Sin, Sickness, and Healing

Thought of the day:

 

Jesus never allowed someone's sin or unbelief keep them from encountering His love and power. And when asked about the connection between someone's sin and that same person's ailment, the only reason He gave for that sickness to be in existence was as a leadup to that person being healed. Sin has been accounted for in Him. So, now it's our job to let life flow.

Never brush off a person because you think they're too full of sin, too apathetic, or too far gone for God to work in their life. Jesus is Lord, and He wants to encounter and invade their life. You're His light in this world, and that person's life is litterally waiting for an encounter with the Holy Spirit that lives inside you. So, shine bright. Prophecy in the valleys. Death has been beaten, so live His life.

The Letter

One of my favourite bands (namely, in the metal genre) is For Today. I always used to hate metal as a music style, but when I was introduced to these guys and a few other bands that are like them, I realized that the Lord is really working through their music in some sweet ways. Young people who feel rejected by the church (and the world as a whole) are coming to these guys' concerts, and they're getting healed from physical ailments, they're getting saved, baptised, and sent out to preach Christ's Lordship and Kingship to this broken world. These guys are changing lives.

That's a group I can support!

Today, I was listening to a video of Mattie Montgomery, the lead singer of For Today, preaching to a group of people. He started talking about the Bible and how it fits into our relationship with our God. Here's a bit that he said that stuck with me:

If I was going to come visit you, and I wrote you a letter, and in it I said that I was going to show up next Thursday at 8 PM, and I am going to be wearing a blue hoodie. Then, you get the letter and think, "Okay, Mattie is going to come. Next Thursday at 8 o'clock he's going to be wearing a blue hoodie".  

Then, in order to be sure you didn't miss me, you started studying that letter very intently.  You started memorizing the letter, and you started telling other people about the letter to make sure you got the details of the letter in you. So then, Thursday at 8 PM comes. I get off my plane and expect to meet you, but you're too busy studying the letter I sent you to pay attention to me. So I'm left outside the airport waiting for a ride to arrive. We had a bunch of things planned, and we were going to do all these amazing and awesome things together—all of which I talked about in the letter. But you were so obsessed with the letter I sent you that you missed me. 

That's what we do with the Bible. He gave us a letter that points us to Him.
The whole point of what He's done is to get us to a point where we can walk with Him and talk with Him — to have a relationship with him.

He really, truly, wants to have a relationship with you, to spend time with you, and to bring hope to a broken world with you.

The Royal Priesthood - An Invitation to Liberation

I'm the kind of person that really likes the New Testament and doesn't tend to  spend much time in the Old Testament. This is partly because I sometimes have trouble understanding parts of the Old Testament, more than I tend to with stuff from the New Testament, and partly because I just enjoy the New more. Because of that, I've been trying to get into some more of the Old Testament these last few days/weeks. I've been coming across lots of amazing stuff, some confusing stuff, and once in a while, some things that are just plain weird. The last few days I was in Leviticus, and I came across some stuff that I loved, and wanted to share.

If you've never read it, Leviticus is the third book in the Bible, and it's full of rules, regulations, and instructions that the people of Israel were supposed to follow in their worship of Yahweh. It can be a little... dense... at times. But there's some gold in there if you dig into it, which I've been trying to do a little lately.  Jesus said that He didn't come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. That means that everything in Exodus through Deuteronomy was fulfilled, and therefore points towards Jesus—both the crazy and amazing stuff, and the boring and weird stuff. So, I want to know what some of that stuff is!

One of the things that I came across and was thinking about when reading through Leviticus was the role of the priests in the system that the Law describes. It's fascinating!

If you were a priest in the Old Testament, there were some super strict limitations you were under. You had to be of a particular bloodline—specifically, you had to be a Levite and a descendent of Aaron; you were restricted in who you could marry, and what your social life could look like (whose funerals you could attend, what kind of haircut you could have, etc.). In Leviticus 21 there are even more restrictions listed. Here they are:

“Speak to Aaron, saying, None of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the bread of his God. For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand, or a hunchback or a dwarf or a man with a defect in his sight or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles. No man of the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the LORD's food offerings; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God.

