The Holy Spirit has been all over the map this week at camp, but if you connect the places that He has landed it all makes for a well thought out journey that is going somewhere!
Not once have I preached a message that I initially thought I was going to preach on that specific day. There were switches, new revelation, multiple shifts in services...and all of it headed towards Friday to finish off a week that really began yesterday when camp ended.
On Thursday night I preached on "Do you know God, or just know about Him?" I told them that a generation who doesn't know their God will not stay committed to Him. I told them that in my opinion, the greatest passage of Scripture for evangelism is found in Song of Solomon chapter five. I explained why. Ask me about it if you are intrigued as to why.
That night ended in worship and just drawing close to God. We ministered to the Lord that night!
Friday morning PK and I tagged team and talked about word and generational curses, and we all broke them off of our lives. With especially the stronghold of broken families so prevalent in Aurora, this was extremely important and a new spiritual generation was born that would not repeat the mistakes or engage in the sin of generations prior.
Friday night was a prayer and prophetic night, and it was awesome! We worshipped, flowed in the prophetic, prayed over eachother...and at the end the teenagers gave testimony as to what God did in their lives. A beautiful ending!
I can honestly say this was one of the most stretching and memorable experiences of my life. Never have I spoken so many times in such a short timespan. The Holy Spirit provided the grace and the strength to do so. The testimonies of the teenagers were so impactful, freedom from all kinds of chains and an ignition of the Holy Spirit in their lives. I'm excited for COTRA and all that God has for their church.
I asked their lead pastor before I left what his vision for Aurora was. He simply said "To own it".
And 45 young people who are in love with God and moving in the power of the Holy Spirit are ready to come alongside.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
"Fire and Love" Pt. 3
Hello everyone!
I havent blogged in a couple days but two evening services have passed. Wow! God is rocking us to the core.
Tuesday night I spoke on the mantle of Elijah and how that mantle has floated throughout history, waiting for a generation to pick it up -- a generation that will honor their parents and leaders that would give healthy succession of revival. I instructed the students to form into a fire tunnel and one by one, the pastors of the house took a teenager aside. Each would take the mantle and hold it close to their heart while receiving prayer and blessing from their pastor, and then the pastor would symbolically place a red mantle over them and send them into a fire tunnel of radical young people! It was incredible.
Yesterday morning I taught a session on the prophetic, and it was so beautiful! They were amazed to realize that God can and wants to speak to them. By the end of the session, many had given their first prophetic word as we had lined people up and asked Holy Spirit to speak about them!
Last night was a shift from the fiery services we've had to my favorite thing to speak about: the Love of God. I talked about love vs. fear and how God desires to draw us close to Him, but the fear of the devil tells us we need to stay at a distance. But the fear of the Lord draws as close, not keeps us far! We had an altar call for salvation, and then we prayed for 4 specific areas over the course of about and hour: healing from broken families, seeking fulfillment in relationships, depression, and insecurity. Each call I had young people raise their hands and become surrounded with people who would pray for the love of God to invade and heal. Seeking God's face continued even after the band stopped playing!
It's been quite an amazing week! This has been personally stretching for me as I've never spoken this often in this short amount of time, but there is a grace for it. I'm feeling really tired today but my spirit is anticipating God yet again kissing us with His presence. I really feel like I'm coming back to Ohio a different person!
Love each of you and miss you terribly. MO is wonderful but there is no place like home where YOU are!
I havent blogged in a couple days but two evening services have passed. Wow! God is rocking us to the core.
Tuesday night I spoke on the mantle of Elijah and how that mantle has floated throughout history, waiting for a generation to pick it up -- a generation that will honor their parents and leaders that would give healthy succession of revival. I instructed the students to form into a fire tunnel and one by one, the pastors of the house took a teenager aside. Each would take the mantle and hold it close to their heart while receiving prayer and blessing from their pastor, and then the pastor would symbolically place a red mantle over them and send them into a fire tunnel of radical young people! It was incredible.
Yesterday morning I taught a session on the prophetic, and it was so beautiful! They were amazed to realize that God can and wants to speak to them. By the end of the session, many had given their first prophetic word as we had lined people up and asked Holy Spirit to speak about them!
