Josh's Bible Study

I have been back at Yale for nearly two weeks now. Two weeks also marks the time
since a significant spiritual breakthrough in my life.

The first week back was marked with a new outpouring of the Spirit unlike
anything I have experienced before; and it has come through the gradual
renewing of my mind.

However, these past few days have been quite difficult as the pressures of Yale
begin to mount. The beginning of a Yale semester is especially challenging due
to what Yale calls shopping period, where for about a period of two weeks you
can try out any class offered of the hundreds offered at Yale every semester.
It is a crazy time to say the least; like a kid in a candy store, but we all
know what happens when a kid eats too much candy.

The first week back at Yale I was getting so much time with Papa God. I was
rising early and praying and looking at the Word in a new way; not focusing on
the breadth of what I read but on the depth. I revisited chapters and certain
Psalms over and over again to really meditate on them for a span of a few days.

As soon as I arrived from Morocco to Yale, the Lord by His providence and Grace
connected me with a couple of exceptional young lovers of God who are in the
Christian a capella group I sang with my freshman year, Living Water (check out
the site www.yale.edu/lh20) and who I have now decided to sing with for my
remaining time here at Yale.

The trip from Morocco to Yale was long and grueling and filled with a moment to
moment dependence on the Lord that I am learning to operate in more and more.
For quite some time I have been quite torn about where God would want me this
academic year, finagling every way I could to stay on the fence; and once Yale
looked pretty much decided, finagling some more to get back to China. It was a
trust issue. I have been through an intense time of eighty days of wilderness
from which I am finally emerging. I believe perhaps half of the wilderness was
specifically appointed by God, and furthermore it is quite possible that the
latter forty days were a product of my own stubbornness, leading me to stay
there; even though the Shepherd was gently asking me to come out with Him.

He is good. He really does leave the ninety-nine to go get the one stubborn one
such as myself, even if He has to break its leg and then carry Him the rest of
the way so that it can learn to trust Him. This is how the shepherds used to do
it in ancient Israel.

Coming back to Yale was a scary decision, but the breakthrough brought me to the
end of myself and I finally surrendered everything to God; absolutely
everything. Every aspect of my future. All of my past and regrets. My laptop
and all that was on it was stolen this summer and many more items that I used
to find comfort in; and I am happier than ever. Funny how that works isn't it.
He loses His life will gain it, and he who tries to save His life will lose it.
Also, I have painfully learned, he who exalts himself will be humbled and he who
humbles himself will be exalted. When the Lord graciously invites you to His
party, don't take the front row seat; chances are He will ask you to step down
and it's never fun. Instead take the lowest, humblest seat and He, in His
kindness and love, will ask you to move up.

Anyway, I have been learning to repent for believing in lies and then replacing
it with truth. One example is repenting of thinking that the NKJ (New King
James) Version of the Bible is somehow superior to other versions of the Bible.
This simply is not true. I repented of this on the airplane ride over to New
York on my way to Yale and had to cover my face with the blanket on the plane
to spare people my tear-drenched grimaces. I had arrogantly read the NKJV for
the past year often being unclear in many areas due to an agreement I made many
years ago before I was a Christian simply because of the religious environment I
was raised in. In a word: baggage. I have begun to repent for so much baggage
that I have brought in to my relationship with my Papa God. (You Tube "who
turned off my brain" and watch Dr. Caroline Leaf explain the science behind
renewing the mind, repentance, forgiveness, and healing; it will set you free
of so many misconceptions and give you a concrete idea of what the above
concepts look like physiologically)

On a more severe note. I have repented of believing that I am a bad student, a
lie that originated in my childhood with my earthly father telling me often
times that I wasn't very bright. I have also forgiven him and replaced it with
truth and already seen the Lord's supernatural work in making me a better
student as God made me to be and as was prophesied of me at Bethel church in
Redding, California this last July (please check out their website and their
podcasts (they will change your life): www.ibethel.org)

These are but a couple of examples. I have learned to stop believing the lie
also that somehow I am big enough to mess up God's plan. My wilderness time
came predominantly from believing that somehow I had missed the boat called
"the God life intended for you". That was the breakthrough and I repented for
judging God and basically calling Him a liar when He tells me that all things
work together for good for those who love Him. As a friend taught me today I
was a "me always ever" person; a person who believes everything is their fault.
Then there are the "not me always never" people who just simply wash their hands
of everything. I have come to this conclusion: I have 100% free will and God is
100% (I will even go as far as to say 110% or infinitely more) in control and
knows all things. Don't ask me to spell it out. It is just what I have learned,
now by experience, not just as my theology. However, not just that, but that God
is a good God and that His Grace is truly amazing. He is in a good mood all the
time! And He loves us so much!