One of the things I love about the Bible is that Jesus's life changed the way that the Old Testament affects us. Once, these things were restrictions—only certain people who fit into the box could experience Yahweh's presence—but when Jesus came, He established a brand new system. Let me show you what I mean.

The Bible says that Jesus lived a sinless life, and so He followed the Law perfectly during His life on earth. What's interesting about this, is that there were a few laws which He was a little bit... well... "funny" with. One of these is the law concerning uncleanliness and people with skin diseases. Under the Old Testament law, if you touched someone with a skin disease (like leprosy or certain rashes), you received the uncleanliness of that person. Legally speaking, you were the same as them, until you were cleared through ceremony.

Now, when it came to this law, Jesus played by different rules. In Luke 5, it says there was a leprous man that came up to Jesus, and asked Jesus to heal him.
What did Jesus do? Verse 13 says that He "stretched out His hand and touched Him".
By the Old rule of doing things, Jesus became ceremonially unclean! But is that what happened in reality? No. The leper was healed and became clean.

Instead of causing Jesus to become unclean, the opposite was true. The unclean was made clean!

What's this have to do with the priests mentioned before? Well, Jesus liked to play by different rules—better rules—than how the Law had been interpreted for centuries. In 1 Peter, It says that we, His Church has become "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession", and Hebrews talks about how He's been made chief priest of a new priesthood, that supersedes the Old Covenant priesthood.

That leads us back to Leviticus 21.

In the Old Testament, you had to be physically perfect if you wanted to be a priest for Yahweh. However, in the New Testament, because of what Jesus did, He brings us into His priesthood, and makes us perfect so we can be His! In 1 Peter 2, it says that His wounds have healed us. When He died for us, He paid for us to be perfectly spotless and without blemish.

That means that the limitations we read about in Leviticus 21 about who can be a priest in the Old system are in fact promises and invitations to liberation to us who are the Royal Priesthood in the New system.

Do you have sight defects? Once, if you needed glasses to see properly, you couldn't serve the Lord. Now, you can serve the Lord because your perfect eyesight has been bought with Jesus's blood.
Injury in your hands, feet, or back? Before, if you had anything wrong with your body physically, you were disqualified from the Lord's work.
But we don't play by those rules anymore! 

We who belong to Christ are now part of a New Priesthood. Our imperfections are not disqualifiers from His presence anymore, because Jesus has paid the price to set us free from them, and free into His perfection.

I thought that was cool.

"Do you pay for love?", "No, but I owe it everything..."

Hey guys, 

We're back in Eston for a few weeks. Calgary was amazing! Right now, we're preparing for a retreat in Regina, and going through a course on the usage of prophecy and related gifts in the Church today. It's very exciting! :)
We'll also be heading to Lethbridge in a little less than a month. 

I might make a more in-depth update later, but that's good for now. 

The actual reason for this post was sharing with you a chapter from a book I really enjoy.

The Singer, by Calvin Miller, is a poetic, allegoric story about the "Singer" (a parallel to Christ), and His story in Miller's allegoric world. It's one of my favourite books in its genre. In my favourite chapter in the book, the Singer comes across a lady who has been selling herself for years. The conversation that follows stirs me deeply. 

If you don't feel like reading it all, please, at the least, read the first few lines of the story, and the last six. They're the "icing on the cake", as they say :P
Grace to you all, and peace!
Until the whole world hears,
Josh

Oftentimes Love is so poorly packaged that when we have sold everything to buy it, we cry in finding all our substance gone and nothing in the tinsel and the ribbon.

Hate dresses well to please a buyer.

He met a woman in the street. She leaned against an open door and sang through her half-parted lips a song that he could barely hear. He knew her friendship was for hire. She was without a doubt a study in desire. Her hair fell free around her shoulders. And intrigue played upon her lips.