Last night was a shift from the fiery services we've had to my favorite thing to speak about: the Love of God. I talked about love vs. fear and how God desires to draw us close to Him, but the fear of the devil tells us we need to stay at a distance. But the fear of the Lord draws as close, not keeps us far! We had an altar call for salvation, and then we prayed for 4 specific areas over the course of about and hour: healing from broken families, seeking fulfillment in relationships, depression, and insecurity. Each call I had young people raise their hands and become surrounded with people who would pray for the love of God to invade and heal. Seeking God's face continued even after the band stopped playing!
It's been quite an amazing week! This has been personally stretching for me as I've never spoken this often in this short amount of time, but there is a grace for it. I'm feeling really tired today but my spirit is anticipating God yet again kissing us with His presence. I really feel like I'm coming back to Ohio a different person!
Love each of you and miss you terribly. MO is wonderful but there is no place like home where YOU are!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
"Monday, July 9th" MO Trip Pt. 2
In case you were especially observant and noticed the title of this blog, yes I do know that yesterday was in actuality July 5th and not the 9th. But it might as well of been because last night at the camp service, it was like something you'd expect on the last day of camp: everyone (and I do mean everyone) engaged in radical worship, teenagers praying and prophesying over each other, bondages falling off...it was pretty intense!
Things started off with a prayer session. I could tell that there were some hungry kids as they went after it and prayer, but some seemed to have let the heat and business of the day slow them down a little. Worship began and the first three songs was good, but once we got into "Healer", things began to get crazy.
Something in the atmosphere shifted and intense worship broke forth, and Ken whispered over to me "Why not now"? I went up there and began to exhort on how we need to stop just thinking that God can and believe that God will! So we began to pray over the sick and hurting.
The band, named Fuller's Field, played Revelation Song and How He Loves back to back, which was amazing! I sat everyone down after that and preached for 10 on Elijah at Mt. Carmel and the falling of fire. I told them to bring whatever plagues them to the altar, and let the God who answers by (fire) change be God and destroy every work of the devil! So we began to pray over the students.
Pastor Ken got up soon after and began to exhort about how the violent take it by force and that should be demonstrated in our worship.
So we continued in radical, violent, free worship.
Later I released them to pray love and joy over eachother, to prophesy and build up eachother! There was just such a radical sense of His joy in the place!
I wasn't planning to preach for only 10 minutes, but who cares? I stated in my first blog that I just want to see what Holy Spirit is doing and run with that. As a minister I want to be a steward of God's presence, not a preacher with an agenda. To be used less is actually to be used more! When you let God work outside of your help, things can really get crazy.
The hunger in their eyes as I told them we have 4 more days to pursue God was amazing to behold.I'm looking forward to what God will continue to do over these next four days! So I know that it wasn't July 9th, but I'm glad that God made what we thought would be the ceiling the floor of all that is to come!
Things started off with a prayer session. I could tell that there were some hungry kids as they went after it and prayer, but some seemed to have let the heat and business of the day slow them down a little. Worship began and the first three songs was good, but once we got into "Healer", things began to get crazy.
Something in the atmosphere shifted and intense worship broke forth, and Ken whispered over to me "Why not now"? I went up there and began to exhort on how we need to stop just thinking that God can and believe that God will! So we began to pray over the sick and hurting.
The band, named Fuller's Field, played Revelation Song and How He Loves back to back, which was amazing! I sat everyone down after that and preached for 10 on Elijah at Mt. Carmel and the falling of fire. I told them to bring whatever plagues them to the altar, and let the God who answers by (fire) change be God and destroy every work of the devil! So we began to pray over the students.
Pastor Ken got up soon after and began to exhort about how the violent take it by force and that should be demonstrated in our worship.
So we continued in radical, violent, free worship.
Later I released them to pray love and joy over eachother, to prophesy and build up eachother! There was just such a radical sense of His joy in the place!
I wasn't planning to preach for only 10 minutes, but who cares? I stated in my first blog that I just want to see what Holy Spirit is doing and run with that. As a minister I want to be a steward of God's presence, not a preacher with an agenda. To be used less is actually to be used more! When you let God work outside of your help, things can really get crazy.
The hunger in their eyes as I told them we have 4 more days to pursue God was amazing to behold.I'm looking forward to what God will continue to do over these next four days! So I know that it wasn't July 9th, but I'm glad that God made what we thought would be the ceiling the floor of all that is to come!
