Risky Behavior

Follow the Spirit. Do it now; when he tells you. Live for him. Comfort, predictability, stability, safety, self-righteousness, and pride all leave when we truly step out in faith. Maybe he tells us to get out of the trench and charge the machine gun nests. That's insane. Let's do it anyway... together. Trust him. Jesus said he himself is real food and real life; more than anything we've ever known. That's stronger than a heart beating.

Mary Magdelene

When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons.

The end of Mark says she had seven demons cast out of her. She must have been walking in incredible freedom with Jesus after that. We know she loved Jesus desperately.

If you ever listen to the voice of Satan and agree with it, or let it affect you, or do what it says, you are oppressed and need deliverance.

Recognize the difference between Satanic thoughts, your own thoughts and God thoughts. Be connected in a community of believers that share thoughts, confess sins, pray together and all those other good things. Let's be open and ask each other for help. Let's listen to each other and bear each other's burdens. Also, let's cast out demons and encourage each other to look to Jesus.

Meeting Transformation

When everyone in a weekly church meeting starts or supports something separate from the meeting, it becomes a leadership meeting or a network connection.

Jesus

who he is - primary
what he has done for us - secondary

Abiding, Gifts, Fruit

Jesus said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."

Concerning new languages, I believe it is true because of when it says the signs that will follow will be casting out demons, speaking in new languages, protection, and healing. I didn't check but I thought I saw a prophecy in the prophets concerning new languages.
I think it can be counterfeited. Prophecy can be counterfeited. It happens all the time. False prophets are proven wrong. "Teachers" that can't teach. Wisdom or knowledge that is wrong. People can have fake faith and think it is real. That's fruitless.

I believe there is a common thread for all of this. When I am not abiding (aka: in the spirit or on fire for God) I cannot hear from God. I cannot serve others spiritually. I do not pray. I do not study. My heart is for the things of this world. I desire romance. I desire athletics. I desire adventure. I desire warfare. I am prideful. My attempts are vain. I am disconnected. I am fruitless.
When I abide, I hear from God, I pray and want to pray more, teaching overflows from me, evangelism happens naturally. When plugged into Jesus, prophetic thoughts flow like electricity. My heart is for Jesus, the church and the Kingdom of Heaven. At those times my life is only in Jesus the Savior. I am connected to God and thus a functioning member of the church, his body. True faith = much fruit.

Desires

I am delighting in YHWH and he is giving me the desires of His heart and they are my new desires.

Sometimes I find myself getting so excited about his work that I love his work more than I love him; the one the work is all about and the one who is doing the work. I need to constantly look to him and dwell in Jesus. That is my only need; not air, food, friends, shelter, clothing, romance or anything else.

God has given me desires. They are:

1. Abide in Jesus.

2. Spiritual unity in The Church of fully functioning members that abide in Jesus

3. Proclaiming the word of God to the world, including confronting Satan, by a spiritually united church that abides in Jesus

The last two result only with a 24/7 Kingdom presence that is a result of abiding in Jesus the Savior.

One Church

God tells me to be one with my spiritual family. It is hard yet wonderful. A while back, on a Tuesday night (1-16-07), I went to the streets of Dallas to see if George would let me spend the night at his place, the street. I was walking with him to get cardboard when I asked him in an awkward way. He asked if it was to experience homelessness? I told him it was because God wants his church to be one with each other.
There is no peace on the street, or in some homes for that matter. That night I dealt with fear of getting my stuff taken or being hurt myself. I doubted God and if I could even hear his voice. What am I doing here? Hopelessness. People talking to eachother, smoking, cussing about the cold. People passing through, no respect for sleep. Early, like at 9pm a van drove up yelling, looking for people who wanted to do rehab; no takers. One time a guy drove up to give us a bag full of hamburgers. The guy that was yelling about the cold was placated by people giving out hot chocolate and bread at 11pm. George laughed at me for having a pillow; he sleeps sitting against a wall. He spent a while praying while standing up across the street. He was also looking out for another guy. I finally got to sleep after 2am. I woke up at 4:45am to the noise of freezing rain. I jumped up and started to collect my stuff. Immediately, the man sitting next to me started telling me about a white girl he had in a hotel room. I said, "I'm not interested." He continued by saying it was for him not me but then offering again and again. I kept saying the same three words. Then he asked, "Do you need anything?," which means drugs. I said "no". He said "You don't mess around with anything, do you? How long have you been out here?" I told him I wasn't homeless, I was just hanging out with George. He asked if I was just checking up on him or seeing if he was ok or something. I said, "No, I'm just hanging out with George." I jumped in my luxurious economy car and drove home, then to work after an hour nap. The snow was sticking.

