GO GOD

PASSION
- Love that stirs to action
- Uncompromising commitment
-Willing to Sacrifice
- Can't keep it inside
- Without distraction
- Doesn't get old
- All consuming emotional interest
- Fire
- Focus creates more focus
- Loses rationality
- Creates desire to bring more people into it
- Undignified
- Brings hope
- Brings freedom
- Willing to waste your life on it

"God is most glorified when man is fully alive" - John Eldredge


Passion provokes desire for change. Passion creates a desire to want MORE of it. What does it look like to be passionate about Jesus?
There is no formula for passionately loving Jesus - it's a relationship that is unique for everyone. He wants to spend time with us, talk to us, live with us. The way we include Jesus in our every day lives is where it all begins. He is our lover and friend. Let His passion to love you pull you IN.
        Our speaker this week has been Dan Baumann. I have never witnessed a more passionate person in my life, and I am not exaggerating when I say that. He is literally one of the most inspiring people I have ever been around. Dan was imprisoned in Iran for 9 weeks - beaten and interrogated. It was the darkest time in His life, attempting suicide and feeling like God could not have been farther away. When he was standing before an Iranian judge, knowing that he was imprisoned for his faith, the Holy Spirit filled him and as he stood on the witness stand he proclaimed the gospel for a half hour to that judge. The day he became imprisoned he asked God how long he would be there and God said 9 weeks. The day the guard came in and told him to gather his belongings was 9 weeks to the exact day. God is faithful. "Go God" as Dan says all the time.
       Dan lives such a simple yet adventurous and exciting faith. He goes through his every day with Jesus, talking to Him like He's walking right next to Him. I've heard this before and experienced the closeness of Jesus, but the way it has been presented to us this week, makes walking with God every day so much more tangible and real. Being passionate about Jesus and living out what He has for me doesn't mean every day is going to be happy go lucky, but it means accepting that God is more faithful and committed to fulfilling His will for my life than I am to finding it. I might have days when I don't feel like living a Christian life, when I feel like my flesh is overriding "being a good Christian" but that doesn't change how God is feeling about me, He is the consistent one. There isn't a day when He isn't passionately pursuing a relationship with me. He doesn't give up. Not a day goes by that He isn't waiting for an invitation to be in every situation with me. HE ISN'T GOING TO CHANGE! God is doing things in my heart that I can't explain, and it's all good because I serve a good who at the end of EVERY day I can say He is good and He loves me this I know. Seek Jesus, the man who took all your sins on the cross with him. Seek the relationship with the lover of your soul, who knows your every deepest struggle, dream and desire better than you know it yourself. He is good, He is good, He is good.

           Last week we were in Bellingham Washington on our "Mini Outreach." The trip to WA took twelve hours and that car ride was my favorite part. I was so relaxed and mellow, it felt amazing to just be, especially when I was surrounded with a van full of people who I love spending time with and am building those relationships deeper. In WA we had the opportunity to do some different service projects around the city for an organization called rebound. My favorite day was when about 15 of us went to the site of a house that had been rebuilt for an eighty year old man named Wayne. Wayne's house had been condemned and the house was already rebuilt but we got to work on his front yard, spreading gravel to make a driveway and shoveling dirt in the front yard so that grass can be planted. I had not really ever done manual labor or construction, but it was really rewarding! God gave me such a heart for this man, and a love and compassion for his life. At the end of the day we all stood on the big dirt pile to pray for his life and the new house Wayne is about to get. Bellingham was a super cool town to be in, aside from all the rain and mud at the camp ground we stayed at. Bellingham is a very earth friendly and granola type college town. The down town was so much fun to walk around in - lots of antique shops and boutiques. The last night when we were walking downtown there were some people with a pickup truck full of snow they got off of Mount Baker. We had a snowball fight in the streets!
          There's a little update about what has been going on in the life of Eliza lately!