A Royal Wedding

With Spring in the air, the sound of restoration from a long winter comes and sweeps us off our feet into summer. I know it’s been a while, but I was waiting on the Lord to drop something big. As always, he did. As I was saying that spring is in the air, and there has been something else in the air in the past few months that could not be overlooked by the whole world. That’s right, a Royal Wedding. Prince William and Kate Middleton get married and everyone knows it. That’s right, God exploded some revelation on me through this whole ordeal and I think you may be encouraged by this as much as I was.

William and Kate had a wedding that was a bit shocking. There were millions of people, lots of smiles, and if that’s not enough there were three separate , yet distinct, wedding receptions. Fellow male reader, don’t even look at the pictures, they will blow every single wedding plan you’ve ever had out of the water. This was something that was to be noted by everyone, that Prince William found his wife Kate to be something very special to his heart.

This all being said, what the revelation you ask? A little look into Kate’s life might help open your eyes. See the former Kate Middleton wasn’t much more than a common girl. She was never royalty, and in fact she tended to like somewhat of a party life. Now I’m not here to bash her, but I’m here to show you that there wasn’t anything special about her except she caught the eye of a very royal love.

Think about it! God said, “Bryan, your nothing special, but you have caught the eye of a very royal love!” We the Church, people who surrender their lives fully to Christ, are the “Kate Middleton” of this world. We are nothing special, nothing royal, and if we really look into things, we find that we are kind of into the party life. We have entered into a Holy Royal Love.

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” Ephesians 5:25-27

With all this being said, there is now a further calling that we must rise into in order for us to become the Bride of Christ. Think about this, Princess Kate is now living a higher life than she was required to live before. She can’t live life as a common person. So is such with us, the Church.

“2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” COLOSSIANS 3:2-4

The main difference between Kate and us is that she married her prince. Church it’s time We ready ourselves for our grooms coming. I’ll leave you with this, a picture of hope for the Church.

“7 Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. 8 Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.”(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.) 9 Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.” REVELATION 19:7-9

I love you all Beloved

A Fresh Revelation

Now what I’m about to bring to light today could literally be considered a blog writers suicide. The point of writing this blog it to encourage and motivate readers to dive into God word in a new way, and to hopefully give you readers some tools, to not wait once a week , but to read the word every day. I’ve started to notice in my heart a trend. With my blog, I started to worry more about how many people were reading it, as much as/or if not more than, what was being shown. Further, I have talked with some of my readers during the week and have found there are many questions that I hoped my blog would have covered. For example questions like, “How you know the things you know?” or, “How can I get a similar dip into scripture like you do?” In saying these questions, please don’t think I’m placing myself at any high value or any greater spiritual journey than what you are able to experience. I’m right where you all are. 

What I feel led to share with you today is something that is hard for my flesh to reveal to you. I like to feel as though I’m important, and feel as though I’m needed. That being said, I don’t want you to read this and pity me either. So before I go any further, let me answer some things and then show you what God has for us! 1) Yes, I have been going to school to study the bible. 2) My teachers have spent hours and I have spent thousands of dollars to learn the background stuff I know. However, all the stuff I’ve learned and kept, have not been all from school. Everything I know I feel that scripture brings to life, and all the other tools I’ve ever used are tools either your church owns and you could barrow, or every local library has them. You don’t have to pay anything to know what I know. In fact you don’t have to weed out all the lies to get to the truth like I mostly have to do. You want to know why? You have something that is living inside of you that can open scripture to you in a way I never will be able to. 

“10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”But we have the mind of Christ.” 1 CORINTHANS 2:10-16

Paul being led by the Holy Spirit is sharing here about how he is not sharing man’s word, rather he is sharing something that was revealed by the Holy Spirit. Look at the beauty of verse 11. We have the Holy Spirit that lives inside us! Moreover, that same Spirit knows the heart and mind of God and knows exactly what God’s intentions are in scripture. Think about it, we believe as Christians that the Spirit wrote the whole bible! So my question to God lately is, “God why are they asking me?” We need to remember that God does speak: through his word, through our friends, but more importantly in our alone time with him! I can promise you this, what I write in these blogs will only cover a glimpse of what God can show you in His word, through the Spirit. 

