i just want to love you

Today, I'm using my blog spot to post something for my hubby, Jay! It is about his nazarite vow. Here, you can read what the vow was about, what happened to him in the process and how his heart was affected by it. It's a long read, but I must say, a really good one. Posted at the bottom are some pictures of us shaving off his hair and a link to a message he shared on a sunday that is extremely powerful that encapsulates his heart, kind of like what you're about to read! I love this man and his heart after the Lord! Be blessed!

Nazarite Vow

In early June 2011 I attended “The Call” in Wasilla Alaska. The Call is a movement in America led by Lou Engle and his son Jesse that is rising up a generation of young people who are giving themselves to worship, fasting and prayer to Jesus to see revival come to America and abortion end in our nation. At this event last summer I spontaneously received prayer from Lou in the worship time before the event actually started and a deposit was made into my spirit that I could not ignore. The prayer left me marked by a man given to a lifestyle of prayer and fasting and his prayers over me compelled me to want to know Jesus even more. Everything in me needed to respond to the prompting of the spirit to consecrate myself for a season in a demonstration of sacrifice and obedience. Truth be told, I didn’t completely know what I was doing when I began. I just knew that I needed to do this and that if I said yes to the Lord he would give direction and fill in the details.

The outline of the vow is found in the bible, book of Numbers, chapter 6. Herein are the details of the vow, specifically no razor on the head, no alcohol, grapes, vinegar or any foods associated with the grapevine and no going near dead bodies. The key point is that it’s the Lord who lights the fire for intimacy with Him but it’s up to us to keep the fire burning (Leviticus 6) and I set out on a pilgrimage to know Him in a more intimate way. Anyone desiring to make the vow would set the time and determine how long the vow would last. Most have varied from a few months to a few years and I was sensing that I would go for at least a year, maybe two. I ended up going for a little over 16 months, more on that later.

The vow itself is an act of consecration to the Lord; body soul, mind and spirit, and has with it a few outer manifestations that represent spiritual realities. As I understand it, hair represents strength and by not cutting my hair I was declaring that my strength doesn’t come from by my own means “but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Deuteronomy 8:3). I was also visibly marking myself as a set apart, consecrated one but not done out of spiritual pride; just an awareness that I am desiring to get closer to God and setting my face like flint for a season. Grapes and alcohol represent joy, pleasure and intoxication and by abstaining from natural pleasures I was declaring that I desire my true joy come from the presence of God (Psalm 16). Avoiding the dead and funerals was a way of stating that I was disassociating myself from anything in my life that would bring me death: relationships, habits, ambitions or anything else that would compete with the Lord for first place in my life.

I began the vow knowing that these things really weren’t that hard for me to be devout in my devotion but the pressing in for the deeper things of the spirit became the challenge as to find out what the Lord was doing in my life through the vow. Honestly, it was during the last month of the vow that the Lord clearly began to speak to me as to what He was after in my life. Everything else up until then seemed to be just growing out my hair and not drinking alcohol as I was half hearted in my attempt to serve Him and fumbling my way through it most of the time, even with a profound encounter with the Lord from the beginning. My wife would ask me occasionally why I was doing it and most times I couldn’t even give her a decent answer. All that I knew was that I was supposed to do it. But even in my weak and feeble efforts to be obedient to His prompting, the Lord broke through with revelation of who Jesus is and how much He loves people. I’ll say it again: the Lord Jesus is crazy in love with people. That might not be earth shattering to most but allow me to tell you about what He is doing to my heart and my perception of others.

Twice in the book of Matthew, chapter 9 and 12, Jesus, in response to forgiving sin, performing miraculous healing and doing things that were unlawful in the Pharisee minds says “go learn what this means: I desire mercy not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13). In the past it’s a passage that I have read and glazed over with zero understanding. I have come to understand that what Jesus is saying is this. He isn’t saying that sacrifice isn’t important. Mercy, love and a heart of compassion from His heart for people is what is most important. Sacrifice in its right context is extremely valuable but in the end it’s really a vehicle to bring us closer into relationship with God by whatever means necessary, namely repentance.

