You are defined by Jesus!  At the very pinnacle of Creation, Christ hung on a cross to absorb your dark moments, your hidden sins, your obsessions, your addictions, and your rebellion!  Please listen to me, when I say this, that if our hearts were spilled open, and were open to the public, we would ALL tuck tale to run and hide, we would ALL be ashamed at the very thoughts that are in the secret place, so please don’t elevate that leader that shamed you, please don’t put on a pedestal that pastor that takes the pulpit every week, elevate JESUS, elevate the one who was murdered so that you can have life!  Please stop and think about the selfless nature of Christ and how he came to serve and give and love and reach the unlovable.  PLEASE stop worshipping leaders, no matter how great they are, they WILL let you down.  Place your hope in Christ again.

I apologize for the leaders who have shamed you, it’s happened to me, and it probably will not stop!  Let us who preach the Gospel not forget where we came from, let us not forget the beauty of grace, and let us not forget how to rebuke kindly, and in love, and in CONFIDENCE!  Let us be willing to listen to people, earn there trust, and not use there sins to bring them shame, but as an opportunity for the GOOD NEWS of the Gospel, that is #1 repent, and turn from the sin #2 You are forgiven, and loved and what Christ did on the cross is enough! 

People reading this, I, Josh Meadows, will not be defined by any person in ministry, or any of my friends, I love them, but I was not purchased by them.  Jesus Christ is my Lord, and by what he did on the cross, I am being made new every single day!  It is at the will of Jesus, whether he opens doors or closes doors, whether he pours out favor or whether he doesn’t, it’s up to him, who he blesses and how much..but those things are NEVER determined by any man!  If you have been hurt by someone, take a deep breath, they are not your source, Christ is, they are not you creator, Christ is, they are not the decider of your salvation, Christ is!  Relax

Lastly, if you’ve been hurt, I DARE you to pray for the person that hurt you, right now, call them by name.  The easiest thing to do, is to try and stab them back, or take up your right, or even try and defend yourself, DON’T.  The Lord your God is your defender, He has been defending people since humans walked the earth, and he will continue to do so!  Rest in Christ, not in man!  God will bring to light all things, apart from mine or your effort!  You are forgiven, and you have breath today, forget all things behind, and press into the newness of today!  You are forgiven and loved!

Side note…….

I’ve been in Mesquite Texas the last few days, and my friend Stephen Green and I decided to go an adventure, aka lets go find some homeless people and give hope aka JESUS!  We prayed that we would have specific encounters that were God ordained.  As we were walking, Steve felt we were supposed to go left, so we did, and found a guy sitting in this back alley way, his name was Travis.  After talking with him a few moments, we knew this was one of those moments, God breathed, God inspired.  Travis had been an atheist for years, and we were the second group of people in two days to talk to him about Jesus, I immediately knew God was pursuing him.  After some long conversation, and tons of conversation about Jesus, we got to pray over him.  Would you pray that Travis gets a job and a place to stay?  Pray that his eyes will continually be opened to the gospel of Jesus.  We believe its going to happen.

The book of acts is all about being selfless, its broken people, coming together, giving up there own posessions, in order to serve and bless each other.  It’s a different mindset, it’s a different way of life, it feels strange and far fetched to our American minds, yet SO biblical.  When we get intentional about sharing our money and stuff, which in reality is Gods money and Gods stuff, he will move amongst his people.

Extra room in your house?  Tell God its his, and he will use it for his purposes.  Extra cash in the bank?  Tell God to bring someone in need in your life, he will.  Extra car sitting around, why not ask God to bless someone else with your extras?  We must develop this mindset in order to see the church function as it was created to.  The bible says that when the church in acts faithfully gave and acted in selfless love, that people became in AWE of God!  It works, when we live selfless and choose to bless others, people see glimpses of Christ, and that is the beauty of it all, that when the church becomes selfless and focuses on blessing others, Jesus is magnified.

my challenge, or really, the Lords challenge, is to start living your Acts story, by living selflessly for the sake of Christ and HIS bride.  Blessings

My past is behind me, even my darkest a secrets, my heart is beating now, which means God demands my constant adoration, NOW!   I simply want to be pleasing, now!  How humble it is, to realize my eyes need to be set on Jesus NOW!  Looking at the past, is worthless, thinking ahead, worthless, embracing Jesus in this moment, priceless.  See with every breath, I have a constant obligation to embrace the presence of The Lord.

set your affections afresh, forget the past, embrace Jesus, welcome his presence………exhilarating huh?

