SCARS

About 3 years ago, I was pulled out by the sovereign hand of God after falling into a life of absolute darkness in the music industry.

I found myself living in an artist village as resident musician in the jungle of Nicaragua, surrounded by “free spirits” doing yoga, drinking and smoking weed. 

By the world’s standard I was living the dream.

I felt dead inside. 

I saw the emptiness echoed in those around me. I saw it masked by drugs, alcohol, sexual immorality and growing social media platforms (which were relentlessly chased after in hopes of regaining the self-worth that was disintegrating from shame and the weight of sin.)

I was surrounded by crafted personas living seemingly perfect lives in paradise. 

I was there behind the photos.

It was all an illusion. 

I’d come to “find truth”. I’d loved Jesus my entire life, but living in Los Angeles and getting involved in the music industry, I started believing the lie of universalism, that love is tolerance, that the mere human understanding of good could somehow be equal to God’s, and that I only believed in Jesus because I was told to when I was young. So, at 23, I set out to “find truth”, abandoning what I’d experienced my entire life... within a few short months I felt more lifeless, hopeless, empty and confused than I’d ever been. I didn’t know it then, but what I was feeling was The Lord’s Holy Spirit (in His great mercy) withdrawing from me. 

As I overlooked the jungle of Nicaragua from my villa, I reached out to an old friend...someone who was bolder in her faith than I’d ever seen in anyone else—and while I perceived it as slightly closed-minded and excessive in intensity for Jesus, I knew she actually believed what she believed, and (though I sometimes was offended by how she showed it) knew she genuinely loved me. 

What I didn’t know was that the Lord had just given her a vision—that I was in some jungle being overtaken by a massive enemy, about to be destroyed. Having no clue I was in a literal jungle, she cried out for the Lord to rescue me.

Within 2 weeks, I was on a plane landing in Nashville, TN and she was picking me up from the airport. The moment I arrived, I felt like a veil was pulled off my eyes and for the first time in 6 months I saw truth and felt the presence of God. I could breathe again. I spent an entire weekend being delivered of lie after lie, demon after demon. At that point I had very little grid for spiritual warfare; it’s crazy how much your perspective changes when you start seeing shadows fly out of the room and feeling physical weights lift off your body at the name of Jesus, accompanied by repentance. His name stands above all others. His Word is power. Bondage is real. Repentance is a gift. We need a Savior. 

There was a simple conclusion I came to: there is a real enemy trying to destroy me, I had willingly chosen to live his way over God’s way, and now I was enslaved to sin. My thought processes, my desires, my dreams, my behaviors—I was enslaved to the sins I had been tricked into choosing. The only hope of my rescue came in the form of 2 scars that Jesus had earned hanging on a cross for me. 

In my own ambition and deception, I had turned from Him and committed enough sin to have easily separated me from Him in His beautiful holiness for eternity. There’s no possible way I could have handled standing vulnerable in the presence of perfect, holy Love carrying the shame that I had taken on...

except.

nothing is greater than those Scars. 

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I share this to encourage and to warn. There is SO MUCH deception in the Church today. I didn’t learn the fear of the Lord or reverence or how holiness leads to loving, blissful union, or that sweet, abiding communion w a s my calling. I was taught that I was amazing and powerful, called to be a “World Changer.” I was flattered and empowered into a life of worldliness and compromise and selfish ambition, for the sake of “building His kingdom.” I was convinced that the Great Commission in modern days looked like becoming like the world to win the world and then transform the world.

...and yet, that beautiful ancient Book tells a very different story about what we are called to than we hear from a lot of preaching today.

Not to be admired by the world, but willing to look like fools for Christ’s sake. 

Not to gain tons of followers, but to humbly pick up our cross, sacrifice our “potential” and become followers. 

Not to transform the world, but to escape its corruption and be set apart for Christ..

Not to live our best life now, but choose that our “best life” be the next one with Him... 

Oh man, it’s taken years of repenting and humbling and being filled with His beautiful Spirit and His Words for my eyes to finally begin to be opened to Truth..

I pray that yours may be opened, too. 

For no matter what kind of bondage you may find yourself in right now—

whether it be depression, anxiety, sexual perversion, immorality, rage, addiction, religion, unbelief, suicide, loneliness, poverty, complacency, worldliness, or perhaps, a cold, hardened, jaded, disillusioned,

wounded heart—

no chain is greater than those Scars. 

He can soften you.

He can sanctify you.

Run to Him. 

His arms remain outstretched to the prodigal.

Releasing Summer 2020