During some soaking time towards the end of my vow I was meditating on what Jesus said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” and He began to reveal Him self to me. I was lying on the floor, my head was on His chest over His heart and I could hear His heart of love for people. The sound of His love was a sonic BOOM in His chest that ripped through the earth and mountains and was impossible to ignore. His love is way beyond what we can comprehend or contain. I was also remembering entries from a book I’m reading by Heidi Baker, “Compelled by love”. It’s full of stories about their ministry to the poor in and destitute in Mozambique, Africa and how the Lord is using the poor to teach her about love using the “beatitudes” as a foundation for living an authentic Christian life. The poor are dependant naturally and spiritually at a level that most of us (namely me) never experience in life here in the west. But when the poor encounter the love of Jesus they are never the same! I was recounting some of the stories of love breaking through and miracles happening and as I was receiving more of His love I began to pray this grand prayer – “Lord, give me your heart for the unlovely. Teach me how to love like that and give me your heart for the unlovely”. I thought that I was praying according to His will until the Holy Spirit corrected/rebuked me mid-encounter, gently but firmly with these words: “There’s no such thing as unlovely”.

I began to weep at the revelation of how He sees us through the eyes of His fierce love. He didn’t stop speaking. As I was coming unglued at the condition of my own heart and trying to repent and form a response, the Holy Spirit continued on. He told me “Present condition is not the qualifier. In the kingdom, we aren’t allowed to see with earthly eyes”. Then He told me to read Acts 10.

This chapter is about Peter and an encounter he has with Lord when he falls into a trance while praying. You can read the chapter but basically the Lord is changing paradigms in Peter in what he believes about the Holy Spirit as he is poured out on the Gentiles. In his trance he is directed by the Lord to kill and eat animals that he considered to be unclean. He in turn basically tells the Lord that he won’t and the Lord tells him, “Don’t call anything impure that God has made clean” (vs. 9). The Lord was confronting the religious spirit in Peter and setting him up for a personal and larger breakthrough as the Holy Spirit was about to be poured out on hungry and thirsty people who just wanted to know Jesus. The other interesting note in the story is about Cornelius. Here is a guy in the Italian army who is operating outside of his comfort zones by giving generously to the poor and devoting himself and his family to prayer and acts of service to the needy. His prayers and acts grab the attention of heaven and angelic activity is released in response. The Lord uses this man and creates seismic shifts in Peter to bring the kingdom to those who are thirsting for the presence of the living God. Here again is an example of the heart of love and compassion for people that our heavenly Father has for all mankind that desire His face. “I desire mercy not sacrifice”.

I had another encounter in which I was at Matthew the tax collector’s house (scene from Matthew 9:9-10) and I was sitting across the table from Jesus. He was sitting with His right leg crossed over His left and was casually eating and enjoying the company around the table. In the actual story His very presence with tax collectors and sinners confused and enraged the religious minds of the day. They couldn’t understand why He would associate with them. In my encounter He looked at me and said, “What do you want to know”, and kept eating as we engaged each other in dialogue. Honestly, I can’t recall anything we were discussing but after a while He leaned over to me and said “The religious mind seeks only to bring understanding. True love for Me seeks Me for understanding. The religious mind isn’t really interested in Me”. He sat back in His chair, kept eating and looking at me and appeared to be completely un-offended by the religious minds trying to discredit Him. I began to ponder what He just said and I realized that this was His sonic boom of love for people. He has a furious love for people that’s beyond our scope of reason, even for those who completely misunderstand Him.

The impression that I got of Jesus is this – Him standing there talking to those who only see religious activity as most important and Him saying, “All the scriptures you read and study point to Me and I’m standing right in front of you and you’re missing Me because your heart isn’t open to Me. But that’s ok because when you desire Me I’ll be right here waiting for you and I can’t wait until you do.”

All of this to say that what the Lord is doing in me in this season is purifying and maturing His love in me for others and removing religious mindsets from my thinking. I believe that this is a picture of what He wants to do in the church as well but this is hitting me on a level that I’m not seeing things the way I used to (which is a good thing!). Through this season of taking my vow what He was really revealing to me was that the point of the sacrifice was to gain more revelation of His massive heart for me and for people and how much of my thinking needed to be cleansed so I can see, hear and respond more like Jesus did. His huge heart of love and compassion for mankind compelled everything He did from creating us in the beginning, coming to earth to redeem us back to the Father, taking on our weak frames and His ultimate demonstration of love by going to the cross for us. His love is so complete and pure that our hearts and minds need to be renewed in order for us to continuously grow in his radical love. Then his life and love in us can flow in a clear channel through us to others.

