From the hand of a failure:

I don't really know how to start this. But I guess the only fair way to start this is with a warning.

For any and all who know me, you know that writing is my outlet. I get stuff out by writing it. I am extremely expressive. I have always been in love with words. So I bleed on to paper. Pen and paper knows more about me than any one or anything; save Christ. When I am angry, depressed, sad, happy, or whatever, I can only accurately express it through words. And so here I am, once again cutting a vein, and bleeding out what's in. As I proceed, I don't believe, or intend this, to in any way, be something that that will boost my reputation. On the contrary, I intend this entirely to destroy me. To destroy my reputation, every rumor or thought, that John Mark Allen is a great man. Or that he is any good representation of Christ or Christianity.

Over the past week or two. I have been in a dry spot in life. I felt extremely distant from God. I couldn't feel Him, my prayers hit the ceiling and then fell back, and my Bible felt empty and lifeless. And this, for me, was terribly frustrating.
In this time, I began to fall. You see, whenever I begin to feel depressed, the biggest struggle I have is with lust. So first my thoughts fell. And this eventually led to porn.
Oh if mere words could express how much I abhor my existance. This, would indeed deem me a hypocrite due to all that I have taught. To all that I have told and taught that lust is equivalent to rape, to all the times I have claimed to respect and treasure women. All the times I have claimed that they are worth more than a tool for man's lust (which indeed they are, my actions do not take away from their worth, merely my view of it). I hate it. I hate not just my actions, but my being. I, of all people, knew better.
Then, to my humiliation, I recall back several months ago, where in words of anger I expressed with my brother, that I would not fall in that temptation. Ha.

Anger. I claim it to be my enemy but I call on him frequently as if he were a friend.
Recently, I have been entirely too quick to get angry and to snap off at my family. I became easily frustrated, annoyed and irritable to any and all around me. This had been going on for several weeks.

I honestly believe that anger, and lust even, are rooted by pride. Pride that says, I am good enough, I have the right, to be angry. I have the right to be angry because they had the audacity to oppose me. I have the right because I am me. Anger is selfcentered about what I want. It is rooted by pride.
Lust is as well. In that the entire time that I was falling into the hands of that temptation, I never stopped it in order to consider how degrading it was to women in general. My thoughts fell soley onto me. Getting momentary pleasure for me. Not considering that this would affect the way I view all women, and how it could affect the way I treat them. No, it all revolved around me.

Pride. I am an extremely prideful and self absorbed individual. If the above does not convince you, let me continue.
I love looking at myself. Seriously. My family can attest to the fact, that even if I was blind, I could locate a mirror in order to admire myself.
I love attention. Goodness, I know how to draw attention to myself. And I do it at times. I have even used my beliefs at times, in subtle ways, to get attention to myself. To impress people.
The Bible would describe this as robbing God of His glory.
Glorifying myself. Seeking praise for myself. Seeking to have my name known. Seeking fame for myself.

Oh goodness. I am a mess. I don't know what else to write, in this confession. I have written all that I can rememeber.
Please do not read this and assume that I am trying, in any way, to build myself up (though honestly, if you think that, I have no idea how or why). There is no pride in what I have done. Nothing noble or praiseworthy. It is all filthy and disgusting. And I thoroughly hate it. And would much rather not to have written this. But I am bound by conviction, as will be explained.

My entire point in writing this out, was not to glorify myself as a great Christian, because I have the guts to confess this on the internet. I don't want any of you to know any of this about me. I would rather you think that I have never fallen to these sins. I would rather be esteemed well.

My point was to have each and all who read this, to be thoroughly disgusted with me. To be appalled that John Mark would sin like this. Because I know my reputation among you, it is a good one. I want you to see me as a failure. As a waste. As Filth. And then I Want you to look at Christ. I know that it is hard to believe in all of this that Christ loved me enough to save me. He didn't suddenly decide to love me when I cleaned up. Or else He would obviously hate me. Rather, He knew about all this junk. He knew about all of my sins, and when I was His enemy He died for me. He saved me. He loved me. I want you to see His grace! I want you to see Him! I want to be disgusting to you, so that Christ will be shown so much more glorious to you all! Because in this, He becomes greater, and I become less. Look to Jesus. Not to me. Because I am worthy of wrath. He alone is good in me.

I honestly believe that God led me into that temptation in order that I may fall. So that I would realize my worthlessness, in order to lead me to be humble before my God, and not proud. God was very gracious to me, in that, this sin was all that He required I go through, in order to bring me low.

I apologize to you all, for how I have failed you as one trying to lead.


