Ryans Blog

The Name/Character of God

2011-06-14T12:18:00.000-04:00

Exodus 33:18-19; 34:6-7
And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.

And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

I'd read these passages before but never back to back. When God reveals His name to Moses, for some reason I had always assumed He would have given His name. Instead we see God revealing His character as His name. When God chose His name, He considered them synonymous with His name. He is the Lord. He is merciful and gracious (thank You). He is patient and abundant in goodness in truth. He is forgiving and yet just. As I claim to adopt His name as a follower of Jesus my Rabbi, are these qualities true of me? Are they becoming more and more true of me? Outwardly, possibly. But inwardly? To my wife? In my frustrations? In my prayers? It requires that I meditate on my heart and my actions in humility. It requires that I pray for the changes I so wish to see. It requires that I call upon the name of the Lord who does encompass these traits, and ask Him to make them true of me from within me. As always, I need you Father.

2010-05-13T08:25:00.001-04:00

I'm in love. Its simple. She is beautiful and amazing and I am blessed by her daily. This is it.

Secrets of a Prayer Warrior

2009-12-01T19:45:00.002-05:00

As some of you may know, I have four favorite Bible teachers, and one favorite pastor. There is a Biblical difference between a teacher and a pastor, so I make the distinction. All of these people surpass just being GOOD at a job, and rather have a supernatural calling towards what they do. They are (Bible teachers first, and in no particular order) Jesus, Paul, Bryan Loritts, and Derek Prince. My favorite pastor is Isaac, although I guess Paul qualified in that category as well.

Regardless, I am reading a book by the late Derek Prince called "Secrets of a Prayer Warrior." If you want to know Biblical truths about prayer, it is one of the highest recommendations I can send your way. I have benefited endlessly this year from the way God used this man's life, and I can truthfully say, his life has changed my life.

His teachings on proclamation and spiritual warfare, his understanding of covenant and the promises of Scripture have changed my walk with Christ.

I wanted to take a small excerpt that I've been thinking about with the enemy, and with the people in my life that I have been the enemy towards, as well as seen the enemy in. Pay special attention to the last chapter cuz that is what really got me.

Satan's Current Occupation

Revelation 12 gives us a glimpse at the current work of our enemy, which every one of us needs to remember: "The accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God say and night, has been cast down" (verse 10). Satan at the present time has one supreme task, which he is very busy with. It is accusing you and me - brethren refers to believers- before the throne of God day and night. He finds every fault, every weakness, every flaw, every inconsistency that he can in our character, motives and conduct and reports it to God.

The Scriptures indicate clearly that before Satan fell he was a high-ranking angel. His commonly ascribed scriptural name Lucifer means "light bearer." At that time, when he was still in right relationship with God, his business was to bring reports fro this area of the universe. When he fell and became a rebel, like a lot of rebels I know, he tried to carry on as if nothing had happened. So he just goes on bringing his reports- extremely uncharitable, critical, bitter, cynical reports. He tears us to shreds with his descriptions of our motives and conduct.

And for the record, he does not need our help. We must not become critics of God's children, because the devil is doing all right without us. Above all, never become a critic of yourself. If you resort to self-condemnation, you are doing the devil's job for him in your own life. If you are a new creature in Christ, when you criticize yourself you are criticizing God's handiwork. That is not your job. Don't do it!

The whole issue of our battle against evil centers in one thing: righteousness. Because of Jesus' righteousness, God has made it possible that the devil will have nothing to bring against us in heaven. "(God) made (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2nd Corinthians 5:21)

I loved the part about critiquing God's workmanship. Say it out loud to yourself, using the Sword of the Spirit. I am Christ's MASTERPIECE (poema), created in Christ Jesus for good works!!! Who are we to tear apart God's masterpiece. My friends, I know very well, what it feels like to be torn apart, and how the voices can echo in your mind much longer than the voices that are spoken in the world, and I can tell you that our words, truly do have the power to bring life or death to people. Father, I pray at this point that you forgive all those in my life that have used words and judgements to tear my heart apart, and I ask that you forgive me for all the ways I've done this to people in the past.

Lastly, Matthew 6:33 Jesus says to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. Why when I hear "seek His righteousness" do I immediately think that means to go out and find good things to do. Am I alone in this? In fact, its the OPPOSITE. It's seek Christ's righteousness!! The restful, peace-giving, life creating, judgement satisfying righteousness of Christ that God has made freely available to me by faith.

So beloved, I hope you are able to take some of these things to heart tonight. In relationship with Christ, you are not to criticize yourself. Satan can handle the job himself. You are not to look at your works for the means by which life is to be given OR death is to be given. Seek first Christ's righteousness. Be covered in the Jesus blanket of sonship tonight. God bless you.

The Gospel through sin

2009-11-18T14:51:00.004-05:00

Oh sin, my sin,

My greatest enemy, my greatest sorrow.

