Strength for a Weary Heart: The Desire of God

It was the end of a long, difficult day as I sat in my car in a parking lot. As the sun began to set, the golden skies shown brightly, contrasting the dullness I felt within my heart. As I sat there tired and weary, I longed to feel something other than fear and pain. Like a weary sailor longs for the morning light to come and burn away the darkness and the storms, I wondered when hope would come and assure me that there really is more to life than what I had been experiencing. In a final attempt at feeling some sort of peace, I picked up a small New Testament I keep in my car. I opened to Romans 5 and began reading. As I skimmed the chapter, my eyes fell upon a verse which I had read many times before. However, as I read it this time, I saw something that I had never seen before. Verse 8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Suddenly, a flood of emotion rushed through my soul, breaking through the dam of dullness. I realized why the fear of failure had been so strong, the pain of past rejection had cut so deep, and my hope had become so dim—I didn’t realize that I was desired.

God is holy. He hates wickedness (Ps. 45:7). He is perfect, pure, righteous, and clean. Human beings (apart from Jesus) are the antithesis of this. As David said, “…They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none who does good…They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt, there is none who does good, no, not one” (Ps. 14:1,3). A new understanding of who God is hit me like a train. I did nothing to compel Him to save me and love me. Before I knew Him, I was His enemy (Rom. 5:10). If I deserved anything from Him, it was hell. Apart from Jesus, I stood before Him not as an innocent man just trying to live a good life, but as a murderer, an adulterer, a thief, and a liar (Mat. 5:21-22, 27-28; James 2:10). As I sat in the twilight in the parking lot, I realized that when I was His enemy, when I deserved to die, and when I had no desire for Him, He not only reached out to me, but gave everything He had—His life—to be with me. Why? Not because He had to. He wanted to.

I began to feel reality taking over my heart. The Winter of fear, loniness and despair began melting away, and the Spring of new life began to blossom. The God who has everything desires one thing—me. I heard Him softly whispering to me in my car that evening. He said words my weary heart longed to hear: “I desire you. You are wanted.” As I left my car, the sun had set and the skies became dark, contrasting the light that shown brightly in my heart.

Desire is what moved God to create us. Desire is what compelled God to join the human race and suffer death on a cross, rising again. Desire is what allows us to take our next breath. And desire will be what will cause Jesus to come again to be with His people forever, again creating a perfect environment where love and life can florish as it did in the Garden of Eden where He first revealed His desire (Gen. 2:24; see Eph. 5:31-32). The one who knows they are desired by God is the one who can thrive inwardly no matter what happens in life. They fear nothing, because even if everything fell apart, one thing would remain constant forever: the burning heart of desire that the Father has for His people. Knowing this desire resolves a multitude of anxieties, insecurities and fears in our hearts, because behind that desire is a God who cares, who is strong, and who is committed to us.

What is it that He desires so deeply? The answer lies within Jesus’ prayer to the Father right before He was taken to be tried and condemned to death. When you know you are about to undergo the most intense torture anyone has ever experienced (not only being beaten beyond recognition, but bearing upon yourself the fullness of the wrath and punishment of God against sin), only the things closest to your heart would matter in that moment. Only those things would be on your mind, and only those things would be the object of your prayers. In John 17:24, we see Jesus’ motivation and all-consuming passion which caused Him to willingly offer Himself to such horrific torture: “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am…”

His motive for making, saving, and coming for us is this: He desires that we would be with Him where He is…always.

If you are not saved, know that Jesus desires you and has offered you a way to be with Him in love, forgiveness and freedom forever if you trust in Him as the only way to be saved and commit your life to knowing Him and walking in a relationship of love.

If you are saved, let God’s desire wash over you again and again, freeing you from rejection, fear, anger, anxiety, habitual sin, and legalism. You are wanted, loved, cherished, and precious to Him. Fill your mind with the Word and ask Him to reveal how much He desires you.

May His desire fill your heart with hope and assure you of your purpose. What a privilege to have a God who desires us! “Who is so great a God as our God?” (Ps. 77:13)

The Declaration of Dependence- The Way to True Success and Perfected Strength

 

Within every person there is a deep desire for greatness. We long to be successful, honored, and enjoyed. We want to be strong and to accomplish great things with that strength. The usual route our culture tells us to take to become great is to work hard, hate weakness, love strength, never let anyone see your flaws or shortcomings, and get to know as many “important” people as possible so we can use them to get us to the top. We measure greatness is terms of quantity, speed, and strength. In our culture, if you know a vast amount of information, you’re successful. If you can make a lot of money, you’re successful. If you know a lot of people, you’re successful. If you impact a lot of people, you’re successful. While these things are obviously not bad in and of themselves, they have become the definition of greatness made by a fear-driven, ego-centric society which has, for the most part, decided that it would be better if they were their own gods. As a result of casting off the “burden” of loving and submitting to the true God, our culture has created their own standards and value system, redefining true success.

