Learning to be radical - The balance between Grace and Striving.

This last year has been quite a journey for me. Just a little over a year ago I finished staffing a DTS in YWAM Kona, and headed over to YWAM Harrisburg, PA. I had plans of just working and maybe being involved with YWAM here and there. I really wanted “real life”, and “normal life”. I felt as though being completely submerged in YWAM wasn't really that. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't but this is a bit of my journey from the last year.

You see God has been teaching me about this thing called Grace, and it's pretty incredible, and I thought when I found out about Grace it was all “it”, it had to be all there was. It's all about God's grace, and striving doesn't get us anywhere. You're either thinking, wow Jacob you were way off or wow Jacob you had it right on the dot! I think that's how most of the Church/Christianity is right now. We preach radical Grace or we preach going after God with our everything, being super radical which involves a ton of striving. I'm here to tell you that neither are correct. Just because you've discovered God's grace, and it feels good doesn't mean you've got it all together. Just because you're reading the Bible 3 hours a day, fasting weekly, and evangelism is your life style doesn't mean you've got it all together.

You see, in my journey of “normal life” I've made a lot of mistakes, and in my journey to get closer to God I've definitely hit the moment “where the rubber meets the road”. I know it's been good for me in the long run but really hard in the moment. I've been hurt, I've hurt others. I've let sin get in my way because God's grace “was bigger than that”. Don't get me wrong! I believe that. I believe God's grace is bigger than our failures. And I think the cross covers a lot more then any of us could imagine. But then we start leaning on this crazy Grace, and that's when our relationship disappears. We don't try anymore, we don't read the word, we don't set aside time for the Lord. We don't sacrifice the petty things of the world that are obviously pushing us further from him just because “it was all done on the cross”. And I can tell you in the last few months because I've so leaned on this crazy grace (and only that) and not at all worked to get closer to Jesus, I felt like I lost Him. I couldn't find Him for a bit there. I felt so alone, I started to doubt my salvation and I was confused. But God loves us past all of our doubts, and our loneliness. I arrived at the point in my journey where I thought if this is where leaning on crazy grace gets me I don't want it! I'd rather live in a bubble, I'd rather strive to know God more than feel so distant from Him.

I've realized that we need to sacrifice for the Lord. We have to take up our cross and walk with Him. We can't just “rest” in Him all the time. We need to work at relationship with Him. What friendship do you not have to work for to build? If we just sat on a couch together every day and just rested together where would we be. Relationship takes effort on both parts. And we don't make sacrifices for the Lord out of religion, but they come out of the overflow of our relationship with Him, out of love for Him.

I got to the point where I had to be radical. Where I had to sacrifice something to get closer to the Lord. I don't care if you believe that was all done on the cross or not. I've lived it, and I saw these things that weren't really technically 'sins' separating me from the Lord. I want to be radical, I want to be different. If I have to make big sacrifices to bring me closer to the Lord why not! And when I fail, his CRAZY grace comes and picks us back up. Balance is a beautiful thing, and it's something I am now going to try to live my life by now.

Our generation needs to stop pinning everything as religion. You really think being so against “religion” really makes you less religious? Judging every person for their “religious spirit” really gets us anywhere? It's all about love, and if it wasn't for religion I probably wouldn't be alive. Because the 'four-walled-church' saved my parents lives. And ultimately saved mine. I am thankful for religion. I am thankful for Grace. I am thankful for relationship. I am thankful for love. I am thankful for the ability to strive to know Jesus more.

So here I am now, changing my life around a bit, setting aside time for Jesus so that I can know Him more, giving up things for a long time that are seemingly “harmless” so that I can get closer to Him. All love offering to the Man that saved me. The Man that made me feel worth something. The Man I said I gave my life to. It's all out of an overflow of love for Him that I now am going to sacrifice things in my life for Him. Call me religious, that's all right, call me judgmental, that's okay. I know what I've walked through, and I'm leaving that season behind. I'm going to be radical from here on out.

A Free Gift

A Free Gift

What if I told you if your Bible sat on that little bookshelf in the corner of your room collecting dust for the rest of your life you'd still go to Heaven. You're probably thinking, “Woah! Woah! Hold up, Jacob. That's probably heresy.” Let me explain.

