Tag Archives: gospel

All I Have is Christ

25 Jan

I am proud to say that yesterday, I worked on my memoir for about 5 hours straight. I got into the groove and was on a roll. Hopefully I can keep this up so that days don’t turn into months and then years before this thing is finished.

I am currently writing about the time I studied abroad in Venezuela and one of the guys I dated, German (accent on the a), who was actually from Venezuela. I met him in Rochester, where I grew up, when he was studying abroad.

I won’t go into detail here, mostly because it isn’t relevant. But I am finding it difficult to remember really what happened between us and what our relationship was like, which is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I have been praying ever since I met Travis that I would forget everything about the “other guys” in my life. A curse because it makes it hard to write a memoir!! But I’d rather not remember for the sake of my marriage than remember for the sake of a book. 

To “research” what happened during those years, I’ve been reading some of my old journals. It’s amazing to see how I have changed. More than just maturing over the years, I have developed a hope and purpose for my life that can only be from God. 

I think of what my life would like right now if I hadn’t heard God beckoning to me that hot, sticky day in Venezuela: I’d probably still be basing my worth on men; hopping around the party scene; investing a fortune into fashion, fitness, and beauty; trying to climb the corporate ladder while secretly pining for a husband and a family. I would be lost, scared, and insecure. Most of all, I would be without hope. I would wonder if this is all there was to life, if no one ever craved something more. I would never be satisfied.

Reading Romans has really revealed to me how much we need the gospel–a Savior who demands nothing but faith for a gospel that is based on nothing but grace. Tim Keller said once in a sermon that there was a woman on the verge of becoming a Christian. She was scared to accept Christ because she knew that once she did, “there is nothing He can’t ask of me.” The gospel demands a full surrender of ourselves. There is nothing we can hold back from God.

This is my song right now:

I once was lost in darkest night
Yet thought I knew the way
The sin that promised joy and life
Had led me to the grave
I had no hope that You would own
A rebel to Your will
And if You had not loved me first
I would refuse You still

But as I ran my hell-bound race
Indifferent to the cost
You looked upon my helpless state
And led me to the cross
And I beheld God’s love displayed
You suffered in my place
You bore the wrath reserved for me
Now all I know is grace

Hallelujah! All I have is Christ!
Hallelujah! Jesus is my life!

Now, Lord, I would be Yours alone
And live so all might see
The strength to follow Your commands
Could never come from me
Oh Father, use my ransomed life
In any way You choose
And let my song forever be
My only boast is You

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Sharing the Good News

16 Nov

This weekend has been a culmination of sorts. It was the Dare 2 Share Invincible Conference in Denver. I was at the event for the whole weekend and while it was physically draining (I’ve had an incurable headache all day), it was spiritually nourishing. Not only did my personal relationship with the Lord benefit (which I will talk about in a little bit), my job became ever more valuable.

Over 7,000 people filled the Pepsi Center for the conference. That’s a lot of students. And I have to tell you, it is beyond amazing to see these young people on fire for Christ. Not only are they fellow members of the body of Christ, they have found something to live for, a purpose for their lives. I can’t help but think back on my own life. What would my life look like if I had discovered that purpose in high school or even junior high? I have no doubt that if I had been invited to a Dare 2 Share event in junior high or high school, I would have rolled my eyes and said no. But maybe I would’ve gone…

There are hundreds of kids just like me (when I was that age) at our events: disinterested, apathetic, cynical, hopeless. And they leave the conference believing in their souls that Christ died for them. They leave with hope. They leave with the knowledge that, no matter how many people in their lives don’t love them, God loves them. And best of all, they leave with a burning desire to see their unbelieving friends come to know Jesus as well.

It’s ironic that I struggle so much with sharing my faith and yet I work at a ministry dedicated to teaching teens how to share their faith. I know God did that on purpose. Where else would I be continually convicted over the importance of giving hope to the lost, especially teens?

Our President, Greg Stier, is an amazing person. I’ve obviously heard him speak/preach quite a bit and know that since he is very animated and outgoing, he’s a great person to have speaking to a teenage crowd. But more than that, he is an inspiration. He inspires me to evangelize. God created Greg to eat, breathe, and sleep evangelism. He’ll tell you that ever since he became a Christian as a young boy, he’s been going around his neighborhood, around the mall, and now, around the country sharing the gospel. And not just in a preachy sort of way (though he does that too). He has the God-given ability to bring up the gospel with anyone, in any conversation. A guy in my care group also has that ability too. I get so inspired listening to both of them. They remind me that sharing the gospel is not something Christians do once in a while; it’s a lifestyle:

It’s walking through each day with the desire to share the gospel with someone, somehow. It’s seeing every situation and every conversation as a segue into the gospel. It’s seeing the gospel relate to every aspect of life, from waiting for a bus to eating a meal. It’s sharing the good news of Christ with those who are going to hell but don’t know it.

