The Sea Door, and rioting

So I originally wrote this for my English class, but I thought it showed a good example of our walk. The assignment was too pick something in the room and write. I picked this picture that had open wood doors and then outside of the doors was the beach and a sunset.

The Sea Door
This short story is based upon the picture with the open door and the sea.

In the town of White shores, there was a society of people with all sorts of different backgrounds. White Shores was your average utopia where there was an inquisitive boy named Hans. Hans loved to read and was very introverted among his peers. He loved to make up stories of adventures he had been on .He was always too shy to tell them to anyone, but that didn’t stop him from imagining adventures. One day Hans was walking on the outskirts of town by the forest’s edge. As he rounded a bend in the road, a strange man clothed in a dark robe slipped out among the trees. He was clutching an aged book, and was bleeding through his cloak. When Hans asked the man what the book was about, the stranger answered, “truth”. He handed him the book, turned to Hans and said, “Here’s your adventure”. He slowly strode into the seemingly still forest and disappeared from sight. Hans immediately sprinted to his favorite reading spot, and cracked the book open. The book explained the history of not only White Shores, but of a place called “Europe” it had maps of lands named “America”, “Asia”, “The middle east”. What Hans found the most interesting was the map of White Shores. It had the town in the center, and then the forest, the hills, and the river. What was interesting was that there was a wall surrounding the town several miles out, and there was a huge depiction of what looked like a door in the wall. It was labeled “The Sea Door”. There was something outside of it labeled “White Shore’s Beach” and “Ocean”. Hans was a very good reader but he could not understand have of these words. The next day after school he decided to actually have his own adventure. He started off where he saw the strange old man. He traveled on a broken footpath through the dense forest. He found his way out of the dark and dreary forest, and out onto the wide open hills. The wind was stirring the long grass, making melodic swirls, entertaining Hans as he marched toward this fabled “Sea Door”. He suddenly heard sirens coming from the now distant town. Thy must have noticed that he was gone and now the whole town was searching for him. They did not want him to be adventurous. Throughout his entire life, his over active large scale imagination was looked down upon. The elders of the town always encouraged the strictest order of their lives. “Through order comes prosperity” was what he had heard his whole life. This time was different, he would have his adventure. He started running over and back down the hills. The siren giving him a splitting headache, he only ran faster. He soon reached the river and stopped to take a drink. The crisp and refreshing water was just what he needed to calm his nerves. The siren sounded softer more like a wail that only a mother could mourn. This greatly discouraged him, what would happen if he got to the door? He couldn’t open it and go back, but he couldn’t leave his mother, father, or his friends. He trudged onward toward the great wall that was looming on the horizon line. His legs felt weak as he slowly walked the last few miles toward the wall. The siren was now no longer angry or mournful. It was now enticing him, as if it was calling him back. It promised him adventures, fun, and all the books he could lay his eyes on. Remorsefully he scuttled on. He finally reached the enormous wall and found the door. The wall was at least 50 feet high, with aged brick, and barb wire at the top. He noticed a piece of black cloth floating in the wind as he slowly approached the large door. The smell of salt reached his nostrils which immediately removed his dulling headache from his mind. The immense oak door had large clouded windows that allowed light to filter in. The cool brass handles seemed to call his name and tempted him to grasp them and fling the doors wide open. Should he though? The sirens were now in a desperate plea to win him back. They no longer offered their treasures, instead only truth, apologizing for the façade they had put up. Should he go back? He had finally found an adventure; would he be satisfied and return to his home? How could he leave his family? Does he dare fling wide those doors and leave all promise of comfort and familiarity? Does he dare leave White Shores? He slowly clasped the giant brass handles and looked over his shoulder one last time. With distant pleading sirens in the background he pushed the doors open, and gazed upon the sea.

So how this relates to us. Before we were Christians we were stuck somewhere. We were stuck in our "White Shores" Where we thought lie was grand and had no worries. Satan had us and we didn't mind. Soon someone who we thought was odd maybe a friend or a teacher gave us truth. We found out that there was something different. That there was more. So we started off on our adventure ion the search of the truth. Then Satan learned of this and tried to bring us back by anger, rage, mourning, temptations and promises of allurement, and then finally false truth. And we thought about going back. It would be easier right? just living how we always did with little to none moral conscience. Somewhere along they way when the choice came to it we stood before the door. We heard the sirens, and we chose to open the door, to see what else there was. and we found God. We found a God of adventure, who sent his son (old guy) into our microcosm to find us and give us the truth.

