Keeping that in mind, Paul tells us all to run as if to win the race (1 Corinthians 9:24). As believers, we have the power of Christ fueling and supporting us. And because of that fact we often expect to look like champion marathoners in this undertaking – really good, really impressive. We imagine ourselves running swiftly, steadily on a straight dirt path as the sun rises behind us, with a gentle wind conveniently nudging us forward. But this couldn’t be further from our reality! Instead of running like winners towards God, we often find ourselves stumbling forward blindly. Sometimes, we have no idea what we’re doing or what our pace is supposed to be. Our feet will snag at obstacles in the road and we can be in danger of falling off the track completely.

I think it’s fair to say that none of us have it all together – that level of perfection simply isn’t in our nature. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like we are falling short of the glory of God so much as we are just flailing around helplessly. When it comes to living the life that the Lord planned for us, we feel as though everyone else knows what’s going on except us. We can begin to believe that we don’t have what it takes to be a follower of Jesus. I remember thinking not too long after I had come to Christ: I really suck at this. Am I going to be a bad Christian forever?

I think the short answer is: Yes. When we recognize Jesus Christ as the only expert, we will realize that even the best we can offer is not so great. The best we have is still so far from perfection. No believer will ever “arrive” at the apex of discipleship and servanthood; only Jesus arrived. Only Jesus had it together.

The beauty of the Gospel is this: We do not have to be Jesus. But we do have to be His followers.

We are rookies, amateurs, goof-ups, and beginners. We are immature and inexperienced. None of these are words I would choose to describe the type of person I aspire to be. There is nothing appealing about being a rookie. But there is something appealing in knowing that God looked upon us in all our rookie-ness and still saw something worth loving. We were totally ineligible to run this race at all, yet Jesus made us eligible. The cross has qualified us.

God loves those who stumble toward Him. We can love him, imperfect as we are, because he loved us first. We are sinful, selfish, and flawed – yet deeply loved and always accepted no matter how far we fall from Christ. We do not have to get over our weaknesses; we only have to admit them (boast in them!) and allow Jesus to redeem them with the cross.

When we realize that we bring nothing to our relationship with God except a broken heart and contrite spirit, then we can experience God’s grace to be sufficient, and His love to be unfailing. He proved both by choosing to die for us when we were in our worst (but also our truest) condition—while we were sinners. And actually, we still are sinners, last time I checked.

We should be grateful that God never asks us to “get it together.” He only asks us to admit our need for the One who did – and allow Him to represent and change us.

Credit. Good one.

But what I always try to do is go to the first class of the semester. Sometimes, you get professors that give little soapboxes. At first, they’re talking about the purpose of the course. But then they start talk about the eternal significance of the subject matter, and a few of them even go ranting on about the meaning of life. Sometimes, the only significant thing I take away from a course at the end of the semester is that random rant in that first lecture.

During my first class of this semester, my professor was talking about our potential post-graduation plans, and he was recommending that we go to law school after getting our engineering degree. He says he works with some lawyers in California that help save the environment, and they do fascinating things. For one, the Mekong River runs through six countries in Southeast Asia, and some countries want to build reservoirs with it, but that will cause ecology issues in other countries. So they’re trying to rake up a compromise, and they have lawyers who are also engineers working on the issue.

And he went on trying to persuade us into actually going into law, talking about the money we’ll have and the cars we’ll drive and the vacations we’ll take. And then he said his climax, “And after all of that, you’ll go on quite an ego trip.”

And that was it.

I mean, he said it half-jokingly, but there was a hefty truth in the matter. Many of the students wouldn’t say it out loud, but they were probably doing what they’re doing so that they could feel better about themselves. All of life was dedicated to creating this ego trip.

Really?

We work our brains out and invest all of the time and money we can afford, just so, fifty years down the road, we can have an ego trip? Or is there something better?

Let’s see what Christianity has to offer.

God has given you life. God has given you gifts and talents. God has laid out a sovereign, foolproof plan for you, and He laid down the life of his Son to make sure you have it. And this plan for your life is not to bring you warm feelings or trinkets. This plan is to know God eternally, to experience who He is and to respond accordingly in absolute worship and absolute mission.