I protect you at the cost of my own life.

For I will die. Death is not an option

Either I will die to you, or die in you.

You've deceived me countless times.

Why do your old tricks work so well against me?

Oh how I've traded pleasure for joy.

I weep, i weep.

God offered me joy, in relationship with Him.

You offered me pleasure, in relationship with you.

I have traded my relationship with the Eternal for my relationship with the temporal.

That's exactly what you wanted, wasn't it?

I am cut off from life, cut off from being truly known.

Cast into separation. Not just from people, not just from Him.

But from you. You use me, you trick me.

You leave me.

Alone.

But then.

Ah sweet God. For He is on the prowl, you see.

Sin. You tremble. Sin. You are silenced.

And I hear His beckon. Repent of your hedonistic love of self!

Pleasure does not satisfy!!! Leave and come.

For I WILL NOT GIVE UP ON YOU!!!

So great a love, sin you have you response.

You wiggle and writhe with accusations of guilt.

You're only offer is shame.

His offer is change.

He offers to me a new heart. A heart that is free from your tricks.

A heart I yearn for so deeply.

And so I come to Him. Lowly. Ashamed. Humbled to my core.

And I'm met with invitation...

Such sweet words....

Child... MY child...

Let's clean you up.

While sin is nothing to be made light of, neither is Your love! Your grace! Your goodness!!

Such sweet goodness. From a love I will never understand, never fully embrace, never ever lose.

Praise be to my Messiah. Praise be to the Son of the Most High!

Praise be to Jesus. Amen.

List of Manhood for son

2009-08-15T11:09:00.003-04:00

That Jesus is Lord and Saviour

How to treat a woman

How to throw a baseball, football, frisbee and how to shoot a basketball

How to work on a car (change oil, drive stick, change tires)

How to cook

How to listen

Manners

Lend a hand/ morals

Importance of Weightlifting and Excerise

How to make knots

Housecare (lawncare, electrician stuff)

How to unwind/relax

The importance of studying God's Word.

Carve a turkey

Use tools

Treat frostbite

Treat a burn

Help a seizure victim

Treat a snakebite

Build a fire in the wilderness
Build a shelter

Find potable water

Set up a Tent

Cast a line /net
Change a tire
Drive a stick shift
Parallel park
Tie a bowline
Tie a necktie
Whittle
Ride a bike

The Story of God's calling to my Israel

2009-05-19T21:28:00.005-04:00

January was an incredibly tough month for me. It is my belief that somehow I was left open for spiritual warfare to take place in my life and a demon of unbelief found it's way deep in my being. Having a decent amount of credentials, as far as humans are concerned, as asked as a 22 year old to help pastor a church, having led two different campus ministries, and prepared bible studies to be used within major Christian organizations,(even as I write this, I am sickened by my pride in my own righteousness, but I need to tell the story as it happened) I had always felt in a close wonderful relationship with the Lord. December 28th-ish all that changed. Over the course of one conversation with my girlfriend, I instantly snapped, both at her and at the Lord. Suddenly, simply after an invitation to a conference on spiritual warfare and missions, I began accusing the Lord of being an abusive husband, with hate and hurt and anger as the only emotion I could sense. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Over the course of that month, I removed myself from all community that I could, stepped down from leadership at my church, and, aside from the uncompromising grace of the Lord, walked away from Jesus. I locked myself in my room, in depression all day, everyday, and in doing so, locked away the world, left to boil in my anger towards God. I called Him out on promises my sinful self had no place to hold Him accountable to.

At the end of January, almost to the day, my pastor and friend came by to visit me and talk with me, as well as pray for me. I had had tons of people give me their speeches and explanations on how to get out of this, but I would have none of it from any of them. This one was different. He addressed me with authority, something I knew very little about, but told me it sounded like a demon of disbelief had entered my life. He prayed for me (as many had) but laid hands on me. As we were praying, for the first time in months, I heard the Lord again. He told me very simply, "If there had ever been anyone who was EXACTLY where they should have been, it was Jesus when He was on the Cross, and yet, even there God was silent." The Scripture is true. I learned by experience that man does not live on bread alone, but by every word (rhema) that comes from the mouth of God. Faith was indeed unleashed by hearing the Word of God. A single sentence from Him was the turning point for me.

From there, I began healing. I knew that I needed the Word of God in my life, but I was still hurting and couldn't bring myself to sitting down and reading the Scriptures. Because of this, I turned to podcasts. I began searching for someone that could read the Word of God to me. By the grace of God, I found the Daily Audio Bible (DAB) podcast, and quickly began devoting myself to everyday feeding on the Word, as well as community and prayer. By now, it was nearing April and I began seeing the hand of the Lord at work in my life. DAB offered a 4 week class on prayer taught by John Eldridge that I committed myself to, and I began to learn, through this class, about something that I tragically had never learned about up to that point in my walk: The Authority Christ has Given us as Believers!!!