Here’s a harsh reality. If all of our sacrifice and religious activity aren’t bringing us closer in love relationship with Jesus then its just form of godliness without power, an idol that we pass off to others as holiness but blinds us from the truth of where we really are spiritually. I functioned this way for several months without even realizing all the while wondering why my heart was lukewarm and I wasn’t seeing any fruit from my life during the season of “consecration”. But even in the midst of my half hearted attempt to serve Him in this way He still took that ember in my heart to show me how much He loves me and wants to reveal more of Himself to me and how much He truly loves people.

My vow lasted almost a year and a half. Truth is I should have ended it after one year. It was becoming religious activity to which I wasn’t even connected. A friend of mine had a dream that I was clean shaven at the 13 month point into the vow and my wife had a dream of me clean shaven about 2 months ago (prompted by the Holy Spirit and not her desire to see me less scraggly). Another friend on mine recently had a prophetic word for me that was right on the mark and added that he saw the Lord “cleaning” me, my face and hair. I said to the Lord, “are you trying to tell me to end my vow”? Duh, Jason. “Yes” was all I heard from him. I am a creature of routine and loyal to a fault sometimes. The vow had become an idol and I wasn’t even aware of it. But even in my attempt to please him and be loyal to my commitment I allowed it to become the focus instead of Him. But even then He still busted into my heart to reveal to me one of the mysteries of his kingdom: His ferocious love for people.

I’ve told the Lord recently that my desire is to know what is important to His heart and in exchange He can do what He wants with my life. By this I mean that I want to be so in love and in communication with Him that I know what He’s thinking, seeing and feeling all the time so that I can arrange my life accordingly with His heart and purpose for me and those around me. I’ve asked Him. “How far can Your kingdom reach through my life?” The truth is we can’t want the form (religion) separate from the Man (Jesus). I remember a quote from Bill Johnson – “Jesus, if I’m not thinking like you come and mess with me until I am.” My desire is to have this be the posture of my heart. He is a jealous lover. He has no rivals and His love is transforming my life, again.

Blessings!!

Jason Manalli

link to message, Mature Love - Jason Manalli 10/21/12

http://KCCJESUS.ORG/media.php?pageID=6

here we go!!

his ponytail!

And here he is!!

Burning the hair

i have a new obsession... and i've gone through many of them... pinterest (still love it), facebook, instagram, thrifting, paleo... the list goes on and on. but the one as of late is by far my biggest obsession (for now)... tiny houses.

yes. tiny houses....

most tiny houses are generally 300-500 square feet. eeeyup. you read that right. hence the words "tiny house". the overall idea is that the carbon footprint of each person or family be reduced by living with what they only need. i can also think of many other ideas... ability to own your home outright, live outside more, save money to travel often and... they're so cute! most have loft bedrooms to make the most of the space.

i've been completely drawn in. completely! mostly by the idea to live off of only what is necessary and to find love in life by the things or people that are in our life already. it's the oldest idea ever, but i'm so fascinated by it. our society is extremely opposite. i hate being negative about things... especially on the internet. 1) because once it's out there, it's out there forever 2) people have used the net as an inappropriate platform. me included. and i try not to... i try. 3) sometimes being negative just sounds like fear. puh. but i really do feel as though society pushes for us to always have more. and i do not despise anyone that has the means to live in something grand. it's that we live beyond our means. it's that we lay so much importance on the things we have.

tiny houses is like this foreign and new idea. live life out of debt? enjoy what you have already instead of stewing about what you don't have? crazy. i didn't move into my house 2 years ago and i've found myself constantly thinking, "if we only had a garage..." "if we only had an extra room above the garage... a deck... then we can sell and get a bigger house..." God, forgive me. living in a 300-500 square foot house is not where the Lord has us right now. but just reading the concept of these houses and really the concept of how we look at the quality of life is astounding!!!

my favorite favorite favorite tiny house site. tiny house swoon is right.... enjoy:

http://tinyhouseswoon.com/tag/tiny-house-2/

and you're welcome.

i just want to love you

Pages

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

family

8 year anniversery... my jason

some thoughts on identity

jesus wept

Monday, November 5, 2012

Jason's Nazarite Vow

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

.::tiny house::.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

a time for singing...