Words

Rice Experiment with the power of words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK-fhyE1814

Water crystallization with the power of words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAvzsjcBtx8&feature=related

Oh the power of words…. Something that is almost always on my mind. Most are familiar with reading music, when you have a series of notes it can make beautiful music or let a little kid at it and it can become painful to the ears. That is kind of how are words are, you’ve been given a series of words and you can choose to put them in an order in which they sound beautiful and bring life, or you can put them in an order which is ugly and dead.

Both of the videos above show just how powerful words can be how they shape things and bring life or death. I’ve watched it work in my own life. I’ve seen the difference between two people living almost the same lifestyle but one being way happier while the other was depressed. The biggest difference? The music they were listening too. If you find the right song at the right time and it will drag you down so much you wont know what to do with yourself. But if you find the right one it will lift you higher and you’ll feel better.

I’ve seen it work first hand and words are not something that should just be thoughtlessly used. They should be handled with much care. That’s part of why we have such a problem with bullying, it wouldn’t be so bad if words had no effect on us, but they have a huge impact which is partly why we have kids who are committing suicide. I knew a girl who was fine with the way she looked, she wasn’t much bigger than I was and I’m referred to as a twig, until she came across the wrong person at school and they told her she was fat. She started to get depressed because of what a single person told her. If that one person told her that she was beautiful she could’ve saved my friend from a lot of trouble.

Speak your words and choose what you listen to wisely. Your words have the power to give life and death, to heal, wound, fix, break, damage, and mend.

Advertisement

It’s an unfailing love

 

Your love never fails
Never gives up
Never runs out on me

Lyrics to a song called One Thing Remains.

I’ve re-discovered the love God has for us. While at acquire the fire God asked me so many questions and I didn’t know how to answer them. Some of them though I know I shouldn’t have and I know it was wrong but I answered them with a simple no. Despite my rebellion and everything I was going through the last day of ATF God still loves me. He still loves me even though I have things I don’t want to give up and blatantly told Him no I wasn’t giving up some things. I think my experience with God at ATF would’ve been so much more than what I got but I find it hard to believe that God held anything back from me because He worked amazingly in me.

I was talking to Chris, a friend of mine, and he explained to me that with not giving these things up that I’d continue to live with the guilt of them, but God could still love me and forgive me, I was in a situation of I don’t want to be here I know it’s wrong but I don’t want to give it up. But since I’m trying to get rid of it God can forgive me. It took a huge relief off my shoulders.

It’s amazing to have a God who can love us So much that knowing that I’m going to be a complete and utter jerk He’s still going to send his son to die for me, for you, for all of us. All of us screw ups, all of us who’ve murdered, gotten drunk or high, for all of us who’ve denied Him, for those who feel like they are worthless and weak. He came for us.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that we may not die but have eternal life..

He loves us, His love goes on and on and it never gives up no matter how far you run, how much you hide, no matter how much you resist. I’ve found that in my lows I tend to do all of those. If one doesn’t work I move to the other. I don’t understand why I do it, why I fight it so hard. But when I do it’s almost as if it challenges God and in the end He’s saying “Ha! See! I told you you couldn’t resist me!” The harder I try to get away from God it seems He meets me in my hiding places. As my friend would say, God stalks me then clobbers me when I think I’ve gotten away. God goes to the lowest of lows and the highest of highs to stay with you. You can’t get away. There is no escape, I mean seriously! God met Jonah as he say in the belly of a FISH! FOR A WEEK! So you may as well not even try…

Some times His love is ever so hard to find. I struggle with it daily. Right now I’m still hyped up from ATF and will probably stay like this for a few more days possibly a couple weeks and fall right back to wondering. I’m a physical person and it makes it really hard, I want to KNOW you are there, I want to be able to hug you or you hug me when I’m feeling low, I want to see you, feel you, I want a solid object! To me it sounds so funny because I’m so in tune with God most of the time that as I type this I’m going “Jessica, what is wrong with you.” But it’s when I hit my little lows that I get like that, if I hit rock bottom or hit my peak you can grantee  that I’m hearing from God and getting to feel His presence strongly. But it’s when I get somewhere in the middle that I start to doubt him and most of the time, I’m somewhere in the middle unfortunately. But God is so amazing that even when I end up somewhere in the middle and I’m doubting Him He always does something that causes me to come back with a passion that causes me to burn for Him.

Always remember you are more than what anyone says of you, because the only opinion that matters is God’s and if God approves likely you are doing nothing wrong so if people have a problem with you it’s their problem not yours. You were made to be the Righteousness of God, Holy, perfect, blameless. He loves you that much. So much He wants you.