I had been under the influence of such thinking for years. All my life I’ve wanted to make an impact, be great in some way, and be honored for it. I had tried to make myself stronger so that I can do more things, grow myself more, and press in for the fullness of what I can access in this life in terms of intimacy with God and impacting the world around me. However, I was continually frustrated with my lack of progress and seeming inability to do what I desired to do. I lived in constant fear that I would never be able to do what God had called me to do in this life because of my weaknesses. I never felt strong enough, bold enough, or driven enough to do what I thought were great things for God. However, as I read the Word, I began to realize that I had a few wrong mindsets. I realized that first step toward walking in true greatness, strength, boldness, purity in my thought-life, deep love and passion for God and others, and wisdom that I was searching for and trying so hard to obtain was only accessible through embracing the very thing that I had feared, despised, and had been trying to rid myself of for years—weakness. (The weakness I am referring to is the frailty of the body and mind, and the inability to produce positive eternal results by our own resources alone. By saying we must embrace weakness does not mean that we must believe that we will never do anything right or that we are hopeless in resisting sin. Rather, it is coming to terms with the reality that we can do nothing apart from complete trust in Christ and what He did on the Cross.)

The more I read the Word of God, I realized that He sees things very differently that we do. My definition of greatness began to change. We would typically think that God would consider the person with the most power, the one that leads the most people to Jesus, the one who can impact the biggest amount of people, end poverty in a nation, or change a whole culture for God would be considered great in His eyes. Perhaps the one who can pray the longest, or read the Bible the most would be great in our perspective as well—the biggest, strongest, fastest, first, most recognized, etc. Though it is offensive to our minds to hear at first, God does not measure success by any of those things. Interestingly, the Bible shows us that God sees things very different than we do. The Sermon on the Mount that Jesus delivers to His followers in Matthew 5-7 became especially highlighted to me. It is a clear picture of the principles of God’s Kingdom. The first twelve verses, called the Beatitudes, are bullet points of how God defines true success and the way to true happiness. It has affectionately been termed the “Declaration of Dependence” by some theologians. The Bible Knowledge Commentary has a beautiful summation of these first twelve verses and their progression:

“The poor in spirit (Matt. 5:3) are those who consciously depend on God, not on themselves; they are “poor” inwardly, having no ability in themselves to please God (cf. Rom. 3:9-12). Those who mourn (Matt. 5:4) recognize their needs and present them to the One who is able to assist. Those who are meek (v. 5) are truly humble and gentle and have a proper appreciation of their position. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt. 5:6) have a spiritual appetite, a continuing desire for personal righteousness. The merciful (v. 7) extend mercy to others, thus demonstrating God’s mercy which has been extended to them. The pure in heart (v. 8) are those who are inwardly clean from sin through faith in God’s provision…The peacemakers (v. 9) show others how to have inward peace with God and how to be instruments of peace in the world. They desire and possess God’s righteousness even though it brings them persecution (v. 10).” (Bible Knowledge Commentary on Matthew 5:1-12) 

Jesus goes on to declare things that He will give rewards for such actions as doing things for God when no one sees, learning to love those who don’t deserve it, and being a servant of all. He lays out not just actions to do, but the very heart posture one must have in doing them. He values the inner workings of the heart. We all know, however, that we cannot simply force our emotions or desires to change on command. Thankfully, this is not simply a list of commands which we must obey by the sheer exertion of our will. They are actually impossible for the human heart to naturally exhibit or sustain without the power of God. The Sermon on the Mount brings us to our knees in surrender and complete reliance upon God as our all-sufficiency and strength. Such principles about embracing our weaknesses and trusting in the Lord for all strength and sufficiency are all over Scripture:

⁹ And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NKJV)

⁷ The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped. Therefore my heart rejoices, and I praise Him with my song.” Psalms 28:7 (HCSB)

⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me.” John 15:5 (HCSB)  

²⁷ Instead, God has chosen the world’s foolish things to shame the wise, and God has chosen the world’s weak things to shame the strong.²⁸ God has chosen the world’s insignificant and despised things—the things viewed as nothing—so He might bring to nothing the things that are viewed as something, ²⁹ so that no one can boast in His presence. 1 Corinthians 1:27-29 (HCSB)

² And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.  Matthew 23:12 (NKJV)  

⁴ Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:4 (NKJV)

³⁵ And He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” Mark 9:35 (NKJV)

¹⁰ He is not impressed by the strength of a horse; He does not value the power of a man.
¹¹ The Lord values those who fear Him, those who put their hope in His faithful love. Psalms 147:10-11 (HCSB)

True greatness begins in complete trust in Jesus’ abilities and the implications of our union with Him–enabling us to walk in humility, embracing weaknesses, servanthood, and hiddenness—the weak, last, least and unrecognized from the world’s perspective. Again, we must remember that greatness is an issue of the heart. One can be very well known or impact millions of people and yet still be great in God’s eyes if they are walking according to His value system. It’s all about the heart.

