I can't stop...

I can’t believe You’re here close to me
It’s getting hard to stand
But I don’t want to leave
Your beauty stands out
Like a bright light shining through the clouds
It’s overwhelming just to be with You now

I can’t stop, I can’t stop falling in love with You
-Leeland

I love Jesus. I really and sincerely do. I was telling Adriana last night that there is nothing that brings me more encouragement and happiness than sitting around talking about the love and Gospel of Jesus Christ. It makes me start to tremble and talk too fast. I get this obnoxious smile on my face that I can't take off and keep shifting in my seat. Funny enough, that's similar to how I get from time to time when I'm with Adriana. It's a bi-product of love--the world admits this! When I get the chance to talk about Jesus I don't shirk from the opportunity and change the subject. No! I leap at the situation and probably cause the other person to say, "what did I just open up?!" haha!

I'm not saying this to brag or anything. How can you brag on yourself about how much you love someone? I do not talk to people about God's love like they are missing out on some exclusive club membership or some super vitamin that makes all things better--like I am a scout or salesman. No, I tell people about their Father that loves them--even though we're the runaways, the rebellious, and the lost. The Father is calling for His runaways to come back home.

Jesus told a story about a runaway once. He talked about how a young man wanted his inheritance from his father early. The father gave it to him and the boy left home. He spent everything--every last coin until he was at the place where he was eating out of a pig's trough. He thought, "If go home, then maybe my father will take me in as a servant." He said this because he knew that even his father's servants never went to bed on an empty stomach. When the father received word that his son was coming back home, he sent servants with fine clothing and rings to put on the young man! The son was amazed at his father's love. The father didn't think about the boy being gone, but that he was now found!

We're the runaways. We have all walked away from our Father whether we know it or not. You see, this is why I love Jesus! He looked at me, Jamie Howard, and saw my mistakes and insecurities. He saw my sins and my attempt to cover them up. Not only did He welcome me back home, but He went on the cross and took the punishment for those sins. He paid my rebellious debt. He redeemed my life at the price of His!

That is what compels me to speak about Christ! I cannot stop, not out of obligation, but out of an understanding of the love that I did not earn. I haven't done anything to repay Christ, nor could I ever. I did not earn His love, it was given freely!

It breaks my heart when Christians refuse to share Christ's love with others, but infinitely more important than that, it breaks Christ's heart. The Father's calling for the runaways to come home. If you are one of those, know that your Father loves you with a fierce love--He desires for you to love Him as He loves you!

I'm praying for both the runaways and the redeemed.

In Christ,
jamie

Simple Thought...

I started another post for tonight, but after about an hour and a half, I decided to wait and finish it later. Tonight I'm in that place of thought where I wouldn't dare try and finish a serious post. I don't mean this in a bad way, it's just that there are times that I can only sit back and stare at my desk. My problem not that I'm uninspired, but actually overly inspired. The Holy Spirit is teaching me and allowing me to soak it up. Tonight was a great class with the youth and all I can do is sit here completely in love with the Savior who loved me first. There are times, like these past couple of nights that I have been completely ready to pour out my heart into words, but most nights I can only sit here in awe, and if I tried to force this it wouldn't come out the way God wants.

How amazing my God is!

I am praying for you, that God may reveal Himself to you--in spite of whatever situation you're in.

I want to challenge you to take some time right now to sit still and quiet and just think about the love that God shown you.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8

I love you guys and gals,
In Christ,
Jamie

Hearing God's voice...

I've decided to try and post once a day. Right now I'd like to post more because I have lots of ideas for writings, but I know myself too well. If I don't make a limit, I'll start out posting twice a day until I burn out of ideas and stop posting all together. I may not actually post every single day, but I'll try my hardest to keep consistency. In an attempt to keep it exciting, if you ever would like to know something about what I believe or what the Bible teaches, then send me an idea and I'll try and write a post on it. You can do this via facebook, e-mailing me at pastorJamie@acworthcogop.org, or commenting on this blog.

