Tenth Avenue North

Entries tagged "volumes"

Across the World & Across the Street.

Oct 02

Hello, friends, fans, and family.
Last night Mike and I had the opportunity to hear the heart of some of our fellow christian music artists about the current rising global crisis. To my surprise it’s not famine, it’s not AIDS, it’s not financial deficit either.

I know I’ve blogged about this before and sorry for repeating myself. I realized during this conversation we had recently that I am in a band that has a platform (although modest in size) to speak and “fight the darkness.”

This growing crisis is human slavery. It is said that there are now more slaves in the world today than in any point in history. This slavery isn’t working in fields or factories. Children are being sexually abused. And this isn’t an intangible reality. This is a virus of the most evil nature that manifests itself in India, China, Africa, and just a few months ago even in my own back yard of Nashville, TN. A local motel was raided and 8 girls were rescued from a prison of a room filled with mattresses.

I could fill this page with statistics and heart breaking, disgusting stories, but I’d rather fill this page with hope. There are facilities and institutions in place that are making a change. They will not be quiet and they are shining their light where there is no light. Please, educate yourself on this subject that not many know about. The church is oblivious to this situation and we must not wait for the government to deal with it like the last time. Slavery is real and it pays less in our generation.

I’m excited because we’re working with other artists to help fight this poison that has silently crept into the streets of our world. Pray that those who are oppressed will be saved.

God will break the chains. He will deliver. Allow him to work in you to fight the darkness.

www.ijm.org

www.thehomefoundation.net

Tags: crisis God hope slavery social justice

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Vol 1, Part 5: About "By Your Side" Video

Oct 01

Tags: God Mike teaching video

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Something cool

Sep 15

So, there’s an age-long conversation about going to church I’ve been witness or exposed to.

My whole life I’ve known that it’s good to go to church. A few days ago Heather and I read why…

¹³ “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the LORD’s holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,

¹⁴ then you will find your joy in the LORD,
and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land
and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
The mouth of the LORD has spoken.

-Isaiah 58:13-14

There’s a lot of cool moments in there.
If I keep from doing as I please then…
I will find delight in the Lord.

So take that, eat it, digest it, and absorb it’s nutrients. One thing I’m working on is the 2nd and 3rd to last lines. What does He mean?

-Jeff

Tags: church God life

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Chapter 10 You Are

Sep 12

So we played a show at a church tonight,
and it was beautiful. God was adored, the gospel was treasured,
compassion kids were sponsored. Like I said, beautiful.
And it’s night like these that get me sort of weepy.
I start asking God under my breath, “Why do I get to do this?
You and I both know I don’t deserve it. You know I’ve got nothing
to offer you that you didn’t first give to me, so what on earth Lord?
Me? You sure about this?”

But it’s true. Right now we’re on the Inside and In Between Tour,
and I’ve been totally amazed. Amazed at how God has kept me close
to my wife over the phone, how He’s spoken through us and in spite of us,
how people have come to a better understanding of the gospel, and how
God has moved in hearts to initiate people to partner with Compassion
in releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name. It’s unbelievable.

And on a night like tonight this chorus seems easy.
“I give you all of me, for all you are,
here I am, take me apart. Take me apart.”
But it’s only easy, because the most glorious thing happened tonight.
I forgot about myself.
I know, totally crazy.
But I did. I think it might have just been for a few minutes or seconds or so,
but it really did happen. For one brief shining moment, God took up my
thoughts and affections and freed me from the prison of myself.

And that’s kind of what makes this prayer work.
So many of us try so hard to get better, do more, change the world,
and all we ever seem to do is fall flat on our back.
And its sad because I feel like no one ever told us that we’ll
never make it that way. It’s just not possible.
The only true path to freedom is adoration.
The forgetting of oneself in the awe of another is the only place we
can be changed, for to change into something that we are not,
we must see what it is to what we must aspire.
Or in other words,
“the worth and excellency of a soul is measured by the objects of its love.”
-Henry Scougal
Or in other words,
“We are forms of all the things we love.”
-Jars of Clay
Or in other words,
“but we with unveiled faces, beholding God’s glory, are being transformed
from one degree of glory to another.”
-2 Corinthians 3:18
Or in other words,
we become whatever we love.
Love mean and sordid things and so you will be.
Love God, and the most wondrous thing will happen, Scougal explains,
the life of God will show up in the soul of man.

And so that’s all this song is saying.
Don’t try to be better for God.
Don’t try to figure out all the things you need to change,
just fix your eyes on Jesus.
He is your life. He is the one who saves.
He is at the center of all things,
and He holds all things together.
And as you love Him,
as you fawn over all that He is,
He’ll begin to change all that you are.
Or as my pastor says,
“for every time you look at yourself, take ten looks at Jesus.”
Don’t look at what your hands have done,
look at what his have done for you.
And as you fix your eyes on Jesus tonight,
and on all that He is, I pray that you slowly but surely,
forget about all that you are.

May the infinity of who He is , so fill your finite heart and mind
that you find yourself being crammed out entirely.

Tags: God tour

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What I Want

Aug 22

“Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
-Psalm 37: 3-5
How often do I use this passage to get what I want?

“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
- James 4:1-3

With Psalms 37: 3-5 I must say that I am often guilty of James 4:1-3.
A long time ago a friend revealed a stunning revelation in delighting myself with the Lord. It goes like this: God is a jealous god. You delight yourself in Him (he’s your joy). So, shouldn’t God give you Himself? He’s what I want right?

Wow. Never thought of it like that.

Dwell on these passages. But not on these lyrics of an old Janis Joplin tune:

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?

Hasta la pasta
-j

Tags: God life questions scripture

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