making Jesus famous

a pleasing aroma to God….

As you pass by this unfamiliar tent, a thick stench intrudes your nostrils, he smell is so strong that none who are near can escape their awareness of it. Pungent, odorous smoke billows up from the alter, the smell of burning flesh and smoldering hair is so thick it’s as if you can actually see this smell. Boiling blood and animal excrements are set ablaze all around….

It is the 10^th day of the 7^th month; this is the Day of Atonement for the sins of Israel!

Silence engulfs the camp; the soberness of this day touches the hearts of those gathered. A remorseful coming together for the corporate acknowledgement of guilt for the crimes of the nation. A serious time yet laced with hope. In the silence of the people it’s so easy to hear the –CRACK- of dove’s necks being broken and the wings of birds being torn off. This sickening sound carries the hope of freedom for the wages of sin for those too poor and unable to bring a lamb for an offering. The wretched feeling arises in the pit of your stomach at the thought of such a kind and merciful Creator to provide a way of justification even for the poorest of poor who cannot afford a “cent” more than the price of birds. While others are required to pay a higher cost, that of blemish-less lambs….

A young boy’s face cringes as he plugs his nose from the smell and he asks his father, “How is this a pleasing aroma to God?” The dad smiles and begins to explain this beautiful atonement:

Dad: Well son, the Lord has made this nation great. He has chosen that we, a weak people, would be who God enters into a covenant with forever! The Lord has been good to us and He has made many promises to us, and has kept them all… But we have not. My boy, we have failed to uphold the Lord’s holy law, we do not trust in Him wholly and we forsake His commands. Yet still, the Lord has made a way for us to be reconciled to Him. When we acknowledge our guilt and admit our betrayal and simply return to God in obedience, He permits that the slaughtering of beasts and the blood of animals will satisfy His wrath and He will pardon our sins and grant to us forgiveness! It is the fragrance of our obedience that is a soothing aroma to the Lord, the return of His people to humility and submission to our kind King.

Boy: Well why is everyone sacrificing their best animals? Why don’t they just use the crippled and skinny ones?

Dad: That’s a good question son, it’s because the Lord has ordained that the blood of spotless lambs is what makes us acceptable to come to Him. Beasts without defect are what compensate for the guilt we have incurred by our sinning. It symbolized the innocence of the animal who is suffering in our stead. If we just brought the reject animals that we don’t even want and offered them to the Lord, how would He be honored? A sacrifice must be more precious than that, it must cost us something and at times costs us everything!

Boy: What is it about blood that’s so special? That’s messy and gross.

Dad: Because blood is identified with life. It IS the life of the flesh. God desires that life is the cost in exchange for another, to pay the debts which we could never afford and to wash away our shame from sin. Beneath the alter there is a pool of blood, the very life of that animal is drained out for our sake. Slowly it’s veins empty themselves, washing away our crimes and satisfying God’s requirements for our evil against Him. Life must be traded in order for us to go free, and life is in the blood and the blood pays the price we cannot ever afford. God’s wrath is appeased and our shame is absorbed in His kindness and mercy.

Boy: WOAH! Dad, why is the priest grabbing that goats face??

Dad: (haha) He is publically confessing the iniquities of Israel on the head of that goat. The goat will aquire all of our shame and disgrace and it will suffer alone in the wilderness. Our embarrassing depravity will be transferred to another creature who will experience the agony of isolation which is rightfully due to us. The goat and our guilt will be removed from among us as the goat is sent away suffering our punishment for injustice and rebellion against a good God.

Boy: But the goat is innocent, why should he have to suffer for all the stuff we do wrong??

Dad: You know son, I’ve been asking myself that very same question and I just cant help but think there is more to this than we presently know…

You’re Invited…

Your presence is requested by the Father of the Bridegroom;

you are cordially invited to the wedding banquet of:

Jesus Christ (God incarnate)

to

Humanity (His Church)

When:This “Marriage supper of the Lamb” will take place at the end of this age. In the time when Jesus physically returns to earth to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him and to establish His never-ending perfect government to once and for all bring an end to suffering and injustice. PEACE (Hebrews 9:27)

Dress: Wedding garments are a MUST. No one will be permitted without the proper attire. Unless you have been “covered with a robe of righteousness”, that is, you have exchanged your sinful, treacherous life for the life of God BY faith in Christ Jesus, you may never be permitted into paradise with God. (Revelation 19:8)

Guests (+1): Please, we encourage you, bring as many people with you as you can!! (Matthew 22:8-10)

