College Will Do That to You... Thanks Jesus

Coming into my first year at the wonderful institute of Texas A&M I wasn't quite sure what to expect from anything. I had a couple things nailed down to start with, or so I thought. I knew I would church shop for a couple months. I knew what I believed. I knew that I wasn't going to become complacent in my faith, but I certainly wouldn't ever become what you would call "radical".

Well here is a little confession. Everything that I knew has been turned upside down, and my faith has been strengthened because of it. Jesus ended up planting me at Antioch my very first Sunday in town and He has kept me there ever since. Over this semester I've really had my faith pushed to its limits, but not in the way I expected. Contrary to what I've heard, it isn't hard to keep your faith in college - with the caveat that you choose to pursue it. It wasn't a struggle for survival, it was a struggle for truth. 

If you talk to me today, I would hope that you see something different. If you ask my community of believers for testimony of my life in College Station, they'd be able to tell you. A lot of the things I wrote off as for the "charismaniacs" have become a huge part of my life. I will spare you the all the details, but know that I have seen an increase of God in my life in radical ways. Exhibit A, my favorite thing to do on weekends is walk around campus and the College Station area and pray for people and tell them about Jesus. That's weird... or at least it used to be, now it's a lifestyle.

I grew with a "safe" Christianity. Church attendance, service projects, and inviting a friend to D-Now were the norms. No one dared utter the words prophecy, visions, healings, miracles, etc. I've known Jesus for a while now, but I've only recently come into a fuller understanding of just what He is capable of. Jesus is always bigger than how big you say he is, always. 

For those of you coming to Aggieland as students in the coming years, I want you to know that Jesus is taking this campus by storm. When you enroll in this university you're enlisting as a Freedom fighter in this Revolution against the powers of darkness. The battle is real, and it is raging more fiercely that you or I can understand. 

For those of you whom God has sent elsewhere, I urge you to affix yourselves to the Jesus Christ of the Scriptures and to pray for the Holy Spirit's guidance in your life. God is just waiting to show you how good he is, just ask Him.

If you gather nothing else from this essay, heed Paul's cry to the Ephesians. "I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received." Let that challenge your soul. Ask, Seek, and Knock the Harvest is at hand.

-matt

Relentless

When you hear the word relentless, what comes to your mind first?

Got it?

There are generally two different conclusions that you might have come to. Relentless to you could resemble a mighty warrior. One who is willing to go the distance and continue to battle when times get tough, a hero of heroes. Relentless, on the other hand, could give you an image of a hurricane destroying everything that stands in its way, an utterly destructive force. One side favors a bold endurance that Hollywood loves to capture through film; the other of a darker side of brutality. 

Both views describe Our God.

The Father is relentless when it comes to how He loves his children. Jesus speaks of the shepherd who leaves the 99 to come and seek after the 1. The son is relentless when He allows Himself to be horrifically murdered in our place, refusing to give up on the long journey to the cross. The Holy Spirit is relentless as He convicts our souls and brings us to a place of repentance.

You see as a child of the Light, we walk in a confidence that God will never cease to chase after us, no matter how far away we stray. The scary side comes when He wants all of us. I know it's easy for us to talk of our love for God, but it becomes a struggle when He tries to take away "our stuff". Be it good, bad, or indifferent; we all have our one thing that we don't wont to let Jesus have. This ranges from everything from an idolatrous view of women to an overly zealous obsession with football that conflicts with our church attendance. You see Jesus is not okay with having a small part of our lives, He wants it all. Sounds a bit greedy from our perspective doesn't it? But when we really consider it, do we really deserve what we think we do?

If we want to turn this into a merit system then we fall into the red from the very beginning. Since the Fall, you and I are doomed to Hell to suffer for eternity. We don't have the right to even be in the presence of a Holy God because He cannot and does not tolerate sin of any form. We don't deserve that pay raise at work; we don't deserve that new car that just came off the line. We don't deserve to be blessed with financial earnings; we don't deserve to own a car at all. Yet we have been blessed with this and I for one take these things for granted way too often.

It's time we cast aside our Americanized entitlement syndrome. If we truly realize that we deserve nothing at all, the relentless love of Christ begins to overwhelm us in a beautiful way and the Gospel begins to work in our lives. This is love, not that we first loved God, but that He first loved us and gave His life as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. There is no greater love than this, a man who lays down his life for His friends. I [Christ] have come so that you may have life, and have it to the full. [cf1 John 4:10, Romans 5:8, John 15:3, John 10:10]. See what I'm saying? How incredible is this love that will stop at nothing, not even death?

If his Love has power over sin and death, who are we to upstage Him in any way? Who are we to shun his freely given grace? The relentless love of God demands we lay down everything and run to Him. When we think about it, why wouldn't we? There is nothing to lose and everything to gain in the free gift of the Cross.

God promises to come after those who reject this gift. He relentlessly pursues and destroys all who oppose Him. Luke 12:5 tells us that we aren't to fear man but fear God who can throw us into Hell if we choose to rebel against Him. The Relentlessness of Christ is coming to after you no matter what you do. The choice has been given to you, will you run to Christ or will you not?

-matt

Effective Prayer

John 14:12-14.

¹² Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³ And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Let that sink in for a minute before proceeding. Pray that God would give you wisdom and discernment to interpret Christ's words correctly.

This passage has always provoked me, but I haven't ever given it much room in my soul to really work until this past week. I've been doing life with my Lifegroup (my small group community here at Texas A&M) and really diving into the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. As I've grown and progressed in my walk with Jesus I've seen time and time again that He is faithful and fulfills everything that He has promised us.

That brings us to this passage in John in which Jesus tells us that He will do anything that we ask Him. He wants to work in our lives and through our lives. If we believed what Jesus had to say here, how would we live differently? We would become a people dependent on prayer and communion with God.

Whenever a close friend gets sick or we need a good grade on a test we have no problem with giving God a quick ring on our ill-used prayer line and ask Him to help us out, but when we offer those prayers, are we expecting His answer? Matthew 28:18 states that all authority has been given to Christ, Colossians 1:16 says that in Christ all things were made and now hold together. With those two scriptures in mind, we have evidence that Jesus has almighty sovereign power over everything, and thus is capable of answering any prayer. Romans 8:26 takes it a step further and says that the Holy Spirit inside of us prays for us, so in fact God is interceding on our behalf already.

God has an ample and vast supply with which to answer our prayers, and all He asks is that we believe He is able. We are called to ask confidently. James says when we ask God with doubt in our prayers we are like a ship tossed about in the waves. A lack of confidence reveals a lack of faith.

I know I can't fix anyone, and I don't want to. What I do mean to accomplish is that each of us would reexamine our prayer lives. Are we trusting God to reveal Himself in our lives? Do we live in such a way that we need Him? Do we have faith?

I promise you this: If you ask confidently in faith there is no limit to what God can do.  Matthew 17:20 says that we can hurl mountains into the sea with faith the size of a mustard sea. Pray on these things and ask God to come through in big ways, have faith, and He will.
-matt