There's this funny thing about identity. You will always have one, but you may never know what it is, how you got it, or how you could get rid of it if you didn't like it. On Wednesday night, Chase talked about using God's Word as a mirror into you life. Specifically, he told you to "...pick up your Bible, pick up a mirror." Well, they're the same thing. In the Revealed series so far, we've imparted on you the importance of viewing the Bible as more than just a group of bedtime stories, but a living and breathing entity that has been at work throughout history and has the power to change your future. We want you to feel a closeness with Scripture; we want you to trust it and trust the God who spoke it. And we want for you to need it so desperately that you hide it deep within your heart so that you may be pure (Psalm 119:9).
Your life is a continuation of God's story, the Bible, and you are therefore given identity through every word written in it. If your life is so intricately intertwined with God's story, then how can you live, how can you act, how can you even breathe without it? Your Bible isn't just a book, it's your story, it's your identity. Chase talked about getting over yourself; stop preparing to act and get going! The Word empowers you to go forth in God's Spirit to change people and situations around you. Now that you know, you have no excuse.
Next week we're taking a break to fellowship at the Summerfest concert. The following weeks we'll be approaching the messages that God has for you as young men and women living in this world. We love you, and we don't want you to miss those lessons!
Friday, July 24, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Like Water From Stone
When Bill told the story on Sunday of Moses striking a rock in order to provide water for the Israelites (Numbers 20), my mind started reeling. What could this mean for us?
God promised the Israelites sustenance, and while Moses knew God would provide, he wasn't confident in the passive way God wanted to give them what they needed. Instead, Moses decided to take matters into his own hands. Ultimately God's plan was carried out, but He had to break through Moses' stubbornness when Moses tried to break through that stone. God could have easily backed down on His promise because Moses disobeyed, but instead God chose to bless the Israelites in spite of that.
God promises to take care of us, and while we often trust that God will give us what we need, we doubt how or when. When we try and take back control, we disobey the Man with the plan. We are naturally stubborn and broken people, just like Moses, but God can work through those imperfections to bless us anyway. When we allow God to break us and pour out from us, then we can give God's love to the world. God pulls Living Water from our hearts of stone.
What could God strike us with? Family problems, financial problems, issues with school, relationship troubles, the list goes on. There are multiple factions God could use in your life to let loose the Spirit through you. God not only breaks us with trials, but our hearts could be transformed and God reflected through positive events like a college decision or dedicating your life to ministry. We admit that we are hard people; our hearts are rock solid and prone to resisting God. Unfortunately, we also learn from Numbers 20 that God can and will punish those who disobey Him (see verse 12). So we're left with a choice, a constant struggle between our bent human nature and our desire to let God work.
If we know that God's plan for us is better than what we can do ourselves, why do we doubt Him? What are the dangers of resisting God? Can you think of a time when God broke through your stubborn heart to carry out His ultimate plan?
God promised the Israelites sustenance, and while Moses knew God would provide, he wasn't confident in the passive way God wanted to give them what they needed. Instead, Moses decided to take matters into his own hands. Ultimately God's plan was carried out, but He had to break through Moses' stubbornness when Moses tried to break through that stone. God could have easily backed down on His promise because Moses disobeyed, but instead God chose to bless the Israelites in spite of that.
God promises to take care of us, and while we often trust that God will give us what we need, we doubt how or when. When we try and take back control, we disobey the Man with the plan. We are naturally stubborn and broken people, just like Moses, but God can work through those imperfections to bless us anyway. When we allow God to break us and pour out from us, then we can give God's love to the world. God pulls Living Water from our hearts of stone.
What could God strike us with? Family problems, financial problems, issues with school, relationship troubles, the list goes on. There are multiple factions God could use in your life to let loose the Spirit through you. God not only breaks us with trials, but our hearts could be transformed and God reflected through positive events like a college decision or dedicating your life to ministry. We admit that we are hard people; our hearts are rock solid and prone to resisting God. Unfortunately, we also learn from Numbers 20 that God can and will punish those who disobey Him (see verse 12). So we're left with a choice, a constant struggle between our bent human nature and our desire to let God work.
If we know that God's plan for us is better than what we can do ourselves, why do we doubt Him? What are the dangers of resisting God? Can you think of a time when God broke through your stubborn heart to carry out His ultimate plan?
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Are You Making God a Bad Habit?
Last night Jon read a quote from David Crowder’s Praise Habit. Allow me to remind you of part of it:
“Countless times I have tried to develop a habit of a ‘quiet time.’ Sometimes it would stick. Sometimes it would not. Guilt would be thick when it would not. But for a long time it became what I did first thing everyday. It was beauty. The internal joy it brought was overwhelming. Then at some point it went hollow. It’s not that it was a bad idea to form a habit of quiet time, but the habit had slyly begun to suck the life out of my relationship with God. I had fallen in love with my spirituality rather than with the one whom I sought, and in the end it left me void and wanting.”
