Ready And Willing 2006: Day One

After are drive in the van, we arrived in Vancouver at the RAW meet, which was situated at †Culture (Cross Culture).

As we ventured into the Youth Drop I didn't know what to expect really. I actually expected to start serving as soon as we got, you know by setting up stuff, but realistically we got there and there a bunch of youth whom I've never met, and a few who I did know. Anyway after getting to know new people and playing a couple of name games, we went upstairs for worship.

I think the smoke machines and lights were a nice touch to worship, although making the product look good isn't the point of worship, it didn't take away from the heart of worship. Anyway, Mark Armstrong was on the electric and a crazy pianist and Fiona was painting as part of her worship. All in all God's presence was there, I think I was dancing as part of my worship to the lord.

After that Danielle Stricklen and Stephan Court talked about Ezekial 37.
The Valley of Dry Bones
1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."
4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath [a] enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' "
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
9 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' " 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
11 Then he said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.' "

Ezekial was a man who had God's hand upon him. What a marvelous thing that would be. Stephan and Danielle brought up four points about how Ezekial was able to have this with God.

Ezekial had Credibility with God; Invisibility to the world; Dependability to God and others; and Humility with himself and others.

I didn't really take notes for this so, sorry, check other people blogs for more on this discussion.

After that, Darren gave us a few annoucements, we went downstairs and had some time to waste, and GUMP was the game of RAW that was played. I didn't feel like playing it at the time, and I was more interested in reading my bible and talking with new people. Anyway, Cory rounded us up for our mission for that night; Serving at Re:Cr8.

When we got there, it was not what I expected, and I didn't take any pictures b/c I felt it would take away from time of serving on my part and it might offend some people. Anyway, I met lots of new people there, and helped some guys with getting Coffee. I met a girl who helps there regularly named Jill, and met Denis, and this other guy who's name was Rob later on, who was having a good time talking with some of the girls from New Westminster. I learnt that even though I know how to jump out of my comfort zone I still need a push to do it, and this mission was definietly good at that.

Then we were dropped home, or off at the church in my case, and I went to bed like usual.

All in all a good day so far, I was waiting to see what else God had in store for me at RAW.

All the pictures: (Click to enlarge)

Worship

Getting to Know each other

Ashley and Kayla

Darren

Gump

Lead us oh, Fifield

Danielle Stricklen

Stephan Court

GORILLA, oh dang, a gun..

-Brent

The Monkey Song

OMGosh MUSIC VIDEO

Sorry for the bad sound, my mic sucks.

Anyway Enjoy,

-Brent

The Chase Review: Index

Here are all the links to each and every chapter;

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

-Brent

Favour

Song

I need you guys to test that link above and tell me if it plays the song for you.

thx,

-Brent

The Chase Chapter Sixteen: The Joy of Holiness

The last chapter hopefully all you readers enjoyed sharing my thoughts as I enjoyed expressing them;

There's a prize for our chase after holiness; I'm not just talking about the reward at the end of this world, I'm talking about what you get when you obey God.

On the day back, after listening to God, and saying, I am your servant 'Use me'. I was filled with the Holy spirit. I was filled with this overwhelming Joy.

I didn't know what to do with it, but I realized that Joy is a reward that God gives us so that obedience isn't a chore, but we en'joy' doing it.

Holiness allows you to get closer to God, the closer you are the more joyful you become, trust me, this is true. I was really close to God that I day, and man was I bursting from the seems with Joy.

Joy isn't just a result, it can also help us live a holy life this chapter states.

The joy of God gives us strength. It's true, I felt like I could move mountains, I wasn't tired I was ready and willing to do what it took to help God.

I was full of this 'RAW' joy that only comes from God.

At the end, the book asks us if we are ready to live a holy life, and my answer is heck yes, bring on the trials, I'm ready to be joyfully holy.

-Brent

The Chase Chapter Fifteen: Holiness in an Unholy World

This chapter is huge. No it's only like 5 pages, but I mean the points in here are big.

I use to run away from anything that might cause me to sin, but this is exactly what this chapter deals with, being able to turn to God in those situations, and stand up for your beliefs, without shoving your religion down their throats.

The world is full of sin, what do we do, when everything around us sins? Sin with it, I don't think that is very holy.

