I wanted to clue y'all into what is going on with me.  I need to blog in a more professional environment.  So I have moved my primary blogging to WordPress.com but will keep my personal updates here from time to time.  If you want to check it out, go to: princevince13.wordpress.com

I will still check this for messages and such, but will also be making a music myspace soon when I get my CD back from the guy in TX who is mixing it right now.

love y'all
vince

WARNING:  long blog ahead, but well worth the time it will take to read, I promise.

Recently the LORD has been really talking to me about names.  And I was extra provoked by the fact that Leonard Jones just wrote a blog about our names, and someone else said something about it recently.  When I'm at work and I am waiting for someone to finish a drink for a customer in the drivethru at Starbucks, I frequently ask people what their middle names are and if they know what their name means.  It is great to hear people's responses, especially when I know what their names mean and they don't and then I get to mini-prophesy to them about WHO they are.

Currently I am writing a devotional book on the Names of GOD in the New Testament.  I have taken the last few months (over a year now, actually) preparing to write this book.  I bought a new Bible just to do this study.  I have only highlighted the Names, Titles and Attributes of GOD in this Bible.  The Old Testament isn't finished yet, but I'm plugging away on it and hope to be done with that phase of the project by the end of the summer.  When I just a few weeks ago finished compiling the list of Names in the New Testament, I found that there are around 1000 distinct Names of GOD in the New Testament.  I then was faced with the task of reducing my list to 365 Names that I could write a devotional meditation on - that was no easy task.

Out of my fascination with names, I found myself regretting that I changed my name to "Vince" when I went to college.  I asked my mom about her opinion about me going by my middle name, "James", when I went back to school in the fall in honor of my father for whom I was middle named.  She gave some advice/thoughts and I responded with the following rebuttal.  I felt that this would really benefit some people, so I'm blogging it.  Enjoy.

------------------------Email to Charmane Corcoran----------------------
I think what I really want to do is go by "VincentJames" at MSM.  I
think that I just want to step into something new.  This is a season
of real shifting change for me and the way I changed my name at CU to
Vince was fine for a while, but I don't like it now.  I don't mind it,
but when Jeremy talks to me or refers to me, he always says "Vincent",
and on rare occassions will call me Vince.  I know a couple of people
that were once just John and then became John Paul or Keith and then
became Paul Keith.  For them it was a prophetic statement of stepping
into something new that they always had been, but hadn't acknowledged
yet.

I believe that one of my main jobs within the service to the body of
Christ is to live out the name that I have been prophetically named.
My first name means "overcomer", and second name means "striver".  I
believe that I am to help to overcome the spirit of striving for the
affections of GOD.  I feel that I want to be more reminded of that on
a daily basis.  Part of the power in my name left when I renamed
myself Vince at CU, I now want to regain the power of my name.

A lot of this name stuff is coming from my current study on the Names
of GOD in the Bible.  I am so fascinated by what He is called, how
Jesus' Father has a different Name from Him and only Heaven knows it.
Jesus has a Name that the Father will give Him that no one will know.
We will be renamed after the Second Coming.  There is just such power
in what we are called.  And what we are called is different from who
we are or even what we are named.

Second Timothy 1:9 calls GOD "Him who saved us and called us with a
holy calling", this is a poor translation.  The word for "called" is
the word for "named" and the word for "calling" is "invitation".  Essentially, this verse is not saying "GOD has a huge, awesome to-do list for us", as many make this verse out to say.  But what it is saying is "GOD has named us something and has invited us to walk in it."  There is a huge
difference between these two understandings of this verse, the first
promotes us as "human doings" and the second promotes us as "human
BEings".  Our purpose is to enjoy GOD, to be enjoyed by GOD and to
show others how to live like us in this.

So that is why I want to be known as and called as I was NAMED.  I
have been invited into something and I want it.  I have resolved in my
heart to live in my holy calling.  I may end up helping others to walk
in the same reality of having overcome striving in their lives, but
first I must walk in it myself.  Any ministry that comes out of my
life is simply a symptom of my love-sickness, my desire to BE with
Him.
----------------------------End Email---------------------------------
I hope you made it this far.  If so, give me a small comment on what you thought, please.

seeking
vincentjames

ps~ if you want to start calling me "vincentjames", that would be GREAT in my heart.

I've found them...no seriously, I found a sign that points to the Highways to Zion, our Heavenly home.  I was reading Psalm 84, actually I was praying through the Psalm and was BLASTED by this one verse.  Check it out.

Verse 5:  How blessed is the man whose strength is in You, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.

Do you see what this is saying?  It is saying exactly what Jesus said, the Kingdom of Heaven is inside of you.  The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  If you want to go there, look inside you.  Heaven is not out there, it is IN there...and you are THERE.

This is the key: get rid of your own strength, put it in Him.  Then you will be blessed, not just physically which is great, but honestly who cares about being blessed physically when you can GO TO HEAVEN whenever you want because the highways to go there are INSIDE you?!!!  The way the verse is gramatically set up, the one whose strength is in the LORD is one and the same person with him whose heart contains the highways to Zion.

Do you want an encounter?  Go to the source of encounter.
Do you want a word from GOD?  Go to His City.
Do you want direction?  Follow the directions of Psalm 84:5.