Monday, July 5, 2010
"Spirit of Adventure" MO Trip Pt. 1
Why have some big adventures in my life come through the state of Missouri? This is a state where my spirit of adventure was revived back in November when I took a spontaneous trip to IHOP. When I was in highschool I was an adventurer, traveling all over the place presenting the Gospel. From driving a vanload of kids down to Dayton at the age of 17 (why again did parents let me do that?) to the many secular venues I infiltrated with the life of the gospel, I adventured.
Somewhere along the line, that part of me took a backseat. I don’t think that it was a bad thing because my character needed desperate attention. My rebellious and pride-infected self was in danger of uprooted everything I had become, and threatened my future.
YMC helped destroy that rebellion and pride in me and build me up in ways I never could have dreamed. But something felt so dead in me in the fall of last year, and I was desperate for a personal revival. So I pursued an Awakening in Kansas City, where God turned me from friend to bride and renewed my sense of adventure – the very thing that birthed Firestorm in its beginning days.
Now I’ve been invited to Aurora, Missouri by my long-time friend Pastor Ken Hogue, and I’m excited! Ken and I have had many adventures together with Firestorm. I can remember extraordinary times with God, including one time when a couple of our members were singing in the sanctuary on a non-service night and one of them went out in the Spirit. We were drawn there one by one, and the presence of God manifested in a super-intense way. I’ll never forget that.
I’ll be speaking at a summer camp this week all 5 nights, and this will be one of the more stretching adventures yet. Young people will be gathered in that room who want an encounter with God, and I’m a minister who wants to find out what Holy Spirit wants to do and grab ahold of it. I’m looking forward to great things.
The vision of Firestorm, which is now 8 years old and has just seen its final original member graduate, still burns inside of me, and will continue to drive me with evangelistic and prophetic fervor. A youth pastor of mine once said that I have the gift of an evangelist and pastor, which is a rare combination. And let me tell you, I feel the tension of those gifts in me often. I have an intense desire to stay and disciple people, and an intense desire to go out and evangelize with the full Gospel. The best way that I can describe a call that I know is on my life is this: I am to pastor young people and take them evangelizing with me, teaching them how to do so. And while these past few years the pastor in me has been the focus, once again I feel the evangelistic fire rising once again; this vision of Firestorm will always burn in my heart.
I speak tonight on "The Answer of Fire". Let fire fall!
Somewhere along the line, that part of me took a backseat. I don’t think that it was a bad thing because my character needed desperate attention. My rebellious and pride-infected self was in danger of uprooted everything I had become, and threatened my future.
YMC helped destroy that rebellion and pride in me and build me up in ways I never could have dreamed. But something felt so dead in me in the fall of last year, and I was desperate for a personal revival. So I pursued an Awakening in Kansas City, where God turned me from friend to bride and renewed my sense of adventure – the very thing that birthed Firestorm in its beginning days.
Now I’ve been invited to Aurora, Missouri by my long-time friend Pastor Ken Hogue, and I’m excited! Ken and I have had many adventures together with Firestorm. I can remember extraordinary times with God, including one time when a couple of our members were singing in the sanctuary on a non-service night and one of them went out in the Spirit. We were drawn there one by one, and the presence of God manifested in a super-intense way. I’ll never forget that.
I’ll be speaking at a summer camp this week all 5 nights, and this will be one of the more stretching adventures yet. Young people will be gathered in that room who want an encounter with God, and I’m a minister who wants to find out what Holy Spirit wants to do and grab ahold of it. I’m looking forward to great things.
The vision of Firestorm, which is now 8 years old and has just seen its final original member graduate, still burns inside of me, and will continue to drive me with evangelistic and prophetic fervor. A youth pastor of mine once said that I have the gift of an evangelist and pastor, which is a rare combination. And let me tell you, I feel the tension of those gifts in me often. I have an intense desire to stay and disciple people, and an intense desire to go out and evangelize with the full Gospel. The best way that I can describe a call that I know is on my life is this: I am to pastor young people and take them evangelizing with me, teaching them how to do so. And while these past few years the pastor in me has been the focus, once again I feel the evangelistic fire rising once again; this vision of Firestorm will always burn in my heart.
I speak tonight on "The Answer of Fire". Let fire fall!
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Remembering to Forget
Psalms 45:10-11 (NKJV)
10 Listen, O daughter, Consider and incline your ear; Forget your own people also, and your father's house;
11 So the King will greatly desire your beauty; Because He is your Lord, worship Him.
Psalm 45 is a well that I return to on a regular basis. While Hosea is my favorite book (for reasons I won’t share now), Psalm 45 is my favorite Biblical chapter, loaded with a prophetic and poetic picture of a bride making herself ready for her king, soon to be husband.