“Are you betrothed?” she asked.

“No, only loved,” he answered.

“And do you pay for love?”

“No, but I owe it everything.”

“You are alone. Could I sell you but an hour of friendship?”

Deaf to her surface proposition, he said, “Tell me of the song that you were singing as I came upon you. Where did you learn it?”

His question troubled her. At length she said, “ The first night that I ever sold myself, I learned it from a tall impressive man.”

“And did he play a silver pipe?” the Singer asked.

She seemed surprised. “Do you know the man who bought be first?”

“Yes. Not long ago, in fact, he did his best to teach that song to me.”

“I cannot understand. I sell friendship and you your melody. Why would he teach us both the self-same song?”

The Singer pitied her. He know the World Hater had a way of making every victim feel as though he were the only person who could sing his song.

“He only has one song; he therefore teaches it to everyone. It is a song of hate.”

“No, it is a love song. The first night that he held me close, he sang it tenderly and so in every way he owned me while he sang to me of love.”

“And have you seen him since?”

“No, not him, but a never ending queue of men with his desires.”

“So it was no song of love. Tell me, did he also say that some day in the merchandising of your soul, you would find someone who would not simply leave his fee upon the stand but rather take you home to care for you and cherish you?”

Again she seemed surprised, “Those were indeed his very words--- how can you know them?”

“And have you found the one that he has promised?”

“Not yet.”

“And how long have you peddled friendship?”

“Some twenty years are gone since first I learned the song that you inquired about.”

The Singer felt a burst of pity. “We sometimes give ourselves to hate in masquerade and only think it love. And all our lives we sing the song we thought was right. The Canyon of the Damned is filled with singers who thought they knew a love song... Listen while I sing for you a song of love.”

He began the melody so vital to the dying men around him. “In the beginning was the song of love...”

She listened and knew for the first time she was hearing all of love there was. Her eyes swam when he was finished. She sobbed and sobbed in shame. “Forgive me, Father-Spirit, for I am sinful and undone... for singing weary years of all the wrong words...”

The Singer touched her shoulder and told her of the joy that lay ahead if she could learn the music he had sung.

He left her in the street and walked away, and as he left, he heard her singing his new song. And when he turned to wave the final time he saw her shaking her head to a friendship buyer. She would not take his money.

And from his little distance, the Singer heard her use his very words.

“Are you betrothed?” the buyer asked her.

“No, only loved,” she answered.

“And do you pay for love?”

“No, but I owe it everything.”

What God has been doing-the first Martyr's Life mission

Hey everybody!

Just wanted to let you know some of what we've been doing. Yesterday marked the beginning of week 5 on our adventure with Martyr's Life. It's so crazy that everything has gone so fast; yet, at the same time, there has been SOO much that has happened in these last few weeks, that some of our single days have felt like whole weeks as we remember them!

I'll try to give a condensed version of all that's happened. When we got to Eston, we began a two week mini-semester (short, intensive, 3 credit class that is finished after the 2 weeks) . Most of us on the Martyr's Life initiative took the "Intro to the Spirit Filled Christian Life" class that all freshmen are expected to take for any program that they are in.

After the mini-semester, we had an orientation week for Martyr's Life at the school, where we discussed some basics of things that we would be taking part in: alter/prayer ministry, healing the sick, giving and receiving prophetic words, street evangelism, vision for what God wants to do, and tons of good stuff like that. We also began our first "class" of the program, focused on understanding the fullness of our identities in Christ--- what it means to be one with Christ, to be a son/daughter of God, and to be the Bride of Christ. We've been learning some super cool stuff.

Then, on Sunday September 23, we left for our first mission! We drove to Regina, SK, and worked with various people and ministries based in the city. We had the opportunity to pray in the university, and minister to people there. (We made "FREE HEALING" signs, and talked with/prayed with people as they went through the halls of the school. Such a cool time!)

We also did a "Treasure Hunt" on the Wednesday that we were there.