 

When I began to embrace my weakness instead of loathing it and trying to get rid of it, I noticed a significant change. I humbled myself in God’s presence and admitted my inability and weaknesses in trying to be good enough. I cried out for His grace and strength, knowing I had none in and of myself. As soon as I did, I felt a flood of divine energy in my heart which resulted in deep peace, joy and love. I then felt a great strength in me, to the point where it was difficult to be offended or angry, which was the norm previously. I discovered a profound key that Jesus had repeated time and time again in the Gospels, yet I had paid little attention to. Though it is still a process of continually renewing my mind according to the truth, and trusting Him that He really is as good as He says He is, I feel His power within me more and more as realize that I am one with Him and do not have to try to perform well enough, but rather rest in His infinite power and love which I now have complete access to by my union with Him. Though it is challenging at times to admit my weaknesses and trust God in the midst of them, I feel more alive and in love with Jesus than I ever have in my entire life. This is because my trust is shifting from my own abilities to His. I am just beginning to understand what God told Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” God isn’t looking for people who are “good enough”, but people that are willing to humble themselves and admit that they are weak and cannot live for Him in their own strength—people who place all their hope and trust in Him and look to Him for the strength and power to love and obey Him. This sounds simple enough, but because of pride, fear, doubt and other things, this essential step is almost altogether overlooked.

No longer do we have to conform to what our culture defines as success. We have been given a Declaration of Dependence for the Kingdom in which followers of Christ now belong. Let us no longer hate or ignore our weakness. Let us embrace it and then turn toward God and fully realize that when He died, our old self died with Him, and because He lives, we live fully united to Him. We don’t have to live life on our own anymore. As David declares in Psalm 27:14, “Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart.” Just as Jesus, God in the flesh, declared in the Sermon on the Mount,

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be completely satisfied.” (Matthew 5:6)

A Little Different Than We Thought

         

       I believe we as a corporate body of believers have become guilty of not heeding the warning of Hebrews 10:29- “Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled on the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?… ‘The Lord will judge His people.’ ” We have become so dull and unresponsive to the reality of who Jesus is and what He did on the cross that we write it off as if we’ve already “been there, done that”. I believe that we, including myself, need to return to the foot of the cross and take a good look at it again from the right perspective. Who you think Jesus is and what you think He’s like affects how confident you are, how much joy you have, how you spend your time, what you think about, what you desire, and your entire life, period.  First let’s look at the Man who was nailed to that piece of wood.

Ezekiel’s Encounter with Jesus

          Let’s reintroduce ourselves to our Jesus whom we apparently know everything about already. Ezekiel 1:4- “Then I looked, and behold, a whirlwind was coming out of the north, a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself; and brightness was all around it and radiating out of its midst like the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. (v. 26-28)- And above the firmament over their heads was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like a sapphire stone; on the likeness of the throne was a likeness with the appearance of a man high above it. Also from the appearance of His waist and upward I saw, as it were, the color of amber with the appearance of fire all around within it; and from the appearance of His waist and downward I saw, as it were, the appearance of fire with brightness all around. Like the appearance of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the brightness all around it. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.” According to what Ezekiel saw, Jesus was not a skinny little man who started crying when He heard people swear. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, meaning He never changes. How He is described by Ezekiel, Isaiah, John, etc is how He will always be, for He never changes.

           When Jesus appeared to Ezekiel on His throne, He looked like a whirlwind, a hurricane, a tornado, full of power and fury. This raging whirlwind looked like a massive cloud, but not a dark gloomy cloud. This cloud was made of a blazing fire that was so powerful and self-sustaining it fed off of itself! “…raging fire engulfing itself.” Not only was this terrifyingly powerful whirlwind of fire filled with light, but it sent forth glory with a thick tangible brightness. This light was the color of amber. Jesus’ throne had a bright shining glory coming from it in the form of a pure and bright gemstone, radiating multiple colors perfectly. Ezekiel was so overwhelmed by the glory and beauty of Jesus and His throne that He wasn’t even sure how to describe Him. He tried, “On the likeness of the throne was a likeness with the appearance of a man high above it.” He almost sounds like he didn’t dare call the being sitting on that beautiful throne a man, for He was so unlike a man that to say He looks like one is almost foolish. He settles with the description of Jesus as saying He kind of has some sort of distant, minute comparison with the appearance of a man. Jesus looked like the color of amber covered with fire on His frame and within Him, from head to toe. In one word: “light”. This is the same Jesus Who’s cross we sing about. We look at Him described in the word and think, “Wow that’s nice.” Ezekiel had a different response to our humble Savior. After seeing the vision of Him and hearing His words, He sat down next to the River Chebar completely astonished, terrified, overwhelmed and unable to function for a whole week! Needless to say, Jesus is a bit different than we thought.

 

Isaiah’s Encounter with Jesus

            When Jesus appeared to Isaiah in Isaiah 6, he cried out in sheer terror, “Woe is me, for I am undone! …For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” (Is. 6:5) Isaiah was completely overwhelmed at the majesty, glory, beauty and raw power of the One his eyes beheld to the point where he cried out to God for mercy, all his senses being electrified in one moment with the perfect brilliance of a King he’s never seen or truly known.