Yesterday I was wrapping up some payrolls in the office print room when the Holy Spirit hit me with an awesome word. This is not a rare occurrence, nor should it be in the life of any believer, for our Lord said, "My sheep hear my voice" and "Call unto me and I will answer you...". This is what we call the rhēma Word of God (see Mat. 4:4b). The Holy Spirit will speak to our hearts with a "still small voice" that instructs, encourages, prompts, and disciplines us when we are obediently listening for Him on a daily basis. We see this constantly through the logos (or written) Word of God: the Bible. Some people, unfortunately will use the "rhēma" as an excuse to justify fulfilling their own desires. They will say things like, "God is leading me to do this" or "God is telling me to go ahead with this." These statements are not inherently unbiblical. However, we need to understand that if what we are calling the "rhēma" Word does not line up exactly with the logos word, then it (ironically enough) is not the rhēma Word. The Holy Spirit will not contradict Himself--even further, He cannot contradict Himself!

This is the exact reason that we must pray for discernment and wisdom:

But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, [that is], those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Hebrews 5:14

and also,

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. James 1:5

The truth is, we are flawed--completely and utterly flawed (God help us!). We can convince ourselves of anything, and if we are truthful and honest with ourselves will realize that we do it on a regular basis (see Prov. 14:12). I have (in my short time in the ministry) already come across so many people who are completely walking in the flesh and wallowing in sin, yet continue to say that God is leading them where they are going. They will be completely rebellious toward spiritual authority and will dishonor their parents in the name of "following God's will." Christ spoke of this about the religious rulers of His day:

"But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in [yourselves], nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.
Matthew 23:13

If you'll allow me to, let me warn you now. This is how crusades are started. Like I said, our disease of sin so allows us to convince our minds of anything. A man will convince himself that going to Mass on Sundays causes God to look past his drunkenness and abusive behavior. A politician or lawyer may convince himself that because he is of a certain position he can live a justified lifestyle of deceit. The broken-hearted and the betrayed will convince himself that because he feels unwanted, he must be, and his life ends in suicide. As Leeland Mooring sang it, "This is an emergency!"

I know that I'm probably making this whole "remah" thing seem to cause more trouble than it does good, but let us continue just a few more steps in this direction in order to better discern the voice of this world from the voice of God.

I came across a pitiful situation a while back. I was talking with a young man that claims atheism and my heart was broken. He had harbored up such bitterness toward his parents because of abuse that he got down one night to ask God to intervene. He waited for a few minutes and heard nothing--no voice like thunder in his bedroom, I assume just yelling from his parents in the next. He let me know that this was the biggest proponent in his choice to live as an atheist instead of a Christian. I asked him if he felt like he was let down by God, and he said yes. I then asked him if he felt let down by his dad, and he hesitated. After a few seconds he looked down at the floor and replied, "yeah, kinda." I could see brokenness in his face.

This breaks my heart because it seems that no matter how much a person knows or doesn't know about God, we are all desperately waiting to hear from Him. We want to know...have to know that there's someone or something that can make things better.

Throughout highschool I talked to so many atheists who, after trying to prove God's nonexistence, would tell me about how they tried religion and it didn't work for them. It may have been that they prayed for God to heal their grandparent only to have them die, or they believed that God would mend their parents' broken marriage and received a divorce in return. Whatever the case, they believed that God never showed up, and instead of placing their disbelief on the foundation of their own brokenness and tears, they researched, studied, and eventually convinced themselves that they simply didn't believe in God. They refused, as is a person's first instinct, to be considered fragile or vulnerable.

This is where our thought comes full circle. We are flawed and naturally want to feel justified in everything that we do. As backwards as it may seem, we need to realize that it is this very issue of wanting to feel justified in of ourselves that we condemn ourselves. We want to hear God's voice, but only if it justifies our actions--only if it is a catalyst to our selfish ambition or caters to our current situation with our prescribed remedy. The only time that we will hear this remah Word--the voice of God, is when we are walking in the Spirit--that is, as the Bible teaches us, "walking not after the flesh." It seems like circular reasoning, but it makes perfect sense. We cannot and will not hear it otherwise. You cannot live in a lifestyle of half-heartedness and sin with expectancy to hear the voice of God.

