Illumination 2.0

It took Night to empty this soul
Dessert times and lone roads
To pour out thought emotion and will

To join in with the voice of the pines and cool air
Somewhere slightly before the dark meets the dawn

Lord I cannot contain my heart
the daybreak within this forgotten place
Illumination in misty light

Illumination (Ephesians 4:14-24)

This season of confusion was 14.So that I may no longer be a child, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. even if it comes from God's church but to trully know how to15 speak the truth in love, growing up and maturing up in every way in him who is the head, Christ, and learning16 from whom and how the whole body body grows so that it builds itself up in love.

And17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that I must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 Being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way I learned Christ!, it was in my heart— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

This is how I must now live.In this illumination...

JG

A Lamentation

I was writing in my journal the other night at Starbucks that “ I have no identity left besides the one I find in You, I no longer know who I am”

I found myself tearing up for the first time in a long time in a public place.

My pride has been ripped and torn from me.

I feel and felt so disjointed without it.

But was shown perhaps in that moment a sober picture of what life looks like when we have no other choice but to cling.

I have been praying for a long while that God would “humble me” but without the pain that often is inflicted on others because of a need to.

I believe and hold fast to the idea that He is dealing in such a way with me in this season.

It is quite extraordinary where God takes us. The journey he leads us on. How he fits all these random pieces together to create something to work with.

God has been there in every moment…he has used every weakness struggle friendship(good or bad) my whole life EVERYTHING to bring me to where I am.

I am sobered and humbled by my mistakes and my conscience has lost all confidence in the steps I take now.

I am left vulnerable and where God I believe would like me to be even in its great difficulty.

I feel for the first time in a LONG while grieved over my sin and have nothing but Him. I can boast in nothing than Christ himself and what He did on the cross for me.

I see now more than ever how I was more focused on other’s walk than my own. How I was always so quick to use we rather than I.

And even in this blog I see how I am trying to cling to something other than Him as a source of worth. But it is all I know how to do. I am sin and He alone is righteousness.

I write upon my knees…in desperate hope that God will speak through the spewing of thought emotion and my will at his feet in this way. Declaring what he is doing and not merely numbing myself to what He has been trying to bring me to for so long.

I wrote these words the other day.

“But there is more, a depth worth seeking, and a love worth everything. When my mind and my reason fail and all I have is You I will rest in Your words that Hope is not lost. My lifeline may grow faint but You remain in me. More than reason, deeper than hope, and a love worth everything.

He is worth every death I must die in order to find His life.

To Love alone,
JG

Infatuation

Elise would say it best that my love language is always changing and keeps her on her toes in our relationship. But as I am finding more and more it is not that I speak a love language of rigid formulaic identity but rather a love language all my own. I have yet to find a person though willing to love me in that language and actually able to meet me in it. God gave me this language because he never wants me to forget that He alone is the only one who could fill the vast crater of love in my soul. Without him I am left with a vast hole.

This is why we must be captivated, infatuated with the Father because once it begins our hearts start glistening along with our eyes and we begin to pour out the love that was first shown to us and then accepted by us blessing other people in the way that only God could do touching live through Him alone. Meeting people where they are at not in rigid formulaic identity.

In this true love points to God alone. As it should always. It is not a manner of speech or way of beginning a sentence but it is a glisten. I have been blessed to see this in a few people over the years. There words were not pre thought out they were flowing like a fountain. They are people that find a love so captivating that the world becomes a thousand times more colorful. This is the love I know none can fully live as were meant to without and experience true love without.

I am not defined by mere psychology to limit love to five or six ways, love speaks in all ways as God does with us all.

..patience
...Kindness
....contentment
.....humbleness
.......a man's response
........the very character of a human is my love language not tangible things not conversations but actions not the touch of a human but the touch of God through a human

And this is why I say
To Love alone,
JG

Fusion (old to new)

In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 2 Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, 3 Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? 4 Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the LORD. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the LORD. Work, for I am with you, declares the LORD of hosts, 5 according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. 6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. 7 And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. 9 The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts.
-Haggai 2:1-9

I have been making my way through the minor prophets since shortly before summer began. They are absolutely incredible books. I don't know why we are so quick to look to the new testament. I have found There is a wealth of wisdom to take from them.

I have been reading them as if they were truth/prophecies written to me and about the church in my age the one here in America.

They fit really well it's like God is speaking through scripture to me or something.

I have been writing one passage in my journal from each one and was hoping to use it to show God's heart for his "temple"( ie people or church) through them but I think this one as do many of the the other passages does just fine by itself.

