For whoever wants to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
Matthew 16:25.
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With that preface, feel free to take all my words with a grain of salt. Instead, read this as if the Holy Spirit was active in it. If these sentences henceforth are in accordance with God's Word, maybe He might speak in it. Ask Him. Thus the title given to this is not anything of my own, but rather a praise. Come and See the Glory of God.
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The story on my heart is not mine. What I said in that previous post stands true today. Everyone has a story, and we have the privilege of being a part of the greatest story of them all. Part of this great story is unique to each one of us in Christ. Your's will be different, with one exception. This story belongs to Jesus Christ.
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The full story goes back years before I came to be. I pick it up in media res, so bear with me. On a Friday afternoon in February, my dear friend Nathan Spell and I met in a band practice room and prayed. We didn't know what the rest of the day would hold for us, and we really didn't know what to say. You see, in less than an hour God would give us one more chance. A chance to present His love to a room of people who did not know Him. People who might be against him. People who might just not care. People who had simply grown cold. Every type of person would be at this Religious Symposium that we had been invited to speak at.
God knew that. He knew that he wanted to move for an audience of one. Every single person who was there that day was there for a purpose. I don't know what it was for nearly all of them, and I probably will never know.
You see God has a funny way of pulling all the pieces together. He moves in ways that don't make sense to us in our frail human minds. And I'm certainly okay with that, we should all be. (that's another story for different time). On that afternoon God had appointed the Holy Spirit to begin it's work on someone I had never met before, my soon-to-be friend Shelby. That day the Gospel took hold and began its work.
Through the work of the Spirit through many willing hands, God began to grab a foothold on her heart. She began to ask questions. Little did she know, there was something inside of her that God was carrying into a head on collision with Christ.
The whole story is not mine to tell. So I am not going to tell it. Ask Shelby, if you have the chance.
Suffice it to say I experienced the most joyful moment of my entire life this past Monday night. I look back on my own gradual transition into the love of Christ, and as beautiful as it was, I felt something bigger.
That night the love of Christ became real to her, she gave her life away to the Savior of the World.
The reason I can't get it off my heart nor can I cease praising God for it is because it is His Story. You see, anyone who is in Christ has seen how their story fits into the big picture. I hesitate even to write this because I know it will not do it justice. It is with trembling hands that I even attempt to share the Awesome Power of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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You see I have come to realize why God has brought me here to this world, to this church, to this school, to this life. My life is not my own, as Christ says in Mark 10:45, my life has been purchased by the ransom of the blood of God. That finally means something to me. Humanity isn't the answer, God is the solution.
So for you whom wrestle with this tonight, stop fighting. Maybe for the first time, be still and listen. I know it to be true that the most important thing any one of us can do is to be silent and hear. If you read this post and thought it was about a girl named Shelby, you would be right. But. If you read this an saw the beauty of God's craftsmanship, you are on to something more.
You see, miracles like what happened here are spectacular. The Power of the Spirit inside of the story can move each of us to change. I can attest that He has been transforming my very own soul during all of this.
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John 3:16
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life."
Forget all of our Christianese. Let's get rid of everything besides the Truth of Jesus. Jesus loves us more than we know, more than we can imagine. Let him be in you in new and exciting ways.
My life is not my own,
For I am only alive in Christ.
Instead, I am an advocate of one who is Greater than me.
To the Holy God and Lord Jesus Christ,
To YOU be all glory.
-matt
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