Oh Snap.

Okay guys, I want start out by apologizing for a couple of things:
1. I am sorry it's been so long since my last post. Things have been chaos here.

2. I am sorry that this is about to be a long post! Please read it though, it's worth your time!

Okay, here we go!

This has been absolutely crazy. God is so freaking good. I'm going to try to explain everything to you but you're probably going to think that I've gone insane. No, rest assured, I haven't. I'm gonna try to describe everything as best as possible haha

God is so good. That's the huge thing that I'm learning. He is so great compared to what I've always thought he was. He is so much more powerful and mighty than I ever envisioned him being. He is so much more loving than I ever could have imagined. He is so much more real and present than I have ever known. It's crazy. What's even crazier is that he cares about us personally. He really knows and cares about us in a way that we can't even grasp. He loves and cares about us in a way that words can't even describe. This has been totally revealed to me in a way that I've never even hoped for!

The way that the teaching goes is that every week we have a new speaker come in and teach on a specific topic. We had an amazing speaker come in this week and teach on absolutely nothing that he had originally planned on. This week has really shown us the power of the Holy Spirit and how much we can follow its leading in our everyday lives. The stuff is so basic it's ridiculous. I say that meaning it's crazy how numb I've personally gotten to all of the basic things about Jesus and what he taught. One of the huge things that stood out to me was that one of the days during lecture we talked about John 15.

    “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
(John 15:1-5 ESV)

I've always been terrified of this passage. I read it as saying that if we don't bear fruit he's going to cut us off from him. The speaker this week totally dug into this and showed us what it's really saying. It's not that we will be cut off from him, it's that he loves us so much that he wants us to grow. If there's any area of our life that isn't producing fruit he will prune it so that it will grow back even better than before. It's so crazy to think about that he cares about us in that way. The other part of this verse that has stuck out to me is how much emphasis it puts on "abiding in him." That's one thing that I've always struggled with and it's becoming really obvious to me. I've struggled with staying rooted in Christ. It's been kind of a lukewarm sort of thing and it's so awesome to be working through that. 

Crazyness happened the other day. I don't even know what we were originally talking about in class and then it all broke out into crazyness. They asked people to share what God is doing in their life and one girl stood up and said that God's really breaking off religion in her life. That set off people like crazy breaking it off. By this i mean the whole idea that Christianity is a religious set of rules and actions. and by this I mean that it's one of those lifestyles where you obey certain routines and adhere to a set of guidelines. It's so much deeper than that. I realized how much of this was really polluting my own life. 

I've gotten so freaking wrapped up in all of the details of church. I got wrapped up in how worship sounds. That was huge for me; I put way too much bank into worship. It's not about everyone playing the right chords. It's not about playing it a certain way. It's not about the style of worship. Having all of those preferences for worship really puts God under my own control. It's me trying to say what worshipping God should look like. It's me trying to tell everyone how it should be. i didn't realize how much control I was trying to have over worship. It's not about me, it's about Him. It doesn't matter if I don't like the song that they're playing. That's so freaking selfish of me to try to make excuses for not worshipping because I don't like the set list. That's one thing I've really realized in being here; I've been a control freak in this area. What's crazy is that they haven't even talked about this topic, so it's crazy how much of my own life God is pointing out needs improvement.

Continuing where I left off of the person saying that she was breaking off religion in her own life...That led to so many people just declaring things that they were going to change in their lives. It also turned into people declaring things to God about all kinds of stuff. They opened the mic up to anyone and everyone to talk. It was strait up glory fire right there. I don't even know what glory fire means, but it is really the only way I can put into words what happened. It was absolutely insane. This then turned into an epic dance party. Let me tell you, I have never enjoyed dancing in my life, yet this was awesome. They cranked the tunes and it was just a strait up celebration dance party. So awesome.

The big thing that hit me when people were declaring everything was that I felt like I legitimately had a strait up conversation with the Lord. I don't think I've ever felt this before, so hear me out on this. It was crazy and absolutely blew my mind. they were singing worship and I just felt this tugging on my heart that was saying "You don't even know how much I love you..." and I was just praying like "okay...what do you mean?" totally confused and not sure what was going on. The next thing I know I felt like He was asking me "do you want me to break your heart for what breaks mine?" I was like "oh yeah! I sing hosanna all the time! (the lyrics from one part are 'break my heart for what breaks yours...') and then instantly I just felt like my heart was broken. (Side note: I don't usually cry. I haven't cried in a long time. It's just something that I don't do very often. Not out of pride, i just don't tend to do it.) The next thing I know I am just overwhelmed with tears. Thoughts of family members that don't know Jesus popped into my head and I just wept for them. Then after I regained composure a friend who isn't a christian would pop into my head and I would break down all over again. I was honestly freaking out. I had no idea what was going on or why the heck I was crying. The next feeling I got was like in my heart I was being told "See? Do you see how heartbroken you are for them? That's just a glimpse at how heartbroken I am that they don't know me. That's how much I love them, and how much I love you."

This wasn't like a "I heard God's audible voice" or a "he spoke to me with a loud thunderous voice" sort of thing. I'm not going crazy, it was simply a feeling that was laid on my heart. That's how freaking real he is! It's not like he's some guy that is off there that rules everything. I know that's so elementary and something that we've all heard a million times, but it's freaking real. It's freaking real! The God of the universe personally cares about me. He personally cares about you. He personally wants to talk to us on a one on one basis. It's crazy. I'm really learning how much he actually loves me. God is so good!!!

After that dance party, the class felt like the Holy Spirit was leading them to go down to the pier and do baptisms. It is really crazy to think that the Holy Spirit personally wants to lead us like it does. It's true. Call me crazy, that's fine, but it is a real thing and it speaks into our lives like crazy. We went down and like 60 people ended up getting baptized! One person who wasn't even with our group came to accept Jesus and get baptized! It was a crazy time of celebration! God is so good! 

He's real guys...He really is. I can't stretch that enough. It's not just this idea or ideal way of living. The God of the universe freaking loves me and you on such an intimate individual basis that we can't even begin to grasp it!

The craziest part of the teachings is, like i said, how simple it is. We are learning so much from simply talking about Jesus. That's where I had been struggling for so long...I tried to get away from talking about Jesus. Crazy things happen when he's the focus of our discussion and conversation. So good!

Another thing that God is really teaching me is what he's given me in regards to gifts. The more I'm growing in him the happier of a person I'm becoming. Not that I used to be a total d-bag or anything (well, you tell me, i don't think i was haha) but it's crazy how when you learn what it means to be loved by God you also learn how to love others like never before. He's really teaching me what it means to speak life into people and not speak hatred or death. I've really been making it a point to be super encouraging to everyone. This isn't because I want to be 'that guy' that's encouraging people, it's just that God's really filling me up to be able to pour out into people. So good! I'm also learning how to really live out love for people. It's so crazy what God can do when you just love him and let him love others through you. I love it! 

There's so many more stories of things that have happened, but my battery is about to die so I can't type them all out right now. But I really want to talk to each and every one of you personally about what's going on in my life! I try to explain through these updates but there's so much more to it than that! Please drop me an email and I would love to explain more! I would also love to skype you too! Shoot me an email saying when works best for you and I can see what I can do. Weekends are pretty free for me (for the most part) and around 6pm (san jose time) on in the evenings. 

I love you all so freaking much. I can't wait to share even more of the glory that God is pouring down in this place. The world is going to be freaking different because of this class and I can't wait to see what happens!