I love to kiss!!!

The greek word for "worship" is "proskuneo", pronounced "pros-koo-neh-oh", and is actually derived from two words. The first word "pros", which means, "toward". This is where we get the word "prostrate" from. Some synonyms of this word is "bow down", "do obedience", "show reverence", "do homage", "adore". The second word is "kuneo", which means "to kiss". This is exactly what we do when we "worship" the Lord. We go toward Him to Kiss Him, and love on Him as we were created to do, in singing, dancing, clapping, spinning, playing music, and other creative expressions that the Lord has given us. We were created for companionship, just like a marraige. Worship is so powerful because our affections and emotions are involved with the very One who created everything. Intimacy is produced when these affections and emotions are added to our expression towards the King. This is why the world does not understand why we worship because the world does not know what true love and intimacy is, YET! The world has degraded the act of kissing and intimacy to sex. This word and expression goes beyond the feelings of the flesh. It is at a much higher level. Worship is a one dimensional act towards God. Not to angels, saints, shrines, relics, or religious personages. It is from you to the Lord. A one dimentinoal act with an eternal dimentional expression.

Take heed to what the Lord is saying..

"anybody can burn in a crowd, I want to find someone that will burn by themselves, anyone can burn in a movement. I want to find that one person that will pray when there is no prayer meeting called. That will get up in the middle of the night when there is no crises. The one person that gets the personal victories when no one else is looking. Defeats their lion and their bear so that when they have their day before Goliath, they have all the confidence in the world, and its not arrogance".

Struggles

You know I have really been struggling lately to better manage my time. It seems to be a struggle with power. The powers of darkness working against me to get me to spend my time on other things besides spending my time with the Lord. As you can see I haven't posted a blog in a long while. I recently sent an e-mail to one of my favorite worship leaders named Leonard Jones out of the Morning Star Ministry's, with Rick Joyner in North Carolina, and I asked him what is the secret to feeling "powerful" in our daily lives and walk with Jesus. I told him that I know that I am filled with the Holy Spirit and God has given me the gift of tongues and some prophecy, but even though I am walking with the Lord I still don't feel that "power" that I should feel being filled with the His Holy Spirit. He replied, to my surprise quite fast, and told me that the secret to being "powerful" in the kingdom of the God is "consistency". You must be consistent in your prayers, your reading the word, your daily worship, and everyday godliness to have that power. What great insight on such a small word. CONSISTENCY! Being consistent, like working out and getting under that bench press to work our muscles. This is parallel to our walk with the Lord. Getting under His teaching and guidance everyday to build ourselves up in Him. Consistency, be consistent!!

Who's Kingdom?

You know I am really into this myspace.com but you know what is starting get a little irritating. It seems that everyone is a musician now a days. This is the biggest fad that I have ever seen. It is like bell bottoms of the 70s. I get these friend requests all the time that want me to be there "friend", but I don't know them and they don't know me. They all seem to be promoting themselves among the whole "christian music scene". And they want me to buy their "new cd". I am always in wonder, every time that I look at their profile, who's kingdom are they promoting? Are they promoting themselves as musicians and their music or are they promoting the kingdom of God? After all they call themselves "Christians" which means "Christ like", but you don't see anything promoting Christ on their profiles. Don't get me wrong, I love music and making music, especially worship music to worship our Lord, but I am a lover of God more. I am not saying that I am better than them by any means, but who are they promoting, themselves or the kingdom of God?

freedom, will you accept it?

The 4th of July is tomorrow and we as the American people are celebrating our freedom.
I think about the Lord when I hear about freedom and being free. You know over 2000 years ago God set us free through His Jesus Christ who died on the cross. We were set free from everything that is bad in this world. Sickness, Disease, Cancer, Depression, Fear, Hatred, the Poor, the Slave, and the list could almost, literally, go on for ever. Almost every single person in America today accepts the fact that they were set free back on July 4th of 1776, but not the real freedom back over 2000 years ago. The real problem at hand is that we have accepted the true freedom that gives true life. The freedom from sin. The bible says in John 8:36, "Therefore, if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed!" This verse says the word "if" in it because we have a choice whether we want to accept His freedom or not. I encourage you to look at the real and true freedom that is in this world and accept it and fulfill the destiny that God has mandated upon your life.

