LEAP 2011

Okay, so this week I have been helping at LEAP, my church's annual mission camp/community service week, serving as a small group leader.  I just want to start off by THANKING GOD for this week and for my group and co-leader.  If you know me personally, then you know that I tend to be pretty quiet, just keeping my thoughts to myself most of the time.  (Unless I'm writing/typing.  Then I'll just ramble on and on, and you'll have a hard time getting me to stop.  Haha.)  Well, I'm really thankful for my co-leader Katie because whenever I don't have anything to say (which happens a lot), she does.  And she does a great job relating to the students in our group, showing God's love to them, and keeping them engaged in whatever activity we're doing.  I can't help but think that maybe I'm not really trying to show God's love, and I know that I should definitely rely on Him more to express that love through me, but I also know that I shouldn't compare myself to others and be envious because "it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His purpose" (Philippians 2:13).  That comparison is from the enemy, and I know that the Lord is allowing me to serve and show His grace, love, and mercy in other ways specific to who I am.  And I'm thankful that Katie is there to serve in the ways that I can't.  It's amazing how God can use anyone in any way to serve His purposes.

Anyway, on to my small group.  I won't give names, so I'll just give initials (from oldest to youngest): (the guys) A, BK, BP, T, H, (and the girls) K, S, J, MM and MN.  They're all great (in their own ways, of course).  T, BK, MM, and S seem to be the ones I'm investing in the most out of the group.  Not that I'm completely ignoring the others and that they're not important to me; T, BK, MM, and S are just the ones that I talk to/relate to the most, so God has been using me to minister to them, whether it's by listening and talking to MM about school, or exchanging names of various Christian bands with BK, or talking to BK and S about marching band, or just hanging around T and occasionally letting him mess with me.  And of course the students are making friends with each other within the group.  MM and MN seem to be hanging out a lot, which is a good change from Monday when MN was kind of off by herself a lot.  And apparently H has become A's son.  They even strike the same poses on command without discussing it beforehand.  Haha.  And Katie and J became really good friends within the first day, which is awesome because J already seems to have that fire that comes from the Holy Spirit, and having someone to mentor her through the rest of middle school and high school will be very helpful for her.  So yeah, it's been really enjoyable so far.  I can't believe tomorrow is already the last day of LEAP...  I don't want it to be over yet.

Since we've already done so much this week, I'll give a recap of the service we did.  And by "so much," I mean, "two days of attempting to find work to do and only one day of a consistent supply of jobs at one location."  On Monday my group, the blue team, went to Durham Middle School to move furniture and clean classrooms and offices.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), a group of guys was already there, and most of the work that the school originally had for us was already done.  So we finished up with all the cleaning, then headed over to Frey Elementary right next door to join the orange team in doing the same thing.  Since the orange team had already been working at Frey, the inside work was almost done by the time we got there, so we all ended up pulling weeds outside.  We split up into smaller groups of four or five and turned it into a competition to see who could fill their trash bag with the most weeds.  (My team won.  Just saying.)

Then yesterday we went to Wellspring Treasures.  I was entertained simply by being able to drive the group there in one of the big church vans.  Haha.  (And I'm looking forward to doing it again on the way to Northstar Church's Dallas campus.  Simple pleasures.)  Anyway, we all enjoyed working at Wellspring (as far as I know).  Cindy, the owner, was very nice and appreciative, and she is also a member of Northstar herself, which is cool.  Wellspring Treasures, which is a part of Wellspring Living, is a non-profit Christian organization that mends and sells gently-used clothes, furniture, and accessories that have been donated to them, and they use the money to support a restoration project for girls and women involved in human trafficking.  It's definitely worth checking out.  Basically what we did was typical volunteer work at the store (you can sign up to volunteer on their website here).  They were reorganizing the back of the store, where they do all the mending, so some of us reorganized shelves, some painted, some steamed clothes, some rehung clothes in their proper places, and some did other miscellaneous jobs.  And before we left, we got to write some Bible verses on the wall in the back room.  Then Cindy prayed with us and sent us on our way with some popcorn and a bag of hotel shampoo/soap/lotion/etc. to give to the church for MUST Ministries.  The time went by very smoothly, we got a good amount of work done, and we had a fun time doing it.