Today really brought that home for me. There is no such things as supposed to or
meant to be with God, at least not in our terms. We are meant to simply BE. BE
PRESENT in His presence all the time. Seek first His kingdom and all these
things will be added to you, Jesus said. Regrets are a waste of time and so is
worrying about the future. Release, repent, forgive, and surrender! Please
people, and begin to experience life abundant in Him.

Today I was getting to the end of myself again, straying again into the "what am
I supposed to do with my life" and here is the one that kills me "for God" rut.
Getting overwhelmed by all the options and potential "futures" that actually
don't exist outside of our minds. As C.S. Lewis puts is in his book the Screw
Tape Letters, the enemy loves to get us to think and pray about things that
don't even exist. Moment to moment worship and dependence is the key and that
is what Satan really hates.

I couldn't handle it anymore so I stepped out of a science course I was shopping
and walked back to my dorm and recognized a student who had given his testimony
over the weekend and I came up to him and just bluntly asked him if he could
pray for me.

There are two parts of the Bible I would love to allude to for a moment: Samuel
10 and a verse at the beginning of 2 Corinthians.

Samuel 10 is about, essentially, this scavenger hunt that the Lord sends the
newly anointed King Saul on and at the end of the personally tailored journey,
Saul receives a new heart.

Then, the verse in 2 Corinthians talks about how we are wasting away on the
outside but being renewed constantly on the inside and another great part of
this part of scripture is how the Lord has given us His Spirit as a deposit of
whats to come (2 Cor 5:5)

I have two major changes in my heart, renewals, that have occurred
simultaneously as I have been wasting away on the outside. I can enjoy talented
musicians and I am blessed by anyone who prays for me. First off, comparison,
pride,envy and low self-esteem kept me from being able to enjoy good music,
especially live, especially when it was people I knew personally and with the
latter issue on prayer I was simply a spiritual snob. Just a couple of examples
and I Praise Him for the work He is doing in my heart. Another work He is doing
in my heart that I will elaborate on more on some later occasion is being 100%
honest 100% of the time (no more white lies or exaggeration, etc.). More on
this in a future blog I hope.

So back to the story. I pray with this amazing guy name Zach(ck?) and just let
it all out. It is amazing how helpful it is at times to pray with others. He
then pointed me to Josh's Bible Study, a guy who I have gotten to know some
over the past couple of weeks who attends Yale Divinity School. So at 7:30
today I go over to Ezra Stiles college and am heavily burdened but leave
everything aside and just go.

This is very similar to how the Lord, as I arrived at the Yale campus at around
midnight August 26th, orchestrated my meeting with Kevin and Alice, the lovely
a capella singers and my dear friend, which led me to go to the Yale Students
for Christ retreat which was exactly what I needed right after the wilderness;
and during the retreat the Lord performed powerful healing work in my heart and
even played me music as He has in times past (maybe more on this later, I will
be taking a course on Christian mysticism this term so am I excited to explore
ecstasy in the Lord more deeply (ecstasy means to stand outside yourself=
ec-stasis)).

As I am walking more and more closely to Him and leaving all my regrets and
worries aside and learning to rejoice in Him always, though sometimes
concomitantly sorrowful as Paul speaks of, I am realizing that as soon as we
open our eyes to the cross and His Grace, His magic happens.

This Bible study tonite really sealed it for me. It is exactly what I had asked
God for; a group of people who at any cost wanted to see the Spirit of God
move. Tonite's Bible study was only supposed to be a couple of hours long and
it turned into over five hours of prayer, worship, visions, prophecy,
spontaneous teaching, prophetic drawing and just whatever the Spirit wanted to
do. I am so thankful to be at Yale right now in the midst of a revival where
the Spirit of God is dispelling darkness, disease and disbelief.