Now for my devotion time i am going through all of the gospels at once. It sounds crazy but it is great. I read the other day "Jesus rejected at Nazareth" Luke 4:14-30. You know the story he teaches gets rejected OK good. So Jesus was a rabbi, and he was asked to speak. So he goes and reads the Torah very typical. but you see he did not choose what he was going to read, it was like a one year bible kind of thing only a lot older he read this vs 18:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Ya pretty awesome, and then he says today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing, he then gets rejected and almost killed. Ok so what we miss is what is he even reading??

Isaiah 61:1-3

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.

This is my favorite verse now. But look at it! Jesus is anointed to complete people! My favorite is when you mix the Hebrew and Greek or Greebrew as i call it. it would look like this:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release the blind from darkness, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

I think its perfect b/c it tells you exactly who Jesus is, how he will impact you (vs 3) and what you are supposed to do. ( Displaying his splendor)

Another day of reading brought me to baptism of Jesus. It didn't make sense to me. One John the Baptist (JB) says I'm not the Christ, but there is someone who is greater than me who is. When he sees Jesus he tells his disciples and the people, look! there he is that's the guy i have been telling you about!! Then Jesus gets baptized like a normal person, there are people getting baptized around him and he gets dunked and then the HS comes down upon him, and God says this is my son, check him out!!!! OK then John the Baptist is giving interviews and john ( the author) gets one and basically affirms the rumors.

So my question is why did no one get it?

If god came down people should riot!

So the other question that was posed to me by my friend garret was why aren't we rioting? WE know who God is... Isaiah 61:1-3 tells all about Jesus and how awesome he is, but we aren't rioting. I will leave you with this:

We MUST RIOT!

We must go crazy for Jesus not only because he is God but because our purpose is for the display of his splendor, so Lets crowd the streets lets crowd the schools and the offices and every other place that is under the sun or in the shade! Let us rise up and riot for Jesus. Let us Riot demanding and showing the return of the Kingdom of God

let us scream RIOT!

God riots, (haha)

not KGB, but KOG

The KOG aka Kingdom of God

What is it?
When is it?
Where is it?
and How is it?

Well i will first tell you my understanding of it and will go into details a little later.

The kingdom of God is in 2 parts:
The kingdom of God is little children, so innocent and simple, who love their father so much, They love him so much that they are constantly trying to do his perfect will. The second part of the KOG is that we are not perfect. So we fail at trying to do our fathers will,
BUT he forgives us, we are not left out high and dry, we forgives us and then encourages and loves us. The KOG is now and not yet. God gave us an example aka Jesus aka the word aka God's perfect will! He is the KOG incarnate. And we trying to live God's will can bring a sort of "heaven" on earth. Since we are sinful it will not be perfect, so the KOG will finally and completly arrive at the Resurrection.


I might be going out of order a bit but I'm too lazy to fix it, so here it goes...

eggizō - to bring near, to join one thing to another
2) to draw or come near to, to approach (Blue letter bible)

The NT authors use this word when referring to the kingdom as "at hand"
Jesus said, that the Kingdom is eggizo or at hand. that the kog is so close that you can touch it.
So what is it?
Jesus' world crashed into ours since his birth. When he came he being God's perfect will incarnate, fused or eggizoed our earthly kingdom with his Heavenly.

So when is it?

Its Now and Not Yet...
Mike Erre gave this message and i will try to retell you it but if you want you can just listen to it
http://www.rockharbor.org/resources/messages/mp3s/2008-09-28.mp3

So he says that the KOG is now meaning Jesus has come and presented it to us by his life. It is also not yet, because it will come in full when Christ returns at the Resurrection.

The thing about the KOG is that God left it to us. The lord's prayer, says Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So we get to advance the kingdom by doing Gods will on earth. Rob bell says we can bring the kingdom closer with every good deed and we can bring the second coming closer.

I disagree, he was on the right track but took a wrong term. By doing Gods will, we advance the kingdom and bring a "heaven" on earth. This heaven is a mere earthly representation of heaven and is not even close to being the real thing. The reason for that is of sin.

The second half of the kingdom which separates itself from all of the earthly kingdoms, is its love ad forgiveness.

