November 8th

This was my devotional for November 8th. i thought it was so good i really wanted to share it. but rather than try and re-write it i figured i would just post the actual text as it was presented and let you form your own opinions... ENJOY!

Nov 8 - My Utmost For His Highest -
The Unrivaled Power of Prayer “We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26). Be realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; and we know what it is to pray in accordance with the Spirit; but we don’t often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays prayers in us which we cannot utter ourselves. When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable. “He,” the Holy Spirit in you, “makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (8:27). And God searches your heart, not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what the prayer of the Holy Spirit is. The Spirit of God uses the nature of the believer as a temple in which to offer His prayers of intercession. “… your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit…” (1 Corinthians 6:19). When Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, “… He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple” (Mark 11:16). The Spirit of God will not allow you to use your body for your own convenience. Jesus ruthlessly cast out everyone who bought and sold in the temple, and said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer…. But you have made it a ‘den of thieves’” (Mark 11:17). Have we come to realize that our “body is the temple of the Holy Spirit”? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, even though only a small part of our total person, is to be regarded by us as a “temple of the Holy Spirit.” He will be responsible for the unconscious part which we don’t know, but we must pay careful attention to and guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.

"Closer" - John Mark Mcmillan

Even though ive listened to this song countless times i felt like tonight i really heard the lyrics for the first time. Enjoy.

Closer - John Mark Mcmillan

Come closer, closer to me.
Find me broken, find me bleedin'
cause I need more now than a fairy tale,
a God who lives in a book.
I need Someone real.

So would You come?
Would You come?
If i begged you, would you come closer to me now?

Come closer, closer to me.
Find me broken, find me on my knees,
cause I need more now than philosophy.
Some God in outer space doesn't mean anything to me.

So would you come?
Would you come?
If I begged you, would you come closer to me now?
Would you come?
Would you come?
If i begged you, would you come closer to me now?

Son of David, do not pass me by,
cause I am naked,
I'm poor and I'm blind.
Son of david, don't pass me by,
cause I am naked,
I'm poor and I'm blind.

Proverbs 26:11

As a dog returns to its vomit,
So a fool repeats his folly.


This is an image of life that came into my head as I was driving home from Starbucks tonight. Thank you Pastor Jeff Moore for making me write a sermon on this verse, without that I wouldn’t have had the inspiration for this blog.

God wants us to have the best in life, He wants us to have the best beyond life!
Let’s put it into terms of food because I understand things better with food references.

God is serving up the best meal you can imagine all the time! Maybe it’s a steak dinner, maybe it’s some kinda tofu/vegetarian thingy, maybe its chicken and waffles, whatever the best meal you can imagine. God is serving up that meal 24/7. He yearns for you to have the meal. He longs for you to enjoy the special meal He has prepared for YOU!

Yet how many of us settle, or CHOOSE willingly, to eat vomit?
The vomit could have been a good meal to start with, but now it’s just vomit (old food and drink mixed with stomach acids, YUMMY).
The image I got in my head was just that! Every time I am in the presence of God I come away feeling so happy, filled, loved, etc....
And I know in my heart that he wants to have that same time with me ALWAYS.
Yet time and time again, when it comes down to it, I seem to choose VOMIT.

Why is that? Is it because the vomit looks good at first? Then when we taste it we realize it’s still just vomit? Is it because we don’t think we have earned the perfect meal? That doesn’t matter because the meal is a GIFT! You can’t earn something that someone is already trying to give you! That’s the point! We just need to receive the gift from our loving Creator.

So I guess my heart behind this is that the next time you have a choice between sin(vomit) and closeness with God(the delicious meal) remember that vomit is GROSS and you will always regret eating it.

I pray that I have painted a graphic enough picture of vomit and linked it strongly enough with sin that when the option of sin arises you will just think of nasty, warm, chunky, runny, acidy, vomit.

-Jesse

p.s. I had a hard time writing this cause at first I got hungry talking about steak, but then I got nauseated eating my steak while thinking about vomit.

The Low Down or The 411

So here is the deal people! I have stayed away from my blog because I was too annoyed to write about what I had to write about, but here it is.... straight and to the point....

I'm not going to make it to Thailand after all. There were tons of things getting in the way and causing issues.
Ultimately the missionary and the church decided it would be best to cancel the trip and focus on things for the future.

When it came down to it there were just too many things messing up the trip it didn’t seem as though God wanted us to go.
I am sad that we aren’t going, however I am excited to see what God has in store for the future!

If you have further question about the trip feel free to ask.


With that said I will continue this blog as a creative outlet and to start my future of famous writings and thoughts that people will quote years from now ;) (You have been warned) ENJOY!

Lullaby

Have you ever fallen asleep during a devotion time? During prayer or reading God's word?then all of the sudden you awaken with a jolt and the guilt ensues. The guilt for mistreating or abusing or wasting your time with God. you immediately makes promises about never doing it again, and about giving God the times when your most awake etc etc etc…
Lets look at what we know of the character of God. Guilt is the last thing he would like us to feel after our time with Him! He is the God of rest, his yoke is light. He is God of the Sabbath, he has provided that same rest from the first Sabbath day to us NOW in this day and time.
God is CONSTANT and we are the ones who are ever changing. God wants us to live in the rest He provides, and yet we don’t allow ourselves to experience that gift.
So what if we change our outlook on the situation. What if when you fall asleep during this most intimate time with your Creator, you view it as a gift from Him, not a mistake by you.What if reading his word and prayer become something that God uses to bless us with rest? He knows how crazy our lives are, he knows we dont take time to rest, he knows we are stressed!
What if falling asleep is no longer your FAULT but God singing you a lullaby and bringing you into His complete rest? The same rest that he provided on the 7th day of creation.

I always feel better after a nap with God…

… I have re-written the end of this 4 times now and each time it gets more complicated. Im just going to end it by stating my original intent on this Blog….

God loves us with a pure love we can’t comprehend on this earth. Let us live in the freedom He has provided and not get stuck up on the little things in life.

-Jetzu

updates

crazy weeks!

So we found out last week that our Trip to Thailand is officially postponed.
The trip has been moved to July 20th. the biggest reason for this was that very few of the team members had the funding and support to make the original date.

Simply... we need more money before we can fly!

I have been so blown away at unexpected kindness and giving from those around me, yet i still have a ways to go. at this point i still need to raise about $1,600.00

Yet i know God works everything out for our own good so I'm not worried about it. I'm sure there is a good reason, that we will never know about, as to why this trip has been more difficult to setup. only our Creator knows the true reason for all things because He is the only one who exists out of time and sees everything happening at once ( or however that works )

Glory be to God in all things and may we live as Christ lived on this earth!

p.s. Jimmy's Diner fundraiser was a great success! more info to come about that.
Also, we have a TGI-Fridays Fundraiser coming up.
Stay tuned!

this is a test

im planning on just taking my phone with me to thailand and im testing it right now to see if I can update my blog from it. so far so good! this should be a simple way to stay in touch with everyone and keep you all posted on what's going on while im out of the country.
-Jesse

p.s. doesn't look like I can upload pictures =(