The paradox is that in order to hear God for ourselves, we must take ourselves out of the picture by denying ourselves and seeking after the voice of God. We cannot continue in sin! We must repent and turn from our sinful lifestyles. If you are questioning whether the lack of God's voice in your life means that you aren't saved, then read 2 Corinthians 13:5 carefully:

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves...

We must allow God to crush our desires so that our desires can be truly realized. I will be praying for you tonight that you may hear the voice of God in your life on a daily basis... not with your ears, but with your heart.

In Christ,
Jamie

Himmel: Kapital 1

The following post was originally writen on November 3rd, 2005. I posted it on a private blog so that I would ensure that I never wrote for an audience other than God. I knew that if I wrote publicly, then I would write to impress (even if this was done subconsciously). I wrote two imaginative essays concerning our home beyond the sky, Himmel Kapital 1 and 2. This just means Heaven: Chapter 1 and 2 in German although I'm not so sure why I wrote it in German. I hope that you either enjoy or are provoked to thought. I'll post Kapital 2 later.

I've been having to write a bunch of papers lately, and I've related a good bit of them to the New Testament Church in some way. Even on my xanga, I discussed how the early Christians had their eyes focussed on Heaven, and that is how they lived with little care about the things of the world.

I've got a lot of ideas about Heaven that I'd like to start writing down in here.
So, with this in mind... Himmel: Kapital 1 (By the way, I'm really wanting to start studying Luther's German 1500's "Bibel"... I'll start with 1 John because the language is easy).

Last night, as I was reading stuff about the context that the Iliad was written in, I began thinking about how we don't even know if the Trojan War even happened. Thanks to Heinrich Schliemann in the 19th century, we know that there actually was a city of Troy that has ruins that show signs of being sacked and burned, but no real evidence for the supposed "Trojan war." Also, everything that we know about Shakespeare can be put on one index card. There's debate on whether all of his plays were actually written by one person, and further more, whether Shakespeare even existed. Another example to a point that I will soon arrive at: As I was studying Isaiah in Old Testament Survey, I learned that the book of Isaiah was written about events spanning over two centuries, and was possibly written by Isaiah of Jerusalem, Isaiah, son of Amoz, and some Isaianic disciples or followers.

How are these are related to each other, and especially to Heaven?
Mystery.

In the book of Isaiah, the writer says that God inhabits eternity. All of these subjects are mysterious to us. Just think about it.... God sees no mysteries in Time. History is open for His viewing without restriction at all.

We hypothesize about whether the city of Atlantis ever existed and flourished according to Homer's account (of whom we also don't have much evidence of existence), yet God was there from the foundation to the destruction of Atlantis. He knew every single baker, builder, child, and leader in the entire civilization. God can speak the language and dialects of the Atlanteans as well as he can speak Australian, British, or American English.

We hypothesize about ancient America, and the peoples that may have lived there before the "Native Americans", but to God, those people are as much recorded in chronicles of eternity as eighteenth-century Americans are.

We theorize about ancient societies scattered throughout Africa and Asia, claiming that our theories are as logically correct as possible. We make for ourselves archaeologists to dig up the ground looking for these societies, and in Schliemann's case, we find them. Now think about this... God doesn't have to dig at all. He could, if he really needed to, lift up every layer of earth and see every ruin, bone, tool, or piece of art at will... at any geographical location on this or any other planet.

So, back to the subject of Heaven. I imagine (out of pure speculation) that these mysteries can and will be revealed to us in Heaven. We can know what really happened in the Garden of Eden, where the people came from that Cain founded his city with, whether Noah actually brought seven clean animals on board the ark before the laws of animal cleanliness were founded, who the great men of renown mentioned in Genesis 6 actually were, and why Rahab was not penalized for lying in order to save good men.

Like I said, we can speculate all we want about the answers to life's mysteries, and we should, but one day these great mysteries might be explained to us as the scroll of History is unrolled and given freely to us.

