I write to you all this evening heavy laden and yet, I am hopeful. Hopeful that these youth will make a drastic, life changing choice this week. Hopeful that, amidst the comfort that is attributed to freedom -- though that comfort is often our strongest chain -- we all can break free.
An interesting attribution, right? We are able to be comfortable because we are free, but it is that comfort that binds us. That binds us to our burdens, our sins, our habits. It binds us to our inability to see the necessity for change. To do more. To be like Jesus in all ways.
You see, if we are comfortable we're much less likely to be like Jesus. That's not to say that we cannot be like Jesus, it's simply to say it makes it a much harder step to take. Those things around us that make us comfortable are many of the things that we'd have to give up if we were to completely make the change that we would be making if we chose to completely and selflessly follow Christ. It's so simple, but it took these kids to break it down so succinctly. I'm sure there's more to it as well, i.e. our being human, etc.. But it's the comfort that keeps us from a lot.
Today was a good, yet challenging day. An arena full of over seven thousand people jumping and singing along with The David Crowder Band is definitely something that everyone should see, if not fully experience. Please know that we're enjoying ourselves.
I don't want any of you to think that because I write with burdens on my heart that any of that is a negative thing. These burdens are ones that I want and will continue to bear. They are my yearning for these youth to fully encounter Christ, each one of these six thousand or so, and especially our youth. They are my want for more of Christ for myself and for all of us. For us to encounter God on a daily basis in such a way that we cannot do anything but fall to our knees and pray that he will use us.
I see the possibilities. I see the start of huge things. I see so much potential in this generation that we are raising up. I want so badly for them to see it as well.
Please pray for us as we move forward this week. We will undoubtedly encounter more difficult things to talk and pray about. Pray that these youth will want more of Jesus -- more in the sense that they will want to make a radical life altering choice to truly follow Him. And most simply, more of Him in every way.
We are incapable of being separated from His love. I pray that we can all come to know that.
Romans 8:28-39: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Colin
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