This Saturday chi alpha is going to be showing up full force at our homecoming football game. More importantly, we’re going to be tailgating! We’ve got some generous donations from people so we can have a cookout and feed some hungry students. What I’m excited about, and what I know would psych you up, is that we plan on reaching out to the Fratties by trying to get them into small groups. My job is to make sure that Chi Alpha is participating in as many campus activities as we can, so we are very excited!

The Lord has done a lot of miracles to get us to participate in this. For example, we have very good relationships with the Office of International Programs (OIP). And they purchased a year long tailgating pass and only wanted to use it for 3 games. Well, they essentially gave the rest to us! Not only do we have a spot just for us to use, but we have 3 spots all next to each other…3 tailgating spots, for free.

Another great thing has been Nash Ortiz. He’s a volunteer and member at the Met and he never stops serving and loving people. His daughter made the SHSU dance team and so he’s been helping me a ton! He asked around for food donations for our last tailgate, and the Lord provided enough food for us to feed about 60 or so students. Small group leaders showed up with their groups to support Sam Houston football, and to love on anybody and everybody we saw out there. If it weren’t for Nash, I wouldn’t have been able to pull this off. He’s gonna be back this Saturday and we are planning BIG. We plan to feed about 200 students…Lord willing!

The whole point of this is to reach out and meet some Fraternity and Sorority people and love on them, and hopefully get them involved in small groups. I’m very excited to see what the Lord does. He already has been shifting mountains to make this happen so…really, I’m just along for the ride.

Jesus Jesus dearest Lord

See my life as was before

Giant hearts of Earthly stone

Take one look you’d see my own

Laden paths of guilt we wear

Who will save us, who will care?

Missing savior, we are done

We have no fight our foe has won

Jesus Jesus dearest Lord

Preparing way and waging war

Streaming sin and selfish gain

Corrupted hearts for him to tame

Heaven to Earth he left the skies

Thoughts of us consumed his mind

Plans of peace for me and more

Enchanted by this king I’ve torn

Jesus Jesus dearest Lord

Often I do hear and mourn

With his friends but then betrayed

Not one bit of love delayed

Assailants whipped and beat and shred

A crown of thorns put on his head

Jesus cried and prayed for man

As the nails drove through his hands

Jesus Jesus dearest Lord

Knocking love at my heart’s door

A thousand yards of blood I see

Trails of love you made for me

Faced with death yet he was brave

It could not hold him, nor the grave

Love perfected on the cross

All my sins are gone and lost

Chorus:

What is this I see?

Your blood covering me

Through this precious bond

My worst fears are gone

Every human in their life is given two things. One is usually received before the other,

I asked Jesus tonight if he ever got scared. I know I get scared whenever I’m uncertain about things like the future. It always seems to be centralized on things outside of my control. IF Jesus DID get scared, it certainly wasn’t for the same reasons as mine. Jesus wasn’t ever caught off guard, and He wasn’t ever tricked. However, do recall when Jesus was in the garden and He asked the Father “If it is possible, or if You are willing, Take this cup from me!” This moment in His life must have been the absolute worst of all. Jesus himself reveals that He too didn’t want to die, and if it was at all possible to escape the cup of God’s wrath; if there was any other way to redeem man from sin, then to Jesus that was a much more desired way. Did Jesus ever experience fear? I believe to be fully human He must have! I say again, His fear wasn’t because of being uncertain of future events. Jesus then said, “Yet not what I will, but Your will be done!” He was absolutely certain of God’s will and character, and He was absolutely certain that the Lord was good. His fear wasn’t due to HIS uncertainty but probably more due to OUR uncertainty. Let’s put it this way: Even though He KNEW that there would be MANY who would not turn and believe, He STILL died for them! So maybe when the Lord fears, He fears for his children when WE are uncertain of HIS divine character…

These next 30 days we are going through a prayer journal where we are praying for the nations but specifically UNreached people groups. Every day for the next 30 days we are putting in our best effort to spend 2.5 hours a day praying for the lost and seeking His presence and guidance. On top of that, we have a 24 hour a day prayer room that will be going on for these 30 days. We received this idea from the radical Moravians who held their 24 hour prayer meeting for 100 years! If they can do 100 years, then we should be able to do 30 days. The point is not to be impressive or hold a record, but to seek the direction of the Holy Spirit. We aren’t going to have a burden for the lost until we begin to understand the Lord’s heart, and we won’t know the Lord’s heart unless we spend uninterrupted, quality, and extravagant time with Him.

