Who We Are
About Jonathan
So…I know this is supposed to be the part of the website where I give all of the natural things that I’ve done that supposedly qualify me to do what we do.
But, there’s actually nothing that anyone can do in this natural realm that qualifies them to do a Spiritual work. And, you see…what we’re all called to do is a Spiritual work…
Honestly, the facts are:
• I was raised in a traditional church with wonderful people who loved the Lord, but as I was leaving the town I grew up in on my way to college, I told the Lord that if that’s what it looks like to serve You, I can’t have anything to do with You.
•I dropped out of college because I was bored out of my mind and started traveling and doing missions work.
•when I was younger, I was on a missions trip in Europe at the time, and I was so rebellious that I got kicked off the team for a while and hitchhiked thru Europe until I got things straightened out with the Father.
•Even though I’d known about the Lord for a long time as I was growing up, it was quite awhile before I actually felt like I knew Him.
•I’ve been successful in things and ministries and failed in others.
I’ve experienced many challenges in life and ministry.
You see, the Word says…”a righteous man falls seven times and rises again”…
And ultimately, if someone wants to judge me to find a basis for disqualifying me, it’d be easy enough to do. All of that just don’t matter.
Honestly, the truth is, the only thing that really does matter is that I’ve been chosen. Out of His abundant mercy I’ve been chosen by the Heavenly Father…
This choice wasn’t because of anything special about me, or any great ability that I possess or achievement that I’ve accomplished. He did it, I reckon, just because He could.
The truth is, my qualifications lie in Christ and Him alone. That’s really the only qualification that matters to me…
How It Started
The best way I know to share about Journey into the Deep is to start at the beginning…
The origin of this ministry began when some folks were praying for me and the Lord gave me a vision.
I was standing on the shore of the ocean. In front of me was a small rowboat that I knew was for me. I got in, grabbed the oars and started paddling. There was excitement mixed with a bit of fear as the vastness and depths were in front of me and the shoreline kept drifting further and further away from my sight.
The next thing I knew, the vision shifted and I was in the fight of my life. It was night and I was caught in a raging storm. Thunder, rain, lightning and 40 foot waves surrounded me as I was trying in complete futility to row in the storm. I was getting destroyed and thought I was done for.
Just at that moment, the vision shifted again and I was in the sunshine in perfectly calm seas in waters of tremendous depths. I somehow had survived the storm, and I knew that I was in the presence of the Heavenly Father. Here’s the thing…I knew He was there…I knew He was speaking…but I couldn’t perceive any of it because I was so exhausted. I laid in my rowboat like a dead man.
All of a sudden, the vision began again…it was the same boat and the same shore, but there was one amazing and unexpected difference…Jesus himself was in the boat and He was doing the rowing. I remember just laughing and enjoying our time together. Then He looks at me and says, “I have to go now, but I’m going to give you My Spirit to help you. In an instant, He was gone and I was rowing. This time there was a change. There was zero fear and it felt like crazy electricity running thru my arms. I was rowing way faster than the first time and felt no fatigue. I then came up to the same storm as in the first part of the vision. I rowed thru the storm like it was nothing.
I then came to the same calm seas in the depths and the presence of the Father was amazing. This time though, I wasn’t exhausted. I remember just soaking in the presence of the Lord. And then the Father spoke very clearly and told me that I had to go back. I looked behind me and saw the same storm, but this time I saw many boats being tossed back and forth by the wind and the waves. I began to row back into the storm, but at this point, it felt like lightning was running thru my veins.
I remember pulling up to a yacht and tossed them a rope. I then rowed both of us over to a cruise ship and the yacht tossed them a line. Sooner or later we had 7 or 8 ships of various sizes behind the rowboat. I then rowed all of the boats into the presence of the Heavenly Father and left them there. I turned back around to go get some more. I realized that after people spent time in the presence of the Father, they were returning to the storm to haul others into the presence of the Lord as well.
As the Vision concluded I heard the Father say…”cast off into the deep, Jonathan, cast off into the deep”…
The one thing that I’ve seen in my travels and doing missions work all over the world, is that the Father longs to be known. So many times we get consumed with the “work” of missions and Christianity that we lose or never know the “heart” of what we’re doing.
This is the heartbeat of Journey into the Deep…Knowing Him…
In all that we do, whether going on a short term discipleship or missions trip or doing a longer term internship, we are going to continually seek to know the heart of the Father.
That is where love is. That is where life is. That is where joy is. That is where deliverance is. That is where freedom is…
Why We Do What We Do
You know, looking back in my life, I would read about the life of Christ. I continually saw where He wanted to know not only what the Father wanted him to do, but He also set out to make His Father known. Throughout my life, I sat thru sermon after sermon without this ever being talked about.
So I personally set out to know the Father and what was in His heart…
From that point on, as I started out in ministry, I didn’t want to start anything or minister to anyone without first knowing what was in the Heart of the Father. Parts of this journey sent me all over the world to learn from men and women of God and to share with other folks.