 

John’s Encounter with Jesus

            How about when Jesus’ best friend, the one He had the closest relationship with saw Him a little while after He ascended into heaven? John used to lay his head gently back on Jesus and speak to Him as such a close friend. He presumed to know Jesus so well. However, Jesus showed John a bit of a different side of Himself in Revelation 1. John was in the peaceful presence of the Holy Spirit, likely in prayer, and all of a sudden something as loud as a trumpet blasted right behind him. When he turned around, completely caught off guard, who he saw he did not recognize in the least bit. He saw something similar to what Ezekiel saw, light. John described Jesus’ face as shining like the sun in its strength. He saw Jesus with a white robe, a golden band around the robe, head and hair as white as snow, and His eyes like raging fire. What was John’s reaction to this one who he thought he knew so well? He hit the ground as if he were dead, completely incapacitated by the power and beauty of Jesus.

The Outrage of All Time

            Now think about this: The Jesus we just looked at is the same one who came to the earth and became a man. He was still completely God and had every attribute He had in the earlier descriptions, but He humbled Himself by becoming like us. Jesus was getting 24/7 praise and adoration from the angels and saints in heaven since the beginning of time, and now He came to the earth which He created, walked down a street that He created, walked by people who He created, and no one even acknowledged Him. In John 1, the completely astounding act that Jesus performed is explained. The first few verses describe that Jesus is God, that He was with God even in the beginning, and that everything was made by Him and without Him nothing was made. Jesus created everything. John 1:10 is the most breathtaking thing to think about! It says, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.” The first miracle is that Jesus, the fullness of God, having all power, was actually on the earth. Psalm 97:5 says, “The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.” God is so powerful and full of strength that the most majestic, mighty mountain melts when God even gets close to it! Yet Jesus restrained Himself so much that when He was born into the earth, absolutely nothing happened. It was just seemingly another still, quiet night in the Middle East.

            The second miracle is that He made the Earth itself and every single person in the Earth, and yet no one even recognized Him or thought Him anything special as they passed Him on the streets. How humble Jesus had to be to completely give up being constantly adored in His perfection of power and beauty for 33 years, just because He so desired to be with you! He truly is humility itself. Here is the next mind-blowing verse in John 1:14: “And the Word (God) became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory (majestic beauty), the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Have you ever wondered what God is like, how He reacts to things, what His personality is like, etc? Jesus is the exact representation of the Father. It also says in John 1 that no one has seen or can see God at anytime. But here is the exception: God became a man and lived with us on the earth for 33 years, and everyone got to see God! They got to see how He reacted to things, what His thoughts were, His personality, what He liked, what He hated, and everything else about God. We beheld His glory. We saw God.

Too Busy to Care

            Thinking about Jesus in this way changes the way we think about what He did on the cross for us. This was the King of Kings and the one with all power and knowledge who willingly was tortured and killed just so that we might repent and trust in Him and enter into relationship with Him forever, the very reason we were created in the first place. Yet most “Christians” and non-believers don’t even give Him a second thought. We flippantly say we are saved, but most of us are far from it. We have next to no fascination and passionate love for Jesus because we have not taken the time to find out who He really is, what He’s really like, and what He really did for us. If we took a little time from our “busy schedules” and gave ourselves to finding these three things out, we would be overcome with desire to not only give our entire lives to Him, since He’s the one who gave them to us in the first place, but also to enter into deep relationship and interaction with Him. The goal of the cross wasn’t to make our lives better. It was to make it so that God and man could actually interact on a deep, personal level as in the Garden of Eden before sin. God is in this for love.

Why We Don’t Care

            The reason we aren’t fascinated and weeping, being overcome with love for Jesus whenever we think of what He did on the cross is because we don’t fully realize who Jesus is and what He did. Becoming out of touch with who He is, we are thankful for what He did, but soon get bored from always hearing about it. We believe He was a man, but have become passive about the reality that He was completely and totally God! Think about it this way: How can God, Who is Creator of everything, Who has all power and glory, Who has all knowledge and Who is able to do anything be contained in a small, natural human body?! The very mountains which are stronger and larger than a human body start melting when God even comes close to them. Yet God somehow humbled and restrained Himself to be contained in a small human body.

            Not only did the Creator of the universe become like that which He created, but He actually let the very ones who were created by Him to worship, serve and tremble in reverential awe before Him curse Him, torture Him, and kill Him. If they realize that the one whom they were beating and killing was the same One who made them and has the power to let them live forever in perfect joy or send them to a lake that is made of fire in which they would burn in unending, incomprehensible pain and torment, they would not have dared to even look at Him. Yet this eternal King loved these fools so much that He let them kill Him just so they would have the opportunity to be saved if they repented and trusted in Him, which they might or might not choose.
            Looking at Jesus in this way humbles us and causes our hearts to cry out in thankfulness and love for Him, while at the same time to protest what He did, realizing how unworthy we are of it and how much honor and glory He deserves. But mostly, we remain uninterested in Jesus, labeling Him as boring and the One who takes away everything fun in life while subjecting us to hard rules which we don’t want to obey. This attitude reveals that we know almost nothing about Jesus at all. If we realize who He is, what He’s done, and what it means for us, we would have more joy than every person in the world combined has. 

