Early Morning Thoughts

A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God.
--Leonard Ravenhill


Zechariah 4 - "Who despises the day of small things?"


The foolish man says he has no need of God - but it will be scarier still for the one who says he has need of Him, but lives like he doesn't.



The greatest need we have is not to do things, but to believe things.
-Oswald Chambers


Why aren't they hungry? Because they don't have to be - they are entertained.



"Entertainment is the devil's substitute for God's joy."
--Leonard Ravenhill


Leonard Ravenhill said "we don't have revival because we are content without it." But what is revival? What does it really look like? I remember during all the amazing stuff that happened that one semester at Sam, Daniel Savala kept saying, "If it's really revival, your grades will go up." I thought that was weird.


Growth is not more knowledge or increase of years: it is simply more of Him and less of me. He increases as I decrease. This is what it means to be a disciple.
--Chip Brogden (from watchman.net)


Psalm 103: "He made known His ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel."
* I know much of His deeds - the Bible stories from Sunday school, history lessons about the church... but I know little to nothing of His heart, or of why He has done the things He has done.



"One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do no constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always."
--AW Tozer


Psalm 127: "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain."

"What I have seen in the past 10 years of traveling- performing at a church one day and a casino the next- is that a lot of people in the church want to be entertained, and people in casinos want to be ministered to. That's hard to understand, but I see a hunger in the world that I don't see in the church."

Faith

I think faith is important. But faith in what? Faith that I will be healed? Faith that I will get a new car? And faith for what? So I will have more money, popularity, comfort, or possessions? So I will feel secure? I think the bottom line is this:

The fact of faith is important - but so is the object of faith and the motivation for our faith.

Conglomeration of Thoughts

Hunger / Thirst

Ezekiel had a vision once of water flowing from under the temple - the further he walked out from the temple, the deeper the water became - to the point it was a raging river that no man could cross. In the story he tells of this vision there is a phrase repeated twice that has stuck in my heart the last few days: There is water."

There is water... but am I thirsty?

Years later, John records Jesus words: "IF any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink, and rivers of living water will flow from his belly."




Songs: John Mark McMillan "How He Loves"

We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…

He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.




Original Songs

I wrote this down during a staff meeting last school year sometime and just found it again today:

When you go on and on and on
This life don't seem so long
This pain don't seem so strong
When you go on and on and on

Still Standing

Walking, stumbling
on these shadow feet
toward home, a land that I've never seen
I am changing
Less and less asleep
made of different stuff than when I began...


When the world is falling out from under me
I'll be found in You still standing
When the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees
When time and space are through I'll be found in You

Brooke Fraser, Shadowfeet

He Waits...

Like a lover longing to be with his love
He waits to be wanted

The sweet secrets shared in moment of hush
He waits to be wanted

All beauty and loveliness hid from the light
He waits to be wanted

For the day when the seeker tears through the night
He waits to be wanted

I want you, Lord
(x4)


He waits
He waits
He waits to be wanted
(3x)
by You

My Conversation Last Night

In the car on the way home from Ihop...

Kristen: Those guys desperately needed Jesus.
Me: As if there is another way to need Him.
Michael: Right, like, yeah, I could kinda need Him?


Wow, I think they're really onto something there.

Thanksgiving with the Normans