What Am I Doing?

So as some of you know my youth group hosted Coastal Rise this fall in concert. However, some of you may have not known that I was actually the one who contacted Coastal Rise and got the process started. Anyways the concert day comes and near the end of the concert my friend came up to me and mentioned how crazy it is that the main singer is only eighteen.

My first thought was "You got to be kidding me!?" but then my next thought was "What am I doing!?"

I mean like he is only eighteen and is performing and singing before many people. He is out there singing and spreading the love of God. And me, what am I doing? In what ways am I doing great things for God?

I guess the place to start is do we care about doing what God has called us to do? Are you willing to do whatever God calls you to do? If we aren't willing to do what God calls us to do and are only willing to follow our own selfish plans and desires we won't get very far and we won't be doing great things for Him. If we are following our own desires God is probably not going to have any part in that desire.

So in reality my question would be better phrased as is God radiating from me? Is Christ's love flowing through and from me to others around? If I am showing Christ's love to others that would be pretty much the same as being the leader of a christian band expressing God's love to the people they play for.

See in when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter how famous we are or how many people we are speaking to, but if we are doing what God desires for us to be doing. If we are always looking at ourselves and how we could do better or do greater things we won't be allowing God to work in His special and perfect ways through us. Yes we should be always wanting to be doing greater things for God, but we must not forget to allow God to do His profound work through us. Just like I talked about in post "God Is Great" We don't have to be great because our God is.

Growing Up

If your like me all throughout growing up I have always looked forward to something. When your in first grade you wish you could be in second, but when you hit second grade you see its not that much different and great so you then look forward to third grade or middle school as the time when the fun begins. However, when you get to middle school all you want to do is get to high school and then once you become a freshman all you want to be is a senior and graduate. But, when you have finally become a senior just like you have desired to be for about four years you get bored and hear about your friends in college having amazing experiences and great fun.

What this ends up being is a never ending cycle of wanting to be older or get somewhere, but when you get there you only find out that the next year is probably much better.

Living in constant anticipation of the future isn't really a good thing because you end up forgetting to live right now at the moment your at. If your always waiting to get to the better older age you will reach it eventually, but it probably won't be as good as you hoped. See if you don't focus on making your life better now adding time to the equation probably won't get you far. So if your always just looking for the better older age and not working on improving your life now it won't be improved when you reach that desired age.

If we are always looking to the future age so much so that we don't enjoy where we are at right now we will end up never reaching the pinnacle of life we are searching for. We will eventually reach the age we want to be at, but then we won't enjoy being that age because we again just turn and look at the next best age to be.

Life doesn't improve all by itself we got to do something to improve it. We got to work hard and put time and effort into our life to make it better instead of just waiting for time to hopefully make it better. We should understand that there are some profound problems that can be caused by not living in the present enough.

Materialism

I have this thing about losing things or forgetting things that extremely annoys me. Like if I lose something and just can't figure out where it is or where it should be it in a way eats at me. Its almost as if I can't rest until I find that item no matter its importance. Just a few weeks ago I lost something quite important to me, but in reality doesn't have too much importance.

This experience made me think about how we live in a world now days of materialism. The world is always saying that stuff is what enriches your life and makes it better. I personally don't like being told that I really don't need the latest and best thing out there because I'm one of those people who desires to have the best or almost best. Those times when I got my new iPod or camera and they come out with a new better version a few months later always annoyed me because I want the new version, but I don't have the money to spend on it and I should be learning to be happy with the good version I have.

All this needing of the best though is quite unhealthy. If I'm obsessed with having these possessions and it takes up much of my thinking time I'm sure there is some sort of "idol" worship going on. The main question to ask regarding your desire to own things is will this benefit those around me, my family, and my spiritual walk with God? Yes there are things we need for ourselves, but when it comes to materialism that is when the things are no longer necessary to us.

The item I lost a few weeks ago I still haven't found and that fact still annoys me a little. However, when I think about it does it really matter? The question we should be asking ourselves is does this item really make that much of a important difference in my life?

The point I'm trying to make here is that stuff is just stuff. Stuff can get torn, stained, lost, and messed up just like our soul. Are we trying to find our stuff that was lost or messed up? Or are we focused more on things that really matter like letting Jesus patch, clean, and fix our messed up souls? Are we more worried about getting back in-touch with what we lost or do we want to get back in touch with God. Are we stuck in materialism that keeps us from seeing what is really actually profoundly important?

Do You Want To Get Well?

One Saturday morning I was at guitar lessons just like I have many Saturdays before. One thing that I really appreciate about my teacher is that to him music isn't just music. Yes it is really good to be able to play amazingly well, but it is also important to know about the lives of the people who wrote the music and what the song signifies. Music isn't just notes put together to make a song to listen to. Music is a way of communicating a thought, idea, or feeling. One thing I have noticed now that I have gotten older is that now my guitar teacher not only takes the time to talk about the non-musical part of music but, about about life and Christianity as well. 

Well this particular Saturday was no exception. My guitar teacher said something about a passage of Scripture that really made check myself and think deeply. My teacher was talking about the passage where Jesus goes to the pool and sees the invalid lying far away from the waters edge unable to get himself to the healing waters.

John 5:1-9

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

It was amazing how Jesus told him to get up and the man did so even though the man had laid there lame for thirty-eight years. His bones where probably weak and his leg muscles where probably nonexistent, but instantly he walked. 

Now that is amazing, but what my guitar teacher picked out of the verses was that Jesus asked the man "Do you want to get well?". Do we want to get well? Do we want help? This man was willing to have a stranger pick him up and move him closer to the pool so that he could get in first and be healed, but Jesus gave him more He healed the man instantly and gave him the strength to walk. 

Do we want to get well? Or even before that question is do we know we are sick? Are we willing to let Jesus help us and heal us? He gives us more than just healing from our sins, He gives love, life, and so much more. We should ask the profoundly simple question, "Do you want to get well?" of ourselves because if we are not well do we really want to be? Are we tired of our sin?