Pouring Out...So we had our Pouring Out Service last night and I gotta say that it was a pretty amazing night. First time in a while where the service ends as late as it did and yet, no one seemed to want to leave! We had great stories told, testimonies of people once held down, now free. People who grew up in the worst of times and now live past those things.Stories of people who were once on the ...Expand this post »

Pouring Out...

So we had our Pouring Out Service last night and I gotta say that it was a pretty amazing night. First time in a while where the service ends as late as it did and yet, no one seemed to want to leave! We had great stories told, testimonies of people once held down, now free. People who grew up in the worst of times and now live past those things.

Stories of people who were once on the ...
Expand this post »

There are so many within the body of Christ who remain stem cells for too long, floating around within the area of the body that they are to function in but never transforming into what their purpose is...

Here is the secret... Jesus and the Father are 2 separate people, but were so united in will and purpose that they were 1. When was the last time your will was so surrendered to God that you could say you were one with the father? When was the last time you spent more than a day (being generous) speaking how Jesus spoke, walking like he walked, touching lives like he did?

Jesus walked where the Father led, he spoke what the Father spoke. What else COULD he have?! HE was the Word of God, stripped of heavenly Glory and placed in a human body! He still remained the Word and because that Word was his spiritual identity, Jesus spoke what the father did.

Jesus knew his purpose because his purpose was that of the Father's will.

I'm certainly not perfect and before i speak a word God places in me, I take it unto myself and ya know what? I fail PLENTY at plenty too much, but the Word of God is transformative and renewing, nutritive and empowering. The trick isn't to simply hear it, but to listen to it, take it in, write it upon the tablet of your heart and be changed, renewed, transformed, made new and empowered to not JUST KNOW your God's purpose for you life, but to know AND BECOME that which is God's will, destiny, plan and purpose for your life...

Walk how Jesus walked, speak what Jesus spoke. The words of the King and the walk of the King...

SEEK.
THE.
KINGDOM

If we follow ANYTHING but Jesus, his message of the kingdom, his purpose and life, his mission that he gave us, if we follow ANYTHING but Christ... We have failed as christians.

Jesus did as the father did and as the father instructed. He spoke, walked, prayed and prophesied the KINGDOM. When asked how to pray, his reply was "FATHER who art in heaven, hollowed be thy name, thy KINGDOM come, thy WILL be done on earth as it is in heaven..." EVERYTHING ELSE comes AFTER we enter, seek and LIVE the Kingdom.

If your will is dominant, if your plans are dominant, if your expectations and hopes in yourself or in ANYTHING else is dominant over the will of the kingdom of God, you will be a spectator of when the Glory of God begins to invade the earth as it has begun to do in these time... You will be an watcher, a spectator, a listener... you will watch, when the will of the Father is that you NOT be a watcher, but a participator. Not a spectator, but one who will EXPERIENCE.

Seek the Kingdom. Live the Kingdom. Align with the kingdom and you will be not of those who will SEEK the Glory, but of those who will take part of, be transformed, elevated, filled, saturated, and LIVE the Glory of God...

SEEK.
THE.
KINGDOM

10/3/11

It's pretty sad how many people I know who have jumped into things without a real commitment to what it entails or what will be required by it. I mean, really, how or why would you get into something without a real intent or expectation to do what it takes to make it succeed? Doesn't it then become pointless and meaningless when it ends up nowhere?


When I joined The Uprise, I did it with the intent of doing it all the way, lugging all the needed equipment, finding a way to make sure all sounded great and even put in an emotional and spiritual investment. Something intended to be great, EXPECTED to be amazing requires no LESS than excellence.


Same thing when I joined 173 Productions LLC. I was asked to help out with a thing here or there but when asked to be part, I decided that 173 was going to be the best sounding I'd seen. We've had issues here or there, but at our next concert, There will be AWESOMENESS of sound.


It does happen in some cases though where you can put your all, 100% into something and have it blow up in your face. I know what that's like entirely. When it has happened to me though, its usually because I gave my all but someone else of which 100% was also needed, failed to give it for some reason. Sure it ends up not entirely being your fault, but the emotional toll it takes FROM having given your all and then it all becoming NOTHING really, really leaves a mark. Worse even is when its a relationship, like my last one that was great until it was turned to waste. Nope, still not over it, though I've tried and tried, its just not easy.


We can't control others, but we can control ourselves and what I've learned is that when decided to take part of something, I do it with my all. I know giving my all in something like Worship will never end badly if I give my 100% cause God NEVER fails, but even when its something dependant on other people giving their 100%, even if THEY don't, YOU give your all. If it all turns out to reach the greatness of fulfillment, then awesome, but if it does an Apollo 13 and all you end up being able to do is see what COULD have been, make sure you GIVE that 100% so that when the opportunity of greatness comes near again, there won't be a question as to who WILL be chosen for it. Those who don't give it their all, well, they'll just keep on failing as much as they fail to give their all.