Road trip anyone?

One of the things that the LORD has done with me while in TX has been to help me become emotional.  When I lived in KC a young man prayed for me that I would receive "a head full of tears" when I asked for him to pray for me to have a spirit of prayer.  This is being fullfilled.

I live in a house of guys, but it isn't your typical "guys house".  We get up early on Thursday mornings and talk about our feelings, openly, honestly and with no advice or judgments allowed.  It is one of the most valuable things that I have in my life right now.

This morning I opened up first and told about my wrestlings with a spirit of rejection.  Everyone else opened up about their personal pains and successes.  Then we prayed for each other reguarding the things that were brought up.  One of my roommates' family isn't saved, and when I started to pray for them my heart broke.  I began weeping.  I have only met one of his family members once, and it was not in the context that I could see them in any deep way.  But when I started to ask the LORD for Him to encounter these people I do not know, I found that I hurt for them and my tear ducts got involved in the process.

Then as we prayed for another guy, I was praying for one of his family members who I know personally.  I started praying "good prayers" for them, ones that lined up with Scripture and wisdom, but then the Spirit came upon me and I began crying over this person.  I could not contain myself, my sentences were broken and simple...but they moved Heaven.  I could feel it.  I was praying what He felt, which is the only way to truly pray effectively.

There is a principle in Heaven that is mimicked on the earth which I heard recently.  We call it "gravity", what goes up must come down.  When the prayers of the saints go up, eventually there are bowls of prayers in Heaven that are filled with the prayers.  And when they are full, the LORD will turn the bowls upside down and what was sent up to Heaven comes back to the Earth.

WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN.

But even before they can go up, they must have had to come down from the Author of all things.  For example, we only love Him because He first loved us.  We can send our love up to Him only because He first sent His Love down to us to die for us.  Everything that we give to Him, He gave to us to give to Him.

Jesus is the Eternal Intercessor who ever lives to make intercession.  He is constantly and eternally beseeching the Father on our behalf, sending His prayers by the Holy Spirit down to us to pray back up to Him.  When we tap into what the Spirit is saying, we are hearing what Jesus is praying for us.  Our job is then to send those prayers back to Him so that His will may be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

This morning I wept because He first wept.  I was allowed to partner with Him in His intercession, it was an honor.  I told Him that I did not want to ever leave the place I was in right then.

Friends, we worship an emotional Man.  GOD has very intense emotions that He is willing to share if we are willing to, as Audra Lynn so eloquently put it on her CD "Fading", "Lay our burdens down and terry with Him for a while".  Last night at youth group, Michael Rowntree preached a great message about how we are like our Father.

If His head is full of tears, so is mine.
I want to be like Abba.
I want to be like the Bridegroom.
I want to be like the Spirit.

*GOD, make us like Your Son.  Fill our heads with Your tears and our hearts with Your emotions.*

So I was walking to work this morning, exhaussted because of a sleepless night (2 hours MAX), and I remembered something that I had recently read in the Scriptures.  After GOD kicked Man out of the Garden of Eden, He put a cherib and a flaming sword that swings around in every direction at the entrance to guard the way back to perfect fellowship with Him.  He did this for our protection, so that we wouldn't try to just waltz right back to our death because His Presence would kill us.  But something dawned on me, it struck me that it is still like that.  The only way back to true fellowship with GOD requires us to go through the flaming sword.

If we want to get into communion with the Divine, the ONLY way is to allow the two-edged sword of the Consuming Fire to divide between our soul and our spirits.  We must let fearlessly walk into the Garden and just let the Word cut away all that sin that so easily entangles us.  YOUR ONLY HOPE OF RESTORATION IS THE WORD, annointed by the Holy Spirit, fullfilled by the Holy Son and established by the Holy Father.

You, I, we don't need the next new revelation, we need the Ancient One.  Nor do we need to get the new book that explains things a little better, we need the Book that explained it the best.  We need a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that when we read this little library of 66 books, the Spirit of the Living One - who once died but is now alive forevermore - will descend upon us and give us UNDERSTANDING.  Biblical understanding is the ability to take something apart and put it together again.  We must be able to break down the Scriptures, but also put them back together again.

KNOW AND LOVE YOUR BIBLE, you won't regret it.
vincentjames

It is so easy to not be ourselves, yet wouldn't it make sense that being someone else might be more difficult.  Man was not made to be frowning all the time, that is why it takes more muscles (and burns more calories, strangely enough) to frown than it does to smile - even big smiles.  It is EASIER to be content and full of joy (and informing your face of that joy) than it is to go against your nature by displaying on your Divinely fashioned face that you have some beef with the world around you.  All that to explain how we stress ourselves out by being who we aren't.