So what can we do? Well we don't run from the problem. We need to not blend in with the world, conform or be a hypocritical Christian like we all do at one point or another. We need to stand up to the pressures that the rest of the world will put on us.

The book gives us a few ideas to do this.

Make sure the people around you know your a christian. Thats doesn't mean wear as much Jesus clothing as possible. But it means let your actions and speech speak for you. Pray before tests or meals, invite friends to church. 'Whatever comes naturally to you that will let others know you're a christian- do that.'

Another way to protect ourselves from the worlds influence, is to remain in the word.
Flooding are brain with the truth will allow us to have the knowledge of how to deal with those everyday problems we face, when staring down sin in the world.

The next is love everyone, don't boast b/c your a christian and your saved and their going to hell. You were once like them, heck we still are, the only difference is that we hvae accepted Jesus, and they might not know the full truth about the matter. We can show them God's love through our own love for them.

Be the shinning light in the dark corner of the room.

-Brent

The Chase Chapter Fourteen: Holiness and Faith

Basically this chapter goes into obedience and what it looks like;

"Obedience is key to our chase after holiness, no matter what it may be that God is calling us to do."

I think this is neat, because it leads back into the very first day I got back from XLR:8.

I had a conversation with God, and he basically told me to start a group in the school, to encourage the Christian body there to LEAP out in faith, and to be able to not conform to the rest of the world. This meant to do things like holiness, service, love unconditionally, and right now we are about to learn about intercession and go out and pray for people in our school ( so reaching out to the lost sheep, in other ways of evanglism).

This was really tough, the enemy through alot of obsticles in my way, but perserverance, prayer, and a knowledge of the word allowed us to start this.

I had to literally learn how to take Leap's of faith in order to get Leap on it's feet. This was really going out of my comfort zone, and I was learning these things for a purpose, so I could be able to share them with the others and encourage them to LEAP out.

I never looked at my obedience as faith, I just did it because God asked, and I didn't want to be one of those people who disobeyed God. Heck I didn't even ask questions, I asked what was next, whenever I obeyed his next step, but I never questioned his responses.

But I've been drifting, I've been on a rocky road lately, discourately out of the word, and my prayer life has nearly ceased ( unless I'm crying out).

I need to follow this urging sensation the holy spirit is laying on my heart to stay in the word, and pray.

It just so happens I did alot more of that at the last XLR:8, and I'm going to the 2nd installment of it this weekend. I'm really excited to see what is going to unfold in the next few days.

Anyway, obedience is key.

-Brent

The Chase Chapter Thirteen: Habits of Holiness

The main point from this chapter is that, break off the bad habits, and begin new ones.

Our bad habits developed a pattern of sin, and we need to break that habit if we want to chase after holiness.

The book says the holy spirit is the one who helps us break our sinning habits and will help us begin new, good ones.

There are four things to remember as you work on your new habits;

1. Do it over and over. The more you do something the easier it is, like sinning for example, the more you sin, the more likely you'll sin again. So we need to practice saying no to sin over and over again, and we'll get better at resisting temptation
2. Don't say 'Just this once'. Hold firmly to your decisions ( I love that quote)
3. Resist all sins, the big and small ones that we classify ( even though, in God's eyes, sin is sin).
4. Perserverance. Don't quit, we will fail at times but we have to pick ourselves up and try again.

Remember the holy spirit is there to help us all, learn to use him effectively just like the bible.

-Brent

The Chase Chapter Twelve: Holiness and our wills

Now the book digs into to watching over your will power. It can give us the desires to chase after holiness, and the desires to sin. So we need to keep close eye on what it is telling us, and being able to control our will power for use in the chase.

Our will is different from God's will because now we are apart from God, due to something called sin. But what the Chase didn't touch upon is the fact that we as Christians are closer to God, because of Christ, so our 'will' will go after the things God wants, only if we know the things God wants.

That means constant prayer, and reading the word.

We have to keep a close eye on our will (desires) b/c Satan can use them against us, that's why it's important to watch what you let into your mind, b/c our desires can convince us to repeat those bad things we allow in our hearts, to manifest into our actions.

-Brent

The Chase Chapter Eleven: Holiness in body and mind

They really could've put 10 and 11 together to state two points in one chapter, but whatever.

Basically the key to this chapter is this, watch what you let your body absorb.

