This week we were asked to evaluate our spiritual growth over the past year, and even over the past two weeks in our internship at River City. We were also asked to evaluate our efforts in what we have done to grow. This is a very convicting question. While I have seen growth in myself over the past year, and even the past two weeks, I know that there is so much more growing that needs to happen in me as a follower of Christ and a person in love with Jesus. For now, however, I will focus on the growth that has happened.
Over the past year I have developed a thirst for the Word. There is so much I do not know and so many questions I cannot answer and I have just been feeling the constant need to know more. Now, being human and very imperfect, I still have a hard time carving out time each day to spend in the word and listening for God's voice, but where I am now compared to where I was this time last year is a giant leap in the right direction. When I read the Bible I don't just read it...I search for truth and guidance, I study it, I want to know it cover to cover. This has made my faith so much stronger. I can say with confidence that there is nothing that will cause my faith to waiver. Faith grounded in the word is strong faith. It takes knowing God and His promises in order to know what you believe, why you believe it, and be sure that nothing can shake it! While I am far from knowing everything I want to know, I believe I am headed in the right direction to having an unmovable faith based on the truth's found in God's Word.
Over the past two weeks, even though it is a very short time, I know that I have grown in my understanding of who God is. At the beginning of the summer, Jonathan spoke at youth on Wednesday night about God and who He is and how we often times don't understand How great He really is. From that point on I have been convicted about how I view God. I think that even though I am extremely involved in my church and things going on here, I had a very small image of God. I knew what and who He was but I didn't act like I did. He is the creator of the universe, He pieced together human beings and the intricate details that make up our bodies. He put 3000 different types of trees in one square mile of the Amazon jungle just because He could. He made the universe with so many puzzling and amazing details that we as humans could never possibly understand them all, yet He still did it. He wrote his love letter for us on every piece of creation. He created all these spectacular things so that we can know Him through His creation. "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." Romans 1:20
I think that for both of these spiritual growth areas, all that I have done is read and study the Bible and recognize my need for more understanding. God has worked in me and made me realize the importance of knowing Him and His word.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Expanding on My Ministry
So after writing my last blog about my ministry, Jason Powers asked the following questions to provoke deeper thought on my part;
With the idea of "calling" in the area of your chosen ministry...
1. What does it mean?
2. How do we know?
3. And what implications does it have?
In my chosen ministry, whether it be youth, worship, missions, etc, I believe that God puts something in me calling me to serve in that area of ministry. This calling may be different at different times in your life, but I do believe that it is something put in you by God, with the purpose of directing you to the place He wants you to serve.
I believe the way we hear this calling is by praying, listening for God's voice, taking advice from Godly council, recognizing gifts He has put in us, and analyzing the fruit we see from our service in that ministry we are called to. I do not believe that God will call you to do something you are not good at, and if He does, He will equip you to do it and you will become "good at it". I think that if we are called to something we will feel a passion for that area of service and we will see good fruit in our work with that ministry. I know for myself, God has put a passion in me to see youth come to know Him. I know that this is the ministry He has called me to, for the time being, because I have seen good fruit from my work with youth. I know that if this was not where He was calling me, I would not be seeing good fruit in my work, because all good fruit comes from Him.
I do believe that when we are called by God to something, we had better listen! God is not some teacher who THINKS He knows best for us and just puts us somewhere He THINKS will work. God KNOWS what is best for us and He puts us where He KNOWS we need to be. He is all knowing and all powerful and yet we sometimes doubt His calling...To quote from the movie Hot Rod, "Where do we get off?!". I think sometimes we have this vision of God of an old man playing a harp and just making suggestions as we go along in life. That is not the God we serve. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He has a perfect plan for our lives and He wants to use us. It is up to us to hand over the reigns and let Him.
With the idea of "calling" in the area of your chosen ministry...
1. What does it mean?
2. How do we know?
3. And what implications does it have?
In my chosen ministry, whether it be youth, worship, missions, etc, I believe that God puts something in me calling me to serve in that area of ministry. This calling may be different at different times in your life, but I do believe that it is something put in you by God, with the purpose of directing you to the place He wants you to serve.
I believe the way we hear this calling is by praying, listening for God's voice, taking advice from Godly council, recognizing gifts He has put in us, and analyzing the fruit we see from our service in that ministry we are called to. I do not believe that God will call you to do something you are not good at, and if He does, He will equip you to do it and you will become "good at it". I think that if we are called to something we will feel a passion for that area of service and we will see good fruit in our work with that ministry. I know for myself, God has put a passion in me to see youth come to know Him. I know that this is the ministry He has called me to, for the time being, because I have seen good fruit from my work with youth. I know that if this was not where He was calling me, I would not be seeing good fruit in my work, because all good fruit comes from Him.
I do believe that when we are called by God to something, we had better listen! God is not some teacher who THINKS He knows best for us and just puts us somewhere He THINKS will work. God KNOWS what is best for us and He puts us where He KNOWS we need to be. He is all knowing and all powerful and yet we sometimes doubt His calling...To quote from the movie Hot Rod, "Where do we get off?!". I think sometimes we have this vision of God of an old man playing a harp and just making suggestions as we go along in life. That is not the God we serve. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He has a perfect plan for our lives and He wants to use us. It is up to us to hand over the reigns and let Him.
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