My Joy

My joy comes from Your presence, Jesus,
Increase my joy.

My joy comes from Your peace,
Increase my joy.

My joy comes from Your love,
Increase my joy.

My joy flows out of all You have done,
Increase my joy.

My joy is to know You and be known by You,
Increase my joy!

Homeless Lunch

Lunch time is a fun time for me. I often head out to see who I can show love to. Today I was going to meet an old friend of mine, Jeremy, and hang out at the park. But on my way, I noticed a homeless man walking along 29. I recognized him from a couple years ago, when I gave him some food and prayed for him, but I could not remember his name.

I have been striving to live out what Jesus commanded in Luke 6, "Give to EVERYONE who asks, and from him who takes away your goods, do not even ask for them back." I made a commitment a while back to do just that. It has been a blast. I and my girls know one homeless man around here pretty well named Michael. We have given him prayer along with food and money countless times and now also give him rides when possible (he got very excited when he heard we had air conditioning!). Michael often hangs around Hamilton and Cedar Crest holding up a small cardboard sign which says, "Will work for food."

I also know a man named Claude. He is different from the other homeless guys. He walks along with an easy swagger, as if he is always the most content man on the face of the earth. He does not associate with the others in the homeless community (he says they are always begging and getting in trouble with the law), but is just a contented homeless loner. I most often see him walking along Cedar Crest.

But today when I saw this man again, I knew I had to stop. So I raced to the park and picked up Jeremy and we headed over to Weis and picked up baked beans and water. We found him still walking along 29 near Emmaus. It turns out his name is Cisco. We were able to pray with him and give him the food. Jeremy even gave him some cash. Then we left and he waved to us as we drove away.

There is nothing more fun than helping someone out. The more I learn the scriptures, the more I realize that it is never wrong to love. We feed the hungry, give to those who ask, love and encourage those who need it. That is the redeemed life, and it sure is a blast :-).

That Time of Year

Summer time is here again, and with it comes extra work. During this time of year I work on the weekends for the owner of our company doing things that he and his wife are too busy or unable to do. Today I cleaned part of their roof (it's a reflective metal roof that needs sweeping and scrubbing to be effective) and also gutters. It's fun work. Working during the week in an underground shop often with large amounts of paperwork can become tedious, but it is so refreshing to work outside under the sun. I absolutely love outdoor cleaning. I love taking something dirty and applying time and energy to it and then seeing a dramatic result. It is some of the most refreshing work I can think of. Next week I will clean the rest of the roof (regular shingled roof) and the rest of the gutters. There is quite a bit more they have for me and I'm excited to do it. But now, having finished my work for the day I must rush home to be with the family. I love working, but what I love even more is being with them. I woke up this morning and saw Hannah next to me and could not help but just pray and pray and thank Jesus for her. I love my Hannah Joy and our little family more than words could possibly describe. God has been so very gracious to me. Life is goooooooood.

The Journey

Life really has been such an incredible journey. I love looking back and seeing how Jesus has used my circumstances to guide me more and more into His transforming truth. Seeing how far I have come blows me away, but what gets me even more excited is the thought that if He has done this much so far, I can't imagine what all He has left to do in me over the rest of my life! Life truly is an adventure. But for the moment, I want to take a look back, to trace briefly part of my journey over the last seven or so years.

Many young Christians reach a crisis point around college age as they leave their Christian homes and are faced with the world. I know of many who at least for a time set aside their former beliefs and searched into all sorts of other non-Christian beliefs. Well, I never hit that point. But what I did hit shook me for years.

I began attending Bible college and was inundated with more perspectives on the Christian faith that I could possibly deal with. I generally followed whoever seemed smartest at the moment. But by the time my second semester was over, I was in overload. I left college to get married and though I had been an avid reader, I did not pick up a book or even the Bible for about two years. I went to church and was a "good Christian" but was confused to a huge extent.

It was in December of 2008 when I hit a crisis of conscience regarding my vote in the presidential election that I finally cracked open a book. What was wonderful was that while reading had been so difficult or impossible for the last few years, I was suddenly back where I was before college and started devouring book after book. I was looking for answers to political, economic, philosophical and moral questions, but found so much more.

As I devoured books on history and economics, I found someone within the pages that I had not expected to find--God. As I looked at the universe and studied the interactions of humanity over history, I began to see how everything was connected. Human action, natural laws, physical laws, happiness and contentment and so much more started coming together into the most incredible whole. I realized that the different aspects of life can not be separated from each other. Everything is connected and the whole beautiful web points to Jesus. I still could not bring myself to read the Bible, but began finding Jesus in everything I read. Studying economics became times of worship for me and I was utterly in awe of our omnipotent Creator.

