Hey there everybody. Just filling you in on what's been going on. I am back up in Gainesville, on week 2 of my second year. Things are going great. I am now living off campus in an apartment with two of my friends from Campus Crusade. Shannon has transferred up here, and she is living in the same apartment complex. I have never eaten better at college than I have with Shannon here. I have gone from frozen corn dogs to Chicken Alfredo. It is great to have her up here, and my classes are going well so far. We are just getting started, but I am getting a handle on my classes, I'm sure in a couple more weeks I will be past the learning curve. I only have to go to campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays because I am taking a few classes online. It is definitely keeping me busy, but its great being up here, the change of scenery, and the change of atmosphere. The other thing coming up is football season. Only a few days away, I am stoked! I'm hoping for a Gators repeat and the Dolphins to make the playoffs.
So in summation, I'm going to be pretty busy the next few weeks, I will try to keep you updated, and whenever I am inspired, I promise to blog about it.
See you soon.
What's the point?
I just finished up at a leadership conference and I was reading through Acts tonight and this scripture caught my eye:
"We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus." -Acts 15:11
This got me thinking along the lines of what Tim Keller was talking about at the conference.
He talked about the story of the prodigal son (funny how that keeps popping up) from the perspective of the older brother.
Basically, the way this all came together in my head was that it is very easy to lose sight of this verse, and this verse's meaning when we get deeply involved in ministry.
We are saved by the UNDESERVED grace of Jesus.
Many times Christ followers will start to "work for God" and volunteer at their local church.
I want to go on record and say that I personally think that is the best way to connect with people in a church.
But as always, we have to be careful.
Anyways, a person starts volunteering at a church, or is on staff, and soon gains responsibilities and jobs.
They have a list of tasks that they want to get done every weekend, and get done with excellence. This is anyone from a person who hands out bulletins to the lead pastor.
We all start to get into this cycle of trying to constantly improve work. We spend more and more time on how to do a better job, instead of spending that time with God.
We start to pour all of our effort and time into our ministry under the banner of "God's Calling", and in a twisted way, we start to worship the ministry and not our God who is behind it.
We become so focused on our work that we put it up on a pedestal. We begin to prioritize our work for God above our relationship with God. We worship our work, worship those who excel in the area of our ministry, worship the strategy behind an effective ministry like ours, we begin to worship ourselves for our accomplishments in our ministry.
In a short matter of time, we have convinced ourselves that our work for God is more important than God. In a sense, our ministry is more vital to us than God's grace.
If we're not careful we may begin to think that our work is critical to how God views us, forgetting how He loves complete failures and successful people.
If that happens, we will be under constant pressure to please God through our work.
If we are trying to work hard enough for God to love us, then we in essence are trying to WORK for our SALVATION.
We put ourselves in this pressure cooker to live up to God's perfect standards and actually get lost in our work, instead of getting lost in our God and his salvation through grace.
We are saved by the undeserved grace of Jesus Christ.
Plain and simple.
We don't deserve. Never can, never will. No matter how hard we work, we will never be good enough for God's standards.
Yet through His love, and His son's death on a cross, God gives us His saving grace as a free gift that is unearned and undeserved.
It is not we do. It is what Jesus has done.
We can't forget that.
You're ministry is important to God. You are changing lives!
Just be careful that your ministry doesn't become a matter of eternal life or death to you.
Yes, you should focus on your work. But focus more on emulating the spirit of God through your work, and your work will take care of itself.
"We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus." -Acts 15:11
This got me thinking along the lines of what Tim Keller was talking about at the conference.
He talked about the story of the prodigal son (funny how that keeps popping up) from the perspective of the older brother.
Basically, the way this all came together in my head was that it is very easy to lose sight of this verse, and this verse's meaning when we get deeply involved in ministry.
We are saved by the UNDESERVED grace of Jesus.
Many times Christ followers will start to "work for God" and volunteer at their local church.
I want to go on record and say that I personally think that is the best way to connect with people in a church.
But as always, we have to be careful.
Anyways, a person starts volunteering at a church, or is on staff, and soon gains responsibilities and jobs.
They have a list of tasks that they want to get done every weekend, and get done with excellence. This is anyone from a person who hands out bulletins to the lead pastor.
We all start to get into this cycle of trying to constantly improve work. We spend more and more time on how to do a better job, instead of spending that time with God.
We start to pour all of our effort and time into our ministry under the banner of "God's Calling", and in a twisted way, we start to worship the ministry and not our God who is behind it.
We become so focused on our work that we put it up on a pedestal. We begin to prioritize our work for God above our relationship with God. We worship our work, worship those who excel in the area of our ministry, worship the strategy behind an effective ministry like ours, we begin to worship ourselves for our accomplishments in our ministry.
In a short matter of time, we have convinced ourselves that our work for God is more important than God. In a sense, our ministry is more vital to us than God's grace.