What I mean by that is;

When was the last time you watched TV? What show did you watch?

Was there, violence, swearing, anything that could lead you to sin or others to sin?

I'm not saying avoid TV altogether, but I am saying we have to learn to control our sinful desires, in fact for the little time me and Cory learnt about disciplines, I learnt that abstinece isn't getting rid of something altogether, it's learning to control your urges to do it or not.

Also we learnt that we have to be in the world and not of it. See I assumed the best way to live a christian life, was to remove everything that caused me to sin in my life. But I closed doors to friends, stop watching TV, stopped going on the internet, etc. What I learnt was I wasn't stopping sinning, I was just stopping all social activity in my life. We have to stay in today's culture if we want to help them see Jesus.

Anyways that is what the chapter sorta touches on, watching what you allow yourself to be influenced by;

if that means abstaing from it, then go for it.

Anyway, at the end of the chapter is the best part for me.

What should we do instead? Read the word, I love it, that is what disciplines are about, not just getting rid of an old habit, but replacing it with a new, God first one.

-Brent

The Chase Chapter Ten: Training for the Marathon

So I just realized with the Olympics going on, I can relate alot with this book to the athlets at the games.

For example this chapter talks about training for a run ( a chase of holiness).

The book brings out constant examples of how reading the bible is alot like drinking the water or eating the food before the race to make you strong, so you don't collaspe.

But really the book, talks about how, we are going to screw up. It's an innevitable fact, we are going to mess up in our chase after holiness. Why? Because they require practice and discipline, just like running a marathon at the olympic games. You can't just wake up and run a marathon like the book meations, but you have to train yourself for the chase.

How? By reading the word, praying and meditating upon it, and living it out. Even though I know I had to do these things about the scripture, lately I've been putting it off for other things, but if I'm going to be strong enough to continue my chase after holiness, I need to read my bible more, pray and meditate upon it more, and live it out, waaaay more.

I thought this chapter was really interesting, although it only brought up a few points, it was consise with how it developed the imagery in your mind. I can see myself racing to the finish line of holiness, even stumbling along the run, but I can see myself, stopping at a pit, taking a breather, reading the word, and getting back out there to continue the run.

Read your bible, all the cool kids are doing it... ( they probably aren't but come on, make it a cool trend)

-Brent

The Chase Chapter Nine: Putting Sin to Death

After reading this chapter, I find that this part of the chase for holiness is my main hurdle.

The effort of holiness isn't the problem, its the breaking of habits that the book brings up in the latter parts of the chapter where I really struggle.

I personally deal with internal sins that trip me up to this day, that I can't share with people, because personally they ashame me. It's the kind of sin that would make your mother cry if you told her.

Like the only person who I can talk to about it is God alone, because I fear what others will think of me if I share it.

We need to make the effort to stop our habit of sin, we have a responsibility to, as the book says.

'We need to cut off any life- the very bloody supply- we give to the sins that rules our lives before Christ.'

I love the analogy they use with the video game, if only it were as easy as that, and with video games, most people decided to just input cheat codes if the game is too difficult. Just like they try to find shortcuts through life.

I watched the movie Luther not too long ago, and people tried to get out of spending time with God by buying indulgences, like doing such a thing would bring them closer to God.

The question the book brings up in this chapter is dealing with after you have put your old life to death.

"How do I cut off the of sins controlling me"

Now I thought I was ready to do such a thing, but it's hard, almost enough to make me quit. In fact for a little while I did in fact. I just let my habit sin control me.

But we can't have anything of this world get in the way of our relationship with God.

NEVER, EVER.

Now then the book tells us that we have to stay in the word for this matter, because how can we be obedient to God's laws, if we don't even know them, right?

How can we know if something is a habit sin, if we never learn it's wrong in the eyes of the Lord.

One way to keep the truth rooted in your heart, to throw at the enemy when he tries to convince you that 'it's only just this once' or that 'it's not bad enough to displease God' is to memorize scripture concerning it.

I'm going to attend RAW, it's a great program that I know God has called me into to further my development into my area of ministry, service.

What better way to learn more about serving, then to memorize scripture concerning service?

Same goes for holiness, and beating our habitual ( if it isn't a word, it is now) sins? To memorize scriptures concerning them.