Give your all...

If we ARE, then why don't we...

It may seem like a cryptic title, but believe me, it not as confusing as it may sound. The question is one of questioning the societal conceptualization of what we are; a part of creation.

Being the called preacher that I am, I could expand this into many different aspects of this, but this being my music blog, it seems fitting to address it in a musical/artistic kind of way...

The society we live in is one of depravity and selfishness, but even more so or even tied together with that, feigned individuality, a cloak covering societies true intentions. This society leads the vulnerable to stand out of anonymity by becoming one of the same. The reality is that in this world, true individuality & uniqueness can only be found when a person discovers first from whence they came.

Again, this is a blog focused on music, so where am I going with this? We are a creation of God. More importantly, he created us in his image. If we are a reflection, image, portrayal of who God is, then it is entirely conceivable that we are a creation with the ability to create & even more so when we choose to create for God.

When God created us, he made us the best & gave us the best of all creation for us to take part in. With that said, why would we settle to create things, musically, that are anything less then the best for God? Even worse, why would we act like this society when "creating" for God? This world tells us to "be ourselves by being like everyone else". Why would I act like that, why would WE act like that? We are musicians, worshipers, levites, whatever you wanna call us; the musically inclined worshipers. We aren't just made in God's image, we are the ones who with our talents exalt God as who he is! We are the image, bringing attention, glory and honor to the source of the essence of what we are!

If musicians in the world wanna go ahead & copy from each other and emulate each other for the sake of gathering as many mindless followers as they can, so be it, but I, me, EliW, refuse to bring that secular mentality into worship. Bringing the secular mentality to the Holy place is like trying to form an engagement with a cubic zirconium stone where a diamond should be to show the value of the commitment.

In the many years I've spent in the Christian music scene, I have seen all too many "Christian artists" attempting to emulate the world in order to add WHAT? I'll stop right there... What could emulating and copying the world possibly add to the value of worship to God? NOTHING. All too many times I've seen bits and pieces & at times, songs in their entirety, taken and plagiarized, converted into something "for the kingdom of God". I'm sorry, but that is unacceptable.

God created the heavens & earth. Why would we need to lower ourselves and the value of our worship by copying what Satan does when God has given us the ability, gifts, talents and inspiration to CREATE for God.

If we ARE a creation, then why don't we CREATE for the creator?
Be blessed...

Time rolls on…

Over the past few months, really more during the course of this year that is soon ending, I've had so many different events & occurrences that it would all maybe t in a short stories book. I'm not even going to try to jot down the majority of them, as that would truly be an impossible task.

As the title of this post alludes to, time rolls on. We lose things & people, gain things & people & in the end, we look back, I look back & thank God that when my brain sends the signal, my lungs take in oxygen & my heart pumps away to circulate it. When I do thank God at the moment, its fighting over the acceleration & sudden feeling of heaviness in my chest & the fight to keep my contacts in while the tears start to pour out. I fight to stay composed enough to be able to sneak out the words “God, I need strength”. I struggle to even keep typing this as I think of what & what feelings I am writing about. In any case, I will write what I can as this post will probably be written in the next few days, seeing as I've got scheduled events coming up in rather quick succession, which is something I do to keep my mind busy & my heart from melting down.

This year, 2010, has been one of the hardest years I can remember. It has had many good points, but has also contained many hard, tough, struggled moments that have ended in victories, some lost ground & the crumbling of things right in my h&s & in the h&s of many others. I’ll start off with a few of the bad, so as to try to end this post on something of a good note.

One of the things that took a lot of attention brought a lot of contention & brought me down personally this year was my dad. Not as in “oh gosh my dad is evil”, but in the “I love my dad & hate to see him sick” kind of way. This year, my dad has seen an escalation of his diabetes to a level that we never really thought we would see. My dad has always been a picture perfect image of strength & resilience, even in the worst of times. I always saw my dad, & still kind of do see him & this undefeatable, always strong, unbreakable figure. I'm not saying he’s Bruce Willis in “Unbreakable” but rather that he was someone so strong that nothing could break him down. I was proved somewhat wrong this year by a bad guy called diabetes. Sure, diabetes ain’t got NOTHING on Samuel L. Jackson in “Unbreakable”, but it’s a pretty bad guy.

