We’ve been studying Colossians chapter 3 for well over a month now and every time I read this chapter I keep getting caught up in verse 17. It says, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” I can’t stop thinking about this verse. I can’t stop thinking about the implications of it; IF I truly lived this out like I know that I should. What if, every single day, the very first thing on my mind was this verse and I made it my personal mantra that day – every single thing I do and say will be for Jesus. And if it doesn’t qualify as something that I should say, then I don’t say it. If I have a choice of something to do and I ask myself, “can this be done in the name of Christ?” then I go for it. And what if every single one of us lived this out every day. Wouldn’t that absolutely allow us to live up to the statement that Jesus makes to his disciples in John 13:35 where he says, “by this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
I would love nothing more than for the body of Christ to be know as people who are “loving, kind, sincere, authentic, passionate, gentle, joyful, patient, faithful and honest” (to name a few) rather than so commonly spoken of as “no different than anyone else, prideful, fake, discouraged, selfish, lying and exclusive.”
How has your day been filled with words and deeds in the name of Christ? Have your actions reflected Christ’s love to everyone around you? If so then let’s give thanks to God the Father. And if not, then what changes need to be made so that “all men will know we are his disciples”?
Time for a confession. I am really bad at trusting in God. While he has proven Himself faithful over and over again to me, I don’t really trust him with anything. I always think that I must do something first in order for God to do His work. Once I get things in order, then God will be able to work his “magic.”
The latest example of my lack of faith was with the Dodgeball for Haiti tournament. God did some amazing things with the dodgeball tournament – I just had to get out of the way.
As many of you know, back on May 1st, Grace Community Church put together a high school dodgeball tournament to raise money for Haiti.
The idea for a dodgeball tournament came about after the Band WILLET performed at youth group. During their performance, they talked about the work their organization was doing in Haiti (www.willetmissions.org).
Pastor R came up to me the next Sunday and handed me the business card of Jeremy Willet (the lead singer). He said something like, “see if you can find some way for our church to help support their mission.”
Eric Miller and I got together one evening in late March to discuss how we could help raise money for Haiti. We decided a dodgeball tournament would be the way to go. Kids love dodgeball, and we could reach out to the schools to make this event much larger than Grace Community Church. We figured we would end up having more than 200 kids participate in the tournament.
God proved himself faithful throughout the process of planning the tournament. We were able to reserve space at Middletown High School. We had an awesome team of volunteers step forward to help put together the tournament. Businesses donated money and prizes for the tournament.
Everything was going great except for one part….no kids were signing up!
We promoted this tournament like crazy! We sent messages to every youth group in Frederick. Eric talked about it at youth group every Wednesday night. We sent messages to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) leaders of every high school in the area. We created a Facebook page. We created a website. We contacted all of the local newspapers and radio stations. We did everything we possibly could to get students to sign up for the tournament.
Yet four days before the tournament, we had 6 kids (1 team) signed up to play!
I was seriously stressed out (and depressed) about the tournament. I made a few phone calls and was considering calling it off. I kept saying to myself – “God, I’ve done my part, now it’s your turn to step up and do your part.”
It was at this time that I realized I had been trying to put together this tournament without God’s help. I never stopped to pray about the tournament. I never asked God for wisdom. Many others had been praying for this tournament, but I had not been.
Four days out from the tournament, I finally gave it over to Him. I tried to do it on my own and failed miserably. I began to pray that I would get out of His way and that He would work to make this tournament happen.
The next day (three days before the tournament) kids started to sign up. Slowly, I started to receive e-mails from kids staying they were going to play. The day before the tournament we figured we had about 60 kids sign up to play. I was ecstatic. We went from 6 kids to 60 almost over night!
But God had more in store….on the day of the tournament more kids showed up. We ended up having more than 80 kids come out to play.
The tournament was a huge success. The kids had a great time. One kid came up to me after the tournament and said, “When are you going to do this again? This was seriously the most fun I’ve had in years!”
