This little thing called 'sin'.

"But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end."

Romans 6:1-14 ------

^1-3So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!

^3-5That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country.

^6-11Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did.

^12-14That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you've been raised from the dead!—into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God.

Haha, what a great success! Sin can't tell us how to live. After all, we aren't even connected to sin anymore, we are living in the freedom of God! Get this, so sometimes as Christians, or even as Non-Christians, we feel like we are attached to something that continuously brings us down, that makes us feel bad about ourselves. This feeling is guilt, guilt for something that we have done. Sometimes it gets so bad that we feel we have no way out, we have done so many brutal terrible things that we are in too deep, and there is no way we can come up and recover. We are simply stuck in that lifestyle for good. *BIG ANNOYING BUZZER* That is a lie!

For Christians, sometimes we think that we need to be completely delivered and set free from everything that is owning us, truth is, we already have been and those things DON'T own us. When we accept that fact that we no longer are controlled by "sin" or by this world, that is when we see break through. The reality of the situation is that God has rescued us from everything that we ever felt "trapped" by. Jesus' last words before dying were "it is finished." All our sin, like He said, is finished. Also meaning, paid in full! Satan will try and tell us that it isn't done, that we are forever trapped in "sin", but it is our job to run so fast and straight away from him that we can clearly see that he is lying. We have to make that connection of faith in our mind that we have been dealt with, we don't belong to this horn head, Lucifer, we belong to Jesus. Heck yes, he died for us to be FREE. So guess what, we are FREE. Because... who the Son sets free is free indeed. Simple as that promise. Haha

Another thing to look at is this, yes we are FREE from being owned by sin, so let's do our part. Let's not give sin the time of day. Let's not even run little errands for sin. Let's throw our lives completely into the right way of living, the fact is, when we do this, we FULLY accept our gift of FREEDOM of sin. I feel like my words can't do this justice, but -- sin can't tell us how to live, we are free to choose how to live our lives, we have been set free, so let's take advantage of our gift and run long and hard into the path that God has made for us.

Such a love, such a love, such a love this is for me. Such an amazing love, it's an overwhelming love, such a love this for me. A love that covers me. This is Jesus, in his glory, king of heaven, dying for me. "IT IS FINISHED", He has done it, death is beaten, heaven beckons me. Death is beaten... Death, is beaten. Greater love, No one could ever show, mercy so undeserved, Freedom, I should not know.

All my sin, all of my hidden shame, died with Him on the cross. Eternity won for us.

I am chosen, I am free, I am living for eternity, free now forever. You picked me up, turned me around, set my feet on solid ground, yours now forever,

Colton

Power of Voice

Power of our prayers and words.

Just a small little thought tonight, kind of funny, kind of serious.

Sometimes we pray for little silly things, or maybe selfish things, just because deep down we really want something. Or maybe we aren't even that passionate about it, but we just think it would be neat to see it happen.

For example: Today I was watching the olympic Hockey game between Canada and US, just like every other living person who owns a television. I said out loud to my dad, wow, wouldn't it be funny if the US came back right now and scored, then we could go into overtime and the game would be more epic. He was angry that I would even think that. 30 seconds later, USA got a goal. Haha, I am in no way saying that that was because of my thought, at all, but just a thought.

We see this happening daily.

We will pray for maybe a day off school, and then we get a snow day. We get the day off like we wanted, but we are also stuck with a piles of snow that we didn't exactly crave or ask for.

It's kind of neat how God works, he is a comedian. After all, he created jokes and laughter.

So, just a minor thought, before you say something, or wish for something, or maybe even curse something(that's where it gets serious), take some time and think about the possible outcomes.

We need some light, first of all we need some light. You can't sit here in the dark, and alone... it's a sorry sight. It's just you and me, we'll live, you'll see. And when the night has finally gone, and when we see the new day dawn, we'll wonder how we wandered for so long so blind, the wasted world we thought we knew, the light will make it look brand new, so let it shine. Day after day, we'll find a will to find our way. Knowing that the darkening skies will someday see the sun. When our long night is done there will be light, there will be light. And we open up our lives, sons and daughters, husbands, wives, and fight that fight, there will be light. There will be light, there will be light, there will be light.

God,

Throw your passion on me to keep running, re-energize me, make this well inside me continuously overflowing with love for you, show me how much better everything you have to offer me is than anything this world has to offer. Over and over,

Colton.