Hashem rahessed its a English version of Hebrew it means:
God is full of loving kindness.
Do remember Sunday school stories of Jonah and the big fish? Its funny they only talk about the first 3 chapters which is fine if you just want a nice story, the final chapter gives it meaning. Jonah is mad and pouting b/c God forgave Nineveh. He is mad b/c of god's forgiveness and his loving kindness.

God is like that for us. We fail miserably at fulfilling his will, but he forgives us and asks us to Tesha vah (bad English to Hebrew) or turn around and seek his will

So the point of all this.

We need to seek God's will everyday so that we will further his heavenly kingdom here on earth.
We need to pray for god to show us his will, and for him to give us the strength to fulfill it. We also need to pray for love. We need to show the love and forgiveness that God has given us, to other people.

So I Challenge you, Embark upon this God glorified, and the real ordained crusade, not a crusade of violence and slaughter, but a crusade revealing God's will and loving kindness

God rules,

Calling "Your Name Here" please step up!

A calling.

Call it what you want, a passion, a destiny, a curse. Everyone has one, to some they make it, for others they let "fate" and chance rule it, but for few, they let someone bigger then themselves direct it.

God has been showing me and laying on my heart: the homeless. Poverty stricken people. He has shown me this in three ways: People, "The Irresistible revolution" and his word.

I have been reading Shane Claiborne's book the irresistible revolution. He is basically a huge advocate for human rights. I'm not going to ctrl+C his book into here, so you can read it for your self. He talks about the poor and how much they are neglected. He tells some crazy stories about his nights he has slept on the streets to "hang out" with his homeless Friends.

It kinda all started on June 5 (haha i actually looked back through my journal) Just reading Shane's book stirred a weird longing to do something great with my life. I kept asking God if it was his will that i wanted to do this. I went to gerenate a couple Wednesdays ago and tony was talking about passionate world changing. and about how if your living for the weekends, or living as if you will start living when i ... Tony said
Then your already dead. He had three tombstones up on stage, he said just go and have one of these made cause your already in the grave.I talked to my friend garret about this calling i felt( at that time it was more of a longing) on Sunday a homeless woman (cant confirm) asked me for some money. i gave her a small amount and said god bless. I told Justin (my sisters boyfriend) about my longing. He asked me what are you going to do? poverty hasn't been cured yet, so you must find something to do that no one else has done that will work. That next Wednesday, i was at Santa Anna hall of records picking up copy of birth certificate. who was there? tons of homeless people. they were being fed by the catholic workers movement (see the irresistible revolution) this couldn't be more planned. I sat down and talked to a man named Carl.

Carl has been there "for a while" and he doesn't eat lunch on Monday and Thursday. He has a bag and a sleeping bag next to him as he sits in the semi air conditioned foyer of the hall of records.

I asked God, " seriously can you be a bit more clear? you kind of vague!" :)

I'm not done yet, this whole period of time i had been reading 1st Samuel. stories of Saul(his better days) of how he was chasing his donkeys(passions) and how we got a new one. How he saw there was a need, accepted the call, and went and saved the city.
Some people sorta didn't mean to but discouraged me (don't ask I will not tell you who) and I decided i dint care if i failed miserably, as long as one person recognized that my love was different. It bothers me when people care about important smaller issues and ignore the important giant crisis,

2/3 of the world aren't homosexual
2/3 of the world aren't muslim
2/3 of the world aren't democrats
2/3 of the world aren't aborted
but
2/3 of the world are living in poverty.

Shane Claiborne says that 20% of the world owns 80% of the worlds goods, and 80% owns 20% of the worlds goods. Something is wrong!!!

OK back to the bible, god also showed me that just as David was obedient and wise while he was waiting for his crown, then i can wait until i am older to really help. (i mean this as in inviting people to dinner and letting them sleep in my home and such). I was also wary maybe this is a distraction of my real calling, God assured me with the story of Saul chasing davidand Samuel and his armies prophesying b/c they were going the wrong way.

So debriefing:

What are you going to do?

Join with me in realizing your calling. Isaiah 6:8. Isaiah is before the lord and God says whom shall i send, who will go for me. Isaiah is like," right here pick me!" like those annoying smart people in first grade, (haha i was one of them). The greatest example of a calling is with Elijah in 1 kings 19. He flees to horeb and God is going to speak with him. A great wind came, nope, earthquake? nope. how about a usual fire? nope. but he came in a still small voice. He comes in those of 2 fireman(book) a homeless man on a bench, your friends, and in your quiet times. He whispers beyond age wisdom through his pages. He will tell you your calling through anything.