At the end of the day, we raised $12,614 for Haiti relief efforts and more than 80 kids heard the Gospel. God’s hand was on the tournament – I just had to get my hands out of it.
How has God demonstrated his faithfulness to you? Do you ever need to get out of the way?
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Hello, my name is Adam Forsberg, and I am the Youth Intern for this summer. I’m really excited to be working with the youth group, and to see God work in the lives of the teens. I graduated from Walkersville High School in 2008, and went to Word of Life Bible Institute in New York for a year.After studying the Bible for a year, I took classes at Frederick Community College this past year, and will be attending Liberty University in the fall. I plan to major in communications and minor in youth ministry. My favorite book of the Bible is Philippians. I love how Paul teaches us that we can have joy in any situation because of our salvation from Christ. God has been using Philippians to teach me a lot in the past few months, showing me that my focus in life needs to be completely on Jesus.
This summer I will be working with the student leaders, helping them plan out lessons and games for Wednesday nights, and discipling guys in the youth group. Discipleship is definitely a passion of mine, so I am really looking forward to pouring my life into these guys this summer. I will also be planning outreaches for the Wavorly community, and encouraging the teens to work in this ministry as well. I honestly believe that God is going to do huge things this summer in our youth group, and all throughout Frederick County. I’d like to ask for prayer from the Church Body as I’m working in this ministry this summer. Here are a few ways that you can be praying for me:
*Humility - that this summer would not be about me at all
*Wisdom - when meeting with students
*Opportunities - for the students in the youth group and myself to share Christ with unsaved people
*For the youth group to truly be a lighthouse to the community
*That everyday I would be amazed by what Jesus has done for me and that my Christian life would never become so routine that I forget about the wonder of the Cross
I want to thank the church for giving me this opportunity to serve. I’m really looking forward to this summer and for the big things that God has in store for this youth ministry.
And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
This past weekend we traveled to Swallow Falls State Park with our small group for their annual Mothers day camping trip. This was our first year to join them but it will not be the last.
Swallow Falls is the most beautiful and breath taking place I have every seen here in Maryland. On one end of the park is Muddy Creek and Maryland’s largest natural water fall (Muddy Creek Falls) and a short 2 minute walk brings you to the Youghiogheny River. From there another walk of 3 minutes brings you to Lower Swallow Falls and then Upper Swallow Falls. Just a short 6 minute walk from there takes you to Tolliver Creek and another falls called Tolliver Falls. Through out the walk you are in the middle of towering old growth Hemlock and White Pine trees reaching toward heaven. The serenity of the natural beauty is just beyond words. I could never grow tired of walking this ½ mile trail and gazing at the flora and fauna.
I am generally an outdoor person and I love to hunt, fish and camp. I have camped in a tent in 10 degree weather during a blizzard in southern Montana while Elk hunting. I have climbed up the peaks of the Himalayan Mountains in Northern India. I have flown in a helicopter over and though the Grand Canyons and I have camped, hiked and tubed the rivers of the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee. I have walked the banks and delta of the Mekong River in Southern Cambodia. In all my journeys I have seen God’s hands at work. He has molded and formed everything we see for his own pleasure and he said it was good…
I would like to encourage you to take an hour or so this week to drive up to Gambrill Park at Mountaindale (off of Putman Road). If you go west on Mountaindale road you will pass the Frederick City reservoir on the left side of the road. From the reservoir west for about 1.5 miles runs Fishing Creek. I suggest you drive ¾ of a mile up stream of the reservoir and pull over. Take your bible and walk down to the creek, find a rock and sit down and take in the beauty God has made for 15 minutes. Then read the follow verses.
Genesis 1
1 Peter 1:23-25 The human life is like that of a flower: it blooms and is beautiful for a time, but inevitably fades and withers away. By contrast, God is eternal and will never die or fade away.