Then today we went back to Frey Elementary.  Again we found that we didn't have very much to do, which was a little disappointing because not only did we have little to do, but the "Yellow Plus" team had nothing at all to do at Durham, so they ended up joining us like we did on Monday.  But it turned out that, even though there weren't many jobs for us to do, the few jobs they had for us took a good amount of time, specifically taking inventory in the book room.  Most of us got to pull weeds again before we joined the inventory team, though.  (I actually enjoyed taking inventory when I got to it, because apparently I'm a fast writer according to a couple kids in my group, so I sped through my part of material.)  While we were pulling weeds, I got to talk to someone from Yellow Plus (initial: D) who was in my brother's small group at LEAP last year.  Something about it just filled me with joy and peace.  Maybe because she was telling me about how she was a little stressed about starting her college application process this fall, and when I told her not to worry about it too much and to just let God handle it, she said that that was the best advice she had gotten on the topic.  That didn't give me joy because of pride; it gave me joy because she understood that dependence on God is the best way to handle any situation.  And maybe because she's also visiting UGA this Friday and strongly considering going there.  (Go Dawgs!)  Haha.  Anyway, when we were finished taking inventory, we went to Acworth Beach to pick up trash.  We had about half an hour to kill, so we split up into four groups, scoured the beach and the park for trash, then met up at the playground to just hang out until our bus driver came to pick us up.  And I also got to talk to the bus driver on the way to the park and on the way back to church, which was cool.

Well, that's what we've done so far.  Tomorrow the blue team is heading over to Northstar of Dallas to help set up for their service on Sunday, and we'll be working with Brad Parkhurst, who was the high school pastor at Northstar of Kennesaw my whole time in high school, so that should be fun.  And tomorrow night we're having a special baptism service, which is exciting.  Nobody from my small group has mentioned wanting to be baptized, but we just have to keep praying for them.  And we can still rejoice in knowing that at least someone will be baptized tomorrow.  It doesn't matter if that person comes from my group as long as someone comes to know the Lord as their Savior!

So please be praying for all of us: for me, for Katie, for our small group, for all the other leaders and students, and for the praise band and the guest speaker as we prepare for the last day of LEAP.  Thanks, and God bless!

"Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."

Galatians 5:25
An analogy for a godly marriage. (This is just another way of explaining something you’ve probably heard before.)

If you and your spouse are both Christians, you have Jesus in common—God stands in between you. Imagine you’re in a marching band/military parade block. If you know anything about marching/walking in step with someone, you know that it works best if you follow the person right next to you, not the person two rows over (especially if you’re only using your peripheral vision, like you’re supposed to in marching band).

(This analogy will be split into two versions: the version specialized for my fellow band geeks, and the version better understood by everyone else.)

First, the band geek version. You, Jesus, and your spouse are in line. God is your center dress point. Like we’ve all been told about dressing to the center, the center is always right, even if he/she is wrong. Well, God is always right. Period. If you’re out of line with Him, there’s very little chance that you will be in line with your spouse. (And even if you do somehow end up in line with your spouse, it won’t last for long.) So if you both dress to God, you will be better in line with each other than if you tried to dress to each other around God. (Peripheral vision isn’t that good.)

Now for everyone else (even though you may have gotten the point already if you read the first version). You’re walking in line with your spouse, with God in between you, and you’re trying to stay in step with each other. If you want to be in step with your spouse, but you can’t turn your head side-to-side (for the sake of the analogy), what’s the best way to stay in step? Watching Jesus, right? You can easily see His feet moving next to you, and so can your spouse. So even though you can’t see your spouse’s feet moving in time with yours, by watching Christ, you will stay in step, not only with God, but with your spouse as well. But if you try to follow your spouse’s feet, you’ll get into all kinds of trouble, failing to stay in step with each other (except for the rare occasions) and with God. So if you “keep in step with the Spirit,” you will also keep in step with your spouse much better than you would if you only tried to stay in step with your spouse and not with Christ.

In a non-Christian marriage, Jesus doesn’t stand between the couple. You may think that’s a good thing because then the couple can just watch each other, but it’s not. For all of you who don’t have a clue what any of the band geek version meant, the center is the person everyone in that line looks to in order to stay in line. If you can’t see the center out of the corner of your eye, than you look at the person next to you and trust that he/she is in line with the center (or whoever is between him/her and the center, who should also be in line with the center), making a straight line. The center is always right, even if they’re in the wrong place. As long as you stay in line with the center, it’ll look like you’re right. God is the perfect Center. He is never wrong. He is always in the right place, so if you follow Him, you will be in the right place too. But if you take God out of the picture, you no longer have a perfect Center. You and your spouse are left looking at each other in all your imperfection. One of you is bound to be wrong at some point, and even if the line follows you and makes the formation look right, the whole line will be wrong because you are wrong. With God out of the picture, your imperfect center is bound to ruin the formation at some point. But with God as your perfect Center (as long as you and your spouse both keep your eyes fixed on Him), your marriage will be more blessed than you could hope.