The biggest thing that happened this weekend was that God spoke to me. Listening to Greg speak, I knew the answer to my question, “What does living out my faith practically look like?” God’s answer:

Evangelism.

I’m pretty sure that I knew that was the answer all this time. And even now when I’m sure that it is the answer, I want to go look for a different one, one that’s not so scary and risky. One that I can feel comfortable doing. I feel like saying “God, I said I would follow you anywhere, do anything for You. But this? Anything but this…”

Whenever I think about sharing my faith with our neighbors or my brothers or friends from Travis’ work (since all of my co-workers are already Christians), I get a feeling of dread in my stomach. It’s like I’m back in 9th grade, dreading my next speech in speech class, feeling the impending doom of that fateful day.

But I know that it’s the answer, no matter how hard it is to take. I try to envision the living out of my faith without evangelism and it’s sort of like playing basketball with no hoops. I’m dribbling and running around but when I look up, I see that I’m just playing with myself. Similarly, it would be easy for me to just focus on my personal Christian walk. But when I look up at God, I see that I’m not actually playing in His game, I’m just sitting on the bench.

I want to play. I’m called to play.

But how do I play?

I know places I can start: my neighbor Patty, my brother Brian, friends I know through Travis. But beyond that… [insert big question mark].

I do know that my style of evangelism is going to look a lot different than Greg’s. He’s an outgoing person who speaks his mind…sometimes a little too much. 🙂 I’m not shy but I wouldn’t say I’m outgoing either. And I definitely like getting to know people before sharing the gospel instead of doing cold evangelism. So where to get to know people?

I’ll let you know what I come up with.

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Living for God’s glory

8 Nov

Oh, how hard I struggle to do this: live for God’s glory. It seems every time I turn around, I have yet another selfish, narcisstic, vain, sinful ambition or motive. Nothing brings these times out like marriage. A few days ago, I listened to a couple sermons on marriage by Tim Keller and in one of them, he says that marriage is used as a santificiation tool. Now, I knew that before I got married, and I do believe God was sanctifying me through Travis even before we were married. But nothing prepared me for this!

If marriage is a sanctification tool, then sanctification happens quite a bit differently than I thought it did before getting married–because I see all my sin coming out, but don’t feel like I’m being “sanctified” from it. I’ve heard it said before “When you pray for patience, does God give you patience or does He give you situations that you have to be patient in?” Marriage is a constant situation that requires so many virtues, all of which I feel I have only a microscopic sliver of–nowhere near the full amount I would need to be a good, humble, servant-minded, submissive wife.

Travis frequently tells me “You’re such a good wife.” While I know that he says it in knowledge of (and in spite of) my sinfulness, I truly feel like I don’t deserve such gratitude or compliments. So I respond “No I’m not.” I fall SO SHORT of who I want to be–and who the gospel says I could be! Just this past weekend, I kept saying and doing things I immediately regretted (over stupid stuff!) and got to the point where I wanted to just go to bed and sleep so that I didn’t have to deal with the stupid, horrible, sinful person I was being.

I know that I’m not believing the gospel. Reading Knowing God by J.I. Packer and listening to those sermons by Tim Keller, I have been shown that I am not resting in God’s opinion of me and in the hope of the gospel. I am living in a “world without windows” as Tim Keller says–meaning I am not living with my eyes set on the hope of heaven but rather set on the concerns of this moment–namely, my own desires, needs, and happiness. When I don’t get MY way, I get angry (and most of the time, I also get even.)

I just read a blog post about marriage and the struggle to believe in the sufficiency of Christ and the gospel by my friend Katie. She wrote, “I know I am being changed daily to be more like Christ, but it seems such a slow process…If I’ve been radically forgiven by Christ for all of my short-comings and for all of the sin in my life, shouldn’t I freely give grace to those around me, especially my husband?” I feel like I could have written those words. Except I probably would’ve said “I know I am being changed daily to be more like Christ…wait, do I know that? It doesn’t seem like ANYTHING is HAPPENING!!”