Don’t Turn Off the Alarm     

            If you are realizing your lack of love and amazement toward Jesus (like I did), the most important thing you must do is to go look in the first 4 books of the New Testament and the other verses which I quoted earlier in this post, and as you read them, ask God to reshape your view of who He is and how He feels about you. This is one of the most important things to understand in your entire life. Let that alarm going off in your spirit be a warning that something needs to change now and let it also be an invitation into knowing the real Jesus. Your eternity is at stake. As the world gets darker and darker, more deceivers will rise up and will lead multitudes away from God, even those who have walked with God for years. (Mt. 24:11+24; 1 Tim. 4:1-2; 2 Tim. 4:3-5) At the same time this is increasing, persecution worse than the Holocaust will come. (Mt. 24:9+21-22) If we do not know the true Jesus and cultivate a love for Him in our hearts while giving ourselves to knowing the Word, we will not have strength to withstand the pressures and we will deny Him, forfeiting our eternity with Him for an eternity of torture. (Lk. 21:34-36) Begin devoting time each day to talking with God and cultivating deep relationship with Him, and read the Word and let it shape your heart and life. This is not a light thing. Please think about what I’ve said and take action to change your heart and life. Jesus is so loving and merciful toward us, but we have much less time than we think.

“But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers.”     (1 Pt. 4:7)

Good night,

Matt

Update on Life in Kansas City and The Psalm 45 Reality

I’d like to give everyone an update on what’s been going on in life here in Kansas City since I moved here 2 months ago. I’ll start from the time I moved here since I’ve shared my story of how I got here but never about what has been happening since I got here:

Update on Life in KC:

I remember that the first significant thing that happened was about a week after I moved here in August. I was having a pretty good first week here a IHOP, spending a few hours a day in the prayer room and having a good time. But one day I started feeling really down and I had no idea why. I kept praying that God would reveal the reason so I could stop feeling so horrible, but nothing came to mind. So I decided to go to the Friday night service. As I worshipped, still wrestling with this horrible feeling, suddenly, like a flash flood, the revelation came. See, for about 5 years now, I have had a massive burden for people to repent and give their lives to Jesus, which is a good thing! But wrong mindsets began to creep in. Everyday that I didn’t talk to someone about God or pray over someone(which was most days), I felt like I was in compromise because in Mark 16 we are commanded to “Preach the gospel to every creature…cast out demons… lay hands on the sick and they will recover.” So even though the burden for souls was a good thing, I felt that every day I didn’t do so I was in sin. You can imagine the toll that would take on the mind.

As I sat in worship that Friday night, I realized: I have begun to idolize evangelism. Though I never did it, I placed it on a pedestal thinking that if I could only save souls, then I would be fully joyful and out of compromise. I began to realize that part of this oppressive burden for saving souls was actually an ache in my heart for intimacy. Everything that I was craving up to that point (saving souls, having a wife, having many friends, and receiving affirmation and praise from people) are all desires to find my identity and worth. God showed me that I have to dethrone these lesser desires and see that I must look to find all of my cravings for worth and identity in Him, because that is the only way I will find the answer I’m looking for. That massive feeling of aching was actually Him tugging on my heart, making me lovesick. He was drawing me away into a deeper love with Him.

As I got this revelation, the worship leader began to spontaneously sing, “Draw me away…” This was God confirming that what I had heard from Him was truth. That night I received a second confirmation when I had a dream that I was taking communion and the song “What a friend I’ve found” was playing in the background. He is drawing me away in true love with Him in this season of my life. From this point till now, God is teaching me how to value loving Him above ministry, people, and my own dreams. He is showing me that my very existence on this earth is to glorify Him. Everything else is secondary and is to flow out of intimacy with Him.

I woke up the next morning and for the first time in years, there was no oppressive burden saying “You haven’t made an impact. You better do something to save souls today or else you will miss your calling and God will be disappointed… etc.” I was free! I felt so light. See, I knew the truth in my mind that God loves me no matter what, but I didn’t believe it fully in my heart. After whole revelation, I got multiple prophetic words from people saying all similar things: I have a prophetic gifting, I will be a leader of many, I’m going to go out and make a massive impact unto the salvation of many people, and that I’m going to be preaching with an emphasis on repentance, holiness and the end-times. Out of the 4 people who gave me words, 3 of them said almost the exact same things. I’ve since gotten even more words confirming that I have a massive inheritance in the lost. If you remember the post about “My Story”, I told you of an encounter I had where God promised to birth souls out of my life. I’m seeing more and more confirmations of this now.

