Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Posted on March 17, 2009

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best thought by day or by night
Waking or sleeping Thy presence my light

Be thou my wisdom and Thou my true word
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord
Thou my great Father, I , Thy true son
Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee one

Riches I heed not nor man’s emptly praise
Thou mine inheritance now and always
Thou and thou only first in my heart
High King of heaven my treasure Thou are

High King of heaven my victory won
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun
Heart of my own heart whatever befall
Still be my vision O Ruler of all

There have been a couple of big news bits since my last post. First, in mid February I was accepted to the Masters in Business Administration program at FSU and will start this Summer. Toward the end of February I lost my job at the Department of Environmental Protection. God’s teaching me a lot about trusting Him again and looking to Him to meet my daily needs.

I am also working on some recordings from the FSU Wesley Foundation’s winter retreat we had in January. We will be releasing a 2-CD album of live music from the retreat as soon as we finish compiling, editting, and mastering the tracks. I’ve been given the daunting task of handling that project, but with my newly found free time it should be an exciting way to serve and use my gifts and knowledge to bless others. I’ll be in the “studio” with the assistant director of the Wesley Foundation, Trevor, on Wednesday and Thursday of this week to start this project. Look for new recordings of both me and other musicians at Wesley coming soon!

Wisdom in Humility

Posted on January 7, 2009

The path of the righteous is like the first glean of dawn,
Shining ever brighter till the full light of day.
But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
They do not know what makes them stumble.
-Proverbs 4: 18-19

When I first read this verse, a small fear arose in my heart: “[the wicked] do not know what makes them stumble.” I thought to myself, do the wicked know they are wicked? Do the foolish know they are foolish? If not, than how would someone know if they’re foolish, or wicked? For if a fool cannot see his foolishness and a wise man has no foolishness, it leaves the observation of foolishness to be a paradox.

While contemplating this paradox I thought of two possible answers. The first was that we know that we are wise when we recognize the foolishness of others. But even a fool can recognize the foolishness of his brother, and is even quicker to do so! Therefore, the ability to recognize the foolishness of others is not a valid measure of wisdom.

Then a second thought came to my heart. If a foolish man cannot recognize his foolishness, perhaps the root of foolishness is the inability to recognize it in himself. Hence, a foolish man is foolish because he does not recognize his foolishness. Scripture says that the wisdom of man is but foolishness to God; for that reason, perhaps true wisdom is found in recognizing that we are foolish. Perhaps wisdom is found in humbling ourselves before God, understanding that we are foolish and that He alone is wise, and making ourselves lower so that He may be lifted higher. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” and that Hebrew fear is not one of terror, but of awe and reverence; it is a fear that calls us to humble ourselves and exalt God in His greatness.

There is wisdom in humility; moreover, there is humility in wisdom, for the truly wise man knows that his wisdom is not his own, but is only that which the Father has given him. If you seek true wisdom, than humble yourself and fear the Lord. Seek after the knowledge of His mind and the revelation of His heart.

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace,
But with humility comes wisdom.”
-Proverbs 11:2

Love

Posted on December 31, 2008

If you truly love someone, then it must be from God. Real love cannot exist apart from God because God is love. If God is love, and God is always good and right, than love must always be good and right.

I find that God often leads us with love. To follow God is to follow love. Love can be used in the process of discernment. God doesn’t always flat out answer the question “is this right?”, but rather ask God “does this facilitate true love?” And not just the emotion of love, that passionate desire for someone or something, but true love - love that seeks its object’s well-being above anything else. True love is sacrificial in nature. And Jesus shows us the perfect example of what true love is.

In the garden the night Jesus was arrested, He struggled in prayer for hours with the Father over the trials that would come the next day. The result of His discernment was the understanding that He loves us truly and fully. The answer was love: the ultimate sacrifice. Jesus’s love for us is not just an emotional connection, nor is it merely an obligatory care for us as our Father. It is AGAPE… love that has no predetermined conditions and no expectations… it is love for the sake of loving, based purely on choice.

That is the way God has called us to love each other: without condition… without expectation… by choice… not to get something out of it, but because God first loved us and gave Himself for us.

Waiting

Posted on November 6, 2008

Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.

Psalm 27:14

Waiting always sucks. Whether you’re in a long line at Wendy’s, stuck in traffic on a Friday afternoon, or eagerly wanting to know what’s next in God’s plan for your life, waiting is hard. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit. In the natural, our flesh as Paul describes it, we have no patience. Only through Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit are we able to be patient; and in the same way, only through Christ are we truly able to love people, have joy and peace, be good and faithful, gentle and self-controlled.