After looking for homes, we went uptown Charlotte and I met a cool homeless lady named Ann, she was from Asheville, same place i’m from, so i bought her coffee.  After that, Brian and I were sitting on a bench reading our bibles, and up comes Dan.  Dan is a homeless man, who walks up and asks to see my bible, so I hand it to him.  He reads 2 verses, A verse in Zephaniah chapter 3, about God sings and dances over us, while we are unaware, and he then turns to Psalm 139, to tell us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wow!  Sometimes we ask God to speak, and then we does, through a random homeless person, shouldn’t we listen, and be in wonder?!?  This is ALL, after Brian and I prayed and completely surrendered the day to The Lord.  Here is Dan….

Not only did Dan read scripture to us, but He also began to confess sin to us as well.  This is the 2nd time in the last 3 weeks, that a complete stranger has came to confess sin to me, and I explained the scripture in James, that by confessing sin one to another, we bring healing to one another.  What a glorious moment.  Just be careful WHO you confess it to.

Wednesdays I go to a church called Garr Memorial.  They have 50 kids, most who go to East Mecklenburg high school, most don’t have fathers, most have never experienced Jesus, and these kids are cray cray.  BUT, I love them, and so does Jesus.  Jesus came for the sick, those who are far from him, but I gotta admit, it’s nasty, it’s dirty, and it’s a lot of work, but more than that, it requires a LOT of prayer.  Please pray for me, the church staff, as we seek direction for what is next with these kids, got a HUGE meeting tomorrow morning.  Check em out.

Please pray for these kids, right now, I dare you.  Brian and I found a house RIGHT next to this church, literally about 400 yards away.  Pray that if the Lord wills, he will give us favor.  That is all for tonight!  God bless

After Matt dropped the dollar, I proceeded to go bruch my teeth, fix my hair, and have a few conversations along the way, when I came back, he said 21 people passed the dollar before a man picked it up.  The guy bent down, picked it up non shalauntly, so to not let his friend see that he had it, looked around, and then kept walking.  The picture below is exactly where it happened.

What is the point, the point is, the one who is seeking something, is the one who finds it.  There were needy people ALL over this dollar, walking right over top of it, but they just were not seeking it, therefore walking by it.  And isn’t it that way with Jesus?  Lets look at what Paul says in Acts 17, “²⁶ From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷ God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

Jesus is not far away from us, He has made salvation availabe through the cross, to us Gentiles and all we have to do is seek.  Jesus teaches us to ask, seek, and knock, he teaches us that the one that seeks, will find.  We are needy people, the bible compares us to sheep, we are dumb and unable to be a wise guide for our own lives, and that is why God has made his spirit available to us, if only we will SEEK. 

Pratically, i want to challenge you with this.  Draw up some prayer requests on simple notecards, and write down what you need to pray for, here are some examples:  a fresh fear of the Lord, for the spirit to overflow your soul, for your family, for salvation, for a revival in Charlotte nc, for chains and addictions to be broken, etc.  and begin to pour over these cards everyday, consistently.  Do it, it will change you, God has been working in my life through prayer.

People are literally getting destroyed by drugs and alcohol here in the tenderloin district.  Not only that, but crack, heroine, meth, and everything you can think of.  And I’m seeing the church here at city impact, charge the gates of hell, unashamed of the gospel, unafraid of the world and it is BEAUTIFUL  I’ve probably never had more earthly reasons to be scared, yet I feel safe.  Every night, we hear cursing, fighting, bickering, constant sirens,  and yet, I feel safe planted right here.  It’s funny how we build our lives  around comfort, where we don’t have to use faith…when God calls us to be uncomfortable, so we can live by faith.  That’s it, I’m tired.

night

Matt and I, had another epic morning today.  I preached in the homeless shelter yesterday about Hope, and how we all need it, and how Jesus has provided that for us.  A guy named Nelson came up to me afterwards  and wanted to meet with me, so I gave him my number.  He texted me later, so this morning, we took  him to breakfast.  Turns out Nelson just got out of jail after 15 years.  He shared his story with us and we had amazing conversation.  When he went to provision, caller Id just came out, can u imagine what he saw when the got out?  Basically everyone walking around being controlled by there cell phones!

Nelson taught me a lesson, so I shared Psalm 1 with him, that in order to follow Christ, whether on the street or in the business world, one cannot walk in the counsel of the wicked, or sit in the seat of the scoffer.  Hopefully and prayerfully, Nelson will fight the urge to return to his old ways.  The fact is, Nelson’s sins are probably more worthy of prison tHan most of ours, but none of us can escape the judgment of God.  Even though our stories are different, they are similar, we are 2 men trying to avoid sin and walk with Jesus, and we are 2 men who know the treasures of Gods mercy.

