My Photo

My Accounts

AIM Digg Facebook Flickr Last.fm LinkedIn MySpace Other... Other... Other... Pownce Skype Tribe Twitter YouTube

Recent Photos

  • hello sweet visual's items Go to hello sweet visual's photostream
    www.flickr.com
Bookmark and Share

Twitter Updates

    follow me on Twitter

    Jul 10, 2009

    The New Renaissance

    '...the restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old but a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ. I think it is time to gather people together to do this...' -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

    Extract of a letter written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his brother Karl-Friedrick on the 14th of January, 1935.
    (Source: John Skinner, Northumbria Community).

    The Church has as long as I can remember in my life, prayed for things like revival and a 'coming move of God'. I understand those words and what those mean, where our world would experience a God uncontained, an unrelenting Son of Love and a Spirit being poured out and spilling over into all the regions of the earth—"the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea." (Habakkuk 2:14).

    But what if we have been waiting for something to come that ultimately won't satisfy? Personally, I'm over revival. I want to see a New Renaissance emerge on the earth. While if you get into semantics of what "revival" means versus "renaissance", both mean "rebirth" or "reawakening", I am looking more at Church history and world history. Within Church history, we talk of the visitations of God, where He showed up in seasons of salvation, healing, sign and wonder. Even Webster's dictionary definition of the term "revival" is affected by the revivals (The Great Awakening) of the 19th century. But the Renaissance that came out of Italy and ultimately spanning across Europe, while revisiting ancient Roman and Greek thought, architecture, art, etc., spurred something that changed human history.

    I believe Christ himself embodied the Renaissance Spirit. He took all that had come before Him, the laws and the prophets and everything from the Temple and the existing religious structure and fulfilled it. Matthew’s record of what is commonly called the Sermon on the Mount, these words of Jesus are recorded: 

    “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18).

    And what came of His fulfillment of the law? The Kingdom came. John the Baptist kept saying "The Kingdom is near" and so does Jesus till He eventually says "The Kingdom is within you". He brought His Kingdom to earth, allowing us to have complete access, by His Spirit, to the same resurrection power that raised Him from the dead, healed the sick, ministered to the poor, the prostitutes and the least and sent the religious establishment running.

    The world is waiting for new ideas to end economic disparity, new ways of ushering justice, new creativity, new stories to be told, new songs to be sung, new inventions and new 'dunamis' power like the world has never seen. Jesus was a Renaissance man, so may we, with Christ as our perfect example within His Sermon on the Mount, be men, women, boys and girls, of the new Renaissance that awaits us. 

    Jul 08, 2009

    The Way You Love Me...

    Here is a new song that I wrote. Inspired by love and Love Himself. It's a love song to and about and for Jesus. Though it stems from the emotions one goes through when being drawn in by the opposite sex and that was a definite platform to the lyrics, they ultimately find their fulfillment and realize their fullness in the reality of the love of Christ.

    The Way You Love Me

    Your love is so much more Than any feeling
    Even my empty words
    Still carry echoes of You

    When You walk into a room
    My walls come down
    At just the mention of Your name
    My heart skips a beat

    And you...
    You're still wooing me
    And you...
    You're still chasing me
    And I'm still overwhelmed...
    By the way You love me

    Though You've seen me in my darkness
    I hear You singing melodies that I am lovely
    Over me

    So I'm trading in these rags
    For Your riches
    Just one glimpse of You is all it takes
    To let me know I'm home

    And I'm
    Still chasing You
    Like the day we first met

    And I'm
    Still after You
    How could I forget
    That I'm still overwhelmed
    By the way You love me

    Still overwhelmed
    Still overwhelmed
    By the way You love me...

    Oh the way You love me...

    Jul 07, 2009

    One Blood All Nations Under Heaven

    God has made of one blood all nations under heaven. No man can suddenly become my enemy just because he happened to have been born on the other side of a river or a boundary line, and his government has issued an ultimatum against mine. Is it not time that we refused to fight?

