Story

So tonight I'm reading in Acts as the story of Paul's trial unfolds and God really challenged me with a lot as I read it. I'll try to "unpack" some of what He was saying to me as I read.

Paul is going around all of the region telling people about Jesus, the resurrected Christ, and he's making arguments for Jesus as the Christ based on scripture and personal experience. His personal experience with Christ is quite amazing and he's telling people this story and supporting his claims with the words of the prophets and through this, people are coming to know Jesus as the Christ and receiving the Holy Spirit through baptism and repentance.

God puts it on his heart to take this story to Jerusalem and face the most devout of the Jews with this vital truth that they reject. Paul receives warnings from all of his closest friends that he will face some serious persecution if he takes this story to these people, but he doesn't back down.

So Paul is in Jerusalem and he's simply telling his story and sharing how Jesus has changed his life and everything he knows, and people get really upset over this and they try to have him killed. Because of the special position that God put Paul in with his Roman citizenship, he is taken to multiple different "courts" to testify so that the government can get this straight before they make a decision about what to do with him. So Paul has the chance to make an argument for the fact that these people really don't have anything on him that deserves punishment, but instead of taking time to make that argument, he repeatedly goes before these "courts" and just tells his story. This is so impacting that some people start to take this Christianity thing seriously while others are convinced that he must be out of his mind.

All of this leads me to the point that our stories of the ways that God has impacted our lives can be very powerful to others, but we don't really seem to share them very often. So I'm gonna try it and I hope that you try it too, I mean think of the things that God can do if we are just obedient storytellers.

Stressed?

It's that wonderful time of the year, where people start getting stressed out over exams, travel plans, Christmas gifts, and the other random life events that stress us out. When I am stressed, the thing that I want most is peace. A feeling of peace where I don't really have to worry about anything because my burdens really are not my own. This kind of peace doesn't come from being confident in my abilities, or cocky, or anything like that; this peace comes from being confident in the truth that we are given in Scripture so many times about not worrying. A lot of people hear me talking about Matthew 6:34, but this time, I'm not talking about that particular verse. I am talking about the instance in Paul's letter to the Philippians where he tells them through the Holy Spirit, not to be anxious about anything, but in everything to bring their requests to God with prayer and supplication, and they will be given a peace that is beyond all understanding. Did you get that? "BEYOND ALL UNDERSTANDING", obviously, based on the concept of that, I don't quite get it, but I do know that when everything is falling apart and I am being pulled in a million different directions, with exams, work, traffic, family, holiday shopping, and other stresses trying to steal my attention, and my joy, I just have to take my requests to God and He will provide His incredible peace!

So as you study, shop, work, travel, or whatever it is that you are doing this time of year, when you start getting stressed, don't forget who's in control. Spend some time being amazed at who God is, His unconditional love, and bring your stress to Him, I have a promise from Him that if you put Him first, He will give you the peace that we all need so desperately.

Sometimes...

I came to the realization today that sometimes I can be really selfish...I tend to put my needs before the needs of others. This realization got me to thinking about the way that I treat those around me when I put myself first. Needless to say, I am not very proud of the way that I treat people when I act like this. I am called to be selfless, to put the needs of others before my own. I have not been living up to the man of God that I am supposed to be, if you are one of the people that I have not considered while I have been putting my needs and wants first, I am very sorry and I am going to start working on this problem right now. Please let me know if you see me doing this so that I can fix it as soon and as effectively as possible. In my pursuit of who God wants me to be I have somehow wandered from this selflessness and I am going to do my very best to recapture it!

If God Sent Text Messages

So, we're sitting at supper one night, just talking about stuff and Karen says, "I wish God sent text messages." I was like...that's a cool idea, so we talked about it a little bit, and I've kind of had it on the back burner in my head for a while, so here's what we came up with. If God sent text messages, what would He say? I'm sure that it would differ from person to person and situation to situation, but I think that sometimes He would send pieces of encouragement or support, sometimes He would call us out, and sometimes He would send us some of His Word. Like I said, this is just a thought, but taking it one step further, would we really want to answer His text messages? I know that I would want to get the encouraging texts or the texts of Scripture, but how about those texts where He calls us out? Those would be kind of tough to answer, it would be like...I know that's a text from God, and I know what it says because I know what He's calling me out on, but I think I would just rather ignore it. When I consider that, it makes me wonder how often do I ignore the Holy Spirit (which is WAY cooler than a text message) when He is showing me something I need to be doing, or something that I am doing that I shouldn't be? So I guess the concept of getting a direct message from God on your phone is cool, but isn't it even more amazing that we get them on our hearts and from other believers through the Holy Spirit, not a cell phone provider.

