hanniballecter:

So when I was just starting to get into 30 Seconds to Mars and learning the band members’ names, I was still reading a lot of manga, and one of my favourites was Azumanga Daioh. And because of Azumanga Daioh, whenever I think of Tomo Milicevic, I think of this.

Her name is Tomo. Okay. Cool story bro.

ILY. Just saying. Azumanga Daioh FTW :)

I’m actually really liking it. I haven’t heard Shock Value 1 yet, so don’t really have anything to compare it to. Definitely some great party songs and songs that reflect Timbo’s signature style. The one song that caught me soo off guard was his track with Miley Cyrus, We Belong to the Music. I actually am really feeling that song… a lot.

Is that wrong?

Oh well, IDC. I like it, lol.

yeahh:

http://www.ibethel.org/features/testimonies/index.php?f=testimonies.php&trecord=1048

my bolding

We need to start expecting for “greater works.”

As I was praying with a guy at church that was having seizures, I didn’t even notice that he was missing an eye—but Holy Spirit did. As I was praying for the seizures, the young man said, “Hey, I can see light.”  I wasn’t cluing in at that point so he had to tell me, ”I don’t have a right eye,” and sure enough he didn’t.   He told me how he had lost his eye in a fight with a friend two years ago. The friend hit him in the eye with a chair and severed all the nerves. Doctors told him that it would cost over $17,000 dollars to repair, which he did not have, so they removed everything.

I asked if I could continue to pray for him and then I began to focus on what God was doing. I was impressed to release God’s love into this young man. Then he started telling me that he could see my lips and then the color of my blouse.  I called my pastor over to witness this profound miracle, and he asked him to cover his good eye.  I also placed my hand over his good eye to make sure that he was really seeing from nothing.  I held up two fingers and asked him to tell me how many fingers I was holding up—and immediately he said “two.” Again we repeated the exercise, and this time I held up four fingers—and his reply was precious. He said, “I think I see possibly 3 or 4. It’s kind of hard to focus.”  Ha! That is so cool. Now He was focusing. He started out by telling me he was agnostic. I know that’s not an issue anymore. Ha! Yea, God.  He was so overwhelmed that God would do this for him. It was just priceless, so I asked him, “Are you ready to get your eye back?” and he looked at me and paused and said, “Well, not today. I am a little overwhelmed at this. But I promise I will find you again and get you to pray for me.”  I assured him that God was totally OK with that and that his eye would be waiting for him.  

-Maggie Yoches

Answer me that. I HATE when you do that. You sit there and act childish by not talking to me when I’m trying to find some way of apologizing for not catching myself early when I’m copping an attitude. My freaking bad. But can you count the times that I do so? Huh? It DOESN’T happen often and I have to nearly kill myself for it not to happen even when I really feel as if you deserve it (which I will admit, isn’t often.)

You just frustrate me sometimes and I hate having to swallow that just because you’re you. And if I don’t, then I’m the bad child who has no respect for you or the 10 commandments (Honor thy mother and thy father) just because I get testy 5/365 days with you.

Yes! I will admit that a lot of the time when you get this way, it IS because I did or said something stupid or acted in a way that you didn’t like. But when I admit that and apologise for it, it’s never “I accept your apology. You know you better than to act that way and you know I don’t stand for it, so keep your act together next time, O.K.?” I could deal with that. It’s always “I’m sorry. I really mean it and I’ll try not to let it happen again.” “You shouldn’t have done that, you know better than that. Try it next time and see what happens.”

I just hate it.

At the end of the day, you’re the parent and I’m the child and you’re doing it for my own good.

I get that.

But gracious, please don’t make me feel like an idiot for apologising when I know I’m wrong. I don’t do it for no reason.

/end rant.

I have to admit though, it’s pretty good to get a fresh start and pick up where I left off. My head is in a better, less stressed place. I feel like I can appreciate the beauty of things better now. IDK. I’m just in a better place.

It’s a good place to be.

