A commonly coined phrase

So I would have to say that my thoughts as of late have been scattered, much like diffused light. So I will say this evening as I write that you shouldn't expect anything from these scattered thoughts these are for me. But I will post them because God has a way of working and speaking through the chaos and that is awesome but it boggles my mind everytime. So if the words I am about to write make any sense thank the spirit not I!
This summer has been a blessing, but very difficult. With the prospect that I only have 8 more days of work, Elise has returned home and I am experiencing the blessing that was given to me in SLO,and my sister and all my fellowship here is gone and off to college prettymuch I find myself very lonely. I find myself longing for the future in so many ways! I find myself lately being incredibly lazy in a funk and rather honestly tired. But as always I should rejoice, taking time to honestly sit back and enjoy it, in the present. Infact I was thinking on the way home in this reworked heart that I find within asking "why wouldn't I rejoice in the present?" I came up with some strange theological concept about us only being half flesh and half spirit. Thinking about the whole fact that knowing what God has planned somewhat for me, I should rejoice in the fact that this is going to be the easy part! I should be taking the time to rejoice in the easy. I know that doesn't explain the theological concept at all but understand I am just trying to gain perspective not sit here and come up with concepts that may or not be true. The bible is the only thing honestly we should take a lot of deep thought and time to understand!

Like most nights I am sitting here, alone with the silence of my thoughts, a pretty scary thing! The thing is though that this week has been different because my parents have been out, I have been watching my neighbors dogs and house and honestly been able to just do whatever I want to, and I see the first light of the core that has been developed in me shining through and it is cool. But I understand that I have so much more covering to rip off that wonderful light!

Over the past week I have gotten the oppurtunity to blare music, sit in silence, dance uncontrolably, record on the grand, and honestly be free in Jesus Christ, I feel so often times although I live in a christian world to a sense here in CO I am chained! That is precisely why I go to the Springs every Fri, so I can be crazy, jump up and down and show how I really feel about this guy named Jesus! It is pretty awesome!

Also in regards to scripture, my biblical scholar side is coming out once again, I'm glad I've been missing him! I have been dwelving into the hebrew language in all of its subtlties! It is also reallly awesome. Reasearching books that weren't included in the canon, reading through the dead sea scrolls commentaries from the 1st century AD on Isaiah and on the creation. Fascinating works! I still regard the bible as number 1 but because of my world view I don't believe the knowledge of Jesus Christ is limited to just those books that were included in the common era bible !

On one other note I think I am going to try and get some of my character back into my writing by asking a rediculouus question or by adding some really lame quote at the end of this blog every time I post!

2QOTD
"The VP, he look like Ralph, he good looking man, even better than Ralph!"
-Polo sales associate talking about the vice president of Polo Ralph Lauren that visited today...

"You know John it's not Jesus Christ who is the most commonly understood thing in the world, not the bible...it's Coca Cola"
-My friend jonathan


JG

New things

So this is what is up with the post below this one...I am getting really into mixed media things and I found this site that hosts free video blogging so the bottom one was just a test. But get ready cause here comes powerful words, moving music, and cool images!
JG

Popcorn

Click to Play

bored late at night in Sequoia!

the Attributes... Radiance

There was a man who smiled like the sunrise
His face I can’t forget
His love displayed was unlike any other
He humbly dressed just like a vagabond with
Discourse like a King
And when he talked the angels stopped to listen

Hosanna
Filio David
Hosanna
In Altisimis

(Hosanna, Son of David, Hosanna in the Highest)

He often spoke about a Kingdom coming
His words I can’t forget
Where all who come may rest beneath His mercy
Where royalty is flowing through the veins of
Every citizen
And every soul is treasured like a promise

Hosanna
Filio David
Hosanna
In Altisimis
-Jason Morant

Much like this a song I want these words to be read slowly and the reader to be at peace! Taking in each word, and giving time inbetween for them to flow one by one into unceasing praise, and glory be given to the Father, Son, and Spirit! these our my requests for continuance in reading...

I have the chance to be alone tonight, to sit in a quiet house and simply gather my thoughts in a comfy chair, with wonderful music playing in the backround, with a coffee cup by my side and the dogs panting and lounging with the rain pattering outside my window much like every Friday so far this summer.

