Oceans

I've taken a brief hiatus from blogging at the end of this semester; life sure has gotten crazy! I don't know how regularly I'll be writing nowadays, but I have been going back through my journal and rejoicing in the good work that the Lord has been doing!

I don't know if ya'll have had the chance to pick up Hillsong United's most recent cd, Zion, but I would definitely recommend it! One song in particular that has been a constant prayer of mine has been Oceans (Where Feet May Fall). 



The lyrics are simple enough, but the prayer that they contain is frightfully honest. Frankly, I'm a bit intimidated by the words, but I pray them earnestly, begging God to help my unbelief. The refrain that appears more than a half dozen times in the nearly ten minute song goes like this:

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me.
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior.

Writing those words gives me goosebumps! Are you willing to pray that prayer? Honestly, are you? Are you willing to beg God to take you to a place that is so foreign and unknown to you, a place that you would never have gone yourself? Are you willing to brave the unknown with the only assurance being that God is with you. It's been quite the journey, but slowly I am choosing to believe God for the impossible, the crazy, and the seemingly insane. Jesus, let me walk upon the waters, let me get out of the boat like Peter. I will go, direct my feet to where you would lead me.
-Matt

What is love?

And now that I've succeeded in getting A Night at the Roxbury stuck in all of our heads (for which I do sincerely apologize) I aim to proceed to matters of much greater significance. Lately I have been caught pondering and imaging the depth and power of this crazy little thing called love (*cue the Elvis music).

For those of a certain level of maturation, love is little more than an emotion. It is a good feeling and promotes thoughts of attraction and affection. This love lacks power, finality, and worth. Love is an emotion, that is true to a certain degree. But love is so much more than an emotion. The butterflies in your tummy and that light-headedness are just feelings. These feelings can act as indicators of something more, but love itself does not flow from these things. No, love is the base from which all other indicators flow.

Many have heard Paul's definition of love from 1 Corinthians chapter 13;

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

I don't know what images that passage conjurers up in your mind, but grab a hold of your first thoughts and run them through the passage. Use it as a sort of sieve. It should offer a very polarizing tool with which love can be accurately distinguished.



Now, I willfully admit, that my conceptualization of what love is has been radically altered in the past year of my life. As my previous post alluded to, I have fairly recently become engaged to Carissa Curtis. Naturally, since we are to be married, it makes sense that we are indeed in love. And we are deeply in love. And how do I know that? How can I be absolutely certain that this love I feel for Carissa and the love that she reciprocates to me is in fact genuine, real love? Like all questions, I test it with what scripture says love is.

Love is patient. Is patience evident in our interactions with each other? Am I willing to listen, to wait, and to support her in any task for any duration? I am.

Love is kind. Is our love marked by kindness? It should be devoid of harshness and sarcastic jabs. Love must be sincere (as it says in Romans 12:9). Am I genuinely striving to be continually kind to her? I am.

... I could go on and on through all of these things, but I do not mean to exalt my relationship with Carissa over anyone, nor do I feel the need to prove some sort of perfection for some sort of "holiness test". Rather I give these examples to encourage you to think. If you are in a relationship with someone, test it by the spirit and the Word of truth. Does it stand? Now, there is grace abundant in Jesus. No one can love perfectly. For if God is love (1 John 4:8) and Romans 3:11 says that no one seeks God, how can we possible proclaim to love perfectly if we don't seek to know love?

I will be first to admit my tendencies to selfishness and resentment. I am not always willful to lay down my "right" to insist on my own way. I am far from perfect.

So if we cannot achieve perfect love, then what really is the difference between the love of attraction that I cited at the beginning of this post and the love which we broken people are left with, even as we strive to achieve the purity of love that Paul exults? The difference comes in that final verse I included from 1 Corinthians 13, verse 10, which reads "for when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away." The difference between genuine, sacrificial love and a fleeting emotion is time. Lust and emotion are chemical states created through the mind and the body which were never meant to last. They are temporary, designed to be reactions to certain stimuli. The love Paul describes is eternal.

Love does not pass away. It does not fade. You cannot "fall out of love". Sure, you can run as far as you'd like, but in the end everything else will fade and there will be nothing left to hold on to, save love.

My heart in writing this is reactionary after noticing a trend in our culture that idolizes this concept of love. But this is not a love that is eternal and self-sacrificing. Our culture promotes a love that is me-centered. Love that emanates solely from how I feel is not love. This "love" is adamant about having things the way we demand. "If this person doesn't continue to make me happy then I'll move on to somebody else" is a message that rings throughout our world today. From a boyfriend or girlfriend you've been dating for a few weeks to a spouse that you've been with for 20 years, nothing is off limits. "Love" in our world is self-serving, demanding, and inward focused on personal happiness at all costs.