This was pretty epic! Here's how it went down:
So, in a Treasure Hunt (the way we do it), we pray for a certain amount of time, and ask God to give us "clues" for people to meet and talk to. These clues can be things like appearance (long hair, scars, ray bans glasses, etc.), location (mall, McDonalds, Walmart, etc.), names, prayer requests, miscellaneous, etc. It's really cool, because God does end up showing us things.

He actually REALLY loves His kids. 

Like, REALLY!

Anyways, we prayed for a while, got a bunch of clues, and then split up, and started going out and looking for who God wanted to show His love to---His treasures.

My team went to Victoria Park---a place where we've seen God do lots in the past, but also where we've learned lots through making mistakes---and we started looking. I split off from the people I was with, and starting walking off on my own.

Now, I'm going to give you a few of the clues that play into what happened next, and I'll let you put the pieces together  (cause I ended up not putting all the pieces together until a fair time later :P )

• Several (I think 3, but I'm not sure) people on my team had gotten "scar" (some in specific places, such as hand or face)
• I got "Victoria Park", "Fountain", "Broken heart", and "Friend Troubles" 
• Someone else on my team got "live music"

So, we get to Victoria Park, and immediately begin looking for who God wants us to meet up with. I split off from my group right away (I find out later that God ends up doing some cool stuff with them later on, but that's another story). I started to walk towards a restaurant that was still open (it was about 8-9pm at this point), and hear music! It sounded like live music, but I wasn't sure, so I jogged over to see what/who was playing. I got there (to the restaurant on Scarth St.), and it turned out that it was just a speaker system, but it was such that it sounded like it was live... "weird... oh well, might as well keep looking around..."

As I go to walk away, a guy comes up to me and says, "Hey dude, sorry to interrupt you, but could I ask you a big favour?"

Me: "What's up?"

Guy: "I'm super hungry, and haven't eaten in a while. My family situation has just turned super tough." He points to the fresh scabs on both his hands, "I can't live with my parents anymore. I had to leave today and I'm left like this," pointing to his house slippers, shorts, and t-shirt that he just left his house with. "Any chance you have some money you could spare for some food?"

Me: "Well, I have a few bucks, but if you want, we can go get an actual meal and get you actually fed."

Guy: "Actually, I'm ok with the few dollars"

Me: Giving a bit of an assuming smile, knowing perfectly well that this could be used for something other than food, and much less useful to him, "Alright, you're sure?" "Yeah" "Ok, here's 5 bucks." "Thank you very much, sir! It's really helpful."

Me: "For sure bro. Hey, would it be alright if I pray for you before you go?"

Guy: "Oh, sure!"

Me: "What's your name?"

Guy: "Eric"

So, I pray for Eric quick, and bless him in Jesus' name, then let him go. Starting to need to use the washroom a bit, I start walking around, looking for a washroom, and also to see what the rest of my team is doing. After a couple minutes, I end up walking back onto Scarth St. from Victoria Park.
As I walk, two other guys come up to me, and ask me for money for food as well. I had a couple larger bills with me at the time, but nothing small for food, so I asked if they wanted me to just take them for food instead. They replied with an emphatic, "HECK YA!". As that was happening, they're friend Eric came up, and I asked if he wanted to join us. He said yes.

So we started walking towards where the nearest food place was. (Turns out Eric had gone to the nearby mall food-court, and it wasn't open, so we had to go for a bit of a trek. (Also turns out that some people actually DO use money they're given for what they need, like they ask for it for, and don't always waste it on drugs like we've stereotyped them to do. It's like Jesus actually had something going there when He told His followers to help the poor. hmmm...))

We started off for the nearest Burger King. As we went, I found out the names of the other two.

Brandon was about a black man with dark hair and a somewhat joyous and contemplative personality.
Lewis was a native man, somewhat inebriated, rather uncouth, and SO loved by Christ.
And Eric, who was mentioned before, was also dark skinned, and as I found out later, originally from Africa, and very easily annoyed by Lewis.