"When we all get to Heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be!"

Why Motremia?

(If you are reading this on facebook, this post will make no sense if you don't understand that this post is imported--that is, it's original context is thisbreakingpoint.blogspot.com . You can click the "view in original context" link as well)

You may wonder why my current blog title is "Motremian Inspiration and the Christian Life" (and with good reason). I hope to explain this in this post as a reference point for all future posts.

Since I was little (being like 10 or so) I have had an imaginary world that has been the subject of many drawings hours of imagination named Motremia. I say world, but Motremia was usually either a kingdom or a country (almost always in the past, yet inconsistently between 500 BC and 1500 AD). I cannot pretend to be as creative or dedicated to such a task of world building as Tolkien or Lewis, but I have never intended to be (nor have I been) held to any sort of consistency accountability like an audience provides. Motremia was not a cry for help, an escape from family problems, nor an attempt at proving my creativity to anyone besides myself (and possibly Jasmine and John). I simply thought it was neat. I love the idea of world-building. I wanted to create civilizations, but with purpose--with direction.

I have, over the years, designed not only the buildings of the motremians, but also the ideas and philosophies at one point or another.

Exempli gratia (to sound smart!):
Sewer systems, residential dwellings, ancient airplanes, tanks, bows, crossbows, swords, rifles, bombs, grenades, factories, castle structures, waterways, clothing fashions, alphabets, scripts, art, families, main and secondary characters (for stories), histories and chronicles of war, politics, assassinations, kings, excavating technologies, uses of natural resources, infrastructure, government, religion (always a reflection of some sort of Christianity), tall tales, shops, so on and so forth!

I'm not a psychologist, and I have absolutely no desire to pursue such career. This isn't because I don't value the ideas or evaluations of psychologists because I do, even with certain disagreements. Therefore, I'm not going to make an attempt to give an explanation for something in which I am not qualified to give a viable opinion. There are people who have imaginary friends and are called crazy, while others participate in games in which they pretend to be fighting an imaginary fantasy war for a week at a time and call it recreation. I am sure that there are reasons for both from the psychology book, but what I find amazing is the simple fact that we are fascinated by that which we cannot see.

If religion were a complete and absolute creation of the human mind (as some suggest), inspired by nothing but synapses and brain cells, then I believe it would be the most beautiful social creation. Think about it: entire cultures--millions of people are shaped by one single belief in something that they cannot see. It brings about the most intimate and communal unity, yet in the same instance division and hatred. That is powerful!

This world is constantly looking for something beyond the physical--something "super"natural. They look in the horoscope, fortune tellers, magicians, tarot cards, ouija boards, televangelists' healing water, dreams, numerology, etc. Which this does not just include things considered evil, but also things that are just fantastic: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Halo, comics, etc. We are fascinated by those things which are out of sight. They may be out of sight because they are invisible or completely imaginary, but either case merits fascination. This is the case with Motremia.

When I was prompted by blogger to make a name for this blog, and I immediately thought "The Breaking Point." Unfortunately, the next thought that I had was a short and sweet, "lame." I kept thinking and mixing words around in my brain when I fell down a cerebral hill and stumbled out of the woods to come across the far land of Motremia. I then ran and frolicked the with local wildlife for about three hours only to be interrupted with the fact that people would start questioning my authority as a minister if they found me in my office giggling with imaginary field rabbits. So I decided on "Motremian Inspiration and the Christian Life."

To be 100% honest, that's not how it happened it all, but you know you enjoyed that more than if you heard the real story of me writing random things on a piece of paper till it came to me....... see? you just read the real account. Not fun, is it? Nope. I didn't think so.

So anyway, I'm a very big supporter of the idea of Heaven (y'know, being a Christian and all), and I am fully persuaded by the Word of God, that it'll be amazing when the saints of God (being people who have accepted Christ and followed Him) arrive. Our Father has prepared a place for us, and it is spoken of a lot in the Bible. I'm not sure if we'll play soccer after a few years of being there, but if we do, then I call goalie because you know I'll be a lot better than I am in real life.