As I grew closer to Jesus, I did begin reading His word again and absolutely fell in love with Him all over again. I was particularly blown away by John 1 and the concept of the Word becoming flesh. I was able to see how looking at flesh, or the physical universe as a whole, you could see the Word clearly displayed. This truth blew me away and drove me to see what else the Word had to say. I dove into the gospels and poured over Jesus' every word, finding that the truth in His words fit perfectly with the truth I had been learning through observing history.

But the more I pondered His words, the more I saw how far we (the church) have strayed from them. This led me to search for those in history who best represented Jesus to the people around them. Those who stood out most clearly to me were the early Anabaptists and the Quakers. They devoted their lives to being like Jesus and paid dearly for it. (Jesus wasn't kidding when He said that persecution would follow His true disciples)

Something surprised me, though, as I studyied these people. It was that even though they had a healthy respect for the scriptures, their lifeblood came from direct revelation with Holy Spirit. This mystical side of Christianity intrigued me and as I studying more into it, I realized that that was exactly the kind of relationship I wanted to have with Jesus.

So that leads me to where I am now. One might call me some sort of neo-Quaker charismatic. I could care less for the labels, but what I know for sure is that I know Jesus, I hear His voice, and I follow Him. That is my belief system in a nutshell.

It has been a wonderful journey so far and I can not wait to see what is next :-).

"Stand Up"

This song has been speaking to me so much recently.

"Stand Up"
By Bob Hartman, Performed by Petra

The Battle cry is getting louder
The countdown's close to the final hour
The enemy is on every side
Still no match for the Crucified
Victory unto victory
We are soldiers in His army

[Chorus]
Stand up, take a stand for Jesus
Stand up, so the whole world sees us
Showing the way to a world gone astray
Shining our light with all of our might
Stand up, take a stand for Jesus
Stand up, so the whole world sees us
Following Him, and serving Him
Fighting the fight that we know we will win

Out of our pews and into the streets
Making some use of our beautiful feet
Redeeming the time for the days are evil
This whole world's in such upheaval
We wrestle not with flesh and blood
But when the enemy comes in like a flood

[Chorus]

Gotta lay our lives down
And stand up for the truth we've found

Who I Am

I am Ryan Burgett, a mighty man of God. I have been redeemed and renewed by the blood and body of Jesus Christ given for me. I live in Him and through Him as a new creation, a resurrected and perfected super-human by the power of His holy name. I love Him and He loves me. My life is His life, lived on the earth. When people see me, they see Him.

I devour His Word, both day and night. I commune with Him in my spirit constantly. I am righteous and live with a completely pure heart. I do not battle with sin, but fight the enemy who wants only to steal, kill and destroy. In those cases where I do miss the mark and walk outside of love, I repent and fellowship is immediately restored.

I have given my life, my possessions, my family, my time, my energy, all that makes up my present reality to Him. Nothing do I hold as my own, but freely release to my Lord, Savior and lover. My eyes water when I think of Him, when I ponder the depth of His love. I love to spend time with Him and soak in everything He has to say.

I have opened myself up to be completely possessed by He who has always loved me. He fills me, completes me, makes me His own. My joy comes from knowing Him. I shake in His presence, laugh with joy at His touch. Life is an adventure because of Him and I am wholly and completely sold out. In Him do I find joy, rest, sustenance and shelter. I need nothing in this world and want nothing that would hinder our fellowship. His presence is LIFE to me and I am His.

That is who I am now, and that is who I will always be.

All praise and glory and honor be to Jesus my Savior, Lover, Creator, King and Friend!

Tongues

This is a controversial post, I know. But the reason I write it is not to stir up controversy, but to be honest. I try on this blog to be as honest as possible about what is going on in my life. What is big in my life right now, praise Jesus, is tongues. If anyone reading this is opposed to the thought of praying in tongues, please don't bother reading past here. I am not here to convince anyone of anything, I just want to share my experience.

I have been finding more and more over the last few years that I am a pentecostal outside of the pentecostal community. In fact, most of what I heard growing up about pentecostalism was negative. I had two experiences at more charismatic churches during high school and those just served to strengthen these negative views in my mind. But in the midst of it all, I knew that God can and will do anything to further His glory, including work through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. There was once in eighth grade when I briefly decided that things like tongues did not happen anymore, but my dad sat me down and took me to First Corinthians and explained that speaking in tongues (both known and unknown languages) is right in there and though people abuse it sometimes, it still remains a gift available to us.