Friends, we must not idolize the love that comes from our world, but rather we must let the love that comes from the Father dwell deeply inside of us. Worldly love does not last. It is partial, and it will pass away. In the Garden man took a place that was created by God for the purpose of unifying God and man in a perfect experience of harmony and worship and altered its purpose. When Adam and Eve sinned, they took the focus off of God, and put it onto themselves. They wanted to be equal with God and to not be bound by the limits that God set in place for their own good. This fracturing of purpose created the same dichotomy that exists in the world today. Adam and Even replaced the center of the universe, God, with themselves. Biblically, Godly love exists as a perfect union of self with an eternal purpose that produces worship and fruit. Self is set aside and this love exists to make much of the God who created is. Worldly love seeks to eliminate God and make love about one's self. Worldy love is selfish and centered on man.

I urge you brother and sisters, test what you to be love in your life. If Godly love is examined, you will follow its fruits all the way back to God and will end in worship. If worldly love is looked at even on a cursory level it quickly can be found to degrade to emotion, temporariness, and selfish desires. These selfish desires bring forth death. Godly love produces life.

So what is love? Love is a heaven focused state of being that seeks to unite the broken man with a holy God which can only be achieved through humbly accepting the sacrificial work of Christ who came to define what love really means through his selfless purchase of human life on the cross. I love Carissa, but only because I see that this love embodies the eternal purpose of a yearning to make Jesus' Name famous in all the world and believing and seeing her life strengthen and encourage me, and my life the same to her, to become more enamored with the love that God has for us. Godly love is attractive. It seems that I just happened to luck out that Carissa is not only in love with God, but also the most beautiful girl in the world.

I hope this challenges and encourages,
-Matt

Love

I'm engaged! to this lovely, beautiful, gracious servant of God, my bride-to-be Carissa Curtis.

Obviously a lot has happened since I have written last. The month of march was a bit of a whirl wind for me (us) and life hasn't really slowed down since! Many of you have already heard the full story, but succinctly I can summarize it in a brief paragraph:

We met through my roommate Chris and an organization called Impact at Texas A&M. Over the summer of 2012 we chatted back in forth (shout out to Twitter), and began dating in August. It didn't take long to realize that we had both found "the one" and marriage was on the horizon. We got engaged on the family spring break vacation in Granby, Colorado and the rest of the ride has been exhilarating.

Jesus has led us daily from our first date on August 20th, 2012 to this very day. It has been beyond incredible to see him work on both of our hearts as he prepares for marriage! We're both a bit rough around the edges, but the Lord has been at work in us so vigorously in these past few months. Through Carissa, God has revealed to me so much more of his compassion, his love, and his grace. I've been privileged to encourage her and spur her on in faith as well. She pushes me to Jesus, and that really is the glue that has galvanized our relationship. She's my best friend, my constant encourager, my beloved.

-matt

Undeserving

While reading through Deuteronomy this morning I came across a powerful juxtaposition in chapters 16 and 7. In verses 5-6 as God gives instruction for the Passover sacrifices He says:

"You must not sacrifice the Passover in any town the Lord your God gives you except in the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name"

Amidst this instruction I was cut to the core and the Spirit reminded me that I am the place He has chosen to dwell in. My body is the temple that the God of the universe has chosen to reside. It is inside of me that I sacrifice my life, my very soul, to give everything to the Lord who came for me.

It was this that made reading the first 7 verses of chapter 17 so heart-wrenching. I'm posting it here so because the power of scripture is much too valuable to skip over.

"Do not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep that has any defect or flaw in it, for that would be detestable to him. If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the Lord gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God in violation of his covenant, and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky, and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death. On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting that person to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you."

Wow. That same God that dwells inside of me hates the violation of His covenant with me so much that the price of that trespass is death. I deserve death, yet the Holy One lives inside of me. This glorious paradox makes me feel so small, and so loved. I don't have the words to convey how humbling and wonderful this all-invasive love that conquered death is to me. But I hope this scripture speaks louder than my words.

His servant,
-matt

We Never Saw Anything Like This

I was reading from Mark 2 the other day and couldn't help but be mesmerized by the story of the paralytic healed by Jesus in verses 1 through 12. His friends carry him to Jesus, and when there seems to be no way to reach Him, they take him to the roof, tear the roof apart, and then lower him down to Jesus.