jesus

This is part of a longer message I gave on January 21, 2012 in San Jose CA.

In it, I talk about the often-heard (albeit incredulously false) accusation that the grace we preach gives people a ‘license to sin’ and how ridiculous that is…as well as the fact that despite popular opinion, God is really not all that interested in your ‘sacrifice’ and how much you can give up for Him.

The full video will be up soon.



There have been a lot of things that have changed over the last several months.

New things have been learned, lots of things unlearned…relationships have been strengthened, and some have been broken.  We have had some really amazing and encouraging meetings with some very awesome people — and we also have had people that we’ve looked up to for a very long time let us down and come against us.

All of that aside, I want to make a few things clear.

First of all, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for all of you who have come across our site who have been hurt by the way I (or people who have been loyal to us) have spoken to you in the past. If you have been attacked or berated for not thinking or believing a certain way by me or others, I ask your forgiveness.

I have known for as long as I can remember that I needed to change but have not really learned how until quite recently.  I never have claimed perfection but I also have no problem admitting my failures and my errors.  I have done so many times because I’ve screwed up a lot.  It’s not the easiest thing in the world to be so largely in the public eye when I’m still hashing out what I believe.

I don’t ever think I will “arrive”, so to speak…but what I have resolved to do by the grace of God is that when I come to the realization that something that I have said or done is wrong, I have done and I will do everything in my power to remedy that.

That being said, I want to announce that the reason that I have redesigned the website is because I want to communicate a different message to people.

I do not want people to look at us, our website, or our videos and immediately think “intense”, “angry”, “unloving”, “bitter”, or “aggressive”.

Those of you who actually know me are fully aware that is not the persona or message that I want to be sending to the world and that it certainly is not who I am. My struggles and my mistakes do not define me.

Because of this, I have gone through all of my old videos and taken down the ones that I have felt were too aggressive or communicated an attitude that was not good.  I will also be going through articles and either editing them or taking them down as well for the same reason.

If you find one that you feel is too intense or aggressive, please contact me with the link and why you feel as such.  I cannot promise I will take them all down, but I will do my best to assess what you say and take counsel with others around me as to what I should do from there.

Do I have some very strong convictions about the state of the church today and what is being passed off as Christianity?

Absolutely, 100%.

However, I have also learned the hard way time and again that the only way people will pay attention to anything anyone has to say is if it is clear that there is love behind it.

The old adage of “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care” certainly rings true.

I have done a terrible job at modeling and demonstrating true unconditional (without condition) love to people who disagree with us and our message.  Again, I offer my apologies and ask for the forgiveness of those who have been wounded by my lack of love towards people whom I have gotten into disagreements with.

I have learned a lot in the last few weeks especially and am continuing to do everything I know to do in order to better model the love of Christ for everyone — even those that have certainly not been the easiest to get along with.  I can’t fault them for it — I know it must be difficult for those around me to get along with me sometimes (some times more than others!).

All of this being said, moving forward, I am announcing a bit of a different direction.

We will be working on our documentary, “What if God Was Really Good?” as well as spending a lot more time ministering to people in our local community.  We are going to be structuring things a bit more with our group here in San Jose and equipping and empowering them to serve and lead in their spheres of influence.

I also am going to be spending more time building our businesses at Reformation ThreadsReformation Designs and networking with other business leaders in an effort to make a lasting impact in the business world for the Kingdom of God.

We have been “living by faith” for the last several years and are very thankful to all of you who have helped to support us financially.

God is always faithful and we always have enough.  However, the fact is that I have a lot of student loan debt and credit card debt from my college days that I am tired of hanging over my head.

My wife and I have decided to start working at ways to aggressively take it down.  We have lived in community with other people since we’ve been married and we are looking for our own place so that we may have the privacy to live and raise a family.  Obviously, all of these things cost money — more than we have come into contact with thus far.

