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| I think I'm going to write soon.
I feel the excitement for one building up.
Yessss
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| The fullness of Your grace is here with me
The richness of Your beauty's all I see
The brightness of Your glory has arrived
In Your presence God, I'm completely satisfied
For You I sing I dance
Rejoice in this divine romance
Lift my heart and my hands
To show my love, to show my love
A deep deep flood, an Ocean flows from You
Of deep deep love, yeah it's filling up the room
Your innocent blood, has washed my guilty life
Divine Romance
Falling on my knees in worship
Giving all I am to seek Your face
Lord all I am is is Yours
My whole life
I place in Your hands
God of mercy
Humbled I bow down
In your presence at Your throne
I called You answered
And You came to my rescue and I
I wanna be where You are
In my life be lifted high
In our world be lifted high
In our love be lifted high
Came to My Rescue
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| Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father
We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing - as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
Colossians 1
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| I realize the last entry was lacking a lot of grace.
But I'm not gonna apologize for it.
Why?
BECAUSE IT'S MY XANGA.
Haha.. no because it was just a frustration rant, and it really is my xanga.
But if you want to dialogue about it, let's.
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| There's a lot swimming through my head right now. I feel like that's always the case. I just need to stop spending so much time thinking. Rather, that effort would be well spent in action.
These next few paragraphs or so will be just me spilling out thoughts, frustrations, worries, etc.
I'm lost. I've put too much hope in people. And I realize we are all broken. But how do broken people progress when helped by other broken people? When will we who claim to be followers of Christ step up? I can't help but be judgmental. I desire to see change, but yet have no desire to change myself. We crave love. We do. I just pick a random girl's facebook and it's about love, or a guy. We are so focused on the feelings. And not just emotions. When we're tired, we sleep. We don't ask for strength when work needs to be done, whether physical, academic, or spiritual. When we recognize pain and suffering, we numb it with mindless crap like T.V. or video games or facebook. We, as American Christians, lift hands in praise as we turn a deaf ear and cold heart to things that matter most. We live lives of the selfish Gospel. We think we're holy, but we're really secularly holy, set apart from the secular culture, but not SET APART, not whole, not pure, not desiring for this, but rather a mind for wanting to appear holy, which is as much as we achieve.
God? Awesome. Let me read my Bible about what God can do for me.
Oh that's not how we think?
The Gospel? Yes! I love how much it changes and transforms me.
What?
The Gospel is for those who are suffering. The Gospel is for those who are lost. The Gospel is for those who are running headlong into the fires of freaking damnation and hell.
True. We Christians are in need of the Gospel as well. We are broken people too. But do we limit the Gospel to ourselves and to others whom Christ has already allured?
We're not supposed to, but practically speaking, we absolutely do.
I just want to swear right now. I'm so frustrated at myself, so frustrated at American Christianity, so frustrated at the inadequacy and the inaction that so often plagues me and, at least by my observations, so many around me.
Let's go on STINTs (short term international trips) and talk about how awesome it was or how much we grew. But let's not really talk about the redemptive power of Christ and how we see God moving. Or maybe we will talk about that, but in ratio comparison to what we learned, how we grew.. well.. that's a pretty big ratio.
Let's talk about how good God is and how much He provides and then let's spend countless dollars on hammocks, or clothes, or new computers, or freaking $150 shoes. Let's drop 50 bucks because we believe that a teenager actually needs to have a blackberry instead of a regular phone. Let's shout joyfully when we worship in singing, but let's not shout joyfully when we worship in giving or tithing. Let's talk about how we can be counter cultural and pick out ways in which we can be, instead of being wholly counter cultural. Let's read Harry Potter five times through and never read through the Bible once. Let's freaking lead a bible study and look at porn and masturbate three times a week. Let's clap our hands to applaud a speaker because everything that he said that was just incredible was, of course, by his own doing and his own intellect alone.
Let's be in Campus Crusade for Christ, in which our philosophy is to 'Win. Build. Send.' and stick within that subculture. SORRY. I'm in a frustrated mood at various things, including myself, but I need to vent about this.
I love Crusade, and I love what people in Crusade are doing, but as far as Crusade goes as a whole, it frustrates me. We love Christ, no doubt about it. And we all know each other, which isn't bad. But we go to bible studies in Crusade, we lead Crusade bible studies, we go to big meetings in Crusade, we go to Crusade events, we do so many things not Crusade appointed, but Crusade associated, we talk about how we can have awesome creative dates with other Crusade bible studies, etc. Where does that leave us? 4 out of 7 days filled with Crusade stuff, another day filled with church related things.. and 2 days for homework. Love love love the fact that we don't evangelize. Myself included.. the chief of all inaction.
This really has no easy, no fluid end. So I'm just going to end it. My frustration has worn down from the fact that it's been pent up and I'm finally releasing it.
There is no animosity or anger towards anyone specific, just a generation that I see that fails, and a desire to see that generation change, but with no idea how.
A desire to see failures in myself change, but with no idea how.
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