Melissa Fennell

Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy.
Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy.
Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy.
Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy.
Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy.

Breathe in me.

Act in me.

Draw my heart.

Strengthen me.

Guard me.

I’m reposting this because I just found it and realized how much I loved it.

“In the middle of  “I”m going to do right and I’m going to avoid doing what’s wrong,” God identifies this area of our heart and He starts to ask about it, “Hey… what is this?” And what happens in that moment is we go, “Oh yeah, I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t want to deal with that. How about I do this, this and this and then You just leave that alone and I’ll give you this instead? How about instead of dealing with that,instead of confessing that, instead of coming clean with that, how about instead I just teach a small group or I’ll memorize Scripture? I’ll memorize Scripture and You leave that alone.” And Jesus goes, “No. I want that.” And so what we do is busy ourselves with religious, right moral action in an attempt to run from God penetrating the heart. And this is why you get a weak, retarded version of Christianity. Because you’ve got people who are all busy doing things but don’t have a heart transformed. So you don’t have worship, you don’t have joy. You just have things to do. And if you do them well, then you get to look at other people who aren’t doing those things well and feel superior. All the while Jesus goes after the heart. Isn’t it funny that you can usereligion to run from Him?”

tear down what I’ve done.

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I am nothing.

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I am nothing.

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(apart from You, I am nothing)

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[but You are everything]

Me:  I don’t want to tell them.
Adam Gibson:  Oh what, are you afraid that they’re going to love you well?
Me: In my head, I just punched you in the face.
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Me:   Dustin, thanks for calling me out on stage
Dustin: Yeah, you like how I totally looked straight at you, right?
Me:  Yeah… that was great
Adam: Dude she said she wanted to punch you in the face too. 
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I really love our family.

I’m sick of drowning in it.

I’m sick of not hating it as much as I should.

I’m sick of it attacking my brothers and sisters.

I’m sick of it.

Jesus You are enough.

“By becoming a Christian, I belong to God and I belong to my brothers and sisters. It is not that I belong to God and then make a decision to join a local church. My being in Christ means being in Christ with those others who are in Christ. This is my identity. This is our identity. . . . If the church is the body of Christ, then we should not live as disembodied Christians.”

- Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church (Wheaton, Ill, Crossway Books, 2008), 41.

Dustin :  ”Some of you in here have sin in your life and struggles that you’ve never even confessed before to anyone..  YOU NEED TO“

Jesus: “Oh hey Melissa… by the way… he’s talking about you… Did you hear that?  Right there when he talked about sin you’ve never confessed?  Yeah, that was directed to you… Now what are you going to do about it?”

Me:  ”It’s not that bad… I can handle it. I don’t need to tell anyone.  They don’t need to know.  I’ll stop.  I won’t do it anymore.”

Jesus: “I gave up my life for you.  I bled for you.  Stop running from me.  Confess.  These brothers and sisters are your family that I have given you… They need to know.  Confess.  And repent.   And run back into my arms.  They’re open for you.  I’ll never leave you, and you can believe and trust that I will carry this to completion.  I AM MAKING ALL THINGS NEW. I will make you new. Just trust me.  Confess. Repent.”

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Here we go.