:)

yeahh:

http://www.scataglini.com/testimonies/sergio.htm and http://www.scataglini.com/testimonies/sergio2.htm and http://www.scataglini.com/testimonies/sergio3.htm and
http://www.scataglini.com/testimonies/sergio4.htm and
http://www.scataglini.com/testimonies/sergio5.htm and

In May 1997, I greeted my congregation in the city of La Plata, Argentina, and I said, “I will come back to you in a week; I am going to see a couple of places of revival in the United States and I will bring reports back to you of what the Lord is doing in the world. Basically, I thought I was doing so well with the Lord, that all I needed was another touch from Him at these places of revival to strengthen my ministry.

However, there had been a cry, a very strange prayer that I had been praying for the previous months. Several times I was kneeling down and I found myself praying, “Lord if you are not going to bring another revival, take me home, I do not want to live anymore.” And then I tried to rebuke my soul, because I have three little kids and my wife and the ministry was not doing so bad. I thought, “I should not pray this way, because the Lord might answer my prayer!”

Then I realized that the Holy Spirit was putting a burden in my heart to see revival. There was a holy hunger for more of God. John Knox used to say, “Lord give me Scotland or I will die.” I pray that you will desire revival more than your own life, that you will desire more than to be alive to see your entire nation shaken under the power of God.

Like many others, I was praying for revival but I was not preparing for it. I was going to bring reports of revival back to my congregation. So I went to a place of revival and rejoiced in the Lord with what I saw. I was excited and then I left the next morning very early for northern Indiana, where my wife’s family lives.

In a Rush to Get to the Next Meeting…

Two days later I went to greet people in a church. I only had a few moments in the program, as they had another guest speaker that Sunday morning. It was not my turn to preach there; as a matter of fact I was supposed to leave very quickly that Sunday morning, (May 18, 1997) to go to another church to preach, but I didn’t know that the Lord had other plans.

I shared a greeting, and then the pastor said, “Let’s ask Pastor Sergio to come up front and we are going to pray for him before he goes to the other church, so he can carry fire them.” Those were his words. He called young people to pray for me.

Taken by Surprise…

They began to pray very calmly for me. Everything was quiet and nice and according to the church bulletin. As the young people began to pray for me, I closed my eyes; my mind was not on revival or anything else. I was in a rush to go to the next church to preach, when my clasped hands began to shake, without my permission, and I could not control them. In, our denomination, and especially the training that my father gave me, when we are on the platform, we are in control. We let the Lord use us, but don’t get out of hand. If we get out of control, what will happen to the rest of the congregation?

That is wise. But in this case, something was happening to me for the first time that I could not control. I thought, “This is out of place.” I opened my eyes and looked at the congregation before me, no one else was shaking. So I tried to stop the shaking. I gripped my hands more tightly trying to stop the shaking, and my entire body began to shake. I remember locking my knees and making them really stiff, and then I fell on the floor.

Something strange was happening and I said, “This is not right, I must get up.” From the floor I was shaking completely out of control, and I was looking at the people, and they were looking at me. No one was praying any more! The pastor began to lead a few songs. I was weeping and the next moment I was laughing. I felt very, very embarrassed, quite shocked, and extremely happy, all at the same time.

I said, “I must get out of here.” Three times I tried to get up. The third time two ushers helped me up. The associate Pastor was next to me. The pastor came down from the platform; I was right there in front of the platform. I said crying, “Pastor, do not let me interrupt this meeting, please take me out of here.” And this brother put his arm over my shoulder and said, “You are not interrupting, brother, this is the presence of God.” That was like a healing balm over my soul.

You know how important it is when this new glory of the Lord comes that there would be godly people to understand what is going on. As we pray for the fire of God, we will find others who have a ministry of fire fighters.

They finally carried me out. I thought they were carrying me to a separate room. I wanted to be alone with God. But they had the bad idea of sitting me on the front row. I continued shaking and every few minutes I would fall onto the floor and someone would come and pick me up and sit me back in the chair. I would refrain myself as much as I could, but the more I tried to get uptight about it, the stronger the waves of the Holy Spirit would come upon me. There were surges of power over my bones and my life. His glory was there. I did not know what to call this.

