I've moved to Tumblr. =)

ramble: grace > Law ........ relationship > religion

To receive grace is to receive something completely undeserved.

And we stand, soak, breathe in God's grace.

We are loved when we deliberately turn from Him. We are loved when we stumble. We are loved when we walk forward. We are loved when we surrender. We are loved when we transform. We are loved when we remain stagnant. We are loved when we reject Him. We are loved when we spite ourselves. We are loved when we look to Him. We are loved when we pray. We are loved when we rely on ourselves. We are loved when we are crippled in fear and shame. We are loved when we are living in freedom. We are loved when we are addicted to x, y, z. We are loved when we love. We are loved when we hate. We are loved when we pretend to be someone we're not. We are loved when we are everything we were created to be.

We stand in God's grace.

May His grace propel us... not to being a "better person", or to heartier intercessory prayers, or to sobriety from alcohol and drugs, or to contrived, self-conceived "warmth" for one another, or to bigger, better fellowships and ministries.

Our ultimate goal is never to be holier, better, nicer people. Purity and consecration are fatally important, but that transformation isn't on us, it's on the Holy Spirit.

And "religious" people (me me me...) like it or not, it has never been about the outside. But it is "a new creation that counts" (Romans 6:15): Jesus Christ's blood covering us.

That is why...

I stand in God's grace.

Nothing I can do or say can earn or rob me of my inheritance... before Christ, I was an orphan. With Christ, I've undeservedly become royalty.

Don't get me wrong. It really isn't about how holy we are, and how good we are at evangelizing, and how big our hearts are for the poor and broken (actually, it's not about us at all)...

But I'm not saying grace is license to sin.

God's kindness is so that I'm led to repentance. Yum. Fun word! It doesn't mean God is being nice so He can trick me into a religious contract, but because in repentance (means to change one's mind to Jesus...), God knows there is life, freedom, love waiting for those who CHOOSE to know Him.

In plain terms? God is nice to us... so we turn and see how nice He is... and in our eyes opening to how nice and cuddly and awesome yet powerful and fearsome and ownage He is... we find ourselves silly in love.

In plainer terms? God being nice to us = us turning to Him = us walking out in real freedom, joy, peace, love, life...

Blahblahblahblah...

All of that said: Really there's no formula. Just grace. Yeah that's right you straight A bookworm nerd uptight probably Asian who need to have everything down by the book. NO FORMULA. JUST GRACE!! =)

You can't even force yourself into a revelation of God's grace. Or it's not really a revelation, right? Hahah. Sorry to break the striving and fighting alone and self-dependence, but you're gonna have to ask God for it. And there's not even a prayer template I can give you. You have to be real. If you have the desire for this revelation of God's love for you, a deeper heart understanding of the Cross, you've already won half the battle =) So ask the One who is crazy about you. ...And trust me, no matter how long or short or not ever you've been Christian, we ALL are in dire need of this revelation... No one graduates out of the Gospel.

Anywho.

Nobody falls deeper in love and has passion for Christ because of their own strength or because of mustered up human enthusiasm or even because of sound theology. But because of God's love. Because of God's grace.

That is the power of Jesus Christ's burning passion on the Cross. That is the power of Grace. To make generations and generations of Mankind believe in and transform and live and die for Someone who can't even be seen. Not out of self-promotion, but out of love and passion and honor..

"It is way beyond religion, way beyond minds of man, way beyond our thinking... Help us receive, help us receive Your love..." -Jason Upton's Into The Sky

When I receive the heart revelation of Jesus Christ's passion displayed for me on the Cross, I can't help but lose taste for alcohol and for attention from boys and for my huge list of ugly addictions and idols. It's like falling in love. It IS falling in love. I just change without almost my own consent. I get selfless and it confuses and amazes me at the way I've changed in the past two years and how I continue to change. I mean... the change might just be a little, and heck, no one else may even have noticed that I've changed... but I know. I feel the change in heart and I see in myself these changes. And God sees, and is honored and crazy happy over not necessarily the fruit, but my heart and will behind it.

And I guess when I forget the Gospel... it's like falling out of love, and I'm significantly more easily tempted by the things I used to do (and some still do). I'm learning that it's during this "dry" season when the Lord wants me to trudge through and remain faithful without His hand carrying me. To not be over-reliant on emotions, but to be loyal thick and thin to the promises I've made Him and to this relationship I chose, out of my own free will, to give my everything to. I'm learning. And it's getting more fun, only because I am realizing that it's during these times of trials and tests when I feel like God is a billion miles away... that I'm not being ditched by God, but I'm actually being molded by His very hands.

... Anyway. Who said anything about religion?

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace

surrender

be still

Point blank:

Life is so much more purposeful, simpler, and sweeter when it is all about You, Jesus.

Colossians 3:1-17

Still

"Hide me now under Your wing
Cover me within Your mighty hands

When the oceans rise and thunders roar

I will soar with You above the storm

Father, You are King over the flood

I will be still, know You are God

Find rest my soul in Christ alone
Know His power in quietness and trust

When the oceans rise and thunders roar

I will soar with You above the storm

Father, You are King over the flood

And I will be still, know You are God"

Have faith in God. He has faith in you...

created to worship...period.

While talking with a handful of brothers and sisters in the past week and listening to issues which resonate with my current inner struggles (God is so nice.. tank you for sending encouragement through Your church), my mind returned to this particular section of the book over and over...and I want to share this wealth with you!! Reading this book, particularly this passage, was such a fresh reminder of who I am. AHH the sweet freedom and power of fulfilling my very reason of existence.