The hard part about holiness, is owning up to your sin, but making the effort to own up and break down the fortress of control the enemy has built around you allows us to enter a unique and deeper fellowship with God.

We all have to make a commitment, to chase after holiness, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, as the book puts it, or we are just leading ourselves towards the fall.

I'm chasing after it, although I'm still quite not ready to make myself vulnerable enough to share the sin that has dominion in my life, hopefully I will soon.

-Brent

The Chase Chapter Eight: Obedience, not victory

I decided, for my one page write-up that I'm going to put the url to this blog, either that or just print out my blogs, but anyway, I changed my template ( yes I can go off topic) isn't it snazzy?

On to the book;

After I read chapter seven, well got tired, stop reading it part way through, put a TBC in my blogs, and decided to pick the book up again with only 6 days till XLR:8, that all the chapters after 7 were really, really short, I mean the longest one afterwards was what, 7 pages long (thats counting the front and back as seperate).

Chapter Eight isn't really two pages long. But it still brings up some good points.

Like I stated about Chapter 7, we are given the power to beat sin in our lives, it can't control us any longer b/c of what Christ did, and the holy spirit has been sent to help us continue to fend it from ever taken domain back in here.

But as the book says in Chapter eight in the first sentence;

'Now we get to the fun part- our responsibility'

What? You mean I have to do something? I can't be lazy for this holiness thing to work? Your kidding right?

Pfft, this book doesn't know me, I was ready to start acting upon this 7 chapters ago, where was the book telling me to get off my butt and do something then?

Anyway,

Now that I sorta mocked the book, I have to pull out some of the responsibilities we are called to do now that sin doesn't control us, and the holy spirit is on our side.

We have to "Kill off everything connected to that way of death", other words we need to get rid of those things that keep allowing us to be tripped up.

I like the part in the hebrews verse where it says 'Strip down, start running- and never quit'. I can picture that, the things in my life that our holding me back, and making me go slower in the race, I need to 'strip' so I can get to that finish line, instead of tiring out and quiting the race.

I was in the boy scouts growing up, I hated it, really, I was forced into it, and the people there were jerks, I can forgive them, but I did pick up a few lessons from them. "Do your best" was the motto, and it applies to our effort in the chase of holiness as well.

I've realized that holiness isn't just going to come after I read a passage or two, and pray for it. It takes a life time to master, and then some, and we have to put the effort in if we want to make any progress.

The book says we also have to fess up to our own actions we make, and decisions ( even the bad ones) we choose to take. We have to accept that responsibilty of admitting we are wrong, and we need to get back on the chase for holiness, and not get side tracked by all the spectators on the side watching us...

*Sees Icecream Truck during race* I'm CHASING AFTER HOLINESS NOT ICE COLD ICECREAM, with it's smooth texture, and it's delicious taste, and its flavour that mealts in your mouth, and...

-Brent

The Chase Chapter Seven: Help in the daily battle

I like the little summary of what my life sorta is at the beginning of the chapter, although the story isn't my testimony the points in my life with that story still connect.

Although some of the questions they ask really don't relate to me, about how I think something about the last chapter, I do love the point they make after it.

Part of the rescue from sin is the ability to win your daily battles against it.

Then we get into being alive in God, which is something talked about, but not really discussed. The book to this point has made an emphasis behind being dead to sin.

But now that we are no longer under the influence of sin and its control and under the new influence of Christ, we can start to live a holy life.

'You can't live a holy life on your own. Christianity is not a do-it-yourself thing'.

I love that line, we really can't do it without God.

Then they talk about how we can pull of these victories in our daily battles, through the strength God gives us, and through our perserverance.

Holiness isn't just about following a list of do's- and don'ts it's about learning to listening and obeying God.

God doesn't push us around, but he works through us and gives us strength for our internal battle.

"Brent White" is alive to God and dead to sin.

We all need to put our faith in the word, and practice resisting sin's advances and temptations don't we?

The book makes a great answer on how we should do this.

'You count on the fact that every time your tempted, Christ will give you the strength you need to resist temptation and beat back sin.'

Remember God allows us to be tempted and provides a way out so we can grow to be better Christians.

God gives us the holy spirit to give us the strength to beat sin, and to convict us of it when we make mistakes (which we do, all the time).

The book makes a good point about practicing what you hear and read from the bible. It's one thing to listen to something, but another to act it out.