At Work, the Mall, the Streets & Demonic Attacks

Friday (2-23-07) I felt led to say during a meeting at work that Jesus Christ helped me get through some hard times, and that now he is my life and I am fully satisfied in him.

Evangelism is scary to me, so God has been moving me towards it. Last week at my building church and at my simple church I promoted going to the mall on Friday to evangelise. Building church people were interested but busy, sick, scared, or out of town. Maybe next time for them. 9 out of the 14 people from my simple church showed up even though they had further to travel. We split into three teams: three women, two men, and two men and a baby girl. John came later because of traffic. The women talked to a few people, ending up sharing about God to a few people and the Gospel with one Hindu woman that was too scared to talk about what she thought about what happens after death.
The two guys ended up talking to one guy the whole time. He was a believer but not a Jesus follower.
I was with Willie and his daughter (carried in a harness on his chest). He spoke to three Spanish speaking janitors. Two of them jetted when he said something about walking in the spirit. After Willie talked to her for a while, I ended up praying for the one that stayed. Willie translated. She was a christian but had no bible, no church, was lonely and had a sick family member she can't contact. I invited her to my building church which is close to the mall. I didn't offer to give her a ride because I usually show up very late. I wanted to help her get a ride there or somewhere. I will try to see her again with someone willing to help. Much later I bought her a bible but I will have to look for her again. Preston telephoned Willie to come back to talk with the guy he was talking with. That guy opened up about his problems to Willie.
After that guy left we all hung out together as the mall was closing. A good friend from another state called. I had been wanting him to talk to Willie. Willie has dealt with a similar problem that my friend has.
I did not initiate any conversations the whole time, which the accuser used to attacked me.

I was attacked by the devil in different ways. The first was fear and guilt for not evangelising. Also, the mall was full of women without enough covering. I could have gotten whiplash from looking away from all the blatant displays of cleavage. Temptation was all around me but I did not look or dwell or sin. Saturday morning I had a sexual dream. I woke up to disappointment in my non-performance as an evangelizer as well as lust for what was in the dream. I was hit again while with the homeless church because I saw someone on one of the library computers watching a porn movie. I did not look away very fast and I looked again. The last few months I have been advocating being single; but after what I saw on that computer monitor, I instantaneously changed my mind and decided to get married. I was in the flesh for sure. I started acting silly around the guys (a fruit of the flesh for me). One interesting point to note is that I skipped my regular time alone with God on Friday (lunch time) to have lunch with friends to discuss the mall thing. Community is necessary but simple solitary undistracted communion with Jesus is also necessary. Also on the street, I was sad for a woman that put her trust in herself instead of Jesus. She wanted to get off the streets or just hang out with us somewhere. It made me very sad; I wondered if I we could have hung out with her more but I was ready to go. We had been there from 1-9pm. I also felt like a friend of mine neither liked me nor thought I was very useful. I was also attacked on Friday by a gossip report that I should not have participated in regarding blindly spoken, fourth hand information concerning a woman-friend of mine that supposedly thought I was leading her on. It may be true because I sometimes flirt; its an old habit I need to kill. I also think I am doing poorly at work.

Andrea, Nate, and Kelly called me on Sunday, which made me feel like I actually have friends. Kelly came by. Then Nate came over to help me on my house. It was huge that he came over to my house to be my friend because I have been deeply yearning for some close man-friends ever since I got out of the navy.
The men's meeting at my house also helped me, especially when Preston prayed for dependence on God for me and then Willie prayed for me not grow weary of serving the LORD. After they left I called the out of state friend. I told him about the attacks. He said it had been happening to him too. God used it for good.

Street church notes: At the Resource Center we met new people as well as saw people we knew. Kelly was talking to allot of the women including the woman who trusted herself not Jesus. Kelly brought her to us. George was flowing with the Spirit while talking to her. He gently and boldly shared the full gospel as it came up. They really seem to appreciate us hanging out with them for so long. Joe Jackson gave me a hug and someone I don't know gave me a hug from the back and said something like, "I love you man."