Festivities:Singing, dancing, celebrating, FEASTING, rejoicing and laughing from now and forevermore. No more tears, no more sadness, no more pain, no more violation. (Revelation 21:3-4)

Since God looked down and saw the rebellion and the injustice of the world (sex slavery, molesters, murderers, manipulators, cowards, thieves, child pornography, liers etc) He has been FURIOUS! He looks at you and considers you guilty among the worst since you have not believed in Him or given your life to Jesus. He does not allow you to enter into His paradise because you stand condemned, without faith in Christ, to Hell, a place which was only created for Satan and his demons to be punished. Jesus came to bring life to you, yet you have remained in your guilt since you have resisted God’s love and chose independence from Him, the greatest injustice of all. BUT thanks be to God who in Jesus Christ satisfied His own furious rage against your sin in Himself. He has reconciled you to God and is now inviting you to join into the perfect unity of God- Jesus- Holy Spirit in “Marriage” with the rest of His Church (the Bride) even though you don’t deserve it. God has looked upon you with favor and requires your full attendance in the wedding ceremony for His Son to You, as a member of His Church and as the apple of His eye.

Directions: Jesus. Jesus is the way to paradise. Jesus is the way to the wedding. Daily communion with the God who lives inside you through the power of the Holy Spirit Whom you receive at your baptism upon repentance and surrendering your life to Christ.

Signed, a friend of the Bridegroom

and so we went

Trip Update:
Last Monday 4 of us went to Whakatane, New Zealand (pronounced fawk-ah-tah-ney). We made a “wrong turn” on our way to the city centre and parked the car for a quick stretch. I brought out a flip cart that I made for a visual aid while evangelizing and presented it to a few boys on bikes. A Native Maori man came up to listen while eating a sausage roll. Many boys left because of the conviction they felt during the preaching but the sausage roll fella stayed a while. My good friend Britton and I began talking personally with him and heard a bit of his story. His name is Joshua. He is affiliated with many gangs in the city but not actively a member of any. The previous night for some reason he picked up his bible and read about the harvest where the chaff is thrown into the fire and burned and the Lord seared his heart with conviction. He told us that he didn’t want to be cast aside and burned then he ran into us and thought it was good that we were preaching God.

We offered to pray with him 3 times and 3 times he denied the offer because of all the people passed him and knew him and threw gang signs. Finally he said “.. i don’t care what they think you fellas can pray for me” and he bowed his head right there. From then on he lead us through town and introduced us to people he knew (which was pretty much everyone in Whakatane). We continued sharing Jesus and Joshua was right there with us. As we talked he kept saying phrases that made my heart jump for joy at the Lords renewing of this man before our eyes. Joshua would say things like “i usually smash those fellas on bikes when they ride by but I DONT WANT TO ANYMORE” and “earlier i was mad at my brother BUT NOW I’M NOT” and “I was on my way to meet the gang boys to borrow money before i met you, BUT I DONT NEED TO ANYMORE” all of these beautiful statements proving the internal workings of the Holy Spirit literally changing the affections of this man’s heart right before our eyes. (That’s how you know if your saved, your affections are changed. You no longer want to hurt Jesus with your sin and you desire to please Him in how you relate to everything)

As we had a rest and the girls had some sushi Joshua struck up a conversation with some girls and began sharing Jesus with them. He was bold and he was even bragging about how he no longer wanted to hang out with the gangsters because he was “with the Christians now” =) It was incredible to see a man freshly converted already preaching the Truth. He had some reserve at first thinking that he wasn’t qualified to preach Jesus’ Word but he got over that pretty quickly! We ended the evening with Joshua leading us up to the highest place in Whakatane to pray over the city. The day was topped off with a beautiful Maori prayer followed by Joshua pouring his heart out to God and repenting in front of all of us. It was a magnificent sight!!

So a big thanks to all of you who stand with me in this mission, with overflowing love for Christ and selfless sacrifices and donations for His purpose. Thanks for those who help pay for petrol in the Gospel Mobile (new name for my red car) and for the support for cell phones and shoes and toothpaste and every silly behind the scenes stuff that makes it possible for me to give myself to the gospel full time. Bless you

“the Strand”

This is what happened on Friday night evangelizing with students. This is Brett’s story:

“So we were walking up the street and saw a guy a few blocks up sitting by himself, so we decided we would go talk to him. When we reached him we asked how his night was  going, he said that he was just waiting for a friend and just tired, he didn’t really want to talk to us. Renee mentioned Jesus and what he thought about it, he said oooh no no I’m not into that, I’m not interested. So we wished him a good weekend and left. I had felt like God even as we had walked up had given me some words to speak to him but I was too shy to talk to him and we walked away. As we went across the street I had an anxious feeling that God wanted to speak to him, like a nervous itch that I couldn’t just leave this and walk away otherwise it would keep bothering me. I started to head back and God gave me the words to speak as I walked there. I had been praying for something to happen this night in the prayer room, I had the sudden strong urge, or God, that I should look through Matthew for truth or parables that I could use that night if God told me to talk to someone. The one parable that jumped out at me was the parable of the sheep. So as I walked up to the guy, I said “Hey my name is Brett…..so I know that you don’t care and you aren’t interested but God was speaking to me and he wants to tell you something. He loves you! You are his Beloved!” I was surprised at this point because I was nervous but I didn’t hear my voice coming out shaky and the guy although he wasn’t interested, did not interrupt me and seemed to be listening intently. Then I continued with “Jesus once said in the Bible that if there was a hundred sheep but one of them was missing, he would leave all of them to look for the one. That’s you, you are important to God.” The guy tried to tell me again that he wasn’t interested but I said “I know you don’t care but, He loves you and thinks that you are important! You are really important to Him. Have a good weekend.” And I walked away. But although he didn’t want to hear it, I delivered God’s message to him anyways because he needed to hear it.”

oh Jesus, let me love you more!

(John 15)

Return from my homeland

Scotland was EPIC. but not nearly as epic as Jesus Christ Himself!!!

i love God. many of you know, last year my outreach to Brasil was incredibly challenging and some of the hardest months of my life…. well this year was the complete 100% redemptive opposite!! Jesus faithfulness flooded into my chest, it was literally hard for me to breathe because i felt so much love from God (oh english, you continue to fall dramatically short of being able to express God’s wonder) because of God’s ability and desire to bring restitution to my soul from what i lost in the past has made my trip to Scotland the best 2 months of outreach ive had!

we saw so many lives changed, so many of God’s children hearing the Truth (some fornthe very first time hearing of Christ) and we witnessed miraculous transformations in the hearts of stubborn evil people who are now called God’s own. I couldnt have asked for a better trip. i posted tons of stories on iheartscots.tumblr.com please look at them and please email me and lets share about how us partnering together with God just may have changed the history of Scotland forever!!

i litterally love you!

Jordan

tour time

This week kicked off the impact world tour. Our team has been assigned to serve the GX international dance, skate and bmx team of Jesus lovers to go into school assemblies and larger venue shows. We help them put up skate ramps and everything else that goes into the show preperation (which turns out to be MUCH more than i imagined :)

This has been a very humbling assignment from the Lord and it has been good for my heart to be the person to serve where needed, and although i feel “more qualified” Jesus is too good to me and has kept me in a place of humility, not being the center of attention. This week was perticularly challenging emotionally and physically since we have had about 3 big shows to set up as well as about 10 school assemblies. The Jesus encouraged my heart through 2 Corinthians 9:10-15 and gave me the strength in Him tondo my job well.

please follow our teams blog to hear more personal testimonies and get a better idea of what we do.

iheartscots.tumblr.com

Presenting…. the Scotland team!!! (da dah da daahh)

Here is our lovely group of lovers of Christ, soon to embark on the greatest journey of their lives. Into the great isle of Scotland, oh yeah baby. Please be praying for our unity in the Spirit in the bond of peace. We feel that together we will be able to withstand anything that aims to prevent us from proclaiming Christ’s news.

Today is the last day our whole iDTS school will be all together for 2 months so please pray that the Lord blesses our fellowship and encourages our hearts as we leave the ones we’ve grown to love. And for the next 2 months please follow us on www.iheartscots.tumblr.com where i will be updating that blog far more frequently than this one ;)

Scotland Mission Statement

Scotland Team Mission Statement: ”Our desire is to usher in an era of passion in Scotland that will spread a flaming flood of God to the rest of Europe. Through His grace our team will be unstoppable as we live in unity whilst walking in the spirit. We want to douse the land with PRAYER, PROPHECY AND PREACHING.  We believe God will do miraculous signs through us, give us divine appointments and anoint our tongues and hands to do mighty works. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.”

Jesus romanced my heart $

Jesus said that i was going to Scotland, no matter what because HE SAID!

today i found that He put it on an annomymous persons heart to donate to team Scotland and the amount they gave was enough to cover my plane tickets cost and that for our team leader Ceri!!!!

Jesus is a romancer, especially when you trust Him with finances!!!

:)