Amazing sermon, preached by Senior Pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel KC: Jeff Terrell.
God is sovereign...so what
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
I am not a cookie cutter.
I mentioned a bit in my last post about my struggle with understanding that being a Christian means having a relationship with Christ rather than being part of a religion.
I've heard this phrase so much that it has become a frustration to me. I've been frustrated lately because my relationship with God looks different than other peoples. The way I pray is different. I spend a lot of time in prayer but it's not a constant communication in my head, like my mother has. The Christian school I go to holds a huge emphasis on feelings. There is a huge focus on when a person transforms. To me, there was a specific night I gave my life to Christ, but He has transformed me so much over time and still is changing me. When I hear testimonies at school I hear a lot about life getting easier when people gave their lives to God and always feeling Him there. Here's the thing for me: I love God. I love that He so graciously has saved me from my sin and I know He is here in every second of everyday, but I don't always feel His presence.
In fact, I often feel close to God through others. When I see the character of God shine through someone, I feel close to Him.
It's a crazy thing to me, this relationship with God thing. It is different than the way many people I know have relationships with God, but I have to stop worrying about what everyone else is doing. I must be diligent in my faith and spending time with God because I know He wants that from me. I can't do it because it looks good to others or it is what they are doing. There is only one way to eternal life: Jesus Christ. But there are many people who connect with God through different things: relating with people, evangelism, behind the scenes serving, preaching, spending hours in silence, expressing every single thought directly to God, crying, singing, performing, fasting, reading...
And I'm tired of apologizing for not looking the same as every other Christian around me. My prayer is to be sensitive to the Spirit and be led in all I do and say in order to bring Him glory.
Jesus Christ came to this earth, different than every single person in His humility. He came to fulfill the word of God. I am here to be His servant, not to be worried about if I'm doing this relationship thing the right way. God gave us the gift of relationship. He gave us the gift of being different than any other created.
Lord, show me your ways. Show me how to serve you, not in order to be different but in order to love you in the way you created me to.
Philippians 3:7-14
I know I've already posted this quote, but it's important so I'm posting it again:
“Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
I've heard this phrase so much that it has become a frustration to me. I've been frustrated lately because my relationship with God looks different than other peoples. The way I pray is different. I spend a lot of time in prayer but it's not a constant communication in my head, like my mother has. The Christian school I go to holds a huge emphasis on feelings. There is a huge focus on when a person transforms. To me, there was a specific night I gave my life to Christ, but He has transformed me so much over time and still is changing me. When I hear testimonies at school I hear a lot about life getting easier when people gave their lives to God and always feeling Him there. Here's the thing for me: I love God. I love that He so graciously has saved me from my sin and I know He is here in every second of everyday, but I don't always feel His presence.
In fact, I often feel close to God through others. When I see the character of God shine through someone, I feel close to Him.
It's a crazy thing to me, this relationship with God thing. It is different than the way many people I know have relationships with God, but I have to stop worrying about what everyone else is doing. I must be diligent in my faith and spending time with God because I know He wants that from me. I can't do it because it looks good to others or it is what they are doing. There is only one way to eternal life: Jesus Christ. But there are many people who connect with God through different things: relating with people, evangelism, behind the scenes serving, preaching, spending hours in silence, expressing every single thought directly to God, crying, singing, performing, fasting, reading...
And I'm tired of apologizing for not looking the same as every other Christian around me. My prayer is to be sensitive to the Spirit and be led in all I do and say in order to bring Him glory.
Jesus Christ came to this earth, different than every single person in His humility. He came to fulfill the word of God. I am here to be His servant, not to be worried about if I'm doing this relationship thing the right way. God gave us the gift of relationship. He gave us the gift of being different than any other created.
Lord, show me your ways. Show me how to serve you, not in order to be different but in order to love you in the way you created me to.
Philippians 3:7-14
7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
I know I've already posted this quote, but it's important so I'm posting it again:
“Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
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