It is so wonderful to realize tonight that God delights in His people. He delights in me! To simply sit still long enough to delight in HIm to worship Him, WOW! To know fully that history has shown the people who know they are loved become powerful people...and they are used incredibly undeserving all the time.

Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory! -rev 19:6b

I sit right now amazed at the continuance and fluidity of all God is doing and the fact that when I sat down last night to talk to Elise I knew God was going to deal with the desires He has placed within me. Being made in the very image of God I find there are same desires placed inside of me as eerily similar as it can get to the very Trinity! He has placed within me, desires, incredible emotions that He has placed in every human.

And to simple take the time to look at the provision He has given! A desire to be loved completely which has been fully satisfied by Him. A desire to give myself to something whole heartedly which He has given me the choice and ability to give my all. A desire to look good which will be fulfilled, "For the wedding of the lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean was given her to wear.( fine linen which stands for the righteous acts of the saints)Rev 19:7-8 " in glorious radiance! A desire to be greater than all before me, which he has given me the path!"...Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servent , and whoever wants to be first must be your slave-just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many(Matt 20:26-28). Hosanna hallelujah!

I believe after much consideration, I have come to a few questions about our desires... How often do we literally crucify desires when perhaps God just wants to shape our heart through the struggle in the process of getting that desire realigned with the will of Heaven!? How often do we simply let the knowledge of the full satisfaction we know in Christ move through us, letting that very thing change our desires!? We should know that any desire that does not center around the character of God is wrong and doesn't necesarily need to be crucified but rather it should be transformed as only the Holy Spirit can do! We never should take the easy way out! We should always pursue the blessed Trinity's character and let our eyes, fixed on something eternal, move to that very mindset of being focused on the everlasting. We should focus on the treasures of heaven! Letting radient white linen be our robe. Sittting at the very right hand of Jesus should be our goal. Never be too easily satisfied! CS LEWIS said "the problem with Christians is that we are too easily satisfied!" We should never settle for second best! We should never settle for anything less than righteousness that shines with a radiance unseen before!!!We should live with desires fully on fire, more than anyone on the planet and let that transform the world, our passion!!!!!!!

JG

the Attributes... New Foundation

It's interesting now that I honestly have made my peace in the season God has placed me in, my foundation reworked for the most part, God is begining to show me what exactley this new foundation is for. I am begining to see how incredibly key all of this summer has been. It's in order to do things I never thought I would be able to do, relationships I thought I would never be able to get into, or at least handle. I am not going to utter any prophecy tonight because I am still spiritually blind for the most part. I wanted to say though that I am excited!!! Oh the plans God has for those who fully surrender!!! Oh the revival that will come in our hearts when we have faith!

JG

The Attributes... Delight

Surrounded by Your shadow every need I have is met
When I'm waiting in Your presence every fear
Is put to rest
You belong to me and I belong to You
Nothing will ever come my way
That You won't see me through
I delight in the beauty of Your holiness
Because I won't find a love like Yours
In all the earth
In the quiet of Your chambers the love
I feel is made complete
In the mercy You have granted
I will rest for all eternity
You belong to me and I belong to You
Nothing will ever come my way
That You won't see me through
I delight in the beauty of Your holiness
Because I won't find a love like Yours
In all the earth
(Because I won't find a face like Yours
In all the earth)
-Jason Morant

There are many things God has been teaching me this summer, a lot of them simple truths I have forgotten or not known to begin with. Tonight and over the past couple days God has drastically been showing who I am making me disgusted at who I am, at times sick to my stomach because of who I am. However he has been showing what character is found in the spirit inside of me.

Wednesday I got the chance to delight in the spirit ,who God is, focusing on His attribute of infitude" One God, one Majesty. There is no God but Thee. Unbounded, unextended unity" It was pure delight to focus on God, who He is was and will be forever and for the first time not focusing on what He has done for me but on the character of the Divine. That is the way it should be and was meant to be. Worshiping God because God is God.

But the next morning and all throughout the day at work the day after I came under incredible attack, I began to get frustrated with myself and the very character that was inside of me, my flesh sidetracking me from the pure delight I had experienced the night before. Not being able to delight as God does in so many things in what is being done now in the present, my mind refused to focus on the present and jumped to the future. This turned me into a thought life of sin.

I was forgetting, always forgetting, that God delighted in me, and didn't care about the future as much as He cared about the present, simply being with me, sitting in the car besides me, going on the journey with me, always beside me.

