The Only thing Worse than Nostalgia is Amnesia

"The Only Thing Worse than Nostalgia is Amnesia."

I feel this quote is appropriate for the revelation found from the word of God in my life lately.

Lately, I've been struggling to trust God. I've been incredibly frustrated with Him. I thought, and at times still do believe, I knew what was best in my life. I thought I knew what my priorities were.

The Israelite's spent 40 years in the desert as a consequence of their forgetfulness of Gods blessing in their lives and to humble them.

God tested them for 40 years to see if they remained faithful.

Deuteronomy chapter 8:2-5 states this:

2 And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD. 4 Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. 5 You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens you.

With this in mind, lets look at part of the story of the paralytic in Mark, chapter 2:5-12

5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”
6 And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, 7 “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
8 Immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? 9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’? 10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, 11 “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” 12 Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

There is a connection between the two although, at first, there may not seem like one.

I am going to be as bold as to say that God had to humble Israel so they would know their priority. First Spirit. First God. First His Kingdom, THEN all things will be added.

It is spoken from Christ in reference to Deuteronomy that "He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD".

We see this concept again in the story in Mark.

Jesus, when faced with the paralytic, did not immediately heal his imperfect, fleshly, body; instead, He first forgave the paralytics sin. Then, He proceeded to heal him.

This is a recurring theme and the main point I'm driving at: When we first seek in spirit, and are humbled by God, He is allowed to provide for us.

When we allow God to fix us in spirit by our seeking FIRST His kingdom, all other things will be added as a result.

The process of Israel being humbled in the desert while God provided for them also allowed for an appreciation for Gods faithfulness and provision. They sought Him, first, and their kingdom was added.

Dear God,
-I'm sorry that I've been so frustrated with you lately. You've been trying to discipline me, and discipline is a word I hate. So. Very. Much. But God, You are faithful. You humble me, You provide for me in Your divine time and in the right way. You are perfect. You are sovereign and I love You for that.

Forgive me, God, if I have to wander in the desert of humility for 40 years longer than the Israelites. I pray that You keep my feet from swelling. I pray that You keep my hope in You. I pray that You sustain me.

Fix my spirit, God. Fix my spirit, give me the motivation and vision to seek, first, Your kingdom. Give me the hope and confidence to believe that You will add all things after this according to Your perfect will.

I love You, Lord.
In Jesus' Loving and Compassionate name, Amen.

-Josh

Ours is not a god of Confusion

Today, I realized that all good and perfect things come from God; our God is not a god of confusion, but of love, insight, and truth. Truth isn't confusing, its merely informative. We can choose to ignore it or abide by it. There are consequences for these actions.

Satan confuses people. He hates it when we love God. He hates it when we choose truth; he tries to find ways to confuse us, finds ways to get us sidetracked, frustrated, or guilty. Satan tries to find ways to make us forget who we are and what we're made for.

I know now today that when I'm following God, I should be flattered when I'm being attacked by satan; it means I'm a threat to the kingdom of evil.

I love the idea that I'm being attacked now for a good reason; now I can ask God to help me fight, to strengthen me, and to give me grace to fight.

God,
Increase my faith. Help me to love. Use me to bring You glory. Help me become a better image of You.

I love you, Lord.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Love,
-Josh

Lord, Increase our Faith

I have found lately that the more I trust God with things, I try to find something else to hold on to; I hate doing that. I move from worry about one issue to worry in another.

I forget who said it, but I like the idea of "loosening my grip on things so it doesn't hurt when God pulls it out of my hands"; its something I need to do.

Today when I was praying, I looked to the mountains, and God was in the mountains. I loved everything about it. I prayed with God looking majestically at me. It seemed easy to put my worry in the hands of someone bigger than those beautiful purple mountains. God comforted me and told me that as long as I followed Him, things would work out for the best. I believe Him.

I may not like His process, but I love the end result of His work.

God, I give everything to You. I don't want to hold on to pieces of my life, but instead, have you mold my life BACK into what I was created to be. Your child. I like being a child of Yours. I want to obey You. I want to love You. I want to love what You love, hate what You hate. Align my heart with Yours. Increase my faith. Help me to not worry and to be confident in You. Strengthen my relationships and give me the grace necessary to live an extraordinary and holy life. Deliver me from evil. I trust you can do these things, God.

I love you,
in Jesus' name, Amen.

Love,
-Josh

I used to hear with my eyes and think with my feelings.

I wrote this in remembrance and appreciation of what my Savior brought me out of.
I sincerely hope this impacts someone :)

Love,
-Josh

*I used to hear with my eyes and think with my feelings, then I met Him. *

I thought I loved you satan when I thought I knew what love was.
There I moved about freely on my hands and knees,
I used to listen with my eyes.
I would think with my feelings.
Then I found Him.