Someone, without consulting me, went back to the church office and called the pastor of the other church that was expecting me to preach. They said, “It does not look like this fellow is going to make it today.” It took me two weeks to get to that church to preach!

At that point of my experience, though, my mind was not changed, my thoughts were not renewed at that time. My body was shaking, I had a sign, and I could feel the waves of the glory of the Lord. The Bible speaks to us about miracles, signs and wonders. I believe that was a sign from the Lord to catch my attention. And He certainly did! I was available for twenty-four hours a day to Him for the next six days.

How is a Christian permanently transformed? By the renewing of his mind. “Do not conform any longer to the patterns of his world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” (Romans 12:2). When our thoughts are purified, and our wrong conclusions are set aside, and the truth of the gospel comes to us, then we are no longer the same.

Facing My In-Laws…

A brother came and asked me a question that was a little humiliating. He said, “Brother, do you need a ride home?” And I said, “Yes, I think I do.” I only had one prayer as we were driving to my in-law’s house. I would say, as I continued to shake, cry and laugh, “Lord, please do not let my in-laws see me like this.” I was praying that they would not be there, when I arrived. There had been some theological tension with my in-laws. I said, “Lord, do not let this cause any division.” But the Lord did not answer that prayer.

When we opened the door to my in-laws house, standing right there before me was my mother-in-law and my father-in-law. I could not walk very well, so the brother who had driven me home was sort of carrying me. I was perspired and I could not speak clearly, but I remember saying, especially to my mother-in-law, “Mom, I am okay, don’t worry, but please do not look at me.” And immediately my mother-in-law raised her hands to heaven and began to praise and glorify God. She entered into a three-day fast for the glory of God. As I made my way to my room, I heard her say, to my great surprise, “This is what we need in our churches!”

This brother began talking to them and explain to them what had happened, so that gave me an opportunity to go up to my room. I finally reached my room on the second floor, I closed the door and I was so happy to be alone. I continued to shake and weep, and I did not know what was happening. Two hours later, the sign ceased completely, there was no more shaking, everything was fine. Then I said, “Boy do I have things to tell my church in La Plata.” I thought that was the end of the experience.

Not a Touch, But a Transformation…

Since I was normal again, I went downstairs to explain to my in-laws what had happened. Before I could explain, my mother-in-law set a plate of food before me and she said, “Isn’t the Lord wonderful?” And when she said that, I could feel the glory of the Lord coming upon me again. I fell backwards to the floor, again, and began shaking; I began to crawl up the stairs again to my bedroom.

I was supposed to confirm with another pastor in the area that I would preach in his church, but I could not even make a phone call. I was saying, “Lord, if this is yours, how come I am not doing your work? I should be more busy than ever before.” I had on top of my desk a list of things to do, and the airplane ticket I had bought to get there was expensive, so I felt I had to get things done. I was looking at that list, and that list was looking at me and it was like I wanted to get so busy for the Lord, but I did not understand that the Lord had a different plans for me. He did not regard my agenda; He ripped it to pieces!

For six days, I was in the presence of almighty God, weeping and crying. When I thought I was normal, I would put on my tie and jacket and get ready and before I would touch the doorknob, the power of God would come upon me and throw me on the floor so I could not get up. At times I would be there for hours before I could get up.

The Glory Increases…

The next day, the presence of the Lord was even more powerful than on Sunday. I began about 7 a.m. to iron my shirt, because I wanted to do things for God. I did not finish ironing my shirt until about 3 PM, because in between ironing the shirt, the glory of the Lord would fill the room and I would fall on the floor and worship Him.

John the Baptist said it so clearly in Matthew 3:11: “I baptize you in water for repentance, but after me will come one who is more powerful than I,…”

He is not equal to us, He is more powerful. That is why He cannot fit in our old patterns. That is why we cannot have an outpouring of His spirit on our lives and keep the same old wineskins. We have to have a change of wineskins before the Spirit can descend. If you are so taken with your ways and your patterns, and the Holy Spirit comes, it will break the old wineskins. But new wineskins are different because they stretch.