I was forgetting the very words God spoke through a wonderful blessing in the begining of this summer "embrace this darkness and desert time fully."

I feel that has happened a lot I have forgotten so many vital things, in college I forgot persistence which is what I need so desperately in this season God has placed me in. I learned and grew deeper in all facets of the christian walk but forgot the dilegence of reading the word every day before I went to bed, praying at my bedside before I went to bed, and having my devotional in the morning. I forgot the things I did in my childhood and as a new christian and didn't realize what really was the source of all the growth as a child, and why I wasn't growing as I once did. The source were these things.

I felt myself crying these words...

"I have forgotten the ways of old
forsaken a land once owned
I have begun embracing the cold
forgotten warmer tones"

I feel i have forgotten so much and lost the simplicity I had in my childhood. And when I found myself in such a pit of despair forgetting much like, infact, probably just like the israelites I found myself an emotional wreck thurday night. I got on my knees and prayed for deliverance from these things. I forgot though. I forgot the things I was supposed to remember.

I was talking to one of my future roomates about it on AIM the whole spiritual warfare that evening and he pointed me to prayer. I am amazed by that mans humility and deep understanding and placement of simplicity above everything in the christian walk. He does not dilly dally with second hand things he always points me and others to the source. Bless him incredibly God.

The one thing I forgot and why sin did overcome me that night was I forgot the other facets. Prayer is only one of a few things we need to make sure are in our lives. We need prayer, we need the Word, we need fellowship, we need common sense. Notice how only one of those things is capatilized. The Word is of highest althority always we should never forget that.

Today, Friday, I found myself awakened in the middle of the night to the ramications of the spiritual warfare in the physical plane. The storm was blowing, and I could hear the battle raging. I finally got back to sleep after my fears were comforted by the King.

As normal I awoke for work and saw the sunrise , this morning though I found the words I had read wednesday night coming to mind.



" God did what He did joyfully. He made the heaven and the earth joyfully. That's why the flowers look up and smile, and the birds sing and the sun shines, and the sky is blue and rivers trickle down to the sea." " The infinite God is enjoying himself. Somebody is having a good time in heaven and earth and sea and sky. SOMEBODY IS PAINTING THE SKY. Somebody is making trees grow where only gashes were a year ago. Somebody is causing the ice to melt out of the river and fish to swim and the birds to sing and lay their blue eggs and build their nests and hatch their young. Somebody's running the show."

I found as I stared at this sunrise at the complete cloud filled sky. And the sun clearer than any other day this summer I found myself singing in my heart these words.

When the oceans rise and thunders roar
I soar with You above the storm
Father You are King over the flood
I will be still and know You are God

Find rest my soul
In Christ alone
Know His power
In quietness and trust
-Jason Morant

As I found myself tonight down in Colorado Springs I found myself healed with declaring once again the very character of God. Nothing will ever come my way that You won't see me through Lord. I need not fear or be frustrated. The word declares this " The plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations. " -psalm 33:11 and because of this we sing " In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust His holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in You"-psalm 33:21-2

Lord I delight once again in the beauty of who You are! May it never leave me.

JG

No more blogs on the weekdays

So it is official I am not able yet to blog during the weekdays anymore because God is not giving me sufficient time to be still and gather my thoughts properly. I wish I could but not so much anymore so until the weekends don't expect anything from me.
Love you all, ttyl.
JG

Sleep Cycle v2

So ever since I got this job of mine that has me up between4-5AM nearly every day my sleep schedule has been a little off. Take for instance today I woke up at like 8AM on my own took a nap at 2-6 awoke again at 12:30 after going to bed at 9PM so pretty much it is now 1:30 AM I am still up and since I have 8 hours of sleep my body is perfectly awake and I will probably be up unless I fall asleep again and of course then I will be up at 5:20. I hate real jobs. God is totally using this time but I am so ready to be back, honestly with me being the only one here and the time drawing nearer each day, every day is a bigger challenge because I know God has infintely more to do in me but it is so easy to just settle. I know God's timing is way better so I will remain without letting my will get in the way and find joy in the area I am in. I think that is probably one of the biggest struggles I have right now focusing enough on the present to be able to simply do nothing. It has always been a hard thing to balance during a time of complete dessert silence. But once again this is only a season and seasons pass and I'm certaintly glad this one is coming to a close eventually. Until then though my prayers are with all of you. Take time to be still in the silence that we never truly want but need so desperatly.
JG

Reflections on the Divine face of God

Bless, O my soul, the living God,
Call home thy thoughts that roam abroad,
That all the powers within me join
In work and worship so divine

Bless, O my soul, the God of Grace,
His favors claim the highest praise.
Why should the wonders He has wrought
Be lost in slience, and Forgot?