I have come to realize that while in the bubble of Campus Outreach, I was guilty of using all those truth phrases of the Christian life that have been so conveniently encapsulated into bitesize nuggets (so that the Christian can suavely throw them out in any conversation). Well, that bubble has popped. And all those phrases are still floating around my head–except I no longer know what any of them mean. Oh sure, I could explain them with WORDS. But the practical side of those truths got lost somewhere on the highway between Minneapolis and Denver.

Take, for example, living for the glory of God. I can sort of wrap my mind around the concept. But I can’t for the life of me seem to figure out what that truth means for my life.

Or take Living in light of the gospel. I understand the idea. I also could tell you what the gospel is and why it should effect me. Here is what I would not be able to explain: why it DOESN’T affect me. Why I am left with being the sinful, selfish, stupid person I was before I became a Christian. I know that I will continue to sin as long as I am on the earth. I just didn’t know I would still be so…pathetic.

I feel like I am at a stalemate, like the apostle Paul (oh, what glorious words!): “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!…There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 7:18-8:1)

The Bible doesn’t mention specifics in its exhortations to “live for the glory of God.” It doesn’t say “To live for the glory of God, you must work for charities in addition to serving the homeless, all while caring for sick animals and doing at least one mission trip every year.” It doesn’t say “To live for the glory of God, you must work at a job that contributes something to the greater good of society.” There are no specifics like that in the Bible. In fact, to illustrate this point about living for the glory of God, the apostle Paul uses eating and drinking, 2 things that every single human must do or else they die.

Even though there aren’t any specifics, I have been trying and trying to discern them for my life–and to no avail. I am starting to realize (through the help of the Holy Spirit no doubt) that the specifics of how to live out the Christian life come out of the principles of the Christian life. I need to understand the principles before I can understand the specifics.

That very thought leaves me completely empty-handed. I have seen increasingly more over the past year how completely incapable I am of discerning any spiritual truth without the Spirit’s guidance and prompting. Each time I blog, pray, read, or think about these things, I am left without my own resources, but utterly dependent on God’s spiritual provision in my life. To be sure, without Him, I am nothing.

“Wretched woman that I am! Who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” The gospel is all I got.

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Is this thing still on?

18 Apr

I haven’t done this in a while…I’ve just been running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

Here’s a recap of everything I’ve done since my last blog post:

1. Went skiing the past 3 Saturdays in a row.

2. Ran 7 miles, then 8, then 9 the past 3 Sundays.

3. Went to the final regular season game between the Avs and the Wild.

4. Went to the Frozen Four–two games last Thursday (4/10) and one on Saturday.

5. Went out to eat at a mongolian grill and then to a wine tasting with a couple from church.

Add to that all the craziness of work and daily life and it has been one busy month! So that’s why I’ve been lax on the blogging.

Here’s a highlight from the past month: My understanding of the Gospel is increasing. I feel like I fell back to the bottom of the ladder of Gospel understanding. I had been a couple rungs off the ground but the past couple months, I was lying flat on my back at the bottom, so out of it I wasn’t even sure there was a ladder. I just had–and am still kind of having–a really hard time grasping the impact of the gospel. I could tell you what the gospel IS but I couldn’t say what it DOES. The effect of the gospel on a human being is mysterious and complicated. And awesome. I guess I’ve been trying to take off the packaging and look at the gears so I could figure out how it worked.

I’ve come a little bit closer to understanding how that works. Here’s my journal entry from this morning:

“When we GET the gospel, when we truly understand God’s love for us, we are able to love and serve selflessly and humbly…because we are LOVED…Boasting in Jesus, His death and resurrection, is boasting in the Gospel. It’s boasting in the love of the Father for me, a sinner. It’s boasting in the fact that I am nothing apart from Christ, that He makes me what I am, and I live in daily dependence on His grace and mercy. It’s boasting that I HAVE A SAVIOR! Boasting in the Gospel naturally eliminates boasting about myself and my accomplishments or anything worldly. Like Paul writes in Galatians 6:14–‘But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.’

“The Gospel eradicates our need for the world. We are already loved. We already have a secure future. Our desires have already found their satisfaction. We are already validated as human beings. We already have a purpose.

“THESE are the effects of the Gospel that enable us to live humble, selfless, generous lives. This is what allows me to turn the other cheek, to return good for evil, to be patient and gracious in the midst of anger and hostility. Make it REAL to me God! I want to SEE the Gospel transform my life!”

I know the Christian life is one of constant learning. I just didn’t know that I would have to keep learning the same basic stuff over and over again. But I’m seeing it like I have never seen it before. It’s fresh. And exhilarating. And amazing.

Our God is amazing.

 

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