βαρύτητα και τη χάρη

As long as I know that it’s worth it, I’m in.

You are worth
all my heart, all my soul,
all my strength, all my mind.

soomin

With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness [steadfast love], and to walk humbly with your God.
- Micah 6:6-8

-Rahab aligns herself with God
-Belief moves to action: she believes who God is and is moved to action to hide the spies
-difference between saying and doing the right thing, acting the right way during chapter time, and being responsible for embodying God on Friday.
-difference between aligning yourself with God because He’ll save your life and aligning yourself with Him because He is God and He is worthy. We say that we want God, we want to give Him everything, we want you to rock our world…but we often try to do things our way.

-rest in God’s presence and His love for you -> pouring that onto people, onto your campus, onto wherever you’re at
-zeal for God’s glory to be made known and revealed results in love, not judgement. Service, not violence. Self-sacrifice, not selfishness.
-may we live lives worthy of Christ’s calling

-Joshua is fully aware of his inability to accomplish the task, but it doesn’t matter what the plan is, how tall the walls, how big the giants: it only matters who God is and being obedient to His command

-If God is calling you the edge of the diorama you must go forward.

-God is opening up freedom and victory for us, but to receive that we must acknowledge God as Lord and Savoir and walk forward. Don’t settle for kind of being free, kind of remaining in sin, etc.

-It is HARD WORK, BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS to keep yourself aligned with God.
-are you serving the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, or are you serving ME MYSELF AND I?!!!?!?!
-God shows up in power when we align with Him and choose His way, not ours.

-temptation to veg out, check out, let ourselves go. God has started a work in you and is looking to continue it - don’t fall back into your old ways.

COVENANT WITH GOD TO BE A WITNESS WHEREVER WE ARE (CAMPUS, HOME, FRIENDS, ETC.) - EBENEZER STONE STANDS AS A TESTIMONY AGAINST US.

for college/finals/life: everyone else is stressed out and self-absorbed, but you are free

“I’ve met God, and now I have to live like I know who He is.”

Restore us again, O God of our salvation. Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation. Let me hear what the Lord will speak, for He will speak peace to His people, to His saints; but let them not turn back to folly. Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, that glory may dwell in our land.

but I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immortality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealous, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
- Galatians 5:16-26

for one last time to hold you close

life can seem like a series of losses; forced into perpetually leaving and arriving where we know not, and neither the leaving nor arriving was what we had hoped. of moments played backwards in fast-motion, nostalgia striking you and wrenching what little you had back, as if it never belonged to you.

Yet I belong to God, and I will follow none but Thee.

Daisy, give yourself away.
look up at the rain—a beautiful display
of power and surrender
giving us today
and she gives herself away

Rain, another rainy day comes up from the ocean
give herself way
she comes down easy—
on rich and death the same
when she gives herself away

Let It Go

Daisy let it go,
open up your fist, this fallen world
doesn’t hold your interest,
It doesn’t hold your soul
Daisy let it go.

Pain, give yourself a name
call yourself contrition, avarice or blame
giving isn’t easy
neither is the rain
and she gives herself away.

daisy, why another day?
why another sunrise? who will take the blame
for all redemptive motion
and every rainy day
when he gives himself away

let it go, daisy let it go

open up your fist

this fallen world

doesn’t hold your interest

doesn’t hold your soul

let it go

you said that you would not love me last summer

and you said that you would not love me last spring

but i hoped that you would change your mind by autumn

especially when i bought that diamond ring

but you said no, you wouldn’t have me.

you said still said no, no, no

i heard that you’ve been sleeping with your old friends

and i heard that each one left and broke your heart

i told you then that i would never leave you

and i told you that i loved you from the start

but you still said no, you would not have me

you still said no, no, no…

even thought you haven’t any answers

and still think that you don’t need anyone

to save you from the mess that you’ve created

even when i gave my only son

here, my dear, this is where we’ll shake the nightmares free

i dream to hold you in my arms—

wide awake, in my arms.

let your love be strong and i don’t care what goes down
let your love be strong enough to weather through the thunderclouds
fury rain and thunder clap like stealing the fire from your eyes
all that i am hanging on
all of my world resting on
your love

- switchfoot, pedro the lion

Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion,
and to you shall vows be performed.
O you who hear prayer,
to you shall all flesh come.
When iniquities prevail against me,
you atone for our transgressions.
Blessed is the one you choose and bring near,
to dwell in your courts!
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
the holiness of your temple!

By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness,
O God of our salvation,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas;
the one who by his strength
established the mountains,
being girded with might;
who stills the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples,
so that those who dwell at the ends of
the earth are in awe at your signs.
You make the going out of the morning
and the evening to shout for joy.

You visit the earth and water it;
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide their grain,
for so you have prepared it.
You water its furrows abundantly,
settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
and blessing its growth.
You crown the year with your bounty; (really?)
your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
The pastures of the wilderness
overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy.

Psalm 65

No one is able verily to know Christ unless he follows Him with all his life.

Spiritual depth is measured by what you do with your solitude. Not regularly slipping away to re-center in God’s power becomes my confession that I’m not interested in using it.

If you are filled with His love, secure in being deeply, fully, faithfully and unconditionally loved and desired by Him, you willwant to love others with His love. Not with your love, not with a human love whose limit is marked by fallibility and imperfection, a human love that can only provide momentary comfort but not complete fulfillment and wholeness, but with Jesus’ love. The word love cannot contain it nor can our actions, they can only point to encounter with the One whose love we have always longed for, secretly, because we were made for it.

            The Mighty One, God the LORD,

                        speaks and summons the earth

                        from the rising of the sun to its setting.

            Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,

                        God shines forth.

            Our God comes; he does not keep silence;

                        before him is a devouring fire,

                        around him a mighty tempest.

            He calls to the heavens above

                        and to the earth, that he may judge his people:

            “Gather to me my faithful ones,

                        who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”

            The heavens declare his righteousness,

                        for God himself is judge! Selah

            “Hear, O my people, and I will speak;

                        O Israel, I will testify against you.

                        I am God, your God.

            Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;

                        your burnt offerings are continually before me.

            I will not accept a bull from your house

                        or goats from your folds.

            For every beast of the forest is mine,

                        the cattle on a thousand hills.

            I know all the birds of the hills,

                        and all that moves in the field is mine.

            “If I were hungry, I would not tell you,

                        for the world and its fullness are mine.

            Do I eat the flesh of bulls

                        or drink the blood of goats?

            Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,

                        and perform your vows to the Most High,

            and call upon me in the day of trouble;

                        I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

            But to the wicked God says:

                        “What right have you to recite my statutes

                        or take my covenant on your lips?

            For you hate discipline,

                        and you cast my words behind you.

            If you see a thief, you are pleased with him,

                        and you keep company with adulterers.

            “You give your mouth free rein for evil,

                        and your tongue frames deceit.

            You sit and speak against your brother;

                        you slander your own mother’s son.

            These things you have done, and I have been silent;

                        you thought that I was one like yourself.

            But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.

            “Mark this, then, you who forget God,

                        lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!

            The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;

                        to one who orders his way rightly

                        I will show the salvation of God!”

(Psalm 50)