Drawing Conclusions

It's been awhile since I've actually wrote something on here. I had a conversation with Josh R. about Jonathon Edwards and David Braneird and others who would journal extensively just to remind themselves of what God was teaching them and doing in their lives and how it is the only possible way to keep a thought and path going for years without getting distracted. It really made me want to get back into journalling. However the call Nashville is happening on July 07 2007 and they really want to change this nation and call a huge time of prayer and fasting to prepare for it so a lot of people are fasting the 40 days before then. I have never really done a long fast so I thought one thing that I can actually do without and would be really helpful it to get off the computer for this time. So this will be my last entry for the next 40 days.

Some pretty crazy stuff has been happening in my life lately. I feel like God is really shaking and purifying this school and getting us ready for something that he wants to do. One morning last week the group that meets for prayer early every wednesday and thursday morning just really felt the presence of God and then they led the 8:00 prayer and the Holy Spirit really moved throughout our student body. The first teacher that came in for the first year class said "It really wouldn't be right for me to teach you when obviously God has better plans" or something like that and so we just prayed the whole first class and I could just feel God changing my heart and giving me such a deep joy and love for him. Then the next class the teacher tried to teach it but just couldn't because of what was happening, stuff I'd never seen in my life. It just got so wild I can't describe it but the after effects were really neat. It was like God just binded our whole class together through this experience. The level of our unity and love was strengthened. I know my hunger for God has deepened and everything seems so meaningless compared to knowing God more and making him known. Not that I don't still mess up, but I do feel a different perspective since then.

That thursday night a grad came in and preached it was one of the most powerful sermons I have ever heard. Go to www.fire-church.org and click podcast to listen to it. It was preached by Joe Oden.

So often during these trimesters I get so many ideas of things that I want to do that I really can't focus and complete any of them. But this trimester I really just want to focus on learning Hebrew really well, memorizing mark, and praying. Those are things that I can accomplish if I really focus. Today I played risk game on my computer for a few hours so i kind of felt silly for wasting that much time but God has so much grace. Oh yeah here is a prayer that I found on the internet and have started praying before I read my bible and it has been amazing. It's not a formula but when I honestly pray it to God his word really comes alive and he points out a lot that I wouldn't normally notice and I remember it for way longer too. Here it is,



Father, I come again to you with hunger and expectation, with joy and delight. I love being fed by you, and God, I’m hungry! I want to feed on the word of God, the bread of Life. And I thank you Lord for your Holy Spirit . I am thirsty and Lord Jesus, I come to you believing that you can meet that need, quench that thirst, and fill us with Your Spirit as You teach us and enlighten us. I ask you to give me understanding to guide me into all truth. And I ask of you Lord for more than just comprehension, but for an apprehension and appropriation of believing and walking in the very things you speak to me about. And I ask all of this work and all of your will in my study now, in Jesus’ name Amen.


Give it a try for a week, change the wording to suit your personality but just this little prayer before I read the bible helps set my attitude right and give me a receptivity to recieve what God has for me.

Also lately God has been teaching me about not trusting my emotions at all but surrendering them to him and following his word even if it doesn't match my experience or emotions. So often I get bogged down if I don't feel like God is close to me, but then I remember Hebrews 10 and 2 Corinthians 5:last verse . Which talks about how because of Jesus' blood we are the righteousness of God and nothing we do can change that. If we've truly repented in the first place. So even if I feel like God is far away I can just trust his word that says I can enter past the curtain into the Most Holy Place, not because of anything that I have done at all but totally because of what Jesus has done.

Haha this is a totally different train of thought but I found one of the neatest prophecies about Jesus on Sunday. Here is Zechariah 9
The Coming King of Zion

9Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
11As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.

The whole passage is definitely a messianic prophecy, look at that last verse it seems completely like a prophecy about the substitutionary sacrifice of blood that Jesus makes and fulfills a new covenant (Hebrews 9). And saves us from hell (waterless pit). That was just what I read into it but I think it sounds reasonable. Now this next part you guys might not agree with me but if I have a choice between thinking the bible made a crazy amazing prophecy or just thinking it's coincedence I will go with crazy amazing. In verse nine it says "Righteous and having Salvation is he". Now we just learned in Jewish Roots that the name people would have called Jesus in his day was "Yeshua" or the long form "Yehoshua". "Isous Cristos" was just the Greek name for him and because the New Testament was written in Greek that is closer to how we know him today when it got anglicized to "Jesus Christ". But as I have been studying Hebrew this year I found out that the actual Hebrew word for salvation is "Yeshua" that is why in Matthew 1:21 it says "call his name yeshua because he will save his people from their sins". Also on a sidenote that is why Hillsong sings "Salvation is here and he lives in me, Salvation is here and he set me free". Because Jesus name also means salvation. All that to say I got out my Hebrew bible and read that phrase "Righteous and having salvation is he". And it's really neat because the word for righteous is stadaqah or stadeeq depending on the form, but in the hebrew bible word for word it says "Righeous and Salvation is he" maybe a little different I will have to ask my Hebrew teacher. But basically if you narrow that quote the prophecy about the Messiah is saying "He is Yeshua". So you might think that's stretching it, but I am willing to say God knew what Jesus' name would be and he alluded to it here in this messianic passage.

So have an amazing week, God bless you guys!