Working for an ego trip is a lost cause, because the purpose of life isn’t the exaltation of mankind. It is the exaltation of God.

It will be hard. You might not get nice cars or vacations. But what you allow God to do through you will echo into eternity. And that’s a ride worth giving this semester for.

- Larry

Has this ever happened to you? You head out to church on Sunday. You’re reluctant and tired, but decide you’re going to try to get the most out of the sermon that you can while you’re there. So you listen to the pastor as he tries to persuade you why Christianity is such a good idea. Kind of like a first date where the guy flashes his best smile and gentlemanly door-opening behavior, or a big job interview where you flex your credentials. Every sermon wants to make an impressive, convincing case for God.

Exhibit A: Jesus gives you a purpose for your life. You want purpose, don’t you? You are dead in your sin. You’d like to be alive, right? God promises to change you, wash you of all your iniquities. He alone can make all things new. How about a new you? Jesus can give you all the approval, validation, and affirmation you so desperately want so that you don’t seek it elsewhere. You’ll have the capacity to love others selflessly, endure trial and weakness, and be a well-adjusted, healthy individual despite all your shortcomings.

We can try to sell our faith by saying what it can do for us and how anything else for our lives is clearly inferior. Then we can dress all of it up as Gospel-driven theological implications. Sermons can be powerful marketing campaigns for the psychological, emotional, social advantages of being a Christian. Christ, after all, can overcome any addiction, affliction, obstacle, and anxiety. But really: why are we trying so hard to brand Christianity for our consumer culture as if it’s simply a really good working model for living? If I have to convince you that God is practical in your everyday life, then am I really setting out to share the Gospel? What separates that from any self-help religion of another origin? At that point it’s only Good Advice, not Good News.

Of course there are practical lessons to be gained from the Bible. We glean purpose, responsibility, purity, therapy from its pages. Here is what’s good. Here is what’s bad. Here is peace and patience and loving your neighbor. Here is why Christianity is attractive. And yet… All of this dances recklessly around Jesus. His mission. His reason for being here. Salvation is not merely what we are saved from. Yes, we are saved from Hell, from sin, from the world – and even ourselves. But we are also saved for an intimacy with Jesus Christ. Salvation means we get all of God.

Shouldn’t this be more than enough for us? It’s a great thing to explain all the blessings and benefits of knowing God, but in the end the point of this - all of this - is just to be with Him. The reason I follow Jesus is not so I can be a happier and smarter and nicer person, but because following Jesus means I get Jesus. Obeying God’s law, while good in itself — I didn’t lie today, I didn’t cheat or steal, so that’s a plus — is a no-brainer. No one who obeys God is actually drawn to Him because He has a good set of values to compete with every other religious agenda on the planet. I obey God because He is God. I love God because He is God. Do I need a better reason than this? I don’t think so – unless I’m not actually talking about God here, unless I’m tragically misguided because He doesn’t actually exist.

So can we just step back and look at this for a second? God wants to be with us. He came down from heaven to earth to hang out with us, even though we were clearly pretty messed up. The Creator and Provider of the universe, the Alpha and Omega, the One who sustains our molecules so I can write this and you can read this, says He loves you and me – personally, eternally. He lived and then died on a cross with all our sins, and then rose from death. From death, okay – like He was in a tomb. Then He flew back to Heaven. And He’s coming back someday with a sword in His mouth and His body in flames.

We don’t pause at that to say, “Well… what can I get out of this?” Sure, we can always look at God and draw useful lessons and benefits from Scripture. But on the flipside – we can also look at God and simply revel in His presence… let His grace and mercy wash over us… accept the love He’s offered through the sacrifice of His Son. What is more likely to transform us?

I found this cute video about the Christmas Story a.k.a. the awesome story leading up to the birth of Jesus, and wanted to share it with you all. It’s embed below, and here’s a link too if you need it.  To entice you, it features cute little kids with awesome New Zealand accents! Hope you all enjoy it!

Merry Christmas!

