With Everything

What good is a hero to a person who doesn’t need to be saved?
If we choose to reject our savior, why do we need to worship?
What is our purpose in life? Is it not to worship our savior and creator: the One who loves us so?
I remember when I decided to follow Jesus’ ways; to be in a relationship with Him.
I remember He spoke to me; He said: Josh, I’ve created you for bigger things- great things. Amazing works. What are you doing?
Those are the words of a loving Father to His son.
I broke down.
I said “use me; I’ll move where You move. I want to love what You love and hate what You hate”.
It says as Samuel grew with the Lord, the Lord never let Samuels words fall to the ground.
Samuel dwelled in constant intimacy with the Love of his life.
How many times have I failed?
How many words have I let hit the floor?
How many times have I taken the Love of the Lord for granted?

I used to dwell in despair for days at a time when I stumbled. I’d fall on my face and weep for breaking the heart of my God. Then I remembered His grace.
You see, His grace washed our sin away a long time ago.
That’s why Jesus came.
He lived to die.
He didn’t come to make bad people good; He came to make dead people live.
He didn’t come to set an impossible bar for us to strive for; He came to make sure we could obtain intimacy with the One who loves us so.
“He to rescue me from danger interposed His precious blood”.
“Because a sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free”.
“I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way that He loves us”.

I remember I struggled with worship for a while.
I used to think that I didn’t get a whole lot out of it.
I realize now that when I had that egocentric mindset, God didn’t get a whole lot out of my worship.

What good is worship if we don’t know what we’re doing?
Why do we need to worship someone we don’t really think we need in the first place?

I’m sorry God, that I was so arrogant and selfish.
Forgive me.
I know now that the worship I do, isn’t because I want to get something out of it.
Worship is necessary because I’m so thankful for what You’ve done in my life.

Sometimes I think we make worship about us.
I think when we do that we let our words fall to the floor.
We need a savior.
We have one.
When we realize what He’s done for us, that’s when worshiping in spirit and truth happens.
We realize where we could have been, where we could have ended up: eternal separation from Love.
We are thankful for our Hero.
We praise the One who paid our debt and raised our lives up from the dead.

He is worthy of our praise.
With everything we will shout for Your glory.
With everything we will shout forth Your praise.

We have reason to worship, brothers and sisters.
We have reason to worship, Always.
I hope you’re encouraged.

I love you all.
-Josh

10,000

This morning I woke up and felt like I was not fit to call myself a Christian.
I felt woke up feeling downcast and as a failure.
I was freaking out.
I was freaking out because the night before I had been in Love with God and when I rose from my bed, the Love was gone.
I was reminded of everything that I had done in my past.
I was reminded of my failures.
I was reminded of how unfaithful I have been to Him in the past.
Then I was set straight.
I was reminded that I've overcome that.
By the blood of a Son.
God Loves me, and will ALWAYS love me, because my Jesus died, and is not sitting right next to His Father in Heaven telling His Father that I'm His.

Last night I heard this song, called Ten Thousand.
The entire song is gold, but the chorus is extremely profound.
I shouted this out loud on my knees this morning, in my truck, in the parking lot outside the place I work.
World, I've overcome you. I've overcome you, satan. I've overcome you, with the blood of a Son, who ever lives and pleads for me.

I realized, and was reminded of how much my God loves me. He loves me enough to humble, to dwell with me in intimacy. To lift me up and be with me, despite what I've done.
He's forgotten.
He overcame the world with the blood of His Son.

I'm reminded of "Before the Throne":

When satan tries to tempt me to despair
and tells me of the guilt within
upward I look and see Him there
who made an end of all my
Because a sinless Savior died
my sinful soul, is counted free
for God the Just is satisfied
to look on Him and pardon me...

To quote Jesus: It is FINISHED

My sin has come to an end.
I am no longer a slave to the flesh.
I am a slave to righteousness.

I do not belong to satan.

I am my Beloveds,
my Beloved is mine.
His banner over me is love.

I've overcome you world.
I've overcome you...

Amen.

(here's the song)
Then Thousand.

Ten thousand glimmering like coals in our chest
Ball bearings drawn to the magnetic breath
Of ten thousand weeping with wings on their tears
Amidst ten thousand voices for ten thousand years
For ten thousand graves yawning unlocked and unlatched
Now ten thousand holes with rocks on their backs
Ten thousand tombs gaping wide singing the praise
Of ten thousand bodies unlaced and unlaid

As the ten thousand highways unfold their doors
For the ten thousand standing on Nineveh's shores
Where the blood of a husband silences wars
For the girl who rises to meet him
And she sings

World, I have overcome you
World, I have overcome you
World, I have overcome
By my song and the blood of a son

Ten thousand rivers
Run red like my veins
Where the bones of men hum
Like a rattling cage
For sinew to cling to
For wind to remain
In ten thousand lungs
For ten thousand days
Breathing like a choir
Of holes in the ground
Where the cynical have lain
Where the cynical go down
Save the gravity of time
Lets go of her drowned
Like ten thousand sparrows
Unlocked and unwound

As the ten thousand highways unfold their doors
For the ten thousand standing on Nineveh's shores
Where the blood of a husband silences wars
For the girl who rises to meet him
And she sings

World, I have overcome you
World, I have overcome you
World, I have overcome
By my song and the blood of a son

Humility

In the last four months God's taken a sledgehammer to my pride; I sure hope He keeps swinging- I hated that monumental failure anyways.

We are what we sing.
The words that we say, the sentences that pass through our minds, and pictures that run past our eyes.
The thoughts that race across our mind and the way we hold ourselves.
What is the song of our life and what does it sound like?

We kid ourselves when we say that the music we listen to, the clothes we wear, the people we hang out with, and the environments we find ourselves don't affect who we are and our walk with God.

If I was married and told my wife that it didn't matter if I was hanging out with other women all the time and devoting my time to them rather than her, she'd be devastated (at least).

This is what I've learned: our pride gets in the way, and God out of jealous love, destroys all that gets in between Himself and His beloved.
That is, if His beloved asks for it.
I asked for Him- He pulled out a sledgehammer.
Our pride gets in the way of humility, if fact, they are the antithesis of each other.
When pride is erased, or destroyed, humility can have its rightful place and intimacy can ensue.

Thank God for being jealous. I'm so happy our God loves us enough to destroy the competition.
He could just eat us up He loves us so...

Here are some lyrics to ponder on, these have been soaking in my brain.

We are what we sing:

"So, in this hour, let everything I do, all for this moment, everything's for You; my heart is open- it will end...so please take my life and use it- I'm ready"

"World, I've overcome you by my song and the blood of a Son"

"Here I am Dear Lord tasting hints of fame, I don't want it anymore if its not You that I gain; I want to fall at Your feet, I don't want to fall out of Your peace. I understand"

"Oh let us adore the Son of Glory dressed in Love; open up your gates before Him: crown Him, stand Him up"

"Open our Open our hearts, To see the things That make Your heart cry, To be the church The You would desire. A light to be seen"

"Break down our pride and the walls we've built up inside; our earthly crowns and all our desires- we lay down at Your feet"

"With everything we will shout for Your glory; with everything we will shout forth Your praise"

"Oh to grace how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be and let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to Thee; prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart Lord take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above".

A lot of these deal with intimacy and love that only comes after a lot of honesty and pride demolishing.
I do not claim to have laid hold of humility yet, but I promise you, that God is hitting hard.
I love Him so much though.
Be in prayer for me as I keep going through this humbling phase, and I hope this forces some of us to be more honest with ourselves and our pride...
I love you all.
-Josh