What Do I Know of Holy?

All I can say about this song is wow. I had heard it on the radio but never actually listened to the lyrics. I love songs that make you think:) Raw and beautiful. And oh how familiar I am with these situations. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've "prayed" to God on my schedule and didn't shut up long enough for Him to tell me anything. And truly what do we know of Holy? I love the imagery about standing only on the shore of the ocean. I can remember even recent times in my life in which I thought I knew for certain what God wanted. I grew up in the church. I learned all the stories, knew all the Bible verses from memory, quoted lots of great apologists, and yet it was all fake until pretty much the end of high school. I was great at portraying the typical "Christian" persona. Then after I graduated, I know something needed to change. I remember the first time I truly experienced God's power and presence at a prayer meeting during college my freshmen year. I only wished that I could experience that daily. And ever since then, that is what I have strived for. To know this God of mine at a level I never thought possible. To see Him in places that I have never seen Him in before. I have never regretted it, and I hope that many can follow Him and do the same. Be careful though if you ask and be ready for God to ruin your life so He can do great and beautiful things through you. And some day I will see what "Holy" is face to face. We will all see. And O what a glorious day that will be. May we remember daily how little we truly know of Him and be humbled by it:)

Addison Road
I made You promises a thousand times
I tried to hear from Heaven
But I talked the whole time
I think I made You too small
I never feared You at all No
If You touched my face would I know You?
Looked into my eyes could I behold You?

CHORUS
What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

I guess I thought that I had figured You out
I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about
How You were mighty to save
But those were only empty words on a page
Then I caught a glimpse of who You might be
The slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees

BRIDGE
What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?
And a God who gave life "its" name?
What do I know of Holy?
Of the One who the angels praise?
All creation knows Your name
On earth and heaven above
What do I know of this love?

What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of Holy?

Could you imagine?

This was the result of inspiration after reading Candice Loftin's note with the same title. :) Could you imagine a place without any sorrow or suffering? A place where there is no need for the sun because God Almighty is the source of light? A place where you can walk on streets made of gold or sail on a crystal sea? A place where you can sit on Jesus's lap and ask him questions about his creation or just about anything in general and he just smiling the whole time, answering each question with his loving nature and just loving to spend moments talking to and holding his child? A place where you can meet Paul or any other biblical character you want and get an eyewitness account of the stories you used to read about? A place where you can also meet any Christian in history that has ever lived, hopefully including some of your ancestors or recent family members that have died? A place where you can meet and sing with angels, glorifying God forever? A place in which you can run as fast and as far as you can and never grow tired? A place in which the walls surrounding the place are made of huge layers of every fine jewel and gem ever known? A place in which you have your own heavenly mansion and treasures beyond your wildest dreams? A time when Jesus comes back where the world is remade in its original perfect glory and you get to eat from the tree of life and all the animals are peaceful herbivores, with nothing eating each other so you can see the dinosaurs and all the extinct animals once more? A time in which there will be a new Jerusalem for all to live in, with God as the provider of food and life for all?

