He. Is. Enough.

Can't believe its been three months since my last post... needless to say baseball, work, and school have all sucked away at my soul a little... but nonetheless I'm back babay!!!

I'm throwing this out there... but i'm a sinner.... who'da thunk it?!

But seriously, i'm a big sinner. So today as I fell back into one of the many holes the enemy digs in front of me i came face to face with guilt. Guilt that has plagued me every time i begin to backslide into the crater-o-sin. I hate to be cliche... but there was a bright light at the end of the tunnel.

I grabbed my Bible for a little reading to make myself not feel as bad - which God probably thinks it's funny that i think that "I" can make myself feel better - and flipped to 2 Corinthians 12:7-9.

"To keep me from being conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times i pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore i will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me."

This. Is. Awesome. HIS grace is made Perfect through weakness. So when we are weak, then He is strong! Paul goes on to say that he will continue to boast gladly about his weaknesses so that Christ's power will rest on Him.... i don't know if you caught that but let's make this personal... HIS power rests on US!

I don't know about you but this pumps me up! To know that even when i screw up, even when i am weak... GOD. IS. STRONG. He is the rock of ages who we stand upon when we can't stand on our own. He is the All Consuming Fire that burns within us and enables us to do things that we on our own could never do!

We need to allow His grace to flow through us so that we are made strong even though it seems impossible. We need to see the glory of God in every weakness that we have because God will save us from every thing that is in front of us.

"That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when i am weak, THEN I AM STRONG." 2 Corinthians 12:10

Rain, Rain, Go Away.... wow that was easy

Matthew 8:23. Jesus calms the storm... we all know it. The disciples follow Him out onto a boat to cross a body of water, night falls, a storm to end all storm rages... and yet Jesus is asleep.

This absolutely, unequivocally blows my mind. Jesus... sleeping!?! who'd a thunk it? I guess why i'm taken aback by this is because He's 100% God. but anyways...

This isn't just some cute little story for us to read, hear a sermon on, and completely forget about it. The disciples went and woke up Jesus yelling about the storm and how they were going to sink. Jesus' reply astonishes me: "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?"

He then got up from His nap, (again, mind=blown), and rebuked the winds and the waves... i don't know if you caught that so i'll type it again... He rebuked, stopped, calmed, ended the winds and the waves. When the sailors on the boat saw this they were astonished, saying "what kind of man is this? even the winds and the waves listen to Him."

He calmed the storm.... as easy as getting up from His nap. I'm pretty sure my brain would've exploded right then and there... not even gonna lie. So the question is... do you believe that Jesus really did this? or do you just take this story like every other fictitious story you've ever read. As for me, this story is as real as i am. We get so numb to the fact that all of this stuff really happened that we take it for granted and just take it at face value.

I challenge you to stop doing this (me included) and dive into the Word of God. And dive into the stories that are 100% true and see how awesome it is.

They saw Jesus die. They saw Him take His last breath...But Sunday was coming

This past Easter weekend was great! One awesome service led to a great afternoon with my family and now i'm off to write some papers. But just thought i would say a couple things before i went and started to slowly kill my brain.

Jesus was beaten, crucified, killed, and rose again. We can all agree on this.. if not hit me up on my cell or something and we'll get that straight. Anyways, Jesus gave up His life for us. Again, we can all agree on this. But have you ever thought about Him giving up His life?

Surrender: To give oneself up, abandon, or relinquish

Sacrifice: an offering

God put these two words into my head and showed me the difference between them. You see, some people like to say "yea, Jesus surrendered and died to save us."... YOU'RE WRONG. To surrender is to quit, to give up. My Jesus DID NOT give up.

You might be saying "then what the heck did he do?"

My Jesus sacrificed himself for the rest of the world that had come, that was on Earth, and for the future generations on this planet... NOT because he wasn't good enough or because he quit living... He willingly gave up his life. i know, i know... What's the difference?

We all agree that Jesus is God incarnate right? If so, this means that He is fully God and fully human. He DID NOT have to come down to this earth for you and me. He DID NOT have to live a human life and be tempted like we were. He DID NOT have to be betrayed, beaten, spit upon, and crucified. He DID NOT have to die, go to hell, and then come back to life to prove He was God's son.

You see, the difference between the two is that sacrifice requires that you willingly do something. Jesus willingly carried the cross, got nailed to it, and died. FOR US. He willingly died to show that He went to hell, punched satan in the face as He left to show him wassup, and He rose from the dead... to prove the He is God. He is the King of Kings. and He did not quit.

Ho...sa....nn....a?

Easter is almost here! Possibly one of my more favorite holidays because of:

1: Chocolate... nuff said

2: Easter Bunny... oh he's real alright...

3: MORE CHOCOLATE!!!!!

Okay, so besides the fact that you receive tons of chocolate on Easter, that's not the only cool reason to celebrate it. It's a time of happiness and excitement because our Lord and Savior rose from the grave... YES I SAID IT! rose from the grave!

So the question begs to be asked: will we/have we rise/risen "from the grave?" Have we risen out of the ashes and breathed in the breath of life? The breath that our God, greater and higher than any other, healer, creator, friend so lovingly gave us? The logical answer is yes... but sometimes logic fails when it comes to God. He does some absolutely mind-boggling things that we, human beings, can/will never understand this side of eternity.

...Easter. A time that many celebrate with joy.. but not all Easters have been that way. About this time 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ was just days, hours away from being betrayed, tried, beaten, being crucified and mocked for all to see..... ALL FOR US!!!