Matthew 3:11 continues, “…more powerful than I whose sandals I am not fit to carry.” Now this is a promise: “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” So many people say, “Oh I received the Holy Spirit fifteen years ago”. I believe that the Holy Spirit comes to our hearts when we receive Jesus. That is the beginning. His presence is with us. We could not be Christians without the Holy Spirit. But somehow we have managed to divide the baptism of the Holy Spirit from the fire of the Holy Spirit.

THE FEAR OF THE LORD…

I sensed waves of the Holy Spirit over my life those first few days, but my mind was not changed until the third day that I was under this fire of the Lord. That day, everything changed. I woke up and there was a sadness in my room. The same beautiful presence of God that was loving me and hugging me the day before, now was rejecting me and coming too strong, and dangerously close to me.

That morning, the holiness of God was so close and so strong in my room that I became very scared and I began to back up. I backed up until my back touched the wall, then I thought, “What am I doing? This is a spiritual presence of the Lord, I cannot hide from it.” And I began to say, “Lord, please no more.” That was the first time I had ever prayed that prayer. I was so scared I said, “Lord, I don’t think I can take any more, You are too holy.”

So I said, “Lord what is it? I know there is something wrong. Please have mercy on me, don’t kill me here. That afternoon I went for a walk outside of the house. The power of God very suddenly came over me and threw me to my knees on the ground. It was so sudden and so unpredictable that I broke down in tears immediately. Then the Holy Spirit began to show me pictures of sin in my life—things that had been unresolved.

I was born and raised in a Christian home. Even as an infant, my parents used to read the Bible to me. My parents taught me in the ways of the Lord. But now God was dealing with what I had thought were “evangelical sins”, things I had thought He would not mind. I had accepted a lie of the devil that we will always have a percentage of sin or evil in us; but now the Holy Spirit was resisting me. He was not hugging me.

Time Does Not Erase Sin…

While I was there on the ground, the Lord pointed out in my mind specific things in my life that were not right. I thought time would erase them because they were so minor. But I was reminded that little sin is still sin. All sin is sinful and destructive. I saw flashes of moments when I had hardened my heart against a brother. I could see the very place that it had happened. I had never mistreated him, but had made a silent pledge to never get close to him, again. I was reminded of times when my eyes had lingered too long on images of things that were not pleasing to the Lord.

As I was there, I began to weep for my sin, and I felt such a pain for my sin that I felt sick, as if a fever was coming over my body. And the Holy Spirit began to speak to me and now my mind was beginning to catch up with what the Lord was trying to do. And God spoke to me and said, “Because you are neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth.” I was shocked. “Lord, I have been in the ministry for years, I am a preacher of your word, I fasted last week and pray every day. How have I been so deceived? Why have I never seen this before?”

98% Holiness Is Not Enough…

The Lord said to me, “I wish you would be cold as a pagan, so I could save you again, or hot as a believer that has given 100% to me, then I could use you in My own way.” Then the Lord answered my question about why I had not seen this before, “Deceitful is the heart of man, and desperately wicked.” I was terrified, I could not believe that moment. Then the Lord spoke again to me and said clearly, “98% holiness is not enough.”

In a sense, I was a Pharisee of Pharisees. I grew up in a Christian church. My goal was to be fairly holy, to do pretty well, to pass the examination with a 70%, or a B, but the Lord had different demands.

He rebuked me for my self-righteousness, and exposed the lie of my heart. I then realized my greatest error: I was not trying to be like Jesus. I was just trying to be fairly good. At that moment I felt that all of my religiosity, all of my discipline was like filthy rags in His presence, because I had not believed that the Lord did not call me to be a fairly good person, but that He had called me to be like Jesus. The week before my trip to the States, I had fasted and prayed a lot and I felt so good about myself. I felt I must have been 90% holy or more.

Sometimes we let apparently insignificant sins get into our hearts. But we have to ask ourselves this question, “With how many sins do you think the Lord will allow us to get into heaven? What percentage of evil do you think He will allow us to take with us when the day of the Lord comes?”