The Church and it's calling

I went to church today, just as I always do. I have been going since I was born which is practically about 19 years now. But why do I go? What is the purpose of church? Why do we go to church? Is it to see our friends? Is it to be able to have fellowship with other believers? Is it to learn more about the Word of God? Is it to worship our Creator? All these things are absolutely essential to the Church, however, after the service today, I have realized that we have missed the mark. We have missed the true purpose and vision that the Church has been called by God to possess. What is this that I speak of? My college minister explained it quite well this morning. He has a neighbor named Jose. He knows that Jose does not know the Lord. He used to spend time with Jose and just have casual conversations with him and love on him. However, in the past year, his responsibilities at church have caused him to neglect his time with Jose. He admitted this morning that he hasn't talked to Jose in probably about six months. What I speak of is loving those who do not know him. That is what the Church has neglected. We have focused so much on nurturing and equipping those who already know about the matchless, extravagant love of Jesus Christ, and we have completely ignored those who really need his love. That is simply those who do not know him. As my college minisiter said, we have focused more on growing the church instead of growing the kingdom. We think by just adding another service or Bible study that we can get people to come when the truth of the matter is people aren't going to come. Why? Because they have no reason to! They have no reason to believe that Christianity is any different than any other religion! We aren't showing them that Christ's love is like no other! We aren't ministering to them! Why should they come? If we are the body, why aren't his arms reaching, why aren't his hands healing, why aren't his words teaching. If we are the body, why aren't his feet going, why is his love not showing them there is a way? Am I saying that nurturing believers in the church is not important? By no means! But what are we getting equipped for? To better our own spiritual walk? That is partly it, but what does Jesus call us to do once we are equipped and ready? He calls us to make disciples. Are we doing that? How can we grow the church if we are not growing the kingdom? Ty(my college minister) reminded me of that today. Though church and a group of Christian friends is a crucial for keeping a good relationship with God and others, we should also be loving those who do not know him. Christ love means nothing if we are not showing that love to others. How do we do that? By being friends with those who do not know him(i.e. building relationships). By having a group of Christian friends to love and to be accountable and to encourage each other, but by also having a group of lost friends to love on and minister to. We cannot just sit in our Christian "circle" all the time and be content with that. We are ALL called to be missionaries, whether in another country or in our own community or even next door like my college minister. He is going to give up some of his responsibilities at church so that he can make time to love Jose again. He has also called our college ministry to start working on evangelism. The word evangelism doesn't mean that we are to stand on a corner and yell about Jesus and tell everyone else that they are going to hell. The number one way that people come to know Christ is through a relationship with a Christian that lives Christ-like. A person who loves them no matter what they do or say and who shows that through their actions and words. That is how the church will EVER truly grow as it should. We come with so many excuses like "I'm not strong enough", "I don't have the gift of evangelism", "I'm too busy", "I don't want to hang out with THOSE people". The truth is, God has given each of us a place of ministry and evangelism in our lives. Whether it's our next door neighbor, the homeless, people at our workplace, people in our schools, or just random people walking around town, we have so many chances to potentially show his love to someone we know that doesn't know him. So instead of condemning those "heathens" and "sinners", why don't we love them with Christ's love? And why don't we look in the mirror and see who the real heathen is for not loving these people? For not reaching out to build relationships. There are two very simple things that we are called to do as Christians: Love God and Love people. That's it. Nothing more nothing less. I pray that you will realize this. Pray for my college ministry as we try to orchestrate a plan to carry that out, as I will pray that the church will get back to what it originally was created to do. What we as the Church were created to do:)

Soda and life

For about a year now, I have stopped drinking soda. I don't even remember exactly when I stopped drinking it. I thought I would miss it, but after a while I became used to drinking water and I haven't regretted it since. Its better for my health and plus water is just so much more refreshing and thirst-quenching to me. I mean we are 75% water, so that makes sense I suppose. I didn't like that soda was always so dehydrating, and even though it quenched my thirst for a while, it was starving my body of what I really needed. Also, if you think about the ingredients in soda, its basically a bunch of acids, carbonation and a bunch of sugars. There are other trace things, but thats basically what it is. The phosphoric acid can rot your bones and start taking out the calcium that makes them so strong. Since it's acid, it can even damage your esophagus if you drink it enough. It's terrible for your teeth as well. The sugars turn to fat in some bodies. So why do we drink it? Because it tastes good! The carbonation is fun to belch or perhaps you just like the fizzy feeling. It gives you more satisfaction at the time than a boring glass of water. Yet it tears up your body. Am I saying you should stop drinking soda? That is your choice and I will not interfere with that but that is not the main point I am trying to make here. I'm sure someone may have come up with an analogy like this before, but I see soda as a really good analogy for sin. Sin is fun, but it only satisfies temporarily. It leads to cravings for more when one sin is no longer enough to satisfy. Yet all it leads to is hurting, either yourself or someone else, and it eats us like acid from the inside out. It dehydrates us from the true Living Water until we get so dehydrated that we no longer believe anything can satisfy us but the sin. We become desensitized to its obvious effects and try to cover them up with more sin. Just like the first people on the earth, Adam and Eve. We blame everyone else but ourselves for our screw-ups because we don't like to admit that we messed up. We have too much pride and arrogance that we know what we're doing. We also don't expect any consequences and we complain when they do come. We all do this, myself included. I feel that it is always important to emphasize that when I write these notes, I am not writing them out of a holier-than-thou attitude, because I struggle exactly with the same things all the time. I simply write them because the Holy Spirit has laid them on my heart and I don't think he wants me to keep these thoughts to myself. I find that I can be so much more coherent with my thoughts when I type or write, rather than when I try to speak to someone, so alas here I am:) Perhaps I should consider being an author.......what do you think? Do I actually make sense or are these merely words on a page? You can read my other notes if you like. I write a lot at once because I never have time to write anything haha. Life gets busy. Well it's time to study anthropology before I go to bed because I have a test Tuesday. See yall later! God bless:)

some other things.....(this topic may not be easy for some, just warning you)