Perhaps you can share my story at this point. I felt as thought I KNEW the second I was born that I was thrown into a battle, and that the battle was real and dangerous. As a believer I was thrown into this war, and I was ever told I was given weapons. I would watch the bullets fly by my head and hope that they wouldn't hit me, but no one had ever taught me how to fire my weapon.

Had the Lord not taken me through such a shaking out of my old routine, I never would have been brought to this point. I began learning more and more about the fact that we as believers HAVE been given power, and that we were just hopeful eventual victims. I didn't have to sit and wait for the enemy to come to my gate. I, in fact, had been commissioned to take this battle to his kingdom, and pushed it back in the power of the Holy Spirit, and for the glory of God.

About this time, although I still have NO idea how it was sent to me, I received a book by the late great, Derek Prince called "And They Shall Expel Demons."

The must know's of Israel

2009-05-17T14:07:00.001-04:00

Why To Pray for Israel -

Facing the Facts : Israel is the name for the Nation of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The name Israel or Israelite occurs in the OT more than 2,500 times.

The word Israel occurs 79 times in the New Testament! It never NEVER describes Israel as the church.

The word Jew occurs 89 times in the OT and 192 in the NT. Christian occurs 3 times.

1 Chron 17:^21 - And who is like your people Israel—the one nation on earth whose God went out to redeem a people for himself, and to make a name for yourself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? ²² You made your people Israel your very own forever, and you, O LORD, have become their God.

Revelation 5:^5 -Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals."

Many many years after His death and resurrection. He ALWAYS Identifies HIMSELF with the Jewish people. He was a Jew and He IS a Jew.
There IS a Lion up there and He's a Jew. One day, He will roar and whoa to the enemies of the Jewish people.

John 4:22 - You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.

No Jews, No salvation. The Bible. The Patriarchs. The Prophets. The Saviour. All come from the Jews.

Whole History of Jewish People was Told in Prophecy.

16 Stages of Prophecy Concerning Israel.

Slavery in Egypt.
Deliverance from Egypt with wealth.
Possession of the Land of Canaan.
That they would turn to Idolatry in the Promised Land.
God would establish a center of worship in Jerusalem.
North Kingdom called Israel would be carried into exile by Assyria.
Southern Kingdom called Judah would be carried into exile by Babylon.
Destruction of the First Temple of Solomon.
Return of a small remnant from Babylon.
Destruction of the Second Temple (by Jesus)
Lev 26 - Because of Disobedience they would be scattered among the nations of the Gentiles.
Endure Persecution and oppression from the Gentiles.
They would be regathered from all Nations (happened in OUR lifetime)
Gathering of all nations against Jerusalem in war.
Supernatural revelation of Messiah to His People, Israel.
The coming of Messiah in Glory and Power to establish His kingdom on Earth.

13 have been fulfilled of 16 Prophecies (81%)

God's plan for the land of Israel, mistakenly called Palestine.

Palestine literally means, "Land of the Phillistines" and was used by the Romans after they destroyed the Temple to assert that the Jews had no claim to it. Very antisemetic.
Biblically it was called the Land of Canaan. In the New Testament it was called the Land of Israel (twice in 1st Two Chapters of Matthew)

Genesis 17: ⁷ And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. ⁸ Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”

No dispute as to who the land belongs if you believe the Bible.

Psalm 105:⁷ He is the LORD our God;
- His judgments are in all the earth.
- ⁸ He remembers His covenant forever,
           The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations,
  ⁹ The covenant which He made with Abraham,
           And His oath to Isaac,
  ¹⁰ And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute,
           To Israel as an everlasting covenant,

In those four verses God uses more words to describe His TOTAL commitment than ANY other passage in the Bible. What is the Bible talking about, that God is SO dedicated to?

^{Psalm 105:11} Saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan, As the allotment of your inheritance,”

God makes countless prophecies about the restoration of Israel:

Jeremiah 30:³ For behold, the days are coming,’ says the LORD, ‘that I will bring back from captivity My people Israel and Judah,’ says the LORD. ‘And I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.’”

He then gives a warning:

Jeremiah 30:⁵ “For thus says the LORD:
‘ We have heard a voice of trembling,
      Of fear, and not of peace.
       ⁶ Ask now, and see,
      Whether a man is ever in labor with child?
      So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins
      Like a woman in labor,
      And all faces turned pale?
       ⁷ Alas! For that day is great,
      So that none is like it;
      And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble,
      But he shall be saved out of it.

This is a picture of terror and tragedy
The Return of the Jews to the land of Israel will not immediately bring peace. But the promise is that they shall be saved OUT of it, not from it.

