The Overwhelming Question

Before this year I would get really annoyed when people would tell me that I would change the world.  I used to roll my eyes and walk away thinking how ignorant they were for thinking that I could do anything of any worth among a world of 6.7 billion people who mostly were lost and hopeless.  When I was in the 7^th grade I started to write.  I remember one of the first things I wrote was a little paragraph that I titled, “Conviction” and now as I look back on it I even question myself if I knew the correct definition of the word.  But even if I didn’t, the same emotions creep into my heart as I read it.  The little paragraph ends with me asking the question, “Could I change the world” and I remember putting the question mark on that sentence as I was sitting on my bunk bed in the room Cody and I use to share and setting it down and then going on with my day.  Over the next 6 years many things happened in me and to me that convinced me that I couldn’t change the world and that I would be an idiot if I thought I could.  I even wrote blogs about it and had other people start to believe they couldn’t change the world and so on and so fourth until I genuinely became angry with the church I attend for their mission statement having the words, “change the world” in it.  I became bitter because I thought since I had met Christ and He had changed me that it would be prideful for me to say I could change the world.  I began to believe strongly that if I thought I could change the world than that meant I my focus wasn’t on discipleship. 

I was wrong. But I didn’t know that until this past summer when I was in Ethiopia and was complaining about all of it to my small group leader, Cam.  For three weeks all I had heard from the leaders and other students on the trip was how we were going to change the world and I kept getting angry about it.  So I told Cam that I didn’t think any of us could change the world and expected him, like most everyone else I talk to, to agree with me and move on.  But to my surprise he looked me in the eyes and told me I was wrong.  At this point of my life I hadn’t had many people disagree with me on much (oh, how my life has been transformed since) so as you can imagine, I was taken aback and waited for his reason.  He then went on to explain how one man thought of the idea of a telephone and how because of one man’s idea of communicating with people across town, or across a state, or across a country, the whole world was revolutionized.  One man thought a telephone and that simple idea shaped the way we communicate in unspeakable and astronomical ways.  Then he said to me, “how could one man not change the world?” 

At that question I realized that the whole time I thought I was prideful by saying I could change the world, I was really only belittling God.  I was limiting Christ to what I thought He could do through me, and really everyone else for that matter.  I was so humbled by my friend’s simple words that I immediately retreated to some intense prayer (it felt more like wrestling) and what the Lord revealed to me was directly in contrast with what my sinful nature had convinced me of.  He showed me that I was born to change the world.  I was born to know Christ and to make Him known and if my life is about making Him known then how am I not changing the world for the glory of the Living God?  He showed me that loving my neighbor and telling a friend about salvation could make just as big of a dent on the world as an atomic bomb could.  How do I know that the next person I tell about Jesus isn’t the next D.L. Moody?  How do I know that the next person I talk to about Christ wasn’t about to kill himself and in turn set off a chain reaction of suicide in his family because of the sorrow all of them felt?  How do I know anything?

The last couple of weeks I have been meditating on Jesus’ words in the most famous sermon ever preached. “You are the salt of the Earth,” he said, “but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?  It’s no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”

For years I believed that if I thought I could change the world, I was being prideful. I wasn’t being the salt of Earth.  I had lost my saltiness.  I hadn’t heard of the beautiful principle of multiplication and discipleship.

Jesus goes further and says, “You are the light of the world.” (and here is where is I slap my hand to my forehead and ask myself how I missed this for those 6 years).

Since that beautiful night in Ethiopia, God has placed a deep desire in my heart to change the world, even if that is just one person at a time. I want the Lord to use me for His glory; I desperately yearn for Christ to allow me to serve Him in big ways.  And before this year, if I had said those words, it would have been for my namesake but truly now as I type those, they are for Christ’s namesake.  I have seen how only by the name of Jesus can anyone live and to change the world for His name, to glorify Him forever, is why I was born. 

T.S. Eliot once asked the overwhelming question, “do I disturb the universe?” I answer him with the short yet packed words, “how could I not?”

Hallelujah I am alive for the glory of God.

My Life is a Book

At the beginning of my 8^th grade year I wrote a song called, “The End of the School Year Blues” and it was suppose to be about how weird it was to be moving from middle school to high school and all that jazz but now as I look back, I laugh at myself.  Because here I am, fresh off my last test of my high school life and I am sitting here trying to cope with how weird it is now to yet again be facing those end of the school year blues and to be moving onto the next part of my life.

            This isn’t going to be one of those sad and mopey blogs about missing high school and all that I promise but as I look back over the last four years it would be wrong for me not to let myself be nostalgic for a couple of brief moments.  I entered my freshman year of high school as a built up, punk and am leaving a broken bondservant.  Not for my glory or my recognition but simply because Jesus has captured my heart.  I remember the first time I ever fell to my face and told Jesus He could have everything and since that day, my life has never been the same.

            Jesus has rearranged my life in these last four years.  I went from believing that my days were about sports and being the best to believing my life is Christ and I am called to not be the best or the highest, but the lowest.  I went from trying to convert people to my religion to loving people and desperately longing for them to know my Lover.  I went from trusting in my own abilities, how high I could jump to how hard I could hit, to embracing my weakness and knowing Christ is glorified in those.  I met Jesus face to face in these last four years.  I have seen my friends become my brothers and my sisters.  I have seen injustice and I have swallowed poverty and I have been broken.  I have fallen out of myself by the grace of God and I have learned to walk again, literally.   Jesus has cut me open and replaced my heart with His. 