The moral: Love God before your spouse, and you will show your love to your spouse in a much more meaningful way than possible otherwise.

Matthew 5:14-16

"You are the light of the world.  A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.  Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

"A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl."  Why?  Because it's useless that way.  You can't see its light, and besides... a candle hidden under a bowl will get snuffed out.

Food for thought.

"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."

Hebrews 4:12

Wow.  This just hit me like a ton of bricks.  I was reading something about how being a sold-out Christian separates us from everyone else around us (everyone who isn't sold out to Christ), and it made me think about persecuted Christians in places labeled as hostile or restricted countries regarding Christianity.  Christians in those countries really know what it means to love God and follow Him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Many of them lose their jobs or are disowned by their families because of their faith, and Jesus is all they have, so they pursue Him with their whole lives.  They have to meet with other Christians in secret in order to avoid persecution, and even then they aren't totally safe.

As I thought about that, I asked myself, "What would I be like if I went to one of those countries for a time?  What if I had to face persecution like that?  What if I had so little access to the Bible that I became so thirsty for the Word that I spent hours at a time studying with my brothers and sisters in Christ?"  But I never got to come up with any possible answers because another question came up: What would happen if/when I came back home to America?  How would I readjust to life here after spending time in another culture?  How would I get used to not having to keep my beliefs a secret anymore?

Then I realized something.  Christians in hostile/restricted nations have to keep their beliefs secret to protect themselves, so their lives are their only testimony.  They live in such a way that people would wonder why they live the way they do.  They live in a way that would lead people to ask them what motivates them, so that they can tell them about Jesus.  Christianity grows in hostile/restricted nations because people see the impact Christ has on their lives.  Their daily living makes them the walking gospel.  That's why Hebrews 4:12 says that "the word of God is living and active."  The gospel comes alive in them, and their actions show what the Bible teaches.

And that's the way we should be living here in America, where Christianity is still legal.  Even though we are free to talk about our faith in the open, a profession of faith shouldn't be necessary for people to recognize that something is different about us—in fact, in a culture where the teachings of the Bible are so widely recognized, our daily lives should make it obvious that we are wholehearted followers of Christ, not just different.  That's what Saint Francis of Assisi meant when he said, "Preach the gospel always; when necessary, use words."

Of course, that doesn't mean that words aren't necessary.  We still have to share the gospel of salvation through Christ, and we have to teach Jesus' commands.  But in a culture where we are free to do so, it seems that we have come to understand that that is all that's necessary.  Since we're allowed to preach the gospel verbally, we don't have to live it out because people only need to know what the gospel says.  Actions serve only to draw people to Christianity in cultures where a public profession of faith can get you killed; if you're able to speak about your faith openly, then actions have no purpose.  But that's not true at all.  Our actions show the truth of the gospel.  Our daily living shows the impact Christ's saving grace has had on us.  If our actions don't change when we accept Christ as our Savior, there's reason to believe that we haven't really been saved.  After all, Jesus taught us how we should live, and if we don't obey Him, we're basically saying that we don't need to and that we don't believe obedience will make things any better for us; and if we don't believe Him on that topic, how can we claim to believe Him about anything else?   As the last part of Hebrews 4:12 says, "[The word of God] judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." Our good deeds prove that we have been changed by saving grace.

So to answer my question about readjusting, I shouldn't really have to adapt that much.  I should continue living in a way that preaches the gospel without words.  And in hostile/restricted nations, there's such an urgency attached to the gospel, that I should feel compelled to tell everyone I know about the good news of the gospel.  So if/when I came back, I would rejoice in finally being able to openly share my faith verbally, and I would do it as if I would be killed if I didn't.

