So, I’m back to share what I’ve gained with my intense introspection, er, I mean, my conversations with God (phew, the joke was almost up!). So much of this is about choice and God is just flat out lovely, worthy and, well, Godly. I’ve had a lot of time alone with God lately and He has really been talking to me about the motives of my heart. "Choose your motives, Bryan," is what He’s said. I’ve been trying to find the right motives to do things - things I enjoy and things I don’t. Finally, I realize the problem; the wrong motives for serving God lead to wrong motives for just about everything else. The bible says to be poor but to be rich in God (Revelations 3:17). I realized that I own nothing, I don’t love my life and it’s one of the greatest revelations I have ever come to. God gives us things like people, talents, maybe even material stuff but it’s not ours it is God’s. I can have many things but none of them are mine, not even my life. I can’t tell you how much joy wells up in me when I write that and say it aloud.

I woke up in the middle of the night and God spoke as I was stumbling into the bathroom "do not approach my throne just out of guilt." Godly sorrow is different than mere guilt, one you can gain from and one you don’t. I realized that sometimes I serve God out of guilt and fear, the same motives that I would sometimes use to motivate myself for other things. When I wasn’t a serious Christian I’d force myself to upkeep hobbies out of the fear that I would lose my worth and if I didn’t do them I would feel guilty. I realized that I have carried that into the kingdom with me. God wants me to serve Him out of love, to know His love for me and others. One thing I always remember is that it always goes back to the Garden. Either you want to be God or you want to obey Him. When I serve God to appease fear or guilt I am really serving myself, I want to stand in approval of myself and say "now, I have earned it." It’s pride, albeit a little warped, but pride nonetheless. I’m not waiting for the perfect motives to come along and then serve God, it’s always going to be a conflict. I love God more now than I did before and as a result I serve Him more. Early on in life, we have people who evaluate our performance and we internalize their measures and judge ourselves and others by them. Repentance for the internalization of these things, for using them against God, others and yourself is the only way to be free of them. Accepting Jesus’ forgiveness, forgiving the ones who have wronged you, forgiving yourself allows you to choose your motives. I have begun lately to really take advantage of the power of choice. I choose to believe that I have all the encouragement and fulfillment I will ever need in Christ whether I feel differently at the moment or not. I choose to serve God because I love Him.

I can choose the right motives, I can say that I love God and am going to serve Him because that is the kind of heart He has instilled in me when I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. To say "I’m a bad servant" is to listen to the enemy, either I’m a servant or I’m not. Evaluating progress is a dangerous thing with fleshly measures, it irrevocably leads to disappointment and false guilt which lead me away from God. I can say that I will love God with all my heart, mind and soul, that I will persevere, that I will serve Him because (and only because) that is the work He is doing in me and to say otherwise is to imply that His work is null and void. Once you’re in, you’re in now you just have to keep your eyes fixed on Him, to trust that He is working in you. Trying to do it your own way, on your own steam is, in my mind, what causes people to fall. I am worthy not because I am worthy but because I have been made worthy by the cross and that is why I can stand up and say to the enemy "I’m not who you say I am." On top of that, when I am plagued by the enemy it sometimes can mean that I’ve allowed a stronghold in my life which I can take before God and receive freedom. So, in a sense, I can use the enemy’s attacks to my advantage.

It all works for good because I love God. He chose me before I ever knew He existed, He chose me so that I would have the option of choosing Him. What a lovely God that I love and serve. Blessed is my Father who guides me, my Savior Jesus who has redeemed me and blessed is the Holy Spirit who gives me the Godly passion for His namesake.

a love song between God and I...

Forever Lyrics
by Ben Harper

Not talkin' 'bout a year
no not three or four
I don't want that kind of forever
in my life anymore
forever always seems
to be around when it begins
but forever never seems
to be around when it ends
so give me your forever
please your forever
not a day less will do
from you
People spend so much time
every single day
runnin' 'round all over town
givin' their forever away
but no not me
I won't let my forever roam
and now I hope I can find
my forever a home
so give me your forever
please your forever
not a day less will do
from you
Like a handless clock with numbers
an infinite of time
no not the forever found
only in the mind
forever always seems
to be around when things begin
but forever never seems
to be around when things end
so give me your forever
please your forever
not a day less will do
from you

well, stuff happened that I don't want to get into but the only that has kept me from going postal is the fact that God is good and that my life is His. the point of all this is to know Him and so regardless of cirumstances I seek to know Him in a new way. He is the author of peace and not of confusion but that doesn't always mean He gives answers. However, He has shown me once again that there is freedom and peace in knowing Him. I can try to expound on this but I don't feel there is much of a point right now because it's really not a matter of intellectual understanding, it's a matter of the choice to love and to trust. There's no formula here that will satiate the mind's hunger for "sense," God doesn't lower himself by trying to squeeze into the seemingly neat, secure dome of reasoning known as "common sense."

well, stuff happened that I don't want to get into but the only that has kept me from going postal is the fact that God is good and that my life is His. the point of all this is to know Him and so regardless of cirumstances I seek to know Him in a new way. He is the author of peace and not of confusion but that doesn't always mean He gives answers. However, He has shown me once again that there is freedom and peace in knowing Him. I can try to expound on this but I don't feel there is much of a point right now because it's really not a matter of intellectual understanding, it's a matter of the choice to love and to trust. There's no formula here that will satiate the mind's hunger for "sense," God doesn't lower himself by trying to squeeze into the seemingly neat, secure dome of reasoning known as "common sense."