    - Muriel Lester,
    social reformer and pacifist (1883-1968)


    Jun 29, 2009

    Many teens believe they'll die young

    Surprising finding raises fears fatalism is a self-fulfilling prophecy


    I read this article today and thought it was interesting to see the onslaught on today's young people. While this could be some dastardly plot conceived by the enemy of our soul, I lean more to ourselves as our own worst enemy—this fatalism as the bi-product (aka consequence) of the decline of the family where parents work more than nurture, colliding with our techno-communal society where we never foster off-line relationships and all in a world where mass-media beckons mass-consumption that still leaves us all empty.



    A surprising number of teenagers — nearly 15 percent — think they're going to die young, leading many to drug use, suicide attempts and other unsafe behavior, new research suggests.

    The study, based on a survey of more than 20,000 kids, challenges conventional wisdom that says teens engage in risky behavior because they think they're invulnerable to harm. Instead, a sizable number of teens may take chances "because they feel hopeless and figure that not much is at stake," said study author Dr. Iris Borowsky, a researcher at the University of Minnesota.

    That behavior threatens to turn their fatalism into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Over seven years, kids who thought they would die early were seven time more likely than optimistic kids to be subsequently diagnosed with AIDS. They also were more likely to attempt suicide and get in fights resulting in serious injuries.

    Borowsky said the magnitude of kids with a negative outlook was eye-opening.

    Adolescence is "a time of great opportunity and for such a large minority of youth to feel like they don't have a long life ahead of them was surprising," she said.

    The study suggests a new way doctors could detect kids likely to engage in unsafe behavior and potentially help prevent it, said Dr. Jonathan Klein, a University of Rochester adolescent health expert who was not involved in the research.

    "Asking about this sense of fatalism is probably a pretty important component of one of the ways we can figure out who those kids at greater risk are," he said.

    The study appears in the July issue of Pediatrics, released Monday.

    Scientists once widely believed that teenagers take risks because they underestimate bad consequences and figure "it can't happen to me," the study authors say. The new research bolsters evidence refuting that thinking.



    Read complete article here.



    Jun 22, 2009

    The Heart Is The Doorway

    Val-Door to my Heart LG

    The other night, I was in Torrance where Kim Walker was leading and Danny and Sheri Silk were speaking. While everyone was singing, I saw this picture of a heart, with both sides pulling apart like two french doors on a weekend morning. It was then that I heard "The mind is the gate, but the heart is the doorway".

    I had heard Bill Johnson talk a few years ago about you and I being the gate of heaven. (Genesis 18:17: He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."and the mind residing as gate of hell—when Christ tells Peter, "And the gates of hell will not prevail against you", he was speaking of the mind because He later tells Peter, "Get behind me satan for your mind is not full of the things of God, but full of the things of man". James 3:15 also says, "Such 'wisdom' does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil." The war wages in the mind, trying to get get control of our heart through unbelief. But why?

    Because our heart is the door by which Jesus enters. The outworking of the Spirit of God in our lives comes and shows us the need for Jesus and once we chose to walk this journey, we need to renew our minds daily so that the doors of our heart can be open to Jesus daily.

    Revelation 3:20
    Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

    This verse has been so misconstrued over the years to be seen as a call for salvation when really, this is a call to us in the Church. Jesus is knocking on your door and my door because we've put Him outside. With each knock on the door of our heart is a resounding call for intimacy with us, His friends.

    When I saw the doors of the heart open on Saturday night, it was an entry point. A point of welcoming, where I could host the Presence of Jesus. For all that I long to see and do in my life, to write new songs, run with new ideas, tell untold stories and to see bodies, minds and hearts around the world healed, delivered, fed and redeemed—it all can only come from opening my heart to the person of Jesus. Each and every day. In every possible moment, when I'm waking, working, eating, resting, playing, dreaming. 

    The heart is the doorway, friends. I pray for all of you who glance and read over this, that you would find your heart opening up. Maybe your door is a heavy steel one right now, or maybe it's a nice sliding glass door—either way, the point is to open wide the doors and let Him in. Because it doesn't end there. He doesn't just sit there staring at your soul. He actually wants to dine with you and I! He wants to share your favorite meal with you, have food fights or maybe it's just to come in have a good beer and share life. Open the doors to see His face and don't be surprised by what He does!



    For more on opening the door, read my post from Sept 08.