As we walked, Brandon asked me about who I was, what I was doing, why I was doing it, etc. I got to share with him that I was with a group of people in town that wanted to share Jesus love with everyone we came in contact with. He had some questions for me about different things pertaining to Jesus and religion and stuff, which I did my best to answer. As we went, Eric and Brandon continually thanked me for everything, and I got more chances to tell them about Jesus.

Probably my favorite moment was this: As we were walking, after we had chatted for a bit, Brandon turned to me and said, "So Josh, tell me more about this Jesus."

Me: "Well, what do you want to know?"

Brandon: "Well, everything. What can you tell me about Him?"

HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!?!?!

When was the last time someone asked you to tell them about Jesus? I don't even know, for me!

It reminds me of Romans 2:4, where it says, "God’s kindness leads you to repentance."

I don't know if we as the Church realize the fact that the world actually wants what we have access to!

Bill Johnson says, "God is good. He's extremely good. Everybody wants a King like Jesus. If we represent him well, they’ll want His body too."

It's so true.

Long story short, I was able to bless them, and they were extremely thankful. You could tell that they legitimately were impacted by a stranger that came in the name of this guy Jesus, and gave them a meal with no strings attached. I got a chance to pray for all of them, hear more of their stories, and show them a bit of who Jesus is. It was such a cool opportunity.

God's so good.

One more story. This one should go quicker.

Ok, so this past Wednesday, in Winnipeg (where we are now), we had a "Self initiative day". Essentially, this means that we are given 8 hours to figure out ministry opportunities we can use, and do them. Quite a cool idea.

So, long story short, I spent most of the day looking for people to pray for, but not finding anyone.

After getting tired of trying to do stuff on my own, I stopped and told God, "Ok, what am I doing here? What do you want me to do here?". I did this a couple times, and each time, I just heard, "Pray".

So, after a bit of this, I stopped and obeyed. (Yeah, I'm slow :P )

I leaned against a building, and just prayed. As I stood there, a lady walked by. As she was going, God told me something about fear she had that He wanted to deal with. I knew I was supposed to share it, but I didn't.

Then another guy walked by, and God told me something about his finances, and things along that line. Again, I let the guy walk by without saying a word.

Finally, it was like God said to me, "I keep giving you these treasures. Quit tossing them down like they're worth nothing."

As I heard that, I looked and saw another guy walking by. I instantly heard the words, "She's going to be alright."

I waited for a moment. Then realized the moment God had given me was passing, and I was about to throw out another opportunity that he had given me, so I ran up behind the guy and said, "Hey dude, this is going to be REALLY random, but do you by any chance have a sister or a female friend that's going through some trouble/struggles, or anything like that?"

Austin (the guy I'm talking to): "Why do you ask?"

Me: "well, sometimes God tells me things, and shares with me things that I'm supposed to share with other people, and as you walked by, I heard the words, 'She's going to be alright.'. So I was just wondering if that was for you..."

Austin: "Oh wow... Man, that's awesome!"

Me: "really?"

Austin: "Yeah! I've been worrying about my sister for the last while. I was concerned that she might be suicidal."

From there we got to talk about that some more, and eventually, get into a conversation about Jesus.



Well, that's all for now, and only a taste of what we've been experiencing.

I don't have time to tell you about the Omni conference, the 13 kids that got saved, the people that have poured into us, or the other amazing things that have been happening. I'll try to keep putting up highlights though (and I'll aim to keep them less than 2000 words in the future :P... sorry for the extreme length! :P)


Thank you for your support and prayers!
Love you guys!

Feel free to comment or email me!

Grace to you all, and peace!

Josh

Eston, Watchman Nee, and Average Christianity...

Hey guys,

So, we've arrived in Eston, and have been here for just a little less than a week now. It's great to be back. The community here is amazing, and God is moving in people's hearts (and classes didn't even start till this morning!!)

