...these are a few of my FAVORITE things...

To begin this post, I want to say that these truly are just a few... the list could go on and on but I am just going to write about some of them. Maybe someday I'll add to it and if I don't then at least this will give you a little taste of who I am! :)

I realized as I'm sitting here watching the Nativity Story with my sleeping parents that I cannot go through life without a nice hot cup of something in my hands. Hot tea. Coffee. Hot Chocolate. Steamer. Anything really, it is just a simple delight to drink something hot and in the literal sense, feel "warm fuzzies" on the inside. (Right now I am drinking a Chamomile tea with honey in it.)

A wood fireplace, a good book and sweatpants in the winter with a hot cup of something. Nothing beats this kind of relaxing.

I love dreaming... both when I am sleeping, and awake. I have so many dreams in my heart that I am just waiting to come about... but in the waiting, Jesus is soooo faithful and is teaching me so much about who I am. When Jesus is leading me and showing me things about who I am and what I was meant to be- hoping is such a joy! Outside of Christ, hoping is burdensome and lonely, but in Christ it is something to look forward to with a holy anticipation and longing.

Meaningful conversations. I do not love small talk.

Family. I enjoy being with my family. They are kind and loving and enjoy life. They love Jesus and teach me so much about life and happiness and folling Christ.

And finally Jesus. I am far from it, but my desire is that He would be my all in all! I want every breath, every thought to be consumed with Him. My heart is delighted when He calls my name... I am honored that He would love me with such an everlasting love. I want to give Him everything, holding nothing back for myself. He has tender eyes, yet they burn with a fire that cannot be quenched. His desire is towards me and I delight His heart. All I want is to be near Him. Everything else is fading, but only His love remains. And in His love, He enables me to love Him back. Nothing else can compare to my Beloved. Nothing.

Reflections of the Heart

This morning, I am sitting here at my friend's house drinking tea and thinking about my life. I watched a movie last night called An Old Fashioned Christmas and the main guy character told his fiance to just follow her heart because she has a good heart and he trusted her. As I was watching this, I became so frustrated with our culture because everyone tells someone making a decision to simply "follow your heart" but that's not what Jesus told us to do at all! He gave us the Holy Spirit to be our Helper! Jesus says in John 14:16-17, "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you." In the Old Testament, a helper is one who provides aid or relief, specifically the Lord (Ps. 30:10; 54:4). In Psalm 30:10, David is crying out for the Lord to be his helper. Jesus answers this cry of David, and many others after His ascension by sending the Holy Spirit.
Now finally, after Jesus came and established one sacrifice for all (Heb. 10:10), we have the availability of the Holy Spirit living INSIDE OF US (Acts 2)! If you didn't get that, it means GOD WANTS TO LIVE INSIDE OF US and be our HELPER! This means that we don't have to follow our hearts and trust in ourselves alone! Why would we want to do that anyways? "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick ('wicked' in other translations); who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds."
I do not want to be one who declares that I trust in myself by the way I act and think and move and give my money. I want to declare my utter dependance is on Jesus! I am His, and He is mine (SS 7:10). That statement means that ALL that I am is His. I don't ever want to hold anything back from Him. I want everything that I am to be His. For everything that I hold onto as my own, no matter how big or small, I miss out on the pleasures of being completely abandoned to God.
No one is perfect and we are all fighting for holiness, but if we set our hearts to abide in Jesus (John 15:4) we have confidence that out of abiding in Him, our hearts will be transformed and we will bear good fruit (John 15:5). If we abide in God, we abide in Light because in God there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). This abiding in Light will expose all the darkness in our hearts and after we have been broken of all our fleshly lusts and evil desires, God can and will start to repare and rebuid the foundations of our heart so that in the end, we will come out looking more like Him. We will finally be able to love Him with all of our hearts, with no shame or guilt over the evil in us.
If we were living for ourselves, wickedness would be acceptable and even pleasureable, but we are not living for ourselves, we are living for Jesus "...and everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure." (1 John 3:3)

San Diego, Snake Paths and Jesus

I am officially on Thanksgiving break... HURRAY! :) After California I had 4 days of school (which ended up being 3) and then break happened. I've been home for almost 5 days now and have gotten to watch basketball games, hang out with my wonderful family and rest. It has been quite amazing and I still have 5 days left!

