Hosanna

I see the king of glory
Coming down the clouds with fire
The whole earth shakes, the whole earth shakes
I see his love and mercy
Washing over all our sin
The people sing, the people sing

Hosanna, hosanna
Hosanna in the highest

I see a generation
Rising up to take the place
With selfless faith, with selfless faith
I see a new revival
Staring as we pray and seek
We're on our knees, we're on our knees

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me
Break my heart for what is yours
Everything I am for your kingdom's cause
As I walk from earth into eternity

-Hillsong United

The footsteps of the Almighty

Each year in its process becomes another so effortlessly... time progresses... and leaves us breathless at its scurried pace. Another year gone ... So quickly.

I sit tonight at the edge of another year passing. It may be a months breath away but I know it will pass and not slow down ...Time has a way of doing that. Life is in full motion.

Tonight I praise God that He gives moments such as these where we are compelled to dream the impossible: slow down time itself and reflect in a finite moment on the infinite. We can focus on God himself, waves become still, every breath becomes a beautiful deep breath, every tear is as real and honest as the first. It is in these moments why I remember why I cling to the only thing that is unwavering.

Time is. A wrecking ball. An avalance. Tsunami. We sing to God though because he passes by. Calms the waves. Stops the unstoppable. Shelters us in the overwhelming.

If God has taught me anything this year it would be this: If we dare defy what we already know we will certainly miss what is coming. God in His nature wills all. He loves us. We are redeemed. We are the delight of the Father. He walks by us every moment. God is God and nothing less. Everything He calls us to is for our benifit to makes our heart enter into what it was tuned in birth to resonate with. Do not cease to praise because times are hard.

I have learned this as well:The footsteps of the Almighty are hushed unless you lie close to the ground. He has willed marvelous ways. We are called to be observant. To hear the king of the heavens decrees.

Tonight my thoughts are scattered but my hearts eyes are fixed. May he fix my heart to hear better the hush of His beautiful footsteps.

JG

Lately

She's a beaut isn't she...
JG

Spirit led

I believe when we title something give it a label we end up pinning it down as we would pin a butterfly to a board. I was pondering today about such ramblings and wondering if in a sense like the scientist who examines the butterfly we look too closely, try to think we know everything and in sense miss the fact that perhaps the buttefly once flew...was once alive...and once perhaps was nestled within a beautiful flower. We oftentimes try to pin down our lives..pin down formulas...and by doing so we lose the whole fact that these lives are not our own.

I went out sharing with my good friend last week and ran into one of the "F God" people in the world. I count the experience as a very enlightening one. I got to experience a hard soil where the seed will not take root easily and without much opposition. I got to see by the opposite things I would have never noted otherwise. As I mentioned before i count the experience as a blessing.

JG

Our House!

Here are the long awaited house photos...it's ours now. It is very strange to have a house...anyone else feel this way? idk? Anyway though these are some photos that capture the highlights of our new casa hope you enjoy and I'm sure I will get the chance to show many of you it in person. I wonder if I should name the house?
-Our wonderful backyard with one of my most favorite things in the world...a huge giant palm tree...
-Matt and I's room...it looks bigger in person
-The fire places of fire places...yup that's what I thought
-The kitchen which is huge aka awesome!
-the brick barbeque pit...aka tizzight!
-And our little serenity known as a nice mowed lawn
- The front of the house...so beautiful!

JG

Christian Revival and Riot

This whole week struck me as very strange.Anyone else?

I don't know if any one caught it but I but it seemed God was booking it to get a few things done within His people. It seems ever since I wrote a while ago every day seems to be full of stuff to do, full of ordained conversations and there is very little down time to simply blog or get some nappage in, read a book etc.

As best as I can tell, on the large scale, Satan is trying to distract and God is giving the oppurtunity for His children to rise up and proclaim His name in almost every facet of everything. It is a wonderful oppurtunity presented but I beg the question what will "we" do with it?Will we get distracted by our enemy or fix our eyes on the only constant, our lord Jesus!?!

