Living Life for Christ Alone

I am attempting to blog from my phone in New Zealand, so if my style seems different, that is why... :-) Wow, what a great trip so far! We are only in the third week of our trip, and yet time has just flown by! There was the long flight to Melbourne, where I sat next to a Romanian lady and conversed about the gospel, dining with several different families near the Melbourne training center, having the girls and guys Journey to the Heart at the same time in two separate locations, touring beautiful and interesting Melbourne and it's surroundings...

Only a couple of weeks ago, I was asked to consider going to Australia and New Zealand to help with some girls retreats over there. These retreats are called Journey to the Heart. They are ten days long and girls come to get away from everything so they can get alone with God and find out more of His heart. It is incredible the things that God does on the retreats! I've been doing them for several years, and have watched as God changed life after life.

Life. It's full of ups and downs, don't you agree? One moment you're on a mountain top, and you feel you can see the whole world and everything in it. And then the next moment, you find yourself in a valley covered with clouds and darkness and you can barely see your hand in front of your face. But are we supposed to feel  right all the time? That's a question that gets me. I want to feel right all the time! I want to feel as if everything is fun and enjoyable. But to be honest, it's not. There are dreary, dull things that each of us are called to do each day... and if you're anything like me, you might struggle with finding it pointless or boring...

Today I'd like to share with you a secret. It's a secret that I know could change your life if you let it... I happened to be reading in Revelation on this one particular morning. It's a book that gets me excited, perplexed, and causes me to have a sense of awe all at once... Maybe its because it talks about heavenly things I can't imagine. Maybe its because it talks about things that will happen that I can't fully understand. Or perhaps its because there is so much promise of hope in it that gets my mind off of the here and now. 

The thin figure caught my eye as the team and I gathered back together from evangelizing on the pier in El Salvador. I didn't know if it was a he or she, but this person walked in a rather strange way. He wore tights and a green trench coat. His hair went to his shoulders, and he wore a hat that seemed to fit his look. In his hand he held a blonde doll.  The people I was with also noticed him, and we all watched as he walked by. Suddenly, he turned and saw us watching. "Don't make eye contact," someone warned us. He took a few steps toward us. In his eyes, evil danced, a grin spread across his face that seemed to say, "I see you watching..."

The day had been a long one. I had taught all morning, then rushed to a cleaning job, then ran an errand for a ministry at our church. I was so tired that on the way back from the errand, I missed my turn and found that out of habit, I was headed towards the store closest to our house. Oops! I thought to myself, I missed my turn... Oh well... I decided that I would go ahead and go all the way there and do some shopping for my upcoming trip. I walked in to the store, realizing just how messy I must've looked... 

Every person has a past... Some not as pleasant as others, but all with torn up dreams; sudden and unwanted twists to their stories that have an effect on them they never wanted. In the short life I've lived so far, much has taken place already that I didn't see coming. And when it did, confusion clouded the pathway, and my dreams became a blur. Wounds that went so deep, I never thought I'd be whole again.

Nothing.  That's all it was. But soon that nothingness was radically changed, simply by a command.  "Let there be light," and there was light. Within six days, nothing became something. Something incredible. Sky, earth, stars, sea, animals, fish, insects, plants... and best of all, humans. Made in the image and likeness of their Maker. He looked over His creation, pleased. "It is good."

"And now abides faith, hope, love; these three; but the greatest of these is love. "                   - 1 Corinthians 13: 13 A question gnawed at my mind as I considered the sentence above. Why would love be more important than faith and hope? The world is filled with unfair circumstances. Life seems to always be getting messed up. You'd think maybe hope would be most needed. And what about faith? Isn't that the key to pleasing God? Wouldn't faith be most important, because faith pleases God? Didn't He create us for His glory? (Hebrews 11:6) But, no... the verse clearly said, "...the greatest of these is love." It is amazing how when you go to the bible with a need for one thing, if you truly are searching, God will show you something better than what you were looking for. I had been searching for hope. I was getting to a place where I wondered if there was any. As I searched for verses on hope, I realized that God is the God of hop...

Recently, I went through a very painful experience. The death of a dream I had thought was coming true. The loss of something I thought I had gained permanently. Never had I experienced something so difficult before. Never had I guessed that this was going to happen to me. ...But it did. And it hurt. I praise God for His healing power at work in me... As I write, I write not only to you, but to myself as one who is learning on this journey too.  This morning, as I was reading in the Psalms, I came across a Psalm that hadn't stood out to me in this way before. As I read, I realized that I was looking at me in the mirror of God's word.

Does surrender save you? I realize that question might have startled you, because it's rather upfront and to the point. Recently I had the privilege of spending time with someone who was struggling with this question.  She had prayed to receive Christ rather recently. In the time since she'd done that, she had heard the phrase, "surrender your life to Christ" in reference to salvation.  "I don't know if I'm going to heaven," she said to me with a look of fear on her face, "because I don't know that I've given Jesus everything." 

"Oh God, do you even love me?" The question escaped my lips before I could even begin to think how "unchristian" it was. The darkness seemed to envelop my vision and I could not see the One I was speaking to... was He even there? How could He be when I felt so far from Him?  ...No, He couldn't be. Desperately, I looked around me, looking for solace, but the wind kept blowing, the waves kept beating against me, threatening to knock me down.  "What is He doing?" I asked myself. 

Uncertainty hangs thickly in the air. Perhaps it's uncertainty of the future, perhaps it's uncertainty about something going on right now. Maybe life isn't as promising as it used to be. The once young, ambitious Christian who has now gotten older in years has become  cautious  and unwilling to step out onto the wings of faith in the midst of a storm. That uncertainty is often so thick that one can't see through it. Threatening voices whisper, "It won't be ok! Everything is going to fall apart!" And the eyes of the Christian dart every which way, looking at his storms, gripped by one very powerful vice of the enemy ...that being fear.

"For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities..." (Heb. 4:15) When I do not understand myself, Jesus  still  understands me.

"Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before His eyes, and He is the One to whom we are accountable." -Hebrews 4:13 Think about it. You are always before His eyes. He searches and knows you. There are are many things you may be able to hide from others, but there is nothing you can hide from Him. He's seen you at your worst.

"Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." I have been studying this passage for the past week or so, and one thing that I didn't notice at first glance completely changed my perspective on the verse when I finally saw it. It is found in a phrase that occurs twice: "Whosoever will." Both times, "whosoever will" in the Greek means, whoever wants to  or purposes to.  It's not enough!  "Whosoever will come after me..." In our American church, it's easy to become introspective and look for a  desire in yourself to come after Jesus. You might be asked, "do you want  to live for Jesus?" and you say "Yes." Somehow that answer is enough, and we need not worry further as to our spiritual state.

Today, I want to talk about death...  Many of you read that, and whoever was sitting nearest you heard a sharp intake of breath.  No, I am not talking about physical death.  I'm talking about a different kind of death. I alluded to it in my last post, but I must talk more specifically about it, since I myself have been meditating on it more in depth, and praying about it, and seeking to apply it to my own life over the past week. 

It's the new year... It's the time when everyone thinks through what they want to change about their lives, and then set goals for the upcoming year that should spur that change on. It's called a New Years Resolution. It seems many set them, and then forget them. Is that what you do too? Yesterday, which was the very first day of 2014, I sat on the front porch pondering last year, talking with God about what kind of year I wanted this one to be.