I've been sitting here listening to music, drinking my Pomegranete/Raspberry tea, trying to do homework but I can't seem to get away from thinking about my trip to California. It was more than I could have hoped for. Far above my expectations and prayers- but God had it all in His heart since before the foundations of the world. I'm glad He was leading :D

We left Thursday morning, November 4th from IHOPU. 5 buses and 300 students departed from Kansas City and traveled together until we got to Cali and then each bus went it's own way to the city and House of Prayer that it was assigned. My team was assigned to San Diego. There we would be working with the San Diego house of prayer- JHOP under the leadership of Eddie Brown.

After a 36 hour long bus ride, dirty, smelly and tired, we arrived in San Diego. The guys got dropped off at JHOP and then we got dropped off at Grace Fellowhip church. These 2 very gracious churches would be our home for the next week.

The next few days were filled with crazy adventure as we began to do ministry on UCSD (University of California-San Diego). Every morning we would go stand on the snake head (Rom. 16:20) and pray and sing quietly. After that we would eat lunch then go to different free speech areas on campus and play guitars and drums and sing and from there send little evangelism teams out to talk to people. Then, we came together with the other groups on library walk. All 55 of us began to sing as one group and dance around and tell people walking by about Jesus. One day during this time, a man got healing in his leg and didn't have to use his crutches anymore. People responded differently to us, but overall their response was just suprised at how happy and joyful we were!

On the last day, Eddie and Amanda (my team leader) decided that we weren't going to split up after lunch. So we all stayed together for 4 hours and did worship and ministry in the outdoor lunch court. Many people got saved and rededicated their lives to Jesus this day. If they didn't make any decisions for Christ, they at least got seeds planted in their hearts because hundreds (maybe a lot more) heard the worship and praise and also heard the open air preaching we did!

Every night after we left UCSD, we had services at JHOP- San Diego. These were all student led and our own worship teams led the time. It was amazing because the farther along the week was, more San Diego people and UCSD people came. It was cool to encourage them in this atmosphere of worship and prayer.

My heart was so impacted during this week. I learned how to rely on the Holy Spirit for strength and guidance in both serving my team, and ministering at UCSD. I fell in love with my team, and suprisingly, there were no issues between the 55 of us during the whole trip! There was an unprecedented unity amongst our team that we can credit only to the Holy Spirit!

California needs our prayers because people there are hungry for truth. Some people might go, and others might stay but everyone needs to pray. It is a state that affects the whole country, so ask the Lord how to pray for the people there because our prayers matter and make a difference! :)

In His Precious Name!

SoCal Nov. 4-15

It is the day before the SoCal trip and there are still so many things to do. Will be in the prayer room today from 6am-noon and then I need to find a place for my paper to print and then I have a word study project to work on. Then, I need to finish packing, cleaning and getting ready for the trip! AWWW!! It will be such a crazy day, I can't wait until we just get on the bus and get out there. There is always so much stress leading up to trips- especially when you add in homework. Lord bring peace to me and everyone else who is stressing today about what they need to get done before the trip! I still don't know where my bus is going, but God's had is on it and so I will not worry about the minor details... God send revival to Southern California!

A Quick Overview of This Summer:

I stayed in Kansas City with the purpose of being in the prayer room and at the awakenings while working and earning money for the upcoming school year. Overall, my plan was an excellent one... only it seemed more excellent in my mind than what it actually turned out to be. I ended up working more hours than what I thought and wanting to spend less and less time in the prayer room or at the awakenings because I would work a full day at the daycare and then be all sweaty and tired from that, so I would continually put off the prayer room. As I realized that I was not doing the one thing that I had stayed in KC to do, I began to pray about it and ask the Lord to give me a desire to be in the awakenings and the prayer room and little by little over the summer He has done that. I got to a place where it was not enough to do what I was doing; I may be tired after a long day but I was MADE for loving and worshipping God in an intimate relationship. So no matter what I do or how I'm doing, I was made for Love and so that is what I am going to do: love Him.

I also learned this summer that God shows up in ways that are unexpected and He works in our hearts in ways that we cannot even feel, see or know. This is comforting because on the worst of days and in the worst of circumstances, I can rely on God that He is working for the benefit of those who trust in Him!!! This, my friends is good news :)

I leave for Colorado this Friday, and I will be there for a week, so if you think about it pray for safe travels as I will be driving there with a friend of mine. When I get back I will be going home for a week and then coming back to KC to start my second year of school at FSM.

Blessings to you all,
Whitney

Therefore, Run

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Hebrews 12:1-3 NIV

Day 16!

