With a Cherry on Top!

So God recently brought me back to a verse that struck on of those spiritual nerves and you think, ouch that hurts! It’s one of those praise God and feeling of complete humiliation at the same time type of moments. Let’s take a look at Romans 12:10:

“10 Show family affection to one another with brotherly love. Outdo one another in showing honor.”

First I want to break the first section down. In our society the structure of the family is crippling, so of course it’s hard to see the proper meaning of the first part. In Hebrew culture family has a much different meaning than it does in our day and age. Hebrew culture would sometimes consider cousins and cousins of cousins as brothers and sisters. To say you had a friend that was closer than a brother, means that was a really great friend. Of course there were squabbles and frustration as times, look at King David’s family history. All of that said, it means that to call someone outside of your family your brother or sister, better yet treat some one that way, probably meant the world to them!

The thing that God really beat me around with was a new idea that reflects on the second half of the verse. “Outdo one another…” I had a love/hate relationship with this phrase but came to love it when God reopened the thought the other day. When we talk about outdoing someone, we tend to put it in a way that could be derogatory to someone else. It can birth competition. Then God reminded me that there is healthy competition and unhealthy competition. What if we had a healthy competitive spirit that promoted showing honor to others?

I was like, “God what does that look like?” Then poof, came the idea. Have you ever said the phrase, “Pretty please, with a cherry on top?” God said, “Bryan I’m calling you to be the cherry on the top of someone’s ice cream! It doesn’t matter if someone is in a bad mood, or a good mood, I’m calling you to put them in a better mood than they were before because of the honor you give them!” Imagine what our lives would look like if they were full of people who where outdoing one another in showing honor or being the cherry on your ice cream. Imagine what your friend’s lives, your work atmosphere, your school setting, or your own family situation would look like if you followed this challenge.

My challenge is simple, as funny as it may sound, be the cherry on someone’s ice cream this week! Outdo me in showing honor to others.

I love you beloved.

Beware Of The Judas Spirit

So it’s been a real long time, but this was very good insight the Lord showed me so I want to share it with you! This blog post is called Beware Of The Judas Spirit not because Judas Iscariot had an apocryphal gospel in his name. Not because he simply betrayed Jesus. It’s called this because God showed me something different about Judas today. Let me use Matthew 26:22-25 to show you what I mean:

22 They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, “Surely you don’t mean me, Lord?”23 Jesus replied, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. 24 The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.” 25 Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, “Surely you don’t mean me, Rabbi?” Jesus answered, “You have said so.”

Did you catch it? It’s very subtle. Jesus brings it into the open that He is about to be betrayed by one of His closest friends. One of the people Jesus called to be His future presence in this world will be the one that betrays Him! But notice the response of I’m guessing about eleven of the twelve of them. They say, “Surely you don’t mean me, Lord?” This term Lord shows that they are submissive to Him. He has an authority in their lives. He is whom they follow. But notice what Judas calls him, “Rabbi.” He subtly says, “Jesus, you the great teacher, don’t mean me?”

Bryan, what does this have to do with anything? See Judas had a level of intimacy with Jesus that some of us here and now will never have in this life. He walked, talked, ate, drank, and even laughed with Him, all in the physical. He probably shared struggles with Jesus, prayed with Jesus, and did ministry with Jesus. In spite of all of this, this passage shows us that Judas never saw Jesus in the proper view. Throughout every Gospel Judas never calls Jesus his Lord. He simply calls Him his teacher, his Rabbi.

Some of us today are just like this, some more than others. Some of us call ourselves Christians and don’t realize that that term IMPLIES submission to Jesus as Lord. We simply look at our life and what happens and say to ourselves I’m doing this Christian walk, thing, trend like Jesus would want me to. I’m living a good, moral life, yet in the process we miss the point. On the other hand, there are some of us who submit that Jesus is our Lord, yet in certain instances in our lives see him as a teacher. A teacher is someone who tells you the right answers, and how to come to those conclusions; but you don’t have to follow or agree with a teacher at all times. So with that in mind, there are instances in some of our lives that some of us know what to do and how to do it, but since in this area of our lives Jesus is our Rabbi, we follow our own way!

Both of these ways of living the Christian Walk have terrible endings. When your walk is put under the scope of your friends, your family, your spouse, or you significant other and they want to do something contrary to the things of the Lord; for some reason we will throw Christ right on the cross for the thirty pieces of silver we call reputation, affection, or lust. Even worse yet, you may find your spiritual walk diminishing because you are constantly walking in your old, sinful ways and the conviction is so thick that you feel like you committing spiritual suicide. There is such a big disconnect from you and The Lord. All of this comes from us having a similar mindset. I challenge you today fam, submit yourselves to Jesus! He is the Good Shepherd and in your surrender will give you a call and a purpose that nothing or nobody can take from you!

I love you Beloved!

El Salvador Trip 2011 Part 1

Hey everyone, hope all has been well. It feels like a small eternity since I've last written, but I think God has given me some things to share with you guys that hopefully inspire you to ponder on him and his character. See as Christians we sometimes forget the basis of our name and what it means to be Christian. The term Christian in the greek literally means "little Christ." In other words we must exemplify Jesus, the Christ, in our daily lives as much as possible to be called by this name. It should also be noted that this was not a term that Jesus' original disciples called themselves. This was a term given to them by worldly rulers of their time. That being said, Jesus' way of doing things, the things his live bring people, and the freedom we as believers walk in, should be displayed in walking this walk. Now remember, we are not able to do any of this without the help of the Holy Spirit, a gift that Jesus graciously gave us, but we can accomplish this.


With all this build up, I want to share a small piece of Jesus that I saw in a very real way down in El Salvador that has awakened me to see a side of me that isn't quite fun. There was an intern down there named Jenissa and she humbled herself to the Lord all week as to teach us something. To some, her actions were overlooked or easily forgotten, but I simply couldn't shake what God was showing me. Every day we would do 4 to 5 evangelistic dramas a day. These dramas took anywhere from 20 minutes to 30 minutes, and in very hot humid weather. With all this work being done I had to drink an average of 8 to 9 bottles of water a day to stay hydrated. This wasn't much different for everyone else on our trip including Jenissa. 


What she did is what some might say is simple, but I couldn't say that at that time I would do. With 25 of us from Northpoint, 5 leaders from El Salvador, and our bus driver; we were all always asking for our water bottles to be refilled. PAY ATTENTION TO THIS NEXT PART. Jenissa stood at the front of the bus and asked everyone who wanted their water bottle filled. She would fill everyones water bottle before she would get her bottle filled. I Would remember several small trips that she never got to fill her bottle. YOU CATCHING IT? I'll give you one more example. She at one point had to use the bathroom and asked if anyone else had to, simply to make sure she wouldn't have the bus stop simply for her. When nobody had to go, she told the driver that she would wait. She waited for 45 minutes then some others on the bus raised their voices to use the bathroom, and they all went. CATCH IT YET?


She waited in both instances to make sure that she wasn't going to be served. Her heart was make sure she was going to be served last. She had many other examples throughout the week. Her display reminded me of some very important passages that I have recently been looking at more closely.

"3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3-4


"26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Matthew 20:26-28

See Jesus wants us to understand that he never came to this earth to be served. He came to serve and in some cases I think this is something simple yet amazing that we sometimes miss as American Christians. Can you imagine what your workplace would be like if you never complained and just served your managers? Can you imagine what our families would look like if we served them without hesitation? What would our city, our nation, our world look like if we did things like Christians, Little Christs? 


I love you Beloved. 

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