I've had some really cool chances to catch up with friends, meet new friends, and encourage people in the things that God's doing in them while they're here. I also got a few (pretty simple) prophetic words for people at a prayer meeting we had tonight, so that was encouraging for myself too! :)

Today, like I mentioned above, we began classes. All first year students are required to take a course called "Introduction to Spirit Filled Living". I'm also taking this course, because I didn't take it last year (thinking I wouldn't be a student at the school long term :P... God has funny plans :P ).

As I began reading the books we have been assigned, one of the topics in of one of the books stood out to me in a super crazy way! The author, a Chinese pastor known as Watchman Nee, was talking about the difference between the "Normal Christian Life", and the "Average Christian Life". As he explained, they're VERY different.

The average Christian life is what you see when you walk into most churches today. You see lethargy. You see people who confess that they love God, that they want to do what He says, and who will sing songs about it every Sunday. Monday morning, though, it's like they've forgotten all about what they said less than 24 hours before.

The average Christian life is what we're used to seeing. It's the current place most Christians are at (thus the term "Average")

The normal Christian life, though, is MUCH different. The normal Christian life is an emulation of Christ in it's purest form. The normal Christian life is characterized by the supernatural happening like it was natural. People living the Normal Christian life are CONTROLLED by the peace of Christ, as if it was woven into them as part of their very identity. Holiness exudes from them, like light from the sun. They walk, balancing the power and love of God in a beautiful display, for all around them to see. They are in sync with their command post, their omnipotent Daddy, like dancers in sync with their music.

The normal Christian life isn't normal by our standards, but by God's. We look at all that, and call it weird, abnormal, or peculiar. But God looks at it, and sees the reflection of His Son in it (because, in truth, that's all it is).


I want what God calls normal to become our average. I'm sick of seeing average Christianity, and what it's doing to the name of my King (and I'm sick of the ways I've emulated average Christianity, instead of Normal Christianity that emulates Christ).


We were all meant for more than that.


Jesus, teach us to live our lives like you -- living out this journey by the "Normal" you've set; not by what we call normal. Thank you that we're yours. Help us to grow into what you've actually called us to, not the plans we've made up that sell You short.

ἀγάπη αὐτου οὐδέποτε πίπτει

Josh

P.S. Sorry... that was pretty scattered... It's after midnight, and I have reading I was supposed to be doing for the morning... I just wanted to write a quick update/rant on that :P

Love ya guys! Thanks for reading

Onto New Adventures - Martyr's Life and Cutting Back on Facebook

Hey guys,

So, if you haven't heard by now, there's a new program that's starting up out of Eston College this fall. It's a very hands on, experiential ministry training program. The idea behind it is that learning to be a witness/disciple/follower-of-Christ, like learning to be or do anything, is best accomplished through actually doing the work that you're seeking to learn, instead of reading about it and hearing people talk about it. For example, if you're wanting to learn how to play guitar, weld, or drive a car, you can read all you want about that particular topic. You can study it. You can read about people that have done those things before you, and examine their lives to see how they got good at it. You can put hours and hours of study time into what ever that is that you want to learn. However---besides giving you a good arsenal of data at your fingertips (and maybe increasing your passion about the topic)---all of that won't do much for you until you actually get that thing you want to learn into your hands (whether that be the guitar, welding gun, or steering wheel), and start to practice. It's not about just thinking about concepts and ideas, but practising them. 

This is the rough idea behind the new program that Eston College is starting up: that putting into practice the things that Jesus did and told us to do is just as important as learning the concepts behind them.

This new program is called Martyr's Life. 

Martyr is a Greek word which originally meant "witness". In Acts 1:8, when Jesus said, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest parts of the earth," the word He used which is translated "witnesses" was "martyr". So, the students who are on this program will be learning how to live out their lives as Christ's witnesses---His martyrs---living out their day-to-day lives to show those around them the Love that they've been shown, as the witnesses He's made them to be. 

