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crazyitalian7
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Name: Alex
Country: United States
State: Alabama
Metro: Birmingham
Gender: Male
Interests: I enjoy music. I play the bass guitar, and I am average, but hope to improve. I like good food. I really like hanging out late nights with just a few friends and watching the sun rise.
Expertise: Spanish, by that i mean i can speak it and I have an undergraduate degree in it (which doesn't say much), but aside from that I don't have too much "expertise".
Occupation: Unemployed/Between Jobs
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Yahoo:  alexface45
Member Since:
12/12/2004
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| 12 days to go! I leave for africa in 12 days. I will probably use xanga to update everyone about my trip. I will be gone for 3 months and some days. I get more and more excited when i think about the trip and all the wonderful things that i know God has in store for me. God has provided all the money for the trip and I just have a few things to do before I leave. I know this will be one of the best times of my life. I am writing in a hurry so it sounds lame. Ha. :) Keep it loving Keep it grace See you all in 3 months or so. Alex Mitchell September 28, 2006 | | |
| last night i went to see counting crows. it was awesome. before that we had to sit through the goo goo dolls. it was awful. haha. ok so for anyone who doesn't know, i am going to africa for rolland and heidi baker's missions school! that is the latest update. i am still living in the basement of this office building where i have been for almost 3 months now. it rules. in my bathroom i can see sunlight streaming through the gaps in the brick wall adjacent to the toilet. it livens the place up, and adds a little color. my parents have been really discouraging about africa. my mom sometimes says these really subtle manipulative things to me to try to discourage me about it. i feel like it might not be her, but possibly the enemy working through her. this morning on the phone she said, "now, i don't want you to be discouraged if you don't raise your support BECAUSE i have been praying for the will of God lately, and that God would shut any doors that aren't His will." she has a tendency to hint at being "prophetic" (and i use the term loosely) and it usually results in me being a little frustated with her, and promptly ending the phone call. "prophetic" doesn't include discouragement. quite the opposite. i try to give her grace but when people use the guise of "prayer" and "the will of God" to manipulate and discourage you, it doesn't exactly make you feel peachy. haha. i am okay though. it's actually a pretty weak and foolish attempt by satan to get me down. little devil, BIG GOD!!! thankfully, last night God gave me a dream where i was teaching africans how to glide on snowboards through the air. it was so cool. i could practically feel the motion in the dream. it made me feel very hopeful about mozambique and really excited to be in the amazing atmosphere of revival over there. i am sure that when i get there the mozambicans will be teaching me everything, and i will feel like the equivalent of spiritual infant. haha. i know that will happen actually. the people there are so hungry and so humble before the Lord. God has been using people so powerfully. there is one pastor who is illiterate so he can't even read the Bible, but he has already raised seven people from the dead. literally. he has been unable so far to complete bible school. the training is just too hard for him. heidi apparently feels bad about failing him out of the school so they are just encouraging him to finish and being patient. haha. :) isn't that amazing!!!??? i mean, it's so foreign to our western man based christianity. we think everyone has to have a degree and all this training. thankfully these africans don't know that. they think they can just go out as Christians and 'raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, heal the sick, and cast out demons.' it's true, they can and they do! so, i am excited. can't wait to be there. i leave october 9th i think. please pray for me and encourage me only. :) if you can, help support me financially in this little adventure. send me money people! it's definitely not cheap but i know it will change my life drastically and we will be doing outreach and evangelism daily, so it is both a training school and an intense 3 month missions trip. if you do want to support me, send me a message saying so and i will give you my address. i love you all so much! alex :) | | |
| well, this weekend i am going to jaime's wedding. then, me and lauren mcartha will be heading back to bham for the toronto conference. in more exciting news, this is the last week of my year of prayer. it has been amazing. today, as i drove to get my tux for the wedding, i was passing rows and rows of strip malls and commercial booby traps that surround the hoover area. i started to feel extremely sad about the greed that drives america. i love this country, and i love the whole world, but i know that we are sorely misguided by the temporal. One day, everything that we can see with our eyes will be shaken and destroyed by what we can't see. So, when i see this rat race that everyone has joined, I feel grieved. My spirit weeps for lost dreams and calling that were stolen because of a system, because whoever may have lost their calling did so by not resisting the flow of our culture. In this respect, let us all agree that it is a good thing to be counter-cultural.
While I sat in my car and grieved the loss of our collective national soul, I became suddenly aware that really what I was grieving was existence on earth without the presence. I thought about the saints of old, like St. Theresa of Avila, who wrote a poem entitled, "I am dying because I can't die". Theresa had supernatural encounters with God that most people could never imagine. She had a sense of intimacy with Jesus, and a grasp of the eternal that was very rare in her time. I began to identify with her, and thought of this year of prayer, and the wonderful hours spent soaking in the presence of God, and pouring out my heart at the feet of Jesus. I began to feel frustrated and depressed that I was still in the world, and not in heaven, but in the middle of my contemplation I received an answer. 'Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by Your name. Your kingdom come, and Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.' That is the answer for me, in my eternal frustration. Father, bring heaven to earth, in me and through me. 'On earth as it is in heaven' Possibly the most important words in the Bible. Well, I am happy to long for Jesus, and I am overjoyed that God rescued me from the bowels of indifference and the emptiness of the American dream. After this whole year of prayer, and taking time away from every activity, I have come to this; I was created to worship Him, and that is the only thing that will satisfy me. "You were all MADE to drink of one Spirit." II Corinthians 5 My single conclusion is this; it's all about drinkin'.
The End | | |
| Immigration Woes
The senate majority leader is trying to pass a bill to make it a felony to be an illegal immigrant in the United States, and to punish employers who hire them, and to tighten up the borders. I used to have a little hope for America. I think it might be gone after tonight. Isn't this a far cry from the quote written on the statue of liberty?