We need to depend on the holy spirit because we simply can't overcome our sinfulness on our own. The strength the holy spirit is their to help us.

The book gives us two ways to express our dependance on the holy spirit, both which I have been lacking to do lately;

Keep a constant intake of the scripture, and to pray for holiness.

This brightens my outlook on the chase for holiness, knowing that I have help.

-Brent

Business

Not buisness, but business, is that even a word?

Whatever it is in my dictionary.

Have you ever been stressed? If you said no, stop reading.

I'm totally sick, I mean, fever, cough, chest pain, bleeding eyes, the works.

So today was total crap for me, I mean I lasted through A&B block, but after my Magic show, I was totally wiped, I mean I was having hard time breathing, but I pressed on, but at a point of physical and mental health, I was dead, when I got home, I just collaspe on the floor, and woke up to a phone call.

Nothing special, wrong phone number, but I decided to call Ashley Mayer for being a big help today, I mean I don't think I would've been able to pull off that show had it not been with her and others help.

But I'm just wiped as well in my life period. Today was awful, but my life recently has just been really, really chaotic. Karyn you think your stay in Texas was bad with all those misfortunes over and over again, well I basically have been having that happen to me all week, I don't have the strength to keep going.

I want to stay home and sleep tomorrow, but I can't, Chemistry and Socials test on stuff I haven't studied. I want to study but I tried earlier and the thinking part hurt me so much, and stressed me out that when I just wanted to weep in pain, blood came from my eyes. Luckily I have medicine for that, but its just really bad.

The only thing that has kept me going today is the fact that God is with me, he doesn't mind if I complain every step of the way, he keeps his head up looking at all the high points of the day, and someparts of the day he kept reminding me of them, but right now I just want to put my complaints out there, you know, just get them off my chest.

My schedule is chaotic, provincials are coming up, and ha, guess what, I get to be sick as soon as school becomes super difficult. I just hope God's strength really is boundless, because its going to be impossible to do this without him.

Now before you post a comment let me just tell you, this is just a rant about the bad parts of my day.

When things calm down I'll keep posting 'Chase' blogs, but for now, I need to stop, I need to focus on one thing at a time, right now its finals and provincials. I just need to contact Jon somehow and explain this to him..

*sigh* I'm going to bed,

-Brent

PS. Karyn you rock for showing up and giving me support, same goes for all you guys.

^_^ Jen Champ doesn't read my blogs!

New song

I actually chorded this one out, because I wrote it whilst playing guitar.

Live for you - Brent White
Em C G
Oh, Lord I tried it my way, I tried it my way,
D
Not what I thought.
Em C G
I tried it their way, I tried it their way,
D
Not what I expected.

Em C G D
When I was lost you found me, in your open arms.
Em C G D
When I was broken and wounded, you healed me with your loving heart.
Em C G D
When I was tempted by Satan, you lead me on the righteous path.
Em C G D
When I was going to surely die, you took my place upon the cross.


(chorus)
G D Em C
Oh God, I wanna live for you, in everything I do, I'll live for you,
G D Em C
Oh God, I'll live bring you praise, all of my days, I will live for you.

If you want to see the actually chord layout you have to check out the forums.

-Brent

The Chase Chapter Six: The Battle for Holiness

"The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up."
-Romans 7:21

All the first verses to each chapter to "The Chase" were really good, but this one basically talks about our struggle with sin, and how it trips us up. You see I tried for awhile to live a holy life and I was on a spiritual high from it, but as soon as I fell back into my sinful life I had before I was easily trapped by the enemy. Don't worry I'm still pursuing a holy life, but for awhile, I didn't want anything to do with it, because I had tried and failed, and I kept telling myself what was the point in trying something that I'm going to end up messing up anyways?

But then I heard from God, that we don't have to be perfect for him to love us, he loves us just the way we are. I needed to hear it too.

Let's dig further into this chapter shall we.

The fact that we will face sin all of our days on earth is brought up here, and it is a tough struggle to face. A struggle that lasts a life time, not a kind of battle to fight in. But we know the outcome due to our salvation, so we should press against the enemy no matter how tough the battle may seem, we know that thanks to God and his son Christ Jesus the battle of sin controlling our lives is over, we need to now not let it tell us what to do, instead listen and obey to what God says and commands.

