I'm back!

So - I am back in the country now.  Jamaica was great. I had the opportunity to share a little bit at church on Sunday after I got back. I shared with my pastor after the service that I really have a hard time with summing up things like that in a short period of time. It's hard for me to sum up the encouragement that God gave me from the trip. I would say more, but it's hard to sum up, especially in a written blog because I fear that will miss something. I would be more than happy to talk about it with anyone who would want to, so I'll leave it up to you if you wanna talk about it, get up with me somehow and we'll talk.

When I shared with my pastor my difficulty at summing things like this up I was reminded of the end of the book of John when he closes out his book.
    
     "Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." - John 21:25

How awesome is our Savior!? I will venture to say that more books have been written about (in some way, shape or form) the risen Christ than any other person in the rest of the world. I also believe that it will continue to be that way. The world CANNOT contain the greatness of my Savior. His beauty and goodness CANNOT be summed up in books. He is beyond words. I am so encouraged with the truth of the Gospel right now...I can only hope that you are as well. My prayer for those of you that read this will center everything in your lives around the truth of the Gospel and that Christ is risen indeed.

first timer!

So, tomorrow I board a plane (with intentions of it actually flying) for the first time.  I am going to Jamaica for a week with my church to serve down there. I'm super excited. I'm also really tired...and I have to wake up at 3:45 tomorrow morning. I just wanted to put this up on here so that those of you who do get a chance to read it can know what to be praying for. Above all else...praise God, because he WILL be glorified. God gets glory one way or another, so I know that that is going to happen. Pray for our strength and health as a team that we will be able to serve with strength that is directly from God. I also ask that you would pray for the relationships as well. I'm really excited because I don't really have much of anything beyond an acquaintance type relationship with most of the people going. Its really my hope that God will allow me to form some cool relationships with people in the church that are older and wiser than me. I also ask that you would pray for our safety. Not gonna lie...I will probably freak out about the plane thing in the morning...little too tired to right now (just finished packing). I have the privilege to be able to give a short devotion for my team while there...pray that God will settle my heart and give me wisdom. I am going to go to bed now. I hope to write when I get back, Lord willing. I love you all.

Be encouraged with this truth: THE GOSPEL! Dwell on the truth of the Gospel this week, you will be encouraged!

a tough pill to swallow

So - this thought has been on my mind a lot this week, Scripture is often a tough pill to swallow. What I mean by this is that it is tough for us to hear the things that it says, and naturally - it should be. We are fallen beings, when we encounter the truth of a HOLY God, it is not really easy for us to hear that we "have to splainin' to do".

What made me think about this was a song by Jon Foreman called "Instead Of A Show" (its a great song, go buy it on iTunes and listen to it). But what is even better than the song is the Scripture that it is based on. It's based on Amos 5:21-24, and it's intense (before you continue reading, I would suggest that you go read that now... http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Amos%205:21-24&version=ESV). I was listening to this song one day on my way to work and I honestly thought to myself, "i'll bet if someone played this song in a lot of churches, there would be a lot of really ticked people". It is so easy for us to get really offended or defensive when we are called out - because we don't want to be wrong. That particular passage is tough to swallow because it's telling these people that their "traditions" are NOT pleasing God. One word that really makes my stomach turn when it is used in relation to the church is "tradition". I'm NOT saying that traditions in churches are always bad, but if the reason for doing something one way or another is based on tradition then yes, I do have problems with that. I rather like some "traditions" because I love the meaning behind them. But do we sometimes frustrate the one true God that we claim to take joy in because we make worshipping and serving him a tradition rather than our reason for living?

Did you read that passage yet? It's a sobering passage isn't it? That's God speaking to his people, but honestly he could say that to a lot of us in the church nowadays couldn't he? I wonder, if we read the lyrics of that song in our communities, how many people would be offended? What if we read that passage?

Obsession

I'm studying through the book of Galatians right now and just yesterday I finished up the first chapter. The last few verses of chapter 1 Paul does a lot of talking about how he really is who he says he is (an apostle of Christ). I wasn't really concerned with the fact that he goes to great lengths to show that he was in fact an apostle. The reason for my lack of concern for that in particular is because there was necessity in showing that to these particular people (and others that Paul was writing to). He had to substantiate his claims to WHO he was to validate the MESSAGE (the Gospel) he taught. Not that the message wasn't valid prior to his teaching it to them - do not misunderstand this - truth is always truth, whether we acknowledge it or not. As much as I can boil it down - there were some people who were trying to tear Paul down by making a bunch of accusations against him and the message he taught SO THAT the people to whom Paul is writing would cease to rely on the true message of the Gospel because they thought that Paul's testimony was false.

Here was what I was really wanting to say though.

"And they glorified God because of me." - Galatians 1:24

Paul was OBSESSED with God! He is so passionate about God's glory that he doesn't use all the things that are true about him to give himself glory - he points out that people were glorifying God. If you read anything that Paul wrote - you can tell that he honestly lived his life to the glory of God. He found his joy and completion in Christ. I want to be more obsessed with God...all the time.