Wow! I love to see God move...and it is so exciting to see all Mighty God working in the lives of teenagers. Disciple Now was amazing. Not because of the speaker or the band but because God was there and His work was evident in the lives of the students. Like I said in my earlier post, I got the opportunity to work with the freshman girls. What a great experience...I loved every second of it. I know that God moved in each of their lives. However, I know that this next week will be a hard one. The devil will not be happy about all the progress that the girls made for Christ. So I ask you to join with me this week (as well as everyday after) to lift up all of our youth. The battles that they struggle with are all to familiar to us. Pray for strength and courage as they make their journey through high school. It isn't always easy to make a stand for God and therefore they need our prayers.
On Saturday morning, we made a trip to downtown Houston (after a few wrong turns) to worship with the homeless. We also gave out food and other collected goods (shirts, socks, etc). It was an amazing experience. The one thing that really stuck with me was the contentment of the homeless people. I mean, their situations are some of the worst I could ever imagine and yet they were content. We had a church service with them and it was truly amazing to see them worshiping and praising God. I wonder if I could be so strong? If I could trust in God in that type of situation. I hope that I could.... At the end of the service, the leader of the organization we were working with took up an offering. This offering goes to other countries to help in situations that are worse than being homeless in the United States. I was truly broken as I watched a lady (with no home) make her way to the front and drop in a coin. As the coin jingled to the bottom of the jar, I realized that these people are content. They know that it could be worse. Not to make their situation seem less important but it was a very humbling experience. As we passed out food, begging them to take as much as they needed, they were very respectful and thankful. Though their situation is horrible they still trust God to take care of them. So let me challenge you to be content and be thankful for whatever situation you are in at this moment.
On another note, our speaker was great. I think he related very well to the students and I pray that they got as much from him as I did. Some of the things that I learned (or was reminded of) were:
On Saturday morning, we made a trip to downtown Houston (after a few wrong turns) to worship with the homeless. We also gave out food and other collected goods (shirts, socks, etc). It was an amazing experience. The one thing that really stuck with me was the contentment of the homeless people. I mean, their situations are some of the worst I could ever imagine and yet they were content. We had a church service with them and it was truly amazing to see them worshiping and praising God. I wonder if I could be so strong? If I could trust in God in that type of situation. I hope that I could.... At the end of the service, the leader of the organization we were working with took up an offering. This offering goes to other countries to help in situations that are worse than being homeless in the United States. I was truly broken as I watched a lady (with no home) make her way to the front and drop in a coin. As the coin jingled to the bottom of the jar, I realized that these people are content. They know that it could be worse. Not to make their situation seem less important but it was a very humbling experience. As we passed out food, begging them to take as much as they needed, they were very respectful and thankful. Though their situation is horrible they still trust God to take care of them. So let me challenge you to be content and be thankful for whatever situation you are in at this moment.
On another note, our speaker was great. I think he related very well to the students and I pray that they got as much from him as I did. Some of the things that I learned (or was reminded of) were:
- Being in Christ is to be completely covered by His blood. If we are in Christ, we are no longer separated from God. When we become a Christian we go in as a sinner and come out a COMPLETELY NEW creation.
- When Jesus decided to complete God's plan and die for our sins--- HE chose us. He knew all the sins that each of us would commit and still he died. When we ask for forgiveness of sin, we shouldn't beg for forgiveness (because that is focused on our selves) but we should ask for forgiveness for taking advantage of what God ALREADY offered to us (forgiveness).
- As Christians, we still will suffer the consequences for the sins we commit, but we will not suffer from the final consequence, death and separation from our Heavenly Father.
- You behavior does not determine you identity, but your identity (in Christ) should determine your behavior. As a child of God, sinning is acting outside of your identity
The one thing that he said that really stuck with me was about sin. We shouldn't look at sin as a "forbidden treat" or something that we are missing out on, but we should see it as a "destructive force" that is out to put an end to us. We shouldn't stand at the door of temptation and expect not to be tempted. We should live as far from the edge of sin as we can, so that when we stumble we don't fall "off the edge".
Finally, cheerfully offering ourselves to God is not something that we have to do...it is something that we GET to do. As Christians we are able to spend time with the Creator of the universe, and to spend time with God it is a gift from God.
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