For so long you’ve heard your Sunday school teachers, Jon and Shawn, your small group leaders, your parents, and so many others encourage you to study Scripture, to memorize verses, to dig into the Word. So now we tell you that habits can suck the, well, life out of your spiritual life? How does that make any sense?
The problem with making worship (because that’s ultimately what studying the Bible is) routine is that routines get too comfortable. Some people love routine; it’s predictable and easy and requires no consideration. So if we make God’s Word routine, we’re making God routine. We’re making God predictable and easy and requiring no consideration. Oops. I hate to break it to ya, but God is not predictable, not easy, and He certainly requires all the consideration we can muster.
It’s such a difficult thing to not let your relationship with God become a casualty of routine. But here’s the thing: God is much too big to fix into the box of habit. Intention is absolutely necessary for cultivating a deeper relationship with God, but if intention is all we have, we don’t follow through on making it actually happen.
We are called to cut the cord. Let loose. Pursue God ceaselessly. Don’t make studying the Bible routine; dive in! If we choose to love God as much as we are able, then we can live according to God’s Word. Like Jon said last night, you must seek God with all your heart, you must let God’s Word live inside you, and then you will not be able to keep from praising Him. And with that kind of passion pouring out of you, you will never be satisfied with a routine.
Do you border of making God a habit? What are some ways you keep that from happening? What would happen if we were successful in dedicating our lives in devotion to God’s Word?
“Countless times I have tried to develop a habit of a ‘quiet time.’ Sometimes it would stick. Sometimes it would not. Guilt would be thick when it would not. But for a long time it became what I did first thing everyday. It was beauty. The internal joy it brought was overwhelming. Then at some point it went hollow. It’s not that it was a bad idea to form a habit of quiet time, but the habit had slyly begun to suck the life out of my relationship with God. I had fallen in love with my spirituality rather than with the one whom I sought, and in the end it left me void and wanting.”
For so long you’ve heard your Sunday school teachers, Jon and Shawn, your small group leaders, your parents, and so many others encourage you to study Scripture, to memorize verses, to dig into the Word. So now we tell you that habits can suck the, well, life out of your spiritual life? How does that make any sense?
The problem with making worship (because that’s ultimately what studying the Bible is) routine is that routines get too comfortable. Some people love routine; it’s predictable and easy and requires no consideration. So if we make God’s Word routine, we’re making God routine. We’re making God predictable and easy and requiring no consideration. Oops. I hate to break it to ya, but God is not predictable, not easy, and He certainly requires all the consideration we can muster.
It’s such a difficult thing to not let your relationship with God become a casualty of routine. But here’s the thing: God is much too big to fix into the box of habit. Intention is absolutely necessary for cultivating a deeper relationship with God, but if intention is all we have, we don’t follow through on making it actually happen.
We are called to cut the cord. Let loose. Pursue God ceaselessly. Don’t make studying the Bible routine; dive in! If we choose to love God as much as we are able, then we can live according to God’s Word. Like Jon said last night, you must seek God with all your heart, you must let God’s Word live inside you, and then you will not be able to keep from praising Him. And with that kind of passion pouring out of you, you will never be satisfied with a routine.
Do you border of making God a habit? What are some ways you keep that from happening? What would happen if we were successful in dedicating our lives in devotion to God’s Word?
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
To hear silence
Sometimes it’s interesting how God pulls together a whole bunch of tiny details that culminate into something like this. Chase mentioned below that we really want to use the blog to expand on Wednesday night lessons, but if it’s okay with you all, I’d like to throw in my two cents about the high school lesson Sunday because it tied in with the girls’ Bible study topic from last week. If you’re a middle school boy, and you have no idea what I mean… you’ll get over it. :)
On Sunday, Chase talked about how silence is a part of authentic worship. And he showed Rob Bell’s Nooma video “Noise.” I’ve seen that video countless times, and I always find something new to consider. For instance, I wonder how do deaf people experience God? If we can know God so intimately through silence, why aren’t all deaf people on fire for Jesus? I had a friend in college who had degenerative hearing loss, meaning she will eventually lose her sense of hearing. For a time, I was impressed with her close relationship with God; it seemed that she really did hear Him more clearly. But as time passed, she veered away, just like anyone else might. So maybe you can hear the call of the world even if you can’t hear your telephone ring.
I guess sometimes it isn’t about what sounds reach our ears, but rather what we choose to listen to. And beyond that, how we choose to react to what we hear.
In Genesis 19, God sends messengers to Lot and his family to tell them He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot’s wife was absolutely silent in this story; we don’t see a single word that she spoke. She understood the value of being silent sometimes. In her silence, she could clearly hear the warnings of the angels, but she didn’t really listen. She decided to disobey their instructions and she looked back at her old home while fleeing, and God turned her into a big ol’ salt lick. Nice. She heard, but she didn’t listen.