He will whisper and graffiti signs for you,

but you must listen and look for them.

And please don't discourage people, unless they are going to do something stupid haha

that's all i got, I'm tired, and I'm going to bed

God calls,

The Kingdom of Heaven is like...

OK so this is an allegory NOT a true story, God gave me this idea, and it really struck me. all names are fake and just for allegorical purpose. this story shows the sinfulness of man and the Glory of God so be prepared.

There was a 10 year old kid named Johny. He lived on the bad side of town, and to get to school he had to walk through this alley. In this alley there was a homeless man, and everyday Johny would give his lunch of Pb&j to him and then continue on to school. This went on for months, everyday, even Saturday and Sunday. They created sort of a loose friendship, more of a supply and demand, consumerism deal. Johny had told the man that this weekend he wouldn't be able to give him his sandwich for he would be out of town. The following Monday, the man yelled drunkenly and struck Johny on his cheek. He whimpered and a tear slipped out of his eye as he said, here is your sandwich mister. The next day Johny went on like nothing happened and gave him his sandwich. One day as Johny came to gave him his sandwich, the man, high and drunk, came over to the boy, and (sorry about this, but i must) molested him. After he was done Johny sobbed, "here is your sandwich mister." This happened for a few weeks, sometimes after the man was through he would harshly slap the sandwich out of Johny's hands, and would cuss at him. One day the man was arrested, because someone had seen him. A few months have passed and the man has a visitor. These past few months have been hell for him he feels extremely guilty. Johny picks up the phone (prison seeing thing you know?) and hands him a bag, "here's your sandwich mister" The man breaks down and cries. He sobs, "please forgive me, please forgive me , please forgive me. This 30 something year old man is reduced to a child. Johny says, " i already have, and shows him the paperwork that will release him, Johny pays the bail, and they walk out with a renewed friendship.

Yes i know it teeters on the line between heart wrenching and disgusting. but here is the rest of the story:

This is an example of our christian walk. We are homeless, and God came down to bring us food, not earthly but spiritual food. He gave up his lunch for us. Sacrificial love. And we sometimes become complacent and we strike Jesus, or spit on his food, or reject his sacrificial love, and yes even molest his love. The man took advantage of Johny, and selfishly made it about him. His wants, his desires, his lusts.

The coolest part is after every let down of the man, Johny still offered him his sandwich. He double sacrificed. Jesus still offers forgiveness, even when we sin. He bails us out even when he shouldn't.

So what are we going to do about it?

God loves us........Live like it.

Live for that daily sandwich. Live for the simpler things, Christians are always modernizing themselves, we need to Neanderthal our selves and our thinking, and revert back to the time of lessons by the sea of Galilee. The message of the gospel is quite simple: love. In love their is forgiveness, in forgiveness, mercy and grace, in that their is a heavenly justice, in heaven there is the God who loves at all times, who loves you! We must be able to receive vertical love and spread it around with the world. I saw this movie "flawless" it was about an inside diamond heist. One of the main characters when asked why he was doing this heist, he says people have taken from him, and he asks the woman his accomplice, "what will you do with the money? will you be a giver or a taker?" She ends up giving away a very very large sum of money to all sorts of different charities and organizations. It took her 40 years.

We can do that.
We could do that better.
We can take our entire lifetime

Just giving away God's love to people
A simple prayer, a note a conversation, and yes even a good ol' PB&J
But we must take the first step, blindly(red tape) and faithfully follow Christ to ends of the earth

God loves you... So live like it.

God bless.

We were made...to die

I know. its a crazy title, but you will see. We have all heard that we were made to worship, and to love, but what if it was something more. When you say that God created us so that we can worship him that sounds vain. Yes i know that he is worthy of all of our praise, but what if...

He made US so that HE could love us?

We were made, so that he could die.

Its the long con, its his plan A, its was his first thought, if he had one. He from the beginning of time forknew that he would make us, we would sin, betray him, and not love him. But he still made us.

Say you were a carpenter, and you knew that this chair you were about to make out of this certain wood, would break, give you splinters, make a mess, and be a disaster, would you still make it?

