So, I have been very busy the last three months or so with a program that I signed up for at Teen Mania's internship program. I was reading over a blog that I wrote for this program and I wanted to share that with you. Enjoy!

"Time is the foundation that makes up our moments and memories. Our life is consists of different moments and memories. Time is also the one element that I cannot keep track of. I always seem to be losing it and trying to make it up or find it again. 

But, you cannot make up what wasn’t yours in the first place and cannot lose what you do not have. I can only better steward this moment, this memory and this piece of time. I can only enjoy today and take care of things daily, for I am not promised tomorrow because it is not mine to have. 

By creating a 24-7 scheduled the Lord has begun to show me what is important to me. When you give time to different tasks and people, you then give something to them that you can never get back. That giving is either worth it or not, and whether you mean to or not you give that thing, whatever and whoever that may be, a piece of your life that you will never get back. We cannot turn the clock back but we can be more careful in how we turn the clock forward. In writing out my schedule I realized that I want to know God more, yet His is such a small part of my schedule. 

I want Him to saturate every part. 

I don’t want to have one quiet time, that’s not enough.

 I had planned to get more projects done today, but that wasn’t my priority. I throw away precious minutes waiting for life to begin, but I don’t realize that I am at the starting point and the gun has gone off, but I’m just standing there waiting for someone to push me. My goal cannot be to live in hope of tomorrow, but to live running to God daily, in every moment and in every period of time.​"

-Nichole Green

Set on a Hill.

Is it possible that God would release His Spirit over you that you would feel as another feels? Perhaps the moments in your life that you don’t know why you are troubled and depressed are the moments of another that are given to you so that you would feel what they feel and truly weep when they weep? So often we say that we sympathize and feel another’s burden and pain. If this were true I think that Christians would be known for their weeping and their love and compassion. Feeling pain leads you to contend for a resolution to pain. Some people choose to numb it with prescription drugs or illegal drugs. Some choose to busy themselves until it isn’t in the forefront of their minds. Some use their pain as a crutch in life and a reason why they are bitter and angry. If we understood the implications of really knowing another’s pain our response would be completely different. My beloved, the Christ bore the weight of sin and sin in the prerequisite to pain. The Christ die from the weight of sin, He died so that we might be free from sin. However, just because we are free from sin does not in any way free us from pain. We live in a sinful world, so although we as Christians may live without sin, we cannot escape from its consequences, pain. Yet we hide from it. We hid in the church building and congregate there, never becoming all that God has called His bride to be. We never call for Him from the streets; you do not find many Christians in strip clubs, bars, porn and sex shops, in the “bad” parts of town, or in corporate America. You do not find them befriending the homeless or the drug addicts, the porn stars or the twisted politicians.

My friends know that as I write this my own heart is convicted and troubled, and I find myself hiding behind the safe walls of Teen Mania.

And know that I am not saying that we are partaking in any of these things, beloved I pray that you would keep yourself pure as He is pure.

But, my fellow brothers and sisters, Christ Himself dwelled among these very people. He did not hide Himself in the Temple walls as the Scribes and Pharisees did, He went out in the streets. You cannot sympathize with people that are suffocating with pain, if you refuse to be recognized with them. Are we not called to be a city set on a hill, and a light to the world? Beloved in the past Christian age we have put a cover over our light and we call it the church (I am referring to the building here not the Bride). 

Isaiah 61 says this, 

“He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners. 

To proclaim the year of our Lord’s favor, and the day of our God’s vengeance; to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion; 

to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair.”

 This is talking about the Christ, whose image we were made in and whose ways we were destined to walk in.

Beloved we cannot keep praying for the heart of God if we don’t want to associate with the people He calling to his heart. We cannot keep saying these empty hearted and empty spirited prayers expecting God to move across this world. It is not enough to want a bigger church building or a bigger youth program. We must forget the buildings and the programs; it is time for a life of selfless, sacrificial love to pour out from us. If God’s love for His sons and daughters would lead Jesus to the cross, we must understand we are headed to our own cross as well, but this life is only worth living if we understand what and who we are dying for. We die to self so that God’s name and personhood would be known, setting all those that are bound by sin free. We die so that the Spirit can live in us and work through us. We die so that others may live.

My beloved if we want the spiritual strongholds that cause people to live in pornography, sex addiction, drugs, alcohol, pride, self-harm, depression, suicide, and all sin, to be demolished, we must live a life of sacrificial and intentional love. Love that will cause us to dwell among pain and sin and not in it. Love that will stir not just a thought and a quick prayer, but a lifestyle of intercession and contending. Love that will not care what people think of us associating with a certain group of people. Love that no man can understand or control. We must love until it causes us pain, and then proceed to love even harder, until it causes us to die.

Beloved, arise and wake up to your destiny.

