Who's Waiting On The Other Side of YOUR Obedience?? #DreamsToReality

This is Abbie. After my first stop of the Dreams to Reality Tour, she came up to me all excited and nervous. Then she gave me a quick testimony. She told me that she first heard my music in Oklahoma (which was weird because I never knew that my music traveled that far) lol! She began to tell me that my music really helped her out during a dark time in her life. I was so happy to hear her testimony! It was truly a humbling experience to know that God would use something that I love to do in order to effect a real person! A lot of times, music goes into cyberspace and you never really know who it's impacting. I encouraged Abbie to keep living for God, prayed with her, gave her a big hug, we followed each other on Instagram and that was it. What an experience!

Me being so overjoyed and invading Abbie's space lol!

This is Madi. I also met her after one of my tour concerts in December. That particular night was incredible! The concert was awesome. The atmosphere was great. The youth leaders were on point. The ministry time after the concert was definitely on point! The Holy Spirit was truly changing hearts. I specifically remembered Madi because she was just so happy that day. She bought the same beanie that I had on and asked if we could take a picture together. So we did. I encouraged her, gave her a big hug, we followed each other on Instagram and that was it. A few months later, I found out that she took her own life. I was heartbroken. My heart went out to her family...especially her youth pastors and church friends. And you know that the enemy tried to mess with my head too. Thoughts like, "You're trying to reach a generation with hope in Jesus, but it's not good enough to stop someone from killing themselves." I was really discouraged until the Holy Spirit reminded me that Jesus was in the same situation and could have felt the same way. I'm glad that He didn't buy that lie.

Me and Madi being awesome!

Here's the truth:

I was privileged to be a part of God's overall narrative in the life of these two young ladies. God used my life to have a positive impact on their lives. At the end of the day, all that I'm called to do is to love Jesus and to obey. God, in His sovereignty, takes those acts of obedience and does what He wants to do with them. Those acts of obedience could help pull someone out of a dark situation. Those acts of obedience could be one of the last signs of hope to someone who is desperately trying to make sense of life. These two young ladies were positively impacted by my decision to step out and dream, conquer my fears, focus, and obey God. What if I didn't? What if my music never came out because I was too scared to pursue what God told me to pursue? Who ELSE is waiting on the other side of my obedience?

Who's waiting on the other side of YOUR obedience?? #GO!

To purchase my new CD "Between Dreams and Reality", please CLICK HERE

Thank you for reading!

Jarrell

Beauty Of Holiness

Before we get into this, let's define holiness. It's not really a churchy term. Holiness simply means "sacred or set apart". Ok, let's go.

Different people have different standards of beauty. For instance, if you ask 10 guys what a beautiful girl looks like, you will generally get different answers. The same goes for girls and...I don't know...clothes! (That is unless they have bought into the standard of beauty that the media pushes. And that's a conversation for another time.) But whatever the definition of beauty, when we see something that meets those standards we tend to set that apart in our minds. We call it valuable. We say, "That person/thing is not like everything else because THAT is beautiful and everything else is not." And what comes next? We want what's beautiful. We make efforts and provisions in our lives to acquire what we believe to be beautiful. That process is called worship.

Chasing beauty isn't all bad. As a Christian, I am called to pursue an infinitely beautiful God. And even God pursues His beautiful bride. Here's the real issue: we need to allow holiness to tell us what beauty looks like instead of allowing beauty to tell us what holiness looks like.

Let's step into a locker room for some guy talk. We'll say that most of the guys in this locker room think that this one girl in particular is beautiful. "Did you see Barbie today?" "Yeah, wow! She's hot!" And it's all good until that one dude chimes in and says, "Yeah I heard she slept with Ken two weeks ago. And she slept with Ken's best friend last week."
"What??"
"Yeah! In fact, we're actually hooking up tomorrow!"
What just happened to Barbie? Her looks didn't change but somehow she just lost her value and respect. The men in the locker room who are broken in their sexual life just received hope that maybe one day they too could hook up with Barbie. And the guys with standards just got turned off. Did their physical standards of beauty change? No. But there was one standard that they never factored in - holiness.

