Freedom Blog

God is passionate about drawing near to people and saving them from their dysfunctions and distortions. He is passionate about bringing great healing to people’s hearts and lives and victorious deliverance to them from darkness and demonic oppression. His love truly is furious because He cannot stand to see His creation (us) not living as He created us. You see, the devil has a plan for your life (keeping people bound in addictions is one of his plans among others), we have a plan for our own lives (which may seem good, but is limited) and then God has a plan for your life (which is perfect and full of hope and blessing). I don’t know about you but I’ve already spent part of my life living the devil’s plan for my life and in many ways have continued to struggle in letting go of my own plans for my life because I have tasted what God’s plan is for my life and let me tell you it is more than I could have ever dreamed of. I get to spend each and everyday with the Creator of the Universe. I get to know and experience His passionate love for me all the time. I also get to live out God’s amazing destiny for my life which can be challenging at times because it pushes me to live by faith, but at the end of the day there truly is no other way I desire to live. Being caught up into God’s furious love has forever changed me and now carries me into living out my eternity destiny here on earth. Do you know the furious love of God?

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I’m not sure why I’m so drawn into this song. There’s just something that resonates so powerfully within me when I hear the lyrics: “Your life brought more than freedom, Your love brought time just what I needed to see I needed You.” I love that God is so incredibly patient with us and that He gives us time to come to Him as He reveals more of Himself to us. My heart warms as I read how Jesus describes God, not a harsh taskmaster, but as a loving Father.

Transformation can be messy and I don’t know about you, but I’m glad that I’m not on some deadline when it comes to being transformed by God and that He extends grace and time to me as He transforms me through His Word and Spirit. Sure, there are times that I wished the process of transformation was quicker and easier, but this is different than having to conform to some timetable. The desire to be transformed faster is completely different than if we had to actually meet some transformational deadlines.

Imagine if God placed due dates on us, like, by Tuesday I’d like if you stopped being short tempered with people and by June next year I’d like you to stop judging people completely. Now, I’m hoping you see the absurdity of this and hear my heart. I’m not saying having a plan is a bad thing. Plans can at times help frame and put things in perspective, but too often our plans and timetables can put an undue burden on us especially if our plans get in the way of us hearing and responding to God’s presence in our lives.

Transformation must be seen as more of an organic process than some to-do list or clinical step-by-step process. To put it simply, transformation must be seen from a relational perspective, God moves and we respond, which is definitely easier said than done. But, I am more and more convinced that laying down our will means also surrendering the plans and desires of our hearts to God. It’s not that we don’t have plans or desires, but we surrender them to God, so that He can align them with His plans and desires for our lives.

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This is such an amazing song and a great reminder that everything that God makes is beautiful. In the very beginning when God created all the universe, He “looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!” (Genesis 1:31a NLT). But, even more God is able to take a fallen creation ravaged by sin and recreate it into something beautiful. Aren’t these the words of 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (NIV). If there ever was Good News to those struggling with addictions, this is it. In Jesus, a person is transformed from a wayward addict, estranged from family and loved ones into a beloved child of God who is dearly loved and accepted into the family of God. Such is amazing grace! That God would take objects of wrath and transform us into His beloved sons and daughters. Yes, Lord you do make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of us. You make me new. You are making me new…

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Over this past week, I’ve been reading through the book of Jeremiah (I spent last month in Isaiah) and what the Holy Spirit has been showing me while I’ve been reading is this: “God’s love is always guided by His truth and His truth is always fueled by His love which constitutes God’s ways.” Now, I know that this is a bit simplistic (I mean there’s also grace, mercy, justice, goodness, etc. all of which are also of God and important), but sometimes I feel like we complicate things. For me, when things happen in my life that I don’t understand, it helps to remind myself that God is love and that He is truth (I would also add that He is good). And though I may not understand why this or that is happening in my life or in the lives of the people around me or the things happening in the world I can trust that God knows what He is doing. Being at peace means I start from a position of trust in God’s ways and that His ways are comprised of His truth and His love.

Systematically, I believe that all truth is God’s truth, but that there is a hierarchy to truth. Meaning, there is general revelation which consists of creation which points to a Creator (Romans 1:18-20), basic principles of the world (Romans 12:1; Colossians 2:20; Galatians 4:3) and the knowledge of morality (Romans 2:14, 15) all of which God set into place when He created the universe (Genesis 1, 2). And then there is special revelation which consists of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 2:20, 21) and Jesus (Hebrews 1:1, 2). Naturally, special revelation must always supersede general revelation. Nonetheless, truth will always be truth and hence must come from God who is truth because God cannot lie. “So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18a NLT; also cf. Titus 1:2; Numbers 23:19).

