"Give me one pure and holy passion Give me one magnificent obsession Give me one glorious ambition for my life To know and follow hard after You To know and follow hard after You To go as Your disciple in Your Truth This world is empty, pale, and poor Compared to knowing You, my Lord Lead me on and I will run after You." So for those of you that know me, would know I haven't been posting nearly as much lately. But this has been laid on my heart the past couple weeks and I couldn't let another day go by without sharing. The lyrics you see above are from a CD put out by the Passion worship band. They have amazing songs, period, but this one really jumps out at me - especially lately. A lot of things have been going on in my life, and I've been riding the fence - somedays I'm on fire for God, some days I'm captured by the world and others I'm playing both sides praying no one will notice. But the thing is, God doesn't want us lukewarm - it's an all or nothing type deal. And I just challenge you to make those words your prayer. It's a challenged I've taken upon myself over the next 40 days, to really reflect on what they mean and to sincerely learn to pray it from heart. I just pray that we'll stop pretending and we'll come before him. That we'll just stop and drop it all and meet one another at the feet of Jesus, at the foot of the cross that sets us free and makes us who we are. God has taken our sin upon him and there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for we have been set free. If the Son has set you free, you are free indeed and it's time we stop overlooking that and complaining that we can't get up from our present state and whatever it is chaining us down. Victory is ours and was given to us freely, but it's up to us whether or not we obtain it. We are an awesome generation, never before have I met such radical and passionate people for Jesus than I have in this generation. And I just pray that we'll realize how awesome our Lord is and we won't allow our lives to belittle our Savior in any way, but rather that we'll rise up with dreams and faith as big as he is... and realize that we are free, that we will stand firm and proudly proclaim that we are HIS. That we'll rejoice for we have been freed by the blood of our precious Lord, and every chain has been broken and we've been released from all that in which this world has tried to trap us with. I just pray for each of your lives, you'll feel his freedom in such a way, that you never have before, and that you won't be afraid to step out on faith and embrace the passion of Christ. And that you won't be ashamed to take it everywhere with you, and share it with all of those you come in contact with through your speech, through your purity, through you actions, through all you do and say. Everyone around me is rushing, rushing, rushing. Rushing to finish high school, rushing to finish college, rushing to start a career. In the end though, every career from the lowest to the most successful ends with a box, a box of all your things that once were important to you, but now do no more than fill up a box. The best grades, the best education, the highest paying job... none of these can you carry with you when its your time. Time is always moving, and people will come and they will go, people will meet you and forget about you, and the train will continue. To truly have something, to have more stuff than can fit in a box, you need to change lives. You need to inspire people, you need to be able to look up from all your busy work, and see people instead of classmates, people instead of clients, people instead of neighbors. You need to touch lives, and that is something a career never will accomplish alone. Be different, stand out, walk a different way, but most importantly.... touch lives. There was a guy who went through things we can't even imagine. Think of going about your life as an outcast preaching a message. Having a bunch of people on your back questioning every word you say. Then imagine getting beaten; your skin being torn from your back; getting beaten and bruised, then dragging your own instrument of death for miles and being nailed to it. Now imagine those people laughing at you, spitting on you, cursing you. Now imagine thinking "I'm dying for them" and still going on with it, with no regret. If you're living your life trying to find happiness, you'll fail miserably. Life isn't about you or what happens to you, it's about serving God. It's about pressing on... and living your life for him and no one else. No regrets. I love you all... and I'm praying. This message was directed as much to me as it was to each of you. I pray that something spoke to you, and that you will respond to what God's saying to your heart and take that next step of faith. If there's anything at all I can ever do for you, please don't hesitate to contact me.