Rain Down

What would it be like if Gods glory fell on us like a storm: raining down and flooding the dry dust of our hearts with holy fire? What would that look like?
I think it would look like romantic Love.
Lately, Gods been guiding me through lessons in Love.
What is Love?
Love is God.
God is Love.
He's helping me get to know Him more and more.
One thing He's been showing me is that Love is commitment, not emotion.
Emotion comes from it, but it is not the definition of Love. Emotion is temporary, Love is eternal. That is not to say that emotion is bad; of course it is not. Often times, our relationships with God have been started out of a very emotion state; He stoops down from heaven and woos us up to Himself. He wins our hearts with romance.
But, eventually, like most successful relationships, the Love grows: matures. Love doesn't become "how can You make me happy"; Love becomes "how can I make you happy". Love doesn't become "I'll stay committed to You when You make me feel the same way I felt when I met You"; Love becomes "I'll stay with You even when I don't feel like it, because I'm committed".
John 15:13 says that "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends".
God stayed committed to His people, whom He loved. Not to the point of laying down His own life. No. That would be too easy. He stayed committed to us to the point of laying down the life of His only son, Jesus Christ. Christs blood rained down to the ground, full of life and redemption. His blood pours over our bodies, fills our veins, and covers us; it makes us acceptable in Gods eyes. He sees Christs blood in us and takes us in as sons. Adopted. We are His children, and He is our Father.
We were Isaak, about to be sacrificed, and Jesus was our perfect lamb, slain in our place, who's blood is the payment for our ransom of sin. God provided the perfect lamb.
That is Love.
Love is when the person we care about becomes more important than ourselves.
That is Love.
Love is when we can look a person in the eyes, and they can stare back into ours, and see the reflection of God in our eyes. Then, with every thing we have say, I, Christ in me, Love you, and would gladly lay down my life for you. They wouldn't just see that a person, a mortal human would lay down their life. They would see God saying that too them. Not only that, but they would see Jesus saying that.
Hell.
Jesus already did that.
I hear people say "I love you", now, and I don't think they realize what they're saying. We do this so often. We really might as well say "I emotion you", or "I care about you as long as you make me feel this way".
What if God had done that.
God would have ditched us in the deserts of the Middle East.
God would have left us after His son was crucified.
No, God didn't just emotion us, God Loved us. God committed Himself to us.
It says so many numerous times that we will be His, and He will be ours.
It does not say "I will Love you, my people, if you worship me".
No.
It is a promise.
It is absolute.
God deals with the eternal, and temporary things flow from it.
For all good and perfect things come from Him.
Including Love; after all, He is Love. Love is eternal.
I'll end with the last thing I heard from God before He continued to test me.
He said "just because you don't feel Me, does not mean that I am not there. Just because you don't feel My Love, doesn't nullify my Love. Feelings don't affect my Love and commitment, just like your sin doesn't affect My goodness. I Love you, Joshua".
I hope this encourages you to ask God to rain down His glory, to flood the dust of our lives with Holy fire so that we can Love as God Loved us. To be perfect as He, our Father, is perfect.

I Love you,
-Josh

We are Isaac

I was talking with sister Breanna today at Starbucks about Genesis 22 (the sacrifice of Isaac), and there were some thoughts raised from that.
First the symbolism of Abraham, Isaac, and the ram.
I just envisioned the situation, and connected with Abraham and Isaac. I've had to give up parts of my life, my entire life, for that matter, for the sake of Christ.

I connected more with Isaac though.

Isaac was supposed to die.
Isaac was supposed to be sacrificed to God by Abraham out of a sign of submission, fear, and Love.
But he was spared.
I was spared.
I was Isaac.
I was supposed to die.

God, (Abraham), was supposed to strike me down with His perfect judgment, but instead, out of love, He provided His son as the substitute, (the ram).

I see Isaac staring up at His father, knife in hand, preparing to strike his son down. Tears rolling down his face, both of them are crying. And then, the angel steps in, and God provides a ram. Abraham cuts his sons bidings, and they stand there, sacrificing the provided ram. Isaac looks at the blood running down the stone, and can't help but shake.
"That was supposed to be me; I was supposed to die. That beautiful sacrifice took my place".
Isaac thanks God and worships Him who gave Him a second chance. He gave Isaac life.

He gave us life. Lets not take it badly.
We were bought with a price. His blood covers us.
We are living in His stead, we are His.
We are His sons and daughters.

I don't know, but I just thought that was beautiful.

I'm a fan

I've been a fan, lately, of breaking down sentences.
I was thinking the other day about love.
I've asserted before that love isn't as much of an emotion as much as it is a commitment.
From that, flows emotion.
Then, brother Luke reminded me that "God is love".
Which made me think: To be in love, we have to be in God.
Mind = blown.

Then, I was talking with brother Tom about how individualistic we have become as a nation and as a church: "I can do this because I'm different", "you're more outgoing than I am, so, its okay if we don't socialize", etc.
We were slightly depressed by how self-centered we are.
We were talking about the possessive word "I".
It was brought up that we are the body of Christ; in fact, we ARE Christ. The fullness of Him dwells in us and we are crucified in Christ it is no longer we who live but Christ in us. To live is Christ to die is gain.
In light of these things, we discussed how when we use the word "I", we need to be careful, because we are Christ.
So, when I say "I love you", we're really saying: "I, Christ in me, loves you".
We can no longer say "I love sin", or "I love pre-marital sex", or "I love getting high", because Christ doesn't love sin, He doesn't love pre-marital sex, or getting high.