This goes not only for extreme cases, for instance in a situation like in the movie "Mean Girls", but also for us "redeemed and devoted" believers who "are more concerned about the LORD's opinion of us than man's"...right?!  Let me personalize it for you.  In my house there are five guys.  One of them is a clean, organized and severely dramatic administrative assistant who loves the LORD and is totally into middle eastern culture.  Then there is the guy who is an out-doors guy yet works for a make-up and cologne company, he is getting married soon and spends a lot of time with his fiance and has a very simple and shameless relationship with the LORD.  Then there is roommate #3, he works outside and is really into the prophetic and song-writing/worship.  My fourth roommate is a waiter, but he is so into healing that the other day he brought a friend to the airport, healed his shoulder, announced it to the whole crowd around him and then healed a woman of head aches.  And that is an almost daily occurance for him.  Then there is me, the ex-IHOPer (not that you can really take the IHOP out of an IHOPer) who loves the gifts and stuff, but I am constantly confronted with my lack of true fellowship with the Ancient of Days.

So, with that as the back drop, understand my situation, specifically with the last two of my roommates - both of whom do youth ministry with me at the church.  My tendency is to try to be like them, because I look up to them and value what they bring to my life.  I could get into song writing, which I used to really try to be into because of him, but the truth is that I am just not a song writer and I would be wasting my time (not that my songs are bad, they just aren't my calling).  Or I could really get into the prophetic like him, the other day we were in Dallas and a homeless guy asked him for money for food, he bought him a sandwich and started to really prophetically dig into the guy.  Long story short, Bob (the hungry man) ended up letting my roommate pray for him to receive the Holy Spirit.  I'm not saying that I'm not prophetic, I have the hebrew word for "prophet" tattooed on the back of neck and I am rarely wrong when I prophesy to people.  But that isn't my primary calling.

Then there is the healer.  Many people around us really admire him for his boldness and aggressiveness in his faith, which I really appreciate, and people have said things like "I aspire to be like that."  But I am gripped with what Jesus said about moving in our gifts.  He said that at the end of the age, many will come to Him and say "Hey, Jesus, check out my list of sweet prophetic words...oh even better, leaf through this file of people I've healed.  What do You think?"  And He will say to many "We never knew each other.  Your works mean nothing to Me."  Don't get me wrong, my roommate is doing some seriously good things and is bringing the Kingdom all around him.  It is awesome, but I've been in a similar place (read my blog about a similar situation) and I came out the other side abundantly aware of my lack of the knowledge of GOD.

I don't want to be my roommates, I want to be who I was crafted by the King to be from the foundation of our universe.  I want to be a friend of the King.  We have to be who we are, we are not our gifts, we are who we are when there is no one around to minister to.  I'm not bashing my roommates, I only gave a characature of them, really.  They have relationships with the LORD that I admire.  I'm more talking about myself.  I want to be described by people as a man who cares most about knowing the Man Christ Jesus.  I want to have my funeral (if I have one) be filled with people telling stories about how I was asked go do something and I declined because I was obsessed with the Presence and just wanted to get deeper in.  I want it said of me that I was like Jesus because I had spent so much time with Him that I talked like Him, thought like Him, loved like Him, acted like Him and even smelled like Him.

Who am I?  I'm His friend and all things will flow out from that.  If I'm really close to Him, we will do things together and will thus be doing things that He is all about - prophecy, healings, salvations, service to people, etc.  First things first.

I don't think I've done a very good job of explaining myself, but I hope you get my point.  I just want to know Him, in a way that I know is available to me but to which I have only heard of a few people touching in their lives.  I know it is there to be had, LORD help me to find what I know is there for me.

This may have been just for me.

vincent

There once was a man, many moons ago, whose occupation was to more manure from one pile to another.  He didn't do it alone, he had a friend who worked with him.  The queer thing about his friend and co-worker was that he never said much.  The manure mover's name was Ian, and he never asked his friend what his name was because he seemed to be a secritive man that loved to listen.

All day long Ian and his friend would load up and move manure from one side of the landowner's property to the other - from the pasture's edge to the farmer's collection for fertilizer.  Ian would tell of all of his frustrations and joys with his wife, his kids and his life.  He unloaded everything, sometimes out of nothing better to do while shovelling, but mostly out of habit.  His silent friend would shake his head at the unfortunate news of his kids being caught snagging some bread and smiled at the good tidings of a new baby on the way - asking probing questions at strange moments with no real follow up.  The conversations grew shorter as Ian began to get sick of hearing himself complain.

Eventually, Ian began to speak of things about the kingdom in which the two of them lived.  He would comment on the horrid smell coming from the lower district and how he wished the king would open up his court gardens more often for parties like he did every first Tuesday of the month.  In these conversations (one-sided as they seemed), Ian found that his friend paid equal attention as he had with the things that concerned Ian's personal life.  He did not treat these as more important because of their impact on his own life, but also paid no less attention as though it were merely idle worker's talk - all the time asking strange questions at strange moments.

One day there something amazing happened.  After months of telling his friend about his desire for the king to open up the court gardens, the king desided to change the event to EVERY Tuesday.  Ian was euphoric.  He told his friend and, as usual, he smiled and kept on loading the manure.  But Ian could tell that there was something different about his friend's smile this time, something mischievious and wild.  But Ian never asked him questions, it just wasn't what he did.

Ian was also an inn keeper on the weekends to help pay for his growing family, but with the new baby on the way he had to pick up another shift at the inn on Wednesday mornings.  This made his beloved Tuesday nights at the king's gardens much more taxing for he had to lose much needed sleep and get up for the morning check-outs.  Things had been going so well with Ian lately that he had hardly talked about anything except for work related things for weeks with his friend, but when this happened Ian found his friend ready to listen to his complaint.