Hello, I just wanted to update you on how this fast is going, both corporately and personally down here! :)
Corporately the fast has been very good, I can feel us going deeper and deeper and pressing in more and more during this time of intercession and crying out for revival in America. The more people I talk to, the more I have realized that as a corporate body we are being purified and our hearts are being purged of anything that is not holy in the sight of Jesus. He continues to massage our hearts, His bride must be whole and untainted by worldly lusts and pleasures. He is returning us to that place from which we have fallen and even though at times it is hard, there is extended grace right now for His bride so that He can do the work that must be done in us.
Personally I have felt Him so near to me. He is drawing me away and enticing me with the pleasure that only can come from knowing Him and His heart. It feels so wonderful to know that He is really real :) and that He really looks at me and loves me even though I am so unworthy of His love. I am definitely feeling the purification process as He so tenderly scrapes the gunk out of my heart... and even though it should be so painful, I am finding joy amidst the pain because I know that everything He is doing is for love. And as this process goes on, I can actually feel my heart's capacity to love Him more expand. My biggest temptation during the fast is to eat chocolate or candy :) I have not caved and I know that even if I do it isn't like my life is going to end because I will put the chocolate right back in it's secret cabinet... lol. But for real, that has been the biggest temptation for me and every 'no' to that temptation I feel in my heart because I am putting my flesh under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and letting Him fill me with eternal pleasures that come from knowing Him instead of filling myself with worldly pleasures that satisfy me for 5 minutes and leave me wanting more.

If you are participating in this fast as well, I pray that you would have an increase of grace on your life during this period and that God would reveal Himself to you in new ways every single day!
I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
Ephesians 1:16-21 ESV

Crying out for God

"It will come about after this
That I will pur our My Spirit on all
mankind;
And your sons and daughters will
prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams,
Your young men will see visions.
Even on the male and female servants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days."
Joel 2:28-29 NASB

Today is the first day of the nation-wide 40-day Daniel Fast. The focus of this fast is for God to pour out His Spirit on college campuses all over America (and the world) and that their would be a third great awakening that sweeps across the United States and the world. In the focus of our prayers is that God would tear down the powers and principalities of intellectualism and humanism that have an intensely strong hold on the East Coast schools (especially the Ivy league schools). The Ivy league schools, which were founded to be Christian schools of higher learning, have ceased to be what they once were. In fact today, it could be that there is not any school farther away from God than these elite schools. They have turned their backs on God in return for knowledge and wisdom of the world. Forsaking all knowledge based on biblical principles or the life of Jesus and turning to secular humanism and secular intellectualism. I believe that God's desire is to tear down these powers that are controlling the secular school systems all over the world. I believe that He wants to destroy the wisdom of men that He might raise up of the wisdom of God before all men.

"Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work
Among this people,
A marvelous work and a wonder;
For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
And the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden.”
Isaiah 29:14 NASB
"The wise men are put to shame,
They are dismayed and caught;
Behold, they have rejected the word of
the Lord,
And what kind of wisdom do they have?"
Jeremiah 8:9 NASB
“Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
Let not the mighty man glory in his might,
Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
But let him who glories glory in this,
That he understands and knows Me,
That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness,
judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
For in these I delight,” says the LORD.
Jeremiah 9:23-24 NASB

Directly opposite to the disease of intelectualism that has quickly spread through colleges, is what these schools were first founded on...
Princton
“Cursed be all learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ."
-Rev. Jonathan Dickson (Princton's first president)
Dartmouth
School motto: “A Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness."
(This school's motto has not changed.)
Brown
Roger Williams founded the school “to train ministers and educate youth properly in the Christian faith.”

If you are crying out to God for a great revival to sweep across this nation, pray that God would grip the hearts of my generation who have been swept up in the wave of intellectualism. It has to start with us because we are the ones who have influence to set a standard and pattern for this generation and generations to follow. Ask God to have mercy on us, and to pour out His Spirit on us!! Pray Joel 2:28-29 over us, and pray that we would be filled with the Spirit and for the believers of my generation, that we would begin to speak with boldness (Acts 4:29-31) and proclaim the coming kingdom of Jesus to the earth. Pray that the 4% of my generation that claims to be Christian, would speak out and be heard as if they were the majority of my generation. Like John the Baptist, pray that we would be a voice of one crying in the wilderness and preparing the way for Jesus to come!