            I am deeply humbled when I look back over these years and realized how dearly Christ has held me.  I am reminded of that old story of a man and Jesus when they look back over his life on a beach.  The man sees two sets of footprints most places and one others and he thinks that those places are when Jesus has left him and when he asks Jesus about them Jesus replies, “those are the times I carried you.”  The same is true of my life these last years.  He has proven that He is faithful when I am faithless because friends, I have been faithless many many many times.  I have turned my back on my King and disobeyed the Spirit too many times to count.  I have run away from His Love but He met me with a scalpel and a promise the beginning of my sophomore year, which led me to breathe Him in deeply in the cold mountains of Mammoth, California.  He has taken me to the Nations and shown me Glory. He has placed Himself as a seal upon my arm and by next week, He will be a seal upon my heart as well.  I am my Beloved’s and He is mine.  Hallelujah.

            Jesus has blessed me during these last four years by allowing me, by His mercy, to be a small part of His heartbeat for Robinson High School.  It has been my Calcutta and it breaks my heart to leave that flock.  Even as I type this I feel an empty longing because I am done.  I have been privileged to see lives run head on into Salvation and Jesus redeemed those who seemed hopeless.  But even still I am stranded here thinking that there is so much more to do at that school and I am not finished yet, but I feel the powerful hand of God and His voice saying very clearly, “yes, you are”.  The easy thing for me to do would be to be sad about the work not finished in those halls but instead I will be thankful and give praise to Jesus for the thing that’s were done.  We have felt the Holy Spirit begin to rapture lives as we have walked by the lockers and the classrooms.  We have seen kids fall to their knees and give everything to Jesus.  We have seen disciples making disciples and I cannot begin to capture the love that has been unleashed at that school.  I get emotional when I write this because I keep getting flashbacks to the night during my junior year when Jesus wrung my heart out and I began to weep for the lost at Robinson and beyond.  Oh, that the Lord will continue to raise leaders there and set Robinson on fire for His glory.  And I leave with hope knowing Christ moved and is moving and that Jesus still has His hand on the campus. 

            The most beautiful thing about high school has been waking up each day with Purpose and Reason.  I have fallen in love with Jesus Christ: not the idea, not the good intention of religion, not the show, but the person of Christ himself. 

So here I am, the end of the school year blues playing in the back round, ready to run.  I will not look back but only forward to Jesus.  He has known since the before time that I would spend four years learning to love at Robinson and that I will spend four more (or however many more) at Fayetteville, doing the same thing.  I will follow Him and go where He desires for me to go and I will open my mouth when He allows me to.  For I am alive for His glory, to know Christ and to make Him known.  Hallelujah, all I have is Christ.

            To end this shorter post, I want to share a poem that I wrote about if my life were a book.  I wrote this poem from an idea my friend Zac gave me.  He once asked me if I ever thought about life being a book with the letters being seconds, words being minutes, hours being sentences, days being paragraphs, weeks being pages, months being chapters, and years being parts.  Since I hadn’t ever thought about it like that, I began to meditate over this idea and a poem formed soon after.  The main reason I share this is because it puts high school in focus, with it just being a small part of my life, and how the end is always just the beginning to something new.

What if my life is a book?

If I am the main character

In a story that will soon

Come to an end.

Each second is like a letter,

And as they begin to tick by,

One by one, an image starts

To come together of possibly

Something much greater.

A minute is a word.

But with that word, what am

I trying to say?

I only have so many words

To write and live until I run out of space.

The words form into sentences

With each sentence another hour

Of my life passes by unaccounted for.

Do I still believe that the hours

Will go on forever, even now,

Since they are passing so quickly?

Tonight as I crawl into my dreams

I watch another day walk away which means

Another paragraph has been written.

And therefore I start to question,

What was accomplished with that paragraph?

Maybe nothing? Maybe everything?

Nonetheless, my heart is burning

To never waste another paragraph.

This week was a blur for me

And a whole page has been revealed.

With that page, another comes into view.

But with this flick of the wrist

I seem to want to know

What will be written on the blank white abyss.

It’s as though I am not even

Writing my own story.

A month ago I was holding my breath for

The next chapter and what it would hold.

I only have so many chapters

Until there can be no more written.

So I have moved, and am changing,

Letting my heart burn and move

Deep within me where I am to go.

One more year down and who knows

How many more there are to go.

But this part of my story has

Been opened up to a new one.

Where I will go in this part,

 I won’t know until I get there.

But I have tasted Purpose

And I intend on not losing another letter.

I can only pray that as my

Right hand turns the week

And my left hand fills with another page,

That the end of my story

Holds a beautiful beginning.

Isn’t the end of something always

Just the beginning of something new?

Because although I am coming to the end,

I feel as if I have just begun to live.

