In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" Acts 17:28 "for in Him we live and move and have our being" Song of Songs "Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; For love is as strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave; It's flames are flames of fire, a most vehement flame." " It's the will of God that I'm after...regardless of cost. - We all spend our lives for something..
There's One with eyes like a flaming torch of fire. The mountains melt like wax when He comes down, and He's coming back for His. His name is the Word of God. The King, we already met at the cross and spent some time together in the desert, but thats not enough. I'm longing to walk with God. Enoch did it after the fall, and he wasn't even born again. There's a price, but He's worth it. Paul laid his eyes on Him and couldn't see for three days. This One, His deep calls and mine answers in longing.
I had always been into music...the first cd I ever got was Nirvana Nevermind, I remember I even used to listen to Rage Against the Machine, Slipknot, Dave Matthews, Counting Crows, all kinds of stuff even when I first worked at a Christian camp as a counselor...I didn't fake it. I did not like Christian music, thought it was cheesy, but God was pulling on my heart...but when you get touched with the presence of Almighty God, it changes you. I know what it's like to see other people raise their hands in church and look lost in love in worship and to see them and totally not have that at all. To see reality in what they had, but I felt nothing and knew not how to get there. Oh, but I thank God for Jesus. He looks at your heart. After I first experienced feeling the presence of God in worship, that was what I wanted...to be with Him...everything else takes a back seat. Just an encounter with Him and you are different...once you've tasted love and everything that comes with Him, you have to have it in your life. Drugs, alcohol, women, all the fun in the world - they won't get you there and can not fill the void...we all have tried to do it. But it's God we need. I've been so blessed to actually spend so much time in God's presence that I've felt the skin on my arms, my flesh hunger for God's presence, just like your stomach hungers for food...it was amazing - happened when I was driving home from work summer of '04. We were created for God, to live in His presence, you wonder how men in the bible used to live to be 900 years old?? - the residue of the great presence of God still lingered on the earth after the fall of man, and the earth was not so marred and corrupted by sin...it's b/c of the great glory of God - it makes you alive just being near Him.
Jesus said "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The word repent literally means to change the way you think. In the book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar, a mighty king of kings, got humbled by God to the point that he ate grass like a cow and didn't have his senses about him, and his kingdom was cut down from him for the purpose that he would "come to know that Heaven rules." - Dan 4:26 Then Daniel, a man of God, recommended: "Therefore, O king, let my advice be acceptable to you; break off your sins by being righteous, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. Perhaps there may be a lengthening of your prosperity." Daniel was right. It may look like it's up to presidents and senators, it may look like it for a minute, those in "power" and it's aweful easy to blame leaders, but in the book of Exodus it tells of when God was about to destroy Israel,a sinful and rebellious people, but a man named Moses prayed and asked God not to...and God heeded the prayer of a humble man. It's time we changed the way we think. Maybe we should stop complaining and pray and seek heaven. God's watching, God's in control, His way is the right way.
If you don't know this man, I wish you did. You may not see him on television or in some magazine, but if you run after God - you might just...cause thats where he'll be.
The Bible
Mine and your opinion of a hero may be quite far from what God's opinion of a hero is. Jesus said that many who are last shall be first and many who are first shall be last. What is despised by man is given greater honor by God who sees all and knows all things and looks at the heart, not the outward appearance...the janitors, the behind the scenes prayer warriors, the overlooked, the underpaid, the underappreciated, the mistreated and made fun-of ...there is coming a day when the Lord himself will call these out of the shadows to the front of the line to be given honor and glory. They may not have it now, but they will here in just a minute. You and I ..we'll see.