He showed me something one day when I was ministering on Paul’s conversion. It’s such an amazing story in Acts 9. Basically Paul is traveling along the road to Damascus and suddenly a bright light was surrounding him. He fell to the ground and Paul’s response was wild… he says, who are you Lord? He didn’t know who he was talking to, but something about what he experienced was so dramatic and powerful enough that he said, “who are you, Lord?” Basically—I don’t know you, but you’re my master. It also said that Paul was blinded. Later on, The Lord told Ananias to go pray for Paul. The Word said that when Ananias prayed for Paul that “something like scales” fell from his eyes and he was able to see. I’m not sure why, but I looked up the word scales in the original Greek. It said that the actual word there was leprosy. Paul wasn’t just blinded and then was able to see, he was blinded and leprosy fell from his eyes so that he could see. I asked the Lord what in the world this meant. I felt like he showed me something very powerful. Paul, was for all intents and purposes an extremely religious man. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. Most people would look at him and think what a godly and moral man that he was. But the Lord reminded me that in the old testament when there was a leper, they were unclean and had to stay outside of the Camp of the Lord. I felt like the Lord said that Paul’s way of seeing him kept him outside of the Camp of the Lord even though he was convinced that everything he was doing i.e., killing Christians etc. was pleasing to God. He didn’t see The Father God for who He is. But, as he came to know who He truly was, he was welcomed into the camp and shared the heart of the Father for the rest of his life. I realized that what I knew and thought about the Father wasn’t going to cut it. What I saw of Him was going to keep me outside of the camp. I didn’t see his love and mercy and grace. All I saw was judgment and even felt condemnation.
The absolutely crazy thing is, if you ask just about any Christian in the world what The Great Commission is, they would flip to Matthew 28 and say, “go into all the nations and make disciples of all nations”. The reason that most people believe that that is the great commission is because that’s what’s written in a heading above those verses in our Bible—it’s what most Christians are taught their whole lives. Unfortunately, I think that many people try to do this without truly knowing what’s in the Heart of the Father. Sometimes, doing works for the Lord seems way, way easier than knowing the Lord. I believe that the great commission and the greatest commandment are one in the same. Love the Lord our God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and then out of that intimacy we were to love our neighbors as ourselves. First is loving him. Experiencing him. Knowing him. Then, loving others.
I once was leading a team in Guatemala who was sent there to pioneer a discipleship training outpost. A team we received had 72 young people that were 18 and 19 years old. One evening as I was sharing with them, the Lord put in my heart to have them close their eyes and tell me who He was to them. So I asked them to be vulnerable and bold and I asked them with great curiosity to tell me who the Father was to them. I received probably 20 responses and out of those responses I would guess that 18 were negative. The other two were more neutral than they were positive. The majority of what I heard was that the Father was demanding and angry and couldn’t be pleased and that he neglected us. And then I asked them to tell me who Jesus was. These young people kept going and going about who Jesus was. They said things like he’s my lover, my best friend, my all in all, my savior and my redeemer. Zero negative responses when it came to who Jesus Christ was. Because of how they responded, the Lord had me take them to the scripture that said that God the Father so loved the world that he gave His Son. Jesus didn’t come to this earth because he decided to. He was sent. By the Father. I then took him to the verse when he tells his disciples if you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father. Jesus said that He was the way to the Father. I also showed them where Jesus said that he didn’t speak of his own accord but rather what the Father in heaven commanded him to say. The Word also says that Jesus didn’t do anything that He didn’t see his Father do. So before Jesus ever healed the blind man, the Father was healing the blind man. Before Jesus ever laid hands on the cripple, the Father was healing the cripple. Before Jesus ever raised the dead, The Father was raising the dead. Before Jesus met with the prostitute and pronounced forgiveness over her, the Father was doing that. Jesus said, “nevertheless, not My will but the will of the Father be done”…
This changed their mentality and the course of their entire trip. Instead of just going out and doing what they thought was right, they started seeking the Father and asking Him what was in His heart to do. I watched as this team was praying in the streets for people and they were being healed. I watched as they were invited in and asked to minister to whole families. Young people were using their own “spending money” to buy food for and prepare meals for families as they were led. I watched as they prayed for and loved on so many destitute. It was one of the most beautiful things that I’ve ever seen in my life.
And as I was thinking of this, as well as thinking back to many times seeking Him on wilderness trails, I realized that the Father is to be our focus and He longs to our destination. Everything else is birthed out of intimacy with Him.
The thing about having destinations on the trail is that when people reach that point, they either stop or go back. The word tells us that the Lord gives the Spirit without measure. No one will ever exhaust the depths of Christ, the depths of the Father or the depths of the Holy Spirit. In that way, the journey is actually the destination. There is no place to stop and say someone has arrived – never a place that we can say we have attained all there is to know of Him. Because He wants to be known, to reveal himself to us and show us new dimensions in Him that we have never experienced before.
We will never exhaust knowing the Father. We’ll never get to the point where we say that’s all there is to know, I know it all. Even Paul, near the end of his life, simply said…that I may know Him…
Jesus Himself was all about making the Father, what was in His heart and how to experience an intimate relationship with Him known…
I reckon that’s what we’re all about as well…