Known

            A couple of weeks ago my friend told me a story about a 14-year-old boy in Kansas City with cerebral palsy and a girl named Annie.  Annie had gone home for the weekend and at her home church this kid asked to pray over her.  So the boy started praying over Annie when all of the sudden he started saying, “spiritual fire in Little Rock” over and over again.  Here’s the ridiculous thing: Annie goes to school in Fayetteville, not Little Rock and this boy had never been to Arkansas before much less Little Rock and out of all the cities in all of the world he chose Little Rock. 

            A number of emotions pulse through my body whenever I type that story; I have tears in my eyes and chills down my spine and an overwhelming, unexplainable feeling deep inside of my chest.  For the first couple of days after I heard that story I tried to pin down exactly what that feeling was and I came up with a loss but as I sat around at 3am the morning after Good Friday and took communion with some dear friends, Jesus gave a voice to that feeling.  The main reason this story is so incredible, besides the fact prophecy still exists and how God is moving, is that God knows Little Rock by name.  I know that sounds simple but really, out of all of the world God has chosen to walk through Little Rock and set us on fire at this present moment for His glory.  He knows us.  That truth is so overlooked and not deeply felt in each of our desperate and thirsty souls.  Jesus knows Little Rock and in the same way He knows me.

            For the last couple of weeks Revival has run rampant across Little Rock and it is not slowing down, but instead it is speeding up as more and more people start to burn alive.  There have been three different times in the last month that Jesus has led not only me, but many others to sing spiritual songs over others (funny how the Bible starts to come to life while walking in the Spirit) and each time I have dismissed the idea of me needing to be sung over as well.  We have sung “Oh, how He loves you” over many people, one time it was just one friend and others it was hundreds and I remember the third time I was singing that over a group my eyes finally were opened and I saw how I need to know that as well.  Just as Jesus knows Little Rock out of the whole world, He knows me out of all of history. 

            I’m reading through 1 Chronicles and I have to be honest, it’s really rough trying to read through hundreds of name for no apparent reason.  Whenever I got to chapter three and started nodding off, I stubbornly asked God to reveal something to me that would make me want to keep reading and to learn something from these “divine” names.  When I rolled around to chapter seven or so, God started to peel open my eyelids to se that out of all the names and all the lists, none of them are in any particular arrangement.  What I mean is this, some names are the son of so-and-so, some names are where they’re from and some are just simply their names.  What this brought to my heart was that God handpicked every single name that was to go into the first 12 chapters of Chronicles and gave each one a special and unique way of being presented.  Each individual name means nothing to me, but each name means everything to God. 

            Every three seconds someone dies of poverty.  So in the amount of time it has taken me to write four paragraphs approximately 300 people have died around the world.  Each individual life means nothing to me, but each life means everything to God.

            Whenever I sit here at Starbucks and people watch, I think about where each person has to be and why there are in such a hurry or why they get out of bed everyday.  I like to entertain myself with making up their lives in my head; some are going to grow up to be president, some will be bums, and others become over-paid pastors.  Whatever the case I often forget about the person and move on with my day leaving that person meaning nothing to me, but not dismissing the fact that that person still means everything to God.

            One of the most beautiful things about this Revival is that God is moving and working in individual hearts and when we as the Church sing, “Oh how He loves you” to our brothers and sisters, we are speaking pure Biblical truth.  I became lost in Awakening to the point where it was hard for me to fall to my knees and let Jesus’ arms surround me and quiet my aching and raging heart. 

            There have been many things that have happened in the past month for the Lord to keep reminding me and impressing upon my heart that He knows me by name, some of them being Annie’s story and the whole 1 Chronicles deal but there has been one in particular that I would be in vain not to share.

            With this being my senior year and all, like everyone my age, the question of college reared it’s ugly head this fall.  I quickly decided Arkansas Tech was the place for me (cant honestly say I prayed about that too much) and left it at that until I was at a college fair where John Brown peeked my interest.  I went to visit and loved the idea of going there but that died in about two weeks as Jesus let me see how a small Christian college most likely wasn’t the best place for my healing and bitter heart.  So once again I settled on Arkansas Tech and then in a span of five minutes, God rocked my world.  I was in Springdale for a football game and ended up staying the night with my buddy Shaun in Fayetteville on the campus of the University of Arkansas.  That morning I walked out of Humphrey’s Hall only to stop dead in my tracks in the cool December morning air and my heart literally leapt within my chest.  I stood there and looked around and thought to myself, “I’m supposed to be here”.  On the way home I mentioned it to my dad and we both knew it was a long shot considering the early deadline for scholarships had passed and I would be applying late and there was no way I could go to college without scholarships (right?). I ended up applying when I got home anyways and within a couple of weeks was accepted and sent in my scholarship application.  After a couple of weeks of prayer and council from some much wiser people, I saw pretty clearly that my heart’s desire was to be at Fayetteville.  There is so much going on there and the Lord has an army in place of mighty warriors who desire nothing more than to know Jesus and to make Him known and as I looked from the outside in, I started to understand why my heart leapt the way it did that morning.

