Your Life Matters

On Friday morning, Dave Curtiss spoke on the last day of Fall Revival here at school. That morning he spoke on the subject if "Your Life Matters". He used a few references from the book of Luke, mainly Luke 10:8-9 and 13:18-19.

He had a lot of quotes during the morning that I would like to share with you. The first one is "Your life can make an impact on the Kingdom of God." Although it is a phrase that many people have probably heard before it is always a good thing to be reminded of. Another quote was "Your life [once you are saved] is meant to be on display not just locked up in the church." I think that sometimes we get in the habit of saying that we are going to do all of this stuff but it never makes it past the doors of the church.

A part of his "sermon" that I thought was especially interesting was when he talked about Luke 13:18-19. The verse says "Then Jesus asked, "What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air perched in its branches." Curtiss said that there is more to verse than most people realize. Mustard plants actually have a very large root that keeps them planted firmly in the ground. I don't know how many of you have seen a mustard plant, I know I haven't but when I think about it for some reason I think of a small plant that isn't very big. I looked it up just to see a plant for myself and it is pretty big and the root base is very big. I guess Jesus knew what He was talking about. ha ha

The big thing that stuck out to me in Curtiss' message on Friday morning though was when he told a story about a women who was a nonbeliever in his church in California. She had watched one of the Left Behind movies and said to Dave that in the movie when all the Christians are taken off of the earth that the world was just the same and it might have upgraded. It just looks like you guys aren't having much of an impact because your presence sure wasn't missed. WOW!!! I know she got that from a movie and not all movies are real and blah blah blah. The thing that I get from this is that we need to get out and make an impact on the people around us as much as we can. There are many forms that this can take on and I might get into that in a different blog because I think that this one is long enough.

Thoughts from the last two gatherings

2 Cor. 12:7-10

In verse 9 Jesus says that His grace is made sufficient to us and that His power is made perfect in our weakness.

This is said after Peter talks about his visions and how God allowed Satan to put a thorn in his side and after Peter asked God to take it out.

Peter goes on to say that he will no longer boast in the great things but upon his weakness because God's power is made perfect in our weakness.

How many times do I boast about how great I am or how awesome I am and never give God the credit for anything?

A question asked during our last gather was "Does offering grace result in death?" How crazy is that question?

I think that this question is not talking about physical death. I think that it is talking about a death to our worldly selves and a death to what the world thinks of us.

The question that immediately came to my mind after thinking about the answer to that question was "If offering grace result in death, does offering grace result in life?" I believe so. I believe that when we show grace to others we find new life in Jesus. In Matthew 25:40 Jesus says "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." I believe that this is saying that when we show grace to others we show grace to God because He shows us grace all of the time. So it becomes a sort of cycle type of thing. That since God shows grace to us we should show grace to others like God shows grace to us. Through showing grace to other I believe that Jesus is giving us new life and thus offering grace results in life and not just life here on earth but also eternal life in heaven.

I am not saying that works is the way to heaven but that offering grace is a way that we show God's love to people.

Studying......

So most of today was spent studying....not only for tests but also what God has been doing and will continue to in my life and the life of others.

Tonights discussion was about what grace is and what grace looks like.

One of the things that was said and is something that i never really put much thought into is that grace looks different to everyone. To one person grace is being taken out of a bad situation. To another grace is the impact that someone had on them.

God's grace is with us all the time whether we recognize it or not. How crazy is that? How does God show everyone grace all of the time and and in ways that everyone can recognize it?

A question raised in this discussion was "How do we go about being bearers of grace?"

The more I think about this question the more I think about how I interact with the people around me everyday. Am I a "grace bearer" or do I just go about my day doing what is best for me? I just wonder what I can do better to be that "grace bearer" for the people around me.

I guess that is prayer....Lord allow me to be someone who brings grace to people everyday and show everyone I come in contact with the love that You show me.