I have long been troubled with God's work in His church knowing what it should be yet not understanding why it has taken so few great leaps on a whole towards what I see scripture calling it to be. This has bothered me for many years. I am encouraged though to know that I am to bear in patience and know He is sovereign still in regards to it that His scriptures and fully fulfilling words say He will make his temple greater still it may take time but He is working and beautiful. That is a great hope to dwell on.

To Love alone,
JG

Intuition

If you haven't noticed I haven't been blogging much as of late.

In fact, I really haven't been blogging, not really anyways.

So you ask

Q:what have I been doing?

and I ask you

Q:Why do we have to be doing?

but if you desire an answer it goes something like this:

A:I've been taking the time to really if need be let God redefine everything about who I am... a bit of self discovery...

...and in so doing I have honestly come to a frustation about everything I do etc. There is no end to how I have found myself as of late in review over the course of my life so far, so far off from God's intent for so many situations etc. The fact He has redeemed it all amazes me so and how in perfect faithfullness makes the deformed puzzle pieces fit together moves my heart to an honest reverence and praise.

A lot of who I am, the way I operate etc is in a state of disgust right now. There is something drastically that needs to happen within my spirit, heart and intuition that I have only thus begun on . The disgust and end of my mind's ability to process any more information/ defense for christiandom sermons or knowledge etc. has led me to the simple fact without love all of this is nothing.

I know not one christian,myself included who when I compare them to the standards that they are supposed to exemplify in the bible regarding love etc. do.

I would give everything I possess away to experience that kind of love that I am supposed to have outlined in the scriptures anything to have a communion with the father that is unshaken.

I remember this morning just being distraught in starbucks over what I was reading all of who I am in gross violation of God's will. Yet a perfect beautiful God who is using it all to His great and awesome Glory. Making all things new.Shouldn't I be so lost in love with God?I see perfect faithfulness and the great difference between God and man and the necessity for a bridge. I desire that bridge I see the bridge in scripture but can't see it lived out for some reason. I don't know how to do it and I don't think anyone can teach me except God himself.

That's what I want to hear a sermon on is How to let The Spirit reign and teach in our lives. I want an older christian to actually be so spirit driven that they can teach others. I want an older christian to be so driven by his intuition that he knows how to meet people where they are at. I want someone to be led every day to see God do great and glorious things in the lives of others because he is a blessing because he is led to where he is most needed. I want to see God shine through in man as He is supposed to be.

Show me that...

To Love alone,

JG

Manipulation

I believe there is a point in life where a man realizes how he has manipulated situations. It is a deep and troubling time when the weight of God's great and awesome Glory and the weight of man's sin are a heavy burden. He knows deeper than he has ever known anything before how he has let selfish motives and unpure thoughts lead the life he lives.

When faced with the picture of who God is and a captivating deep relationship developing he sees redemption and because of this love desires a far greater response of love of purity in facets of his life that such unselfishness could never reach into before.

This realization of manipulation and a proper view of the Spirit leads him to find nothing pure within himself. There the Spirit finds this man and no longer has to work but finds a place to settle and rest His holy wings. It is in that moment that what was always meant to be comes into fullness. Where all his burdens are laid down.

His new heart leads him to the bridge that is, to converse. And there he finds his beginning and his end where manipulation cannot be. Standing on the bridge letting love simply be.

To Love alone,
JG

Hibernation

Elise had a dream a few weeks ago. In it I disappeared for a while told no one where I was going. Everyone was confused why I would not tell anyone where I was going and why on earth I would disappear for a while.

She told me to take some time and pray about what it means.

I do not believe we should follow dreams we should rather listen to them and pray and act rather on the prayer rather than the dream and try to self fulfill prophecies or the spirit's heeding in that.

So I imagine by now you are like what's your point John. The point is I am stripping my life from minimalist to as close to bare nothing as I can and am hoping to be fully in the season that way.

I deactivated my facebook account today.

I imagine I will be selling my laptop as I no longer need it for the work I am doing here and am looking to purchace a new one come next fall.

I know the necessity of needing to disappear for a time.

Disappearing is by no means easy, in fact in it oftentimes we realize truths we are wholly unprepared to take in but benefit us greatly. But unless the line is fully drawn we miss the lessons fully to be learned in the season .

I believe there is a need for me to be fully here this summer. This is what I must learn fully.

To His Glory alone,

JG

Guess Who?

N.ormal he was and yet extraordianry is he
E.ver continuing for ever and eternity
H.e did what he was called to do faithful each day
E.ver countinuing in great ordinary work faithful each day
M.any he ignored to plant the greatest of seeds
.I.n it he would incubate what was coming to be
A. heart came from this diligence and God's very heart came to be
H.e concieved a nation which gave birth to a king, which birthed a savior, all glory be


To HIs glory alone,
JG