Revolt Towards

AnnouncingThe Revolt Collective

2010-03-11T11:28:40-08:00

“Return to Him you have so greatly revolted against...”
- Isaiah 31:6

Revolt: (verb) casting off allegiance or subjection to the status quo; breaking away from or rising against all injustice and living towards love, justice and Jesus. (noun) the act of revolting, an active expression or movement of spirited protest towards love and Love Himself.

I want to introduce you all to the Revolt Collective.

We are a faith-based collective of people just like you. Activists, thinkers, students and teachers. Artists and creatives. Poets, writers, designers and filmmakers. Cubical dwellers and blue-collared works. Entrepreneurs and up-starters. Crust punks and squatters. Rock ‘n rollers and holy rollers. Soccer moms and baseball dads. And everyone in between.

We are a collective who finds unity in the demand of heaven to be the greatest lovers this world has ever seen.

We root ourselves in love and Love Himself–the man Jesus–because we know that it is only from this place of Love that the world will never be the same. We revolt towards and not against. But this isn't about the trendy catch phrases of camps, seminars and long-forgotten conferences. Rather, it is about a present-tense movement and way of life in the here and now, every day and every night. Because we will know no matter what comes at us, no matter what they call us and no matter how they try to stop us, Love has already won.

To join us at the collective, head on over to the RevoltCollective.com. Also, please add us as a friend over on Facebook and Twitter.

Re-PresentingJesus to the World

2010-03-04T12:37:17-08:00

Our job is to learn how to release the reality and power of the Testimony in the same way Jesus did. Jesus represented God much differently than the Ark of the Testimony represented Him. There is a significant difference between a box of inanimate objects that points to spiritual realities and a living testimony that interacts with and manifests those realities. While the box could only preserve the relics of what God had done, Jesus declared and demonstrated the works of God for all to see. He revealed the secret of His ministry liberally to His disciples by reiterating often that He only did what He saw His Father doing and only said what He heard His Father say. That is, He and His Father were exactly alike, were in perfect agreement. Likeness and agreement are the heart of covenant. It was this perfect agreement with God that enabled Jesus to release the Spirit of God whenever He spoke. In His words and works, He literally re-presented the God of the Testimony. Christ has given us access to this superior covenant relationship with God and called us to represent Him in the same way. Thus keeping the testimony is not a matter of preserving what God has done in our memories, but of revealing what God is like to those around us through declaration and demonstration.

The very word testimony in Hebrew comes from a root word that means "to repeat, to do again." Notice that this repetition carries within it the two dimensions of saying and doing. The testimony is something to be repeated, both in word and in deed. This derives directly from the nature of the Word of God. His words cannot be separated from His works. It also derives from His nature as a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God. When we declare the testimonies of the Lord, we are actually describing who He has promised to be in relationship with us and more, we are putting a demand on Heaven for that covenant to be renewed and demonstrated in the present as it was in the past.

Putting this demand on Heaven is exactly what God wants us to do. He commands us to repeat His testimonies, because in doing so we create an atmosphere and an opportunity for Him to do again what He has done. Just as Jesus did, we are to create a context for His presence within us to be released to those around us through the declaration of the testimony. We carry the mercy seat of Christ wherever we go. When we declare the testimonies of God to people, we are setting them up to meet God in the same way we are declaring. This is a powerful reality, but one that we only anticipate and access consistently when we learn to follow in the footsteps of David and make the testimonies of the Lord our delight and our counselors. If we are going to fulfill our role in this covenant relationship, we must learn to keep the testimony.

From Bill Johnson's "Release the Power of Jesus," Destiny Publishers, Chapter 3 Encountering His Mercy, Pages 71-72.

Ash Wednesday &40 Days of Starve

2010-02-17T12:38:13-08:00

So today is Ash Wednesday. Today is also the start of Starve, something I created a few years back now it's taking shape and life. Or should we say death?

The purpose is this: let us have a Season of Lent in preparation for Easter in seeking the face of the One who loves us by starving our life so we can find real love and life again. Starving our hunger. Our apathy. Our technologies. Our consumption. And our wallets and greed.

I invite you to join us with as we call for 40 Days of holistic fasting from from today-Ash Wednesday, February 17th, 2010, and ending on Palm Sunday, March 28, 2010. Following Isaiah 58 and Joel 2, this is a call to starve ourselves so that we might see a new Spirit of Love on the face of the earth.

You can check out more information on Starve over at the Revolt Collective site and sign up for daily emails. You can also check out the Facebook Event page too.

Love you all. Here's to starving our lives that a greater glimpse of the One who gave Himself up for us may be revealed.

I leave you with an Ash Wednesday liturgy:

We have chosen to fast

Not with ashes but with actions

Not with sackcloth but in sharing

Not in thoughts but in deeds

We will give up our abundance

To share our food with the hungry

We will give up our comfort

To provide homes for the destitute

We will give up our fashions

To see the naked clothed

We will share where others hoard

We will free where others oppress

We will heal where others harm

Then God’s light will break out on us

God’s healing will quickly appear

God will guide us always

God’s righteousness will go before us

We will find our joy in the Lord

We will be like a well watered garden

We will be called repairers of broken walls

Together we will feast at God’s banquet table