To Follow Christ

What does it mean to die to yourself and take up your cross to follow Christ as a college student? I was asked to consider this question the other day with some close friends. As I considered the concept, I broke the question down and just started thinking about what it means to die to yourself as a college student. In some situations it means leaving the iPod in your pocket and keeping the headphones out of your ears. Other times it means taking the initiative to start a conversation with the person beside you when you would rather just take a second and breathe. Sometimes it means making arrangements to schedule something that you don't care too much about in order to let another person know that you care about them. Obviously, this means different things in different situations, but the core of this means to worry less about what you want and what you think is important and more about what is important to someone other than yourself. For a Christian this means, being concerned with what is important to God. This is where the second part of the question comes in. I think that to be concerned about what is important to God, you have to take up your cross and follow Christ. This also looks different in every situation, but it is all tied together through a deep seated understanding of what is important to Jesus and how we are supposed to act in order to accomplish His purposes. To understand what is important to Christ, we have to spend time with Him, in His Word, and in prayer. For a college student, this means taking advantage of the flexible schedule and freedom that we have to make the things that are important to God important to us. If you have any other ideas about this question (I hope you do, because I don't have a lock on the answer, I just have an idea), please comment and let me know what you think about what it means to die to yourself and take up your cross to follow Christ as a college student.

Small Groups

Our 2:42 group met for the first time last night. If you don't know what 2:42 groups are, they are our way of trying to live out the first church in Acts 2:42-47 where they devoted themselves to the apostles teachings, to the breaking of bread, to fellowship and to prayer. Last night, our group got together and shared some of what we see our group studying and how we want to approach prayer, fellowship through service and a couple of other really cool ideas last night. A couple of the coolest things that we left with were the topics for study and one of the ways that we are going to approach prayer as a group. We threw out some ideas for topics of study, but the one that the group felt most strongly about (I'm stoked) was apologetics. We will be looking at that for a while and it's going to be awesome. I am also VERY excited about the idea that was presented for a way that we can approach prayer as a group...PRAYER CALENDAR!!! I am one of those people that loves calendars in the first place, but I've been involved with a couple of groups of people that have done prayer calendars before, and it's a very unifying experience. Although the group may not always be together for a time of prayer, you have the assurance that there are other people talking to God about the same stuff that you are, and to me that's just really cool. I can't wait for us to get that going here in the next couple of weeks. Speaking of prayer, one of my friends from the Greenville Community Shelter has been there for 6 or 7 months and I've been praying for him and his situation and that he would get into permanent housing away from all of the negativity associated with poverty. Dan always lights up the room for breakfast when we go serve there, but this Sunday, I noticed that he wasn't up early like he usually is, and after asking around, I found out that Dan moved out of the shelter last month!!! God has answered that prayer, and if you don't mind and you have a minute right now, please pray against the systems that make it very difficult for someone to come out of poverty. Thanks and I hope that you have a great day!

Some of what I learned at NSC '08

For the past week I have been at the National Student Convention at the University of Southern Indiana. This conference was incredible, I have a fresh vision for the kind of stuff that God wants to do on our campus. It was incredible to go to all of the workshops and worship services at the conference. I learned a lot about different perspectives on the poor and poverty stricken in our community. Mother Teresa said that the greatest poverty in America is loneliness. This has lead our campus ministry to really look into the loneliness of the international students on our campus and what we are being called to do about it. We don't want to reach out to these students as a project or something to do, but rather, a real friendship that results in lasting relationships and changing lives by caring genuinely for people. It's about talking to God and seeking His will for our relationships with people and then obeying what He tells us to do, both on an individual basis and as a group. Something like this has to be deeply seated in prayer and community. If you are reading this and are not part of our community, please be praying for us to be faithful in this practice. If you are in our community, please talk to me or others about it and get involved. I'm incredibly excited to see some of the things that God wants to work out on our campus and in Greenville this upcoming year. If anyone has an idea of other ways that we can reach out to lonely people on our campus or to anyone for that matter, please let me know and I will do everything I can to find ways for our ministry to put that into play.