The very next week the king announced that he was moving Tuesday night open garden celebrations to Wednesday nights.  This was perfect for Ian.  And again when he got to work, he excitedly repeated the news to his friend.  And again when he heard the news he smiled, picked up the handles to the manure cart and kept working - this time the smilealmost turned into a giggle.  And this time Ian did something he never thought he would do, he asked his friend what he thought.

His friend put down the cart, looked Ian in the face and said, "I thought you'd like that."  Without hesitation he picked up the cart again and walked to the other side of the farm.  Ian, stunned and perplexed, stood with his mouth half opened and manure falling off his cart onto his feet (though he didn't notice or mind at that point).  "What is that supposed to mean?" said Ian with a wild revelation in his mind.  And then his friend unloaded one of the greatest things that Ian had EVER heard in his life.

This friend of Ian's was in fact the king's son.  He had been taking the requests of poor, uneducated, insignificant Ian to his father, the king, for months.  It began to click for Ian, things in the kingdom had been running extra smoothly lately and had been running how he had been expressing to his friend, the prince.  Ian found out from the prince that this was a common was that the kings, before they were kings, were taught how to rule with justice - by being with and doing the things of their future subjects.

The prince, with his secret out of the way, now knew that he could trust his friend Ian.  With his coronation as king decades away, the prince wouldn't fully be in authority for a while decided to remain with Ian as a worker - they quickly became very close friends.  The prince would share the things that were heavy on his heart of royal and common issues, and he was no longer much of a silent man.  In fact, Ian found that the prince had much to say but still loved to listen to Ian.  They wept together, laughed together, and Ian even threw manure at the prince when he wasn't looking (the prince was sure to get him back in some way, most likely by loosening the wheels on Ian's cart when Ian took his lunch break).

The prince also helped Ian out of his financial problems, not because he felt bad for Ian, but because that is just what friends do.  The prince told Ian that Ian could quit the inn keeping under two conditions.  First, he had to stay with the prince as a manure mover.  Second, Ian had to become the prince's confidant, helping him to make decisions now as a prince and in the future when he was crowned king.  Both Ian and the prince treasured each other so deeply that work was no longer work, it was fellowship between two who deeply loved one another.  Ian was not to tell anyone what he knew, for these were royal secrets that he became privvy to, and he was not to change anything about his lifestyle until the prince was crowned.

What is the moral of my story?
The King has a Son to whom you may talk and fellowship with, you can change the things in His Kingdom or you can laugh and cry with Him, He enjoys just being with you.  The secrets of your relationship with Him are precious to Him and He looks forward to the day when He can advance you for your faithfulness into a position of glory, authority and reknown when He is crowned King.  Your intimacy with Him now will determine your position in the age to come, but when you get to the age to come, the reward of being in such positions of authority will be nothing in comparison to discussing His heart in the secret meetings of a Prince and his friend.

The truth just doesn't feel real a lot of the time.  This is something that hit me at youth group tonight.  We live and deal with our problems enough to make it through life, but we become callous to what is reality.  The reality is that there is a real man named Jesus (though His name is pronounced different in other languages) who is sitting on a REAL throne and He is REALLY going to come back to the Earth within the life time of people currently alive.  He really does enjoy me.  He isn't mostly upset with me or disappointed with me.

One of our problems is that we aren't willing to embrace the truth that we are not living like we want to.  We are afraid of saying things like "I don't have everything together."  I take that back, we are willing to SAY that, but we are not likely to let our lack come to the surface and be taken away by overcoming it.  The bottom line for me is I AM AFRAID OF BEING A BROKEN MAN INFRONT OF PEOPLE, even if that means I will become a better man in the end.

How do I get over this?  Matthew 12:34 says that what is in my heart is displayed by what comes out of my mouth.  Now, I know the truth, but it hasn't yet set me free because I don't really know it yet because knowing is an action of the whole soul.  The soul is the MIND, WILL and EMOTION.  This means that what is in our minds needs to get into our hearts by us deciding to speak the truth.  As we speak things, they become more true to us because of the connection between the mouth and the heart.

OK, that was a little bit of a ramble, but my point is that we need reality to hit us.  We need to know the truth to be set free.  We need "the eyes of our understanding to be enlightened" so that we can not waste our lives.  I feel like I've wasted my time and I think it is largely due to the fact that I don't understand what I believe and I don't feel the weight of what is true reality.  I believe that if I did, I would live differently and my life would be much more worth while.

This is more food for thought and an opening to a conversation about how to truly live the life we have presented to us by the Creator.

Anyhow.

Long time no...blog...yeah.  I've been uber busy with work and ministry and sleeping.  I was on a liquids-only fast and was getting really tired and would sleep for like 10-12 hours a night because I just couldn't get out of bed. 

Work has been crazy too, I work in a hotel that takes "distressed passengers" from the DFW airport.  This means that we get all the angry people who get their flights cancelled.  That means that most of my interactions at work are with people who are having a rough go as of late...and they think that I am the one that needs to hear about it, suffer for it or make up for it.  I'm not.  I'm just a front desk clerk at a hotel that is trying to make enough money to live so he can do a little bit of ministry and write a book.