Remember when you were a kid and your dad would go on a business trip and then he'd bring you back a present? After he gave it to you did you have to ask for it? No way! It was already there. Salvation is the same way, when we ask for it, it's there. Plain and simple! After we get it, we don't have to earn it. Am I saying don't read your Bible? Definitely not! It offers so much revelation, and it is God's Word. Read it!

What I want to communicate is that we don't have to strive! Ever! We can't DO anything to earn love, to earn salvation, to earn forgive, to earn grace. It's just there. “Stop acting as though you can earn it, I don't love you because you deserve it, I love you because that's who I AM. Let. Love. Win”. There it is. He loves us, because He loves us.

So often as Christians we think back on the week, or month, or year and our thought process (at least mine is), “Well, I didn't read my Bible this past week (or month...or year..) my relationship with God isn't good.” or “Well, I sinned x-amount of times today. I'm just a sinner, and I don't really have a good relationship with God right now.” And to that I say, WHAT NO! If that was the truth we might as well be back in the Old Testament offering sacrifices up for our sins to in-turn EARN FORGIVENESS. Why do we put Jesus back on the cross when He already did it once and for all! Jesus died for your sins, and that wasn't just it! He became the eternal sacrifice! Jesus, GOD IN THE FLESH, is now a man forever. FOREVER. His sacrifice wasn't just once, but it is eternal. Crazy, I know!

I think the same analogy goes for forgiveness as I used before for salvation. We sin, we feel dirty, we beg God for forgiveness, “God, please forgive me, make me clean again.” Why is it every time I'm stuck in sin all the sudden people start giving me words from God like, “I just see purity all over you”. And usually my first thought is, “Crap, they must know I'm stuck in sin and they are doing that whole prophetic...say the opposite of what you see...speak life ...thing”. No! That's not really the case at all! God sees us, in all of our sin, exactly as that. Pure. Righteous. Holy. No matter if you're sleepin' around with your boy/girlfriend or not! (And I'm talking about while you're saved. YUP!) We can't earn righteousness! We can't earn purity. It just is. Why? Because of the cross. So lately God has been showing me to switch my mindset of forgiveness, instead of saying "God, please forgive me", I'm starting to say "God, thank you for your forgiveness. Thank you that I am PURE. And that sin, that's not me!" WHY? Because the cross was once and for all! He ALWAYS sees us as pure. Our robes of righteousness don't get dirty when we sin! They are always clean because HIS blood WAS AND IS the eternal sacrifice, and we CANNOT earn our righteousness. YOU ARE CLEAN. ALWAYS. 

Yesterday, I heard this little clip from a podcast that Adam Cox was speaking on, “What if I told you you'll never be more of a son or daughter than you are today”. There's so much truth packed into that one tiny sentence! Can I be more of a son to my dad? NO! When I was born I was made his son for my whole life. I can't be more of a son or less of a son. It's just who I am, it's in my blood. We may get greater revelation of our sonship over time but that definitely doesn't make us more of less of a son/daughter. We are, because we are. Sin or no sin.

I hope more than anything this is freeing, to know that grace is always there and there's no such thing as "grace giving you a license to sin", that there is no such thing as "cheap grace". Why? Because grace is NOTHING but freeing and it does NOTHING but make us feel clean, and SIN IS NOT BIGGER THAN GRACE, OR FORGIVENESS! :) Don't put Jesus make on the cross when He has risen. 

I pray this blog was freeing and maybe caused you to be set free of the chains of the old mindset of sin that tries to weigh you down. The gospel...it's a happy deal. 

The end. 

You. are. faithful.

Lately I've been thinking... a lot. Too much probably. You see while pulling weeds 7 hours a day, you have a lot of time to think, and pray.

But God has been speaking to me the following, “He is faithful, even when we are faithless”. But sitting here, in this chair,  ending my night. I've been realizing that we so often see the faithfulness of God, but the next day, heck! even the next minute we doubt the faithfulness of God.  I have had my outreach team pray for a blind woman, and she was healed, right outside of my tent.  I have seen a deaf man get healed and able hear right in front of me. I have prayed for a sick woman, and her husband was so excited that she was healed he offered to pay me, probably most if not all of the money he had.