Connections

I was not involved with the church from 1997 to July 2006. Now I have been involved with a few different churches. God initiated my involvement via emotional pain. (Thank you.)
Last Friday, 2-2-07, God showed me ways to bring some people together in a very small way. It involved my building church small group (the Journey) that was doing an outreach to the homeless in Ft. Worth. I invited people from my organic simple church (the Way); two showed up (Nate and Andrea). Bill, one of the elders of the homeless church in Dallas came with me. He served people food and water. Nate initiated a conversation about Jesus with someone who was mad at God for what he has been through. Andrea jumped in and gave her testimony about the hard things she has gone through. Later Nate connected with that guy on the movie Tombstone. Julia and I talked to some christian guys that needed encouragement. There is already a church among the Ft. Worth homeless; I would like to see them function better and more deliberately together. That is how I feel about the church everywhere and in every circumstance (like at where I work). It might not sound like much but to me it was great to see the church from different parts funtioning together.

Bill stayed at my place. Spending some time together showed me things we have in common... in Christ. He wanted me to meet people from his home church. He is an white man that belongs to an all black building church. I brought him to the "lay preacher" Carlos' house. I saw true unity in the Spirit. The three of us were totally different; we had nothing in common. We were different culturally, financially, racially. Carlos had a wife and a kid living with him. Bill and I don't have that. Carlos and I have a house, Bill doesn't. The three of us had radically differnt personallities. All this to say, WE ARE ONE in the spirit. We connected in Jesus, if nothing else, and it was so much more than enough. Being around Carlos for that hour brought out from me a deeper love of God and more sincere prayer, reaching out to Jesus in prayer with my spiritual brothers Bill and Carlos; I saw part of myself that I have never seen, not even while alone.

I connect with my older blood brother from the same mother in more ways than I connect with anyone. I think I have always loved him more than anyone. But concerning Christ, we don't connect; which is truly the only point of connection that matters. His wife and I don't connect on anything but Christ; and that is everything, so I have a real connection with her.

At work I am being a tiny bit more open but I am only making baby steps in sharing. There are a few confessing christians there but I have only just begun to connect with one christian there. It is very encouraging for me. At my organic simple churches we are really starting to connect in a deeper way, by actually seeing eachother on days other than the official meeting. We are sharing what God puts on our hearts and seeking to help eachother do them. We MUST praise Jesus alone for this.

This Saturday with the Homeless

John Lunt, a good friend that walks with me on the streets didn't come today because he hurt his knee last Saturday. Today started out looking really grim for the homeless church. When I showed up in front of the library at 1:30pm I saw three of the church guys. There were probably twenty other homeless people on the benches outside of the library. One of the church guys got upset because I told him I had talked to John about not thinking cell phones were a need that we should provide for. There was an argument about it resulting in him declaring, "I'm too angry to do the bible study with you guys." I left it alone but George could see I wasn't ok. I told him it was because I am stressing at work because I have been slacking and taking too long on my job the Shore (a condo in Austin) but also concerning the argument. It was nearly 2pm and George was the only one wanting to hang with me. I might have been the plague to the street church because of my inadequate "leadership," but I wasn't going to let it hinder God's work. Me, George, Jesus... what else do I need? I continued to talk to George. I asked George, "If me and John stop coming, will you guys continue to meet?" He said with definite authority, "No." I probed more, and was disappointed to find out that they would not commune or meet with each other without us outsiders being there. Then John showed up (not John Lunt, a different guy). He is also a good friend to me and always brings a joyful attitude. But he didn't look like he was doing very well. I asked and we talked about what it was; very good honest things came from it. George said lots of people were doing bad this week. Lawrence was there too. We hung out in front of the library for a while. George kept asking if we were going to go in front of City Hall, where we have been studying the book of John. I deliberately persisted in remaining a non-decider. George FINALLY took the lead, with a little assistance, to move to City Hall. So it was me, George, Lawrence, and John when Bill and Jeffery showed up. Bill had been having aches and pains. Kelly showed up with the sloppy joes, bananas, apples, and carrots. Other folks showed up, namely Renae, Wayne and Daniel. George prayed. We ate. Good stuff. Daniel left. I suggested we all pray, each of us. Jeffery started with the LORD's prayer. In turn we all prayed, some offering extra words to YHWH. We went through John 4:27-38. Discussion was so thick and rich. Renae has gifts similar to Lawrence's. There was a time when three or four conversations about the Harvest were going on at once between only 9 people. It was awesome. Everyone seems eager to follow Christ in this way. Also, I shared about having doubts about God and also that I had been disobedient concerning two specific opportunities he had given me to witness about Jesus that I hadn't taken. There were other confessions, discussions and encouragements. I am so proud of the work Jesus has done in John, how far he has taken him because he was teaching Wayne and sharing with him. John is a quick learner, honest, and humble. He still needs guidance though he always has lots of questions; but he can teach in practical ways what he does know of the lord. All the guys are on fire for God; they are encouragers, prophets, teachers and evangelists; real leaders. There were times when the discussion climaxed into a crescendo of exaltations to our LORD Jesus, claiming his righteousness and declaring his victory over satan and death and sin. Lawrence laughing with joy said satan must hate this, that we are all praising Jesus regardless of anything that happens to us. Earlier someone said something about having the peace of Christ and that nothing could take that away. We talked of needing to know the word for when we don't have the bible with us or for when bibles won't be available. It was beautiful. Everyone was reluctant to leave.
Kelly and I opted to hang out longer with some of them. We went to the store with them. I saw Joe who joined us. On the way we saw Alonzo, and met Collin and Reggie. We walked and talked about stuff. George gave me a tour of a different wealthy downtown area. Later we hung out at the Resource Center. Collin and Reggie were there. Me, Kelly, George, Bill, John, Collin, Reggie and a couple other Christians hung out there by the entrance for two hours talking about food and Jesus. Bill walked Kelly and I back to our cars. I gave him a ride to his camp. Kelly called John Lunt to tell him a summary of the events.