Waiting

Why do we have to "wait" on God? Why doesn't God intervene in our life, to help us and make it a better life for us if He is such a good God? Well, He would if we would let Him, and if we weren't so impatient.
Sometimes we have a situation that presents itself and we look at it and say, "Yes this is it, this is what 'I' have been waiting for!" Well, lets really think about this for a moment. Is this what "you" have been waiting on?, or is this what "The Lord" has for us? Is this what's best for us from God? I say, "from God" because our life is not our own. In our eyes we look at it and we say, "Yes", but sometimes we as humans don't really know what's best for ourselves. On the news, daily, we see murder, rape, stealing, etc. We think that these things are best for us because it feels good or, in our mind, it is what we need.
Lets look at homosexuality. Lets get this right, from the beginning. I am not being a "gay basher" or anything, I love the homosexual person, but do disagree with what they do. I certainly am not hating on the homosexual people by any means. I am hating the lifestyle that they are leading that has them trapped by the flesh with immorality. This is certainly a destructive lifestyle that does not have the best intentions for the people leading it. This is a classic example of "love the sinner, but hate the sin". The people that are trapped in this lifestyle are saying, "Yes, this is so right, this feels so good." But, is this what's best for them? No, certainly not. What is best, is that they be fruitful and multiply as God commanded in the book of Genesis, so that they can raise up Godly children, and our future generation, to lead us in the future, as God also commanded in the book of Micah. You can by no means be fruitful and multiply in a same sex relationship. This is very unnatural. "Unnatural" things can never be "naturally" fruitful. It is impossible for the unnatural to produce natural things. You don't see male lions together producing baby cubs, or female lions together producing baby cubs.
Maybe the timing within this person's life is not the right time for that person to have a relationship, so they turn to the same sex because of impatience, or lack of waiting on what is right, and their feeling of rejection from the opposite sex.
I know that this may be an extreme example of waiting on the Lord, but extreme or not, it is still an example that is real. Waiting on the Lord can certainly and literally, save our life and save our soul from the certain destruction that we sometimes present to ourselves because of our impatience.

choosing a name

It was the summer of 16 when I accepted the Lord in my life and I knew that His calling on my life was music. I was praying about my expression of music for Him because I wanted to get started. I didn't want to wait around and let some one else fill my place. My youth pastors at that time lent me their guitar to learn. So, I went and bought books to read and study and started practicing.
The summer of 17 I felt this real drawing to the Lord about music even more and I was praying about a name to name the worship band that I was going to be in. I knew it wasn't something immediate but still wanted to be prepared and I knew that this was what the Lord had for me in my life. I know that this may seem like some cheesy name, but this was a very big deal to me because I wanted, and still do, so badly to pleasure the Lord in whatever decision that I made in this life because my life is not my own. So, during my prayer, on a bus, I said, "Lord, I just want to be after You in everything!" And the Lord hit me with it. It just kind of stuck to me like glue. "afteryou" what a great name. This could mean mean many things in the spiritual as well as the physical, in situations such as, "Lord, I want to be after You", or simply "after You, sir or ma'am". To be in the right mind and in unity with the Lord, in everyday thoughts and life, we are always think of the other person first, hence "afteryou"!
"afteryou" worship is solely directed to the One above. It is not just some "cliecheish" type name, if you will, that is self focused and self seeking. The focus is on the Lord. It is to bring people into the "God, I am after You", state of mind.
Plus I think is sounds kind of cool and not something someone would particularly use.

open eyes and open ears

Why is God so mysterious? We have consistently have unanswered prayers and we just feel alone all the time. Why? Why do we feel alone when we all know that there is something greater. Does this greater Being (God) not want to be with us?
The problem is not God. It is us. The bible says, "He that has ears, let him hear; And he that has eyes, let him see". You see God is not trying to be silent to us, or neglect us. We are the ones that won't open our eyes or our ears to hear or see what He is doing. He is trying to get our attention, but we are so distracted by our focus on ourselves that we can't see or hear anything but our own cares and wants.