Relational Wholeness Seminar Reflection 2

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Genesis 1:27

Today we had our second and final day of inner healing and it was a lot like the first day and it was very good. We went through the feminine and masculine identites that God gave us and how we reflect part of who He is when we can truly understand who He made us to be. God in His infinite wisdom, created us to need the opposite sex and know them as a companion so that we can know Him more fully. It's when our femininity and masculinity are abused that hurt begins to come in. This world is so full of many things that tell men and women who to be and how they should be with so many wrong ideas about what it means to be a man, or woman. Women have tummys that stick out because we have a womb there that God created to hold little babies in. Men are conquerers because God created them to rule over the creatures of the earth... There are so many traits and characteristics that God has given us but the world has twisted and perverted. If we use the traits that God has given us, to explore who He is and who we are in Him, we can truly know who we are as an individual and how we reflect who God is. After all, He did make men and women after His image!!! I would like to expand this subject more so perhaps I will do that in a later post but this is just a brief overview. :)

May the Lord bless you and keep you; may He make His face shine on you and be gracious to you and may He give you peace!

Relational Wholeness Seminar Reflection

Thank you God. Thank you God for the gift of your Son! Where would I be without Him? Without you? Holy Spirit give me a fresh revelation of how weak I am without you! Come in my weakness Jesus and make your name great! Make yourself strong and mighty in my weaknesses! May I never forget how merciful you are towards me! You can never resist a broken and contrite heart, O God, let me be poor in spirit! I am so desperately in need of you that nothing and no one can satisfy my longing besides you! I ask that you would break down all the walls that I have built up inside of my heart that would hinder you from loving me!!! Take away anything that hinders your love!! Purge me and cleanse me so that I might just begin to look like my Father! That when people see me, they would see you!! Holy Spirit come and do a deep work in my life today!

So for all first year students at my school, we're required to do a 2 day seminar called 'Relational Wholeness' and it's based off of the book 'Pure Heart'. For those of you who have never heard of this book, it is essentially inner healing. So what they do for this seminar is have it in a 2 day period and they do 8 teachings (I believe they are fromn the book), then there is ministry time, prayer, confession stuff... I have only been through the first day and it was amazing. I learned 2 major things today:
One- I am so very very very thankful that I have Godly parents who raised me in the way that reflects the fatherly and motherly heart of God! They did such an amazing job and I never realized the full meaning of that until today when so many of my classmates were standing at the altar and having to give all their pain from their parent's mistakes to God.. it truly made me realize how much I have taken for grantite the love of my parents! Which is so sad for me to think about, but I pray that I will never take them for grantite again!
Two- Confession is so very holy and sacred to God! I grew up just thinking that the Catholics were weird and all that confession stuff was so crazily wrong because I thought that no priest can just forgive people's sins... only Jesus can and, yeah that was my reasoning. But as I stood there in line today, waiting to confess one of the sins that I have never told anyone about, I realized that a girl in front of me was crying and just letting go of the sin that she'd held onto for so long.. It broke my heart and I realized that what I was about to do was so very holy to the Lord because it is a step in the healing process in our hearts.. He cares about our hearts so much and to Him it is so important that we can let Him heal us and our wounds because if we don't let Him heal us then we will never heal correctly and fully.
When we confess our sins with a broken heart and say "Okay God, this is all I have to give you, and it's just a big pile of crap, will you forgive me?" And because you came to Him with a broken and contrite heart He cannot deny your request :D so it's like a weight has finally been lifted off of your chest when the person says "I forgive you, and God forgives you!" because now you don't have to live with that sin hidden in your heart anymore and you can just let God fill that place :))
This is the equation I have come up with :)
One simple sentance (you are forgiven) + and actually speaking the sin out and acknowledging it + combined with an overflowing amount of Jesus' love and mercy towards you = FREEDOM!!!

Grace, Peace and Freedom to you in Jesus' wonderful name!

Jesus

"Jesus, Beloved"

Two weeks ago these were the words that came out of my teacher's mouth at the beginning of class. He could barely speak because he was so broken over the church's neglect for Jesus that he was in tears for nearly half of our two hour class. When he could talk, he continued to say that without the fellowship and love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, all of life comes down to nothing. When so many of us focus on the 'social' and 'poitical' issues of the day, we have forgotten our first love. Issues are not the problem, the neglect of Jesus is. For example: abortion needs to be ended and human trafficking needs to be ended, but so many people have neglected Jesus as the basis for the ending of these... We need to put Jesus back in the center! I believe that if we would just preach Jesus and His life and ministry and kingdom that all these issues would be solved!! People would be less concerned with the issue and would be totally consumed with the heart of Jesus behind each issue!! Beloved, we need to return to our first love!
Jesus I ask that you would show us your glory that we might remember the heights from which we have fallen! We want to be with you where you are! Return to us Jesus and make all things right once again! I pray that you would put the love that is in your Father in us so that we could love you with an everlasting love like He loves you! (John 17.) Jesus, I pray that you would dwell in our hearts and increase our faith! I pray that we would be a people who are rooted and grounded in the love of Jesus Christ and that we would be able to know the highth, the depth, the width and the length of your love for us in Christ!! Bring to fullness the Spirit's work in our lives! Take us deeper Holy Spirit! We want nothing less than what you have for us!! Bring us into the fullness of the Spirit. (Ephesians 3:17-19.)