Part 2 - Israel, only a land of about 6, maybe 6.5 million people.

matthew 23:37-39

³⁷"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. ³⁸Look, your house is left to you desolate. ³⁹For I tell you, you (Jewish people) will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

Jesus says He won't come back until Israel is ready to welcome Him.

How to Pray For Israel - By the Pen of Derek Prince

Abrahamic Covenant

³ Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, ⁴ "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. ⁵ No longer will you be called Abram ; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. ⁶ I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. ⁷ I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. ⁸ The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."

Ezekiel 36:16-38 (Their own land, defiled by their sin)

²¹"But I had concern for My holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations where they went. (For the sake of HIS name)

V24 - ²⁴"For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land.

Their OWN land. Whether they were in it or not, it was their land by covenant

2000 years of disbanding, and still an idetifiable people group.

THEN

V25 - ²⁵"Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

This is how Im going to deal with them:

Return them to their land, and THEN turn and repent.

Clean water is the Word of God. Sprinkled, not drenched.

The Law of Christ

2008-06-13T13:11:00.004-04:00

Man o man, am I learning to fall more in love with my Lord and Savior. Although, I confess that sometimes my slow-to-learn heart has a very hard time grasping between His Lordship and His Savior(hood?) I recently stepped out of a Lordship-heavy side time of growth, in which I saw how beautiful Jesus is, and how wonderful His Cross and came to the conclusion that greatness demands a response, and that response was His authority in every area of my life. It was an amazing time, which I eventually grew into a formula of do's and don'ts because, going by the way my heart is wired... If good things happen, it's because Im doing something right, and if bad things happen, its because God is trying to push me back in a different direction. Well, I went from being given amazing opportunity after amazing opportunity, with a growing closeness to God, my wonderful girlfriend, and a good 'plan' in the future of my life to a sudden HALT!

In the course of a week, I got taken out of emceeing at the Getaway conference, picking up two more classes, no clarity on a future with jobs, etc, being taken out of an incredible missions trip to East Asia, I got hurt so I couldn't work out and began to develop a slight disgust with myself, and the worst of all things, I lost a closeness with God that I had been given. I would attempt to spend time with Him and felt completely alone. This eventually (although by the grace of God, only minorly) my relationship with my girlfriend because I just felt alone. Even now, I don't have the answer for why He seemed distant. One of my friends said yesterday that perhaps sin doesn't push God away as much as it pushes us away from Him. I'm still trying to figure out where I land on that one. Perhaps it was my sin. Perhaps He was really just not as experiential as He had been, but whatever the reason, it definitely happened, and I choose to believe, although hard it times, that it was for my good.

So my do good, get good, do bad, get bad mentality had gotten me in trouble. I thought I was on the right track and then suddenly it all came to a halt. Ministry was becoming a chore. Eventually prayer, and time in the Word was being ignored to 'get Him back' on some level, and I had lost, in the minor sense. God "didn't come through" when it came to saving me from all my classes, from my valley, etc. Why do our hearts do that? Why do we betray the hearts of those we feel love us the most? It is to see if we can hurt them? Part of me thinks it is. Regardless, God wasn't working with me, and I didn't feel like working with Him.

Anyway, its been a slow crawl of healing in that. I have felt some pressure to go get better, but most of that has been from myself. How could one be expected to preach, teach, or lead when all of that is on the inside? ENTER GOD!

"Many Christians focus on the laws of God. Their concept of victorious Christian living is to avoid wrong actions and do right ones. They often study God's Word, learning all the things they must stop and the things they must start. They are focused on the rules of the Christian life."

Alot of my "good time" was with this mentality. Stop the bad stuff, start the good stuff, and God will use you more, grow you more, not necessarily LOVE me more, but be proud of me more. Ha, I give myself too much credit. Remember Ryan, even your good deeds are like filthy rags.

Or to say it another way:

"They want to be told where they can stand and not stand and still be okay in the eyes of God. They believe that if they can only do the right things, they will grow spiritually and enjoy a victorious Christian walk."

This is legalism in its truest form. Do you see how much my eyes on our MY actions. The Gospel ALWAYS AND FOREVER points to HIS action and if you leave that place, I pray you come back to the Cross.

This is one of the sentences that He has given to me in order to help get me to where I am today.

"God's concern with you isn't about rules but relationship. When you properly understand your relationship to God, the rules tend to take care of themselves."

I don't think that that is ENTIRELY true, because we ARE to die to ourselves which puts that on us, but the HEART He gives to us, the choice He leaves to us.

I leave you with this verse to dwell on. First Corinthians 15:56 says that the power of sin is the law. Focusing on rules will never lead to obedience, but will stimulate a person to disobedience. Paul made this truth very clear.

For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter (Romans 7:5-6, emphasis mine).

From how much of the law has the Christian been set free? All of it!!