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Thankfully this bill might not pass. Democrats are standing strong in opposition, and the senate minority said he will do anything he can to stop it, including filibuster. I feel so sad that the party that Christians associate themselves with, is the same party that is behind all of this. Why do we have to have a party that we endorse. I mean, I am completely pro-life. I am pro human rights, simply because I am a Christian, and closing our borders off and kicking out immigrants is NOT a very Christ-like thing to do. Why why why? When I told this guy at church on sunday that I was thinking about working for an immigration lawyer in Birmingham, he promptly told me that his official position was to "kick 'em out. . . send 'em back to wherever they came from". I cannot tell you how frustrated I am with all of this. These politicians use a Christian platform just to win support in the Bible belt while their greed infects all the decisions they make. Hypocritical? I think so.
One of the main supporters of kicking out immigrants is our very own judge Roy Moore! He is trying to win the nomination for governor by touring around churches and spreading his "Christian values" message, while at the same time supporting this very anti-Jesus movement. Please don't vote for him people! Was it even that noble to work so hard at keeping the ten commandments in Montgomery when we are not even under the old covenant as Christians?
Okay. I am done. Oh yeah, the quote that perhaps made the most sense to me of this whole situation came from Hillary Clinton. She said, legislation seeking to criminalize undocumented immigrants is not in line with Republicans' stated support for faith and values and "would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself." Right on! Thank you. I'm glad someone else finally said that.
So, guys, in all of this my point is, don't just immediately assume that everything republicans stand for is "Christian". It's about love, not about censoring books and keeping smut out of society. That's how Hitler won support from Christians in Nazi-Germany. Beware of alligning yourself with a political movement that has an outward appearance of religion, but on the inside is very much Pro-War, and has little concern for the poor among us. (aka: immigrants) It's about love. Love conquers all!
Ok, leave comments if you want about how I'm misguided, and I've changed, but trust me, I have always, ALWAYS, been passionate about this issue. | | |
| Valentine Is My Middle Name
Quite literally. Alexander Valentine Mitchell is my name. My mom's maiden name is Valentine so I got it by default, but coincidentally I was actually due on Valentine's day also. I was born late though on the 20th of February.
Today, I had some good stuff happen. God began to reveal some things to me out of Romans 10 and about the body of Christ. In the midst of just soaking and not doing anything I began to get revelation of a passage I've been pouring over for months and months. The part of Romans 10 that has intrigued me the most is this: "For (Israel) not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the the righteousness of God. CHRIST IS THE END OF THE LAW SO THAT THERE MAY BE RIGHTEOUSNESS FOR EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES. Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: "The man who does these things will live by them." But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?' " (that is, to bring Christ down) "or 'Who will descend into the deep?' " (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
Now when you read this, your first reaction might be to quickly just think of an altar call. Please look deeper. Don't just see your salvation experience, but let God take you deeper. Let me tell you where He took me today. As I was just dwelling in His presence in silence I began to think of all the times that I have heard preachers say that wherever there is sin, God is not. I thought of the many times I have heard phrases like, 'If you have sin in your life, God cant come close to you.' In a moment, God shook that lie off of me, and simply reminded me of what I have been reading in Romans 10 for the last 7 or 8 months. In this passage the very living words of Christ come to us, and He says in verse 6, "the righteousness based on faith says, 'Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?' (that is to bring Christ down) or who will descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)." But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart."
In other words, we cant even think about what we do or what we have done to be closer to God. We believed, and He is infinitely close to us right now! Don't try to be closer to God, just believe and know that He is as close to you as He will ever be. He is inside of you! We cant think of the good things that might get us a reward (heaven), neither can we think about the bad things that might get us punishment (hell). I believe when Jesus tells us here that looking at who might ascend into heaven, or who might descend into the abyss, He is saying that if we look at good things we've done for merit we are negating Christ's righteousness and His authority to forgive sins; His position in heaven as having complete righteousness and complete authority to give to His people the perfect record that He lived. In the same way, if we look at our bad deeds and fear possible punishment we are denying the fact that He descended into death for three days so that we would never have to die for our sins!
Children of God! If we are looking at our record, we are not resting and simply submitting to His righteousness. The gospel of Jesus Christ is so simple that a baby can understand. We were crucified with Him, and we (literally) no longer live, but Christ and His perfection, His righteousness lives in us and through us.
In light of all of this, God showed me that I shouldn't view the righteousness of God and His presence as two seperate entities. In other words, righteousness and presence are not cause and effect; (for example) if i am holy, he will be with me, but if i screw around he will leave me. Lie Lie Lie from the pit of hell. The devil tells the church that lie to get us back into bondage and fear, and living for our own righteousness. There isn't a difference between His righteousness and His presence. They are one reality, not cause and effect, but one big gift straight from God. Do not strive for His presence, or for Holiness. You already have Jesus Christ living in You. The Righteous One is present in You; the same. Holiness isn't a lifestyle it's a relationship. I didn't attain to holiness. I believed in Jesus and when I did, I became the very righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. His presence is inherently within the promise of Christ. In Acts 3 Peter said, "Repent, and each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and you WILL receive the Holy Spirit." Ha Ha. This is good news for a king's kid who has been living outside trying to be good enough to come into His court. You are a son! Walk inside past the guards and the watchmen, and sit in your daddy's lap. He loves you! He died for you, and now He lives in you. Just rejoice.
Now, if you are thinking what is he talking about? Im so offended. Just ask the Lord to open this up to you if it's true. Just say, if this is really true God, reveal it, but if Alex is a whacko let it fall to the ground. I'm excited to see what God does in your heart as He reveals His great love and neverending grace to you.
alexander valentine mitchell
valentine's day 2006 | | |
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