Only Love

Just sitting in the prayer room today. I'm relaxing and getting ready for my class later, but for now I am simply enjoying the presence of God.:) I wonder how many people truly realize the beauty of just sitting at the feet of God? To be fascinated by my Father, Bridegroom and the Holy Spirit living inside of me is by far, the best thing in the world. I would rather be in the presence of God forever than to live a hundred lifetimes with all the luxuries of this world! As one of my favorite songs says, "My soul sings, how I love You!" I delight in the fellowship with my Savior! How amazing that we get the chance to have this kind of partnership, if we will just step out in faith to follow! "Oh Lord, our Lord! How majestic is Your name in all the earth!!" Just imagine this,, my best friend is the Maker of the entire world! All things are in Him and without Him there is nothing!! (John 1:3) !!!AND!!! on top of being my best friend, He lives inside of me!!! Counseling me and leading me into deeper fellowship with God, preparing me to be a better bride for Jesus!!! If you find my Beloved, would you tell Him that I am lovesick for His return. I am lovesick for Him because I am His, and He is mine (SS 6:3)!! He alone is my satisfaction, only He can capture my heart! All others will fade away, but only Love remains! Fascinate my heart oh God! Come into Your garden. :)

~Joy~

... In Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.
Psalm 16:11

A joyful heart is good medicine...
Proverbs 17:22

Not a lot to say tonight because I need to write a paper that is due on Monday. Only one more paper after this one for my 'Existence and Majesty of God' class. :) So this blog is my writing "warm up exercise" before I have to actually write super seriously, haha ugh :s

I decided to write a little bit about joy because we all need some more of it! There are many different kinds of joy. There is joy when you turn in all your homework on time, there is joy when you cook a really great meal, there is borrowed joy from a good movie, there is joy when you score the winning point(s) in an athletic competition, there is joy when you meet a new friend, there is joy when you marry your husband or wife, there is joy in buying your very first home/car etc..., there is joy when everything in your life is going perfect and even when it's not perfect you can usually find something to be joyful about... but these are all temporary joys...
what about those days when everythihg is going wrong, or you got a terrible grade on an assignment, or you burnt your dinner and started your stove on fire, where is your joy found when you are backed into a financial corner with no visible way out, or you feel like you have no friends, and you break your ankle on your way to your car and therefore cannot walk and have a huge medical bill? Where is the joy to be found on those horrible days?
For this, I will turn to Nehemiah 8:10 and Psalms 16:11 where they directly answer our question. They state "... Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." and "... In Your presence is fullness of joy..."
Jesus so desires that we find our joy in Him and Him alone. He doesn't want our fascination with other, finite beings and things to get in our way of being fascinated with Him. Because when we are fascinated with Him, it won't matter what comes our way in this life because we will be able to find joy in Jesus Christ! And the joy in Jesus is eternal and can never be taken away!!

"This joy that I've found, the world can't take it away!!!"
IHOP-KC Worship Chorus

,,i.wanna.b.where.YOU.r..!

One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord And to meditate in His temple.
Psalm 27:4 NASB

Thus says the Lord, "Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things," declares the Lord.
Jeremiah 9:23-24 NASB

Jesus, let me seek You for all the days of my life! Reveal to me the mysteries that are found in You and let me not grow weary in searching You out! I want to be with You and only You! Take me away with You! Draw me away and let me run with You! I am Yours and You are mine!!!

Have you seen Him? Have you seen my Beloved?
He is dazzling and ruddy, outstanding amont ten thousand.
His head is like gold, and His eyes like doves beside streams of water!
(Song of Solomon 5:10)

My soul longs for the One I love... and I will search for Him, and only Him!!

For I am lovesick...

no title...?