            This year went on and the news of scholarships came flooding in.  I was expecting quite a bit from different places (some from UofA as far as academics and then the government and other competitions) and within the span of two weeks the possible total went from about 6,000 a year to 1,000… one time.   The hope of Fayetteville became more and more slim by the day but each time I got a rejection notice or call or found out in any way, I just kept hearing the Lord behind me whispering, “do you trust me?”  That is an easy question with a difficult response.  “Of course I do!” I would keep saying but remember that I have an incredibly hard time accepting that Jesus loves me deeply and knows my name which puts me in between a rock and a hard spot for answering that question of whether I trust Him or not. To make matters even more complicated I got an offer from Arkansas Tech that would literally pay for everything but I had zero peace about going there, although the ratio of scholarship money was about 40:1.  My friend Niki so poetically and prophetically wrote to me, “If God wants you at Fayetteville, the devil will try to draw you elsewhere.  And money is a draw of the world… stepping outside the will of God is more costly than any college expense.”  Needless to say that the last sentence of that message wrung my heart until it was dry of all doubt. 

            It’s easy for me to complain and wish that people would sing over me how much Jesus loves me but it’s even sweeter to know that the King of the Universe, the Living God himself sings over me.  As I am reminded by His gentle and violent love, “He will take delight in you with gladness.  With His love, He will calm all your fears.  He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” (Zeph. 3:17) How beautiful is it that Jesus himself sings over me the most intimate song ever sung.            

            I stared face to face with my will and the will of God… do I go with the money for myself or do I trust with all of my heart that God holds me close and His glory and His grace is so much greater than mine?

            When I got off the phone with Arkansas Tech I had to steady my hand knowing how much money I had just given up.  But while I did that, the Spirit once again whispered into my ear, “I am a shield about you, your glory, and the lifter of your head.” As the truth of Psalm 3 echoed into my soul, I felt sure Jesus was leading in His path of life.

            From before the world began the Lord knew that I would be going to Fayetteville and He knew that I would have to trust Him with everything that came along with that.  I am confident that the Lord will provide me with whatever funds I need because He desires for me to be there.  I will trust in the good news, the great news that Jesus Christ knows my name.  I will rest in the hand of my Savior. 

            When this Revival started a month ago I was introduced to Audrey Assad and a song called, “Known” which has been my cry ever since I first heard it.  The song is obviously about how intimately God knows each of us. And isn’t it so glorious that that can also be the cry of every single other heart that knows the Lord and every heart that ever will.  We are alive to know Him, and to make Him known and the first half of the reason I got up this morning rings truer in my ear than the music playing from my iPod. 

How sweet it is to trust in Jesus.   How sweet to know I am nothing but He is everything.  How sweet it is to be sung over by the Living God.  How sweet it is to be used by the Spirit.  How sweet it is to become one with Him by taking the bread and drinking the wine.  How sweet it is to be held in the arms of our dear Savior.  How sweet it is to be alive for His glory.  How sweet it is to be known.

Aryk

“Everything in my life has been leading me here.  Now I am on the doorstep of destiny and it is consuming who I was and remaking me into something more.  Something unstoppable through the power and grace of God.”

My friend Aryk wrote that to me yesterday.  What I want you to understand is that a month and a half ago Aryk wouldn’t have said anything close to this.

I grew up with Aryk and we have been good friends for years.  About a year ago we sat down and I shared the Gospel of Jesus with him.  He didn’t respond at first and we politely agreed that he didn’t want it and I wasn’t going to push it but what is so amazing about the Gospel of Jesus is that it is relentless.  Over the past year Aryk and I have had countless talks about Jesus and life and Purpose and every single time we talk he is the first to bring up Jesus (although he said he didn’t want Jesus? Ironic?) and those talks have been some of the highlights of both my spiritual journey of the last two years and also of my life.  Over the past two and a half years I have been pursuing the Lord, my talks with Aryk were some of the most genuine because he didn’t take what I said without proof and sureness.  He challenged me with my own words and pushed me to be solid on my relationship with the Lord. 

A few short months ago things became very serious as he came with me one night to a presentation of the Gospel at Fellowship.  I asked him to come and told him very clearly what it was and why he was coming, so not to trick him into Jesus.  See, Aryk has heard the Gospel from me, but I wanted him to hear it in a different light and I can truly say that the Lord used Brandon B. in huge ways that night as he discussed how humanity went south in the Garden.  I remember Aryk saying something along the lines of “damn, Adam and Eve really messed that up” shortly after the sermon was over.  That night he came to my house and what awaited me was one of the most monumental discussions of my entire life.  For four hours we sat in my room and discussed why we were breathing.  For just as C.S. Lewis so prophetically reminds us, “If the universe has no meaning, we should never have never found out it has no meaning.” 

And side note here, you must understand that Aryk has one of the purest hearts for people that I have ever seen.  He authentically yearns for people who hurt and wants them to be happy and would give his life in a moment for another to live.  But the problem was that Aryk wanted to offer hope to people, but in turn he had no hope to offer.  I told him over and over again that if Jesus is true then He is the only hope and there is no way offer others hope if you yourself have no hope. 

What Aryk couldn’t see is that Jesus is the only way.