Well I'm back!(from eating). This note is going to be about a topic that isn’t easy to talk about, but that I feel must be said. It’s about sex. That’s right I just said the word that no one ever wants to talk about. The word that is taboo in most churches because so many people are afraid to bring the subject up. But what makes us so afraid to talk about it? Why has it become so uncomfortable among Christians to speak about it? Simply because the world has corrupted the original intent of sex. No one can walk around in this world and not see something nude, semi-nude, or promiscuous on TV, the Internet, movies, billboards, and even in peoples lifestyles, including the way they dress(especially girls, though guys don't seem to mind). The world has saturated us from age 10 to now that its ok to wear that low-cut top, its ok to show that belly, its ok to have sex before marriage, its ok to masturbate, its ok to learn sexual techniques from those Men's Health or Women's health magazines, its ok to explore sexual pleasure. After all that's how we were made, right? NO! If that isn't how we were made, then is sex a bad thing? Certainly not! God designed to be a beautiful thing, he designed to be exhilarating, and he commanded us to do it "Go forth and multiply". Sex is the only way to multiply. He could have chose to make us asexual reproducers, where we just cut off a finger and poof, there is a person! He didn't do that though, so there must be a reason for him designing sex. Sex is a part of God's gift to us out of love. However, he put very specific parameters around it. First of all, it was designed for marriage and marriage alone. Why? Because sex not only bonds two bodies together, but it bonds two souls. Sex is not just a physical thing or technique, it is a beautiful way for a man and his wife to bond together as one flesh, and it involves emotional, spiritual, and even psychological aspects within it. Sex is truly a beautiful inside of marriage. Sex is also a symbol of the covenant of marriage. Because it bonds both body and soul, it reinforces and solidifies the already made covenant to stick together for life, no matter what. It signifies the commitment they have already made on their wedding day to themselves and God. However, when done outside of that context, it is completely defying and destroying the covenant that God has established. It also can have many consequences like an unwanted pregnancy, STDs, or a broken relationship. Most importantly though, it can leave scars on you that no other sin can. Sex outside of marriage is also selfish. You are taking God's covenant and you are throwing it in his face just because you don't have the self-control to watch what you do with your body. You want that pleasure and you want it now. Why wait until marriage when it can easily be obtained now? Because you do not have the right. You do not have the right to take away a person's virginity or your own until you are completely committed. Marriage is the ultimate commitment, the ultimate expression to show that you love your spouse that much. Sex is a demonstration of that commitment. If you are not married, then you have no right to have sex with someone whom you have not shown that commitment to through marriage. You are also sinning against your own body as well as the other person’s body when you do that. Only that girl's husband has the right to have sex with her, if she is not married then no one does and vice versa with a man and his wife. If a man doesn't have a wife, he shouldn't be having sex. Masturbation is even more selfish in my eyes. Not only are you defying the covenant of marriage, but you are basically denying your future wife or husband the pleasure of having sex with you. You’re taking all the pleasure for yourself, or basically what is called self-gratification. They should be the first and last people that you share your sexual pleasure with. Also, masturbation requires you to lust. It requires you to have thoughts about or visual images of things that you have no right to be thinking. You are basically raping whoever it is in your mind, since you are doing things to them without their consent. Lust is strictly forbidden by God, as no good ever comes from it. For any girls reading this, I feel like there are some things that you need to know about guys. First of all, guys were made to be visual. Guys also have a natural sex drive. However, the filth that guys are fed constantly in this world today fuels that sex drive to an unhealthy level and it makes it so much easier for a guy to fall into sexual sin. Also, the way girls dress does not help. Girls do not realize how easy it is for guys to sin through our eyes before we even have time to think about it. All it takes is one low cut top, one pair of short shorts, one tight shirt. I know you don't want a guy looking at your breasts or your butt, yet you wear these things that show off or advertise your looks. Yes they may be "in style” but are they right? Do you really think you need those kinds of clothes to attract a guy? A true godly guy will love you for who you are, not what you wear. Am I trying to use what you wear as an excuse for guys’ behavior? Absolutely not! It is very important to never just accept that sinning is a part of you and that it is pointless to fight it. God's grace is sufficient but we are called to get back up after we fall. We cannot view ourselves as a helpless victim! We must rely on Him and he will pick us back up. I owe too much to my God and my future wife to quit trying to become pure in everything that I do. To strive for holiness, righteousness, godliness, brotherly love, goodness, and perseverance. That is my goal, now and forever. To be ready for my wife when I meet her some day. To be God's light in a dark world. To love without holding back, with God's love. Agape love. To be more humble. Will it be easy? Nope. But I don't expect it to be easy because it was never meant to be easy. But I have all confidence that God will take care of me because he promises that he will. I will trust him now and forever and I hope that you will do the same. Life is so much more fulfilling when you know God personally instead of just knowing about him.:) Time to continue, and I think this next one will be the last one......... Oh and most of this material is from a book called Every Young Man's Battle. The book is extremely good and I would recommend it for any guy as well as any girl who truly wants to know what temptations guys face daily. It also gives ways that the authors used to fight the temptations. It is very blunt and not easy to read, but it is definitely worth it.