Now if this isn’t enough we must also remember that God’s thoughts and ways are higher than our thoughts and ways (Isaiah 55:8, 9) which collectively hopefully characterizes God as completely transcendent, all-powerful and down right overwhelmingly Divine which should inspire what the Bible talks about as the fear of the Lord (2 Chronicles 14:14; 17:10; 19:7, 9; Job 28:28; Psalm 19:9; 34:11; 111:10; Proverbs 1:7, 29; 8:13; 9:10; 10:27; 14:26, 27; 15:33; 16:6; 19:23; 23:17; Isaiah: 11:2, 3; 33:6; Acts 9:31; 2 Corinthians 5:11). Sometimes, (and I include myself here) I feel like the majesty of God and His transcendentness has gotten lost in the midst of friendship with God. Now, hear me on this, I love being friends with God in fact I cherish our friendship. But, there are times where I can get too comfortable and casual with God where I forget that He is also the Creator of the universe, who is omniscient (knows all things), omnipresent (is able to be in all places at the same time) and omnipotent (all-powerful and all-ruling).

It’s not that the children of God (those found in Jesus) should be fearful of God in the sense that we should run and hide from Him, but that while we fully embrace being friends of God we should also stand in awe of His majesty and bow in reverence to His divinity. I know that this may seem complicated or overwhelming at times, but we can take heart because Jesus fully embodies all of this which is why He is able to say: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me“ (John 14:6 ESV). We must always remember that the only reason that we are friends with God is through Jesus. Without Jesus, we would still be enemies of God because it is only through Jesus’ shed blood on the cross that we have peace with God (Romans 5:1-11). Those found in Jesus need not fear punishment (1 John 4:16-19), we only need to concern ourselves with being disciplined (Hebrews 12:4-11). Biblically speaking there is a difference between punishment and discipline.

Add to all of this that God is love (1 John 4:8, 16) and what we get is the reality that God’s love, truth and ways are deeply and infinitely unified with one another. I don’t believe we can separate them, nor should we ever try or think of them separately but as always working in relation to one another. The love of God always being guided by His truth and His truth always being fueled by His love which constitutes God’s ways because the ways of God must always been seen as being comprised of His truth and His love. I mean, isn’t this what we find in Jesus?

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So, over the past couple weeks I have been on the street making myself available both to God and the community for prayer. All of this begin back in the beginning of April at the Furious Love Event in which God gave me a vision of me standing in Wicker Park (in Chicago) with a sign in front of me and a street performer permit clipped to my shirt (just like in the picture). And since then I’ve been gathering all of the supplies needed to bring this vision into reality. It took me about a month, but on May 2nd, 2011 I was ready to get out on the street. If you’re interested in following my day to day reflections and highlights go here.

In sum, it has been quite an adventure! I am learning so much about God, myself and people. Everyday is a new day of grace, mercy and love. God shows up everyday I’m out. Thanks to the many prayers of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, God has been lavishing His favor and grace on me and has been helping me build bridges with people one relationship at a time and has opened opportunities for me to prayer both with and for people. On any given day, I have the privileged to pray with anywhere from 1 to 10 people while some days no one has come for prayer. But, even on those days I’ve still had the opportunity to pray that God would release the revelation of Christ in people’s hearts and that He would bring revival to the area.

Also, the Holy Spirit has been reminding me of a word He spoke to years back which was the revelation that there are many, many people who are walking past me that have never had their name or image brought before the throne of God’s grace. So, as often as I can I’ve been silently interceding for people walking by as the LORD leads me. I feel like this is a good word for all of us, that we all need to be silently interceding for the people we see throughout our day, the cashier at the grocery store, the person in line in front of us at Starbucks, that person sitting on the train next to us, the kids playing in the park, the waiter at the restaurant, etc. Imagine, you could be the very first person to pray for these people, the first person to bring their image before the throne of God.

Prayer is so important to us. We know that it is the very lifeblood of our faith and lives. And this is the heart behind the Mobile Prayer Station: it is to make prayer available to the lost children of God by going into their midst. But, it’s not about preaching at them, trying to convert them or even forcing prayer upon them. It’s about serving the community by offering them the service of prayer. It’s about creating common ground between us and allowing them the freedom to come and choose to engage and be prayed for. It’s about meeting people where they are at and making space for God to come and touch their lives. The greater vision of this ministry is that other believers would make themselves available both to God and the community and begin setting up Mobile Prayer Stations in their own cities and neighborhoods. There are so many wounded people out in the world who are in desperate need of prayer and the sad reality is that many of them are too intimidated, hurt or angry to even think about coming to a church for prayer. But, just as Jesus sent out the 72 disciples (Luke 10:1-9) so we too can go out and offer to people and communities our most treasured and powerful gift: prayer.

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