Here's a video of the man that came up with the idea explaining the program a bit more:

It's a sweet idea, in my opinion! :)

If you're wondering why I'm telling you about all this, there is a reason! And here it is! :)

There are (roughly) 10 students who have been accepted into the program this fall as a bit of a test group to see how the program runs for a first year.

Well, my brother and I have the extreme honour of being able to be two of those ten students!

We are very excited to be able to be part of it! The last few months have been filled with anticipation for what God's going to do in us and through us during the program, and that anticipation just keeps growing, as we are now only 3 days away from heading out to Eston to begin the program!


So, that's a bit of an update on what the next 8-9 months of my life are going to look like. With that in mind, there's something I am planning on changing, as far as my social media presence is concerned, which I also wanted to give a quick update on. 

(For the next bit of this post, I'm going to explain some of my reasoning behind some changes in how I plan to be using Facebook for the next while. It may be a bit boring, so you probably want to scroll to the next bolded part to get the summary :P :) )

First, a bit of context: During Street Invaders boot camp a few weeks ago, I occasionally would check Facebook in the evenings, and would get discouraged.

In the context of AMAZING things happening (God changing people's hearts, old hurts being taken away, new passions being ignited, and Holy Spirit doing awesome stuff), I'd go on FB and see posts that were... well... sketchy... from friends I love and wanted to see encounter God the same way that those people around me were. Yet, there wasn't much I could do... I mean, of course I can message them and share what God's put on my heart for them, and let Holy Spirit do what He does best. 

That's obvious. 

But I was still somewhat discouraged to see a lot of that stuff. Along with that, it was a bit of a distraction from the things that God was doing and wanted to do around me at that time.

So, now that Martyr's Life is coming along, I kinda wanted to re-assess my social media usage, and change it up a bit to see if I can come up with a better system. Especially in the context of the fact that we will not have a whole lot of spare time during Martyr's Life to just chill and waste time on the internet, I want what ever time I do spend online to be as useful as possible. :)

I had considered completely getting rid of my Facebook for the year, and had mentioned this idea to a few friends. They advised against it for a couple reasons, which I think were fairly wise. So I've come up with this system/idea which I'm gunna try out and see if it works at all (and will be subject to change based on how well it works) :P :)

I've set up my Twitter account, and this Blogger account to automatically post anything I post on them to my Facebook account. I'll be updating these pretty regularly over the course of the year, including (hopefully) things we've been learning on Martyr's Life, what we've been doing, where we are, and other things along that line. However, I won't be on Facebook itself very much (or, probably, at all), so any comments and such that are posted I won't see. I also have tools I'm planning on setting up that will give me access to FB messenger without going on FB itself (so I will still (likely) be on chat and such at various times). This will be, for the most part, so that I can focus my attention on what God wants to do and what He's saying, while minimizing other distractions that come along through everything that's on FB.

In summary of all that, I'm going to be commenting and reading stuff on Facebook a whole lot less (basically, not at all), but (hopefully) still posting updates and other posts a fair amount on Facebook (via Twitter and Blogger), and will (potentially) still appear on messenger at times. This is primarily to minimize distraction while I focus my coming year on God, and what He wants to do in my life.

Because of this, I probably won't get a lot of updates from your life that I would have gotten otherwise and Facebook will become a relatively unreliable tool for reaching me. 

If you want to chat, update me on your life (which I want to hear about! :) ), ask me anything (which I'd love to do my best to answer), comment on something that I post in such a way that I'll actually receive your comment, or contact me for any other reason, the most reliable method now will probably be through email (or through text message: if you want my number, just email me and I'll get it to you).

You can email me at theophilus.the.Jesus.freak777@gmail.com 

Love you guys! 
Thanks for taking an interest in my life and for your support! (and if you actually read all the way through to here, WOW! Thanks! I appreciate it! :) Sorry this was so long for such a simple update xD )

Please feel free to email me at any time!

Hopefully, you'll hear from me soon!

Grace to you and peace!
Josh

P.S. This will probably all take effect once Martyr's Life starts. So I'll be around for a couple more days :P :)