Equipped?

So recently I have heard the quote "God doesn't call the equipped he equips the called" which is a valid statement, thrown around a lot. However, I feel that this leaves an opportunity to not change. We sit and we say "oh God will equip me as I'm called" but we stay in our sin, believing that as he calls us, we will move past the sin.  At least that's how I feel.

This isn't how it works though.  We have to be in a place where we can hear God's call in the first place.  Being there means we have to be seeking after Him.  Seeking after Him means we have to be removing sin, digging into Scripture, praying, ect.

If we just sit here, waiting to be equipped, God will use someone else.  God wants us, to want Him.  I think that that's the hardest thing for me to grasp right now.  God has amazing things, that he will equip us for, but we have to want Him to do that.  If we don't want Him to do amazing things through us, then he won't.  He will leave us in the dust, using people who are willing to do amazing things for Him.

Decisions: Application

As followers of Christ we feel an inherent need to please Christ.  After all if we did not feel this need then we would probably need to reconsider whether or not we are truly followers of Him.

At the core, pleasing Christ comes through our decision making.  If we are pleasing Christ with out decisions then we are not sinning and we are enacting life change in ourselves and others.

So how do we begin in seeking Christ in our decision making?  We must first be willing to abandon ourselves to those decisions that Christ has planned for us.  Then we must listen for those plans.  This is where the prayer and supplication comes into action.  God guides our decisions through other means of communication with Him, however if we are not grounded in prayer then we will question whether we are doing what we want or what Christ wants.

You may sit back and think, Christ making decisions for me; that's crazy.  However I can tell you from first hand experience as well as second hand stories that following Christ direction is a real thing.  Not only can his confirmation of decisions come through prayer, it can also come through scripture, worship, communication with other believers, and communication with nonbelievers as well.

I say all of this knowing full well that this is something that I myself need to work on.  Most of the time when I blog about things, they are thoughts that apply to myself, and I feel the need to share.

Love One Another?

So if we call ourselves "Christians" or "Little Christs" by definition, then we are followers of the Scriptures.  The Scriptures preach love, for each other, for everyone really.  Just look at John 13:34, people will recognize us by our love. This is where the song "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love" comes from as well.  Why then is that not what we are known as?  As Christians there are a host of things that we are known for, and typically love is not one of them.  There is this amazing set of Scriptures from Acts chapter 2 that really back up what love and community is supposed to look like for Christians.  

When we aren't following what the Scriptures say then we aren't being "Christians."  Simple thought right?  I know it's hard though.  It's crazy all the things we go through, how busy we are ect.  I got to thinking though, did you know fellow followers are sending missionaries to America?  Crazy thought right, that what some people believe to be a nation founded on Christian principles is having missionaries being sent to them..

So why don't we walk what we talk?  After all, it is that simple right?  To just keep our word.  That's what we should be doing all the time.  Keeping our word is a commandment, so if we aren't doing our job, not only is it a sin, it's a bad representation of what Christians are, we are supposed to be known as people of love, but we aren't, to the point that other countries are sending us missionaries to help.

ReFuel

So recently I've been reading this book by Doug Fields.  It's been a really good source of insight into the struggle of a daily relationship with Christ and steps to take to draw close to him.  Everything that I've read have reaffirmed thoughts that I have had on the subject.  Christ strives for a daily connection with us, he yearns for it, more than we can ever imagine.  There is this song, called "How He Loves" (lyrics) that starts off saying "He is jealous for me" and that's so true, Christ longs for that connection with us.  The thing we need to realize is, that it doesn't always come in the form of reading the Scriptures.

We can connect to Christ in things other than reading the scriptures.  We can connect through worship, prayer, evangelism, art, nature, the list goes on...It's a revolutionary thought, conveyed in depth in the podcast "Wind" from Mosaic church.

Connecting with Christ doesn't have to be something that takes 30 minutes of the day, it can be longer, it can be shorter, Christ just longs for that connection.  Sometimes we have to take small steps to get to the big stuff, so perhaps between tasks on the computer we stop to thank Him for providing for us, or maybe we do just stop for a moment and meditate on the daily verse that you get emailed to you everyday.  If we are looking through the small stuff for ways to connect to Christ, he will reveal himself to us, cause he is constantly wanting to be connected to us.

Everybody trying to sell me their product...

          So today we had the organizational fair for timeout for Tech.  This is where you set up your material to promote your group to incoming and prospective students.  The BCM sets up a booth to promote not only BCM but specifically Freshlife.  This is our ministry for freshman.  Our booth was between two other ministries, that were between two other ministries, that were between two other ministries; sounds like alot of Jesus right?
          Anyway so I got to thinking, we have all these ministries, there for the same purpose, to try to engage students in a meaningful relationship with Christ as well as other believers.  Each ministry just has their own unique way of doing it, sure there may be some aspects that look the same, there are even times when they talk about the same subjects, but each place has their own identity.
         If we all have the same purpose, then why do people involved in the different ministries not approve of the others?  This isn't anything new, in ministry we see it everyday, but it's something that I wanted to talk about real quick.  Sure, sometimes things are done that are contrary to Scripture, but then if you really stop and think about, there is something each of us has done recently that is contrary to Scripture, (speeding, malice towards a brother, something...).
          Why then do ministries speak out against each other, are we not supposed to instead edify each other?  We are supposed to lift each other up, we should be thankful for the amount of students that we have attending each individual group on campus.