The more time we spend with the Lord, the more the fruit of the Spirit becomes evident in our lives. Over and over again in Scripture, the Lord asks us to “wait on Him”. Jesus spent years waiting on the Lord before starting His ministry… I’ve often wondered what He did between the time He became an adult in Jewish culture and when He started His ministry. He didn’t start ministry until He was 30 years old! He had a good 10-15 years of waiting on the Lord, working as a carpenter, and allowing God to prepare His heart for what was coming.

As these seasons of life call us to wait, whether for jobs, plans, relationships, healing, or any number of things, be reminded that God calls us to wait on Him and His perfect timing. Although waiting can be a real pain in the butt, remember… if God has asked you to wait on something, that thing must be worth waiting for!

Do not be anxious about anything,
but in everything,
by prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving,
present your requests to God.
And the peace of God,
which transcends all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Phillipians 4:6-7

Prophetic Worship

Posted on September 17, 2008

Monday night, our praise band met for practice as usual. Since we have two praise bands at Wesley, we alternate playing each Sunday. Our band played last Sunday so this week we are not leading worship. So for our practice, instead of rehearsing the songs we’ll be playing on a Sunday, we used that time to press in to the Spirit and pursue God in unscripted, spontaneous, prophetic worship. One of our guitarists chose a chord progression and a key (in our case Em/G) and instrumentally we sat on that progression for pretty much the entire time, improvising melodies and solos, building and resolving dynamics, and just playing out of our hearts rather than from a lead sheet.

Now vocally is where it gets really interesting! While musically we’re jamming out on a single 4 chord progression, vocally we begin to sing praises to the Lord from our hearts: unwritten, unrehearsed, improvised song. We would have 4 or 5 singers all singing something different, yet unified in the Spirit of worshipping God. We would hear each other’s cries to the Lord, let them stir our hearts and add ontop of it, and lead each other lyrically and musically into new directions. It’s all about listening to God’s voice and connecting with His heart, and letting the Holy Spirit manifest in our worship through the words He put on our hearts to praise Him.

We did that for a little over a half hour, and it was an incredible time of worship and being in God’s presence. Afterwards a couple of us went to the Prayer Chapel to continue our seeking and were joined by maybe 20 more people as the night rolled on. It was fun, it was powerful, and the presence of God was thick!

Some people call this “prophetic worship” because in this free style of worship the lyrics originate with God, are revealed to man, and then communicated in praise back to the Lord. It is prophetic in the concept of being revealed by God and spoken by the Holy Spirit. Other people call this style of worship “Spirit led” because the leaders abandon any sense of a plan for worship and rely completely on their sensitivity for hearing the “voice” of God, whether that be through spoken word, Scriptural insight, internal audible voice, visions, impressions, or any other way God may speak.

Of the seven commonly accepted Hebrew words for worship, one word stands out among the rest in defining this style of worship. The Hebrew word Tehillah (te-heel’-ah) can be defined as a new song of praise coming from the overflow of your heart. In Scripture it is used as a song “of (or from) the Lord” sung by the people to the Lord; it is also used where God inhabits the praises of His people:

But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

Psalm 22:3 (KJV)

For you U2 fans out there:

He put a new song in my mouth,

a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear

and put their trust in the LORD.

Psalm 40:3 (NIV)

And how about one more…

I will extol the LORD at all times;

His praise will always be on my lips.

Psalm 34:1 (NIV)

The word “Tehillah” is used for the underlined translation of each of these examples. The praise we offer God in tehillah actually originates from God and is revealed to us as we offer it back to God in a purely communal experience with our maker.

This singing “in the Spirit” can be paralleled to “praying in the Spirit”. Some people may call this praying or speaking in tongues; others may call it having a prayer language. Semantics may suggest that each of these labels are used to identify the way the particular gift of tongues is manifested and the purpose of its use, but for all intents and purposes we will recognize them as the same thing. Paul addresses the church of Corinth on spiritual gifts, and in 1 Corinthians 14 he explains in great detail on the uses of this gift. He also mentions the idea of singing in the Spirit, just as one prays in the Spirit:

So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind.

1 Corinthians 14:15 (NIV)

Just as praying in the Spirit is spontaneously praying words uttered by the Holy Spirit, whether understandable or not, so worshipping in the Spirit is spontaneously singing songs uttered by the Holy Spirit. It is a powerful means of worship, for the very presence of God is manifested in the words being sung. Just like any other time that a person may encounter the manifest presence of God, in prophetic worship people are often blessed with peace, rest, annointing, healing, visions and dreams, a greater sensitivity in hearing God speak, releasing of spiritual gifts, feeling and/or reacting to the presence of God physically or emotionally, and even angelic visitation.

This type of worship is a powerful means of ministry and encountering God, rooted in the truth of Scripture, though often forgotten and unseen by the American church today. My prayer is that this generation would rise up with the power of prophetic worship and change the face of the American church.

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