Ever since coming back from KC, I've been feeling a grace from the LORD to live in Him.  But then a few days ago I made a stupid mistake and it threw off my whole spiritual chemistry.  I will not be making that mistake again any time soon, I will say that much.  So all of a sudden I've been forced to face my barren-ness.  Which is funny, because I asked the LORD to do that, I just didn't think He would do it the way that He did.  So now I'm realizing once again that I have NO IDEA HOW TO ENCOUNTER THE LORD.  I had been doing my religious acts, but running away from intimacy.  So now my dilemma is that I know that I am no further from Him than I was before, but I also know that I am not as near to Him as I thought I was.  I really don't know Him as I thought.

Let's talk about holiness, righteousness and sanctification.  On my flight to KC in December, I was listening to Allen Hood teach on the heart of the Cross.  He said something about his brother-in-law, he said "...and now he is one of the most holy men I know..."  Not a profound truth, but something in what he said had so much truth in it that I almost broke down crying next to this businessman.
I WANT TO BE HOLY!  I don't just want to be holy so that I can say that I'm holy or so that others will say that about me, I want it because I know that it is one of the attributes of the One Whom I love and desire to be like.  He is a consuming fire, if we touch The Burning GOD, we will inevitably burn.  I want touch Him, I want to burn, I want to HATE the sin that so easily entangles and reject it joyfully.  I want to be an Acts 13:52 believer, continually filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.  I want "happy holiness", where it is my delight to not be like the world but to be like Him whose heart plays the rhythm of my life.
I am far too much like the world.  I am far too entertained by its immoralities.  I am far too uneffected by the WORD OF GOD.  THIS IS A TRAGEDY!!!  I read the Word and don't know what to start with, where to go with it, what to do with it.  I'm bored with the Word of GOD because I'm BORING.  If my life were put to music right now, it would be a mono-tonic droning of an irritating note on an obnoxious instrument made of balsa wood and elmers glue.
Check this out though, I can still opperate in my gifts.  I was at onething in KC and completely nailed like four people in a row prophetically.  I'll tell the whole story so that you can get a feel for this.  I went to one of the booths to check it out and got a word of knowledge on a guy that blew him and everyone else away...I got his BIRTHDAY EXACTLY.  He showed me his license and I turned around to a large group of people and triumphantly said "everyone, I'm prophetic!"  An intern leader from IHOP came up to me and was like "really, I need a word." So I was like, "OK" and proceded to get some details of what is going on with her right on.  She was impressed, so were the people at the booth, who had never experienced prophecy before (though they grew up believing in it).
So this couple at the booth said, "prophesy to us".  So I did.  And I tell you, I have been prophesying for years now and I have NEVER been this accurate.  I was telling them desires that they had in their hearts that they had only told each other...and that they had been talking about just hours before hand.  Then after nailing them for like 5 minutes with some serious prophetic stuff about their future, finances and ministry I asked if I could pray for them.  They of corse did not refuse.  So I sat down with them and prayed for them and began to weep over them, truly connecting with His heart for them.  They started weeping and I couldn't stop praying, I knew that I had Heaven's ear and wasn't about to let go.
So the whole time that I was ministering to this couple, their fellow booth worker was obviously wanting in on it.  So I walked away...why?  Because I thought she was cute and thought that my flesh was getting in the way and I didn't want to prophesy from my flesh.  So I came back later sat next to her and she said "so..." and before she could say anything, I said, "You want me to prophesy over you.  Yes, I already have stuff for you."  She was like "you already knew?  Wow, you ARE prophetic."  I said, "No, it was obvious by your body language while I was doing them."
Then the LORD gave me clear insight into her life.  But it was one of those words you don't want to be right on.  But I knew that I was in the flow of it and that He had put me there for this very reason, that I didn't want to be right but knew that I was.  I said "I have some stuff for you, but it is going to be hard to hear."  She agreed to sit down and listen.  "You have everyone fooled.  You've got everyone believing that you are really doing well with the LORD, but you are back-slidden."  At this point I knew I was right because she was crying.  But I had encouragement for her about His heart about where she is and who she is and what He is doing and why He would tell me.  So it was really good and she didn't even respond afterwards, she just went to the bathroom to fix her make-up.  But, OH, there's more.
I was telling all of this to a young STI friend of mine a few minutes later and she says to me "Well, prophesy to me and make me cry."  I go, "OK, I don't really have a word for you, but I will tell you what I think of where you are right now."  She said that was good enough.  She starts crying, I pray for her and bring her to a couple of my friends to pray for her.
So that was all within an hour or so.  But I walked away from that level of annointing in my giftings and realized that I didn't know the LORD at all.  I still had my gifts because the Father is a good Father and doesn't take our toys away when we are bad because they were GIFTS to use as we desire.  Romans 11:29 says that the gifts and callings of GOD are irrevocable, meaning that we have them no matter what.  That's why really talented musicians exist in the world and not just in the church, because GOD annointed them but they used it to exalt themselves rather than Him and He won't take them back.
I was reminded of when Jesus spoke of the judgement day when He will say to some "depart from me you who practice lawlessness" after they were appealling to their history of prophetic and healing ministry (Matthew 7:21-23).  I realized that I had just prophesied in His Name and yet didn't know the Man behind the Name.