And God knit it all together; everyone there had a purpose and through this
group we are aiming to discover who God has made us to be (not just career wise
or all those petty worldly terms, but who we ARE, just as He is I AM, He wants
us to know who we ARE to walk in our royal authority every moment). Thank you
Jesus. Just one example I will share, because I am sure that as the year
unfolds I will understand that this past year of difficulty and many follies
such as spiritual pride, complacency, stubbornness, judgment, among other
things, God used to bring me to a place to be a worker here at Yale and also to
finally accept His precious healing before He fully sends me out. I would love
to write a post some time called " The Prodigal Pharisee" because that is what
I was.

One little example and then I will sign off for now. The testimony that is
accumulating here at Yale and the prophetic words would take me all day to
write, so just this one little example; this really drove it home, not to say
that everything that has happened in the past two weeks, from Papa providing a
laptop, giving me prophetic dreams, and so much more wasn't enough, but that's
the thing; He has infinite store houses and as long as we start understanding
that we are princes and princesses will we truly be able to freely ask and
receive and then freely give as we freely receive.

I have been preaching the Gospel like a crazy fiend here on this campus and it
has been from a place unlike I have never know before. He who is forgiven much
loves much. I am determined to pour out my life for Jesus and His Gospel as
that woman did as she broke that alabaster container of perfume on Jesus' feet,
of such worth, a years wages, that it could have been a dowry to remarry and get
out of the social level of prostitute; but she poured it out on Jesus' feet. The
Pharisee didn't even kiss Jesus or put oil on His head, because He didn't think
He needed to be forgiven. Read the story in the Gospel of John Chp 12. He who
realizes how much he or she has been forgiven loves much. We are all sinners
that is why Jesus said that even if you look lustfully upon a woman you have
already committed adultery with her in your heart and if you are angry at your
brother you have committed murder. We are all capable of atrocious things.
Think about it.

To the story. I have been witnessing up and down. I even got to share my
testimony with the Master of my college and He was very intrigued, surprisingly
since at Yale Christians aren't considered the smartest people on campus to say
the least ( he was especially interested in contemplative prayer) and I have
even been able to offer prophetic words to unbelievers that resonate with their
lives and leave them with a feeling of awe that something more than eloquent
speech is at work here, giving the the Gospel that extra umph, that love
encounter with the all knowing and all powerful God.

About a week ago I was catching up with a friend from freshman year and
ultimately as is usually the case all my conversations end with Jesus, as Paul
exhorts us to have all of our conversation be becoming of Christ. So I shared
the Gospel with him in a way I had never shared before and long story short at
the end of the conversation He was in tears and He kept telling me that He
could see that this was real love but that he wouldn't call it Jesus and that
that was just what I called it and then a spirit of boldness came over me and I
just kept repeating to Him, "A man named Jesus who is God came and became man to
understand everything you go through and to die for you." Maybe three times I
repeated it and then I held him in my arms and prayed for Him and told Him all
I perceived God wanted me to tell him and He was bawling. He had a love
encounter with our Lord Jesus. Lets drop the apologetics people, you do not
need to apologize for the truth.

The beauty of truly understanding His Grace is that you start stepping out in
faith and you are no longer afraid to make mistakes and through the humility
that He grows in us we are able to learn from the mistakes and become more and
more like Him. That is the beauty of living in an atmosphere of Grace. Peter
walked on water and then sunk but Jesus caught him. Jesus will always catch us.
As a new friend taught me today, "Plead Jesus!". You are completely justified
before God. If the enemy tries to come in and condemn, read Him your rights and
Plead Jesus!!

What blew me away today was that almost everything I shared at the Bible study
was connected to other people there. One girl who was really struggling in
understanding God's will, when she heard about my friend, had to bud in and
mention how she had been praying for the guy I shared with all summer long and we all rejoiced at
how the Lord uses the entire body to bring in the harvest and especially when we
do only what we see the Father doing; and the harvest is unspeakable!

I leave this blog with this. A revival is coming to this planet. A massive
revival and part of that is about to explode here in the North East and
especially here at Yale. When I came in as a freshman and I wasn't a Christian
the atmosphere was completely different. The bowl of intercession is about to
spill over and revival is going to hit this place. The freshman class is rife
with strong Christians and people are coming to know the Lord left and right.
Years of prayer and intercession, and now the harvest is ready and the workers
are here and we are operating under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and in an
atmosphere of Grace! Thank you Lord Jesus! and brace yourselves!!


Love and Peace and Joy everlasting
Christian