Matthew 6:26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
Finally send time in prayer, mostly listening to what God wants to say to you. I have found that when I am out in the beauty of the mountains and I sit and listen God says some big things that I can’t hear when I am my own house or car. Go out and find him and listen…he will come to you…
This week we will be turning a major corner in the third chapter of Colossians, a series we are calling Living the Christian Life. We have been talking about the vices that characterized our former life and this week we are talking about the virtues that characterize our new life.
I hope you are beginning to implement what Brenda talked about in her introductory comments about Inductive Bible study. Your understanding of Colossians 3 will only increase when you ask What is the author’s intent? What are the commands in this passage? What does want me to obey? How can I apply this truth to my life?
I hope you are beginning to implement what Alec talked about in his introductory comments about looking up words in the text that are unfamiliar. I can almost hear his mother saying to him when he asked about a word Alec, look it up. You will begin to see the richness , beauty and depth of the text by looking it up.
Last week I spent some time camping out on two vices of the old life that God would like you to get rid of. Those vices are anger and rage. To get rid of something is a command. God is commanding you to some house cleaning and get rid of something that does not belong in your house; namely, anger and rage. It may be lying just below the surface like a toxic substance just under the sink and you may not be consciously aware of its presence in your life. It will take some work then to look beneath the sink and see what is lying in your soul. Whenever I have stilled my soul and invited the Holy Spirit to illuminate my true soul’s condition, He begins to show me where I am out of alignment.
I believe that many of us try to pretend we don’t have anger in our souls trying to put a lid on it. We either deny that we are angry or we try to justify our anger by saying I’m just a little miffed. F reedom comes when we admit the truth about ourselves to God, to ourselves and to safe others. We can feel bottled up and congested until we do so.
The two words that are used in the original to describe anger are orge and thumos. Orge describes the settled condition of the wounded heart that moves from being angry to seeking to get revenge. Thumos describes the kind of volcanic anger that is ready to explode. These words describe behavior that is consistent with a believers former life and not their new life in Christ.
This week we take a good look at the virtues that characterize a believer. You have heard I’m sure sermons on the virtuous woman. We will see what clothing should accompany the new life whether you are a man or a woman. Bring with you some woman or young woman this Mother’s Day who could use a good dose of encouragement about who she is and the life that flows out of who she is.
Since our I Can Only Imagine (ICOI) Sunday, I’ve been thinking about that phrase.It takes on different meaning when you change the emphasis on the words.Try it… Say it once emphasizing the “I.” Try again but put the emphasis on “only;” or again, with the emphasis on “imagine.”
I think I prefer the emphasis on “imagine” and that sense of endless possibilities.When the focus is on the word “only,” I’m struck by my own limitations.Matthew, however, reminds us that Jesus said, “…with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26).How reassuring that is, and how encouraging to know we are not bound by our limitations and shortcomings when we stop living for ourselves, for our stuff , and follow Christ.
Sometimes I have trouble really imagining how things could be because I’m too practical, too economical.I can’t really grasp God’s infinite, incomprehensible greatness.Since Sunday, however, I’ve really been thinking about what our church ministries would look like when funds are freed from servicing debt and available to do God’s work. I am imagining:
vthe day when our dedicated Youth space above the Family Life Center is completed
vwhen we can have a Middle School Praise Team, as well as the High School Praise Team, and they can leave their equipment in place for impromptu worship sessions, or rehearsing new songs
vwhen we can have space for small group Bible studies at various times throughout the week, more space for the large group on Wednesday nights, and space where students and youth staff can hang out and invite friends to without having to book a room in advance
vwhen we have more resources for curriculum, speakers, or guest artists who will challenge students to grow deeper and develop their spiritual gifts
vwhen we have a finished kitchen and more opportunities for eating together and getting to know one another
vwhen we could host dinners for families that are enjoyable, inexpensive nights out, and yet could also help us raise funds for more students to attend Momentum and retreats
vWhen we can have lunch with visiting missionaries and hear more about their experiences firsthand
vAnd the list is just beginning…Let’s keep imagining, thinking, and praying about these things.