Here's the fact. We value holiness more than we think we do. Getting a new car is great because we like the way the car looks AND because no one else has driven it. Building a dream house is cool because we can build it just the way we like it AND because we will be the only owners. A relationship is great when you are with a beautiful person AND because that person has chosen to be exclusively yours. One of the social justice issues that has come to the surface (and one that tears me up every time it is mentioned) is the issue of sex trafficking. Did you know that in the sex trade, men put a higher value on virgins than on women who have previously been sexually active? Why? Because of one word. Holiness.

Let me wrap up with this scripture in Revelation 4:2-8:

2 Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. 3 And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald. 4 Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white robes; and they had crowns of gold on their heads. 5 And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.

6 Before the throne there was a sea of glass, like crystal. And in the midst of the throne, and around the throne,were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back. 7 The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the third living creature had a face like a man, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle.8 The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying:

“Holy, holy, holy,

Lord God Almighty,

Who was and is and is to come!”

John is in heaven and he is trying to describe the most beautiful and exotic sight he has ever seen! In this vision he sees four living creatures around the throne who are grasping for words to describe the same sight that he sees. But the creatures could only come up with one word - Holy! And they repeat that word day and night...for eternity...without rest. In looking at a Person so beautiful in a place so beautiful, you would think that the creatures would yell,

"Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful is the Lord God Almighty..."

They don't because they understand something that we often don't. At this moment, they understand that holiness is the only thing that makes beauty last. God is infinitely beautiful BECAUSE He is infinitely holy. Heaven is infinitely beautiful BECAUSE the standard will forever be that nothing that is sinful is allowed in its gates.

In our daily lives, let's look at beauty through God's perspective. True beauty will always be sustained by holiness.

Thank you for reading,

Jarrell

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On Passively Leading...

As I'm going through my leadership journey, I've begun to notice a few things about myself. One of the things I've noticed is how my leadership style has changed. As I stated in my last blog, there were some ideas that I had about leadership that were just off. I was young. I didn't know how to treat people right. It was kind of rough for those people who served in any ministry that I oversaw. But not all of my leadership qualities were bad. There's one in particular that I would like to regain. That risky, edgy, raw side of leadership.

The thing about me is...I am sort of an extreme personally. "Be ye hot or be ye cold!" Or something like that. I gravitate towards extreme characters in the bible like John the Baptist and Elijah. Dudes were just raw! I could relate. I had no problem confronting people or situations that needed confronting. And I had little to no fear of consequences. For example: in my early youth leader days, I shut down the entire youth band. I felt like they were up there for show & their personal lives didn't reflect holiness at the time. So we did what no thriving youth ministry wants to do. We went to CDs instead of a live band. And it was awkward. And in my zealousness, I did make poor decisions on the particulars of how it was handled. And kids and parents got hurt. And God had grace on me because He saw my heart. It was a radical decision but it was made for Him. And despite of my mistakes, his presence showed up and we had kids giving their lives to God, powerful altar ministry, kids prophesying and seeing visions. Our youth ministry began to grow...not because we had parties. God knows it wasn't because of parties. My mindset back then was, "Who needs fellowship to have fun? The altar is fun!" Wow! Man those days!

As I grew, something happened. I began to notice how I could grow in leadership. I realized the culture in which I was serving. Most everybody around me was so chill. Some were radical in their personalities but not when it came to interaction with others. And the ones who were radical with others were also immature in the way they handled things. The insecurities and the flat out wrong was so apparent that I began to despise the confrontational side of myself. I was like, "Look at the people I've hurt. Look at the people these radical people are hurting. I don't want to be that anymore." I was also grappling with some theological issues of grace and works at the time. "Does God do it or do we do it?" I decided that it was much easier if God changed people's hearts. But in extreme fashion, I leaned all the way to the "God does it" side. And that resulted in passive leadership. I became the nice guy. I sought to "understand rather than be understood", include everyone in every decision, and wait for the "right time" or for "God to move on their hearts" in order to make crucial decisions. And I must admit, it's easy and stressful at the same time. But things don't really get done that way. At least not in a timely manner.

I'm now beginning to walk in the balance. I needed both of these leadership experiences. I need to understand that collaboration is very important. I also need to understand that as a leader, it's my job to pull the trigger and make the tough decisions. I feel my edginess coming back. This time it's tempered with more love and compassion than I've ever had in my life. And about that grace/works thing...that may have to be a totally separate post entirely.

I'm still learning and still growing. Just keep me in prayer! And thank you for reading!

Jarrell