Probally not, but God did! He fashioned us out of his own image, and mournfully watched us as Satan tainted, defiled, and destroyed us. He poured out his love on a people, just to see the same thing happen. He blessed Israel with the patriarchs, moses, the commandments, Joshua, judges, the prophets, "and he could bear Israel's misery no longer" (Judges 10:16) so he sent out his key player. His all star, his trump card, his son. To bear his misery, to bear our misery, our alien, sinful ways. They may not seem foreign to us, but in a different time, we were naked before God. We barred ourselves to him, in perfect innocence, with nothing to hide. So Jesus came to restore that old way. He came to us, to simply put it "unclothe" us. to spiritually take off the many layers that stumble us. Its like that one above the influence commercial, where the kid has a ton of t-shirts on, and he takes them off, and the last one says free on it. That's what Christ did. I heard a story the other day, where a professor and his student, displayed Christ's mission. The teacher went around the classroom and offered everyone a donut, and no matter what this one particular student did 10 push ups for each one. If the students didn't want one the teacher would put the donut on the desk, and then ask the kid for 10 push ups, the guy ended up doing 350 painful push ups, all so his classmates could have a lousy donut. How much more did Christ do that for us!

so what i am saying is that God made us TO love us.

It wrecks me to know that i am supposed to be worshiping God, instead of sinning.but it DESTROYS me, when I know that He made me just so he could love me. It murderers me to know that i will never be able to love God like he loves me. How many times have we read the prodigal son when we were feeling worthless? How many times have we wondered if God really loves us? Victor Hugo, a great french poet says, "The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved---loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves." How true.

Its funny about his love, its everywhere, anytime, and its communicated so commonly. our earthly love, would pale in comparison to God's, but it is sort of a symbol of it. Tangible evidence of something greater. So now that we know this, I hope and pray that our worldview, actions, and even our thoughts, would be changed.

God loves,

God's Passion

Here is a parable, well sorta. I thought of how sad this story would be if it were true. The sad thing is it probably is. So just for your information: This is NOT a true story-

There once was a man, a musician named Alexander. He was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was an aspiring musician, who was well on his way to the top. He had lowly beginnings on the bad side of town. He had never met his dad, and his Mother had gone insane after losing her oldest son. Alexander was the second child, and least favorite. He had started playing an old acoustic guitar he had found in the gutter, dropped by probably a homeless person. He started playing on street corners for money, when his mom spent all of their money on booze. He had quickly gotten quite good, but his mom kept stealing his money for booze. He moved out and, yes, lived in the street. A local musican heard him and let him play around with his guitars. Alexander soon started playing small gigs here and there, and he became more frequent.

One night after the show he was going to hang out with some of his street buddies. Long story short, he ended up high. He loved the way the drugs made him feel. Pretty soon, he was moving through the drug world, experiencing some of the more dangerous drugs. In just a few short weeks he became addicted to heroine. He needed it so much he couldn't even play a show with out taking it. He didn't have any passion for his music. He was just playing for the money so he could buy more. After a show one night, he was doing his usual routine, when he used a dirty needle. The infection spread, turning his whole arm black. The only thing that would make the pain go away was more drugs. He started using more and more, until his money ran out. Without the drugs he couldn't play because his arm hurt so much. He checked into a local hospital, where the doctor said that the infection had spread too far. The doctor said that he would do everything he could to stop it.

The next day a elderly woman came in to see Alexander. It was his mom, who was now clean and had been searching for him. His mom wanted him to get well, and come home with her, to live the life they had wanted. He wanted that desperately. He asked for his guitar, and he started playing his songs for his mother, who had never actually heard them. he played slow because the pain was too much. but as he was moaning out his beautiful lyrics, he flat lined. the disturbing beep, was the last music he heard. Some say that after he was dead the his fingers were still moving playing his songs.

Now what does that have to do with us? Well, Sometimes we are blinded by one of our passions. In Alexanders case that was his drugs. That could be anything for us, sports, girlfriends/boyfriends, job, anything that your passionate about. Sometimes that passion can get in the way of God's calling. You see we each have a specific calling from God. its our mission if we choose to accept it. Now Satan places snares and roadblocks to hinder us from our calling. He uses our own passions, sometimes he uses good passions like leading worship, or teaching the bible. We need to realize what our calling is.