Waters cannot quench this love.

Habakkuk 1:5 ---

Look at the nations and watch—

and be utterly amazed.

For I am going to do something in your days

that you would not believe,

even if you were told.

Hey Readers, so tonight's blog is a part 2 of last nights, I did a lot of reading today and I found some stuff I want to add on. Ready for this?

So I was talking about being aligned with Fathers and Mothers in Christ. So a few things to touch on: Courage, Wisdom, Protection, and Our Hearts.

Frist of all: Serving another's vision. Think about this, sometimes we don't know where exactly God wants us to be in his army, in that case, serve someone who does know where they need to be. Think of Moses, one of the greatest leaders of the bible spent 40 years on the backside of a desert, shepherding someone else's sheep! I bet it was frustrating at times because I think it is probably safe to say that Moses knew deep in his gut that God had a call on his life for something greater. Thankfully for the people of Israel Moses learned how to be loyal. "Moses first had to be trustworthy and dependable with his father-in-law's sheep before he was given his own."

1 Peter 5:6-7 --

So be content with who you are, and don't put on airs. God's strong hand is on you, he'll promote you at the right time. Live carefree before God; he is most careful with you.

Okay, so let's talk about some of the benefits of being covered, or aligned with Fathers and Mothers in Christ.

-Courage.

Courage is contagious. Let's face it, this is the generation that God is calling to be courageous. I was reading in the book 'Jesus Culture" again today and the example he used was Esther. She was covered by Mordecai who was a spiritual Father to her. He shared his courage with Esther, she learned from him, and with that went to the king, and ended up saving up thousands of her people. Courage was involved because in that day if you went to the king and he didn't want to talk to you, you would be killed. Definitely risky business, however because of the courage that was shared to Esther she went to the king despite knowing the possible outcome.

-Wisdom.

God is raising up a people in the earth who will display the wisdom of God! Young revivalists must be connected to fathers and mothers in order to receive greater understanding. "One of the main ways this inheritance of wisdom shows up is in the ability to learn from the mistakes and successes of our Father and Mothers. I see no reason why my children need to make the same mistakes I made to learn the same things I mastered. If they can connect with me, they can gain the things I assimilated without having to go through the same process. They will have to learn from their own mistakes, but those errors should teach them new things."

The following is another quote from the book Jesus Culture --- this a conversation between Bill Johnson and Banning Liebscher

"One day I asked him, "how did you figure out how to do the things you are doing that seem to work so well?" Without hesitation, he answered, "Because I've tried a lot of things that didn't work."

Wow! Why should we try all the things our father and mothers have tried only to find out what doesn't work? We can unite our lives with theirs and learn the things that do not work. We don't have time to waste trying to figure everything out on our own. There will be things we need to ascertain on our own, but let's get as much as we can from the older generation!

-Protection.

Once again, they have the experience, plus... well, think of it this way, "If it's raining and you don;t wish to get soaked, then jump under an umbrella." We have to fight our own battles but it much easier under covering of our father and mothers.

Okay, I am going to skip ahead because this story keeps penetrating me every time I think about it.

It's in second kings, chapter two. The story of Elijah and Elisha.

2 Kings 2:5-15 ---

⁵ The guild of prophets at Jericho came to Elisha and said, "Did you know that Godis going to take your master away from you today?"

"Yes," he said, "I know it. But keep it quiet."

⁶ Then Elijah said to Elisha, "Stay here. God has sent me on an errand to the Jordan."

Elisha said, "Not on your life! I'm not letting you out of my sight!" And so the two of them went their way together.

⁷ Meanwhile, fifty men from the guild of prophets gathered some distance away while the two of them stood at the Jordan.

⁸ Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up, and hit the water with it. The river divided and the two men walked through on dry land.

⁹ When they reached the other side, Elijah said to Elisha, "What can I do for you before I'm taken from you? Ask anything."

Elisha said, "Your life repeated in my life. I want to be a holy man just like you."

¹⁰ "That's a hard one!" said Elijah. "But if you're watching when I'm taken from you, you'll get what you've asked for. But only if you're watching."

