(this is our Titus Project school, staff and students)

Over the past few weeks I have learned a ton from the Titus Project here... perhaps the most important thing I have learned is how vital I am to the body of Christ as an individual. I not only am important to God... clearly seen by God's great love poured out for me at the Cross through Jesus' blood... but I also am valuable to him as his son in the world we live in. This world is hurting and I have the opportunity to bring light into the darkness... life into the pain... freedom where there is so much bondage. Even being here the past few weeks has been eye opening to see how much life God is able to bring to others through me. I have been graced to pray with people, encourage people, challenge younger students here, and simply give people hugs and a handshake when they are in a new place where they are asking desperately whether or not there is acceptance. This is how Christ desires me to live... as a light to those I am around... and the beautiful thing about God's grace is that he is doing it. I - I am not doing it... but Jesus is doing it. He is using me to love people as I live in the reality of sins forgiven. I am loved... Jesus has loved me mightily... and he asks me to love others. These concepts are so simple but I realize that I, as well as most people, fail to live them out. The beautiful thing about God's economy is that if I do love people... tangibly living selfishly for them in all sorts of aspects of life... then they will feel loved and be free to love in return.

So yeah, this has just been on my heart. We all have the opportunity to love... to love and be loved. The question is whether we are willing to take the initiative to serve others first and pour ourselves out selflessly to treat others the way we would like to be treated. I realize very clearly that when I live to be a blessing to others, I see life in a very different perspective as I see others being blessed and seeing light in the midst of darkness. We can be light to people in a dark world if we would but dare to love. This is what our world is desperate for... what I am desperate for... what you are desperate for... to feel accepted. Well... I am no longer waiting for others to make it happen for myself, I am going to make it happen for others and see what a blessing I can be. I love you all, please... please... dare to take initiative in this world so desperate for love and acceptance and light in darkness and life in the midst of pain. We're all squirrels trying to get ours... if we would but look up and see we are all in the same boat things might make more sense as we live less selfishly. This has been something that is challenging me... yet has been blessing me as I see the fruits of stepping outside of my little world to be a blessing to others.

(This is our team that will be going to Mexico & Costa Rica... Garrett & Sarah in front... Shoshanah and me)

Thoughts on... GRACE

So I have been home for a few days now and am still wrestling with just simply resting in God's grace. I might sound scattered but this is where I am so yeah, just trying to be real. I am super stoked to have the opportunity to go on Titus Project... the outreach I am to be doing until Christmas. At the same time though I have been wrestling with how God could love a broken and imperfect man like myself. I was reading through the book "The Shack" and still haven't had the chance to get to it and finish it (on my list of things to do). As I was reading it God was stirring in me some major things about his heart of love and grace to me. I cannot help but think of the Psalms now when I think about who God is and who I am to him... the line "the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases..." This line is repeated countless times through the Psalms and now I am understanding more and more just why. The REALITY... which has become probably my favorite word... is that God loves me and nothing, absolutely nothing, can change that because of Christ's blood poured out for me. This is something that I mentally acknowledge but in my heart there is still so much I fail to believe. SO yeah, this is my thought that I felt like I needed to share. There is nothing that will make Jesus let go of me... like in this picture... I am not holding on to him so much as he has a firm grasp on me... Romans 8 blows my mind every time I read it, which makes me realize I need to read it right now.

This past week has been utterly unbelievable in my life. I got to spend a great day with my mentor before leaving to California. I got to have Chik-Fil-A and spend a day doing some work with my mom. I had the chance to swim and play with my step-sister Anita. I got to share the testimony of God's grace over my life for the past few years with the church I grew up in... and the opportunity to thank them for how they have invested in my life and encouraged me. I had the chance to see my best friend Rob who I love so much... as well as visit my friend Jennifer Angley from NC who lives now in SF, CA. God is so gracious... he is absolutely redeeming my friend Jen and answering prayers in her life... I had the chance to talk with her about God's redemption of her life over 3 hours of eating Sushi. My friend Rob and his wife Erin are going to have a baby in February and are going to be amazing parents. Last night I had the chance to love my sister and be a shoulder for her to cry on through a hard time. God is so faithful... he is so good at what he does, redemption. There are many areas of my life that I am hard on myself about... yet God is working his redemption in my life and the lives of others because that's what he does and that is who HE is. That is REALITY... in the midst of a world that is desperate for grace... he is alive and working. Whether I can see his hand in the moment or not... oh how he loves us... his grace is indeed beautiful and amazing and altogether what you and I are desperate for...

A.W. Tozer... perspective on what God is doing in me right now...

"Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. As well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us.

Let us remember: when we talk of the rending of the veil we are speaking in a figure, and the thought of it is poetical, almost pleasant; but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free.

Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life in hope ourselves to rend the veil. God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the self-life, and then reckon it crucified. But we must be careful to distinguish lazy 'acceptance' from the real work of God. We must insist upon the work being done. We dare not rest content with a neat doctrine of self-crucifixion. That is to imitate Saul and spare the best of the sheep and the oxen.

Insist that the work be done in very truth and it will be done. The cross is rough, and it is deadly, but it is effective. It does not keep its victim hanging there forever. There comes a moment when its work is finished and the suffering victim dies. After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered in actual spiritual experience the Presence of the living God."

This reality caught me quite strongly last night... that God is destroying things within me... my own self... my flesh. As Tozer puts it... the cross is deadly, but effective. I want what God offers... it is my desperate desire to truly be set free. Galatians 5.1 'It is for freedom that Christ has set us free'. If I do indeed dare to seek the life and peace and rest and joy... the genuine article that God offers us so freely by the grace found IN Christ... it will be a painful process. BUT... the present afflictions are nothing compared to the glory set before us (2 Cor 4.16-18)

Let us dare to be destroyed that we might be rebuilt as God so graciously desires... truly free!

Jeremy

(A.W. Tozer, "The Pursuit of God", pg. 44-45)

My trip home from Montana

These are the pictures from my trip across the states... 4000 miles, Montana to Texas to North Carolina. It was great seeing all my family and others who were so gracious to let me crash with them on the way. I wish I had more pictures... I do... the trip was so wonderful... but these are some of the best pictures from the trip... sorry it took a while. I finally got my room set up so now I can get back updated with this thing.

Love you all...

(you can click on the slideshow box itself and go to the site where they are hosted from if you want to steal some for yourselves... which I would recommend because the pictures of the Tetons are wicked-awesome)