Me

God speaks to me. I grew up in a questionable church. I have never had a leadership position in a church, or anywhere else for that matter. I was a third-class petty officer in the US Navy, but I was a dirtbag. I abused alcohol and got in trouble a few times. I should have been kicked out of the Navy; I decided never to drink again. I dropped out of college. I got dumped by my fiance 15 days before the wedding; I'm a secure bachelor now.
I have never done great things for God; but his Spirit did begin a mighty work in my life when I was 17 (a junior in high school). Also since then I have been involved with death-metal music, sexual sin, foolish talk, time wasting, idolatry (of myself, athletics, family, woman, adventure), posing, and living a lie with a mask on. God works with me in the midst of my imperfection. WHILE I am still a sinner he gently takes me back. His love is amazing. Jesus is my life. When I ABIDE in him (ABIDE = he IS my life = full spirit = on fire for God = walking in the Spirit... etc), he gives me easy outs for all temptations; he also speaks to me specific things and guides my life. He gives me life. There is no life outside him. The fate of the world depends on him. I am weak but he is strong. I am an infant at walking in the spirit. But my teacher is infinate.

The One True Church

Christians are the church. They are sprinkled throughout the people groups like salt. They are connected to eachother in various ways. Some are disconnected.

Some things the church is segregated by are geography, language, personal status/income, culture, denominations, doctrines, type of meetings, leaders, pride, fear, complacency, and narrow minded traditions posing as the truth. Satan is the divider.

Some christians have church meeting times in a home once a week. Some christians are homeless. Some meet once or twice a week in a building as part of a denomination. These building-churches have small-groups which tend to segregate based on age, education, gender, marital status, and children, to name a few.

Some openly speak of Jesus and be his disciples in their life everywhere they are and go. There are christians that walk together in life. They do not exclude; they may meet with you in your building church or small group. We will know eachother in the grocery stores and at work because of our unselfish awareness and care of others, and our Kingdom mindedness. It is not all about me.

You may be walking with other christians in different ways. You may talk about your own problems to someone; if you listen or help. You may share grand visions and work towards them. Someone may teach others; someone may share his time, his money, his gift. There is mutual encouragement, correction and confession. Don't just be involved but be who you are in the Body in an active way. There is much to do; follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Nothing can contain God's Spirit; he moves anywhere and in any way he wants. My friend John says the Spirit will be a raging river that none can stand against, that all will be purified to his will.

Let's be one church. And let's not forget the poor and the persecuted church throughout the world. How can we be one with them? I know praying for them and caring for them even though we don't know them can work miracles. How else can we be one with them? How can we be one with the homeless? They are with us here, so we can be their friends and help them. We can share dreams together and connect in all the ways friends in the church connect.

From our one true church network (all christians everywhere) will flow the Spirit of Jesus healing and giving true life to the world. He will reach the unreached and the world through his church.

One

Jesus is one with his dad. He wants us to be one with him. He also wants us to be one with eachother; which is imposible without his Spirit in us. Connect with God; connect with people. Even deeper, love God with all you are because he IS our life. Care about other people like you care about yourself. There are powerful results that come from this because of the Spirit flowing from within us when we are filled with him.

What does it look like to love God? Would we be committed to him like in a marriage? Would we talk to him? Would we listen... and obey? How does he speak to us? What would he tell us to do?