If There be Nothing Else

Misty Edwards- Eternity

If there be no other thing that we have learned let it be love. Love for Christ. Let us be a people that dream dreams of love and have visions of love. Let us be known by how we have love God, how we have sacrificed to minister to the heart of God; by how we have laid down our life so that His life may be made whole in us. But what is it to love God? John 14:15 says this: “If you love Me, you will keep My commands.” His commanded us to love God with all of our heart, mind, and soul, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. It goes in this huge circle: love, obey, love, obey, love, obey. Love. Jesus is the perfect example, the perfect fulfillment of this command. It is only we learn how to love God with everything that we begin to grasp the edges of loving our neighbor. To love God we place everything under Him, He is first, in everything. The first portion, the first priority, the first love, the first Father, the first Friend- we live to lay down everything to serve the heart of God. Then out of that overflow of God’s love in us we begin to serve others. We lay down our life for our brother following the example of our Father and Creator. If there is nothing else that we grasp, in this God thing, let it be love. If we became a people that truly loved with everything, relentlessly, passionately, to death, it would shake the foundations of the world and cause this world to tremble. Christ loved and He forever took victory over sin and death. And this love, this conquering love, is outside the bounds of time and lays the foundation for eternity. This love counts, it destroys every work of the enemy and establishes the Kingdom of Heaven on earth- it brings heaven down. Let us learn to love it is the plea from the heart of God- to love and conquer like Him.

Devotional for Knowing God

What does it mean to know the heart of God? Not just too simply recognize His heart, but to know, intimately. There are so many times in our Christian culture that we have settled for recognizing His face but not pursuing His heart. Perhaps that is why this culture cannot get past their own sin and recognize His love for them and His love through them. In our friendships and relationships we are not satisfied with simply knowing someone’s face. We seek time with them to know their heart and their emotions. We crave their affection and attention, and we do not think that this applies to our relationship with God as well. This passivity toward knowing God is the very reason many of us struggle in our relationship to Him. John 14:23-26 says this: “Jesus answered, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. The one who doesn't love Me will not keep My words. The word that you hear is not Mine but is from the Father who sent Me. "I have spoken these things to you while I remain with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit-the Father will send Him in My name-will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.”  We are given instruction not just to recognize Him, but to know Him, and intimately love Him.  God wants us to know every part of Him- the Father, Son, and Spirit. It is not enough to know only the Son- the Son is the gateway into intimate relationship with the Father who then sends the Holy Spirit to empower and equip us into deeper intimacy with God. “If you know Me, you will also know My Father From Now on you do know Him and have seen Him.”- John 14:7. “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever.”- John 14:16. We were created to know God, to desire God, to pursue God, to long for God- He is the only one who satisfies this deep longing. My beloved, we must hunger. If we do not we will be too easily satisfied with just recognizing God.  Matthew 7:21-23 states, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father in heaven. On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in Your name, drive out demons in Your name, and do many miracles in Your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you lawbreakers!” Recognizing Jesus is neither the destination nor the final goal. Recognizing Him is the avenue the Father planned for us to enter into deeper relationship with Him and to share in His satisfying, rich, and passionate love. 

Send Me.

My beloved friends,

Isaiah 6:8- “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Who should I send? Who will go for Us? I said: Here I am. Send me. And He replied: Go! Say to these people: Keep listening, but do not understand; keep looking, but do not perceive. Dull the minds of these people; deafen their ears and blind their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds, turn back, and be healed.”

We are a generation of deaf and blind people. We do not see anything, nor do we hear. We have shut our eyes to the vision of God; we do not see what He sees. The visions of humanity that burn His heart we have blinded ourselves too. We look upon sin and do not shutter, we watch people perish and do not groan. Where is the weeping of this generation for those that are murdering their spirits daily, where is the gnashing of teeth? My beloved it is time for the Bride of Christ to open her eyes and see all that He sees.

Proverbs 29:18- “Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish; but he who keeps the law [of God, which includes that of man]--blessed (happy, fortunate, and enviable) is he.”

We are a culture that is perishing, daily, hourly, and minutely. Where is our weeping for this?!

Even more, those who cry out for help reach ears that have chosen not to hear. We do not hear wisdom cry out from the streets, we do not hear life pour out from the city. My beloved we are deaf and blind.

And God still cries out, “Who shall I send? Who will go for Us?”

God, send me.

Ready to have a Holy Ghost Party!

I just love mustaches. Purple ones to be exact. 

Ceilings are meant to be enjoyed.

The wonderful women I am spending this year with.

Blogging

Never in my life did I think I would be a blogger. I’m not a person that thinks I have anything of importance to say, and it’s true. But there is something inside of me that has something of great importance to say and He has moved me to start something that is bigger than me. There is an unstoppable passion that is sweeping our culture- we are desiring for something more.

We want more freedom.

More entertainment.

More love.

More money.

More time.

More fun.

More excitement.

More….everything.

There are so many things that are filling our passion and desire, but we need more and more because it doesn’t last, it doesn’t sustain us.

Our culture needs something that satisfies us, and makes us long for more.

I want to share what I have found, what I have learned. I want to tell you about my life, and also pour into yours.

This is an invitation to a destiny.

I invite you to join with me in my path. To hear and read about my ups and downs.

Beloved, lets know God together.