He MUST become greater, and I MUST become less.

Running unprepared.

I remember it well. I was running a 5k. I hadn't ran in a while, but my sis signed me up to run it with her, and I'm all about that. So I'm out there, not in near as good of shape as I thought I was. I had gone to that race thinking I was gonna kill it. I had a lot of confidence in my running, like please, 3 miles? Psh, I eat that for breakfast.

Then after about a mile, I'm chokin. My lack of training had got to me. I was walking just a little bit. And then a little bit more. And overall just a bit more than I like to. But, this little competitive kid kept pushing.

After awhile. The finish line came into view. I felt very happy. I looked at the timing clock. No personal record. But I could live with it. But hey, why not get the best I can with these last 30 yards? It's time to sprint. Well, really it was a swift hobble. Haha.

After I cross. I feel sick. Really sick. Not the normal sick I feel when I finish a race. So I desperately am trying to get to some water. Then this girl is all like, I need that paper off your tag for timing records. And I'm like, well I need water. (This conversation didn't actually happen. I consisted of my thoughts.) I gave her the paper and got a sip of water. But it was too late. I walked a little bit away and hurled a lil bit. First time I've ever done that after a race. It was interesting that's for sure.

After the race concluded and we all went to lunch. I informed my sister about it. And she felt terrible. But I was like, nah, it's cool.

I know you're probably wondering where I'm headed with this. Haha, if you're still reading, bear with me.

There's a couple lessons to be learned here. If you don't train you won't succeed. You can be as confident as you want based on your past, but if you're not preparing for what's ahead, you won't finish efficiently.

Sometimes, God pushes us so hard that it makes us puke. You get worn out, and to top it off you hurl. Lovely. Haha. But the fact is, that losing what you wanted to keep in helps you out and makes you feel better. Sometimes you need to lose something.

The past week or two have been full of discouragements for me. In several different ways. God is pushing me, and I'm not as prepped as I wanna be. And I may lose something I wanna keep in. But ultimately, it will all be the best.

To God be the glory forever and ever.

Romans 12:1-2;

These two verses sum up so much about Christianity.

 "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is —his good, pleasing and perfect will."

The first part of this passage is the most important. In this verse, the "therefore" is meant to draw in everything that Paul has been trying to get across since the beginning of the letter.
Which, in summary, is that we humans are all deserving of hell. Our sins are hate crimes against the throne of God. It is spitting in the face of our Creator. It is rejection of all things pleasurable and good, for twisted versions leading to pain. It is saying no to love and joy, for manipulation and pain. It is an attempt to defame God's glory, to say that He is not worthy to sit on the throne as the Holy Ruler.
Yet, God, in His mercy, sent His Son to die for His enemies, so that they may be saved. And this salvation that He has given us as a gift, cannot be earned, or else it is not a gift. If it can be earned, that means that God could be in debt to mankind, which is not true.

This is a very short summary, and I don't claim to have gotten the entire message across. So I encourage you to study it for yourself!

So, remembering all of this, let us look to God's mercy. In view of God's mercy, let offer ourselves as living sacrifices, Holy and pleasing to God, which is a spiritual act of worship.

Let's honestly take a look at God's mercy and grace, and what it means for us. When we do this, grace leaves no room for pride. Because it shows that everything we have ever done has killed us, and grace, which is a product of what we had no part in, comes in and erases our efforts and saves us from the wages of our efforts.
Grace kills our pride because pride tells us how great we are, and that we are capable of earning God's favor, but grace says no. That even our good acts are extensions of our pride and selfishness in that, we do "good" things just to earn a painless eternity.
Pride is the root of all of our sins. This idea that we have the "right" to do what we do. So if grace kills pride, that then enables us to sacrifice ourselves in an act of worship.
Reflecting on grace and mercy puts a right perspective in our minds of what and who we are. Which allows us to worship God in a holy and pleasing way.
Even our worship revolves around His grace!

Don't be conformed to the pattern of this world. In other words, be weird and don't fit in. Sure, you can participate and hang with the world. But don't live and act worldly! Just because the world lives one way does not mean that you have to live that way in order to relate. The way you relate to the world is that you both desperately need grace. But if you truly understand this grace, this grace will change you. It kills pride. We are supposed to live in such a radical and unnatural way that the word Paul uses to describe this difference in our lives is transform. It is a complete and total morph of our lives, starting with our very thoughts; the renewing of our minds.
And by this transformation, we are then given access to know what is the perfect will of God.