I like how this chapter sums up what battle they are talking about. The battle in our heart between 'the nature we have to sin' and 'the desire to live a holy life'.

Even though sin doesn't control us, it is still attacks us, and will control us if we let it.

'We've got to be on watch constantly, because sin is ready to make sure we don't come out ahead. It wants us to fail.'

I like how the book meantions a battle plan of how to win the war against sin.

It first begins with are heart. Our heart to me is basically our focus, but the book talks about your whole being and motives behind your actions as your heart. It says we can't understand our own heart, and agree to a point, but in my opinion we can put motives in our heart, for example the desire to live a holy life is a motive in my heart, even though I can't search it, I want to pursue holiness as a choice.

But anyway, the book talks about how sin can lay dormant in our hearts, and the only way we can know about it (usually it is hiding there without us knowing, b/c we don't classify it as a sin, or we don't think its a problem) is to allow the holy spirit to search our hearts and reveal our hidden sins to us. I know personally the holy spirit has revealed a bunch of sins that I really didn't classify as 'sins'. I have really hard times overcoming some of them, and others are easy to stop.

What the book meations next is allowing God to give you, your desires (his desires, your purpose, your focus.. etc.) and allow him to remove the desires that will result in you lead into sin. We still need to allow him to do so.

The book brings up the fact that we choose to sin, it's from our own desires that we are lead into sinning by our own actions. Not Gods, not Satan's. It's US who sin.

Sin is a crafty enemy and we need to be ready to take it down at any time. That's why memorizing scripture and praying continually is so important, it keeps us in constant connection to God. Like having him on the other line on the telephone whilst talking to someone, and when a desire to sin happens to come along into that conversation, we switch lines and ask God what to do.

I learnt another vital thing from this, don't get caught up into spritual highs and think you can never fall from them, what I mean is, don't think that just b/c your not doing a certain sin that you are invulnerable to sin. We can fall victim to sin anytime, and being cocky will take us off our guard to be tripped up by the enemy.

There was a man who lived in spain in the 17th century, he was the greatest fencer in the whole world, no man could beat him, but he was defeated when he let his ego get in the way of his fight.
He decided he was beating his opponet left, right, and center, but his opponet was using his right hand the whole course of the match, and stopped and said, that if he was so good he could beat him using his other hand, and he would use his other hand as well. Well the man let his ego get the best of him and agreed, not having any practice with his left hand was easily beaten by his left handed opponet.

I sometimes let my ego get in the way of a direct fellowship with God. Without that friendship we won't get some of the nessasary trade resources from our alley God and be beaten by our enemy when we are starved.

Hopefully you get that.

-Brent

Scary moment

I was walking home from Friday youth at Cariboo, and almost home, just as I turn the corner in my alley way, I see this huge dog.

I mean huge, it was a rottweiler bigger than me. It looked fierce.. I was like "oh crap" in my head.

It stood still, as I saw it, it could tell I was afraid of it ( great just what I need, it to smell my fear).

I'm usually not scared of big tough dogs, but ones at night, in a dark alley off a leash with no-one around, changed my outlook of this one.

Then I heard God say to stand still, thinking it was just something I heard on a nature show about black bears, I did it what I was thinking. I stood perfectly still, it still didn't move, this wasn't looking good.

I was going to shout out "God save me" but instead in my head I pretty muttered "In the name of Christ, leave me alone".. then it started to walk toward me, but in a creepy manner, very slowly it walked passed me, never taking it's eyes from my own, like it was staring into my soul.

After it was pretty much far away from me, I started to walk to my house in a calm manner, the whole time thanking God in my head for protecting me.

I turned to look back at the dog, and it was doing the same... creepy..

Anyway I went quickly into my house and breathed a sigh of relief.

Whilst on the toliet ( yes I needed to go really bad, and I'm not ashamed to bring the story to you honestly) I asked God what was the whole point of that test.

God pretty much said that the Dog was like Satan ready to pounce on me. He said b/c I stood still and let God protect me instead of running (which is human nature) I was safe for trusting in me. I could totally picture me trying to outrun that dog and failing horribly, but instead I stood still and let God protect me, even when I was scared out of my mind.

No further comments, as I nearly had a heart attack.

-Brent

The Chase Chapter 5: Change of Kingdoms

Ok seriously, had I read this part of the book before spiriling into a month of depressed defeat, I probably would've had my answers from the get go.

