The Solution

I was listening to this song and really started thinking about the words… so I just wanted to post them on here because I feel they are so powerful.

Solution by Hillsong United
It is not a human right to stare, not fight
While broken nations dream
Open up our eyes, so blind that we might find
The Mercy for the need

Singing, Hey now
Fill our hearts with Your compassion
Hey now, As we hold to our confession

It is not too far a cry, too much to try
To help the least of these
Politics will not decide, if we should rise
And be Your hands and feet

Singing, Hey now
Fill our hearts with your compassion
Hey Now, As we hold to our confession

God be the solution
We will be Your hands and be Your feet.

Higher than a circumstance, Your promise stands
Your love for all to see
Higher than protest line and dollar signs
Your love is all we need

Only You can mend the broken heart
And cause the blind to see
Erase complete the sinners past
And set the captives free
Only You can take the widows cry
And cause her heart to sing
Be a Father to the fatherless
Our Savior and our King
We will be Your hands, we will be Your feet
We will run this race
On the darkest place, we will be Your light
We will be Your light

The First of Many Posts about Passion 2010

If any of you know me, you know I just got back from the Passion conference in Atlanta, Georgia.  I know you know this because I cannot stop talking about it.  I was blessed to attend the two-day Passion conference back in 2008, when they were going global so they were not doing the usual 4-day long conference.  So the experience did not hit me as hard as it did this year, getting the full Passion experience.  Man, I have been to numerous churches, conferences, camps, you name it, I’ve been there.  I have NEVER been so overwhelmed with the power and glory of God as I have been this past week.  Ever in my life.  From the entire experience.  The deep wisdom delivered through the speakers, and the break out sessions.  I haven’t been challenged like that mentally in a long time, my brain was going into overload.  The quality and genuineness of the worship…when you get 21,000 people and somehow we all sang with one voice and one heartbeat.  Not only were we there to be fed and served…but Passion offered opportunities to serve the world.  With their Do Something Now exhibits, we were able to see and give to different causes all over the world.  And just the overall glory and presence of God!

It was so incredibly overwhelming to me, but in a good way.  Driving home from Passion, after I dropped my friend off; I just started crying.  It wasn’t a bad cry or anything, it was just a mixture of so many emotions over the last few days and I just had to let them out.  I still feel overwhelmed and I don’t ever want to lose that feeling.  I think we aren’t overwhelmed enough with God, and we should be!  He is GOD.  We should feel incredibly overwhelmed and insignificant.  We should never forget who God is and what He can accomplish.  And I think too often we do.   We get caught up in all the little things and think God either doesn’t care enough to fix them, or that He can’t.  Well both of those thoughts are so wrong.  God DOES care about the little things, He is always at work in the smaller details; because He knows it’s the smaller details that put together the bigger picture and God sees it all, even when we don’t.  Something I have learned from BSF this year is that there are NO coincidences.  If we truly believe in God we believe every single thing happens for a purpose.

The more I try to find words to describe the week, the more I feel they just don’t do it justice.  Even the best words would be an understatement.  During worship one night, I felt in my heart that this was a small taste of what Heaven was going to be like.  It’s bad, but all my life I have been apprehensive about dying and going to Heaven.  I just always felt like there was so much I still wanted to accomplish on Earth.  Over the last few months I have realized my heartbeat is for worship; and the night Hillsong led us all in worship, I realized, “Hey…this is what I love to do.  Worship God, and that is all I am going to do in Heaven!!! How awesome is that!!!”  It was such an incredible feeling.  I didn’t want the night to end, but when it did… I just reminded myself that I get to do that for an eternity.  And I can continue to worship God wherever I am, it doesn’t have to be in an arena filled with 21,000 other passionate believers.  Worship isn’t about who is leading or which song it is, it’s simply about praising God for who He is.  Not for what He’s done in our lives, because that’s pretty self-centered to praise God for blessing us, then that is making worship about us.  We praise God because He’s GOD!

As much as I loved Passion, I have never left a conference feeling so ready to take the world on.  Usually I’m bummed, and just wanting to go back and just stay in the bubble for a little bit longer.  But I am pumped!  How awesome is that!

Oh goodness, i have so many new thoughts and wonderful notes from the sessions to talk about.  But I shouldn’t go overboard.  I don’t want this fire to fizzle out.