“But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.” John 6:36. How often to we see Jesus, see God the Father, see the Holy Spirit, so clearly, so strongly, so evident and yet we doubt His faithfulness afterward.

“He who began a good work is faithful to complete it” Philippians 1:6. How can we doubt Him, when He is always faithful, and He's always been faithful.

I don't want to doubt God's faithfulness.  I know, that I know, that I know, I am in the center of His will, and I know that's the best place to be, but often times it's also the hardest place to be.  It seems like the tests, and trials of this season are almost never ending, even as a new chapter, a new season begins, but the more God tests my heart I'm starting to realize, the more I fall in love with Him. So, “I'll be tested and tried, with no regrets inside of me, just to find I'm at Your feet”.

God, I believe, but help my unbelief.

Take it all God. I am wholly Yours.

I know who I am.

Well tonight, something changed. Something broke through. Something broke free. Last night I asked my team to pray for Bill and I because we were struggling in some ways just because of the leadership calling God has placed in our lives. Just speaking it out that I am a leader changed something inside me. Like speaking it out broke something. Changed something.

I was reminded that because the girls moved to the same base as us and we could finally have worship time together, I was supposed to lead worship tonight. So, we decided to go eat and then worship on the beach. I didn't have any time to prepare or plan, but I think a lot of times that sets you up to hear the sounds of Heaven the most, at least I've found. I am by no means saying that you shouldn't practice your skill, but I think God just uses these situations in my life a lot.

So we finished eating, I picked up the guitar, and began to sing “He is Yahweh”, and then I just encouraged everyone to sing out who God is. And we did that, and I just sang, and all of the sudden I felt a wall break, I felt something change. I felt my voice able to actually sing out, I felt something that was holding me back BREAK. Like it was a physical difference that I could feel, in both the natural and the spiritual.

After that went on for quite awhile, I began to intercede for our team and pray outloud, just for the reality of the cross to burn in our hearts, and for overwelming joy for our team. I was brought to tears quite a few times throughout the worship session just because I could feel the Lord's heart so strongly.

Then I felt God saying I was to sing over someone, I was thinking I was going to sing over the whole team. But then God hightlighted Bill. So I was like, “Bill, this is kind of weird but God told me to sing over you, and bare with me because I've never done something like this before”, and then God just spoke to me, line by line, and I sang it, and I prayed it. I could feel God's heart for Bill so strongly that I began to cry while I was praying, and singing. Bill was sitting in front of me, so I wasn't really able to see if any of what I said rang in his heart. But after I asked Him, and he's like “Kind of! Haha. Ya, you couldn't see me but I was weeping the whole time”.

After I just began to sing about how it's crazy that God speaks through each one of us. And that He wants to, and I just called forth our team in boldness. That they would speak out the things that Jesus is whispering in their ears. And I could feel the Spirit so strongly.

I wish I could put into words all of what happened, but I just can't, I can't. The spirit moved through me in new ways. I have never felt Him like this when worshipping, or quite possibly ever before.

My name is Jacob Cole, and I am leader. And no lies will change that anymore. The gates of Hell can no longer hold me back. I finally, for the first time in my life know my indentity. I know who I am.

Some may ask what I want to be written on my gravestone when I die, and it's this,

“There was no one in all of history that had greater intimacy with Jesus”

I'm running this race to finish first place.

I'm in this to win.  

And so I fell in love

Today, I was headed to a birthday party for all the kids in the Iris orphanage here born this month. So many of the kids here don't even have any idea what day their birthday is, even the ones that are almost grown up. And my favorite, Paulo this amazing little boy who was on one of the trucks, I asked him if I should jump on and come with him, and he said yes. So I hopped on the truck, and grabbed his hand. This little boy has so many health issues, it's unbareable, the doctors here think he may have Aids because of his constant health problems but he has tested negative. He has skin issues, and because of that it seems sort of hard for him to make his eyes open all the way a lot of times. His nose is constanly running to the point that the skin under his nose starts to bleed and get scabbed up Something in the United States we would be almost too disgusted to look at, especially during something like a meal. But that's where I met him, he came to me, sat by me, and become my friend. He gets made fun of a lot because of the way his nose is. But his heart is so gentle and kind, and you can see love in his eyes, and a desire to be loved. To have a Mama and a Papa.