Life and Idols

We all live for something.  Everyone has some god or idol that they chase after or look after with meticulous care, whether it's fame, fortune, pleasure, cars, video games, books, music, or the only true God.  Even desirable traits like attractiveness, charm, and leadership skills can be idols.  The most common understanding of "idols" is that they are things that come between us and God, things that we value more highly than getting to know our heavenly Father.  But as I was going through the Freshley leadership devotional for this week (and actually for two weeks ago because there was something I missed that I wanted to go back to), God showed me another meaning of the word idol.  An idol is something that you live for—it's your reason for living.  If your life goal is to become famous, that's the only reason you live; everything you do will be for the sole purpose of becoming famous, and once you're famous, everything you do will be to maintain that fame.  Even if you lose all your possessions, it won't faze you as long as you're still famous.  If you live for wealth wealth, you live only to become rich; you devote all your time and energy to gaining, saving, flaunting, and maintaining your wealth, and nothing else.  Even if your relative dies, you'll be okay as long as you have your money.  If your appearance is your idol, you live to be attractive, and everything you do will be to become as attractive as possible.  As long as you look good, everything will be alright, no matter what happens; but if you don't like how you look, you'll never be satisfied with anything.

The question from two weeks ago that I wanted to go back to was this: What does it mean that your life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3)?  I wanted to put off that question because it seemed easy at first, but when I finally got to it, I realized how difficult it was to answer it.  So I didn't answer it.  But now God is starting to answer the question for me.  Our lives become hidden with Christ in God when we begin living for Him and nothing else.  As long as we have Christ, nothing can steal our joy from us; if we feel distant from Jesus, we will do anything and stop at nothing to get closer to Him.  When we idolize earthly things, we hide our lives in those things.  If Satan can damage your idol in some way, he will gain complete control over you.  But when we hide our lives in Christ—when Jesus is all we need and all we want—Satan has no power over us because God cannot be conquered.  No matter how hard he attacks the idols of our past, he can never take our life, our reason for living.  He can try to take Jesus from us all he wants, but he will never be able to, so our lives are safe in Christ.  We live for Christ, so we live forever.

When I wrote that last sentence in my notes as I was going through the devotional, it hit me: our God/god, who/what we live for, determines our final destination in eternity.  That seems simple and obvious, but it seemed really profound to me.  If we live for something that's perishing, we will perish with it; if we live for something eternal, we will live forever.  Only Jesus is eternal, so if we live for Him, emulating His life and seeking to dwell in His presence through prayer and worship, we will live forever in heaven.  We live to be with Him, so that's what we get.  But if we live for fame, fortune, attractiveness, etc., which are all temporary, we will die along with our idols.  Even if your idol is a Christian who will live forever with Christ, if you are not consciously living to glorify God, you are only idolizing that person's earthly life, and all earthly life will pass away.  We will only live as long as our gods.  If your god is temporary, your life will be temporary; but if your God is everlasting, you will never die (the second death in hell, that is).

I feel like my words can't quite capture the depth of this discovery.  Maybe it's because it's 6am and I haven't gotten any sleep.  But whatever the reason, I'll end with this: Your life on earth will show where you will be going for eternity.  If you live for a temporary idol, it will be clear by your speech and behavior.  But if Jesus really is your God and you love Him with your life, you will live as if you are already with Him in heaven, because you kind of are.  After all, if Satan has no power to take away your joy in Christ now, this life is really not that different to you than the next.

The Saving One

This song was written and performed by Jon Joiner, who God has blessed me to be in the same campus ministry with at UGA.  In fact, we were on the same team (Port Maria) when we went on the Freshley mission trip to Jamaica over spring break.

The Beginning and the End

So two nights ago I started thinking about Adam and Eve, Cain's wife, the "sons of God" and the Nephilim in Genesis 6, the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and the dragon and the two beasts in Revelation 12-13.  I don't even remember what made me think about all of it, and my thoughts were really scattered, and it's difficult to form coherent thoughts out of all of the discoveries God gave me.  But I tried anyway.  I talked with my mom about it last night, and we had a really in depth discussion about all of it, and it really helped.  A lot of what confused me got cleared up.  Well, it wasn't really "cleared up" in the sense that I learned the truth, but we found possible explanations.  Anyway, I'm going to attempt to write down most, if not all, of what we discovered.

• The "sons of God" in Genesis 6 were probably the same as the Nephilim (also mentioned in Genesis 6).  These "sons of God" could have been Adam and Eve's sinless children before they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Evidence: Genesis 3:16—Eve must have had children before the original sin, because how could she know that her pains in childbirth were "greatly increased" if she hadn't already experienced childbirth?  The image of God contained in man would not have been distorted in these children because they were not directly affected by Adam and Eve's sin.  (They did, however, have sins of their own, which I'll get to later.)  The Nephilim had to be wiped out in the flood along with the rest of mankind so that all people would be able to link themselves back to Adam and Eve through Noah.  While everyone, even descendants of the Nephilim, could still trace their family tree back to Adam and Eve, not everyone would be able to trace their line back to Adam and Eve after the original sin, so the sin nature would not have been passed down to everyone.  By wiping out the Nephilim, everyone after Noah was guaranteed to carry the sin nature, giving a reason for Jesus to come as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins and allowing Him to atone for everyone's sins by taking the place of Adam, the original sinner.)