This is not about what you’ve done
But what’s been done for you
This is not about where you’ve been
But where your Brokenness brings you too
This is not about what you feel
But what He felt to forgive you
And what He felt to make you loved

You are more than the choices that you’ve made
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes
You are more than the problems you create
You’ve been remade

You Are More – Tenth Avenue North

God Bless,

Jessica

Acquire the Fire

Well, I have spent the weekend at Acquire the Fire (ATF) with a few of my closest friends. I gathered together 11 people including 3 Chaperones. We went Friday and Saturday. I’m just gonna give y’all my experience and Testimony.

Here’s some of my notes I’ve got three pages of notes so I’m really norrowing it down:

Clapping during worship = The right hand is heaven and the left hand is earth when you clap you join heaven and earth; the right hand is the Supernatural and the left hand is the natural when you clap you join the supernatural with the natural.

Raising your hands during worship = It’s like holding light sabers, you are creating a beam of light that connects you to God.

The world is designed in a way that self-centered nature cannot prevail, we were created to serve and sacrifice, if we are self-centered it causes us to be miserable.

There’s only ONE way to respond if you really get it. You should respond by loving Him with all your heart, soul, and mind, you should love Him SO much that it looks like you hate the person you LOVE the most. You need to respond with a GLORIOUS surrender, once we submit with a Glorious surrender we can get free of the chains.

Some times we will give God our heart but never give Him our life. It’s like we were bought out of slavery but we want to continue to live in slavery.

Don’t allow yourself to become Ordinary. Because Normal is Not Enough.

Now, Worship:

ABSOLUTELY PHENOMENAL! They played two songs repeatedly it seems like, “One Thing Remains” and “Higher”

One Thing Remains talks about how His love never fails, it never gives up, and it goes on. Put me into tears to realize how much God loves me….. Again…. It moves me every time I hear it. Time and time again I’m told it doesn’t matter what you do God will Always love you. Though I understand, I don’t understand how He could or why He would want to love someone like me. But He refreshed my memory of how much He loves me and why.

In all of the worship I was more than happy to act like a complete nut job while I worshiped, I mean, the Bible tells you to dance, and make a joyful noise! I jumped all around and I sang, shouted, and clapped my hands till my hands were read and it hurt to clap and even then, I was still going at it! I got comfortable with the Idea of WORSHIPING in front of other people. I mean, my voice is hoarse from singing so loudly, my arms feel like noodles from having them raised so much, and my legs feel like Jello because I jumped every chance I got!

Saturday during worship, God got a hold of me and started asking me questions which I didn’t know how to answer. Really I wasn’t expecting those questions because I thought I was on a roll. That’s when it became very emotional for me, and Chris, one of the chaperones that was there, prayed for me, all in that moment something happened, It’s kind of funny how God works through other people. I don’t even really know how to explain this one but it’s like God used Chris, to usher in God’s presence. God just started speaking to me, “Jessica, I love you, I love you, I’ve wrapped my arms around you and you are loved” One of the few times I can say I KNOW it was God. But God spoke to me the whole time.. all in that moment I felt, secure, safe, loved, and forgiven.

My favorite part about worship was after we had reached out last real worship session a speaker comes out and he says, “I can hear the devil! He’s saying Quit Raising those hands! Quit Shouting! Quit Jumping! Quit Clapping your hands! Quit making all that Noise!” With everyone, More hands were raised, more people were Chanting “JESUS JESUS JESUS, jumping, clapping hands, and then the most phenomenal one, we are standing there and I was just starting to pull myself together, so it caught me by surprise. But I’m standing there and there was this constant thunder, most of y’all know those long rumbles that shake you house, and the ground started shaking violently, then I realized that everyone was beating on the chairs in front of them. After the whole Pavillion was done beating on chairs there was a small hush, and everyone would start chanting and shouting, jumping and clapping. This repeated for what seemed to be about 10 minutes.

The presence of God was Oh so Heavy, there is no way to describe how amazing it was. To FEEL the presence of God, to see THOUSANDS of hands lifted, teens from all over, out of state even, joined together for one purpose, and that is to come closer to the Lord God Almighty! There really are no words to desscribe it.

I think one of the things that made a huge impact on me was I brought a friend, I’ve watched her during worship before and I would pray that she would just start worshiping, because she would just stand there. It was amazing for me to see her spend Friday just standing there, and a few hours before the end of worship on Saturday she was raising her hands, dancing, and jumping, which absolutely astonished me because she has been out of surgery for three weeks due to a torn ACL. I love watching God work in peoples life!

This has been the most amazing event I have ever gone to. This will officially be a new place I will go every year when they come. I encourage EVERYONE to go, whether you want to go just because of a band that will be there or because you Actually want to draw closer to God. Originally I only wanted to go because my favorite band was there, so I signed up way ahead of time. It was an amazing experience!

One Thing Remains: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_KXsMCJgBQ&feature=share

Higher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVEZ85l-L7k&feature=related

God Bless,

Jessica