From then till now I’ve been going deeper in the word than ever before, having my mind reshaped by God’s truth and coming into deeper revelation of who He really is and what He’s like. I’ve also been spending much of my time praying for a massive harvest of souls in America coming to Jesus and deeper intimacy for myself and the American Church. He has placed a desire in me to see the Church in America wake up from compromise and complacency, ruining the name of Jesus, and to repent of her filth and come back to true following Jesus according to the word of God. As IHOP has been contending for revival, people are getting many dreams, visions and encounters about an outpouring of the Spirit in America. I had one where I was preaching, then suddenly everyone who came to the altar at the front of the room was instantaneously and completely healed of anything that was wrong with them. God is about to pour out His Spirit in a massive way and we need to position ourselves to receive it by forsaking meaningless things in our lives that waste our time, and instead focus ourselves in prayer, going deep in the word, and fasting. These things partner our hearts with God and transform us so that when God does release a massive outpouring, we will have the character to stand up under the power of it without being destroyed like most of the leaders in the past have.

The Psalm 45 Reality

Right after I received the revelation on God drawing me away in this season, He told me to read Psalm 45. This was the third confirmation I received from Him about this time of my life. The following is the revelation that came through this chapter:

Psalm 45:10-11-“Listen, O daughter, consider and incline your ear; Forget your own people also, and your father’s house; So the King shall greatly desire your beauty; Because He is your Lord, worship Him.”

The first sentence of this verse calls us to pay extremely close attention to what is about to be said 3 different ways. Listen! Consider! Incline your ear! In other words, focus on what’s about to be said, meditate on it, and consider the implications of it in our lives. The statement is directed to the people of God as “O daughter”, which shows our place of affectionate love relationship with God and our authority and status before Him. We must listen closely to what is about to be said to us.

The next statement calls the “daughter” to forget her own people also and her father’s house. This is a call to separate yourself from the status quo of your culture. Don’t follow friends or the ways of the world. Don’t let them determine how you live or think. Never let them hold you back from your pursuit of God. Give yourself to God in such a way that not even those closest to you can hinder you. Be willing to leave the place of comfort, provision and easy-living that can hinder you from fully know God and make Him known. even if that means leaving friends or family behind, do it. This is what the “daughter” is called to listen to 3 times, meaning it is very critical that she hears what is being said and responds to it by changing her life to conform to the call to forsake all other lovers unto fully consecration to God.

The next verse is my favorite in this chapter. It says, “So the King will greatly desire your beauty.” Do you realize what that means? This is God’s reaction to someone who makes sacrifices in their lives, weeding out the things that are holding them back from fully loving God and living a life fully devoted to Him, which is the reason humans were created. God loves everyone, but He sure doesn’t enjoy everyone. If you repent and believe in Him, you are covered in the blood of Jesus and now God sees you as holy and clean before Him, even if you are semi-passive about Him. However, He doesn’t delight in how you are living your life if you are living a life that says, “I’ll give a little time to God later after I’m done doing what I want to do.” This attitude will cause you to lose out on so many amazing blessings in this life and much of your reward in heaven, if you are truely saved at all. If you never turned from your life of willing sin in order to follow Jesus, you will never enter Heaven. Someone who craves and loves Him so much that they make changes in their lives, even hard ones, just to be fully devoted to Him makes Him go crazy in love for that person! What can make an all-powerful God who has everything and can do anything “GREATLY DESIRE” something? When you forsake a normal, selfish lifestyle and give your whole life to Him in love. That’s what. He says that this kind of person is beautiful and that He craves to be with that kind of beauty.

The last part of this verse is the Psalmist begging the “daughter” to respond by giving God what He is craving so much! It says, “Because He is your Lord, WORSHIP HIM.” hat could we possibly do in response to His desire? What is He looking for to indulge in? THe Psalmist cries out with the answer our perfect King is looking for, “WORSHIP HIM!” Our worship is what HE longs for, because it is in worship that we commune with Him on the deepest level of love. He subjects Himself to be like a deer panting for water– He pants for the rivers of our worship and love for Him. Don’t withhold from Him His desire! Give your life completely over to Him, it’s not yours anyway! When we enter into this reality, we are living in the way we were created to and God releases so many blessings and draws nearer to us that we thought possibly. This is the only way your life will have meaning, impact, joy, and fulfillment because with God all good things flow, and without God, you have nothing. There are so many amazing gifts God gives a life fully committed to Him in sacrificial love. So much joy, peace, freedom, and things just seem to work out amazingly well for such a person, though they do have hard times, persecution, and temptations. We should not look to give our lives wholeheartedly to loving God just so we can get blessings from Him, though that will happen, but we are to do this because He is worthy of it and deserves every last part of us. For those willing to embark on this Psalm 45 reality as a lifestyle, get ready to truly live for the first time in your life.

