blind eyes open
-1 Corinthians 6:19~20-

Had a great 1st day of class... actually tomorrow would be my "official" first day of class since I kinda slept in this morning and missed two classes (GAH!).

Spent 2.5 hours hanging out with Eric Yun, a great man of God who has a heart to see walls between churches and ministries tore down and real love being established. He shared with me his walk with Jesus and I shared mine, and we started to share about our journey with music. He's a great guitar player & worship leader and I was all encouraged by his testimonies and his faith! I'm really seeing something amazing God's going to do through Eric in the coming days.

Spent a good hour worshiping and just pray to Jesus. And somehow Psalm 91 came to me, and as I flipped to Psalm 91 and read the title of the psalm: Safety of Abiding in the Presence of God, Matt Gilman started to sing "I will abide in You, oh come abide in me. For without You, I can do nothing." And I knew then that the Lord's speaking to me through Psalm 91. I will be spending some time reflecting on this psalm during this season of prayer, battle, and excitement.


Abide - continue without fading or being lost.
Refuge - a condition of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble. It literally means re- 'back' + fugere 'flee' = back from fleeing.
Fortress - a heavily protected and impenetrable building. From the Latin root "fortis" which means strong.

These two verses are pretty self-explanatory; however, the activity these verses are portraying is quite a challenge: to ABIDE in His presence means to be in His presence CONTINUOUSLY WITHOUT FADING. So as we worship, pray, and spend more time reading and meditating on His words, we are abiding in His presence more, and the assured result shall be that we are protected because we are within a fortress. We are refugees searching for a refuge, and the instructions are clear, yet are we willing to walk that road to reach the fortress? Fortresses are usually built on top of a steep hill or with rivers surrounded.

Well, after those narrow ways and steep hills, you are by the river, and on the other end is the closed gate. What do you do? There's an easy way to get into it: ask the doorkeeper to let down the gate to form a bridge for you to cross the river and enter in.

Alright, so now you're in the fortress, sweet. I will share another two verses in my next post.

In my previous post, Solitary Moments, I shared about resting in the presence of God. In this post and the ones to come, I will be hitting on what does it mean to ABIDE with Him in His presence. I'm still learning.

Johnny

I very much enjoy my scarce solitary moments and I cherish every second of them. I would say I enjoy sitting in front of the computer making music more than spending 13 hours at Disneyland, even though that sounds pretty sweet too. I believe Jesus, too, cherished his solitary moments during the last 3.5 years of His life, constantly surrounded by people. Jesus, after feeding the five thousand, went to a solitary place to rest/pray.

I've been doing some serious resting and I'm loving it; however I also gotta get those prayers to come alongside my resting. Resting is not taking time off from God. Resting should be spending more time with God and rest in His embrace, without any pressure. I really need to have a constant prayer life or else my closet would start to gather dust clouds instead of glory clouds!

The apostles gathered around Jesus
and reported to him all they had done and taught.
Then, because so many people were
coming and going
that they did not even have a chance to eat,
He said to them,

Therefore put on the full armor of God...

1. Belt of Truth
2. Breastplate of Righteousness
3. Shoes of Gospel of Peace
4. Shield of Faith
5. Helmet of Salvation
6. Sword of the Spirit

I get excited when I read these verses.
Gotta put all of them on before the battle.

Johnny