A journey into my mind.....enter if you dare,lol

Well, I figured it was about time to write another note. I'd had a lot of things going through my mind lately and I've been struggling with some things as well. Ah, where to begin.... School sounds like a good place to start. I had three tests this past week and I have another coming up on Tuesday. Basically, I've been studying almost nonstop and it has worn me out. I also had a situation going on this weekend that I can't really go into detail of because I don't think the people involved would appreciate me telling anyone about it. What I can say though is please pray for them. I am praying for them fervently. They are doing things that are not honoring God, and my heart has been crying and continues to cry out that they would seek Him. Pray that He will give them grace and mercy and above all, His unfailing love because only He can fully satisfy. If the people involved in this situation are reading this, I want you to know that I do not look down on you or think any less of you. I want you to know that I love you deeply with all my heart.:) I could never judge you nor do I even have the jurisdiction to or the right. I am just as much human as any of you. But just as Nathan pointed out what David was doing because he loved him like a brother and he didn't want to see his brother fall into any more sin, so I am doing to you. I am not mad, but I am grieving in my heart. I know that God has so much planned for your lives, and that what you are doing is ultimately going to hurt you in the long run and I do not want that for you. I long to see your relationship with Christ grow and for his love to cover you. I have seen friends go down the road you are following, and it has never ended up good. Sorry for getting off on that tangent for those of you that were expecting a nonpersonal Facebook note but I just felt like I had to say something. Anyway, I'm in an anthropology class this semester and its a very interesting class, but I also know that God has put me there for a reason. Of course, I believe everything happens for a reason. Anyway, the class is helping me realize just how fallen and unjust this world has become. I think so many times we try to stay within our own bubbles where everything is comfortable and we do not think of the hurting world around us. I have done this countless times, and still continue to do this! I complain about my classes and tests when I have a home, good food, loving parents, an awesome sister, and countless friends. Most people have very few if any of these things! Either that or we think that the world is too vile or perverted for us too get involved. Anthropology calls it ethnocentrism or the belive that another's culture is sick or disgusting based on what your culture practices. Because the American culture doesn't eat bugs, most people see it as nasty that it is a delicacy in some Asian countries. If we had grown up eating bugs in Japan, we wouldn't see it as nasty at all, simply a part of life. There are some cultures that do female circumcision, or pierce interesting parts of their body. So because we don't want to have to deal with that, we decide not to minister to the world because we are much safer here. How then will these people ever experience the love of God? How can they find Christ when there is no one to speak to them? How awesome would it be if every Christian surrendered their heart to God and went and ministered and loved those cultures, despite their distaste for the culture or their fears of living outside the U.S.? Even in our own community there are people who need God's love shared with them by feeding them or clothing them or giving them a home. They are hurting and we just sit on our butts and complain about our own lives instead of reaching out to them. God's love was not meant to be cooped up within our hearts like an animal in a cage. God calls for us to radiate his love to others. Who are we to decide who is entitled to his love or not? Did we form the Earth with our hands? Did we create ourselves? Of course not! Therefore we have no right to decide who gets love and who doesn't! We are called to love EVERYONE whether we know them or not, whether we agree with their practices or rituals or style of clothing or lack of hygiene. Which is truly worse? People living in sin and not realizing it or never knowing of God's grace? Or us simply not doing anything to help remedy that as God has called us to do? If we are the body, why aren't his arms reaching, why aren't his hands healing, why aren't his words teaching? And if we are the body, why aren't his feet going, why is his love not showing them there is a way? No one will ever see Christ's love if we do not show it to them or minister to them. Also, we talked about biologocal anthropology and some of thr evolutionary timeline. Now God might or might not have created the world through evolution, I wasn't there so I cannot 100% know how God did it. However, I do not personally believe that God did it that way. I do not care what the science of this world says, nor how much evidence they have come up with. There is just as much evidence for the young earth creationists, they just don't get government money to fund