John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

-Matt

What We Think We Know

I have been reading the first chapter of a book called “Knowledge of the Holy” by A.W. Tozer almost every day for a week or two now. The chapter is about how important it is that we entertain thoughts about God that are accurate to who He really is. The following are my thoughts on the whole subject:

I have been thinking lately about the written word of God, the Bible. We read it sometimes, talk about it, and let certain parts of it shape our lives. We say we believe God is real. We also say that the Bible is the written words from this omnipotent God Himself. All this is great! However there is a problem, a problem God has been revealing to me concerning my life for a few years now. The problem is this:  All the things we say that we believe about God and the bible, do we truly believe it? You who read this would say, “Well of course I believe it! I’ve believed it for years!” This was my first response as well. However, to find the true answer to this haunting and somewhat offensive question, we must take an honest look at our lives. If we really do believe that God is real and His word is true, how much time to we spend per day talking to this all powerful, all knowing God who, according to the Bible, dwells within us now and can actually interact with us? How often do we really search the scriptures to find truth about who this God is, how we can interact with Him on a deeper level, and how we are to live in a way that would honor Him? If we did believe what we so flippantly say we believe, we would shape our lives completely around the Word and obey it.

If we really did believe the bible, would we not devote most of our time to getting to know the perfectly holy God who loved us so much that He was willing to be humiliated and killed by us just so we might choose Him? He is so in love with us! And yet most of the time we treat Him as if He is just one of the many things to check off of our To Do lists in the day, or just avoid Him altogether because then we don’t have to go through the inconvinience of Him revealing to us what needs to change in our lives.

The point of this post is not to guilt people into spending more time with God. It is intended to make you realize what you think you believe, and what you actually believe. If we actually believe something, our lives will produce the fruit of that belief. (“Faith without works is dead.” -James 2:20) This is where the first chapter in A.W. Tozer’s book about having a right understanding of God comes into play. We don’t fully devote our days to searching the fascinating treasures we find as we progress in knowing God and interacting with Him because, somewhere in our hearts, we believe things about God that are inaccurate, we don’t believe what the Word says is true of Him, or we simply do not believe in Him, though many of us have convinced ourselves we do. Tozer has a shocking yet undoubtedly true quote about having wrong ideas of who God is: “Let us beware lest we in our pride accept the erroneous notion that idolatry consists only in kneeling before visible objects of adoration, and that civilized peoples are therefore free from it. The essense of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.” Not only is it beneficial to pursue knowing God accurately, but to forsake doing so is idolatry because it is worshipping a God that we’ve created to be the way we want Him to be, not the way He truly is as described in scripture.

If we do not commit ourselves to finding out who God is and what He is really like, we will always have a distorted view of Him. If we have a view of God that is not accurate to who He really is and what He’s really like, then how we interact with Him, how we view ourselves, and how we live our lives will be affected. There will be no motivation for living holy lives if we believe that God doesn’t reward those who diligently seek Him (“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” -Heb. 11:6), and  judge those who don’t follow Him (“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,  because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.” -Rom. 2:5-6). There will be no motivation to spend time with God daily if we don’t believe that He absolutely cherishes every moment with us and loves us more than He loves His own life! (“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him (us), endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” -Heb. 12:2; Is. 53:5)  Knowing what God is truly like is life or death for our spirits, for having a right understanding of God brings everything in our life into alignment, and a wrong understanding of God causes our lives to be a consistent letdown.

The conclusion to all this? Tozer says it best, “The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him–and of her.” Without this being our main focus, prayer times are letdowns, bible reading is stale, life dull. I encourage you to join me in this journey of knowing God rightly. Search the scriptures and let them reshape your beliefs about what God is like. Talk to God and let Him reveal Himself to you. This is a loud call to no longer rely only on your pastor’s information about who God is, but to search the scriptures and talk to God for yourself. The days of picking and choosing attributes of God that we enjoy and throwing out the rest are completely and utterly OVER. Just setting this pursuit as the focus of my life for the past month has changed so much for me! It has resolved problems and worries that I’ve had for years and I know it will do the same for you. Knowing God is the most important thing in life. It is the whole point He created you in the first place. It’s time to actually get know the one who made you. After all, “The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved often thousand temporal problems.” -Tozer

Hope this will help you to fulfill your calling–to know and interact with the Omnipotent King of Kings!

(Recommended reading- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John give the clearest insight into the personality and attributes of God, because in Jesus all the fulness of God dwells (Col. 2:9), and the knowledge of who God is and what He’s like is found in looking at Jesus’ life , teachings and the verses that show His personality (2 Cor. 4:6). I also obviously recommend “The Knowledge of the Holy” by A.W. Tozer!)

Bless you all,

-Matt

My Story

Well I finally made it to Kansas City. Life is amazing here, I finally feel like I’m learning things that will help me do what I know I was created to do.

I realize that some of the people who are reading this don’t know the full story of exactly why I moved from a nice life in California half way across the country to Missouri. I’d like to share the story of how all this came into being and what started happening last March that changed my whole life around. Might be long, but it’s good so if you’re at all curious, read it!

My Story:

When I was in High School at Valley Christian in Dublin, CA, I started to really realize the point of life and why I was created: To know God. As a result, I realized the God is not church, religion, a set of rules to be followed, or anything that I had been taught. God was a real being that I was meant to interact with on a regular basis, not through a pastor, but directly. I became involved with a church that taught me about the deeper things of God, including the reality of how I can talk to God as a friend and He actually talks back, how to prophesy, how to heal the sick, etc. After this I was totally in love with God and spent all free time pursuing Him.

