The Vision

So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this…
The vision?

The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn't even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision ?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers

choose to loose
that they might one day win
the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing…
This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them ?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them ?

And the generation prays

like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive

inside.

On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,

they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.
How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.


http://media.24-7prayer.org/thevision/index.html

Lifehouse - Everything (Skit)

Prayer

Lord,

I just want to thank you for my small group leader, Coco, Angela Liu, and Rachel. I want to thank you for teaching me the faith part of tithe...thank you for the breakthrough. Thank you that the hardest thing for me to give up right now, I have given up, and need you to provide for me instead. THANK YOU FOR MAKING ME WEAK SO YOUR POWER CAN SHOW THROUGH. Thank you for Coco's heart, Lord. I told her about my breakthrough and she started tearing up really badly and enthusiastically hugged me and said, "The Lord loves you so much! I just know it. It takes people a long time to learn this!" Thank you so much for her heart, Lord. Thank you for bringing her and Angela Liu and Rachel into my life. They are so genuine, warm, caring, funny, and self-sacrificing. Lord - just like family...maybe even better than distant family. Thank you that they have seen my bad/negative side and they still love me the same. Thank you that I've found a place and people I can be who I am around. Thank you for always being so incredibly FAITHFUL.

I'M SORRY for doubting that you aren't able to do what you said you're able to do. I'M SORRY for forgetting what you've done for me in the past. Why did I doubt? How could I ever have forgotten? Lord, I need you to do the impossible, because you make everything possible. Lord, thank you for teaching me to EXPECT. I EXPECT that you will make everything possible.

I'M SOLD OUT FOR YOU, and that's an understatement.

"Please know that I am God."

Quotes
1. Yang was surprised by the fact that there two gigantic trash cans in the middle of the shopping street.
Angela Yang : "Oh! Is that a trash can?!"
Angela Liu: Why? You want to get in it? (LOL)
Yang: Hahahaha. No! I was just wondering why it's placed there.
Liu: Yeah, it's just more obvious that way. (HAHA)

2. I always tend to wander off while I'm shopping, and once I started wandering off, and felt like I couldn't move. I turned around and Angela Liu was holding onto my scarf and looking the other way. (hahahahaha).

3. Rachel and Angela Liu are always trying to learn English, but they purposely try to say it with a really heavy accent, and it's so funny.
Angela Yang: So when can you use "ji1 che1"?
Rachel: Like, when someone does something to you and you're like "UHG!"
Angela Liu: Yeah, you know, (heavy accent) you are so motorcycle." Which translates into the Chinese slang, "Ni2 hen3 ji1 che1". (hahahaha)

MORE TO COME....

Adam Sandler in 'Click'

So, after I finished praying last night, the longest, most passionate prayer I had prayed in a long time, I turned the tv on. It was like 2 am or something. A new movie had just started and it was one of my past favorites - Click. I watched the entire movie, until like 4 am or something, and it really reminded me of what I always preach to myself and others about.

Adam Sandler fast-forwarded everything he hated about life - showering, traffic, arguments with his wife, his boss - but in the end, realized that if he deletes the bad, he deletes a huge part of his life, and that life is made up of the good and the bad. Sometimes we go through life and think "Why do I have to go through this?" or "Why is this happening?" but this movie made me realize that that is what life is about. Who would we be without all those things? Just like when someone tells us to turn the negative into positive - many times, good things come out of bad things. So, God teaches us, throughout our lives through different experiences and hardships, to embrace everything that happens, and turn it into good, which I think is amazing advice.

I'm saying this and I'm not even living in, like, Darfur or something. Can you imagine how BLESSED the persecuted are - that they live with such meaning, such fullness of life? We, who are materially blessed in every way, complain that we are empty. Why the contradiction? Only through our sufferings and hardships do we realize that we are so incredibly blessed and fortunate. Sometimes when volunteering to those less fortunate, I learn priceless things from them, like the joy I see in their eyes, even though they possess nothing of material worth. They give willingly and freely. Humans are so easily spoiled. We take things and hold onto them, forgetting who (God) gave those things to us in the first place.

CAUTION: MOVIE SPOILER!!!!!

In the end, Adam Sandler returned to the moment he fell asleep, like it was just a dream. He made friends with the quirky store guy, ran to his amazingly crappy car and sat in it with joy, drove to his parents' home, kissed and hugged them, went home to his family, kissed and hugged his wife, bought a companion for his dog because "Doggy years go by fast!", and started planning the camping trip he had previously postponed because of work.

It was a great movie. Lol. Yay. Praise God.

"Peace Be Still"
Rush of Fools

Come to Me, you who are weak
Let My strength be yours tonight
Come and rest, let My love be your bed
Let My heart be yours tonight

Peace be still, Peace be still
Please be still and know that I am God
and know that I am God

Come empty cup, let Me fill you up
I'll descend on you like a dove tonight
Lift your head, let your eyes fall into Mine
Let your fear subside tonight

Rush of Fools - When Our Hearts Sing

Lord Father,

Give me the words when I don't have enough wisdom. Father, guide me and lead me to where you want me to be. Open my eyes to who I am in your view. Help me see myself the way you see me. Reveal yourself. Father, you are all-knowing, omnipotent. You can take the smartest person I know and make him search for you. Lord Father, I pray for those who are searching, for the empty, for the lonely, for the broken. One snap of your finger, and IT'S DONE. Father, hear my prayer.

On another note, Rick Warren is praying at Obama's inauguration! Yay for Evangelicals!!