I think a lot, maybe too much.

No matter what happens, God's there, I'm His, and He's leading.

I got to thinking about boats and how they’re mentioned a few times throughout Luke. Jesus gets into Simon’s boat and asks him to cast out his nets, to which Simon complains a little but he obeys. As a result he is blessed with more fish than him or his boat could handle. The funny thing is that as soon as they get to land He tells Simeon to abandon all of it and follow Him. Those of you who, like me, love seafood might be thinking "why the waste of good fish, God?" It wasn’t a wasted blessing, it achieved its purpose; to show Simeon how unworthy he was to be blessed so abundantly, to drive him to want to be completely devoted to Jesus. The blessing wasn’t there for Simeon’s enjoyment, it was there to show God’s goodness. I know if I were Simeon I’d want to sit down and have myself the fish fry of the century. The real blessing was witnessing a miraculous sign of Jesus’ power, and the unworthiness was a key part of it. He didn’t sit and wallow in his unworthiness and he didn’t get up and assume that he deserved the blessing and become fixated on it. Jesus beckoned and he followed. Yeah, it’s that simple and that hard.

Then we have the guy at Gerasenes who had a radical experience with being delivered from demons. He runs to Jesus and asks to follow Him, but Jesus tells him to go back. Again, I ask "God, what’s the deal? He would have made one heck of a disciple." Sometimes we’re asked to abandon spiritual blessings for the sake of others and that is a real tough one. We cry "Jesus I just want you" and He answers "Go to them." Obviously, He never leaves you but sometimes we see God moving in a great way and we want to jump on the boat but He asks you to be spent somewhere else. I look at that guy who had enough faith in Jesus that he walked away from Him visibly, didn’t feel abandoned and told everyone in his town about great Jesus was and the people welcomed Jesus when He came back (Luke 8:40).

I know I’ve been blessed a lot lately and at first it threw me for a loop. The blessings aren’t for me, they’re there for me to offer to God, to deepen my appreciation and devotion for Him. That is how blessings really bless your life, not just answering a need or desire, they lead you to closer to God. They help you to abide more in the fear of the Lord, to show His goodness. Miracles require faith and are granted to give more faith, so that we can witness God’s greatness. I felt callings over my life when I got serious with God and I jumped up and down for joy but then, peculiarly enough, I see Him sending me to the police force. I trust in the callings, but I feel Him asking "how much are you willing to give?" Am I willing to go so far as to say that I even surrender my calling? When He tells me to be in the every day dealing with people, to interact with them in ways that aren’t comfortable for me. Am I willing to have everything change in the blink of an eye? So many times I hear doing "great things" for God would be going to the nations or doing something grand in our minds. I’m not downplaying anyone’s dreams here, they might be from God, take it up with Him. What if His plan is for you to be in some small town in Utah for the rest of your life? To be spent so that two people are saved and they go off and witness to millions? Are we willing to never see the fruits of our labor?

What is faith? Is faith believing in Him doing amazing things according to our minds? Or, is it saying "I don’t care what it takes, I’ll be hated, I’ll be the doormat, I don’t have to be a super pastor who preaches to millions, or a ‘great’ missionary who travels all around the world...I’ll be whatever it is you want me to be regardless of what men think." Lofty, challenging statement isn’t it? I am praying for that kind of devotion because, quite frankly, I don’t have it. I want to be married one day, I want to be a pastor of a church, I want to prophecy and preach to lots of people. I want to lay the "Godly" desires on the altar because, lets be honest, even things we think are holy are sometimes tainted with a measure of selfishness. The real question to ask is, do I want to be lifted up or do I want to lay myself down so that Christ might be lifted up in me?