Soon after I found a few guys with similar hearts and we began running after God together. We would have amazing, powerful times of prayer, have dreams and visions and encounters with God that we would share with each other, we would meet at Starbucks and just talk about how amazing God is and what we are longing to see happen in our lives. After a few years of this, High School ended and one moved to a house of prayer across the country, one moved to a house of prayer in the city, and I suddenly found myself in college. Needless to say, after all the amazing things we had said we wanted to do and see, college was the last place I saw myself going. So I went to college for about 2 years, wondering what the heck God was up to in sending me somewhere that is the complete antithesis of my heart’s desperate craving. So after a few months of fighting it, I decided to accept that I was there and wasn’t going anywhere else for a while.

This time in college ended up being one of the richest times in my life. Though it was so difficult to be in a place I had no desire being, Jesus taught me so many amazing lessons that I wouldn’t have learned elsewhere. He taught me how to interact with people who think completely different than me and still love them without compromising what I know is truth. He taught me how to step out of my comfort zone and have compassion on the homeless of San Jose and talk and pray over them, even over high-up drug dealers. He gave me a massive burden for those who don’t know God in an intimate way, which resulted in many hours in prayer and grieving. In fact, in my first semester at school, God spoke to me through an experience in my room where He told me almost audibly that I’m “pregnant with souls.” Since then I’ve been pressing into Him until I see a historic outbreak of men and women repenting and giving their lives over to Jesus, thus escaping the eternal punishment that was already paid for by Jesus. For those of you who believe in Jesus for real, we need to get acquainted with the God whom we assume we already know everything about to the point where we get His heart for those who are lost, driving us to the place of prayer and weeping. Throughout this 2 year season, almost daily I cried out to God, “Friend, why did you bring me here? When will I be able to go somewhere that I can actually give whole life and all of my time to the pursuit of knowing you and reaching those who don’t know you? I’m desperate for intimacy with you and I’m in agony until I give birth to those souls you promised me!”  And everytime I cried out to Him, His answer was always the same: “Be faithful with where you’re at, because in an instant I can change everything.” This is the only thing that sustained me through the 2 years of writing papers on topics irrelevant to anything I care about and difficult situations that seemed unbearable at times.

Now that you’re up to date with my life up to this point, I’ll start telling about how all of that ties into why I’m in Missouri.

Just last March (2009), I received a call from Dana Russell. Corey and Dana Russell(http://www.coreyrussell.org/) have been coming out to stay at my house in Pleasanton, CA to minister at the IHOP- East Bay (www.ihopeastbay.org) for a few years now. Corey is a major leader in the House of Prayer in Kansas City and is one of my heroes. He boldly proclaims what the majority of others would avoid. Dana called me and asked if Allen Hood, the President of IHOP-University in Kansas City, (and my favorite preacher in the world) would be able to come with his family to stay at our house for some down time. A few weeks later he arrived and we got acquainted with each other. The weekend he came was actually the weekend I was preaching at a one day conference called RainDown.  Before I got up to speak that night, I saw Allen walk in the room. I was thinking, “Oh great, one of the best preachers in the earth right now (not an exaggeration) is coming to hear me preach.” But God gave me boldness. I preached the message and God healed and delivered many people that night.

The next morning, Allen greatly encouraged me that the Holy Spirit really moved in power as I preached and that I did very well. (This is all by the grace of God, because honestly I felt so oppressed that night.) After he talked to me, he had a long discussion with my dad. My dad loves Jesus, but wanted me to finish college that I could have something to fall back on in ministry stuff didn’t work out. We didn’t exactly see eye to eye on this subject. However, after one conversation with Allen and God working in his heart, my dad came to me and said the very thing I had prayed about and had been waiting for for years. In short, he told me that if this is truly what I want, fully realizing what I would be giving up, he’d be willing to release me to go to the International House of Prayer University in Kansas City, MO.

God is so faithful! He hears our every prayer. If you think that you’ve already tried praying and are thinking that He didn’t hear or doesn’t care, NEVER GIVE UP! If I gave up I would have never ended up in the place I was meant to be. Read Luke 18 and you will see that if we remain in prayer, though there is a delay in God answering us sometimes, He will always respond to us.

This is my story so far, if you read the whole thing, congratulations! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to ask.

“And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” (Galatians 6:9)

-Matt

Hey Everybody!

Hey guys,

So since I’ve been settled into my new life in Kansas City, there have been multiple people wondering what’s been happening with me and how life here is. So I decided today to start a blog! I will try my best to post consistent updates on what is happening lately and also I will be discussing different topics related to spiritual things if I think it would benefit you guys.

So if you are ever curious about what’s goin on with me, or more importantly, what God is impressing upon my heart to share, please read what I will be posting in the future. I’m hoping what is posted here will give some keys to you in opening up revelation into who God is, what He’s like, and what He is doing/going to do. I don’t have all the answers, but I will write what I’m learning from Him the best I can.

Thanks a lot!

-Matt