“Why is it easier to surround myself with noise and keep moving?” asks Rob Bell.
Psalm 46:10a says “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Lamentations 3:26 says “It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”
Jesus calmed the raging storm. He kept quiet when accusations were thrown at him before he was crucified.
In silence we find God. And in God we find freedom. Why is it so easy to throw ourselves into the noise of the world? Because we are bound by fear… the fear of what freedom in Christ really could mean. All God wants is for us to love Him back, and in doing so, we have the capacity to rock this noisy world around us with the sounds of God—the sounds of joy, of compassion, of devotion. While noise doesn’t always drive us to distraction (you can hear God in music or someone speaking or even in unexpected places [also, see the YouTube video below]), God whispers most intently when we choose to quietly contemplate Him. If we take our ears out of the world and choose to listen to God as He speaks to our hearts, what would we hear?
Do you think it’s possible to have a heart of reverent silence in a world of chaos?
Turn your ear to heaven and hear...
On Sunday, Chase talked about how silence is a part of authentic worship. And he showed Rob Bell’s Nooma video “Noise.” I’ve seen that video countless times, and I always find something new to consider. For instance, I wonder how do deaf people experience God? If we can know God so intimately through silence, why aren’t all deaf people on fire for Jesus? I had a friend in college who had degenerative hearing loss, meaning she will eventually lose her sense of hearing. For a time, I was impressed with her close relationship with God; it seemed that she really did hear Him more clearly. But as time passed, she veered away, just like anyone else might. So maybe you can hear the call of the world even if you can’t hear your telephone ring.
I guess sometimes it isn’t about what sounds reach our ears, but rather what we choose to listen to. And beyond that, how we choose to react to what we hear.
In Genesis 19, God sends messengers to Lot and his family to tell them He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot’s wife was absolutely silent in this story; we don’t see a single word that she spoke. She understood the value of being silent sometimes. In her silence, she could clearly hear the warnings of the angels, but she didn’t really listen. She decided to disobey their instructions and she looked back at her old home while fleeing, and God turned her into a big ol’ salt lick. Nice. She heard, but she didn’t listen.
“Why is it easier to surround myself with noise and keep moving?” asks Rob Bell.
Psalm 46:10a says “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Lamentations 3:26 says “It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”
Jesus calmed the raging storm. He kept quiet when accusations were thrown at him before he was crucified.
In silence we find God. And in God we find freedom. Why is it so easy to throw ourselves into the noise of the world? Because we are bound by fear… the fear of what freedom in Christ really could mean. All God wants is for us to love Him back, and in doing so, we have the capacity to rock this noisy world around us with the sounds of God—the sounds of joy, of compassion, of devotion. While noise doesn’t always drive us to distraction (you can hear God in music or someone speaking or even in unexpected places [also, see the YouTube video below]), God whispers most intently when we choose to quietly contemplate Him. If we take our ears out of the world and choose to listen to God as He speaks to our hearts, what would we hear?
Do you think it’s possible to have a heart of reverent silence in a world of chaos?
Turn your ear to heaven and hear...
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Wednesday Nights!!!!
Hey guys it's Chase, one of your favorite interns...... At least I hope. I wanted to let you guys know that we really really really!!!!!!!! Want you guys here on Wednesday nights. We are diving deep into the importance of reading the Bible. Yes, they are stories, yes you have heard these stories before, but most who read don't know how to interpret the significance of these stories. We love you guys and truly believe that a solid correct biblical foundation will help you grow spiritually as well as your relationship with Christ.
Those of you who came last week learned from Katie that we are diving in head first this summer. We are skipping the bells and whistles and jumping into the Bible with the pure intention of learning how to interpret it.
All of us, Jon, Shawn, Katie, and myself, are really excited about this series and know that if you guys invest time into it you will gain so much.
There will be a new blog post each Thursday by either Katie or myself basically talking about the message the night previous and exploring different questions that you as students might have. We encourage you to contact us via email, facebook, phonecalls, and office visits to dive a little deeper. We are here for you guys/gals so take advantage of it.
Looking forward to seeing you all tonight.
In Christ,
Chase
Those of you who came last week learned from Katie that we are diving in head first this summer. We are skipping the bells and whistles and jumping into the Bible with the pure intention of learning how to interpret it.
All of us, Jon, Shawn, Katie, and myself, are really excited about this series and know that if you guys invest time into it you will gain so much.
There will be a new blog post each Thursday by either Katie or myself basically talking about the message the night previous and exploring different questions that you as students might have. We encourage you to contact us via email, facebook, phonecalls, and office visits to dive a little deeper. We are here for you guys/gals so take advantage of it.
Looking forward to seeing you all tonight.
In Christ,
Chase
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