Just something to think about.

Anyways though that is not the reason I write. I wanted to mention here what I have been dwelling on for quite a while now...I was listening to Jaeson Ma a while back. I heard his heart for the first time that night. He said something quite profound...

"wherever Jesus went He either started a riot or a revival."

Think about that for a moment...

We are supposed to be a mini Jesus to our surroundings. Why then are there no riots on a daily basis? Why no revivals every moment a "christian" speaks?

I mean it is a good question to be asking for something that I would be willing to give my life for...

This is not the first time I have thought such things...I ask this a lot and I understand the lost when they say " why would I want to be a part of something that looks just like everything else? Good question, I wouldn't looking at the state of the church. When someone says that to me I say to them look to Jesus not those redeemed...there is a disconnect there anybody else see that.

The way we conduct ourselves as believers is worth much tears and frustration. Somehow we have become complacent within the christian circles. We take our example from the world rather the bible. We look more to a role model than Jesus. We don't look at who God is correctly and in turn as Romans 1 tells us "professing to be wise become fools."

I mean read your bible people. Paul in Romans praises the church there for being a place where the gospel was going out to all nations. Is the gospel circling the globe? Is it circling our nation? Are lives being changed within our state by this message that is truth? Are people in our immediate circumstance seeing Jesus in each one of us, people willing to start revivals and riots?

One of my good firends kicked non christians out of his house to have a solid fellowship of Christians next year. Did they see Jesus in him? Another one of my friends is leaving the christian community he was in because each side did not pursue community in the way it was supposed to look like. Did He see Jesus in his christian brothers? And then one of my roomates is finding there is no community in the non christian world besides the drinking parties etc. Is there any hope of a christian community that is true and what God wanted from the begining?

I do hope so!

I bring this up not to blame people...that is the furthest thing from what the issue needs. God will do what he desires to get done Job assures us of that. But we need to work on this!

I have seen bits and pieces of when a christian community is doing what it is supposed to... it is something truly wonderful. I pray to that end.

This past weekend I felt my first earthquake on Elise and I's date. It was the most pathetic excuse for an earthquake I had seen! I want the ground to be shook because physical manifistations of the spiritual plane are coming into the present! I want the Lord's name to be Hallowed and his kingdom come! In every matter of everthing!

Long Live Jesus. In his Name I write all these things,
JG

The far surpassing greatness that comes from holiness

There are those moments where I get a glimpse and I see what it looks like within a body of believers when they are doing all that God has them to do. It is beautiful. I have been sitting in my chair for about an hour now letting my mind drift and meditate on such things.

My dear borthers and sisters, those few that read this. What God has is far better, do ALL He asks and step into what He is doing. May sin not be a choice because you see the far surpassing greatness that comes from holiness and a heart fully gave to our God.

I desire to see what God can do. May we let Him.

JG

Tonight I saw...

Tonight I saw…
…a fire ablaze

the flame’s warmth on my face
…a fire fully ablaze

Hands together in joyous unity
Bringing forth the full weight of those in grief

Tonight I saw
…the fire stand amazed

And I Wonder….
Oh how I wonder?

Gleaming as the noonday light
In the darkest of night

Tonight I saw…
…I saw.

JG

Ramblings...little did I know

There are times in your life where you come to a page...to a keyboard and you feel as if you should be able to offer some form of wisdom to others. I wish tonight I could offer something that I know without a shadow of a doubt will actually benefit you but I feel I don't have that.

I know at least for me there are moments when I feel like I could never offer anything even remotely whole to those who read this. The extent of my lack of insight as I continue to grow up reminds me every day that I will never be able to do that .BUT my God has a way of dumbfounding me with the fact he can use these ramblings to encourage my dear brothers and sisters. That is so amazing if you think about that.

