me.  I need to be alright with getting pruned, and getting my feet taken from underneath me.  Without it I won't remember whose hand is always there to pull me back up.  Thanks for remaining in me, because my excuses and failures get the best of me.  I need to own up to my lack of remaining in you and remember you are always near.

Praise you God for sending your son to come for me and to die for my sins, as heavy of a burden as they were and forgave me! 

Woe is me!

ah, there you are, now I feel better.

Did God send the angel to save Ishmael so that Islam could exist since Moslems believe Ishmael is the father of the Arabs?

I would say this about the angel sparing Abraham's son, Ishmael. In his covenant with Abraham God promised that He would bless the seed of Abraham and those who blessed him (Genesis 12:1-3, etc.). I believe that God's blessing on Abraham was both general (all his physical descendants) and specific (through the designated "seed" of Abraham, starting with Isaac, then followed by Jacob, etc.).

Thus God spared Ishmael as a result of His general promise, but the blessings pronounced on Ishmael are certainly inferior to the covenant blessings pronounced on Isaac (compare Genesis 17:21; 21:12-13). We see that Ishmael was blessed, because he was the son of Abraham, but he was not the one through whom God's covenant blessings would be passed down. God kept His promise to make Ishmael a great nation of him (21:18), but that is the limit.

I am reminded of the fate of Jacob and Esau. By God's sovereign choice His covenant blessings passed through Jacob, not Esau (even though Esau was the first-born). Esau was given a blessing (Genesis 27:38-40), but it was decidedly inferior to the covenant blessing pronounced on Jacob (Genesis 27:26-29). In the blessing of Jacob he (Jacob) is told that his brothers would bow down to him (27:29).

In Romans 9:6-13 Paul shows how God sovereignly chose to bless Jacob over Esau, as He blessed Isaac over Ishmael. Thus, Islam is inconsistent with Scripture if it claims that the primary blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant were passed down through Ishmael. Was he born before Isaac? Yes. But so too Esau was born before Jacob. God had the right to choose the younger over the older (Genesis 25:23; 27:40; note Genesis 48:8-22).

Yes, God did preserve Ishmael's life, and He did bless him, but not as the son through whom the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant would pass, not as the one through whom Messiah would come (Genesis 49:8-12).

Remember that God also used angels to rescue Lot, and through Lot's daughters two nations were begotten. But it was not through Lot that the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant would pass (see Genesis 19).

Merely being a descendant of Abraham (as, indeed, Muhammad may have been) does not save anyone.

6 It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all those who are descended from Israel are truly Israel (Romans 9:6).

It was not through Abraham's seed -- the nation Israel (as if "seed" were plural) -- but through Jesus (Abraham's "seed" is singular) that the blessings of God's covenant with Abraham come upon men (Jews and Gentiles and Arabs, who trust in Jesus):

15 Brothers and sisters, I offer an example from everyday life: When a covenant has been ratified, even though it is only a human contract, no one can set it aside or add anything to it. 16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his descendant. Scripture does not say, "and to the descendants," referring to many, but "and to your descendant," referring to one, who is Christ (Galatians 3:15-16).

Abraham's spiritual seed are all those, Jew or Gentile, who place their trust in Jesus as the promised Messiah, as God's only way of salvation:

13 For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would inherit the world was not fulfilled through the law, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14 For if they become heirs by the law, faith is empty and the promise is nullified. 15 For the law brings wrath, because where there is no law there is no transgression either. 16 For this reason it is by faith so that it may be by grace, with the result that the promise may be certain to all the descendants-not only to those who are under the law, but also to those who have the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all 17 (as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations"). He is our father in the presence of God whom he believed-the God who makes the dead alive and summons the things that do not yet exist as though they already do (Romans 4:13-17).

26 For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. 27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female-for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:26-29).

Now, did God intend for there to be Islam? God is sovereign as so Islam has come into existence because God chose to use it, just as He chose to use Pharaoh, who opposed His people:

17 For the scripture says to Pharaoh: "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may demonstrate my power in you, and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth" (Romans 9:17).

False religions will be used of God to test the faith and fidelity of His own people:

4 Jesus answered them, "Watch out that no one misleads you. 5 For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will mislead many" (Matthew 24:4-5).

10 Then many will be led into sin, and they will betray one another and hate one another. 11 And many false prophets will appear and deceive many, 12 and because lawlessness will increase so much, the love of many will grow cold.

13 But the person who endures to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole inhabited earth as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come (Matthew 24:10-14).

Saying that God intended for Islam to exist is not saying that God meant for Islam to be a means by which men would find the forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life:

6 Jesus replied, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).

8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, replied, "Rulers of the people and elders, 9 if we are being examined today for a good deed done to a sick man-by what means this man was healed- 10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, this man stands before you healthy. 11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, that has become the cornerstone. 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:8-12).

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unMasked

Days.
Good days and bad days.


Somedays are a beautiful dream.
Some days are cold even when its warm out.
Some times I fear everyone doubts me.


I'll hate to be myself because I'm a mess.
Did the world forgot about me?


Somedays I'm alive.
I'll feel joy through every mundane spec.


I'll love the fact that I'm a mess but don't care.
I'll walk as if the world is an amusement park.