their research or any media coverage so it takes much longer to finish a project and even longer to spread the word because the media is not behind them. The media is a very powerful tool for getting your voice heard in this day and age as well as the govt. Anyway, based on what I have seen in the Bible and what I have learned about the character of God, I simply cannot comprehend evolution as his method of creation. Here is why. First of all, our God is a personal God and an all loving God. He cares about each and every part of his creation individually. I do not see how evolution would show his love or his personal character. God is good. He states his creation as good. How then can death be a part of this perfect world? That is what evolution causes. Many things must mutate and pass on favored characteristics, while the ones who weren't so lucky to get the mutation that will help them survive just die off. What of the transistional forms? How does this show God's love for individuality when we are constantly evolving? God could have created it all in one day but he didn't. Why? I think it is because he wanted to demonstrate that he loved his creation so much that he split it up into more days to show that he wanted to give more time into shaping each kind of lifeform individually instead of doing it all at once. If someone puts a lot of time into something, then you can tell that they care very much about what they are doing vs someone who doesn't put much effort or time into something and you can tell that they really must not care much about that subject. But 6 billion years is a lot of time! How come he didn't take that long? Because evolution is not beautiful. Mutations can cause serious illnesses and complications. They can cause a weaker species to die out altogether. I do not think evolution was an original plan of this world. First of all, there was no death and no faults in any bodily processes. No predators and no prey. No infectious diseases. The world was perfect or good in God's eyes. There could be no room for anything that even had the potential to cause suffering or death. All the creatures were herbivores, and there was no danger of anything bad ever happening in the original world. For evolution to occur, usually the death of other species is involved. I don't think anything had to compete for food or fight each other for resources. I believe the ecosystem had all it needed and every living thing was content and well fed. That is beautiful. That is love. Also God is unchanging so wouldn't it be logical to assume that his creation would originally want to be like him? We had the choice to stay in paradise forever on the earth and never change that, or to rebel against him and face the consequences. If we are created in his image, I do not believe evolution is a part of that because an image is a reflection of the character and his traits. Because he is good, we were created good as well as all other creatures. Humans were in fact VERY good so we were above even the standard of good that God made the animals with. Also, God spent an entire day on us(humans). Thats a long time when all you have to do is speak and it comes into being. I find it much more probable that God picked up dust of the earth and formed us with his own two hands as a potter sculpts clay or a sculpter makes a statue. He wanted to form us himself instead of letting evolution create us over time. We were also to rule over the animals because we were set apart from them. I do not see how we could have evolved from the same ancestor. That would not make creation personal because you have many other animals emerging from one. I believe evolution came as a result of sin, and genetic mutations are a part of this fallen world, as are infectious diseases, suffering and death. I could be completely wrong about any of this as I am definitely not known for always being right,lol. However, I just thought that someone might like to know whats going on inside my head, and why I believe what I do :) I have much more to say but this note is getting long so I'm going to probably write another after I eat dinner.......Ciao for now!

What the passion flower represents and how it got it's name

The passion flower was first seen by missionary Spanish explorers that came to the Americas about 400 years ago. The plant reminded them of Christ's sacrifice because the parts of the plant represented different aspects of His death. The 5 petals and 5 sepals represent 10 disciples, without Judas and Peter, the 5 stamen and the 3 different spreading styles with their flattened heads represent the wounds and the nails. Below this is a double row of long filaments, known as the corona, that symbolizes the crown of thorns put on Jesus' head before the crucifixion. The tendrils that the plant uses to climb with symbolize the whips used to lash Christ. The ovary of the plant also depicts the hammer used for the nails and the styles can also be the 3 separate crosses as well

Here is an example of one of the species. There are over 200 species in all different colors!

Isn't it amazing how God shows himself through his creation? Just thought I'd share. I actually have some passion flower growing in my yard right now.