Vs. 10-11 are sticking out to me today. We often talk of the cost of following Jesus, meaning we must lay down the things and people that are important to us. Jesus talks about leaving your father and mother, your own people for His cause. He says that everyone who pays this price will receive many-fold over what has been given up!
While the cost is different from person to person, the principle is the same: this is going to cost you everything. For this young lady in this chapter, she had her own people and her own family, and she was called to leave it all behind for a life with the King. However, this Scripture takes it a step further: not only do you leave, but you forget. This is important because if you do not forget, your heart hasn’t truly left those things behind, and you are prone to return to your old life.
This beautiful bride has just paid a great price: she left everything she knew and loved behind. But imagine if she had lived her life in regret, in constant mourning over what she had lost, so much so that it effected the way she lived her present life. What if she had dwelt on how good it was to live a comfortable life, or the sins that brought her flesh comfort, or the people she loved dearly? The king would lose desire for her beauty, for her intimacy, because her heart belongs to something that she already left behind. This is why the writer saw it so vitally important to tell the daughter to FORGET, not just leave it behind.
This does not literally mean that you just forget about everything, as if you had no past at all. It simply means that you live your life in such a way that what you left behind does not overcome your love for God. It means that you choose to not be regretful (even though you might feel regret), to not meditate on what you have lost, but Who you have gained. It means that even though you mourn and travail for the people you have left behind, you are prayerful and hopeful for the day that they will be a part of the kingdom.
I might not know what you have left behind, but we all have something or someone. You’ve left it all behind…
But remember to forget…
Because the King desires your beauty!
10 Listen, O daughter, Consider and incline your ear; Forget your own people also, and your father's house;
11 So the King will greatly desire your beauty; Because He is your Lord, worship Him.
Psalm 45 is a well that I return to on a regular basis. While Hosea is my favorite book (for reasons I won’t share now), Psalm 45 is my favorite Biblical chapter, loaded with a prophetic and poetic picture of a bride making herself ready for her king, soon to be husband.
Vs. 10-11 are sticking out to me today. We often talk of the cost of following Jesus, meaning we must lay down the things and people that are important to us. Jesus talks about leaving your father and mother, your own people for His cause. He says that everyone who pays this price will receive many-fold over what has been given up!
While the cost is different from person to person, the principle is the same: this is going to cost you everything. For this young lady in this chapter, she had her own people and her own family, and she was called to leave it all behind for a life with the King. However, this Scripture takes it a step further: not only do you leave, but you forget. This is important because if you do not forget, your heart hasn’t truly left those things behind, and you are prone to return to your old life.
This beautiful bride has just paid a great price: she left everything she knew and loved behind. But imagine if she had lived her life in regret, in constant mourning over what she had lost, so much so that it effected the way she lived her present life. What if she had dwelt on how good it was to live a comfortable life, or the sins that brought her flesh comfort, or the people she loved dearly? The king would lose desire for her beauty, for her intimacy, because her heart belongs to something that she already left behind. This is why the writer saw it so vitally important to tell the daughter to FORGET, not just leave it behind.
This does not literally mean that you just forget about everything, as if you had no past at all. It simply means that you live your life in such a way that what you left behind does not overcome your love for God. It means that you choose to not be regretful (even though you might feel regret), to not meditate on what you have lost, but Who you have gained. It means that even though you mourn and travail for the people you have left behind, you are prayerful and hopeful for the day that they will be a part of the kingdom.
I might not know what you have left behind, but we all have something or someone. You’ve left it all behind…
But remember to forget…
Because the King desires your beauty!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Spider-man is Real
Well, in principle anyways.
Spider-man has definitely impacted my life, even helping shape it at a younger age. Not only him but other childhood heroes I had, such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Tai Kamiya from Digimon. Before you laugh (which honestly, is OK if you do!), let me explain what I mean.
God speaks to people indifferent ways. When someone asks me how to better listen for his voice, I first try to destroy the concept many people have that His voice is either heard audibly or in your head. He also speaks in dreams, pictures, creation, knowledge, and an endless list of other things. It's important to recognize How God speaks to you as an individual, the love language in which God specifically uses with you in mind.