^11-14 And so it happened. They were walking along and talking. Suddenly a chariot and horses of fire came between them and Elijah went up in a whirlwind to heaven. Elisha saw it all and shouted, "My father, my father! You—the chariot and cavalry of Israel!" When he could no longer see anything, he grabbed his robe and ripped it to pieces. Then he picked up Elijah's cloak that had fallen from him, returned to the shore of the Jordan, and stood there. He took Elijah's cloak—all that was left of Elijah!—and hit the river with it, saying, "Now where is the God of Elijah? Where is he?"

When he struck the water, the river divided and Elisha walked through.

¹⁵ The guild of prophets from Jericho saw the whole thing from where they were standing. They said, "The spirit of Elijah lives in Elisha!" They welcomed and honored him.

That is illustrating everything I am trying to say. Elisha received A DOUBLE PORTION OF THE ANOINTING of Elijah. If the guy who was next in line had of received a double portion of Elisha's anointing, which was a double portion of Elijah's, then he could have walked in anointing four times greater than that of Elijah. Sadly he was unfaithful, and if you keep reading you'll find out he doesn't get it because of his "un-faithful-ness". But.. imagine if he had of, that is my dream, my vision! An anointing increasing from generation to generation, let's soak it up! Let's receive it!

Sorry for typing an encyclopaedia long blog, woooo, God is good,

Colton

I am consumed by You.

Hey Guys and Girls.

I just feel this peace surrounding me. You know, that feeling, you are being looked after, you are no longer in a mess, you are safe.

Romans 2:24 ---

"He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ."

Pretty peaceful isn't it?

You know, at this one moment in time, in my imagination, there are a thousand dreams and thoughts sprinting. Dreams for a future where I am praising God with all I have, being thankful for all I am and all I have been given.

Some of thoughts in my head are things that I could talk about right now, like... screwing up, and God picking us up, days of being lazy, Anointing, Purity, a few things that are really on my heart... but I read something today out of the book "Jesus Culture" by Banning Liebscher that I want to share.

I don't know what is going on inside me, but I have a heart to see things drastically changed and I am ready to mature spiritually and for gifts to be poured out and to see revival and a radical change over this world. World seems like such a big world, but ultimately, that is what it is. The world, God is going to change the world. It will be a combination of speaking the word, sharing of faith, leading of music. I don't care, I just want God to throw those blessing upon me. So lately my prayer has been for an advance in spiritual maturity, and with that we have to prove that we are worthy of this advancement. I saw that to say that what this entry is focusing on is for those who are ready to mature in that.

I was reading in that book today, about alignment. We all have spiritual influences in our lives, like our pastors, worship leaders, a friend who has a strong relationship with Christ. I believe, and agree with Banning when he says that we are to look to those Fathers and Mothers, our "role-models", and use the ground that they have conquered, take that knowledge, and run with it. Let's see if this makes more sense. "If revival is a structure God is building on the earth, then I don't want to spend my life building the same floor my fathers and mothers built. In other words I can align my life under Bill Johnson's and step right into a revelation of healing that took him years to acquire." The spirit of independence has deceived us into thinking we need to strive on our own and learn things by ourselves, so we only end up reaching as far as those before us. Rather than working from the same floor in the building of revival that my fathers and mothers have built, I want to take what they've received and propel it to the next level!

Make more sense now?

It just strikes me that these are the days when things are going to happen, we are not just any other generation, God is using us to see His world changed. The change is now, so let's not waste time soaking in what we already know or in what our fathers, mothers, and role-models have already learned, let's take what they have received and run with it, further and further. Let's make progress, and always come back to the heart of worship, right to God. Let's run this race faster than any other generation before us, and my prayer is that the generation after us, if there will be one, will run even faster, always getting the prize. Forever and ever.

A servant and in love,

Colton

Refreshing joy, adoration, we come to pour our love on you. Jesus, be my everything. Be my everything, be my everything, be my everything, be my everything. You are everything, You are everything, You are everything. WE WILL DECLARE, YOU ARE EVERYTHING. Holy holy holy, is the Lord God almighty, who was and is and is to come. With all creation I sing, praise to the King of Kings, You are my everything, and I will adore You.