This is an awesome chapter so lets pull out some stuff in it that really spoke to me.

"Does it seem like the same issues and sins always come creeping back into your life?"

Yes

Seriously I love the questions this book asks b/c their realistic. Anyway the book tells us not to get comfortable with our sins, and why? B/c Christ put to death our sins so we would no longer be held back by them.

"We don't have to live like sin is controlling us... unfortunately for most of us, that freedom passes by us and we end up frustrated."

You see, choosing not to sin is exactly that, it's a choice we choose to take. It's not forced upon us, we aren't given no choice but not to (b/c, hello we've been talking about LIVING A HOLY LIFE! ding ding other choice) its a path we choose, far too often to find ourselves walking down. Why?

Why do we sin?

One answer I know, is b/c we enjoy doing it.

The book gives a bunch more, like it's what were raised into being natural. Like follow your parent's habits, we as humans follow the world into sinning, but we shouldn't be making excuses, ultimately we choose to sin, what we need to do is choose not too.

No matter how hard you try though, your old life of sin keeps creeping back though...

Exactly what got me depressed in the first place.

I love how the book describes us moving away from a country where sin is soverign, we don't have to let sin control us anymore, but we do, b/c why?

It's comfortable and what were used to. Other words, it's a habit, and like most habits other habits, its a bad one, we need to stop doing.

We need to rely on God to help us with beating our habit of sinning, and to not get beat down by it over and over, but to run into Christs open arms for help and future strength to win the battles to come.

We need to all spend more time in rehab learning to live in this new life, instead of going back to the comfortable old life. I didn't become a Christian to live an easy life, and if you did, you picked the wrong crowd to hang out with. We will be looked at differently, insulted for doing whats right, and mocked for standing up for what we believe in, by hypocritical society.

"We can wrap up all of this by remembering that God has made a way for us to be holy. Because of what Christ did on the cross, we've been freed from our sin's control and we can now resist it. The responsibility is ours- we must resist sin."

It reminds of a message I once wrote about how faith is established.

Basically I got this vision of me sitting down at the dinner table with God, and it was sorta a pot luck between the two of us. We each had to bring something, both had to bring something unique that the other couldn't bring. One was trust, and that comes from God, the fact we can trust in him, and we have to bring obeidience to go along with his trust, so that the turkey of living a faithful life tastes really good.

But ya, we have to bring our effort, God has already brought his son Jesus to die on the cross, for our freedom of sin. The buck has been passed to us, and don't worry, your going to drop it, but the best part is, God is there to help us pick it up again, just like he is always willing to pass the salt if our corn of obedience is a little dry.

-Brent

The Chase Chapter Four: The holiness of Christ

If I know about Christ's holiness I'll feel secure with him? When I first read this I was like, pfft, whatever, but as I come to see Christ's holiness I can truely trust him as that very best friend who will never let me down.

Why?
Because Christ was perfect, he never sinned, thank goodness too, I mean if Christ was a sinner, I doubt Christianity would have an impact as it has today, people could call us idiots for following a hypocrite. But Christ is not. He never sinned, he is perfect, and b/c of that perfectness he could do something I could never do, die in place of my sins.

I don't thank God enough for that, I think we all do, we tend to remember around easter or Christmas, but I think we need to thank God every morning for being saved.

It's rocking that Christ is perfect, b/c he is like the manual of how to be a christian. Come into a problem at school, "WWJD" and follow what he would do and it will please God.

Jesus' holiness was not just on the outside but in his heart as well, his motives were for God, everything he did was for bringing God glory. What really got me down was failing to be like Christ allowed my emotions get me into a hole of despair that helped Satan take me down. Luckly God was still rooted in me enough for me to call on him and his servants to help me get back on my feet.

God loves me the way I am, so I don't have to be wrapped up in failing God, b/c I'm going to do it alot, and it's just going to keep tripping me up. What I need to do is learn from my mistakes and look to the example of Christs holiness to guide me on what to do next time so I don't keep repeat sinning.

I need to have Christ blueprint of holiness shine in my life, and it requires me to stop being tramatized for making God upset, and to run into his open arms and allow him to guide me out of it, and to continuly show me what to do next.

I'm tired and my spelling went intot eh garbage

-Brent