Besides we can't
believe without bleedin.....the hard thing about walking in the Spirit is not the
hearing and following, it is the detoxing. 
God wants to rule my life and reign in me but I can only live faithfully
under one King. (matt 6:24) I have to surrender everything.  That is where most of us get stuck over and
over and over.  None of the things that I
have seen in the past week would have happened if we did not surrender, if we
did not take the time to contemplate what this new way asks of us.  (Luke 14:27-35).  I cannot seem to find the words to propel
myself forward into fully surrendering very specific areas of my life; I just
keep thinking over and over- get rid of your stuff and simplify.  It is a journey I am threshing through and
pray to be renewed from the inside.  Though
what about the longings of my heart, the things I just don't want to have to
abandon?  Must it be one or the
other?  What about the verse God gives us
the desires of our hearts?  ---Maybe we
manipulate those words and twist it into something we are not accountable
to.  Perhaps we too often take what Jesus
said figuratively and would prefer a God that is a little less involved.  This is a truth I have been confronted with.  Yes God placed desires in my heart but those
desires are easily perverted and my life becomes sick with desire.  We need to confess our idols of convenience
and security and question the mindless grooves we carve.  Our eyes fall to evil things.... the eye is the
lamp of the body.  So, if your eye is
healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your
whole body will be filled with darkness. 
If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!  We live in a world of entertainment and
consumerism, what do our eyes dwell on daily? 
Advertisements and magazines? 
Television shows and computer screens?  
I am tired of wasting my time on mindless things.  We need to get off our computers and talk to
people and meet with one another.  We are
called to be disciples and to make disciples- why do we waste time on
relationships that are virtual- is it really that hard to seek one another out and
be personal?  Jesus is personal.   It is a transforming process but I have to
keep seeking because we are called to be disciples- Luke 14:25-33 then read
Galatians 5:16-26 (specifically verses 16,21,25) and then 2 Corinthians 6:3-10...

as
servants of God we commend ourselves in every way by great endurance, in
affliction, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors,
sleepless nights, hunger, by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy
Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God: with the
weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and
dishonor, through slander and praise.  We
are treated as imposters and yet are true; as unknown and yet well known; as
dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful yet
always rejoicing; as poor yet making many rich; as having nothing yet
possessing everything.

This verse doesn't
make sense; we are to meet suffering with truthful speech, kindness, patience
and rejoicing.  This thinking belongs in
a different system, one that is not of this world.  I hope that my life would exude a curious
irresistible light of something so far beyond what's here it doesn't make
sense.  That when my deeds, my faith, my
journeys are tried by fire they will reveal precious stones, literal materials
worthy of a place in the walls of God's Kingdom.  I want to strive for a way of life that is
honorable and worthy of being called to do Christ's ministry every day.  Not one of passiveness and pride, but rather
one that fights apathy and self, being willing to suffer and defy this world's
definition of living an abundant life. 
We are sick but are in denial of it, preferring a life of consumption
and stuff.  We hear of injustice but the
response is often emotional and temporary. 
If you are given compassion for the poor don't drop it off a box on the
back step of Good Will.  Get to know some
of them so that when God asks you about what you did when he tried to break
your heart for his people you can at least give names of those you pursued for
the sake of hope and their salvation.

 It is my eager expectation and hope that with
full courage as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by
death.  For me to live is Christ, and to
die is gain.

Seek ye first the
Kingdom of God and His righteousness

and all these things
shall be added unto you

Allelu Alleluia

Give us clean hands,
give us pure hearts

Let us not life our
souls to another

God let us be a
generation that seeks,

That seeks your face

o G-d of Jacob.

Hebrews 12:1
Phillipians 1:20-21 

-jenessa lynn