As the weeks went on after that night, Aryk became more and more fervent in our talks.  He seems to be rushed and wanted something more everyday but couldn’t find it.  Finally one day he told me that He had had an epiphany. I remember turning around in my seat in English class eager to hear as he told me how the night that he came to my house he had talked to my brother Cody for a few minutes and Cody had told him to read John.  So in turn Aryk decided to try it out and was stumped after the first chapter.  He went on to explain how he sees clearly how there is no way to God except through Jesus and why Jesus had to come and so on and so forth.  Then he looked in my eyes and said, “Chris I am going to life to Jesus.”

Weeks went by before he did and later he would explain to me that the devil really got into his head and convinced him that he couldn’t follow Jesus with all the crap he had done in his life. 

But on March 15^th I was sitting at Starbucks when I got a Facebook message from Aryk saying, “Well, I'm not sure if I did it right, but I swore my life to Jesus, or however you put it.”  I called him right away and was driven to the most joyous tears I have ever cried.  I could have died right then with a full soul.  One of my best friends was now my Brother. 

Over the past month or so Aryk and I have been meeting and I have had the privilege, the honor, the blessing of watching him fall in love with Jesus and people.  He has only read half of John and he already understands the Spirit-filled life more than most will ever grasp.  He sees and knows that Jesus is the only hope.

What is so beautiful about this story is that he didn’t give his life to the Lord as a result of some really emotional experience, a conference, a high intensity sermon, or out of guilt.  Aryk gave his life to the Lord because he knew there was no other way to experience life and he desperately wanted life. 

I heard once that since Jesus is the Bridegroom in this relationship, He does the pursuing.  And it’s much harder to run away from the Groom than it is to embrace Him because His furious love is chasing us because He desires us.  I got to witness, first hand, the furious love of the Almighty God chase Aryk for over a year until Aryk finally fell to his knees and looked with love upon the face of his creator. 

I do not tell this story to bring glory to Aryk or to me but simply to Jesus.  I tell you all this story to challenge and push you to live Christ because I promise you it’s the greatest adventure that has ever been known to man. Just as Aryk wrote sentences before the quote I used to open the blog, “Nothing compares to this.”  And my dear friends, he is right, nothing compares to this.  Nothing in all of the world compares to getting up each day to walk with Jesus, to get to know Him and to make Him known. 

Aryk is going to go out and make more disciples for Christ and then those disciples are going to go out and make more and so on and so on until this world is overrun with disciples of Jesus. 

In the midst of this Revival, we must open our mouths because how many more Aryk’s are there in this city who are just waiting to hear about Jesus?  But not the Jesus many of us teach in church or the Jesus known on billboards around America, but the real Jesus: the loving, merciful, passionate, compassionate, and enemy-loving Jesus.  The Jesus who takes you no matter where you have been and changes you, the Jesus who offers much more than the American dream and a good life but the Jesus who offers a rich and fulfilling, purposeful and satisfying life in Him.  The Jesus who offers hope.  The real Jesus. 

My prayer is that Christ-followers will start having their hearts broken for the lost and start telling everyone about this King and Kingdom they serve.  I pray that Little Rock will not be able to contain the fire that will spill from our hearts as we draw near to Jesus.  For just as Jesus said in Luke 12, “I have come to set the world on fire, I wish it were already burning.”

It’s time my brothers and sisters.  Here’s to our King and here’s to a new world where we will not only die for Christ but we will also dare to live for Him.

In that same note Aryk wrote a charge to not only me but to all who claim Christ.  He said this, “Chris, if we all live like Jesus, helping others, we can change/save the world.”

Welcome to the revolution my brothers and sisters.

Hallelujah

The ground is shaking underneath my feet. Even as I write this, I feel like the foundation of this Starbucks, this table, and this chair are shaking.  My friend Christy blogged a couple of weeks ago saying how she could hear the whispers of Revival and the murmurs of Awakening and I am here to tell you today, I am not just hearing them, I am seeing them, I am feeling them, I am looking at them, I am tasting them.  Revival and Awakening are real and they are staring us in the face.  Over the past two and a half weeks there has literally not been one night I have gone to sleep where I have not been completely and utterly overwhelmed by God.  What He is doing is absolutely incredible and beyond anything I could have ever imagined while I was praying for Revival just a few short months ago.  I am sure that what is happening with people giving all of themselves to Jesus and how people are coming together as the Church (outside of Sunday morning and Wednesday night? What?!) praying for one another and loving others just because Jesus loves them is so much more than even what the men and women who have been faithfully on their knees, asking God to purify His Bride for years, could have imagined. 

As I have said before and will say again, I am sick of being a Christian the way we know it today.  I am ready to follow Jesus.  I am ready to know Jesus, I am ready to live Christ and die as gain.  I am ready to pledge allegiance to one King and to one Kingdom. I am ready to taste and see the goodness of God.  I am ready to wake up each day for Purpose.  I am ready to risk the ocean.

This post is very simply to give all the glory and all the praise to Jesus and to tell of what He has done and what He is doing and to invite you, my brother or my sister, or my soon to be brother or soon to be sister, to join in on what the Lord is doing.