But it all starts with grace, and is all possible by grace.
We Christians are nothing, we are evil people being transformed by a Crazy Love.

Thanks for reading,

Dear Church

Please excuse me if I come across judgmental in this post; it is because I am writing from the perspective of those outside the church.

Dear church, I'm looking at you from the outside in, because the way you act doesn't convince me that I would be welcomed in. And all the times I came to you visiting I was pushed aside as you would formed you little cliques. Some of you said hello, that's cool, but that was the extent of our relationship. I had always been told to come as I was and Jesus would accept me, so I came with what I had on but your Christians rejected me.

Dear church, I am baffled at your claims, you say that you're a family, but I walk away and see old ladies gossiping. So all of my pains, struggles, past and sin that I came to you to get help with, I'll keep my mouth shut cause my sister who is looking for love, you called a slut. It's like you can't see anything outside the walls of your building. And it's killing us because we are just hurting people looking for love. You are too busy raising your hands and "worshipping" to put them down and pick up the man off the streets. You're like that priest or Levite walking down the road and see some guy who's been beat and left to die, bleedin out, veins about to run dry, but you say sorry, I don't have time.

Dear church, you come across invincible, and it's insane cause you expect us to be indestructible when we meet your Jesus but we've had enough of you. Because we aren't indestructible or invincible, but we feel extremely invisible. Because you claim to have the love and purpose that has us searching an thirsting but we can't have it unless we come to be churchy, but we go to churches unloved and feeling unworthy. We're hurting.

Dear church, how can you expect us to think you will accept us when we are filled with sins, hurts and fears; when you won't accept us in your buildings when we rock jeans, a t-shirt and Nike gear.

So dear church, don't expect to find us who are lost in your brick temples where we feel lost, cause we aren't accepted as gangstas and goths. And if some of us have been abused, used, raped, or molested, we won't tell you cause we reject your message. Cause your message is not what we expected. Cause we expected healing power but instead you have ruling powers, living wealthy building babel's tower. Tryin to teach us that Jesus receives us if we trade our life to a culture of preachers. But that's not me so I guess I won't see ya. And I'll continue to let my life be ruled by the lies of media. Because even though it's not good the things they teach us, at least we don't feel like hell bound heathens.

Respectfully,

The lost and dying of this world.

Thanks for reading.

True Beauty

Women. You will always be ugly as long as you are searching for this world's beauty. This world is never satisfied. It always wants more. Always wants better. If you don't believe me. Look at the electronics industry. Women. Some of you believe that you are ugly, worthless,  you may even think of yourself as trash. And you think this of yourself because guys treat you like that. I mean sure, they have no problem complimenting you. But they also have no problem saying sexual things towards or about you. They make your beauty an object of their lust, and it degrades you. This world is lying. They have beauty all wrong. If beauty is wrapped up in looks then that means that all women will become virtually worthless as they get older. Looks fade. But that's the thing! It's not all about looks. Beauty goes deeper. There is a beauty that each woman has due to one thing, God made you in the image of His beauty. Beauty is also found in character. Your heart is of more value then your body. And any guy who believes that, won't degrade you or try to use your body, simply out of respect and value for your heart. Women. Your beauty that you have is not something you were given as a tool for men's sick minds. You are your beauty. You are the beauty. You are beautiful. Beauty that is holy. Pure. Perfect. So beautiful that The King is captivated by you (psalm 45:10-12;). Don't believe that you are anything less women. Because you hold an insane amount of worth. You are a treasure. Loved and cherished by God. Guys. If any of you have done anything to degrade a girl. By the words you say or anything. Making her feel like dirt because you tried to use her for your selfish desires. Go and beg for forgiveness. Apologize. Man up and take responsibility for that.

Satisfied in Him

I have heard something my whole life that is absolutely crazy. That everyone has that special someone that they are supposed to marry. I have been told this in so many different ways. TV, Movies, Music, Family, Friends, Church even. And it's crazy cause... I am not too sure that it's true.
What about all those children who's parents aborted them? They never got married.
What about those who live longer, yet die in a freak accident? They never got married.

I read a book awhile back, it was a Biography of Corrie Ten Boom. And one thing that caught me, is that she never got married. She was so content and satisfied in God, and living for Him, that she didn't need it.
Paul was the same way. Paul even went as far to say that, we shouldn't strive to be married. But rather strive to get the gospel to the world, and not to worry about marriage. He didn't say it was a sin to be married. Just that one may be more effective if they didn't marry.

So, what if God doesn't have it planned for all of us to be married? What if God planned for you not to be married?