Today is less about how many people read these blogs. Today is about understanding that whether this is your first time reading this, or you’ve read every single one, God is waiting to show us something special every single day. We just need a little reminder about where it’s coming from. Not from man, but from the Holy Spirit. 

“11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” ACTS 17:11

 It’s time were are more like Bereans and less like everybody else. If this is the last blog post you read by me, I’m okay with that, as long as you are pressing into the Spirit who opens all things. Moreover, if this is the last time you read my blogs period, I’m okay with that because I serve a God who is more satisfying than the feeling of getting the most blog views. 

It’s time to press in Beloved!

Holy Desert Batman

So before I write this all out, I want you all to know that I’m going through this too! Lately I’ve been going through a period of pruning with the Lord. You know, one of those times where God shows you areas in your life that you need to rid yourself of. My area in my fleshly wants and desires, now I know this pruning process will be continual, but God is doing some ridding in one of my big struggles.  I’m finding that I’m not the only one recently in this position and in seeing this, God wanted me to remind you of something!

“12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.” MARK 1:12-13

Notice that this scene takes place right after Jesus got baptized. Not only that, but this is when the heavens opened and God speaks. Something HUGE just happened and now Jesus immediately is lead into the wilderness. Matthew and Luke tell us specifically what Jesus was tempted with, but Mark isn’t focusing on those. Here is what God is showing me about Mark’s version. He said, “Bryan, as you can see I lead my son in the wilderness for a good period of time, and I attended to him. What makes you think you’ll be any different?” Wow was that an awakening! Our struggles seem so long or tough in the times we are in them, but if we look at the bigger story of Mark’s Gospel, we find it’s real easy for us to look past this dessert story. Remember, The Holy Spirit has led us to this desert time, and is going to lead us through it. On top of all of that, I’m a big believer that we learn more about ourselves and more importantly we learn more about God in the desert than we would in any other situation. So hold fast to Him! This is only a period, a shot time!

“6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 1 PETER 1:6-7

Thank you Jesus for building faith and perseverance in Your Church, the Bride of Jesus. Continue to prune us Lord and make us more like you! Give us a heart of praise Oh Lord! In Jesus name I Pray. Amen

Love ya Beloved

Fast and Furious

So it’s been a bit, took a week break from writing here because I was waiting for the Lord to drop something big for you, and He never fails! The reason for the picture above is because there is a vision I think God has for His church, which we must become humble to. I’m talking tunnel vision for the Lord Jesus in this depraved and fallen world we live in.

Dictionary.com calls tunnel vision, “narrowness of viewpoint resulting from concentration on a single idea, opinion, etc, to the exclusion of others.” Think about it, we need to as the body of Christ concentrate so much on Jesus that everything else in our peripheral view is out of focus and not easy to look at or even see. I think about the movie series The Fast and Furious and am reminded of similar glimpses of what tunnel vision looks like. They would hit their NOS turbo, injecting highly flammable gas into their engines, causing them to run faster and harder than they were the whole race. In that time the driver would have a similar viewpoint as the above picture.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” MATTHEW 6:33

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” JEREMIAH 29:13

“ ⁹ For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, ¹⁰ so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹ being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, ¹² and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. ¹³ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” COLOSSIANS 1:9-14

It’s promises like these that are our NOS turbo. That accelerate us into full focus of what it is we are to be doing. It’s in this focus that we are to move. I believe that when have our eyes set on Jesus in this way, we will never miss any opportunity He has for us because those opportunities lead to finding Him. For example, Peter gets out of the boat when Jesus walks on water and Peter walks out to him. See he had his full focus on Christ. It wasn’t until he started looking at himself and the things around him that caused him to sink. 