Obsession

What can I do with my obsession?
With the things I cannot see
Is there madness in my being?
Is it wind that blows the trees?
Sometimes you're further than the moon
Sometimes you're closer than my skin
And you surround me like a winter fog
You've come and burned me with a kiss

And my heart burns for you
And my heart burns

And I'm so filthy with my sin
I carry pride like a disease
You know I'm stubborn God and I'm longing
to be close
You burn me deeper than I know
I feel lonely without hope
I feel desperate without vision
You wrap around me like a winter coat
You come and free me like a bird

And my heart burns for you
And my heart burns for you

I just have this deep passion, and maybe a suggestion, or an idea, burning inside of me. Just spend some time alone seeking him, and finding him, and figuring out everything, my favourite parts of my life are when I just take time and am talking things out with him, and my life becomes that much more clear. Let's continually be charging up as we are pouring out.

Psalms 62:2 ---

God, the one and only— I'll wait as long as he says.
Everything I need comes from him,
so why not?
He's solid rock under my feet,
breathing room for my soul,
An impregnable castle:
I'm set for life.

Haha, that's excellent! We are set for life. SET FOR LIFE, it's like the Lottery, except instead of a chance of winning money, you are guaranteed of winning love. Sweet deal? I think yes!

I want to drink God, deep draughts of God. I'm thirsty for God-alive,

Colton

A Word

Well, today has been a pretty cool day, to say the least.

I had a few things on my mind that I wanted to blog about tonight, but then when I got home, the bibles that our church ordered for the youth group were here and I was looking inside one of them and came across some pretty cool stuff.

First of all though, things are changing. Revival is coming, change is happening, and God is hearing our cries, I can see it. Keep praying, we are going to take back our cities, friends, school, families, taking it all back.

Now, for what I was reading in this new bible.

Seven Reason not to worry.

1. The same God who created life in you can be trusted with the details of your life.

2. Worrying about the future hampers your efforts for today.

3. Worrying is more harmful then helpful.

4. God does not ignore those who depend on him.

5. Worry shows a lack of faith and understanding of God.

6. There are real challenges God wants us to pursue, and worrying keeps us from them.

7. Living one day at a time keeps us from being consumed with worry.

Personally, lately I haven't really had a problem with worry, but maybe you, reader, do, or maybe you know of someone who does, share this along -- spread the news, there is a way out of it, and trust me, it makes life a whole lot more enjoyable!

Sleeping sounds delicious,

Colton

Great Success

Today was a wonderful day, ha SO BUSY! However, at the end of the day, after all the hard work, the Variety show was over, and I felt like I had accomplished something, and I felt good about that. I really hope that in somewhere in all the chaos today I blessed someone, in some way. Think that's possible, blessing people without even realizing it? I guess you don't think about it at the time, but even just helping someone out with a chore, that's a blessing. It's neat how God set that up.

You know what else is neat? How God uses things that I am involved in, that up front, don't have.. how can I say this? ..... Christian labelled all over it. But in the end you learn so much form it, and when you let things go and just be the person who he made you, the desire of your heart shows, and then people see that, and are blessed, and see God. I learned so much today. I think that when we are stressed, and under pressure, we don't have time to try and cover up our insecurities, and that is when people see the true us, and for me, that somehow opened up a whole lot more doors to talk about God, or about anything like that. Gosh, I feel so encouraged, and I want to share that with every one. I encourage you to let go, be yourself, and don't fall into the trap of conforming to this world. The truth is, that when we are ourselves, the person that God made us, the right people are drawn to us, meaning that the people who God wants to come to us, do come to us! Does that makes sense? And maybe this doesn't relate to you, but I find that a big deal for me. Hah, maybe this is a personal thing, but God is never stopping.

I have a sacred obsession with God and it won't go away not at all, I have a hold of your heart God, I won't let go. After tonight I feel like I have a even more in depth glance at where I'm going, who I am, this passion is growing inside, and I have been waiting to realize it, now's the time! Freedom is coming up, start with me God!

Blah, I don't know what else to say.

The devil has got nothing on me, because I am taking back my authority! Hahah Praise God.

Watch out Heaven, here I come, I'll storm the gates because we have won, boldly before your throne, I'm coming home!

Set me apart from this world, I am coming home. I'm taking back my authority, taking back my authority. Taking back, taking back my CITY NOW! Taking back, taking back my SCHOOL NOW! Taking back, taking back my FRIENDS NOW!

Shake the heavens Lord.

Break Rebellion, Send Revival.

So deeply satisfied,

Colton