You used to smell sweet, and the taste, sweeter still.
Somehow you convinced me life was what I made it.
We are what we do, you are who you choose to be.
Those are just lies.
You are just a lie.

I used to strangle myself with arms so wide, so wide I barely knew them.
He untangled me and showed me my autonomy was: false freedom;
and romanced me with freedom and grace.
His love is great. I know what love is.
He tells me I am His. He tells me He is mine.

How, my love, are they still so far gone.
Those who reject the light.
They've decapitated themselves from you.
They still love their imperfection, with what they think is love.
They've grown accustomed to-
to listening with blind eyes and thinking with dead feelings.

Look, Love, they've either gone blind or eyes are just getting used to the dark.
I thought you used to look good, satan, it was just how you looked in the light,
or the lack of it.
I've grown accustomed to the love I've found in the light.
The shadows fail in the sunshine, I want to dwell in light of His love.

Laver Lav

Today at the Goetz family house there was a bible study. We talked about the Tabernacle of God and how it should be represented in our lives and how we should model our lives around it.

It was beautiful.

Below is a diagram of the tabernacle so you can follow along with the thought process.

http://ojgraham.com/images/Tabernacle.jpg

This is what we discussed: Two major things are in the outer courts. The Brazen Alter and the Laver.

The Brazen Alter represents The Cross on which Jesus was crucified. He died for all of our sins, representing the bloody sacrifice necessary for the atonement of our sin. There, we can give God our junk. Crucify ourselves, daily, and follow Him.

This brings us to the Laver. The Laver is the basin in which we cleanse ourselves from the junk of this world. Since we are not slaves to sin anymore, we are in Christ, and Christ is in us. All we must do is go to the Laver, wash off the remnants of the evil of this world before we can pass into the Holy Place.

I'm not going into great depth with any of this, but the Laver is especially significant to me.

Ravi Zacharias once stated that to try to describe purity from a secular sense would be the same as trying to explain nothingness. Purity for most means the absence of something. People who don't think certain things, say somethings, or don't partake in certain acts. This isn't all of it though. Christianity, more importantly, what Christ did, was die so that His blood could wash the sin off of us. Therefore, its not the merely the absence of sin, its the PRESENCE of something greater. Gods blood. The Laver is the cleansing presence of Gods forgiveness and grace, and the absence of evil in the midst of a perfect God.

Summing up the outer court: The Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross is the Brazen Alter, this is the payment for our sins. The Laver is the cleansing PRESENCE of Gods forgiveness and grace and the ABSENCE of evil in the midst of a perfect God.

This leads us into the Holy Place.

There are three main points in the Holy Place: Table of the Shewbread, The Golden Lampstand, and the Golden Alter of Incense.

I don't know too much on the Shewbread and the Lampstand at the moment but I'll be speaking on the Golden Alter of Incense because its DIRECTLY related to the Outer Courts and what I'm going to be getting at.

When we are cleansed, walking in right standing with God, walking in righteousness, we can then begin to have intimacy with Christ, the Great High Priest who's name is Love, who pleads for us before the throne of God. THIS IS SO GOOD!

When we are clean, we can offer our prayers on the incense table, laying down our offerings which smell good to Him now, in the ultimate form of worship. This is intimacy with God as well.

People always wonder why they can't worship God all the time, they ask why they don't feel close. They feel dead. Its because of this: THEY ARE GOING ABOUT IT IN THE WRONG ORDER.

We cannot worship in spirit and truth if we're dirty in the presence of God. We must crucify ourselves, give up our idols, wash ourselves of our sin and the crap in the world, humble ourselves before Jesus Christ, who is PLEADING with God on our behalf, while we also pray to move Gods heart. That is the ultimate form of worship. Praying along side with our Great High Priest BEFORE THE THRONE OF GOD offering ourselves, living sacrifices, sweet smelling to our maker.

This is beautiful. The fact that Jesus is pleading our cases to God the Father.

When we crucify ourselves, give up ourselves and our problems, wash ourselves and go into the presence of God in purity, and are next to our advocate Jesus Christ, how can we NOT worship.

This is worship. I hope this made sense, I'm stoked on this tho. I need to pray about this a lot more, but this blew my mind. SO I will leave you with this.

Our lives should be modeled on the Tabernacle.

Die to self. Wash. Walk in purity. Humble yourself. Offer yourself a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to the Lord. Worship with Jesus Christ who pleads for us in spirit and truth before the Throne of God.

Thought you would like to know this :)

Love,
-Josh