<3 B

John 17:23

I haven’t been spending much time in the New Testament lately.  Growing up that was mainly all I read, because it seemed more understandable to me than the Old Testament.  But lately I’ve been reading a lot of the Old Testament, which has really been fascinating me. But anyway, in BSF we are studying John this year so I’m back in the New Testament.  We had to read the entire book for our homework last week.  Of course all of Jesus’ teachings are great, but there was one verse in particular that stuck out to me.  It was John 17:23 (In case you didn’t already pick up from the title) which says

²³I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (NIV)

Jesus was praying for His disciples and followers, that they may be protected and encouraged after He is crucified and resurrected.  He prays earlier on “My prayer is not for the world, but for those you have given me, because they belong to you.  All who are mine belong to you, and you have given them to me, so they bring me glory.  Now I am departing from the world; they are staying in this world, but I am coming to you.  Holy Father, you have given me your name, now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be united just as we are.” (NLT)

Jesus wasn’t praying for everyone in the world, He was praying for only His followers, that they may be equipped to spread out and preach the truth.  He was praying that they will be protected, and most importantly He used the U word a couple of times: unity.  He prayed that we may be UNITED.  Not just a little bit, but he prays for COMPLETE unity.  I find this interesting, because when I look at the Church today, I don’t see complete unity among Christians.   In fact, all I see is really division.  I see churches divide themselves by denomination, by their “style”, by belief systems, etc.  I understand that every church can’t be the exact same…but do we really come together and stand united for Christ?  Do we come together, not as Episcopalians…or Lutherans…or Baptists…or Non-denominational…but as CHRISTIANS.  Because isn’t that what we all are?  Aren’t we united in our belief in Jesus and His power and love?  Our belief in the Holy Bible being the word of God?  Shouldn’t we all have the same vision…to go out and make disciples of ALL nations (Matt. 28:19).

It feels like we just kind of stick to our own denominations…or our own friend churches.  That’s why we have made absolutely no progress making a true difference in our country.  Could you imagine what America would be like if every single Christian church came together and stood for the same thing?  I heard a sermon once on the Gay movement.  Whatever opinions you have on homosexuality, you have to admit that they have come a LONG way over the last decade.  They had a goal, stuck together, and were loud and proud about it.  They don’t apologize for who they are, and they have slowly become more and more accepted in parts of the U.S.  They can even get married in a few places now.  You know why?  They came together and all had the same vision.  They all wanted to accomplish the same thing, and look where it got them.  Now this blog is NOT about homosexuality so I don’t want to start getting feedback on it, the sermon was comparing the ambition and unity of homosexuals to Christians in America.

As Christians, we don’t all have the same vision.  We don’t even seem to have the same views on things.  We have continuously divided more and more.  Don’t like traditional hymnals? No problem, come to this church we have a band!  Don’t like loud music? Come to this church we have a choir! (Which to be honest, this is completely ridiculous.  Worshiping God is about praising God, if you are concerned with the kind of music being played then you aren’t praising God.  Daniel Doss Band says it perfectly in their song: “It’s not the melody that brings me to you, It’s not even the words that burn in my heart, It’s not the wonderful sounds that cause me to sing: It is knowing you and what you’ve done in me!”)

So many churches have been altered to fit any kind of person’s preference.  And we separate ourselves as well.  Don’t go to that church, our church is better!  When someone we know switches to another church, we get kind of upset and take it personal.  We’re not supposed to be in competition with each other.  We are supposed to be working together to fight for the same thing.  So what’s happened?  Why are we not fulfilling Jesus’s prayer?  What can we do about it?  Are we even going to?  America is drifting further and further away from God.  They are losing hope on religion because as Christians we haven’t been displaying the love of God.

³⁵By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

If we don’t love each other, but spend too much time separating ourselves and fighting each other.  What does that tell the world?  It tells them we are not of God.  It turns them away from God because they don’t want to be part of that family.  Let’s not separate ourselves and just work together to make God’s name known, to make His love felt throughout this nation.  Even if we don’t have a leadership under the influence of God, then we need to step up and do something about it ourselves.  Let’s stop complaining about our country, but instead start working to shift our nation in the direction God wants it to go.  We can’t just run out and start telling people how to live, we have to love them first.  They won’t respect or listen to us until they know we genuinely care about them.  Let’s start showing our country and the world what it means to be a Christian.  The way Jesus intended for us to do.

<3 B