Splendid and majestic is His work,
And His righteousness endures forever.
Psalm 111:3 NASB

Saturdays are wonderfully relaxing if done well. Sleeping in, running to the grocery store, doing laundry, spending time with my Jesus... :) there is nothing better!
I am house sitting this weekend and that means snuggling with their dog as well, so with all that, my day couldn't get much better!! But wait, there's more! It is going to get better because Allee and Andrea are coming over to watch movies, and hang! Yay! Besides the fact that I cannot get the tv to work, this day is going fantastic! :))

I have been craving spaghetti for a couple days, so I decided that I would make it tonight since I will have friends to enjoy it with me. :)

I am supposed to be writing a paper that is due Monday in my 'Existence and Majesty of God' class, but I am figuring that that would spoil my wonderfully relaxing day,, lol... It's supposed to be on an attribute of God that we have either talked about in class, or read in 'The Knowledge of the Holy' by A.W. Tozer. I've been delaying all day and so I decided to delay a little longer so I could talk to you. Or maybe I just have homework A.D.D... I think it's a serious possibility!

Well, if I am going to finish this paper before Allee and Andrea come over, I should go :)

Blessings!!!

Made For Love

Dear Readers...

It's tomorrow now and I'm laying here in bed watching Cory's setfrom tonight...

Have you ever stopped to think why God made you?... I mean just think about it for a second. Stop reading this and just ask God why He made you... okay now keep reading. :)
!!!!NEWSFLASH!!!! HE MADE YOU FOR HIS GLORY!!!!
He loves you soooo stinkin much. He delights in You and You bring Him glory... the fact that you are living , breathing and alive glorifies Him!

So what do you do with this information? Love Him because He first loved you!!! Way before forever, when God was looking for someone to love, Your name, Your face, Your personality filled His mind. I don't know if you know this or not but YOU RAVISH HIS HEART!!! Only You can love Him the way you do... So love Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength!!!!

You only have one life to live, so you might as well do it right! LOVE HIM because that is all that He desires from you! :))

goodnight and God bless!!!

Lessons From The Playground

O taste and see that the Lord is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! Psalm 34:8 NASB

Ok guys, here it goes. I've never blogged before and I can't promise that I'm going to be any good at it either... But I have some things on my heart that I would like to share.
God is so good. I am so thankful for every breath that He has blessed me with. I am content with where I am in life and daily I try to thank God for this journey that I am on because it is only by His grace that I am where I am...
For those of you who don't know where I am, I am a student at the International House of Prayer University, 'aka' IHOPU, not to be confused with the pancake restaurant. :) I am a first year student and so far, I am being completely ruined by the love of my Father. Day after day I am experiencing newer and deeper revelations of His love and purpose for me and humanity in general. His love letter to us has come alive to me in a new and experiencial way that I can't help but fall more madly in love with Him. :)

I have been meditating the last few days about becoming like a child again... Something that Stuart Greaves said the other day in my 'Existence and Majesty of God' class has stuck with me and has been constantly following me everywhere I go. I want to go before my Father with the heart of a child, regardless of the current situation, always being childlike in my faith and trust in my Daddy. I want to trust that my Daddy is right ALL the time, if it says it in the Bible, I want to believe it and trust Him that He is always right... because He is always right. I may not understand, but I do know that if He says it, it's true.
So in that, I want to go back to the playground days. Not physically of course (playgrounds are dirty). But the attitude of every child at the playground when they talk to others is that their daddy is always right. It doesn't matter what subject they are talking about, if their daddy said it then it's right. Period. No questions asked. In an arguement when two kids cannot find common ground, the bottom line for each kid is my daddy is right and yours is wrong. Then when that fails, punches are thrown... Blood is shed... You get the point. :)
We as Christians need to have that childlike attitude that our Father is ALWAYS right. That doesn't mean that we should resort to violence if someone disagrees with us... haha. :) But to have that trust that no matter what this world tries to tell us, our Father is right. Period. No questions asked. It doesn't mean we need to understand everything that His Word says, because we will never ever understand everything, but we need to have faith that even in our lack of understanding, He is always True... it's who He is and He can never lie. Period. No questions asked.

I would like to finish this post with a quote from the 'Knowledge of the Holy' by A.W. Tozer.

"Every man lives by faith, the nonbeliever as well as the saint; the one by faith in natural laws and the other by faith in God. Every man throughout his entire life constantly accepts without understanding. The most learned sage can be reduced to silence with one simple question, 'What?' The answer to that question lies forever in the abyss of unknowing beyond any man's ability to discover. 'God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof,' (Job 28:23) but mortal man never."

Well, I'm done for today! I hope my blogging didn't start off too terrible. :))

May you be greatly blessed!