If You Believe..

Hey everyone. Welcome back to "This Guy Over Here." I hope that everyone has had a good transition getting back into the swing of school as this spring semester gets kicked off. Over Christmas break, I had the opportunity to go to Passion Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. I was fortunate enough to go last year and that completely rocked me and this year was no different. Passion really helped refocus my image of who God is to me and what He means to me in my daily everyday life. I have been meaning to blog sooner about some of the stuff that God taught me and others that I have talked to at Passion Conference; however, I have spent the past few weeks really diving into what I learned and organizing it into some main points of what I think that you need to hear. This is the first of those main points. Today I will be talking about the topic of "If you believe.."

Last spring, I did a mini-segment called "What if we..." and in one of those posts I tackeled the subject of "What if we... believed?" This post will have some similarities to that, yet I think that this is something that has really been on my heart, and I believe that we need to recognize the urgency of this issue. So, if you get nothing else from this blogpost, or for some odd reason you have to stop reading, make sure to at least read this next sentence:

IF YOU BELIEVE IN THE GOD YOU SAY YOU BELIEVE IN, LIVE LIKE IT.

This is supposed to criticize people, myself included. Some of us have grown up reading the scriptures and have been raised in the Christian Church yet we do nothing on a day to day basis that would tell the world that we are christians. I like to sign off my blogs with the phrase, "They'll know we are christians by our love." What a joke. Now a days, it is more, "They'll know we are christians by our idleness." I must make the disclaimer that there are people out there who are living for God and are chasing after him in such manner of true worship that they are shining their lights brilliantly for the Name of Christ. But on a whole, we have become dead, lukewarm, lacking faith, and idle.

A verse that has really been on my mind a lot recently is 2nd Timothy 1:7:

"For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline."

When we read scriptures like these, are we just reading them or are we taking them to heart and applying them to our lives. Scriptures such as these are the LIVING WORD OF GOD and they appy to each and every one of us. Note that the "S" in Spirit is capitalized. That is because Paul is talking about the Holy Spirit, which God gave to us at Pentacost. This is the same Spirit that rests inside you and I and every other Christian in this world. Through this Spirit, we are given power. The same power that parted the Red Sea, that collapsed the city of Jericho, that killed Goliath, that healed the blind and make the lame walk, that raised Christ from the dead. This same power is given to us by God himself, and we do not even use it. Much more than that, this power is given to us for the sake of being bold and proclaiming the gospel of Christ. The verse very clearly says that the Spirit given to us by God DOES NOT make us timid. Rather, through the power of Christ, we are to stand and declare His resurrection and His salvation.

We also are given love, because the ONLY way to use the power of Christ is through love. In everything that we do, we are to clothe ourselves with love and "take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of us." Do we realize that Christ did everything for us out of love? Christ loved us, each and everyone of us, so much that he "died for us while we were still sinners." Talk about the ultimate sacrifice. And we are too afraid to be laughed at, ignored, or rejected on our campuses that we continally refuse to sacrifice for Him? We are given power to be bold and preach the Gospel and love as a vessel through which to preach the Gospel to the world.

Finally, we are given self-discipline. This seems like a weird thing to be given after power and love; however, it completes the first two and ends out the gift of God. For some of you, you know what it feels like to be on fire for God. You may come back from a huge church camp or conference, you may have just been saved, or you may just be on a spiritual high. If you have ever experienced that feeling, then you almost guarenteed know the feeling of coming down off of that spiritual high. Why is it that we always fade back into our everyday lives after we are so on fire for Christ? Well, the third part of this gift takes care of that. Christ gives us self-discipline so that for all times, through eternity, we may continue to MAKE THE MOST of the power and love that He has given us in His Holy Spirit.

I have been reading in Acts, and one verse has really just stood out to me. Acts 4:13 says:

"When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus."

How incredible is that, and how challenging should that verse be to our everyday lives. When they (the Sanhedrin- or the lawmakers of our day) saw the COURAGE that Peter and John had, even though they were just two regular guys, they were astonished and took note that they HAD BEEN WITH JESUS. If someone saw your life today, would they be astonished and could they know that you had been with Jesus?

The picture at the beginning is of a clouded sunset with light poking out of the bottom of the picture above the trees. Our campus is currently clouded over. It is overcast. However, there is a glorious sunset that is waiting right behind the darkened clouds, and all it takes is one ray of light to pierce the darkness. Will you be that ray of light? Will you live what you believe in? Let's awake sleepers, for the kingdom of God is at hand.

Final words. Be on the lookout for the launching of a new website, http://www.mywhiteflag.com/. It is not up yet so if you click on the link you will go to a empty page; however, it is coming soon to Purdue University and hopefully other campuses. We are raising our white flags in complete surrender to Christ and we want you to join along with us.

Have a great week.

They'll KNOW we are Christians by our Love,
Signing off,


JD