So, to tie these thoughts in together, the phrase "I love you", should really be shown as I Love you.
The "L" in love should be capitalized because God is Love.
And.
"I Love you" really means: I, (Christ in me), Loves, (with the same commitment, passion, and unconditional way that God does), you.

I hope this affected you.

I Love you.

-Josh

Love is a Hurricane

"He is jealous for me; love's like a hurricane, I am a tree: bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy".

His love is a hurricane.
Hurricane's are destructive.
His love is destructive.

I'm was thinking today, with my good friend Uriah and he pointed something out to me.
"When you've been through a hurricane, everything: EVERYTHING, is a mess; however, you have to start somewhere. Might as well keep cleaning a littler here, and a little there, because, the truth is, you're not going to get everything together in one day".

This is the truth.

God swept through my life in a hurricane filled with destruction, love, and mercy.
He took, in a single day, every material thing I had taken from God. He took a valued relationship and friendship, a car, and all of my money.
That is love. Especially if those things were in "my" possession. It was mercy that kept me from harm in doing all those things and mercy showing me the error of my ways and not allowing me to stay the way I was. Instead, He chose to destroy me, to show me how much He loves me. He destroyed because He loves me.

I need to clean up the mess left from the hurricane of Gods love and mercy. Something has always feel off this week, no matter what, and I realized what it is: I'm dirty from the hurricane still. I can't sleep perfectly well in a dirty room, in the same way, my life is a jumbled mess and I can't rest knowing its still jacked up.

In the same way, I cannot have all of this fixed in one hour, day, or week. Its going to be a process. I'll have to start somewhere, though. I cannot sit here and pray all this crap away. I need to clean up my mess. Because, if it had a strong foundation, what would love had destroyed? Nothing. Love wouldn't destroy love. I need to start somewhere, and continue.

"Search me, oh God, and know my anxious thoughts; see if there be any imperfect way in me, and lead me in the way of the everlasting. I love You, God. You love me. Thank You for loving me and having mercy on me in the way You sent destruction my way. I needed it. Give me the grace to continue as I always have, in You, and the grace to clean up the mess that is myself. I love You. Jesus, save me.

In Your Sons amazingly loving name: amen"

Love Always,
-Josh

If you have questions, call me. I'd love to talk to you.

Honesty

Sometimes, I wonder if other people feel the way I feel, think the way I think, or act the way I do. I wonder if people are as insecure as I am, or as rotten in the heart as I am, at times.I wonder what it would be like if everyone looked like they felt.

If I looked like I felt, this week, I would look weird; I would probably look like a homeless person.

I imagine homeless people feel lonely. I think they would feel humbled by their shortcomings and the situation they currently find themselves. I feel humbled by the situation I find myself. Its funny how you can have an idea of who you are and start to find comfort in the shade of the identity you've built for yourself. The thing is, however, that if we build our own identity, it will fall apart eventually. You see, we are imperfect; imperfect things cannot build perfect things. In the same way an imperfect gene of a flower will affect its offspring, the same happens with us. We are imperfect, attempting to build ourselves a perfect image and identity, only to find out later that it was wrong from the start and there was nothing we could do about it. There was not a single car we could have owned, a single relationship we could have forced, a dollar amount that we could have earned that would ever solidify our identity in a perfect manner.

Sometimes I wonder why God sent His son to die for us.

You see, God is perfect. He was perfect in and of Himself. He was secure in His own perfect identity in constant communion with the Holy Spirit and His son. He didn't need to create, but out of His love, He created us: man and woman. The weird thing is, He created us in full knowledge that we would fall. He created us knowing He would have to save us somehow. We were a damsel in distress. He was our hero. But the thing is, it wasn't even just Him that saved us: it was His son. I know that I would give my life for almost anyone, but I don't even know what it would be like to give up my child. I always knew that God loved me, but its different when you thin that He loved me and esteemed me greater than Him. Not only that, but He esteemed me greater than His son.

Sometimes when I feel like a homeless person, it helps to think about how much I'm loved. It makes me feel like I have a hero out there, who loves and watches out for me when I'm sad and lonely. He's there for me to comfort me and protect me. I think that's beautiful. Hopefully, one day, I'll be able to love that way. I want that kind of love.

I think people do feel the way that I feel sometimes, because if they didn't they wouldn't feel the need to be loved by others. That's okay though, because, when we love each other, its really just God loving us through that person.

All good and perfect things come from above, right? I guess that means that hugs, kisses, high fives, fist bumps, smiles, laughs, compliments, truth, and love are all from God too. I'm alright with that. I think that's a perfect foundation to build on. Even though I'm not perfect, my Hero is perfect. He made me perfect because He painted me perfect with His sons blood. I was the rotten painting and He fixed me. He rebuilt me and that is the point.

When we build our identity, its false, its a fake. Its phony.
When God builds our identity, He takes His sons blood, paints over our imperfections, and makes us perfect in Him. That is our identity. Our identity in God is perfect. He looks at us with perfect eyes and thinks we are the most beautiful thing in the world. We are His portion. We look like Christmas morning.

Its good to know that whenever I feel like a bum, God loves me, and thinks I'm the best. I think I'm alright with that.