Grace, for the journey ahead

I started my Fuller Seminary courses again. The classes I am taking are online, they are great courses focusing on Global Leadership. At the same time, I have been deeply overwhelmed with making sure I do my coursework with excellence, while still doing local ministry in LA and itinerant traveling. Please do keep me in your prayers, especially for the rest of this month and the entire month of February. I will be gone 5 straight weeks equipping leaders in Asia and the US in prayer and campus church planting. Somehow I feel the grace of God on all that is in front of me, more than anything else I am just crying out for my heart to encounter God's affections at a deeper level. To know the depths of His emotions and the pleasures of His heart towards me. More and more, I realize the more you do with God, the more time you need in His presence. Without His presence I can do nothing. A leader is not a leader, unless he has something to give. You can't give, what you don't have. If we do ministry for God, but lose our relationship with Him, then what is the point? Our first ministry is not to change the world for Christ, our first ministry is intimacy with Christ. I want my heart to feel His pleasure, I want my heart to feel the gladness of God, I want my heart to come alive with life when I close my eyes to pray, when I drive on the freeway, when I walk onto campus, when I prepare to preach, I want to know and live in the pleasure of God. I want Him, I don't want ministry, I want Him. This battle is fierce, it is the battle for our hearts. I look before me, and the needs and responsibilities seem to never exhaust, but one thing I desire, even if I have to lose it all, or get an "F" on a paper, I'd rather fail my class, then lose my intimacy with Christ. We were created for relationship with God, not just any God, but a God that if you truly knew His wonder, you would be so utterly ruined, you would only desire one thing: His presence. I want God to ruin me again, the way I was ruined at 18 with no care in the world, when I didn't have to look at the clock, when I could just be wasted in His presence for hours, simply just to be with Him to be with Him. I don't want to die a preacher, I want to die a lovesick worshipper, in love with Jesus each day more than the day before. Take me to that place again Lord, give me grace to keep You cherished in my heart, even when there is so much to do before me, that I would not trade You for anything, I need grace to make it, I need grace to stay in Your joy, oh God of gladness fill me with your everlasting pleasures forevermore! Keep me from busyness, discipline me in Your love, never let me lose this one thing, the JOY of Your presence upon my heart. God, let my heart "feel" again Your passion, Your gladness, Your delight, Your happy heart. Help me Lord, I need to walk with You, not by myself. Enoch walked with you, he must have felt such joy in Your presence, I want that consistency, God give me grace to follow.

Psalm 16:8-11
8 I have set the LORD always before me; Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. 9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope. 10 For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. 11 You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

posted by Jaeson Ma @ 1/23/2007 12:26:00 AM