Just days before, He, Jesus, rode into Jerusalem for the Passover. I love how it is called "The Triumphal Entry." He rode in with everyone shouting at the top of their lungs "HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST!!".... little did they know that one week later they would be shouting "CRUCIFY HIM!"

Hosanna is such a great word. I love the song "Hosanna" by Hillsong United. Such a great and powerful song. My favorite line from the song is:

"I see a generation, rising up to take their place, with selfless faith."

This is us.... if we engulf ourselves with the Holy Spirit. If not, we will catch that so cliched "spiritual high" for oh... say, a month. Then.... boom. Right back where we started. Just like the mob that screamed Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the Highest! We will scream back "crucify Him" by the way that we(me included) deny Him through our lifestyle.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the time is now! We must be the generation that rises up and becomes the tool that God has intended us to be for His use to lead every nation, tribe, and tongue to His name! We cannot let ourselves be pulled back into the world after we have gotten a glimpse of His eternal glory! We must be in the world, but not of the world. We must rise up to take OUR place through God with selfless faith. With a faith so powerful that it defies all possible logical explanations for the things that we do because of what God tells us to do.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S!! no not the t.v. show...

I can't believe its been over one month since i last blogged. But anyways, tonight I've just got a few things on my mind.

I love my friends.. ALL of them. But sometimes i get really sick of a few of them... especially the ones who never shut up about how good they are at something, or how good they look, or how many girls they can pick up, or how they try to impress everybody... it just gets really old.. really fast. And it's even worse when they act one way around me, my other friends, our minister and everybody else... and then when they get away.. (or so they think) from everybody.. it's completely fine to cut loose and say/do/participate in whatever the heck they want to because they have a "do-whatever-the-heck-i-want-to" attitude.

It gets even better when they go to church, participate in church activities, and even speak/"mentor" the younger kids in the church and when they get in their car to leave church, they take off their church mask and put it in their glove box until the next time they pull into the parking lot or whenever they come in contact with someone from church. Don't get me wrong, I'm guilty of it too. But I KNOW that i do it and i make a conscious effort to fix it. But me and God are working on that.

It just irritates the CRAP out of me and all people do is sit back and watch. I know, i know: "Hunter, why don't you say anything?" I'll answer it. I don't know whether i should lay it all out there for them or give them a hug and say it's gonna be alright.. you don't have to play two-face with me or God.. we love you for who you are.. you don't have to impress everybody.

Only thing i can think of is prayer. God works in weird (but good) ways. He puts things in front of us to test our faith... which, if you think about it, He already knows what's going to happen.... ah rabbit trail! But anyways, God's just showing me how NOT to be. And man am i glad that He got my attention a while ago.

Under Pressure... (anybody name the band?)

Well, one coke, couple big glasses of sweet tea and alot of chocolate later, here i am with a massive sugar buzz.... awaiting the crash that is inevitably about to hit me. But that's not why i'm writing. A thought that i have been thinking about for a while just popped back into my head so i had to write it down before my dumb butt forgot about it again.

Jesus died for us. We all know this. He died on the cross. Again, we all know this. But have you ever really taken the time to really process everything that happened while He was hanging there, conquering the sins that had happened, the sins that were happening, and the sins that were going to happen.

Remember when you, oh, i don't know, disobeyed your parents? (if you say you never did, i will jump through the computer and ninjy chop you.) Remember the guilt you felt? Remember the pressure that was upon you as you waited for daddy to come home and pull the belt out because you screwed up big time? And that crazy amount of guilt and pressure is just from 1 thing we did wrong... or sin.

Now that we can all relate, take that pressure and multiply it by oh, i dont know, around 15 billion (the number is probably waaaaay higher but just go with it.) Can you imagine the pressure of all that sin... on one person?

Yea..... that's how Jesus felt. That's how Jesus felt when He conquered all of our sin. When He got 3 huge spikes nailed through His hands and feet. When He got a crown of nothin but thorns shoved violently on top of His head. When He was beaten again. and again. and again. and again. Until He was nothing but a beautiful mess of flesh that emitted such righteousness, such glory, that the Roman guards were to blind to actually see what He was doing.... for them. and me. and you.

a gift money can't buy

S.A.D.... Single's Awareness Day... funny huh? Well, i thought i was. Anyways, i hope everyone who reads this has had an awesome V-Day! Tonight i don't want to go into much detail about anything, i just want to say what i'm thinking without wasting 5 minutes of your time by reading a whole long, drawn out blog. So, here goes nothing.

I've never really thought about God on Valentine's Day. I mean, if you really think about it, He's the author of Love. And without love, we are nothing but insignificant beings roaming the face of this planet, hopelessly searching for something that we cannot obtain... that is, until roughly 2,000 years ago.

You see, the best gift we've ever gotten, either for Christmas, birthday, Valentine's Day... whatever, is the gift of Christ. I mean if you really think about it, we've become numb to the fact that God... OUR God, came down here on this planet, walked, talked, ate... with people. And He knew exactly what He was here for. His entire 33 years of existence (as a human upon the earth) He knew He was going to die a death that was, at the time, the worst possible way any human being could die... and yet He still went through with it.

It's funny, because we (myself included) walk around this Earth, HIS Earth, and act like we actually deserved everything that happened that day upon the hill at Golgotha. We actually think we deserved it... when in all reality we don't (if you disagree, i'll be glad to show you otherwise). We don't deserve the computer we're playing on, the clothes we have on, the air we're breathing... we don't deserve anything! And yet, the God, OUR God, gave it all to us in the form of a "card" if you will. Hallmark couldn't think this stuff up man! This is as real as it gets. Jesus Christ was the best V-Day gift ever given... and do you know why?

It was given out of Love.