Heaven is real and Motremia is not--and that's a big difference! However, Christians live their lives in anticipation of one day being caught up from this world of imperfections into another of complete and absolute perfections to be with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is a kingdom whose buildings we have not seen with our eyes, yet believe fully in.

To end (because I refuse to write short posts), I say this:
I am constantly inspired to draw and write by a kingdom that I have made-up in my head. Every bit of it is a reflection of Earth, a world that I did not create. The people are humans, whose design I could never have sketched out. They speak and laugh, all interactions that I am plagiarizing from humanity--God's humanity. If my creativity is shaken awake by such a poor display of plagiarist reproduction, then how much more should my life be shaken awake by a kingdom which contains more reality in a single atom than our universe contains in its entirety.

Our lives must be a perpetual echo of the mind of Christ--the king who designed this world and the next. We must realize that there is a Heaven and a Hell--two places that are neither imaginary nor have zero bearing on our current lifestyles an practices.

And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.
Romans 13:11

In Christ,
jamie

P.S. thank you all for all of the facebook comments on my last post. Very interesting topic! Feel free to post on either facebook or thisbreakingpoint.blogspot.com

This name so implies...

In the past few years since waking up from religiosity and living for Christ, I've noticed something that really makes me uncomfortable. The attitude is that of "Christians" who don't want to be called "Christians". The reason I even mention this is because of yet another person (on facebook) who refuses to acknowledge that they are a Christian, but a "Christ-follower", or a "believer of the the One True God", or some else along those lines.

First off, I understand and commend (maybe with naivety) their motive in this attitude. Some Americans have such a bad taste in their mouth from churches, preachers, family members, etc. and these followers of Christ want to bring the focus back on the Son of God, and hopefully are doing so! My concern is not with whether you who refuse to call yourselves "Christians" are going to Heaven or not--that's nonsense! We are not to argue about such small things.

If we quit calling ourselves Christians, I believe that we do need to think about what our motives are.

[I was raised (for the most part) in a fairly strict church most of my life (the more I go on, the more I believe that it was about as free as a church can be! haha), and consequently I speak from a mind that believes in certain doctrinal values. I am only twenty years old, and am still learning more each day about how I don't have it all together! With that said, I am writing from bouts of speculation and guess-work at times, so please don't be offended at me--this is what godly encouragement is!]

Wikipedia (absolutely one of my favorite sites of all time) says this about Christians:

A Christian is a religious follower who adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian

To me, that seems to be a very accurate description of who I am, and who you (if you are following Christ) are. Because of time constraints, I can't go fully into this, so I'll summarize.

1) I fully understand the mindset behind one calling himself "follower of Jesus"--the problem is with our willingness to abandon a "label" carried by millions before us because of the sins of hypocrites. It is a terrible thing that men have committed atrocities in the name of Christ. Yet I pray that we never fall into the idolatry of "free-spirited Christianity."

2) We haven't discovered anything new! That means you and I included! If you feel that you have a new revelation of following Christ, first "Examine yourself to see if you are still of the faith..." (2 Cor 13:5), then pray for wisdom (Jam 1:5), and also go to the spiritual authority in your life (Pastor, Youth leader, Deacon, etc.) on the matter. You cannot be rebellious toward authority and grow in Christ (Rom. 13:1)!

3) Let us not forsake the grace delivered to us by the cross and our devotion to Jesus Christ for a sinful lifestyle of pride and rebellion justified by (unbiblical) grace!

Let me know what you think...

• If you disagree then read Titus 1:13, 1 Timothy 5:1, and 1 Thessalonians 5:11 before your comment.
• If you agree then read 2 Corinthians 13:11 and 1 Thessalonians 4:18, 5:11 before you comment.

i'm just hoping...

I'm starting this blog as a tool of self reflection and possible encouragement to others. My track record isn't that pretty when it comes to blogging, so maybe this will be better!

An actual post will come soon enough!

In Christ,
Jamie