He even uses the secular to speak. Jesus often did that with His parables, which I find fascinating. My good friend Chris had an experience with the Lord as DMX was crying out to God on one of his albums while Chris was high. The fear of God came over Him and he'll never forget that. DMX, of all people!
For me, one of the more dramatic worldview changes came when Spider-man came out. I was 15 years old and my Grandpa took me to see it the first time. I remembered the impact that it had on me in regards to responsibility. Forever engraved in me was Peter Parker walking away from Mary Jane at the end because He chose his destiny instead. That lesson that God used set me up to be responsible, and that year I started my own D.J. business and also ran with Firestorm, an evangelism ministry that I pioneered.
Even more dramatically was Spider-man 2 that came out the summer before my senior year. The whole movie was the struggle over whether or not he would choose Mary Jane over his calling. He knew that both could not co-exist, and he experienced the pain, love, and sacrifice that comes along with being who you are meant to be. It sobered me unlike anything I had experienced up to that point because God spoke very clearly to me through it. I made up my mind -- I wouldn't choose anything over my calling.
That was challenged to the point of agony several times from that point all the way until now, and will continue. I didn't know that I would almost choose a job over ministry schooling. I didn't know that I would meet an amazing girl that wouldn't be God's plan. I didn't know that time and time again, I would be confronted with the deep personal agony of wanting something so badly but not being able to have it if I wanted my destiny. Had I not had what God taught me in 2002 and 2004, I would not be here at Victory as a pastor, because each of those deep battles birthed the path that led me to this point.
I could have been married, but not at VCC.
I could have been successful at Starbucks, but not at VCC.
Last year a battle emerged that challenged my calling...
And even a new battle now that has caused me to think about all of this again.
And wow...all of those battles went down to the wire. The closest thing I can describe it as would be 2 basketball games in a row, games 6 and 7, facing elimination each time, shooting the ball from half-court at the buzzer to tie the game and go to overtime. I sunk the desperation shot each time and won in overtime -- but only because God gave me some crazy dose of grace at the last second.And the thing is, that was just in the first round. So-to-speak, I'm young and still have 2 rounds to go until I reach the Finals.
I wish I could tell you that you wont go through deep personal battles like this, but you will. They will never end. At different periods of your life you will have the option to choose something (even a GOOD thing) over God's plan. You have to remember your calling and cry out to God, because even then there is no promise that you will make the right choice. Pray scary prayers, because apart from His help, you will be so emotionally clouded that you wont make the right choice if you don't seek counsel from both God and wise men and women. Even after that, making the right decision will require all of your effort and all of His grace.
I am encouraged by the way Spider-man 2 ends. Peter makes the choice of his call over Mary Jane, and he still gets her at the end of the movie. Wow! As a result of my obedience God will eventually give me what I most desire (if I still have that desire once He is through), but He will likely make sure I'm good and dead before He does. Only then can I live with that blessing.
Spider-man has definitely impacted my life, even helping shape it at a younger age. Not only him but other childhood heroes I had, such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Tai Kamiya from Digimon. Before you laugh (which honestly, is OK if you do!), let me explain what I mean.
God speaks to people indifferent ways. When someone asks me how to better listen for his voice, I first try to destroy the concept many people have that His voice is either heard audibly or in your head. He also speaks in dreams, pictures, creation, knowledge, and an endless list of other things. It's important to recognize How God speaks to you as an individual, the love language in which God specifically uses with you in mind.
He even uses the secular to speak. Jesus often did that with His parables, which I find fascinating. My good friend Chris had an experience with the Lord as DMX was crying out to God on one of his albums while Chris was high. The fear of God came over Him and he'll never forget that. DMX, of all people!
For me, one of the more dramatic worldview changes came when Spider-man came out. I was 15 years old and my Grandpa took me to see it the first time. I remembered the impact that it had on me in regards to responsibility. Forever engraved in me was Peter Parker walking away from Mary Jane at the end because He chose his destiny instead. That lesson that God used set me up to be responsible, and that year I started my own D.J. business and also ran with Firestorm, an evangelism ministry that I pioneered.
Even more dramatically was Spider-man 2 that came out the summer before my senior year. The whole movie was the struggle over whether or not he would choose Mary Jane over his calling. He knew that both could not co-exist, and he experienced the pain, love, and sacrifice that comes along with being who you are meant to be. It sobered me unlike anything I had experienced up to that point because God spoke very clearly to me through it. I made up my mind -- I wouldn't choose anything over my calling.
