the word becomes flesh

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it...

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him...

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth...

And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace."

a claim as a follower of Christ carries incredible weight. we are to be the body, the representation, of Jesus to His world. we are filled with His Spirit to do greater things. we are the bride. we are the herald. we are the vessels through which His love and power travel on this earth. we are the temple in which His Spirit dwells. we are adopted as sons and daughters to carry the name of our Father and to represent our family well. in reading the scripture above i can't help but to apply this to life as we know it. the Word, the fullness of the gospel, the Kingdom proclaimed, with all of its saving power, was in the beginning, and all things are from and for it. life and light has its source and its purpose in the Word. the Word is the reason and the explanation for all things. and yet, though it is everything - the world did not know Him. and the Word became flesh. the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, in love, and in action, and showed us who He was and what the Word really looked like and then we saw his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. His glory was seen by His acts as a human, by His communal living of the Word. His example of grace and of truth in body and deed. and from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. the fullness of the Word was completed in the fleshing out of the Word. when the Word dwelt among people in love, in action, in power - in its fullness - we, then, all received grace upon grace. colossians 2 tells us that in Him the the fullness of God dwells in body, and we are filled in Him, to walk in Him, to be rooted and built up in Him, and to be established in the faith. in Him - the Word, the fullness of God in body. we are to live out - in the flesh - the gospel. Ephesians 3 says that for the riches of His glory, we pray, that by the power of His Spirit, Christ will dwell in our hearts through faith, and again, that we will be rooted and grounded in love...and know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. because of the passage from john 1 above i can't help but see that the being filled with that fullness is the direct effect of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling with the people. so: we say, in word, we believe in the power over sin and death by way of the act of the cross and the resurrection of Christ - we are to live that belief. we are to live out the repentance we put on our tongues. we are to live as sons and daughters of the Most High if we claim, in word, to have been gracefully adopted by Him. if we proclaim a gospel with healing, saving power - we are to live out healing and saving, with power. if we say we belong to His Kingdom - we are to live as if He is our King, and bow only to Him. if we say we fear God, and not man, in word - we are to live it. and so on and so on. my life has had far too many empty words as i claim to follow Christ in its fullness. His lead shows Word entering into life, love, action. my following should be His Word on my tongue entering into life, love, action.

desty

how long has it been? i haven't felt the motivation to sit and put my thoughts into words in quite some time. i've been putting my thoughts and feelings into quotes/videos/songs at my new tumblr blog. billywells.tumblr.com. but just now, and a lot recently i have been looking at my picture of dwi desty ipol, who is called desty. she is the beautiful little girl who jessica and i support through compassion. i have a small picture of her pinned to my wall to remind me to pray for her and just to see her beautiful face:


i love that God, through man, has made it possible through photography: to see a person from anywhere in the world. i know what she looks like. i feel like i can tell that she is a little sassy, but probably out of a very passionate and loving personality. and i know, somewhat, what her surroundings are like. through airplanes/world travel: that people were able to get to her, make relationships with her family and village, and orchestrate the compassion project where she is, in her culture. through music: that i was able to go to a concert where an artist (aaron ivey) led me in worship of our God, and brought me the realization of compassion and its works. and essentially to a compassion packet holding the future support of desty. through the internet/electronic money system: that i made a click with my mouse on my computer and compassion can take my money and funnel it directly to indonesia to become food, medicine, school supplies, clothes, teacher salary, worker salary all for this beautiful little child. through email/paper: that we can write her letters and she can write us, and through translators: that even with our land and language barriers we can have as real of a relationship with her as possible without actually meeting in person. and through God's grace in all these things that she will grow up and have a real chance to get a job, go to college, support her family, and live under the grace of Christ, and amazingly, we can meet her in person. i've heard flack over how compassion isn't the perfect system - it isn't perfectly self sustainable. but for jess and i - its made us enter into a $32 a month,14 year commitment to desty. i love that out of our abundance we can do something as small as affecting one small child's life. God, thank you for this small representation of your Kingdom at work. the simple love of sharing one's blessings with another who needs them more than we do. just like having two tunics, we have at least 'two sets' of $32 laying around.

desiring homes

i need to write down some stuff real quick just so i don't explode in my office alone and in silence. music isn't right for now, and sermons are just blurring me. i'm kind of fidgety with forms and filing. all i can think about are all the lonely, hurting, homeless, and beautiful orphans that are in danger. i just want to incessantly plead with God to protect them. they (especially in haiti) are being to subject to worse evils than i can understand. its so hard to find joy when i'm in a/c with a known meal ahead of me, someone to go home to that loves me, a place to call home, and more material wealth than i should ever want or could ever need. i find a tiny spark of joy - my only reason for living - in Jesus on the cross, loving me, and bringing me to the Father. my heart and soul desires, to the point of pain, for the children of the world to feel this joy. i want to wrap them in my arms to show them they are loved. i want them to be adopted into a caring family. i want them to feel the love of adoption from the Father through Christ. please God multiply this exponentially in haiti and around the world. maybe i'm understanding a little different kind of sharing in suffering with Jesus. knowing that all His children aren't where they should be. thank You for keeping me in Your dwelling place and giving me a home. please get the kids there.

http://www.youtube.com/aaroniveymusic#p/a/u/0/J4eZybIXpm8

to the praise of His glorious grace

::::blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. in love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.

in Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory.::::

ephesians1:3-14

so, this passage is far too rich and wonderful for me to ever grasp the words. i keep reading it over and over. '...to the praise of His glorious grace...to the praise of His glory...to the praise of His glory.' all things are meant and purposed to the praise of His glorious, wonderful, amazing, undeserved, and all covering grace. Jesus our Christ submitted himself to death, even death on a cross in order that we may get close to the Father without the wrath of Him completely destroying us. recently the subject has come up of scaring people with hell so that they turn to Jesus - a 'tactic' for 'converts' that is a mistaken form of love or care for another human being's eternity. i don't need hell to scare me into the arms of Jesus and His blood. the terror of provoking the wrath of the all powerful Creator of the universe and of all things known and unknown is enough - don't you think? but wait...that God, that Creator that can create this fear and chill to my bones because i know what my sin deserves...THAT GOD...He is the one that 'in love...predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace. to be overwhelmed by the grace of God is an understatement. the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. when you understand the power of our God, (here is an off topic rant: 'power of our God' sounds so stupid to me now. He doesn't just have power and He isn't just powerful. He is power. He just is. God is God. to describe Him with our meager words is so hard. nothing works. so just know that the whole time i put words to God i cringe with how unacceptable the words are.) and you begin to see your sin in the light of His glory and perfection, and you see how ugly your sin is, and you know how God feels about sin, and you realize you are a tiny little being that walks in the fingerprints of this amazing God, and you begin to see that your sin deserves wrath from this God that created all things, and you start to understand the fear of God, and then you see that Christ Jesus our Savior was sent by the Father in order that His perfect blood would be shed for no other reason than to the praise of His glorious grace, that we might continue to walk in the hands of this almighty God without being crushed because He looks down upon us through a love that conquers all fear.....then how can you not praise His glorious grace.

this song never gets old. ever.

O My Soul! How He loves! <---clicko

plants

i haven't written anything here in a long time. i haven't been prompted. but right now i'm working from home, on my balcony, in the shade, with a cool breeze making it okay that the sun is at my back. its about time for my lunch. God has made it so that i can survive on this earth, and extremely comfortably at that. every detail of the world is tailored to fit the needs of every living thing we know of. God made sure to take care of His glorious creation. all these thoughts have been swirling through my head by way of jess and i's recent obsession with plants. more specifically, plants that produce edible, delicious food. just yesterday we ate the first ripe tomato from our tomato plant. it was perfect, and now there are three more growing that we are waiting on to eat. its amazing. with some dirt, water, and sun, this strange little thing grows. it then produces fruit/vegetable, and we pick it and nourish our bodies so that we can grow and remain healthy. the cycle of life God has created makes my mind want to explode. its too perfect. you can tell me about photosynthesis, plant cell walls, chloroplasts, chlorophyll, the properties of water, and how everything 'works', but that doesn't make anything change in my mind. because i want to know 'why' those things. how do those things 'just happen'? sure we can explain these things through studying and experimentation, microscopes and lab coats, but you can't explain why it all works that way in perfect harmony with what the world provides. the world provides because God provides. if you can't see beauty (another word that can't be explained) in creation reflecting a wonderful, amazing Creator, then my only explanation is that the very Creator i speak of hasn't revealed Himself to You. God is incredibley visible. you just have to have your eyes opened. but why and how do our eyes open the way they do? well, maybe the way everything else works. God opens eyes.

a roaring lion

a while ago i began writing scripture on the white board in my office. a new one every monday, and it always results in an application that week in some way. well this past week i had 1 peter 5: 6-11. i have always been disturbed by the devil being a roaring lion. i love lions. i love aslan, the Lion of Judah, and the wells family crest has a lion rampant on the shield. lions are my animal, and a symbol i greatly associate with my Savior. therefore, i hate that, prowling around like a roaring lion, is the devil luring us to sin. lions are a symbol of strength, goodness, royalty, and my King, not satan. but the devil does prowl around LIKE a roaring lion. he wants to be our god. he wants us to think he is a god worth following. he tries to look like my Roaring Lion because he knows that in my eyes my Savior is most beautiful. if he can catch me off-guard and make me think he is The Lion, then maybe he can point me in the wrong direction, when all the while i think i'm doing the right thing. there is nothing more important than an intimate relationship with God, made possible through Jesus, by the Holy Spirit living within you. i could never mistake any face, any voice, anything as my wife. i have a oneness with her, a closeness that i always know her opinion, and how she would want situations to turn out. how much more should we know our God, and how much more should we know what isn't our God. there should be no mistaking any face, any voice, anything as our God. we know in our hearts and souls what our God is on fire for. He stirs our desires. the battle between our flesh and Spirit is won. we just have to embrace it and seek the face of Jesus. we are far too pleased with the things of this world, as said by c.s. lewis. we consistently settle for a drop of water when we could trek further into the heart of God and find a waterfall.

insignificant

i will forever think way too much about everything. i've been questioning physical properties and theories of God's universe, that we like to call 'our' universe. i've been questioning God's entire plan and why it works, even worse - why it matters. i battle and wrestle and rack my brain over these questions that truly may never, and probably more truly, will never be answered, at least for the minds of men. and through all this, what do i get? peace. unimaginable faith and trust in God and His plan, and all things everywhere because He is the creator. i have no doubt that He is almighty and perfect. how can i question and have no doubt? in my brain this is an impossible situation, but i personally have experienced it, and know that only by the Spirit, by superatural occurence, can it be possible. i feel for john in luke 7 where he questions Jesus as the One, even after seeing the Spirit descend, and God the Father affirm. but my expectations and my understanding are insignificant. oh the joy i experience through my insignificance. how wonderful to worship and serve a God worth serving and worshiping. how could He be great if the weak minds of men could define Him by the terms He gave us in the first place? would this not give us power over Him? do we not feel power over everything we understand and can explain? i.e. science. but nothing has power over my God. not only can we not define Him, but only through Him can we be defined. great joy comes to those who hold fast to the only One capable of holding all of our weight. my foundation is a rock that doesn't move, it will never move.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foVpu6Ornw8