Because of some of these things, I will not be able to be as quick to respond (and in some cases, may not respond at all) to all of the messages and e-mails that we get with theological questions and the like.  The vast majority of what we believe can be found throughout this site and you can also check out our frequently asked questions and free resources page here if you have questions.  It is simply too time consuming and we do not have the ability to get to all of them.

Somewhat in the same regard, for those of you who are either in college or considering it, please watch this video.  If you think that you need to get a degree to be successful in this day and age, I assure you that mindset is a lie.  A very expensive and burdensome lie.  

Do not go into debt, friends.  It is a devilish system that is a nightmare and the Proverb is true — “the borrower is slave to the lender” (Prov. 22:7).

We will still be uploading videos of some meetings that we do as well as articles from time to time.  What a lot of this really boils down to is that we will be spending a lot less time with online dialogue answering e-mails and facebook messages.  I simply do not have the time to do it all day long any more.  There’s far too much life to live to spend it all on here ignoring the people around me.

I will also be spending more time teaching and talking about leadership and helping the people around you realize who they are in Christ and what He has done.  I will also be offering practical solutions to take action in your communities because this Gospel of His Grace & the New Covenant is far too good to keep it relegated to online discussions and blog posts!

People need to hear and experience the Good News not just outside of the church building, but also outside of the internet!

I very much appreciate you all and the patience you have shown us as we continue to grow in Christ and in love together.

Please check out and register for our new forums and start connecting better with each another there.  I can’t promise that I’ll be posting a lot in the forums but I did want to create a place to facilitate better communication between the people who have been following us for awhile.

We have learned a lot and still have a lifetime of learning ahead of us, but we are confident that these are the right next steps on our journey and we will do our best to communicate to you the new things we are figuring out and achieving together!

Brandon Lee and I share more about some of what I have spoken of here in the video below.  It is an hour or so long.  It was from a recent meeting we did at the house of a close friend of ours.  Check it out and you’ll learn a lot more of the type of direction that we are moving.

Thank you all so much for your continued love, prayers, and support.

Grace & peace to you and yours in Christ Jesus!


Here is my answer:

“Simply that He has provided everything for us already (Eph. 1:3, 2 Peter 1:3), that we are complete in Him and have the fullness of His Spirit already (Col. 2:8-10, John 1:16), and that He is the perfect representation of God’s will (Heb. 1:1-3, Col. 1:15).

That in and of itself just about absolutely destroys the mindsets that are extremely prevalent in most churches and ministries today that are all about “contending for the fullness” and “praying for revival”.

Why pray for revival when you have the resurrected Christ living inside of you?  How much more “revived” can you get?

It’s actually very good news because instead of being like a dog chasing it’s own tail (trying to get something it already has), you instead shift your focus from asking God to do something more (as if Jesus wasn’t enough..) into thanking Him for what He’s already done and renewing your mind to that reality (Romans 12:1-2).

The purpose of renewing your mind is so that you may *prove* the will of God (Romans 12:2).

Most Christians don’t have a clue what the will of God even is, let alone thinking that they can prove it.

They don’t recognize that Jesus is God’s expressed perfect will (Heb. 1:3, Col. 1:15) and that God’s will for their lives is to look and live like Jesus (1 John 2:6).

It’s all quite simple, really.

The organized system of Christianity today has made things very, very complicated —- getting people to focus on all kinds of things in the Bible and all kinds of other people in scripture (David, Anna, John the Baptist, Mary, Joseph, Noah, Moses, Daniel, Peter, the ‘antichrist’, etc..) instead of actually focusing on and emulating and replicating the life of Christ.

All we are teaching is that Jesus is our example — yes, we can learn from other people in the Scriptures, but only by understanding that they were types and shadows of Christ.

There’s a reason so many Christians can’t see where they are going and what they are doing.  They haven’t actually come to Jesus as their Light and instead have spent all their time focusing on shadows of Him, trying to get something they already have.”


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