pardoned.net

I’m learning more and more about spiritual limbo, but not in the sense of a spiritual ‘status quo’ but in the sense of the party-game.

There’s an inherent truth about spirituality, you’re either growing spiritually or for a lack of a better word dying spiritually –usually I would use stagnating, but it doesn’t reflect the proper complex nature of spiritual life.

There is a gravity that wants to pull us down from a spiritual high, getting closer to Jesus. That gravity is everything about this world, about myself, about my sin. And the only way to get higher is to go lower. Unless an airplane is pushing upward it is falling downward. Unless a Christian is bending his own will lower he is flying away from the cross of Jesus.

“If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” (Mark 9:35)

For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. (Matt 23:12)

In my experience, as much as my sin pushes me upward, to straighten up in pride and claim my so-called rights… I find that God is forcefully pushing me lower, to see myself as I am in humility… I feel like I’m stuck in some cosmic trash compactor.

Well I found out today that I didn’t get accepted to the Gospel For Asia Road to Reality internship that I applied for. I knew it was a possibility, in fact a big part of me doubted that I’d even be considered (the application required brutal honesty about my past sin and current struggles) but its reassuring to know that at least I made it to the point where they called references and my Pastor.

I had prayed a lot about the internship over the last several months and really felt that it was God’s will that I at least apply. I started the application at least three times before finally submitting it, each time running into self-doubt. It took me several months of false starts to finally get the application in. When I did finally feel that it was the right thing to do I was sure that it was God leading me.

I really don’t know how to describe what I’m feeling. KP Yohannan talked about how he felt one time when he was passed over for a similar opportunity in missions; he said it was a defining moment in his spiritual life.

There’s a dark part of me that really wants to run with this and say, ‘I told you so, you’re so useless.’ But then I need to remember that God allowed this to happen this way, and He is in control –for whatever reason I didn’t get accepted into the internship it was the best possible thing that could have happened.

It’s time to take account of the things in my life, in humility and brokeness.

Ripped the DVD and posted on Google, enjoy! Make sure to check out Last Days Ministries too.

Keith Green - Your Love Broke Through

Keith Green - I Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven

While chatting with a friend I made a meandering connection between Brother Andrew and KP Yohannan (using Leonard Ravenhill, George Verwer and others…) Then my friend asked me, ‘But what about Kevin Bacon?’ And then I did something amazing, which I didn’t believe possible -Brother Andrew to Kevin Bacon.

Brother Andrew was a good friend with the late Leonard Ravenhill (Leonard even claimed jokingly to have suggested the name for the book ‘God’s Smuggler’). Leonard Ravenhill was a father figure and mentor to the late Christian musician and teacher Keith Green. Keith Green, late in his life, was in a close relationship with Loren Cunningham, founder of YWAM. Loren Cunningham’s son David Loren Cunningham directed the movie ‘To End All Wars’ based on the book by Ernest Gordon and staring Kiefer Sutherland. Kiefer Sutherland was in the movie ‘Flatliners’ with Kevin Bacon!

Are you amazed?!