All of this is long, but if you've gotten this far, listen to this and take it to heart.  Friend, YOU CAN KNOW HIM.  This is eternal life, John 17:3.  This is your calling, your primary purpose, to know the King and secondarily to make Him known to others in various ways as He ordains out of friendship with Him.

This has been the cry of my heart lately: Job 29:2-4
Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God watched over me, when His lamp shone on my head, when I walked through darkness by His light, as I was in the days of my harvest, when the friendship of God was over my tent.

Let us return and become His friends again.  Do what we once did to get what we once had.  We are returning to the anceint paths, there we will find the treasures of the secrets of the LORD.  No more messing around, we need more and will die without it.

love y'all
vincent james

The book is simply called "Prayer" by Hans Urs von Balthasar.  It was written a long time ago by this german guy and then later translated into english.  It is one of those books that you cnanot read fast because each sentence is so deep that you could quote it at the beginning and preach a whole sermon of of it.  Essentially this is a book of amazing quotes strung together that forces you to do what it is talking about.  The kind of prayer that Balthasar focuses on is contemplation, or "being prayer".  And as you read the book you have to stop after each few pages and just let it hit you.

Get it here:  http://www.amazon.com/Prayer-Hans-Urs-von-Balthasar/dp/0898700744

After such an intro, let me tell you what he said last night.  I was reading at work last night, which is all you can do sometimes in the hotel business, and he was talking about the different roles of the different persons of the Trinity in prayer.  I was reading the part on the Son.  And at one point he says something about how when we come to the Father, we do so only through the Son.
Jesus is the only way in-road.  And he said that is because we are so bland, boring and spiritually monochromatic that when we come before the Uncreated One, Who is life and Vibrancy, we are overwhelmed.  As we enter into true fellowship and eternal intimacy with the Bridegroom we go from being like the world, boring and searching for uniquenes, to having uniqueness by the very nature of being what we are as restored image-bearer.
This uniqueness comes because we are gazing at the One.  That is one of His Names, "the One".  It is a declaration of how incredibly unique He is, that there is none like Him.  And as we are in love with the Man, we stare at Him (like people who are in love do) - whether by learning what He is like in His Word or by spending time alone with Him talking WITH Him or just letting your mind wander to Him - we become like Him in this process.  This is contemplative prayer.
I think that we don't think about God like this, Him being vibrant and exciting, becaues we are so used to the monochromatic monotony of the world.  We forget our past experiences with the LORD, or maybe we have never really had a true encounter with Him, and as a result we are not fascinated by Him.  We have neither tasted nor seen that He is good.  And thus we make statements about the things of this world like "I experience Him more in _______ than in the Bible, the Christian equivalent or prayer."  Do you know why?  Because we really don't know Him and we aren't really experienceing Him.
If we WERE experiencing Him, we would be obsessed.  The apostles were crazy, they were so ruined for Him that they said that it was an honor to be counted worthy to be beaten for talking about Him.  I'm so American that if my rights are violated I get offended and bitter.  My point is that they knew something that we don't, and we must rediscover what that is or else we will continue to live dead religion.

I'm not trying to condemn anyone, I hope this doesn't come across that way.  I am just so convinced, and have been since highschool, that there is so much more than what we are experiencing.  I'm bored.  But I'm bored because I'm boring.  I am entertained by watching other people's drama on TX while I am unwilling to live my own life and face my own drama.  I have a GOD in love with me and would rather distract myself with things of this dead world.  This must change or I will die.

*LORD, increase your Presence in our lives.  Change us as we stare at you, in whatever capacity.  Make us like You.  You are worth any sacrifice we could make.  Show us truth and set us free.  I ask this in Your Name, which alone has power over all spirits, sicknesses and creation, by the power of Your Blood, which drips from my hands and gives me enterance into the Holiest Places imagineable.  I love you.*

needing more
vincent james

For the last few days I was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota praying for the end of abortion in the state of SD.  Here's the low down, there is only one abortion clinic in all of SD.  Tomorrow, November 7, they are voting on whether or not to illegalize abortion.  If that happens, other states will follow (and other countries, which we found out are watching what happens tomorrow).  If that happens, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton will be almost forced to be revisited.  If America illegalizes abortion, it will be just one more chess piece in the puzzle of preparation for the Return of King Jesus.

I went with some of my most favorite people in the world...IHOPers!!!  I, as Andrew said frequently, "partnered with then in the place of intercession."  There were moments where we hit such an intense place in the fear of the LORD that the two dozen of us that were in the room were on our faces only wailing before the LORD asking for His mercy to cover our nation's guilt.  I hit one moment where I could ONLY sob, cry and grown/wail because I had hit the end of eloquence and no longer had anything to say to GOD except "Just end it LORD."  The LORD connected me with His emotions for this issue.

I'm pretty ruined right now.  And didn't get much sleep while in KC and SoDa.