Let the whole earth His power confess,
Let the whole earth adore His grace.
the gentiles, with the jews, shall join
In work and worship so divine.

-Issac Watts

God's been working a lot in me this summer, I would say in the analogy of a construction sight tearing down the entire building that once was completed and reworking the foundation. God the job site supervisor is getting ready for a better design. It seems that God has some very foundational things what I would call simple truths. Things that when I built and did my work in building this life the first time I either ignored or missed entirely and they were not included in the design.

One common theme that keeps popping up is this whole waiting thing. God directed my thoughts to two different varients while praying and being still yesterday. One waiting, self sacrificing, that is true love. Two waiting in the sense that we should foremost be worshippers than doers.

I keep coming back to the whole fact that God doesn't need us but He chooses to use us. It says in Luke 19 " that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediatley cry out." Don't you think God can do things on His own if we don't choose to act, God will still be glorified and praised. Why would we ever though, why would we not cry out? I believe He has power to accomplish infintley more than I can ever imagine or dream about. That's something that's worthy of praise and exactley why those rocks will never cry out while I am alive.

On another thought on the whole reflections thing, I was sitting in the car coming back from Fort Collins and God showed me something I never realized. It applies to the whole crying out. While the sun was setting it went through the rain and created a rainbow. Like most things in nature there is three and there is normally a good metaphor in it. God the father the light(sun) was able to wash us(rain) with Jesus and has given us a promise in the spirit(rainbow). I think there is something differnt in it though rather than the trinity. God shines on us and through his spirit the rain(baptism or washing of the holy spirit) will let us reflect the fathers face.in a whole new way.

JG

A different kind of passion and apathy

I was sitting on the ground of the christian book store wondering a simple question "how many of these books are really going to be relevant beyond the next few passing years? " The answer is probably none. Maybe a few but it still remains none of these books that people go to for help and advice are going to be good enough they always leave you wanting more, they need only point toward the holy scriptures and there a man will find his fill and satisfaction. That is nothing really new for me to realize in life but another intersting thought popped into my head while I was sitting there. Jesus didn't care about certain things like money, time, food etc. everything to him was eternal unlike these books.If he was going to do something it would ripple in eternity, it would last. This apathy towards the temporary was one of the driving forces in His life. And I was wondering after this epiphany of sorts perhaps if instead of a balance of apathy and passion, I needed a differentviewpoint on who I am and who He is, in order to draw me closer to Jesus in my character, His holiness shining in me. His apathy was toward anything passing, my apathy has always been toward the eternal, uh, wow that needs some reworking in my life. My passion like my apathetic side has not been focused in the way Jesus focused passion. The only real passion we see in Jesus is a passion for holiness. I am passionate about maintaing my perfect image not the actual issue. Who cares about perception, who we are on the inside is the only thing that really matters in regard to that subject.

The waters that flow

These words that flow from sinful hands
and are read by heaven's purest lamb
humbly give'n, prayerful hands sifting sands

That He would mold and shape a world
to change the heart of one unchangable

from beneath the glorious throne
The waters of healing that flow
the waters that fully atone

He reigns over all, soveriegn God
When troubles surround and rainclouds form
he reign's over all, all knowing God

That He would mold and shape a world
to change the dynamic of the waters that flow


I am constantly amazed by who God is, how He continues to be so incredibly flawless in every aspect and how His qualities continue to be shown more and more infinite! I am sitting down tonight trying to figure out what exactley God is doing within me, because it is so wonderful and so foreign yet to my flesh so disturbing and so depressing that I need to just stay up and prayerfully consider this warfare of the spirit! The change He is initializing because of His grace, I am simple astounded that in my wickedness He is washing me.