Just two and a half weeks ago Bill Elliff spoke on not quenching the Spirit at Summit Church and what followed was nearly five hours of people getting up to confess their sins and be prayed over and people being baptized and giving their lives to the Lord.  Every weeknight since that Sunday believers have gathered at Summit to speak of what the Lord has done and there have been shouts of joy as beautiful people are submerged in the deep waters of Baptism and the endless love of Christ.    There have tears of joy as people drop to their knees and give their lives away to find true life and tears of sorrow and pain as hearts have been broken over those who do not know Jesus.  But know this my friends, this Revival has not been held inside the four walls of Summit.  As people have come, hearts have set ablaze and the love of Jesus has been shared at every place you can think of here around Little Rock.  I am literally receiving texts messages, phone calls, Facebook messages, and emails every day about some new crazy story of what Jesus is doing.  At different high schools, middle schools, colleges, church campuses, God is moving.  He is revealing how American Christianity is so longer the Church and He is changing us from the inside out. 

Before I go on with any specific stories I have to stop and remember the words that my brother and sister, Britton and Niki, reminded us all of when all this was starting;

“Look around at the nations; look and be amazed!  For I am doing something in your own day, something that you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it.” –Habakkuk 1:5

So look and be amazed folks, for God is doing something in our day, something that you wouldn’t believe even if I told you. 

At a charter school here in Little Rock, there are two girls who have had their hearts burning for the lost and have acted upon the flames.  The first girl decided to share Christ with her friend no matter what her friend thought of her, and so she wrote her a letter explaining the gospel.  When this girl got the letter she read it aloud to her class and they all made fun of our sister.  When she heard that everyone was making fun of her, instead of crying and being torn, she rejoiced as she pondered the words of Jesus in the greatest sermon ever taught, “blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake”.  And then there was another girl who was sharing Christ with a friend of hers at lunch and a teacher told her to go to the office.  At the office she was scolded and told not to bring her Bible to school anymore and that she couldn’t talk about religion anymore, ever.  I’m sure you can imagine what she had in her backpack the next day… her sword. 

I was talking to a guy at work about everything that has been going on and he stopped me and exclaimed, “wait bro, you wanna know what’s crazy?” And of course I did, so he went on to tell me a story about a lady he heard speak once.  The lady was on a plane flying over Arkansas and someone on the plane exclaimed out loud, “what state are we flying over?” After asking the flight attendants and everything they found they were flying over Arkansas and this woman says, “I feel like there is going to be a great Awakening in the American Church and that it is going to start here in this state.” (by the way, he heard this story months ago)

My brother Seth has held bitterness and anger in against the Church for a long time (for many righteous reasons) but it came to a point where it was sinful and he knew it.  So we were at Summit church one night and I could almost feel the weight on his shoulders.  From the very beginning of the service I started praying over him and that the Lord would deliver him from whatever was going on in his heart.  So as the night went on, we kept praying for him until he finally got up and confessed his sin and to ask forgiven from the Body.  We prayed over and sang over him. 

Reconciliation is a glorious thing.  I cannot even begin to capture the start of the countless stories that have come from the past weeks.  People repenting of sin that has not seen the light of day in years, husbands and wives having their marriage healed, children holding hatred towards their parents, so many things.  (even as I type this Bill Elliff is sitting two tables over from me talking to people about the forgiveness and love of Jesus. And again I am blown away)

On the Sunday night of this whole thing a kid named Byron gave his life to the Lord. Immediately after surrounding to the Lord he felt like he had to speak to his school about the forgiveness Jesus had given him, so he got up at Chapel TWO DAYS after that and shared.  Here’s the kicker, after he shared he led another girl  named Helen to start a relationship with Jesus just minutes after he stepped down from the stage.  The only thing I can think of is the line from Amazing Grace that says, “how sweet did that grace appear the hour I first believed”.  Oh and to add to that, Helen is declaring her love for Jesus to the world next week through baptism.

Here’s the thing about this Revival, this Awakening: Satan can tempt us and we can easily get to the point where it stops becoming about Christ and starts becoming about Awakening just for the sake of Awakening.  Every night the prayer at Summit and the prayer of people who are involved (from so many places) is that we would be falling in love with Jesus and telling more and more people about Him.  After all, if we’re alive to know Jesus and to make Him known, we should probably start soon.  Because correct me if I’m wrong here but the last time I checked the Church as it has been, isnt so much about knowing Jesus and making Him known as it is about Christianity, as it is about money and saying the right things and doing the right things.  No longer my brothers and sisters.  No longer will we sit in our pews and close our eyes every now and again to worship.  We will jump and dance and be undignified.  No longer will we keep our heads down when the Spirit tells us to look up.  No longer will be silent, no longer will we pretend like we do not know Jesus.  If Jesus is our life, shouldn’t we speak of Him? 

A couple of Fridays ago there was a gathering of around 90 students and all we did was get on our faces to seek the Lord.  For hours we prayed and worshiped and told about our King.  Near the end we had a time of prayer in which students from different churches, different schools, and different walks of life went up to their family in Christ and prayed over each other.  The scene of watching the Body of Christ actually being the Body of Christ was unexplainable and awe striking.

Earlier today I was meeting with a kid and he looked at me with tears saying how he desired to truly be in love with Christ.  As I cried with him at the thought of one day seeing Jesus face to face, he told me “Chris your tears are tears of joy but mine are pain” because he knows he not to point yet where he is in love fully with Jesus.  But as I prayed over him I know the Spirit of God is alive in him and is leading him and pushing him to the day when the head knowledge he has becomes heart knowledge.  And oh, what a magnificent day that will be.