• The reason these “sons of God” are not listed among Adam and Eve’s children is that there was no need to record genealogies at the time.  If everyone lived forever and never died, there would be no reason to keep track of who was still alive.  But when Adam and Eve sinned and were cast out of the Garden of Eden, and when they learned that they would eventually die, records became necessary to keep track of family lines, as well as accomplishments that would be told of in stories.  This record keeping was an act of pride because all men want to leave behind a legacy; everyone wants to be remembered, so the passing on of stories and the tracing of family lines were ways to ensure that a person would not be forgotten.

• The Nephilim are called "heroes of old, men of renown" (Genesis 6:4).  It's very possible that they may have been the Greek "gods" and "goddesses."  When they were wiped out in the flood, Noah's sons and their wives may have passed on stories of the Nephilim to their children and their children and so on, eventually distorting by the telephone effect so that they came to be considered gods.

• Noah's sons' wives, and even his own wife, may have been of Nephilim descent, which may account for giants like Goliath and the people of Canaan.

• Because the Nephilim were born to Adam and Eve before the original sin, they were sinless and were allowed to remain in the Garden of Eden.  But unlike Adam and Eve, who could not reenter the Garden, the Nephilim were free to leave the Garden and go into the rest of the world if they pleased.  Evidence: Genesis 6:1-2, 4—the sons of God left the Garden to marry the daughters of men, preferring the sinful world over God's perfect Garden, and this was their sin.

• There's some connection between the serpent in Genesis 3 and the serpent in Revelation 12, beyond the obvious connection that they're both Satan.  It may explain why the serpent in Genesis was able to talk and why God had to curse the serpent to crawl on its belly, as if it had been able to walk before.  I still haven't figured out this extra connection though.

• The dragon and the two beasts form an interesting evil trinity: the dragon (or the beast out of the sky), the beast out of the sea, and the beast out of the earth.  The beast out of the sky is the devil, the strongest beast and the leader.  The beast out of the earth is a person: just as Adam was taken from the dust of the earth, so the beast rose out of the earth.  And the beast out of the sea is the beast of the multitude.  Out of the sea of people arises a monstrosity with seven heads and ten horns and crowns: seven powers, or nations, with ten leaders.  The "antichrist," as so many people call the beast, does not appear to me to be one person, but a political group with authority.  The horns are the individual people who are the leaders of the powers/nations, and together they form the beast.  The real antichrist is Satan himself.

• In Daniel, another horn is said to rise up, separate from the first ten, and overthrow three of the original ten.  This eleventh horn in Daniel 7 is the beast out of the earth in Revelation 13.  This single man will unseat three of the rulers of the seven nations and take their place, and he will force everyone to worship (or follow religiously) the beast out of the sea, the political group, because it appeared that a catastrophe had fatally wounded the economy of one of the seven nations, yet they emerged miraculously victorious and unscathed.  The beast out of the earth will then establish a world-wide economy so that such a catastrophe will not happen again.  If there actually is a single human antichrist, the beast out of the earth appears to be it, not the beast out of the sea.  As Revelation 13:7 says, "He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed."  The beast out of the sea, the world-wide political power, will give the beast out of the earth authority to be the representative of the beast of the sea.

• The beast out of the sea is obviously an abomination with its seven heads and ten horns, but the beast out of the earth, with only "two horns like a lamb" (Revelation 13:11), will be much harder to recognize.  There will be something recognizably off about the political group, but the antichrist will be so charismatic that he will dispel any concerns about the beast of the sea, and the people will willingly—even eagerly—follow the beast of the sea because the beast of the earth is leading it.

None of these "discoveries" is definitely true.  It's all up to your interpretation.  These interpretations seemed reasonable to me, though, so I thought I'd offer another different point of view from what you may have heard before.  It's up to you to decide (and for God to reveal to you) whether or not any of this makes sense.  But when it comes right down to it, the prediction of what is going to happen is nothing compared to the opportunity to spend eternity with our Maker and Savior.  Don't get too caught up in the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the end times, but devote yourself to growing in the knowledge and love of Christ and in love for each other.  If you do that, the details of the end won't matter because the end will just be the beginning for those who are in Christ.