I shook the mouse a bit to bring my Microsoft Word and Excel back, but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. The computer had restarted. Wonderful. For those of you who don’t know, these computers have this nifty feature in which they automatically restart after half an hour of inactivity. And they erase everything on them too. So, I ended up spending the rest of the night in Upson making up for my lost work. I felt a bit like I had wasted half my night.

You know, I bet the disciples felt a bit like that. They invested three years into this dude named Jesus, following him around, sleeping in random homes, always on the move. And then one day, Jesus leads them all into a garden, where they fall asleep praying. When they wake up, they find out that there are all these soldiers surrounding them. These soldiers arrest Jesus, and within 24 hours, he was dead.

I can just imagine what some of them were thinking. What in the world happened? Why couldn’t I have stayed awake? And did I just waste three years of my life? What was the purpose of that?

But here’s the thing. God never wastes time. There will be days when it seems like our invested time and effort come up empty, but God always has a purpose for everything. And God never wastes our failures. There will be days when it seems like our failures have caused our situations to be irredeemable, but God is greater than our failures. He always uses our failures to bring about glory in the end.

In spite of their failures, God showed the disciples His might by raising Jesus from the dead, pouring out his Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and starting a church that would change the course of history.

I’m looking forward to the day when I finally arrive at eternity’s shore, God will be able to roll my life out like a scroll, and He’ll explain to me the reasons for everything. But until then, we just got to bank on God’s track record. God took the greatest letdown in history and turned it into the ultimate redemption of mankind. And he can do the same with our day-to-day mistakes.

I decided a couple of weeks ago to survey the New Testament in search of Biblical precedent for this endeavor.  I took a couple of hours skimming and reading through the Bible looking for examples of people telling their friends and kinsman about Jesus.   I asked the question: Is it Biblical to tell your friends and family about Jesus?  Here’s what I found.

Andrew finds Jesus and tells his brother Peter about Jesus.  John 1:40-42

Philip invites his friend Nathanael to follow Jesus.  John 1:43-45

The Samaritan woman proclaims Jesus and introduces him to her whole village.  John 4:28-30; 39-42

The blind man who is healed testifies about Jesus to his neighbors. John 9:8-12

Matthew hosts a dinner party to introduce Jesus to his (sinful) friends.  Matthew 9:9-11, Mark 2:13-15

The demon possessed guy from the Gerasenes tells his whole town how much Jesus had done for him.  Luke 8:38,39

Eunice and her mother Lois tell her son Timothy about Jesus.  2 Tim 1:5

While confined in prison, Paul tells his prison guards -the whole imperial guard about Christ. Phil 1:13

We see the Spirit working to transform whole households and groups of people.

The household of the royal official from Capernaum believes when Jesus heals his son.  John 4:53

Cornelius’ whole household is saved when Peter visits. Acts 10: 44-48; 11:14

Lydia hears the Gospel from Paul and her household gets saved.  Acts 16:14-15

Paul and Silas witness to the Philippian Jailer and his whole family believes in God and are saved.  Acts 16:29-34

Certainly there were many more examples just like these!

Sometimes people talk about sharing the Gospel in the context of relationships like it’s something “new” and “post-modern” but it looks pretty old school to me!

Meditating on these accounts was inspiring as I marveled at God’s saving work.  But it was also instructive and convicting.  See, these guys (and girls) didn’t go out and witness to their friends, neighbors and relatives because they’d read in some book that that was an effective or contemporary or “culturally relevant” way to fulfill the great commission.  They did this because they couldn’t help it!  Upon meeting Jesus and being truly transformed by him, they simply had to talk about it, they had to share what had happened to them, they had to proclaim the Gospel!   Having experienced the life-changing freedom found only in Christ they couldn’t not talk about the Glory of God to those around them!   They couldn’t imagine interacting with their close friends and families and not telling them about Jesus.  Wow.

For some, sharing with friends and family seems easy, but it’s often said that it’s hardest to share the Gospel with close friends and family.  I can relate with that, but these scriptural examples are different.  Why is that?  Biblically, it would seem sharing with those we are close to would be the most natural!  Why isn’t that always the case?

