Rest.

So Church was really powerful for me today. Our Pastor just talked about physical rest. He explained that rest and sleep are divine. He shared a few passages in scripture where it just showed Jesus resting. I feel like this is something I know but something I totally don't live by. This is an area that I want to grow in more. We went through Mark 1 : 29 - 39. It talked about how Jesus healed people and drove out demons but then after that he just went to a solitary place to pray. Then everyone started looking for him because there were more people in need of healing but he decided to turn away from the people and move on to the next city. There will always be a need for people so sometimes you have to say no to good things. I want to make rest a part of my rhythm. I want to Be Still before God more often. I don't want to get caught up and lost in the busyness of life. I need to Let God build his church and stop trying to do it myself

This is my bed with my dolphin covers and I am about to go sleep on it. Yes. Rest here I come.

Dreams for 2010

So we had this leadership weekend at my church where the purpose was to help inspire, encourage, and train our leaders at Grace Gathering. I helped lead worship at the leadership weekend and I just really saw God move through people. It was awesome to see people sing, dance, and shout during worship. People were just overflowing with God's spirit. I'm really excited for what God is doing in our Church. One thing Pastor Chris was talking about was his own personal dreams for himself and the church in 2010. So I decided to make a list of my own personal dreams for 2010.

Dreams for 2010 :

- Be more bold when it comes to sharing the gospel to unbelievers

- Love my family more

-Be more open with my personal life to other people

-Handover lustful thoughts and desires

-Less controlled by what people think of me

-Grow and learn in the area that God has gifted me in

-Making the confession of sins a regular thing

-Become more sensitive to the Holy Spirit

- Take more Risk

-More discipline in my school work

Getting back into the swing of things.

School has been real difficult and I'm constantly in this place of worry. I'm always afraid that I am going to do bad on a test or not understand the material well enough. Homework can just consume so much of your time. I am really trying to live in the place of giving all this worry to God. (Matthew 6:25-34 "Do not worry") Even though school is a main priority, I am still going to seek his kingdom first. Worrying about school can really effect me spiritually but my prayer is that I give all this worry to God.

I decided to take a break tonight after my late night class and just go to starbucks and relax. I ended up running into some good friends and we all just caught up and hung out. I am currently in the process of writing a new song that is just the overflow of my heart and I really like where it is going but I want God's spirit to lead the song on how it should be written but I'm excited for it.

Clothing myself in humility

God is really changing my heart in the area of humility and being humble. It is so easy for me to try and make myself look good in front of people or for me to feel prideful on the things I do. I need to remember that without Christ in me, I AM NOTHING. I want to die to myself. I want to clothe myself in humility. I want to love others as myself. So God's glory can come in full.

1 Peter 5:5 "All of you clothe yourself in humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble"

Matthew 16:24-25 "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it."

Tonight was good. I went to Campus Crusade and God's presences was there. We just felt the reality of what was really going on in Haiti. We spent time in sorrow together just praying for that country. We believe that God is going to do something big in that situation.

Good day gone bad...well kind of

So today started off going really well! Church was so good today. Worship went amazing and we had a guest speaker named Bryan Clay come and speak. God really used him to speak into my life because he just talked about resisting the devil and choosing to become closer with God. He went through the book of James and just hit a lot of spots that were good. Then after church my friends Ben, Jim, and I went to Pastor Chris's house and just watched football and talked about life. It was good just to build a good rapport with Pastor Chris.

Then everything went in the wrong direction. I watched the Chargers game. It was good for me though because sometimes I take games like this way to serious but I am just so sick of saying maybe next year. The Chargers are just a tease for me. In the season, they give me hope but when the playoffs come they always crash and burn. So Chargers lost 17-14 and I'm just letting it soak in.

It ended on a good note though because we had campaigners at my house tonight which is a bible study I help lead for high school boys. It is cool to be a part of that because I am witnessing God work in these guys lives and it encourages my walk with the Lord.

You stood before my failures

So I have been listening to the song called “The Stand” a lot because Passion just released a bonus song from the new passion album. Kristian Stanfill covered the song. Every time I listen to it these words soak into my heart: “You stood before my failures and carried the cross for my shame” Personally its difficult for me to accept Gods grace. Whenever I tend to turn from God or harden my heart towards God, I always ask myself the same question. How could he ever take me back? Why would he ever want to use me? The more I hold back from completely accepting God's love, the less full I am. Today I read in Hebrews 4:16 " Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." The enemy tries to tell us that God doesn't fully love us after we turn from him but my prayer for myself and for others is that we can approach the throne of grace with confidence so we can have life to the FULL.

The Stirring in my heart

I feel Gods presence in me like no other which is rare for me in the winter because I usually struggle with depression during this time. I recently had an experience at a conference called "Passion" this place had some of the best speakers and worship leaders but even beyond that I felt Gods spirit working in me at this place. There were 21,000 people at this place and about 75% of them were college students. You can see on the picture on the left just how many people there are and that's not even all of them. I felt like I experienced the kingdom of heaven when you see this many people just praising God in multiple ways. I heard a lot of messages that were tough to swallow but Francis Chan really gave one that I felt the spirit really convicting me. He talked a lot about suffering and wanting to suffer for the sake of Christ because it brings intimacy with him. This is an area I don't experience enough in my life but I want it because it is so biblical that when we lose our life we gain life. This is an area where I am just trying to let God change my heart.

Tonight was good though. I met up with my good friend Mikey whom I haven't seen in 3 weeks which is a really long time! It was good just hearing about his trip and his relationship with Janice. What they have is beautiful and Christ centered. My prayer is that if I were to be in a relationship that it would have the same foundation they have. Her family took him to mexico or something like that and he brought me back a Cuban cigar which isn't legal but oh well. And yes I do like to smoke cigars occasionally so I was happy with the gift he brought me.