do you know the way you move Me

This is worth listening to. Trust me.

It's long, but just have it on in the background while you're doing something. I'm almost positive the Lord will speak to you.

Cory Asbury is singing prophetically what God is singing over us.

Do you Know the Way you Move Me?

to look like Jesus

Context of blog: I'm sorta weird. And this summer, I'm handwriting the New Testament in the Amplified version of the Bible. Odd, I know. But regardless, the Lord is really speaking to me through the scripture as I write each word. It's taking me a lot longer than I thought, but I guess it's because I have to just stop and think, a whole lot. This is going to sound very bad, but I typically have a hard time with the Gospels. Yes, they're amazing stories of Jesus, but sometimes I guess I feel like they aren't applicable to my life, where as with the epistles, I can read exactly what I should be doing and how I should be living. However, the Gospel from Matthew's point of view has been wrecking me, and I'm only on chapter 9. As I write the words of Jesus and begin to truly apply it to my life and figure out what it looks like for me, I realize how much we don't live out the Gospel. Which is ridiculous. If we were to apply one part of the Bible to our life more than any others, it logically should be the Gospels. Jesus literally tells us how we should live. And we are supposed to walk as Jesus did, and we can only know how Jesus walked by studying His life. The epistles rock, but the Gospels are JESUS in the flesh. Seriously guys, we have the life of Jesus in our hands and we don't even respect Him enough to use what He has given us. I hate to say that, but really, I honestly don't revere the Word like I should. Or even come close. I'm big time preaching to myself right now, because the more I type, the larger the conviction the Lord is giving me becomes. But this isn't about me...

The point of this blog is Jesus.

Matthew 8:34

Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.

Context of scripture: Jesus just casted out demons from two men; the demons went into a herd of hogs and the hogs ran into water and drowned. The herdsmen went into the town and told everyone what happened. Everyone was astounded and ran to go meet Jesus!

As I wrote, "And behold, the whole town went out to meet Jesus;" I thought wow, that's super awesome. Jesus did one thing and the whole town wanted to meet Him. I thought about how cool it would have been to meet Jesus in the flesh. Then I finished writing the sentence, "and as soon as they saw Him, they begged Him to depart from their locality." I stopped. I read the sentence again. Then again. Then like two more times. I thought, hmm, maybe Bible Gateway has a typo. So I grabbed my NIV Bible and flipped to Matthew 8. It said, "And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region." Say what, Matthew?! I know Jesus was probably not the most attractive or clean guy in the world, but what the heck, He is the flippin' Son of God! And the thing is, the towns people knew that. "The herdsmen fled and went into the town and reported everything, including what had happened to the men under the power of the demons." (v. 33). "And behold, they (the demon possessed men) shrieked and screamed, What have You to do with us, Jesus, Son of God? Have You come to torment us before the appointed time?" (v. 29) The herdsmen heard this. They heard the demons call Jesus the "Son of God." Then they saw Him say "Go!" and the demons flee. They knew these demon possessed men. They knew that they were being tormented. They saw them set free. They excitedly told the "whole town" about this Jesus who cast out demons with one word. The town excitedly ran to meet Jesus. Then they saw Him.

The word "saw" is the past tense of "see." "See" is defined as "to perceive with the eyes; look at." These people knew that this guy was the Son of God, but they still asked Him to leave their region when they saw Him. So what did they SEE?

Jesus just (in the last four chapters):

preached the sermon on the mount

healed a leper

went to Capernaum

marveled at the faith of a centurion

healed the centurion's servant with a word from His mouth

went to Peter's house

healed Peter's mother-in-law

drove out loads of demons

healed a lot more sick

fulfilled prophesy

told a scribe He has no place to lay His head

told the disciples to Follow Him

got into a boat

got woken up by the frantic disciples

got wet in the rain and waves

calmed the storm

stunned the disciples

meets two demon possessed men

commands the demons to leave

watches the demons enter the hogs

watches the hogs run into the water and die

Jesus probably looked pretty ragged. His clothes were probably wrinkly and ripped. He probably smelled quite awkward. His hair was probably a mess. I mean, He seriously must have looked pretty awful for a whole town to ask Him to leave.

So if we're supposed to walk as Jesus did, I guess that means we're supposed to hardcore be rejected and looked down upon. Sure, we all know that, but when you really look at Jesus' life, your outlook on things change. Lately I've been on this "everything changes with You" kick. And I thought everything had changed, but the more I learn about Jesus, the more I realize that there is still a whole lot of junk in my life that has to change.

I want to look like Jesus.

gates

Enter through the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and spacious and broad is the way that leads away to destruction, and many are those who are entering through it. But the gate is narrow (contracted by pressure) and the way is straitened and compressed that leads away to life, and few are those who find it.
Matthew 7:13-14 (Amp)

[I was going to put a picture here. I looked at tons of cutesy little pictures of "narrow" gates. Then it hit me that the pathway to this gate would be rugged and unattractive. Not something that would make a good picture on a blog. The wide gate, yeah, it would be glorious looking, super nice, a clean, beautiful image. It would be like a picture from Better Homes and Garden magazine. But the narrow gate, it would be one of those pictures with the thumb in front of the camera lens, and the sun shining in that very awkward way that would make anything look bad. The scenery would be gross with tons of trash and broken glass (but not like one of those artsy pictures of the garbage people in Peru, it would just be nasty looking). The gate would be broken and make an awful noise when someone tries to open it. So anyways, I was going to put a picture here, but reality is ugly.]

So the Word says, that we are to enter through the narrow gate, but only few are entering through it. The path of the wide gate is spacious and broad, and many are entering through it. I like the way Amplified describes the narrow gate, "contracted by pressure." Although this isn't the context of what this means, it seems to me that not only the physical definition of narrow would be "contracted by pressure," but the mental definition would be also. We are "contracted by pressure" to follow the ways of this world, the broad, spacious ways of this world. We are pressured to fit in, we are pressured to get a degree and get a high-paying job, we are pressured to do better than our parents, we are pressured to make more money, we are pressured to marry the "right" person and raise polite kids, we are pressured to follow the rules, we are pressured to live the "American dream." All that pressure makes it a lot tighter and harder to get to the narrow gate. [But it's so worth it.] Regardless, if we love Jesus, it shouldn't be that hard to enter the narrow gate, right?

I've been looking at some commentary for this passage and one said something about how the narrow way represents "grace" and the wide way represents "works." That doesn't seem so bad, I mean, who wouldn't choose grace. But it makes me wonder, because it also says "few are those who find it (the narrow way)." If few are actually finding the narrow way, do others think they are, but in actuality are entering through the wide gate? The next thing Jesus says is about false prophets and how not all who say "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven. So does that mean people are saying "Lord, Lord," but really walking along the wide path? I'm not a Bible master, so I don't honestly know.

But I do know this:

Jesus says that we'll do even greater things than Him (John 14:12).

James tells us, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." (NIV).

In 1 John, John makes the bold statement that "Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did" (NIV).

I don't know about you, but no matter what it takes, I'm entering through the narrow path. My prayer right now is surrender and yearning to abide fully in Yahweh. I want to walk in the supernatural steps of Jesus and count it ALL as loss to the sake of knowing Him.



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Starting over

My major goals for this summer:

1. Hand-write the New Testament in Amplified.
2. Learn and study the names of God.
3. Go deeper into partnering with the heart of the Lord.
4. Blog more.
5. Make cool pictures/collages/etc for the dorm room.

:)


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