I think that we often put the approval and affection of our friends and family members above our love and passion for Christ.  That’s sinful.  That’s idolatry.  We need to repent and ask God to fill us with passion and fervor for His name and put His reputation and glory above ours!   Evangelism is really supposed to be an overflow.  It’s more than a duty or a task, it’s designed to be a privilege and a joy!  But it can only be that if we are experiencing Christ in an authentic way.

Perhaps we aren’t sharing like the guys in the Bible because we aren’t being transformed like the guys in the Bible, we aren’t being inspired like the guys in the Bible, we don’t really love Jesus like the guys in the Bible.  Our families and close friends would be the ones who’d see this most clearly, so that could be why it’s so hard to share with them.  (If you are saying you think Jesus is amazing, but living like He’s not, those close to you would know that.  Right?  If you are saying Jesus gives peace, but you don’t actually have any peace, your family can see that.  If you say Jesus forgives your sin, but you act like you don’t sin, your friends are most aware of that.)

Pray for faith and gospel transformation.  Ask God to fill you and change you and strengthen you so you can share with those you love!   Don’t fake it!  Your friends always know when you’re being fake!  Be real; you aren’t perfect, Jesus is!  Love Jesus and ask Him to give you His perfect strength to help you introduce Him to your friends.  It’s Biblical :)

The Sound System Is Not That Big Of A Deal. Yes, the sound system is important. It lets the praise team play music in such a way we would never have the ability to without it; it allows us to play music really loud; it allows us to play music through an iPod, laptop, etc. But if you ask the question “what would we do without a sound system?”, it’s really simple: people would sing. We would choose songs, and we would display lyrics, and everyone would simply sing the songs. No guitar, no keys, no microphones, nothing. And it would be great, and it would be powerful, and it would be moving. This leads me to the fact that God cannot be limited by a sound system. He gave us voices to praise him, and if we had no sound system, it would not limit our ability to worship, not one bit.

God Works In More Ways Than We See. In the ministry that I do, God works miracles; however, I am one of the few people who see them. Earlier in the semester, in September I think, we did Real Life in the RPCC auditorium. It was the worst day for sound, EVER. Basically, the electricity in RPCC makes everything sound bad. That night, the keys were muted, and the bass was almost muted. We only had guitar and drums and microphones on. Because of the room, the keys and bass sounded horrendous (which is why they were muted). But, we got through Real Life okay. Then we had another Real Life in RPCC in October, much to my dismay. However, to my surprise, everything sounded perfect. Keys, guitar, bass, microphones, everything sounded perfect! This should never have happened, it should have been impossible. SHOULD. I just want to illustrate that God works in so many ways, even if he doesn’t show us every little thing he does, it doesn’t mean he’s just standing by.

Pray About EVERYTHING, Even The Things You’re Good At. The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing. Do it. I think many of us pray about some things and don’t pray about others. Perhaps we pray about things we’re bad at and not about the things we’re good at. That’s what I do. For a long time, I thought that I was good at sound. So I did not pray about it, because I felt there was no need. When I first started running sound, I did not pray before I began setup. Now I do. The result is an amazing blessing. Setup goes more smoothly than ever before, fewer things go wrong during Real Life, more people help pack up the equipment when Real Life is over. I owe it to God. We need to give God credit where credit is due. By not praying for the things you are good at, you are ignoring the fact that HE blessed you with what you are good at, you did not draw it out of a hat. It might sound weird, but it is worth praying for success on homework, or for a good workout, or for an exciting class.

What does this mean for us, as ambassadors for Christ? 

For one, we need to be constantly aware of how we’re portraying ourselves.  In the midst of one of my random bursts of intellectual curiosity, I stumbled upon some fascinating research regarding memory.  The findings of the study show that people are far more likely to remember how someone made them feel, as opposed to what that same someone said or did.

If you think back on your elementary school years this makes sense:  you might not remember all the assignments and activities Ms. Smith employed in your 3^rd grade classroom, but you likely remember if she was “nice” or “mean.”

So in light of these findings, we should make an ever-conscious effort to show Christ’s love to everyone, not just speak of what He has done (in an extreme example, the Crusades did the latter…. and we all know how history has treated those events).

