Tomorrow night, I will be joining 18,000 other students in seeking God’s face and amplifying His greatness in Nashville.  I’m pumped, soo very excited, and in need of a bit more rest to get rid of this cold i’ve had since like Tuesday.  I’ve been imagining what that sounds like, looks like, feels like…to be in one big room with people from “every nation, tribe and tongue” to come together, joining as one to bring glory to God. No matter how loud the music from the stage is gonna be, our unified voices will be louder!  I wonder how deafening it’s gonna be =D I can just picture it, standing in awe of the grace of God that will have brought us together; humbled that it’s not just one or two of us worshipping God in song, not just 18,000 of us, but to think that we are only a spec in the grand scheme of things…to consider ALL the people around the world, along with the countless angels and heavenly hosts that will be worshipping with us!  WOW!!

I was listening to Beth Moore’s message she preached last year…and i’m just so amazed at the powerful voice of God that comes out of her mouth as she preached.. i’m not sure about this whole women and preaching/pastoring thing, but she’s got one heck of a gift–she just brings it straight to ya, loud and clear, no holding back at raising her voice to call upon the Spirit to saturate our lives.  her message was on passion, being as much a thing of the MIND as the heart…to guard our minds, as much as we guard our hearts.  just as Christ called us to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, we must not neglect protecting our minds from the Evil one.  Our minds is what our faith is entrenched in–not just that we need to know what we believe–but also why.  Beth called the students to root our minds into the WORD of God, to hold up with the Shield of Faith in one hand AND the Sword of the Spirit in the other–so that our minds, and thus our hearts and our lives, would be strengthened for the glory of God.

I couldn’t agree with her more. And i’ve just been pondering about that, that we’ve SOOO often talked about guarding our hearts, that we’ve neglected to protect that which has opened up a gateway for our hearts to be shaken and broken–our minds.  Satan has tempted us and tricked us, told us lies that there is something better than Jesus…and we’ve one way or another, no matter how small, we’ve bought into that lie. and our hearts have been broken, our lives been torn apart because of this.  it’s because our minds aren’t strong enough to withstand…we gotta put up the Helmet of Salvation and protect our heads from thinking anything else than God satisfies.  ….and getting hurt in the process of “loving others” has tremendously impacted our “loving God” with all of our heart soul mind and strength, and all this due to our weak minds.

We need strength, Father.  Be the strength inside of us.  White flags all around… no more trying to do the right thing. Time to surrender to Your power within and stop doing the wrong things..stop sinning against You.  Thank you for saving me, for saving us.. That when we were dead in our transgressions, you rescued us..and by Your grace we are healed, through faith we are righteous.  Be the strength in our weakness, be the treasure that we seek, be all in our all.

Amen.

Happy New Year’s! 

By the time you read this post, I am on my way back from Urbana 06 in St.Louis.  2007 is here, and I’ve just counted-down to the new year with 25,000 other people in a crowded stadium.  Nevertheless, however far apart you and I may be, in a large crowd or by yourself, this is the time to start things anew–the calendar giving us a fresh start, a new beginning.

On my 23rd birthday earlier this past September, I reflected on a resolution for the next year:

Over these past 12 months, I have dwelled and tried to live out Philippians 3:13-14… and maybe it is just the Holy Spirit’s work in me that has me forgetting so much of the past.  By His grace & Spirit I have tried hard to strain forward to what lies ahead, and as I grow older it is just kind of bittersweet to see all that I would be leaving behind, metaphorically speaking.  For the next 12 months, I earnestly pray and hope that I can be disciplined by His grace, to live a humble orthodoxy, and be dead to sin and alive to God… for this is my birthday resolution:

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3:7-11, ESV

May we continue to examine and re-examine our lives to see which areas of our lives need to be transformed by the Spirit’s indwelling and empowerment.

Continue reading “On this day 23 years ago“…

Well well, 2006 is here!

Mixed feelings all around for me, just taking it easy these past few days before Passion06. What’s done is done, and in the past. After my successful 40day Lent from blogging / to hand-written journaling, I’ve got lots to say and really don’t know where to start. I might post more than justce once daily too.. So I guess here goes.

My old blog was simply based on old technology and unfortunately could not be converted properly to WordPress, THUS I’ve started a brand new blog here! New beginnings not just in my website’s design and blog, but also Spiritually, emotionally, relationally. God is giving you and me a another chance here to glorify Him with our lives. May it be that fate/destiny/God will have it that we will see each other much less at first, but my hope and trust is in Thee alone & know He will BE the strength IN you to restore your weary soul. I know you and I both are struggling to trust each other, but believe you me when I say all I want is your friendship.

If you are reading this, than you are a dear friend, and maybe even a brother or sister in Christ. I care and agape/phileo love you as a brother/sister because Christ first loved me. He demands my life of love and sacrifice, and to die trying to turn an enemy into a friend. And thus that is my life goal, to make God look good–to glorify God in enjoying Him forever; to be happy about glorifying Him in all circumstances.

Everything has moved over to my one and only website here @ www.sixsteps.org My old domain will expire at end of January and will not be renewed, so if u wanna read my old blog entries, head over to http://old.sixsteps.org. Take a look around at the new site…feel free to register & comment–the commenting system is AJAX driven, so no refreshing of the page is needed! Searching entries is easier than ever–”live” search results display on the fly right under the searchbox! I’ve also started to use the Flickr.com photo service - see the frontpage. If you like to use RSS, see the bottom pages of my site for the feeds
Well, that’s about it for now. Gotta start getting things cleaned up and ready to fly off to Nashville on Monday. Happy New Years.