This Revival is not slowing down, if any thing it is taking speed.  Every night at Summit people are meeting to pray and this Saturday there is a group of students and adults meeting to pray at Fellowship at 8 o’clock.  And I know that there are other places people are meeting and every day more people are hearing about the real Jesus.  In Fayetteville there is a group of students organizing an all day prayer gathering.  In Russellville there are students every night meeting at 11:11 to pray.  Come, be a part of this with us.  Do not the Lord pass us by.  Risk the ocean with us.  We want to see the Holy Spirit set us on fire.

 “Come, let us return to the Lord.

    He has torn us to pieces;

      now he will heal us.

   He has injured us;

      now he will bandage our wounds.

 In just a short time he will restore us,

      so that we may live in his presence.

  Oh, that we might know the Lord!

      Let us press on to know him.

   He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn

      or the coming of rains in early spring.” –Hosea 6:1-3

We are no longer Christians in a religion, we are Christ-followers in a relationship with the God of the Universe.  We are no longer hearers, we are doers. 

Our only response from here until the Eternity will forever be, Hallelujah. 

We Know Nothing of Religion Here

I think that we have lost so much in our churches and in our Bible Studies and in our Christianity.  I think that we have lost so much in our ways of every day life.  There is a haunting scene in from C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce in which two men are talking and one of the men is explaining how great Jesus’ ideas were and how great of a moral teacher He was and what a great thing religion is and blah, blah, blah.  Then the other man (who is indeed a citizen of Heaven) stops him and says, “We know nothing of Religion here: we think only of Christ.”

I often take a step back from my life and am sickened with what I see.  I am so lost in the activities, in the hustle and bustle of the American life.  I can spend hours at church but only short moments on my knees or in the Word.  I can spend hours in front of people speaking about Jesus but only short moments actually talking to Jesus.  It breaks my heart to see how I get so caught up in Christianity that I miss out on Christ. 

Earlier today I sat down and picked up my Bible and all of that just hit me right in the face.  For the last 11 days there has been nothing but excitement in Little Rock, and I believe that it will continue because Jesus is moving in such an amazing and beautiful way!  Lives are being changed and Christians from all over are becoming Christ-followers.  Church bodies are awakening and students are getting on their faces and opening their mouths.  The stories of Revival have literally left me overwhelmed.  I am so excited to see how the Spirit continues to move and set our hearts on fire.  However today I opened my eyes to the sad truth that since last Wednesday I have picked up my Bible (with the soul intent of meeting with Jesus and nothing else) only twice.  I have picked it up and read it out loud with my brothers and sisters many times since, which is so important and vital in our spiritual growth, but I have only attempted to meet one on one with the God of the Universe twice. 

Here’s what I’m trying to say: the only reason any of this Revival is happening is because of Christ and we cannot forget Christ in the midst of this Awakening.  And you might be sitting there reading this thinking, “well no duh”… but truly stop for a moment and think about all the times in your life you have been jazzed up for Christ and how many times you have lost it because you focus on Him.  All the camps and conferences you’ve been to where you “got saved” or “rededicated” but got lost in that experience and didn’t instead get lost in Christ. 

The single greatest gift in the entire universe is having the chance to know Jesus.  But not just pray a pray to Him every now and then but intimately and deeply knowing our Creator.   Paul went so far as to say in Philippians “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.” I’ve heard that verse over and over again in Sunday school but as I read it now, after Jesus has wooed my heart, I sit with my heart yearning to know Christ with the intimacy that Paul did.  Could I say that I count everything else as worthless compared to knowing Him?  Could I say that I count my family, my friends, my school, my writings, all of the books I love, music, everything! as worthless? 

            How can I replace the hours of talking about Jesus with hours of talking and communing with Jesus?

            James said draw close to God and He will draw close to you.  Paul prayed that we would learn to understand how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His Love is.  Men and woman throughout history have died because of their love for their Savior.  Bill Bright would bust into tears when he was asked who Jesus was to him. 

            I want to know Jesus.  But I do not just want to know Him on Sunday mornings or on Wednesday nights or when it’s politically correct to know Him.  I want to know Him on Saturdays at 3 am when the choice of loving Him or loving my computer becomes a reality.  I want to know Him on Tuesday afternoon when the barista at Starbucks is giving me a hard time or on Friday mornings in my English class when everyone is talking about their plans for the weekend.  I want to know Jesus when I that scholarship falls through and when I don’t get accepted into my dream school.  I want to know Jesus when everything else fails and when my face is in the dust.  I want to know Jesus every second of every day.  I want to know Jesus when my house is burning and family and friends are dying.  I want to know Jesus when the world is caving in. 

            But it’s a scary thought to me, because it’s a completely real possibility that many of us when we are on our knees before Jesus may not be able to say we ever actually knew Him at all...  I want to know Jesus when I fall to my knees before His throne. 

            One day I hope to know nothing of Religion.  One day I hope to know only Christ. 