Excerpt from Ch. 13: God's Army of Worshipers

The Three Battlegrounds by Francis Frangipane 

An in-depth view of the three arenas of spiritual warfare: The mind, the church, and the heavenly places

"One does not have to pentrate deeply into the Revelation of John to discover that both God and the devil are seeking worshipers (see Revelation 7:11, 13:4, 14:7, 11). Time and time again the line is drawn between those who 'worship the beast and his image' and those who worship God.

In the last great battle before Jesus returns, the outcome of every man's life shall be weighed upon a scale of worship: in the midst of warfare and battles to whom will we bow, God or Satan?...We must realize the essence of this battle is the central issue in our warfare today. Will we faithfully worship God during satanic assault and temptation? True worship must emerge now in the context of our daily lives, for no man will worship through the great battles of tomorrow who complains in the mere skirmishes of today.

...Although the events of our lives are irreversible, our reactions to those events can still be changed. As our wrong reactions to the past change, we change. In other words, although we cannot alter the past, we can put our past upon the 'altar' as an act of worship. A worshiping heart truly allows God to restore the soul.

All of us receive a portion of both good and evil in this world. But for life to be good, God, who is the essence of life, must reach into our experiences and redeem us from our negative reactions. The channel through which the Lord extends Himself, even into our past, is our love and worship of Him.

'And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God' (Romans 8:28). The key for the fulfillment of this verse is that we become lovers of God in our spirits. Bad things become good for 'those who love God.' When we are given to loving Him, all that we have passed through in life is washed and redeemed in that love. Bad becomes good by the power of God.

Therefore, it is essential to both the salvation of our souls and our protection in warfare that we be worshipers. The ship which safely carries us through the storms of adversity is worship.

Psalm 83 expresses in praise to God the wonderful effect worship has upon the soul. 'How blessed is the man whose strength is in You, in whose heart are the highways to Zion! Passing through the valley of Baca [weeping] they make it a spring; the early rain also covers it with blessings' (v. 5-6).

If you are 'ever praising' God (Psalm 84:4), your worship of God will transform the negative assault of the enemy into 'a spring' of sweet refreshing waters. No matter what befalls a worshiper, their 'valley of weeping' always becomes a spring covered 'with blessings.' You cannot successfully engage in warfare, nor pass safely through the wilderness of this life, without first becoming a worshiper of God.

We were created for God's pleasure. We were not created to live for ourselves but for Him. And while the Lord desires that we enjoy His gifts and His people, He would have us know we were created first for His pleasure. In these closing moments of this age, the Lord will have a people whose purpose for living is to please God with their lives. In them, God finds His own reward for creating man. They are His worshipers. They are on earth only to please God, and when He is pleased, they also are pleased.

The Lord takes them farther and through more pain and conflicts than any other men. Outwardly, they often seem "smitten of God, and afflicted" (Isaiah 53:4). Yet to God, they are His beloved. When they are crushed, like the petals of a flower, they exude a worship, the fragrance of which is so beautiful and rare that angels weep in quiet awe at their surrender. They are the Lord's purpose for creation.

One would think that God would protect them, guarding them in such a way that they would not be marred. Instead, they are marred more than others. Indeed, the Lord seems pleased to crush them, putting them to grief. For in the midst of their physical and emotional pain, their loyalty to Christ grows pure and perfect. And in the face of persecutions, their love and worship toward God become all-consuming.

Would that all Christ's servants were so perfectly surrendered. Yet God finds His pleasure in us all. But as the days of the kingdom draw near and the warfare at the end of this age increases, those who have been created solely for hte worship of God will come forth in the power and glory of the Son. With the high praises of God in their mouth, they will execute upon His enemies the judgment written (see Psalm 149). They will lead as generals in the Lord's army of worshipers."

AMEN.

I want to desire and seek God's presence above all other hassles and distractions in our daily lives. As we return to classes and/or work, and as the urgency of being warriors of Christ becomes drowned out by our obligations (religious or secular, doesn't matter), family, friends, enemies, blessings and trials alike, let's retaliate and become increasingly intentional on loving on the One who creates. There is no fruit without deep, real intimacy with Him. NONE.

Our sole purpose is the bring glory to God, through our lives as a fragrant offering of worship. Not NECESSARILY about saving souls, nor about our ministries, nor about our callings and visions.

Life ain't about our boyfriends and girlfriends, nor about our education, nor about our financial success.

Nay, not about how much our life sucks, not about how many people gossip about us, not about what the world says about our identity.

Nooooope, it's not about striving and fighting alone to bear fruit, it's not about being bound by Law. It's not about how righteous or holy we look, and it's not about perfection.

It's about living in the freedom and joy of doing all things for our First Love.

AHHH WOOP WOOP... HERE I COME SPRING SEMESTER, IMMA OWN YOU! In the name of Jesus. LOL. (...Jesus. Help. T_T)

Blessed are the poor in spirit...help me God T_T

"The spirit of entitlement comes into the heart of a person who rejects being poor in spirit. Rejecting poor in spirit leads to the ultimate poverty. Being poor in spirit is that place of humility, where you realize that everything comes simply as a gift of grace: nothing is deserved. Awareness of this grace keeps us from that proud and arrogant and demanding spirit of entitlement... When the blessing of the Lord is on your life, if it doesn't lead you to gratitude for grace, it will lead you to arrogance and misuse of power." - Bill Johnson