As I rode in the back of the truck with him, holding his hand for the 20 minute car ride, he took his other hand and grabbed my arm, and laid his head on my stomach. And I began to think a lot about this little boy. And how I wish I could just take him home with me. There's so many kids here completely voiceless, they'll never grow up with any parents. They'll never experience what it's like to be loved in the one-on-one setting a child should experience with a parent. And I could feel him connecting to me in that way, and it was breaking my heart, as I started to fall in love with this little boy. In Mozambique the people who are on staff with Iris cannot even adopt the kids here, because the country hasn't been opened up so that people from outside the country cannot adopt. The reason why? Because the church won't step up. They don't really have a heart for the widow, and the orphan. A country like Mozambique so many people haven't even heard of, it hasn't even been on their radar. But if the church was actually doing what it was supposed to be doing, if people we actually wanting to have these amazing kids for their own here in Mozambique, I believe the governental laws would change. What if the church actually fuiled the adoption movement, what if there weren't anymore orphans in the world? What if abortion stopped because mother's knew if they kept their baby there would be loving parents for this little one? But I'm done with these “What if's”, I'm done with thinking about, and dreaming about. Wake up, step up, these little lives are craving love. It's time to stop being selfish and start being selfless. You have a future because Someone was willing to sacrifice their life in the greatest way possible, “no greater love than this that someone would lay down their life for a friend”. Would you do the same?

Later on in the day I had an Aids baby in my arms, and she's the happiest baby I ever did see. But she doesn't have what she needs, a solid home, loving parents. Something so many people could actually give to this little girl if they woke up from the American Dream.

Paulo walked up to me, and with the baby in one arm, and him taking my other hand, we walked toward the beach hand-in-hand. And I realized, I'm in love with these children.

Could you help change the lives of these little ones?

Help wake up America. Help wake up the church.

Leave your American Dreams behind, and pick up the dreams on God's heart.  

Wake up.

I Will Wait. A great song by Ryan Kondo that wrecked my life.

Jesus, the lover of my soul

The one who's in control, when all the world fails me.

Jesus, the one who drawls me near, whose voice I long to hear.

The One who is in me.

On You who calms the seas, on You who loves to speak to me.

On You, I will wait, patiently. 

I will wait, I'll wait to hear You voice

In the midst of this noise. 

You're all I want to hear God. 

And I will wait, as long as it takes

For the silence to break

You're all I want to hear God

Jesus, the lover of my soul

The one who's in control, when all the world fails me.

Jesus, the one who drawls me near, whose voice I long to hear.

The One who is in me.

On You who calms the seas, on You who loves to speak to me.

On You, I will wait, patiently. 

I will wait, I'll wait to hear You voice

In the midst of this noise. 

You're all I want to hear God. 

And I will wait, as long as it takes

For the silence to break 

You're all I want to hear God

You're all I want to hear God

You're all I want to hear God

You're all I want to hear God

You're all I want to hear God

You're all I want to hear God

You're all I want to hear God

You're all I want to hear God

On You who calms the seas, on You who loves to speak to me.

On You, I will wait, patiently. 

The rawness of heart.

I'm learning that if you let just a small lie slip in your heart, it'll take over. Funny that I wasn't even feeling any of this stuff yesterday. So much can change in your heart from day-to-day. But I think I just woke up feeling attacked. I'm learning to lean on God, and it's a lot harder than you think it would be. But every day my prayer is, God let me fall more in love with you than yesterday. Whenever I feel emptiness in my heart I'm always asking God to come and fill the emptiness with His love.

I'm starting to learn how broken I really am, and how desperite I am in need of a savior, and how much I need His love. There's so much crap that comes up in my heart every day, and I know in order to change me all the impurities have to come to the surface, and boy are they COMING TO THE SURFACE.

I guess my prayer in this season is God help me to lean on you, because in reality You are the only one that is strong enough to hold me up. I need to push everything else aside, and learn how to partner with my God who holds my heart like no other ever could or ever should.

I think God's just using my time in Africa to grow my heart like no other time in my life, and He's doing it at such a rapid pace I think it's sometimes hard to handle, and I feel like I'm going to explode.

But. It will be worth it all. I believe it.