I remember when I was a kid the world being my neighborhood. Little did I know it was infact more than a thousand times bigger than that. Little did I know. Little did I know.

What ever happened to believing we could do anything, was it just a young naiveity?

As I progress more and more in my field here in college I find I am infinately more stupid in regards to the matters of my major. As I progress in my walk with God I find I am infinately loved but more stupid with each passing hour in regards to matters of much importance.

Is this just a more clearer view of truth that we have yet to discover? That we a very "capable" people are very uncapable of doing most things.

The greatest piece of wisdom I have found is that we can do nothing without God going before us and ordaining that we walk into it.

All I know is I praise God that He uses ramblings such as these to speak.

Questioning the Exclamation

What direction and way will God call us to in this new day? What new blessing will he call us to? Swift as the morning breeze blows. As destructive as the tornado. Things are gave and taken away. But the day shines out all the clearer in the morning after the dust has settled.

I write tonight with this lesson ingrained within me: when we make something certain and are unwilling to give it all away at a moments notice we do not worship our God wholly. To take it all away is what God is known for allowing to be done. He will give it back a thousand times greater than before though. We have to be willing to go wherever the wind goes to do whatever the present calls us to and worship God.And perhaps in this grand chaos we will see something so radically different than everything around us, our God.

May with the new mornings knowledge...something truly wonderful be born from apparent ashes.
JG

Lessons from the Whirlwind

There is something mysterious about God how He can give us such peace in times of such adversity. Give us moments of sweetest joy when everything else falls apart. How he is as Job talks about: the God who makes men walk barefoot who "though He slay" us,we "will hope in Him" because He is the "Redeemer" who when we see our" heart faints within" because we "know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted"

This is the God I serve the all powerful, ever King, uncomprehensible, indescribable "Light of Light, very God of very God" God whom is nothing less than everything we could ever dream of the one who fulfills our inmost desire.

I have been reading through Job for a while now and spending some time in meditation on it.After a week or so of doing this I come to this thought: I am amazed to find how I am so " prone to wander, Lord I feel it/ prone to leave the God I love." How I forget so often to look at the all encompassing character of God . Focusing on one aspect and losing sight of the bigger picture. As Tozer writes " afraid to whisper mystery," I am so quick to say God if you love me everything will go wonderful. Forgetting the whole time that God is not my soldier, He is my commander.

We can never instruct God. One wise man wrote in Job 37:1 " at this my heart trembles and leaps from its place" There is a paradox and a mystery in this that on one side it scares us to think we are not in control, yet it is as we are" lost for words, so lost in love, sweetly broken, wholly surrendered." There is an utter peace that comes from God himself when we finally realize that it is not us who controls God. He is the untamable Lion. As Lucy in Narnia puts it though 'He is good."

My prayer for you that read this is this: that God may fully instruct you that though adversity comes there is no reason to grow weary and tired. God called peter the Rock " and upon this I will build my church." God's showcase of who He is is built on people such as Peter. Those people that are strong when everything else is crumbling. God is constant, there is no reason to doubt God to be who He is He is ever the same. May we put our foundation deep within His steadfastness and who He is ever reminded He is the same" yesterday today and forever" -Hebrews 13:8

JG

We Endure...

To believe God’s children are the objects of His eternal pleasure is most exhilarating. But to believe God is pleased to chasten and crush them is less than exhilarating. And what kind of God would do this? It is the same kind of God who was pleased to chasten and crush His own beloved Son, so that He might redeem us from the curse. And why did the Father ask the Son to endure such cruelty? Because He saw the greater good rather than the immediate need. With infinite wisdom, He foresaw the blessings that awaited both the Son and His Bride. Likewise, it was Christ’s joy to be crushed for the pleasure it would bring the Father and ultimately us. May we come to appreciate not only God’s eternal pleasure in us because of our identity with Christ, but also His pleasure to chasten those He loves for purposes greater than our finite wisdom can comprehend.
-Donald Smith