I’ve heard so many times "practice what you preach" but I think you have to be what you preach. Jonah preached a message of conviction but he also learned a message of compassion in the belly of the whale. He assumed the second chance was for him only and the punishment was for the people of Nineveh. I look at that story and see someone who could have used his blunder to gain a deeper understanding of himself so that he could have a deeper understanding of the people he was preaching to. It’s easy to pass on a message of correction to others when you’re more spiritually mature than them. Unless I get a word for someone suddenly, something that doesn’t make sense in the context of my life, I assume the message is for me also. Jonah had time to sit in the whale, God gave him that time to reflect on his own shortcomings. How much more effective would Jonah have been in preaching to Nineveh had he really understood the message of second chances, had he really understood the compassion that God had on him. Jesus prayed that believers would know that the Father loves us as much as He loves Jesus. Do you understand the compassion God has on you every day? You have no right to condemn others or yourself.
Jonah preached the message to Nineveh out of obedience to God and God got His message across to those people despite the lack of love Jonah had in his heart. Jonah got the message to them but he didn’t get it for himself. How effective we could be if we really sought to know the love of God. To know His love is to know His will on the deepest level. Christ wants us to be like Him, He wants us to be so filled with the love of God that we are one with Him. I think Christians go one of two ways too often; either we look at other people and try to "have a heart for them" and strain to love them, or we look at what God is doing in our lives and become too fixated with battling our own strongholds. I think we need more of both. More self-examination with the mind of Christ helps you to step out of yourself, understand and be filled with the love of God, which motivates you to love others. Ministering to others should seem effortless in the sense of effort the way the world sees it. There is a different kind of exhaustion that comes when you’re really feeding others, it causes you to go right back to God to seek Him for your life which motivates you to go right back out to serve others. A happy little cycle that I hardly have down to a science.

Testimony

another long one...

"And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death." Revelations 12:11


Too often I hear testimonies that end when someone was "saved." I used to pray with all of my heart as a boy that God would take my life and do with what He wanted. I read the bible here and there and it shaped my way of thinking. I had a lot of seeds that were scarcely watered with a good church. When I came into contact with BASIC and New Covenant I was painfully aware of the water I needed. I always say that this was always part of who I was and it was, it just had never been watered. I used to blame my father but as I look and consider his life I realize that he is definitely an example of radical transformation. His abusive father died when he was nine, he grew up poor in a bad neighborhood, his older brother used to beat the daylights out of him, his mother was an alcoholic, he ended up becoming an alcoholic. After being kicked out of his house by my mother he decided to earnestly pray for God to take his life because he didn’t know what to do with it anymore. Today, he is drug free, he rebuilt his marriage, and he is a dedicated Christian, at his worst he can be abrasive, judgmental and negative. Even despite his tendency towards anger, I’ve seen him soften through the years, I’ve even seen him cry while praying, I’ve seen him struggle to try and approach people better. I joke a lot at his expense but I really thank God for what He did in my father and it brings me great joy to be able to connect with him.


Sometimes I don’t like being asked the question, "how long have you been saved?" I had a sense of God my whole life, I had felt convicted before, I knew instinctively to avoid certain things and I attribute that to my very early experiences with God and His word. The fateful evening at BASIC was a long time coming and I knew it. When the seeds I had began to get nourishment by being around Spirit-filled Christians and having a few key conversations I began to not just seek God but now I was looking for Jesus, the stumbling block, the one who I heard would allow me to have a personal experience with God. That night I really felt God say something along the lines of, "You’ve always known Me, the past few years you’ve really walked away from Me. I’m here to offer you not just to come back but to put both feet in and to really know Me." Too often people look for the key moment, but approaching Jesus is often a long, hard but unbelievably rewarding experience. God’s grace is working everywhere in every living person’s life, knocking on every person’s heart seeking to free them from the bondage of this life.


We pray a lot of lofty prayers. ‘God give me a heart for this or that’, and I’m not downplaying the importance of those prayers. Pray them, but understand that you’re not just going to wake up one day and suddenly feel more love for people. To some extent, yes. However, Jesus told to love others as we love ourselves and we can’t very well love others the right way unless we have the correct view of ourselves. You can’t help anyone with their burden unless you can carry your own first. It starts by learning how the grace of God has worked throughout your life, not just until you prayed the sinner’s prayer. No one prays the prayer and lives happily ever after, your testimony builds as your understanding of God and His love deepens. That will allow you to understand others on a deeper level. It starts with what Christ did and then how that worked in your life and that understanding only comes from your devotional time with God. To see God we need holiness, the more of God you see in your life, the more holiness that you’ve got. The more holy you are the more people are drawn to you, the less you do things by your own effort, and, consequently, the more you will be attacked by the enemy.

The point here is that it starts with you. You don’t pray the prayer to sound holy at a meeting and then not follow up with God by reading the bible and praying every day (yes, every day). It doesn’t matter if it’s 15 minutes or three hours, different days lead to different things but be open to it. This is how your everyday things are transfigured - by preceding them with the word and prayer. This allows you to do even the most mundane things with an attitude of worship. How do you feel looking back on mistakes you’ve made? Times you’ve turned away from God? How do you see yourself when you look back at the years you didn’t know Him? Are you angry? You shouldn’t be. Lack of patience, lack of the right heart for people is there because you don’t evaluate your past with eyes cleansed by holiness, you don’t meditate with the mind of Christ. Somewhere along the line the enemy says to be a good Christian you have to berate yourself and you can’t love yourself. Love who Christ is in you, remind yourself that you’re under the blood of the Lamb. If you’re looking back at your past or the mistakes you’ve made and kicking yourself for them then you’re not having faith in the blood and then you don’t build your testimony and then you don’t overcome he who is in the world.