Last night for the first time I sat down and really read psalm 119 and in summation I would say that it is an account of David asking for him to be washed completely. But as God has been doing as of lately he is soveriegn and is in continuance of the theme that through scripture we find our only true strength, in order to plead a request unto God for healing of this magnitude we must first seek out God in His word. Not that anything we do even compares to what He does and has done, but we must show God as David did in psalm 119 that we are worthy of the blessings he is going to bestow upon us.

And to be honest this lesson on scripture is driving me into perplexity more each day because God does everything and we are not worthy but we are made worthy through Christ and with Christ comes the loving response to give everything unto him. And this is a touchy issue because it plays on my whole apathetic side where I don't believe there is a responsibility but with my passionate side I am often times calling down fire with my prayers and asking unsafe requests. And as always we have a huge responsibility but we must balance the fact that through Him "we" do all things that truley do matter and I am so touchy on that too becuase I am very careful that I do not appear prideful but maintain humbleness in everything. At the same time though all this balancing is out of alignment because God shifted one of my nobs with this change that has happened and I have to figure out what exactley has changed and it causes me to stay up late"soul searching" I am no longer apathetic, I am no longer passionate, I am Christ being formed! My identity is in scripture and that is the only way I can truly get the proper mix of things, that is what I must meditate on for a couple days!

(day two meditating on this)

Today was rough, the spiritual warfare has been the worst I have experienced, it has left me depressed very reclusive and pensive as I used to be in my first years of accepting Christ, it is a scary place to be but I know it is exactley where Christ is leading me He is changing me with the power of His love, healing my past and the scars that I forgot that i had. One of my friends asked me a really tough question last night asking me if I truley knew who I was? I responded with "I am sin and God is the only righteousness i pocess". Christ is constantly being formed in me but when it boils down to it though I don't know who I am, I am insecure, I am broken, needing real friendship, being not independent. Not at all what Christ is was and will continue to be. God is a God of unchanging character and I am not supposed to be swerving I am supposed to be more and more steadfast as I continue in pursuing Christ but as most christians find they are never on the straight and the narrow but get on one side of an extreme not like Jesus. We must look toward the scriptures to become Christlike yet balancing our duty in worship.

JG

Shattering the Glass Perception

If you talk to anyone I know, especially my accountabily partners over the years they will tell you that I struggle heavily in the area of thinking too highly of myself one moment yet at another point in time not thinking highly enough of myself being so chaotic in finding my worth that it manifests itself into deep apathy and deep passion the next moment. I have for a long time been putting a glass box of wrong perceptions around myself not really letting people see the real John." In so doing I think I have negelected letting Perceptions I have of myself align with my fathers view of me. And it seems in all this soul searching it's time to get a sledge hammer and smash this perception box made of the most beautiful of glass!

"For through the grace given me I say to everyone that they should not think more highly of himself then he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has alloted to each a measure of faith. "
-romans 12:3

I find my worth in Jesus alone and the fact that when He looks at me He sees me saved and perfect in all my failures. And that is beautiful! I have yet to be fully sanctified and that is okay I don't need to do that to earn slavation or worth, I am already worthy through Christ alone. It is my worship to Him to be sanctified. The fact that all I need do is nothing and He will get everything done! But he wants me to partake! To give me blessing! To let love shine through me, and reflect as a face that spent time in the shekinah glory

"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upone you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace." Numbers 6:24-26

I think paul was on to something when he said our perceptions of ourselves are alloted on the basis of our faith. When we believe God to be a God that is outside any human box, we begin to in turn shatter our outer glass shell and we begin to find that being unprotected we are sheltered alone by God and we can let Him move in is the same way He is, hallowed.

We gain so much peace when we have the key Romans 11:33-36

May we shatter this box of what God can do and shatter the glass shell of what God can do through us through Him! It is time for a generation of those baptised in the Spirit! For those who are baptized in Him will clothe their perception by Him through Him and to Him and His glory! I wait to see that one, oh what a sight that would be!

JG

Our God reigns

All that I see in my eyes
has happened, cursed the world lies.
I percieve through my mind
the modernity, I may find

and fight, as on my trembling knees
moving as a gusty gale through the trees

Our God reigns supreme in everything

Taking the ground which I never thought
I could take, perceptions I trust not

When I record...

it rains...there is no fail...it always rains...I consider that strange...or perhaps God in His infinite irony saying I love you...who knows?
JG