Second, for a substantial portion of friends we make and people we meet, we are faced with a challenge to re-define their impressions of who Jesus is.  Nearly three-quarters of Americans are at least nominally Christian, and essentially everyone who lives in the U.S. (and even in Europe) knows about the Christian God.  Unlike the founders of the Christian church, we are no longer spreading novel news.

Then, news of the Messiah was revolutionary. Now, talk of Jesus is cliché.

Everyone already has his/her opinion on Christianity.  It’s the equivalent of introducing ourselves to someone at a dinner party who has already looked up our biography before shaking our hand.  Needless to say, we face a tough crowd.

So let’s take on this challenge just as we’ve faced numerous others:  head-on.  I am praying continually for God to bring light to my flaws and shortcomings (which are many).  If God made each one of us 1/100^th as loving as His son, I have no doubt that the first impressions we’d leave would be ones that would glorify Him and further His kingdom.  Imagine a world where people saw all Christians as loving… pretty hard right?  But nothing is impossible for Him.

So lately, I’ve been convicted about the topic of spending time in the word and in prayer through my conversations with Christians on campus, with both leaders and non leaders. Especially in myself, I know that there is a major difference when a Christian is plugging in everyday with Jesus or not. It’s not that Christians don’t know that they have to be spending time in the word and in prayer everyday, it’s just that we sometimes forget. It just happens. This is a plea for you to run back to the Lord through making time to read His Word and spending time connecting to the Lord through Prayer. If you’re already doing this, then ask for the Lord to make this a bigger part of your life. In this post, I’ll be going through some passages to show us how these two essentials of the Christian life go together. I’ll also be posting some questions for you to think about as I go through this.

Why is it good and necessary to read the word and to pray every day?

A lot of times people will talk about how they wish that God just talked to them and told them what to do. I read in an article that if a group were to organize an event and put posters all over campus advertising that GOD was going to speak for 3 hours, that event would be packed! Yet we forget that God has spoken to us, both directly and indirectly through the Bible, his 66 book letter to us. I don’t know about you, but that’s a good amount of stuff he wanted to tell us. This is the word of God that we’re talking about here! God had people write down all these things for us to read for our benefit and we often forget that.

2 Timothy 3:16–17 

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Ephesians 6: 17-18

and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,

In this verse in the letter that Paul wrote to the Ephesians, the context is that Paul is reiterating to the Ephesians that life is not all that it seems. There is a very real spiritual warfare going on and you need to put on the armor of God and equip yourself in order to survive. Paul does not tell them to put on the underwear of truth or the t-shirt of righteousness, but he tells them to put on armor such as breastplates and helmets. This is a battle and you need to be protected against your enemy. You need to protect yourself with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. If all you have is armor, you’re just waiting to be hacked away by the enemy. Armor is only for defense and can only do so much, but with a sword you can truly defend yourself and not be a sitting duck. We also see there that we are to be praying at all times in the Spirit. To be praying all times is a pretty specific command. We need to be developing a lifestyle of prayer, not a ten minute time frame in our day. So as Paul explains it, the word of God and prayer are pretty big essentials in the Christians’ life just to continue to survive. Let’s continue to look at the lifestyles of the early believers in the book of Acts.

Acts 2:42

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Acts 6:4

But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

In these two verses, one describing what the early believers devoted themselves to and in the other what they themselves proclaimed to devote themselves to, we see that they devoted themselves to the word and to prayer. I do believe that devoted in a key word in these two verses. It shows us that the early believers believed these two things to be important and so much so that they set aside time to spend in these activities. It wasn’t that it was just something to add onto their day, but it was a core necessity to their day. Do you devote yourself to the word and to prayer?

How does Word and Pray go together to be used in mission?

I’m going to try my best to expand a bit on this topic of what it means for us as believers to be “Fully Loved” and “Fully Accepted.” I say this because I didn’t exactly do a good job of taking notes during the sermon over the retreat but I have done a good amount of thinking on this topic on my own. Let’s start out with some verses and work from there.

For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.
- Romans 3:22b-25a