“Oh Lord help my unbelief! Your character is never-ending and never-changing! Help me to be fully certain that you are ALWAYS the God you say you are, and that walking into the dark unknown room with You is much safer than any illuminated path! Lord help my unbelief.”

Here is one of the greatest values of praise: it decentralizes self. The worship and praise of God demands a shift of center from self to God. One cannot praise without relinquishing occupation with self. The self-evident truth which inspires this unceasing praise is the character and integrity of God Himself.

If Satan had been successful in his attempt to dethrone the Most High, almighty selfishness instead of Almighty Love would be upon the throne of the universe. If Satan had triumphed, all life would have been at the mercy of almighty malevolence. Instead of hell with boundaries, the entire universe would be hell! But, praise God, Satan lost.

The idea that “praise always changes circumstances” is a mistake. It may not always change circumstances, but it WILL change the person. Since the root of all our problems is the unsanctified ego, inside change may be more important than chanced circumstances.

Watchman Nee – “Don’t waste your sorrows. One never learns anything new about God except through adversity.”

Just had a great night with the small group guys. We all are becoming great friends but we still need a move of God so that we may become brothers. Honesty is a huge part to loving one another, and I feel that tonight brought everyone a little bit closer. Many of the guys are willing to become closer as brothers but still have a lot to learn about conviction and about “leaning the entire personality on the Lord.” The devil would love for us to be comfortable where we are at and never be challenged, but the Lord loves to discipline his children because “He disciplines the ones he loves.”

Risks can be a very Godly thing. David’s mighty men took a risk and fought for their lives just to bring their king a drink of water. David didn’t demand it, he merely wished for it, and his men were willing to give their lives just to simply please their king. I believe the Lord is asking us to take a risk for Him and to let go of some of the things in our lives that we feel we deserve. For example, “My king’s comfort and pleasure is way more valuable to me than my safety.”

To please the Lord is the happiness of man. That is to let go of our rights in faith that we can make it with just God alone and nothing else. Pray for tenderness and brokenness. We need the presence of God. We need to be willing to change.

I read this and it blew my mind…

We are not surprised that He is exalted and enthroned in the heavens. What is difficult for us to comprehend that we have been exalted with Him. Yet if “he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1Cor. 6:17), it cannot be otherwise. We are not surprised that “all things have been put under HIS feet.” What we have failed to comprehend is that as part of Him, His body, all things are also legally beneath OUR feet… We have underestimated the supreme importance of the Church in God’s economy.

She (the Church) is the center and motive of all His activity from all eternity. He does nothing solely for His own sake. She is included as a full partner in all His plans. The Church is His Body, the fullness of Him that fills all things everywhere. He is not full or complete without His Church which is His Body. this is true because of God’s voluntary self-limitation. In the absolute, God is wholly self-sufficient. He needs nothing and can be served by no one. Yet He has chosen voluntarily to limit Himself in order that the Church may become His judicial equal. It is true that the Body cannot function without the Head. It is just as true that the Head, by His own choice, cannot function without the Body. Both are equally important to the accomplishment of His plan.   -Billheimer

“But God…brought us to life with Christ…And in union with Christ Jesus he raised us up and enthroned us with him in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 2:4-6).

He is the “Head over all things TO THE CHURCH” (Eph. 1:22).

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20)

We are identified with the very Son of God, and He put us at the center of all creation. We are at the center and we are subject to Christ, and Christ to God.  -G. Campbell Morgan

What value God puts on his people!

Another great start! It’s exciting to be back with the guys. We’ve already had some fun experiences we can easily remember. We took a small camping trip with some international students that had their first experience shooting guns. I have to be honest I was a bit scared for my life but we all made it back alive. Praise Jesus

The Lord is good. He’s been solidifying a lot of things in my heart about His character lately. He really has been faithful to me ever since I had memory. Thank the Lord for the fellowship that’s at Sam Houston State!

Humility by Andrew Murray could possibly be one of the best books…

This has been an amazing two months. Two weeks ago