As I was in the presence of the Lord, God spoke to me in terms that even a child could understand. At that moment, I could not understand anything more complex than that. He told me, “Nobody gets up in the morning and prepares a cup of coffee or tea and puts just one drop of poison in it, then stirs and drinks it.” Then He began to speak to me about the church. There are people in the church who do allow poison in their hearts and in their minds and it is destroying them. No one would consider buying a bottle of mineral water that said on its label: 98% pure mineral water, 2% sewage water. Yet that is just what many Christians have allowed in their lives.

So many people wonder, “Why do I lose the power of God, or the strength of the Lord so quickly? Maybe it is because I am a failure, maybe it is because I am not trained.” I will tell you, even when there is 1% of sin in our lives, it can eventually destroy the whole devotion in our lives.

Conviction of Sin, Not Guilt…

I wept, I confessed and I repented. The Lord would point out to me specific sins in my life. He did not point out to generalities. Satan has a fake ministry that he uses especially in the church. His ministry is a ministry of bringing guilt. The Bible tells us that Satan is the accuser of the brethren. He comes to put a general sense of guilt. He never helps us to resolve it. Then all we do is feel bad. There are some leaders, some workers, some servants of the Lord that are in the ministry. Their hearts are trying their best, but they are tortured by guilt. Before they preach they have to get rid of that guilt for one hour, and then it comes back to them. That is not the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to bring conviction of sin (John 16:8). He speaks very directly and specifically, and His word is so clear to us. He will tell us what is wrong with our hearts our thoughts, and our affections and He will demand repentance from us and He will change us. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is very different from the work of Satan. Satan comes to destroy lives, to pull entire ministries into depression, into loneliness. There are people who say, “I hope that nobody will know me ever the way that I am personally.” But I will tell you this, my brother, my sister, pastor, servant of the Lord, whoever you are, when the fire of the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will say with Apostle Paul, “My conscience is clean”. Your life will be purified because of Jesus.”

That day I went back to my room and gradually began to recuperate the joy of the Lord. But now instead of landing in the same place as before, I had changed to a new address. The joy of the Lord was in that room. I share my testimony not only just to tell you about something that is happening on the other side of the world, but I know the Lord wants to impart to you what He has given to me.

(via iremembermjj)

Same here. Oh my gosh. The Earth Song performance was absolutely astonishing. I couldn’t hold back tears the whole night. And the cherry picker thing? And “putting some booty in it”? lmbo.

Man. Such an amazing performer. Unreal.

Or should I just play Street Fighter 4 which I just got on Friday?

Long time, no speak!

I’ve been a pretty busy girl with a lot stuck on the brain, so sorry for not tumbling as often as I used to. Part of it was my suddenly jam packed schedule and the other part… well… I guess I kind of got to a point where I felt like what I had to say wasn’t important to anyone really, so I just stopped. Then I remembered that Tumblr was really just an outlet for me to express whatever I’m feeling at a given time, not to gain popularity on an internet website. So here I am. Back to tumbling for me and ONLY for me. You care what I have to say? Great! You don’t? The world doesn’t end because of it.

So, with that being said… Um… hi :)

It started out great. I got to spend time with family who I hadn’t seen in a while (my European familia specifically) and we were having fun. I got to miss 2 days of school which wasn’t too terrible.  Then they left and I was feeling pretty down about it because that time with them left me to put some things in perspective. If you look up the lyrics to Stop This Train by John Mayer, then that’s a pretty accurate description of how I was feeling. I was confused about my feelings concerning a particular guy, my spiritual walk was out of wack, I had/have a lot of make up work to take care of and my Geometry teacher specifically is stressing me out, and I’m a little worried that I won’t live up to what Mrs. Shelley wants for my character in A Raisin in the Sun.

Then Friday took the cake for being just all around crappy because my mom chewed me out for never being out of the house at the right time in the morning, my Geometry teacher chewed me out for not getting there on time to take my CIMS test that I missed, I left my Geometry book at school because I wanted to do some HW at rehearsal but I had no time to and I’m not sure how to get it taken care of before tomorrow, worship for FUEL couldn’t come together until we were already supposed to start, People got into fights, and I felt kind of embarrassed in front of another church that was. I’ve just been feeling really inadequate lately.