If we're not careful we may begin to think that our work is critical to how God views us, forgetting how He loves complete failures and successful people.
If that happens, we will be under constant pressure to please God through our work.
If we are trying to work hard enough for God to love us, then we in essence are trying to WORK for our SALVATION.
We put ourselves in this pressure cooker to live up to God's perfect standards and actually get lost in our work, instead of getting lost in our God and his salvation through grace.
We are saved by the undeserved grace of Jesus Christ.
Plain and simple.
We don't deserve. Never can, never will. No matter how hard we work, we will never be good enough for God's standards.
Yet through His love, and His son's death on a cross, God gives us His saving grace as a free gift that is unearned and undeserved.
It is not we do. It is what Jesus has done.
We can't forget that.
You're ministry is important to God. You are changing lives!
Just be careful that your ministry doesn't become a matter of eternal life or death to you.
Yes, you should focus on your work. But focus more on emulating the spirit of God through your work, and your work will take care of itself.
Going on in my Head
Have you ever experienced a time where God seems to be telling you or a group the same thing? Everyone keeps coming across similar scriptures, all the preachers are teaching about the same idea?
Its pretty cool how things align like that sometimes.
This week, the story of the prodigal son seems to be everywhere I turn. You can find it in Luke 15.
To be honest, I am kind of at a loss of why this scripture keeps popping up in my life.
It is a great metaphor. A boy asks for his inheritance while his father is still alive, runs off and blows it. He does everything he thinks he wants to do but ends up broke and alone. He's living in a pig pen and realizes even his father's servants lived better back home. He swallows his pride and decides to go home and ask his father to at least accept him as a servant. Except, when he arrives home, he finds his father filled with joy at his return, and they enjoy a great feast.
Simply put, we are the prodigal son, God is our father.
We may run from Him, do everything He warned us not to do, we may end up living in the pig pen, we may be ashamed to turn back to Him. But He is anxiously awaiting our return.
God loves us.
No doubt, it is a great passage, but I had to think through how this applies to me right now.
Then I remembered that I had been praying for some encouragement. Nothing was really wrong, but I was just getting worn out, seemingly beaten down and tired. I could see some evidence of weariness in my relationship with God and prayed for Him to give me a little boost. Kind of a Red Bull for my soul.
I'm now realizing that this is one of the most joyful scriptures there is in the Bible. The more I meditate on it, the happier I become.
This passage is telling me that I can never screw up too much for God. The mistakes I've made are in the past. He loves me and just wants me to be with Him.
Yes, there are many other attributes of God, but what sticks out through this story is His love.
To me, the unending love of God is something that we can never think about enough.
If we don't focus on God's love, we end up like the prodigal son's older brother. Focused only on his father's wealth, and his financial loss. If we become the older brother, we miss the celebration, and the joy of God's love, just like he missed the point of the feast.
So I've decided that this lesson is a rather simple one: go back sooner to God, don't wallow in self pity, bask in His love and mercy, be more thankful for His grace, and rejoice!
Its pretty cool how things align like that sometimes.
This week, the story of the prodigal son seems to be everywhere I turn. You can find it in Luke 15.
To be honest, I am kind of at a loss of why this scripture keeps popping up in my life.
It is a great metaphor. A boy asks for his inheritance while his father is still alive, runs off and blows it. He does everything he thinks he wants to do but ends up broke and alone. He's living in a pig pen and realizes even his father's servants lived better back home. He swallows his pride and decides to go home and ask his father to at least accept him as a servant. Except, when he arrives home, he finds his father filled with joy at his return, and they enjoy a great feast.
Simply put, we are the prodigal son, God is our father.
We may run from Him, do everything He warned us not to do, we may end up living in the pig pen, we may be ashamed to turn back to Him. But He is anxiously awaiting our return.
God loves us.
No doubt, it is a great passage, but I had to think through how this applies to me right now.
Then I remembered that I had been praying for some encouragement. Nothing was really wrong, but I was just getting worn out, seemingly beaten down and tired. I could see some evidence of weariness in my relationship with God and prayed for Him to give me a little boost. Kind of a Red Bull for my soul.
I'm now realizing that this is one of the most joyful scriptures there is in the Bible. The more I meditate on it, the happier I become.
This passage is telling me that I can never screw up too much for God. The mistakes I've made are in the past. He loves me and just wants me to be with Him.
Yes, there are many other attributes of God, but what sticks out through this story is His love.
To me, the unending love of God is something that we can never think about enough.
If we don't focus on God's love, we end up like the prodigal son's older brother. Focused only on his father's wealth, and his financial loss. If we become the older brother, we miss the celebration, and the joy of God's love, just like he missed the point of the feast.
So I've decided that this lesson is a rather simple one: go back sooner to God, don't wallow in self pity, bask in His love and mercy, be more thankful for His grace, and rejoice!
