the living, active Word of God

I haven't been on here in quite a while, mainly cause my electricity company wouldn't answer the phone and shut off the power to my house, and when they finally answered and turned it back on, it fried the motherboard in my computer. I'm on my little brother's now, but it's not quite the same.

God is so active around here lately, as He is all over the country from some things I've heard. We've had at least 8 people saved in the past 3 months, 8 BIG salvations, not that any is more important than any other or I hold any as of more value, but they are REAL salvations. Revival is breaking out and not stopping. I'm also seeing a big revolution in thought...the yielded life is being taught by many teachers in different forms lately. Piper calls it resting in Christ and of course has a beautiful, long description of it. He's written about it in His book What Christ Demands of the World. Then, the head of a big Christian school in the area recently did a sermon called The Unremarkable Gospel, where he said he had discovered lately that we have the most unremarkable part in the gospel, we just abide, that's all. Christ gets full credit for doing everything else. There are many more cases, I've heard 2 new ones this week. The Holy Spirit definately isn't limited anywhere.

In me, God has taken me back to my young days as a Christian, when I was a newborn in Christ. I've discovered I was probably in a better mindset with a better passion then then I have ever been since. I was a radical and I wanted to change things...I wrote about it in journals, wrote essays about it, talked about it to many...and then I became reasonable. To quote the movie Amazing Grace, "When you were young you asked God for advice." "Well now I've grown up...and grown foolish." I count all I've learned the past 3 years as loss compared to knowing Christ, because somewhere I started relying on my knowledge and not on His power. But I'm going back to that, and finding God still wants to grow me there. I'm learning to cast off reasonableness, and to become like a wide-eyed child who, having seen his Hero, believes He can do anything.

Which leads me to the biggest news and what I hope you'll pray for me about. Reform is in the air. God put it in my heart, and He affirmed me in it over and over. I began to talk to people about what God was doing in me, and how I felt we needed to start unifying to push for a big change in the church (as I hear is happening in several places all over the country). It started with 3 people. Then there were 5 of us. Now there are 10. Last night we met together and God used me to set before them what He would have us do, learn to abide. Wait patiently, and let Him purify us. In the Old Testament, they would put salt on the sacrifices to symbolize God's enduring covenant, because salt is not consumed by fire. When the animal was burned up, the salt remained. If we are to be salt in this world, then right now we are having all else burnt up, and are stirring each other up, encouraging one another, waiting with patience for God to move.

My church has more than 4500 members. I might get to stand before them in a few months and have a chance to proclaim to them what God has constrained me to speak. It won't be an easy message. It won't be condemning either, but many of them will probably see it that way. It's a message to wake people up, to let them know that God is not satisfied with tithes, sunday morning attendance, one day of their week, or any of what we are giving Him. God wants all of us, He wants to conquer our hearts and bring us into His Kingdom, under His sovereign rule. He will not be satisfied with anything less than holiness, and that will come about by surrender to builder of the true temple. I don't know what will happen. I've talked to my dad about much of this lately and at first he wasn't sure if the church was as bad off as I was saying it was, then two nights ago he told me he'd been reading the gospels. "Anyone who has read the Bible knows there is something wrong with us all. But one, they don't want to admit it, and two, they don't want to do what it would take to fix it." Today's gospel has no cost...Christ said it's supposed to cost our lives.

God has shown our little group of reformers outrageous amounts of favor. There have been dozen of little things that He has done just to affirm us that we are doing what He wants us to do. We're experiencing revival and regeneration inside of our group, and we're growing. We're buckling down for the long run...we know this may not be for us, for our generation, it may be for the next. It may be 20 or 40 years before we see real change. But right now, it's changing us. We know the power of the abiding life. The kingdom is coming inside of us. We're devoting ourselves to this for as long as God is with us.

Still, everyday at some point my thoughts wander back to all of you. Sometimes I'll be in a group of people and someone will ask why I'm so quiet, what am I thinking about, and all I can say is "Colorado." Those who have been to the state before usually say, "Oh, I miss the mountains. It's so beautiful." Those who know what I'm talking about laugh it off or get annoyed. My fellow reformers tell me how jealous they are and how much they want us to spend time listening to the cds.

Pray for us. Pray for me, that I will never want to take any of the glory. I'm keeping the definition of glory Eric gave us close to my heart...seeing fully. I'm not earning applause for God, I'm becoming a window for people to see Him as He is. He deserves all the credit.

Grace be with you all, you're in my prayers every night. I don't think I have a chance of making the mini-reunion at all, but I still can't wait to see you all again whenever it may be.

Let the Kingdom come!

~Josh(Fork)