There was one moment that was a shining gleam of emotional greatness, I was talking with the family that we were staying with, and I was telling them about the lovingkindness of the LORD.  And I just started coking up over His love.  He loves me...how incredible, He who inhabits eternity loves me. 
"His lovingkindess endures forever" and "surely goodness and lovingkindness follows me all the days of my life"...I will live forever.  That word "follows" means, as far as I take it, something more like chasing after than reluctantly straggling behind...He is a divinve stalker!  For all of eternity future, He will HAUNT me with His kindness that spews forth from His love for me.

WOW.
If you live at IHOP, go pace on that one for a bit.

I think you guys are great.  I wish I could do justice to the emotions I'm feeling (no pun intended).

Also, I miss IHOP...a lot.  Being there for such a short time was a big tease.


vincent

In this case being "tagged" means that I have to post a blog in which you tell "Six Weird Facts" about yourself.  So out of honor to a beloved college friend, a newly-wed, I do this...but otherwise I would ignore the tag, this one's for you, from M2.

1)  I don't like fried chicken.  I don't know when this started, but at some point in my teen years, I just stopped liking chicken in general and fried chicken in particular.  Maybe for health reasons, maybe for texture reasons, I don't know.

2)  I am extreme when it comes to cleanliness.  Either everything has to be in its specific place, or else everything is in shambles.  For example, when I moved to Texas, for the first month or so, there was no order to my living space.  But then one fateful day I cleaned my room until everything was exactly how I wanted it and it was functional, and now I have a special laundry hamper for socks/boxers/towels and another for shirts/pants/others - to tell the truth, every night I hang up the pants I wore that day, unless they are "over worn" if you know what I mean.  Anyone who has lived with me or knows me knows that is a MAJOR difference in me.

3)  I haven't dated anyone in 3 years.  Enough said about that, my next one is even more embarassing.

4)  I haven't kissed anyone in 7 years.  Yikes...will I even remember how when the opportunity next presents itself?

5)  I can't tell the difference between skunk and mint smell.  That isn't entirely true...I can sometimes.  when I was growing up, there was a mint field nearby and skunks would get hit by cars all the time.  So growing up, my brain was trained to have the two closely related and I suffer through gum to this day befacuse of that...not really, but I do like the smell of skunk a little.

6)  Another smell quirk: I like the smell of horse manure.  I dated a girl (over three years ago, obviously...she was the last one I kissed too...hmmm) and she had a horse and I would spend time with her at the stable and grew to like the smell of the horse barn.

There, I did it.  Now I tag:  Raych, Alex, K-Lyn, Niki, Steph(y) and Madison

KCMO
So, Kansas City was, as I figured out recently, home for one year TO THE DAY.  I love IHOP-KC, and will miss everyone there very much, but as those you live there know, IHOP-KC is only a half-way point for most people.  From there I found a spirit of prayer, much better eschatology, and most importantly to me A LOVE FOR THE WORD OF GOD.  I owe IHOP so much for my spiritual life.

MI
Hanging around Lansing again has been an experience and a half.  From teaching people who know better than to listen to me, to new 24-hour Beaners carpet, to my father now dressing like a farmer, to having my first beer in over a year, it has been fun...but it hasn't been home.  I love what the LORD is doing in LAMI, I envy Nathaniel for what he has going here and hope that some day I will be able to labor again with him.  Like Jeremy said at Bible study, you people are Lansing's only hope...press in and live in the fullness that we are partakers in.

SODA
In case you were wondering about this part, SODA is "SOuth DAkota".  Jeremy and I are going to South Dakota before heading home to Bedford, TX.  There is some kind of music festival/intercession conference...honestly I have no idea what we are doing there, but it will rock so hard, for sure.  Jason Upton, TheJohnMark, Lou Engle (how ALWAYS rocks the dock) and others will be there...lucky us.  We are leaving tonight and trying to get past Chicago before people wake up to cause traffic, so it will be a long night for the Anointed Brothers, for sure.

DFW
Home is now Bedford, TX.  I will be there some time next week.  For the last little while all of my possessions have been in the back of a PT Cruiser...yeah, about that.  So I will be happy when I can get that stuff into our house.  I will get a job as soon as I can and just go hard in the Word and plug in as best I can at Wellspring (our church, pastored by Jack Deere).  Pray for the money issue for me, just a quick one right now.  just pray this under your breath as you read it: Jesus, give Vincent money so he can sow into Your Kingdom.  Thank you, guys.  I don't know what I'm doing in Dallas, I have had a dream about it, but it is looking more temporary than permanent.  So we will see what is next.

I appreciate you guys.
vince

Here it is.  The first column is the day of the month.  Don't forget to read the chapter of Proverbs everyday, 31 proverbs 31 days, it isn't on the list everyday, but it is in the Psalms top column.

This takes as much as 5 and 6 hours of your time each day.  This is not for those who get discouraged easily.  If you get behind one day, you have 42 chapters to catchup on.  So take this seriously if you are going to do it.  And don't do it alone, get a group so that you have others pushing you along.