That night stuck with me. I did not want to be part of what I saw as insanity taking place at the only two pentecostal churches I had ever seen, but at the same time I was interesting in seeing how the gifts actually play out in real life.

Now fast forward to post-college. At this point I was attending a church which left me feeling starved. It felt like a spiritually dry place at that time grasping to be relevant and hip by modern worldly standards. Hannah and I left there, looking for something that better fit the church we read about in the New Testament. We eventually settled on a Calvary Chapel church which found itself the exact center between "charismania" and traditional Bible churches. But even that was not enough. (We ended up leaving there in 2011 and are now part of a Spirit-led Mennonite fellowship)

Following some long talks with my siblings following a conference they attended, I began looking for more. I threw out the old labels and negative connotations and just began searching into the mystical realm of Christianity. That's where I have been for the past two years.

Now fast forward to now. I began online attending Harvest Chapel School of Kingdom Living in September of last year and just finished it this week. Wow. It was about our identity as followers of Jesus and our call to live like He did. This includes doing the things He did.

Flipping back to first Corinthians, let's take a moment to talk about giftings. I have before experienced in at least a small portion the gift of teaching. In times in the past when teaching, I have felt Holy Spirit mightily take over my words and speak truth out of me clearer than I ever could have articulated it by my own power. It was incredible. But other than that, I have not had much conscious experience with the other gifts, particularly the power gifts.

A week ago, Sunday the 20th of May, I felt an incredible impression that this was going to be a week of "breakthrough." I knew it to be Holy Spirit so I began reaching out for what he had for me. I had a feeling that the gift of tongues was going to be at least part of that. On Wednesday the 23rd I started jabbering. None of the other gifts come without reaching out to God, so I was reaching out to Him. I told Him that I was willing to speak in tongues and I was going to jabber until He took control of my tongue... and He did! I took some time to sit in the parking lot of a park nearby, turned up the music loud so I could not hear the sounds I was making, and then started speaking what certainly would have sounded like jibberish. I had reached out half-heartedly before but this time I felt something. It was not like the mind-blowing spirit exploding experiences I had heard of, but it was something. All I knew was that I was literally speaking another language and knew that Holy Spirit was involved. But it did not feel very spiritual.

I kept reaching out and then some more breakthrough came on Friday the 25th. In my car during break time at work I spoke and it flowed and it was incredible! In less than fifteen minutes of praying in tongues I was as fired up as if I had just left an awesome, long worship service. As I walked back into the Shop I was hopping and laughing almost uncontrollably! To my physical body it felt like some sort of incredible high. At that moment I realized that I was actually doing it! Holy Spirit was actually praying tongues through me! It was mind-blowing!

But while that was a neat experience, last night took the cake. I was praying in tongues late at night when I lost control of my lips. I suddenly felt like words (not just sounds) were bursting out of my belly (literally I could feel them in my belly)! The tongues I had spoken earlier had all sounded the same, like a single language. But this time these words started bursting out of me totally apart from my own control and I realized I was switching languages! I do not know if there are many dialects of the spiritual form of tongues (I assume there are) but what I realized was that I was being led into other earthly languages! These were not heavenly languages! For a moment I knew in my spirit that I was speaking some sort of European language, German I think. Then I watched the earth as a globe in my mind turn until I saw Asia and suddenly I was speaking some sort of Asian language! I know the sound of many Asian languages from my short time in Hawaii and I would not be surprised if it was Vietnamese. IT WAS INCREDIBLE!!!

I could have gone on doing this for hours (and most certainly would have), but Hannah came out and I stopped so I could be with her.

So Holy Spirit was right, last week was a week of breakthrough. Praise Jesus! I now by the Holy Spirit can pray and worship in tongues... And it is INCREDIBLE!!! But I don't see this as an end in itself, I see it as an entrance into more. If Holy Spirit will graciously give me tongues, I know He will give me the others. I am asking and begging for the love and grace to heal people by prayer and the laying on of hands. Jesus said that sign would follow believers, and I believe! I am so beyond excited about what Holy Spirit is doing in me and I don't know if I've ever been more excited about the future than I am now in the midst of all this. Freaking wow. Thank you Spirit!!! Praise Jesus!!!