big changes happening soon =]

Fresh.

Tonight feels fresh. I am tired from work and am in need of sleep, but, regardless, I can't help but feeling new. I feel clean and fresh and new. Those are the only words I have.

I want to be about Romans 6.

killing sin equals sanctification, yeah?

The idea of waring against sin by the Spirit has infiltrated my life lately. I've heard it, read it, and seen it. It has become what I want to do. I want to kill my sin. The god of the flesh, the god of this world, a world of which I am not a part of, hates me. He is millions of times stronger than me and hates me. And you would think that I would run from something like this. But I run to it. Why do I run to that? Why do I run to something that kills my soul and hates me?
I go there because it is easy. I am weak. I am selfish. I am dumb. And I am so quickly satisfied. I feel like an idiot when I think of how crazy I must look to the Lord. Because even I can I watch myself. Even I can see my own foolishness.

When I am not feeling cared for in a friendship I rekindle an old one. Personally, I always love to hear from old friends. So when I call someone up I am looking for someone to be excited to hear from me. I don't seek their time because I just really love maintaining hard long distance friendships, but because I have selfishly not been satisfied by a current friendship and I feel freaking let down. Sometimes I sit back and analyze one of those moments and think, "What the hell? How did I not see myself running to my own vomit?" How can I be so consistently blind? I can cover it up by saying that I just wanted to reconnect, or that it was really great to talk with that person again. But I am just trying to make up for the fact that I had my hope in a current relationship and I feel like crap because that person was incapable of making me feel loved. This is my current sin. This constant fueling of my own need to feel cared for by the people around me. That is my sin. That is my enemy.

I want to kill it. But I am no where near as strong as the god of this world. I don't even come close. I don't even think I am capable of hating him as much as he hates me. So thank God for the Spirit. Thank God for the Word, which is a sword he cannot combat. I constantly forget the weapons I have been granted. It is BY THE SPIRIT that sin is put to death. That is the only way there is hope. Because if it is not the Word, then what am I hitting him with? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Weak little eleven-year-old-boy punches that do nothing.

SO THEN, BROTHERS, WE ARE DEBTORS, NOT TO THE FLESH, TO LIVE ACCORDING TO THE FLESH. FOR IF YOU LIVE ACCORDING TO THE FLESH YOU MUST DIE, BUT IF BY THE SPIRIT YOU PUT TO DEATH THE DEEDS OF THE BODY, YOU WILL LIVE. FOR ALL WHO ARE LED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD ARE SONS OF GOD. FOR YOU DID NOT RECEIVE THE SPIRIT OF SLAVERY TO FALL BACK INTO FEAR, BUT YOU HAVE RECEIVED THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTIONS AS SONS, BY WHOM WE CRY,"ABBA! FATHER!" THE SPIRIT HIMSELF BEARS WITNESS WITH OUR SPIRIT THAT WE ARE CHILDREN OF GOD, AND IF CHILDREN, THEN HEIRS - HEIRS OF GOD AND FELLOW HEIRS WITH CHRIST, PROVIDED WE SUFFER WITH HIM IN ORDER THAT WE MAY ALSO BE GLORIFIED WITH HIM. [Romans 8:12-17]

Have mercy on me, O God

The sacrifices of our God
Are broken in a contrite heart
Against you and you alone
Have I sinned
(I love hearing this song sung in community at Veritas)

The other day Hannah pointed out how she wished that we knew this all the time. That we cannot sin against anyone else other than God himself. We don't sin against our friends when we mess up, we don't sin against our parents when we make mistakes, and we don't sin against ourselves when we fail. Against YOU AND YOU ALONE have I sinned. I am sinful for thinking any other way. I pray to be like David in Psalm 51. Because if I knew that and remembered it every time I sinned, I would be broken so often that I would never be able to forget my need for the cross.

Taking care of Faithy

I don't know that broken-hearted is the correct way to describe the way I am feeling. I think it is the way I should be feeling right now, but it isn't. I feel overwhelmed by the Love of a just and mighty God. I asked some friends to preach the gospel to me tonight, because I knew it was what I needed to hear. A few were confused and asked questions, but a few others knew what I meant. They gave me straight Truth without the questions to preface it. Straight Biblical Love that can only come from the words of a God who "wants to fix me more than I want to be fixed." That's a quote from Sara Galbraith, who told me that Truth because she knows the Lord and because the Lord has given her the ability to care for me. For some reason, God has shown her how to care for me better than most will ever be able to. I don't know how to explain it; she just has a way of caring for me that comes from nowhere else other than the Lord.

I am thankful for friends who show me the Love of a big, real God who took the time to love us first.

^{1 JOHN 4: 16-19
16}And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. ¹⁷In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. ¹⁸There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

¹⁹We love because he first loved us.

Can't Get it Out of my Head

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
TEACH ME some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer; 
hither by thy help I'm come; 
and I hope, by THY GOOD PLEASURE,
safely to arrive at home. 
Jesus sought me when a stranger, 
wandering from the fold of God; 
he, to rescue me from danger, 
interposed his precious blood. 

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

---

Get it out

It is crazy to me how we can throw all of our hope and emotion onto a single person for a short period of time. It is never intentional. But it happens. A lot. Its something that I struggle with daily, something that brings me to tears, and something that I wish I knew how to direct. I wish I could just do it; just put my emotions and hope into the person of Jesus Christ. But most times that is seemingly impossible; Because once I've noticed that my emotions have strayed, I have already been let down. How crazy? If we think we have control of anything, you'd think it'd be our own hearts. But I find myself here again and again brokenhearted by the idols that bind me.

Get it out
Not just the ghost
The crap and garbage, too
The stuff that hurts
The feelings I hate
And the things that let me down
I don't want any part of them

Leave them in
Use them all
Use them all for Your Glory
Love me with them
Direct my eyes
Uplift my soul
Yes, leave them in.