I spent the morning in the shelter, loving on stinky, unshowered, men, how oddly enough, I feel at home with them.  I hug everyone of them, and its nice to be around people who have addictions and problems, and you can see it and know all about it.  No hiding, no faking, they simply come as they are.

I got to lead PE class for these amazing kids!  They are a blessing,  I’m already finding myself attached to them.  I can’t wait to dedicate an entire blog to how amazing the community is here, pretty epic

Josh and I awoke early, still stuck on East Coast time,  to walk the streets of San Fran.  As we audibly prayed to our Creator in one of the most heavy spiritual battleground districts in the nation, a man named Wilson called out to us.  He had one leg, smelled of alcohol, and had just received a ticket for sleeping on a bus stop bench.  He asked for money. I sat down next to him and we listened to his story.  For 10 minutes he took us on an imaginary journey of his life. At first he had gone to Catholic Seminary, then law school,  medical school and just about every school you could imagine.  He told us he had a van and a motorcycle and that he was about to drive back across the country.  We listened to his story and I realized his lies were truths, but only in the fact that those were a part of a life that he had wished he had lived.

Our daily lies are no different than Wilson’s.

We gave Wilson some money and asked if we could pray for him.  He said he would instead pray for us.  (Since he went to Catholic Seminary) We bowed and he began to pray Jesus’ prayer aka the Lords Prayer.  He struggled mid-way and Josh finished the prayer for him.  Wilson shook with excitement and called us brothers of Jesus.

We would later see Wilson lying flat on his back on top of cold noodles while snuggling with the street curb, we will never know if our time with him had an impact…on him.

The most amazing part of the day took place at the Rescue Mission.

This is where faith manifested itself as evidence.

There was a line of 40 hungry souls waiting to eat the breakfast provided daily by the mission.  On this cold crisp morning, the only thing we had to serve was around 10 crumbly stale items from Starbucks’ donation.  Time was drawing near and we had nothing.  Josh, Zach, Kent, Kurt, Carlos and myself joined together in prayer with a focus on provision, unity, and the fear of God.

Prayer is the foundation of this ministry, there is no doubt about that.

Our prayer was over and as we faced the sadness of not being able to feed the needy, a miracle occurred.  The doors swung open and in walked Mike pushing several carts with over a thousand fresh doughnuts.

The mind exploding thing about it all was not that God provided, but that He provided us with so many doughnuts that we didn’t have shelf space to put them all on.

God’s providence is uncanny.

His timing is flawless.

His will is immaculate.

George Mueller would have been proud of the evidence of faith portrayed by a few men standing together in an empty room on the worst street in San Francisco. For it was their prayer which helped the hungry mouths to be fed on this day.

Pray when you want to complain and you will never regret it.

Matt and I don’t think we have ever been called something so awesome, brothers of Jesus! That man was awesome, and he prayed for us EXACTLY how Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Not to long after we encountered a man, who made up a long story, that didn’t even make sense, he completely lied, and because I didn’t know what to say, I simply handed him a dollar and walked off. I knew he was lying. Matt after walking a while said “man, maybe your mercy in the midst of his lie, will tell a greater story!” That statement meant the world to me, it made me think of Jesus! I mean even with our lying, idol worshipping selves, he still chose to love us and extend mercy, he knew we were incapable jokes, yet he loved us anyways, should we not extend it to others?!

Every person on these streets was a child once, and had dreams and aspirations, yet life and addiction came at them in unimaginable ways! Yet, even through the glossy eyes, and even through the alcohol on there breaths, God has and will always be a redeemer, and these people are VALUABLE TO THE FATHER! Where is our compassion? Where has our tenderness gone? Where is our faith that Christ can still raise a dead corpse from the dead? Matt and I have been praying, God open our eyes to the kingdom, the fields are ripe, yet the workers are few.

At 9, we attended corporate prayer…all I can say is wow! For an hour, some kneeled, some sang random songs of praise, and some paced the floor praying to the top of there lungs, but I know one thing, this ministry and church is built on prayer. Matt and I were so touched by it, that we have been running 2 and 3 miles, just so we can walk back and call upon the name of Jesus. Prayer is a way of walking with Jesus, depending on him moment by moment. Super thankful for this. Yet, super convicted by lack of it, but today has been different and saturated by prayer.

This was our view on the way back from fisherman a wharves.

One of my heros in the faith, gave us a halftime speech! How cool is it that Matt and I got to be in San Francisco when they won the game to go to the Super Bowl. We sat and ate with authors, and executive officers, and kids, and homeless people, all in one room! Today was epic, it’s amazing how, when you live in community, how little you think of selfish desires.