Another tip, you don't HAVE to do this in one month.  You can split this up into two, three or four months - really as many as you want.  Just have an OT month, then a Psalms and Proverbs month, then a NT month...it is all good.  If you do it in three months, you are still reading the WHOLE BIBLE four times in a year.  That means that EVERY word in the Word you have read four times at least in the last 365 days.  That is WAY better than what we are currently living in.  Jewish kids have the first five books of the Bible MEMORIZED by age 12, the WHOLE OLD TESTAMENT by 16...we need to EAT THE SCROLL, for real.  If you let me, I will preach this at you for an hour or more easily.

let me know if you are going to go for it.
vince

	OT	Psalm/Prov of the Day	NT
1	Gen 1-25	ps 1-6	Mt 1-10
2	Gen 26-50	ps 7-12	Mt 11-20
3	Ex 1-20	ps 13-18	Mt 21-28
4	Ex 21-40	ps 19-24	Mk 1-8
5	Leviticus	ps 25-30	Mk 9-16
6	Num 1-20	ps 31-34	Lk 1-12
7	Nm 21-36/Dt 1-14	ps 35-37	Lk 13-24
8	Deut 15-34	ps 38-42	Jn 1-10
9	Joshua	ps 43-48	Jn 11-21
10	Judges/Ruth	ps 49-53	Ac 1-10
11	1Samuel	ps 54-58	Ac 11-20
12	2Samuel	ps 59-64	Ac 21-28
13	1Kings	ps 65-68	Rom 1-8
14	2Kings	ps 69-72	Rom 9-16
15	1Chronicles	ps 73-76	1Cor 1-8
16	2Chronicles	ps 77-78	1Cor 9-16
17	Ezra/Nehem	ps 79-84	2Cor 1-13
18	Esth/Job 1-17	ps 85-89	Gal/Eph
19	Job 18-42	ps 90-95	Phil/Col
20	Eccl/Song	ps 96-102	1/2 Thess
21	Isaiah 1-22	ps 103-104	1/2 Tim
22	Isaiah 23-44	ps 105-106	Titus/Phlm/Jas
23	Isaiah 45-66	ps 107-109	Hebrews
24	Jer 1-26	ps 110-117	1/2 Peter
25	Jer 27-52	ps 118-119:96	1/2/3 Jn / Jude
26	Lam/Ezk 1-20	ps 119:97-176	Rev 1-11
27	Ezk 21-48	ps 120-130	Rev 12-22
28	Daniel/Hosea	ps 131-137
29	Joel-Micah	ps 138-143
30	Nahum-Mal	ps 144-150

 

other thoughts for if you have time:

Many people have been asking for my Bible reading plan.  This plan gives you a helping hand in reading the Bible in one month...that's right, the WHOLE BIBLE in 30 days.  So I put it up online so people could get it.

The importance of the Word had not hit me until recently.  I realized that angelic visitations won't be that impressive in eternity, or even in the Millennial Kingdom, prophecy will fade away as will tongues and other spiritual gifts.  But the Word of GOD stands forever, and we will be reading it FOREVER, and we will be ASTOUNDED by it FOREVER.  So I'm starting now.

I am 22 days into reading the Bible in 30 days, what I call "The Ultimate Bible Reading Plan".  I have currently read Genesis-Song of Songs, 11/15ths of the Psalms, 22 Proverbs, all four gosple accounts, Acts, and all of Pauls letters.  Do you want to know what I have concluded?

I concluded that I don't know the Gosple, I don't know the Bible and I DON'T KNOW GOD.

This is a problem.  But it is fixable.

So I'm in the Prayer Room at IHOP-KC doing what I would never have done years ago: spending 24 hours in here just reading the Bible, worshipping and praying.  It is really good, I have been in here for about 12 hours now, just reading.  So far I have read 2Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, a few Psalms, Proverbs 20, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs.  By noon tomorrow I hope to have gotten Romans through 2 Thessalonians done, at which time I will be caught up with my reading plan.

WHAT THE HECK KIND OF RADING PLAN ARE YOU ON VINCE?!!! [you may be asking]

I am reading the whole Bible in a month.  It is intense, and if you get behind you have a lot to catch up on.  This is what it takes, 25 Old Testament chapters, 5 Psalms, 1 Proverb, and 10 New Testament chapters.

IS IT WORTH IT?!!!
DO YOU EVEN REMEMBER ANY OF IT?!!!

I tell you, YES to both.  I love the Word so much right now that it is a pleasure to read this much, to give myself to something that is so good and pure.  You will be surprised at how much you retain and learn when you read a lot of the Word every day.  You get the broad strokes a lot better, not many detailed revelations, but sometimes the LORD drops a doozy into your mind and ya have to stop and mull over it for a bit.  It is great, if you want a copy of what you read each day, cuz I have it on a spread sheet, ask and you shall receive.

What I really love about reading this much is that I am getting so much of the Word into me that I find that I think in Scripture.  When someone says something, I automatically think of a few Scriptures that relate to it...even if they aren't talking about Bible stuff.  It is great.

So, I'm doing 24 hours to catch up on my chapters, because I got behind for teenage reasons, if you know what I mean [which you do if you know what I've been doing all summer].  I am also doing it so that I can see what it is like, I have heard people talk about what it is like, I wanted to see for myself.  Since I am moving to TX in a week and a half, I won't have another oppertunity.

That's it for now, this is probably too long for most americans to both with already, So congrats to those of you who made it THIS far, you are not as american as I expected you to be.

I will see the great state of MICHIGAN in a little over a week.  See yall soon.
vince