Divine Romance

"The fullness of Your grace is here with me The richness of Your beauty’s all I see The brightness of Your glory has arrived In Your presence God, I’m completely satisfied.

For You I sing I dance Rejoice in this divine romance Lift my heart and my hands To show my love, to show my love

A deep deep flood, an Ocean flows from You Of deep deep love, yeah it’s filling up the room Your innocent blood, has washed my guilty life In Your presence God I’m completely satisfied"

These Lyrics belong the Song Divine Romance By Phil Whickham Produced by Pete Kipley (MercyMe) and you can say many things about this track such as:

With amazing lyrical integrity, compelling artistic expression and an intimate cry to God through his unique voice, Phil Wickham combines a west coast ethic that channels the pop sensibilities of Coldplay with the emotive lyrics of singer songwriters like John Mayer.

But for me what really makes this song awesome is the kinda of impact it made at my School Fresno Christian when it firs came out. Well it first hit mainstream it was in the top ten of the Top 100 on itunes which is BIG for a christian song. only few gospel artists make big jumps like that such as The Fray,Switchfoot, and Lifehouse.

So i first heard this song i thought it was really catchy but i never really slowed down to hear the lyrics and from the parts hear and there that i listened to made it so that i thought it was just another acoustic guitar song about a guy pronouncing his love for some girl.

so then one day while i was on the myspace of a few female friends of mine the song title caught my eye one four seperate occasions. (these select people are not crazy about sharing their faith)
and so i kind of thought nothing of it.

Then a week later i found out the true meaning behind his song and how a divine romance does not only hav to be shared between a man and woman but also can be a relationship between yourself and the almighty, and it just hit me hard and was so cool that i saw this song on so many peoples sites meaning they must like the song and how they must hav thought it was another teen in love with teen song. and how that once they hear those lyrics theyll realize how god has his ways of being a part of your life even your love of music without you even knowing it.

The Tailor

So this last Sunday i had my world rocked. I got the real taste of having to defend my faith and stand up for what i beleive in. It was probably one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life. Well after the Sunday Church Service i came home and well i have a couple pairs of jeans i felt were to big for me so my mom took them to her Tailor to have them tightened and hemmed and so i tagged along. So heres a little background information on my mothers Tailor. Shes from Iraq and she was raised in the Catholic church. she has endured many hardships throughout her life and is a fairly wise lady. Shes known me for a good ten years now so she has seen me grown up. We hav always had conversations but nothing as in depth and as deep as the one we had on sunday. i dont recall how the talk began but it lead to her asking me where i went to church because she wanted to get her daughter involved and wanted to get her installed in a congregation and it turns out she had thought us to be Catholics these ten years we have known her. So i replied telling her i went to College Church of Christ and how great of a church it was and that we would be happy to take her daughter to a service one day. But then she asked if my church was catholic and told her it was a Christian Congregation. So the Debate began. she started to bombard me with questions of how the christian church and their beleifs were different then those of the Catholics. and so we each spoke of what we saw were the differences and we talked for a good two hours each of us defending spiritedly on what we beleived to be true. i won an argument than so did she. and it was a constant clash of religions. and so i finally pinpointed her on both our truths, The BIBLE, and how they can deride so many different portions of their beleif system without it being the word and the TRUTH. and so she was stuck and she did not reply for a while and then she began to move on from the subject. We both really relied on our knowledge from scripture to back up our stands on different topics. she of whom the knowledge was received from growing up in the church and I from all the bible classes at Fresno Christian and growing up in a private christian school my entire life. And as easy as that her rock was pulled out from underneath her. If her religion was not based fully on the Bible what had she to stand on? and so i felt i planted the seed in her heart and until the next time we meet i will see what that conversation had in store for her. Until then i will prepare and study my rock my stronghold, My Bible. and i will be ready to sustain another two hour conversation and who knows where this one may lead.

My Baptism

Well im back from mexico and i am definitely at a high point in my life. Mexico really could not hav made any bigger of an impact on my life. i hav personally been on numerous different missionary trips all consisting in the vacinity of latin america. heres something many of you may not know about my personal life, me and my family travel to nicaragua in central america every year and bring medical supplies and many other household objects and toys for teens, kids, and toddlers and we give them away every year its a smalltime but effective mission i partake in.But no other trip has hit home such as this week. I could literally feel Gods presence as no other time in everything i did that week. in construction and being able to discuss and talk with this family and see what God has been doing in their lives and seeing how he has had his hand on them just overjoyed me. i spoke with the grandfather and we had quite a few conversations most of them just smalltalk. but i remember the last conversation we shared he kept on asking me about the organization we were with and about our church and why i was being a part of it and i really felt that it had big influence on him and being in his presence i even felt him to be overwhelmed and even though we did not have the oppurtunity to speak to him again i felt that God was working in his life. and that for me was an incredible experience. Also every morning the Yugo Group would hold early morning devotionals for us and we would sing different well known gospel songs and listening to the words as if for the first time i just felt the holy spirit. then the devotionals that we did as a group were amazing and i felt God speaking to me in every one of the different topics. and i hav always struggled with giving my life up to god completely and i just felt the lord pushing me to give it all up and so on thursday i talked with brandon and told him i wanted him to baptize me and dont let me forget the impact and influence brandon has made on my walk with christ this has been a long term work and it all started with when brandon became our youth minister and his sermons hav been also affecting me and it really all started their. So i told brandon i wanted him to baptize me and so after mexico i came back and told my family and they were all so excited and so on easter sunday the plan was to hav brandon baptize me but then mr. gonzalez our good family friend suggested that their was a possibility that my dad could also baptize and that just overjoyed me and so that morning i got up their with brandon and my dad to men i look up to and admire and they both dunked me under the water and so on easter sunday 3/23/08 i was made new and put aside my old sinful ways and became a new addition to the family of christ.

spring break

Well tomorrow is friday the end of the week. something teens and adults alike look forward to day in and day out. Spring break is coming up and this year i am going to be traveling with my Youth Group to mexico to build two different houses. Its my third year going and i am as excited as if it was my first time. I am looking forward to making new memories and having great experiences to look back on and i strongly recommend to anyone that has never participated in a mission to do so, its life-changing. Well with all this time to be on my own mixed feelings come into mind. Number one, im going to be away from home for a whole week away from my mothers cooking, away from my warm bed, away from my family, away from all electronic devices that are used in my day to day life and also last but not least my shower. but then also i feel excited to experience independence on a whole new level to have to financially and physically take care of myself with no help of family. if i mess i up ill be the only one to fix the problem no more excuses or having my parents call in for me to make up for it just me. Responsibility will totally be redifined in my vocabulary. but knowing how useful this experience is going to be will definitely influence me to make this as postive as possible. hope all of you are going to be having a exciting and eventful spring break such as I.

God Bless
Julio Ibarra

this is awesome

well it is really late right now so once i come up with something worthy of discussion it will be up as soon as possible.