I know, it sounds insane. But what if we aren't supposed to be so wrapped up and focused on that? What if our entire focus is supposed to be on this mission of giving people the Gospel, and nothing else?

And this is a struggle for me. Because one of my greatest desires is to get married. To have my own family. (I'm a hopeless romantic.) But what if I am not supposed to be married?

More so. My life, isn't going to be easy. Where I dream of going, isn't the typical dream. I want to live amongst poverty stricken people. I want to be beaten. I want to live where I may be persecuted for Christ. I do not say this to brag on myself. But how could I possibly even begin to ask someone to live that life with me? No one in their right mind would want to.
Let's face it, in the words of a friend of mine, Raw Love for Jesus isn't sexy. Just read through the book of Acts. Jesus freaks. The type of guys you see constantly quoting Scripture. Not just that, they were beaten left and right. They probably weren't the most attractive of men.
According to what the world calls attractive, Scripture quoting Jesus Freaks that were constantly getting beat up, isn't good looking. 

What if we are supposed to be so satisfied in God that we don't need a spouse? What if we are supposed to be so focused on this mission that has been handed to us, that we don't need to focus on relationships so much? What if not all of us are meant to get married? One of my greatest desires in this life is to get married. I want my own family. But here and now I am telling you that I am so in love with Jesus, so satisfied with Him, that I don't need it. And to the best of my ability I will no longer chase anything else. Jesus is my master. I am His slave. And His desires are now mine. So even if this means I never marry, so be it! Though I would prefer otherwise. I will joyfully praise God and accept that as a gift of He chooses that path for me. I wear my chains proudly. I am bound to Christ. Holy is He.

To All The Ladies:

I hate going in public. I seriously do. It's heart breaking. To see the measure of what we have embraced. Events Christians. I hate seeing girls who are hurting but are doing well to hide their hurt; I see straight through it. They are searching so desperately for someone to fill this void they have, that is begging for love. And it gets worse! Because girls now are having this ideology shoved down their throats that they have to be "flawless" and willing to sleep with a guy, in order to be loved. I see girls, everywhere, who I can see that they have had a guy mistreat them. Whether it is an absent/irresponsible father, or a guy who manipulated and used them for his own lust. And it gets worse still. Women. Most of you are bowing down to this worldly standard. It shows by the way you act towards guys, the way you dress, and the words you say. I see girls all the time being incredibly flirtatious to guys. Being crazy not because it's their personality. But because they are looking for the love and attention. Which many times is something that a father in their life failed to supply. I see girls who strive to be attractive. Striving for a worldly standard of beauty. They are constantly convinced that they are not beautiful. And they will go to crazy lengths for affirmation of some sort, even wearing stuff that shows too much. There are a million different ways in which I can see the state of hurt in a girl. But the one that shocks me the most? When a girl says a sexual joke. It's sickening. Because I know that guys who say such jokes have their minds constantly on sex. How do I know? I used to be that guy. And it's so crazy degrading to women. It is literally making them an object to be used for momentary thrills. Where as women are treasures. Meant to help men. Not meant to be used by men. And so when I hear a girl say a sexual joke. My heart breaks. Because she's now degrading herself. She is then bowing to that low standard given to women. And making herself a tool for men to selfishly use. Women. You are more. You are more. Any guy that says sexual jokes. Doesn't deserve you. Because honestly, if he is saying that stuff, he is probably addicted to porn, and probably only interested in your body, and probably will stop "loving" you sometime after he's gotten what he wants. Women. You are more. You are so much more! You don't need to be so crazy to be loved. You are loved! So infinitely more than any guy could supply. We are only men. Do you not remember that it was a man who failed to fight when his woman was attacked by Satan? So don't expect us to fix you. We can't! You don't have to fight for attention. Please don't. Be you. God made you the you that you are for a reason. Because that you is beautiful. And that you is beautiful, because God made you so. You don't have to dress up. Or dress down. Or whatever. You don't even need makeup to be beautiful. Goodness girl, you're made in the image of the beauty of a Holy God! And women. You don't have to bow to that standard. Believe it or not. There are some guys who could care less about your body. Who care about your heart more than anything. They will not ask you to do anything that would degrade you. Because they respect you. Because they see you as a treasure, not a tool. I know a couple guys like that. Who have literally told me, that they wished girls didn't wear makeup all the time. Because they want them to be them. There are guys like that. And one day. I hope to love God like they do. Good guys still exist. Jesus Loves You. And He Alone Can Heal Your Hurt. He Alone Can Love You Right. So Chase Him Alone.