Somedays I hide.
Somedays I fight to be alright.
Somedays I lie to myself about myself.
Somedays I listen to those lies, knowing their lies.
Somedays I forget how to fight them.


Somedays I forget that the Lord saved me.
Somedays I forget that I am really special to Him.


I sit back and forget the truth.
Even though it quickly fixes me.


Everyday the enemy encircles me.
I forget to fight against him and find peace in the Lord.


This is today. This is everyday.


2 Corinthians 10:5 “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;”

Hearing God's Voice

"I am tweaked again. 
Royally flippin' tweaked.
I'm so tired and wrung, my body hurts from being tired.
Or hurts at the first chance to let down and be tired." -John Eldridge (walking with God)


"I loath my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.  Job 10:1


When the world around you seems to crumble like a flaky muffin, or when your daily joy no longer comes from what you have found comfortable; the Lord is pulling you near to him.


Over the last months the Lord has drawn me to Himself.  Although it has taken time to realize what exactly He is doing, I have found Him near to me and able to hear His voice.


Not having a job, not getting the job of my dreams, expectations crushed and fearing a daily deepening depression; I have found that life is not about the comfort of having a beautiful comfy little life.  The Lord has more in store for me than a comfy feeling at the end of the day.


He wants me, more than I've wanted Him.


I have been busy, trying to figure "it" out.  When will life ease up, or finally get into its groove.


He says, wake up! today, for today is where I want to see you seek me.  Not the things of this world.  Anything you gain in this world will be left in this world, but what you gain in Me, I will find joy in you when I see you face to face.


I have been denying my lack of devotion to Him.  I think I am fine.  I wake up an hour early to read and pray.  I pray all day long.  Face to the ground.  Having nowhere to go or no daily agenda, I cry "O, God help me!" I have been in the dust.  If I had dust around me I would have covered my body just as Job did.  But all I have is tears.


All I've wanted was to get a job, which would have taken me west 10 hours and blessed Jodi and I's life in many ways.  Am I not good enough for that job?  I must be no good.  I AM a loser.  I believed 2 months ago I would have that job, that security, that hope filled.  Now I am lost and confused after waiting to hear from them for a month.  O how we can believe satan so easily.  Agreeing to his statements.  We listen to satan and think he was right.


But the truth is: I was waiting on God to help me, when He was there all along.  Deut. 13:3 says, "The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and will all your soul."


PAIN. PA-IN. PennsylvaniA to INdiana.  All I had dreamed of, hoped for, thought I'd get.  I prayed, I fasted, I thought I did everything I was suppose to do. Right? Others prayed too!


"It's not that God doesn't want us to be happy.  He does.  It's just that he knows that until we are holy, we cannot really be happy." -John Eldridge


"Usually through pain God is asking us to let go of the things we love and have given our hearts to, so that we can give our hearts even more fully to Him." -JE


It is hard not to make agreements to the spirit of discouragement, doubt, comfort, and resignation.  To give into what we know we shouldn't.  To lose hope.


But who am I listening to?


God I am a wreck.  I want life the way I want life.  It is wrong, I know now.  Help me hear your voice.  help me to get right.  Help me hear your voice right now.  What are you speaking to me?


Daniel, you are my son, as your Father I have everything you need.  Come near to me and I will guide you where I want you to be.  Trust me.  I love you.  You are my beloved son.  Don't you know I know what I am doing?  It was just a job.  This life I have given you is bigger than that.  More important than that.  You have money saved up right?  You are safe and secure.  Now, trust me.  


O yeah, O yeah.  I forgot.  I wasn't really trying to listen to you. I was listening to myself.  


Yeah, but now you're with me.  That's all I want.


Well Lord, thanks for your peace. I was scared.  I was full of fear.  I was lost.  But now life is beautiful and I have nothing but you.  This is a blessing.


Anxiety, fear, self loathing, anger and depression: these were my choices;  I chose to listen to my enemy.  I forget satan is a real enemy.  That he is real.  More importantly, I forgot that God was real and present.  I forgot to listen to Him.


"The first and greatest command is to love God with our whole being.  yet, it is rare to find someone who is completely given over to God.  And so normal to be surrounded by people who are trying to make life work.  We think of the few who are abandoned to God as being sort of odd.  The rest of the world - the ones trying to make life work - seem perfectly normal to us."  - John Eldridge


For further encouraging guiding words go to Job 38.  The Lord replies to Jobs sorrows, confusions, fears, double-minded thoughts.  And Job 42, Job replies to the Lord.


This is how we should live.


God speaks.  We have to listen.  He is right there. Right now. Right now.  Ask Him something.  
(This sadly is rarely spoken of, even in church.  We hear hundreds of stories of God speaking to His people, but we are not taught that He speaks to us "like that anymore".  Why read and not believe He speaks to us anymore? What is it we are believing?)


God, help me see that all I need is you.  Strip away what I don't need.  Bring me closer to you.  It may bring pain.  It may be out of my comfort.  It might be different than I expected.  But if it gets me closer to you, then do it by all means.  You are God.  I cannot have reservations for this earth.  I am selfish, and my will brings me closer to earthly desires and not your will.  As I pause and wait, help me to hear your whisper, your quiet patient voice.  


"Until now you have not asked for anything in my name.  Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete."  John 16:24