Too many times we let this world and its pleasures cause us to sink. It’s time we refocus our aim! In William Gurnall’s book The Christian in the Complete Armour he states, “so many run and so few obtain; so many go into the field against Satan, and so few come out conquerors; because all have a desire to be happy, but few have courage and resolution to grapple with the difficulties that meet them in the way to their happiness.” Further he writes, “Blind zeal is soon put to a shameful retreat, while holy resolution, built on fast principles, lifts up its head like a rock in the midst of the waves.” It’s time we have some Holy resolution and seek after Christ. This resolution will come when we set our whole heart and focus on Jesus. This has to be done in private as much as in public!

 The time is now. We are living in the final hour, don’t miss this Beloved

Thank You Jesus

So I’ve been in Rockford, IL for the past few days and I have to say that God has been blowing me away! There was a sermon I heard this week, and I gotta tell you that something was said that I overlook all the time! Let’s take a dive into Colossians and see what God has for us.

“17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” COLOSSIANS 3:17

If you read this book, there is a theme that we that we tend to truly forget about! See before this verse Paul uses the word “thank” 4 times. See if God takes time to write something down once, it’s important. However if he says something more than once, we should really pay attention! Paul says that we should, without option, be thankful or in a mode of thankfulness as Christians. This is reflected in Colossians 3:1-2:

“ 1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

See the theme? When we are focused on being thankful, we have a clearer vision to what God is doing in our lives! When we are thankful, it helps us to keep our minds on things that are above. God thank you how you pulled me for the pits of hell and brought me to life. Thank you Lord that I live in a country where I have the freedom to seek a relationship with you! Thank you God that I Have a job, have a family, ect... We all have something to be thankful for, whether that be simply the breath in your lungs, we all have something. It’s in this mode that we are able to remember God is able to do things that we could never imagine. I can attest, if Jesus can change my life, He can do anything!

Thank you God for the internet that I can use it to encourage people in a real way! God you are amazing, and I thank you this revelation!

It’s time to be Thankful Beloved!

God You're Crazy

There is a topic that has been on my heart this week that I think all of us need a reminder of from time to time. If you look at my small testimony to the left there is a theme that will resonate throughout not just my story, but many of your stories as well. That theme is Grace. God is so graceful and merciful that He would allow someone like me, and someone like you, to work in His Kingdom. See the bible says something very important about sin and how it affects us.

“23 For the wages of sin is death…” ROMANS 6:23A

This is something that we tend to look right past. Let’s look at it a little closer. Wages are something that we work for. For example, if I work 25 hours this week at my job, I earn a net wage or payment for my work. Now when we apply it to this scripture, we see that when we sin or payment is death. “Whooa, hold up Bryan! You mean to tell me that when I sin my payment is death?” That’s right, that’s the bible verse right there. Now I only quoted this verse from the first half of it to make this point, we don’t deserve anything we have when it comes to Jesus. Christ doesn’t owe you anything! We’re not doing God a favor by living a certain way and calling ourselves Christian.

WE DESERVE DEATH!

Back to my theme here, by looking at my story and maybe even looking at yours, we know that there are so many times where we haven’t died because of our sin. That’s because of God’s Grace. That’s because God loved us so much that he sent His Son to die for you. To die for me.

“Bryan, I know this. Why are you telling me this elementary teaching about Jesus?” I’m telling you because God wants the focus on him. I went to a worship service last Friday and when I was there God gave me a vision of the first time I met Jesus. The mess that I was. The Grace he shared with me. I can promise you this, I worshiped harder than I ever have in my life! I went all out! It’s all because of Grace that we are able to do anything. It’s God’s Grace that shows us his Love. I sympathize with Paul when he said:

“10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” 1 CORINTHIANS 15:10

It’s by grace that we are where we are. It’s His Grace that moves us. See we deserve death, but

He gives grace!

Let me finish the earlier verse:

“23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23

All he wants is for us to continually have faith, believe on him, walk by grace, and share his love. This is an EVERYDAY THING! It’s time we remember the Grace we walk in!


I love you Beloved.