The fight against diabetes has cost my dad 2 toes & has cost my family a shakeup that was only compounded by a whole list of other events, mostly personal individual events. I do have to add here though, that I would never have thought something like this would have affected me the way it did & continues to affect me. The fact that on this thanksgiving I was able to actually sit & laugh with my family; mom, dad, brother, sister & nieces, was something that did fill me with joy, but even more than that, filled me with calm.

Moving on, as I said, the events of the medical ordeal with my dad were compounded in effect by other events that happened that truly didn’t help in one way or another. To run through a few, the youth pastors of my church decided to leave & open up their own ministry, one which I pray for always & know is going to reach many people. Their departure however was something of a downer for me. They have been my youth leaders for, well, for as long as I have been a young person. They were of great inspiration to me, even past disagreements & upsets & such. They were my youth pastors, they are part of my family & well, I was truly hurt when they left. God knows all though & he has a plan.

The hardest & most difficult, emotionally wrecking & single event that seemed to compound all that had gone on is the one thing I will talk of the least. This is because, as you can imagine, it’s a topic that I can’t think of too much at a single time because of the pull it had & continues to have on me. Maybe it was just my attempts to avoid it, but ill give you a piece of advice: don’t be blindsided by something you feel but choose to ignore in the hopes that the feeling goes away. The relationship I fought for &, incidentally, continue to fight for, but now in silence of course, with tears & bouts of angry, frustration & hopelessness that turned into a new dawn, ended. It didn’t just end though; it ended with a pretense that leaves vague hope & just unsettled confusion. Like I said, I wasn’t going to talk much of this because, well, simply put, it hurts. All that matters is, maybe only to me, my heart, “this heart, it beats, beats for only you”

So, it’s been maybe 2 or 3 weeks since I began this blog post & I’ve decided to finish it up, all before my birthday, which is about 23 mins. from right now. I’ve had a few rollercoaster weeks.

The Uprise has had a gig, for it we rehearsed & in those rehearsals we worked with J.U, which was Sam’s old bass player. I had some reservations, but I get along just fine with him both personally & musically. I'm praying we make the right decision on it all in the hopes that it will be an addition for which & with which to give a great worship to God.

A few Fridays ago, we had a particularly different kind of worship Friday service. Within 3 hours I realized I’d be doing the worship by myself. God knew beforeh& though & had placed a desire for a certain kind of worship. The idea was seeded, if you will, thanks to a song I heard that just made me think. I sat thought & realized that I could complain. I could spend time complaining about all the things I've lost that I loved, or I can celebrate that which I have. Most of these is love. I know love. I know what it is to love, be loved & then be left being the only one with love. Maybe I'm foolish. Maybe I should move on. But I can’t. What would have happened if while he was here, Jesus would have just given up on being loved by his own people? If I am to be called by that name, then I can be no different. Sure, I'm not Jesus, but he was true to that which he planned to do out of love.

I am alive. Time rolls on, but I'm ALIVE. Maybe now I have fewer friends, less of those I called family, less people with whom to watch a movie with, but I've got some new people who I get to enjoy music with. Some new people with whom I get to laugh with about dumb things or even someone with whom I share an odd tradition of one awesome piece of cake every week. Heck, I dare say her sarcasm sometimes makes up, even in a small bit, for some stuff I've lost. This other person makes jokes of obviousness that I miss from someone else. On & on I could go comparing what I have with what I've lost. In the end, all I need, all I've needed, all we ALL need… All we need is love. Love that brings people together.

Love that reminds us that we aren’t alone in any way… That’s all we really need…

I'm ending this blog now… I pray if you read this you gather from it at least this one bit… No matter who, what, or how many leave you… There is a love that will never abandon, or forsake you. It is the love of the father. The love of the one who wove you within your mother womb. The love of the one who gave it all. The one, perfect, amazing example of true love… God in heaven, creator of heaven & Earth… HE loves you, even if no one else does…

Goodnight, God bless, be safe. Arise & be all that you dream. All that you’ve ever dreamed… <3=)

“Love” and TRUE love…

Man's view of love is so distorted, that it MUST be separated from TRUE love. What man calls "love" are deprecation, abomination & complete distortion of what it means. Love, in terms of man, is unruly, control-less & foundationless. You can't "MAKE love", it is or it is not.

TRUE love is kind, peaceful, gentle, patient, crazy in passion, but thoughtful & careful in action. Love is true, undeceiving & of all, JUST. Love is JUST, able to separate right from wrong. Sound like someone you SHOULD know? Yea... God IS love & in him there is no sin, darkness or evil, but there is compassion, peace & JUSTICE. You cannot love & not be just. God IS love & his throne is founded upon righteousness & justice...

The question is: Are we sowing true love to reap salvation? Or are sowing depravity re-labeled as "love" so as to reap judgment? YOU decide…