Face-melting, mind-blowing goodness

Amy Sollers teaching on the Holy Spirit.

Kevin Norris teaching on Praise and Worship

The amazingly anointed Jonathan David Helser Band
Check out their website and music: http://jonathanhelser.com/jonathanhelser/Home.html

 Is it alright if I am super real and transparent with you all today? I really appreciate openness, so I’m just going to dive right in J

Worship. I’ve NEVER appreciated worship until I arrived on this campus. Maybe it’s because no one explained it to me. Maybe it’s because I didn’t care. Maybe it’s because I didn’t know how much I needed to give it to God. But Whoa! Worship has changed my life FOREVER. Worship is an intimate experience with the Holy Spirit when I appropriately display my love and adoration to Him (and here’s the key part) REGARDLESS of what emotions I’m carrying into the time set apart for worship. I didn’t realize that God cared about what I was feeling when I walked into a session of singing and praise. I’ve learned this week this amazing fact. God WANTS me to tell Him how I feel, BUT THEN give Him glory for how He is bigger than my world and problems. Go to the Psalms. You will see David do this OVER AND OVER again. In Psalm 28, David is telling God about the men that were chasing after Him, pouring out the concerns of His heart, and ends with this:

The Lord is my strength and my shield;

 my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.

My heart leaps for joy,

and with my song I praise him.

I have found this week that when I come to God honestly, confessing my troubles and worries, that I can better identify how God can help me OVERCOME those issues.

 AND THIS WHOLE TIME I THOUGHT I WAS JUST SUPPOSED TO FEEL BETTER BECAUSE OF THE STUFF THE WORSHIP LEADER(S) WAS SAYING AND SINGING. SO FALSE!!

My worship experiences now have become a time when the Joy of the Lord LITERALLY becomes my strength. He fills me all the way up to overflowing…even on days when I’m so frustrated with the strenuous schedule of running up and down the hill trying to be on time only to find out the schedule has changed (again). WHOA! He gives me real joy that I can share with others!

 It seems every time I call my girlfriends back in Florida, I’m super pumped up and excited about what God is doing in my life, but I have to confess that sometimes I wonder why I’m here away from all my friends. Starting a new life somewhere strange is definitely a draining process. BUT. Jesus didn’t tell Jonathan and me to come here just to leave us here alone. He has been teaching us to call on HIM for HELP and the STRENGTH we need to continue on. He has been teaching us to live a life of FAITH. God is SO GOOD!!! The more we deliberately put ourselves in a position of utmost reliance on God’s provision and care the more we see Him do the miraculous.

My life will never be the same.