Next year I will be a junior in high school, and will need to start figuring out what I am going to do. I need to seek God's will. I'm not writing this to you because I'm perfect, haha I'm writing this to you because I'm struggling with this! We all make mistakes, just like Alexander did. He let his drug use get in the way of his real passion and calling. He let it become so bad that he didn't even want to do his real passion, His drug abuse got so bad that not only did it blind him from his calling, it hindered him and eventually killed him. Sometimes I think what are my Passions that will hinder me from God's call. Sometimes I think that God has a passion for us, a passion to see us Live our lives to the fullest. I don't mean that in a secular way, but in a worship way. Christ Tomlin put it beautifully: "we were made to worship" So I think when we leave God to pursue other things he is like "what are you doing?!?" Don't go that way or something like that. Another thing that I think breaks God's heart is when your on the right path, and you fall away.

The song "Come Thou fount" was written by 18th century Methodist pastor and hymnist Robert Robinson. it has beautiful lyrics and poetry. Near the end of his life he had fallen away from Christ. A story, possibly apocryphal, is sometimes told of Robinson that one day in a stagecoach a lady asked him what he thought of the hymn "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." He responded, "Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then." He had left his calling being distracted by other things, and he said that he would give anything to come back. The lyrics he wrote were just for this moment!
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
That saddens me! think about God!!!! If you get anything out of this, get this:That God loves you and has a passion for you. He has a call, a will, a mission for your life. Be careful that your "passions" don't disrupt God's passion.

God Bless

Love and the Commandments

Love.

Commandments.

Now which one do you want more? ya that's what I thought. If you look closely at the bible, they are actually the same thing. Now travel with me through the bible:

God gave moses 613 commands on how to love, so that his children would be the Holy nation, that was set apart by one thing: That they had Love, and broke it down even farther to 10 which we still cant follow. Since they just screwed everything up God again breaks it down and makes it "easier" to 3 commands for our selfish minds in Micah 6:8- "-But to do Justice, to love kindness, and to Walk humbly with God?" So that they could be set apart in a foreign land We couldn't even get that so he sends his SON! to set us straight. Jesus says: Love your lord your God with all of your heart, Mind, and with all of your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. God for knew that that wouldn't work, so Jesus displayed his love for all humanity, for the Jews, the gentiles, the Romans, the sinners, the saved, even for the disciples, so WE could display that love. With his death he summed it all up into one word...

Love.
period.

That's it it is finished
nothing more

So how do we do this?
We must do what Jesus did.
We must crucify ourselves
crucify our thoughts our feelings our emotions our passions, and our will. I must sound like i am repeating myself (aka other note)but its true. Here's a riddle:

What comes first Love or Death?

Answer: Same time
To love you must die (your will, passion, etc),but to die you must love (you must want to die,)That might have confused you, it still does for me, but it is also true.

What I am saying, is that the bible may seem harsh or cruel, but if you get that it all leads to love, that it is a call to die, and a call to love, then you will get its purpose, you will get the entire point to the bible, you will get why Christ died, you will get, no you will know that there is someone

WHO
LOVES
YOU!

My writing syle

This is just a warning about my writing style. I tend to take after Rob Bell who writes like this:

I will often separate my sentences to

Emphasize things.

Italics mean listen

Bold means awaken!

Both mean you should probably read it twice

I use Literary Parallelism.

Its a style of comparison that Shakespeare used in many of his plays. Brutus uses it in Julius Caesar to sway the crowds.

I will not use this to sway you, but just to directly define.

If You see a * or (red tape) This means that I said something you may take offensive or it may seem blasphemous. Just don't take it like that, because I don't mean it like that. So please look past the "red tape" and try to understand what i am saying.

Hope you enjoy!

What is the Bible?

Today in America, we have lists and formulas for everything from losing weight, to making billions online, or how to lose a guy in 10 days. I feel like we have put these lists, formulas, and 3 step solutions into our bibles. Some people view the bible as a answer booklet, a self help guide, or even a long boring note.

To me a Bible is this:

A letter that explains God's love. It explains its history, its present, and its future. It describes a beautiful movement, that can pass us by. It gives, not an exclusive, but a very open invitation to join this love movement. This is our call, if we choose to accept it.

This outlook causes many response into our brain, such as What are we to do in this movement?How do we join this movement? And what does this movement want to achieve?

To join, we must die. Jesus said better love has no one than this, than to lay down his life for a Friend. We must also pick up our cross and follow him.

We must crucify ourselves.

When we take communion, we do just that, we wish for his body and blood upon us.

We must submit to his will.

We must, as a generation, a movement, change the world, not by politics, war, doomsday prophecies, or even with reason,

but with LOVE

love invokes two closely tied events:

Passion and Worship

When we do these things, when we have love, passion, and Worship

we ARE the movement