            "O, the fullness, the pleasure, the sheer excitement of knowing God here on earth." -Jim Elliott

            

Let's Risk the Ocean

"I believe we are amid a great awakening in the slumbering body of Christ.  I once heard someone call us the Lazarus generation, for we are a generation rising from the apathetic deadness of this world, a church that is awakening from her slumber.  There’s a beautiful verse in which Jesus scolds his listeners for having grown numb and cold, for having forgotten how to laugh and cry and feel.  He says, “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: ‘We played the pipe for you and you didn’t not dace; we sang a dirge and you did not mourn’” (Matt 11:16-17).  A new day is dawning.  We are playing the flute and folks from Wall Street to the ghetto are beginning to dance.”

Those prophetic and poetic words are written by an ordinary radical named Shane Claiborne.  Mr. Claiborne has been one of my many spiritual mentors this last year and as I read those words a couple of weeks ago, I specifically remember having to close the book and let the Spirit pour his love out of my eyes and in my heart.  For months I have been praying and begging for this awakening.  I have been on my knees and crying out to the Lord to send His fire upon us, because as I have known and many others for years is that we have missed it as the Church.  We are dead.  But here’s the kicker: I believe that Jesus is far too passionate about His Glory to let us sleep much longer. 

For months as I have talked about this revival, many people have been quick to hush me and tell me to not expect too much, I mean really, we haven’t ever seen anything like that before have we?  At least, not in my lifetime. But just as my friend Kayla told me this last weekend, “Do not put God in a box.”

What I realize about myself is that I can get far ahead of the way things are.  What I mean is that sometimes, since I am a Dreamer, I can get so caught up in what could happen that I miss out on what is happening.  That has been a weakness for me since day one of following Christ but the difference in this prayer for awakening is that it isn’t just for me, it isn’t just to make me feel good, it simply and purely has to happen.  There is no alternative.  For too long has the American Church been asleep, letting people be content with their health and their wealth and their false gospel.  For far too long have we sat back and given out “get-out-of-hell-free-cards” without so much as once mentioning and focusing on Jesus’ words in John 10:10 about living an abundant life now.  Was John the Baptist lying when he said, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaving IS AT HAND”?  We have become completely at rest with preaching comfort and acceptance.  The time to stop is now.  We are doing no one any good by sitting around our church pews and commending our rich and American Dream lifestyles. 

On Sunday at the Summit Church in Little Rock, Arkansas God began to answer those prayers.  The 11 o’clock service ended up going to 4 pm as they did not dare quench the Spirit.  The members at that church confessed their sins, people were baptized, and others gave their lives to Jesus.  On Monday night they met to pray for Jesus to continue this and again on Tuesday night and again last night and from what I hear they will meet again tonight.  And all they are doing is simply getting on their faces and begging Jesus to light them on fire so they can therefore go tell everyone about the Real Jesus, the King of Universe, our great Savior.  They are praying for fire because we as the Church must awake because the truth about us hurts: God is not impressed with us.  God is not impressed with our million dollar buildings and our worship services, or our Bible Studies or anything because they produce no fruit.  We have convinced ourselves that that all is enough when in reality we are so caught up and wrapped up in Christianity that we have missed Christ!  We have bypassed the greatest gift in the world, which is knowing and walking with the God of everything.

Last night at Fellowship God once again released His Spirit.  It was incredible to see high school kids on their faces in front of Jesus begging Him to become their everything, kids repenting as they knew without a doubt that they hadn’t been living for His Glory. 

I am honestly blown away by how Jesus is moving.  I am stunned because we have been praying for this for so long, and here it is!  The time is now! 

On Friday there will be a group of students who are meeting outside of Fellowship at 9 pm and all we are going to do is pray for Jesus to set us on fire.  This Revival is alive and is not contained in four walls.  

However what would be easy to do right now is get so lost in Awakening and Revival that we completely miss Jesus.  And the Devil is very cunning and he hates how lives are changing and how the Spirit is taking control and he will stop at nothing to stop this.  The only way this will continue is if each of us, before we get so jazzed and pumped about Revival, get on our faces and beg Jesus for us to all fall in love with Him first.  Because the question is not whether Revival is happening or is going to happen, the question is are we going to let it happen?  And my friends, it’s happening… are we going to let God use us?  Because one of the most wonderful things about our God is that He doesn’t need us but by His great grace, He desperately wants to use us and He is standing in front of each of us and asking us if we want to come along. 

I am not sure about you, but I am sick and tired of living a life that is all going through the motions.  I am ready to breathe and live the Scriptures as the early Church did.  I am ready to see Miracles.  I am ready to not only fall madly in love with Jesus Christ but also see the whole world fall to their knees and profess Him as Lord.

David Crowder issues an amazing challenge to all of us as Christ-followers.  He is speaking of wherever God goes, we will follow and then he says this:

“Don’t be afraid, just set your sail and risk the ocean.  There’s only grace”

That is our challenge, and as for me, I am ready to risk that ocean because if God is for us, who could ever be against us?  If the Holy Spirit of the Living God lives and breathes through us, how could we ever be defeated?  Christ is risen and death is swallowed up in victory.  All glory to God.

Strap tight my brothers and sisters, God is on the move.