That was challenged to the point of agony several times from that point all the way until now, and will continue. I didn't know that I would almost choose a job over ministry schooling. I didn't know that I would meet an amazing girl that wouldn't be God's plan. I didn't know that time and time again, I would be confronted with the deep personal agony of wanting something so badly but not being able to have it if I wanted my destiny. Had I not had what God taught me in 2002 and 2004, I would not be here at Victory as a pastor, because each of those deep battles birthed the path that led me to this point.
I could have been married, but not at VCC.
I could have been successful at Starbucks, but not at VCC.
Last year a battle emerged that challenged my calling...
And even a new battle now that has caused me to think about all of this again.
And wow...all of those battles went down to the wire. The closest thing I can describe it as would be 2 basketball games in a row, games 6 and 7, facing elimination each time, shooting the ball from half-court at the buzzer to tie the game and go to overtime. I sunk the desperation shot each time and won in overtime -- but only because God gave me some crazy dose of grace at the last second.And the thing is, that was just in the first round. So-to-speak, I'm young and still have 2 rounds to go until I reach the Finals.
I wish I could tell you that you wont go through deep personal battles like this, but you will. They will never end. At different periods of your life you will have the option to choose something (even a GOOD thing) over God's plan. You have to remember your calling and cry out to God, because even then there is no promise that you will make the right choice. Pray scary prayers, because apart from His help, you will be so emotionally clouded that you wont make the right choice if you don't seek counsel from both God and wise men and women. Even after that, making the right decision will require all of your effort and all of His grace.
I am encouraged by the way Spider-man 2 ends. Peter makes the choice of his call over Mary Jane, and he still gets her at the end of the movie. Wow! As a result of my obedience God will eventually give me what I most desire (if I still have that desire once He is through), but He will likely make sure I'm good and dead before He does. Only then can I live with that blessing.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Fixed or New?
I’ve been returning to a well lately that I come to every so often for refreshment. Like Bill Johnson says, highlight the areas in your Bible where you return to time and time again for water. For me, I’m always refreshed by meditating on the truth that we are not fixed people, but new people. As I like to say, God’s not a mechanic, He’s a Creator. Jim White talked about it a little tonight, and boy was it good!
Jesus didn’t come to fix me, He came to make me new. I run into problems when I try to fix my old man which is meant to die.
Are we treating people like they are new, with no past and only a bright future? Or are we treating people like they are fixed, with the potential that they will break again?
The old man is fueled by the expectations of others. We keep it alive and instead of killing it so it doesn’t smell bad anymore, we try and make it beautiful. Spray extra cologne to help over the stench, when in reality the beauty we bestow upon it will eventually leave but the stench will remain long after it is gone.
One of the main areas I’ve been feeling strongly about this is in the area of purity. I’ve heard some people say that because they have not had sex before they are married, they feel like they deserve someone who also remained a virgin until marriage and thus, will not entertain being with people who’ve lost their virginity. I don’t share that opinion. Wow, I could miss an amazing woman if I think that way! Besides that, there isn’t such thing as a virgin apart from the new man. My Bible says that if any man looks at a woman (or vice versa) with lust, he’s already had sex. We are actually body, soul, and spirit and if one part sins, it infects every other part. The sin that condemns because you lusted is equal in damnable power as committing fornication.
So the truth is there are no true virgins in the old man, but there is with the new!
If you are redeemed, washed in the blood, saved from your sins, born again (I feel a preach coming on lol) then God has restored you and there is no past! In other words, you are a virgin not because in your past life you had sex, but in this present life of being redeemed God has restored your virginity in every way.
This is not to undervalue those who have not had physical sex. It’s absolutely amazing to meet someone who gets married that has kept themselves pure in that way. Thus far I’m one of those virgins in that definition and will be that on my wedding day as well. However, I could care less if my future wife has slept with guys before – she’s been restored. Even if she stumbled after she became a Christian. God restores even after salvation! She is a virgin, through and through! Let her walk down that aisle with the whitest of dresses, because that virgin is getting married! It’s like turning back the clock without traveling in time, the mystery of restoration!
In reality, this is what Jesus has done for us. He took the adulterous bride that we were and restored us. He treats us without memory of our former adulteries, even though we cheated on Him. So let’s treat people like they are brand new – because really, they are!
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