Resting in Jesus ..... aaaaaamazing.

Two weeks ago was a crazy week for me. Life was crazy. I was in more courses than I was expecting to be, working a new job all the while getting my brain rolling and planning with all that might go on at camp this summer! It was my reading week and so I was hoping to do bit of catch up. I was feeling super overwhelmed and stressed (though obviously i didn’t need to be, what do I have to fear if I have Jesus!) by what I all had on my plate and I hated it! I just want it to end, I needed some relief! At the same time there was a part of me that wanted to keep going anyway because in my mind quit is a 4 letter word. I hate quitting, my head relates quitting with irresponsibility. I really want to be someone who finishes what they started and doesn’t quit when the going gets tough.

So I talked to God about it. I felt Him saying to keep plugging away, so keep on going I did, figuring that if this was what he wanted, he would give me what I needed to finish.

I continued for a while like this and things only got more overwhelming, my mind was who know’s where, I felt like I could barely think at all anymore, my mind was always in 6 different places at once, I was running around and never letting myself break. I felt like there was just so much I had to do. I guess I thought I was superman and could just power through it all. But eventually I came to God again, “this is a gongshow, I feel I can’t keep doing this!” Then he revealed to me a new thing. He said Seth, all I want is to love you, let me Love you! If that’s in finishing all you started do that, if that’s in dropping a course or two do that. Don’t fear about choosing what to do because I don’t care as much whether you do or don’t do all the things you want to get done but how you received my love and gave it back to me.” It was so relieving. I felt like I had been given permission to, like a famous person once said, “Love God and do what you please.” If I love God what pleases me is exactly what he is desiring! I could love God no matter what I did and at that moment I felt like I WASN’T superman and needed to be with God some more and I felt that dropping 2 courses would me to do that. After that I felt like I was living again! It was so relieving!

At the end of it all what I hope you can take away from this is that, having less on my plate DIDN’T remove stress, what did was letting myself rest at the thought of Jesus. - literally thinking about who He is, dwelling on who He is, resting in how He sees me, what He is like, what it will be like to be in the fullness of His presence, what he looks like, spending time soaking up truth in the word, worshiping.  Being super busy in my case distracted me from what really mattered and what TRULY satisfies me. Even after my burden was lighter I still stress/ed in the times that I look at myself wondering how well I will make out of situations, but when I look at Jesus I realize that …. His love is all that matters! Lightening my lode in my circumstance simply helped me to letting myself rest at the thought of Jesus. 

Seek him with all of your heart, all of your soul, with all your strength and will all of your mind so that you can love him that way! Letting Yourself rest at the thought of Jesus.

“Hey Hebrews 12:2, How do we run the race?”

“Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

“Unreal!”

(It’s funny how it came to me the other day how many of the things he’s revealing to me are some of the same things I got to talk about in sessions in LDP. Always giving more… that guy!!!)    -   Also see 2 Cor 4:16-18, Col 3:1-4

He love's your heart for Him even if you don't always live it out the way you wanted to.

His Glory, Our Good

We serve an awesome God.

      These last few days I've noticed God working in my life and the lives of others in ways that reveal how incredibly powerful, and passionately loving He is.

I've been seeing glimpses of the fruit that He brings from bold prayers that He challenges us to pray.

I've been pushed into challenging situations where fear, frustration, hurt and anger threaten to take over... but instead they ended in a changed heart in reverent awe of a God who cares so deeply and tenderly about each of us.

“Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. 

You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, 

how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.” James 5:11

      I know I'm being vague, but God has been so gracious lately to allow my eyes to be open to the ways He is working in my life, that I could fill page after page with words trying to describe it all and still come up short. It is impossible to fully comprehend an infinite God, let alone describe Him!

But in all of the happenings lately, one saying has never been so true...

In everything, God works for His glory, and our good. 

 

     When we surrender our plans to God's will and get on board with what He's doing, we start to see that He works everything for His glory and our good. God takes situations and circumstances that seem hard (even unfair) at the time and makes something beautiful out of them. 

He uses them to change our hearts, strengthen us, grow us, reveal more of Himself to us, and ultimately glorify His wonderful name!

     So I want to encourage you... if you find yourself in a challenging situation, don't lose heart. God is working. And the end result will be for His glory, and your good (even if it doesn't feel like it at the time). In the midst of life's trials, don't hide or run away from God. 

Run towards Him! Because He's the only One who can truly save you. He's the One in control. And, He's the One who LOVES you.

"May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance." 

2 Thessalonians 3:5

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” Hebrews 12:1-3

Check out this gem!

"Come to Me"

If we are totally honest with ourselves we would probably all admit that we don't pray as much as we'd like to. Why is that? All of our lives we've been told that we should, we know we should and yet we don't. We have been given direct access to the Creator of the universe...why don't we dial Him up more?

I'm going to suggest that one of the big reasons we don't is because we don't really believe that God likes us. We've been told all our church-lives that "God loves you" so much that we seem to have diluted it. It's become just another cliche. That, combined with the fact that we are all massive screw-ups, has made us come to the conclusion that God doesn't like us. How could God possibly like us? Everyday we mess up. We gossip, lie, cheat, steal, lust, etc... clearly God couldn't like us. News flash: You are not your actions. If we are in Christ we are a "new creation"  (2 Corinthians 5v17) - aka: we are no longer defined by our sin. This idea that God doesn't like us is the idea of religion: you must do a,b, and c, THEN God will like you. The Gospel says, "God loves you." John 3v16 says, "For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son..." God proved once and for all that He loves you. Romans (5v8) says that "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us". God didn't wait til we had it all together to die for us. In our imperfection Christ came and died for us.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest..."- Matthew 11v28  

We think that God doesn't like us, but what does His word say? "Come to me..." Christ is inviting us to come. He's saying, "Get over here!" He's extending the invitation to you. We do not bother Christ. We don't waste His time. We aren't burdensome to Him. CHRIST DELIGHTS IN YOU!

As you approach God, come as you are. Don't lay your burdens down before you come to Him. Bring them with you. Too often we hear, "You may be struggling with something, put that aside and worship God." That's religion sneaking in - clean your life up and approach God. The Gospel, however, says "bring your issues to God and let Him clean them up for you." 

I'm not sure where all of you have gone in your journey with God since your time at camp, but I do know that God wants you to go to Him. God loves you and He wants to do amazing things in and through you. Approach God as you are with whatever you have, knowing that He delights in you. Spend some time with Him and see what He's up to. 

-CW

PS- April 4-6 is coming up! Details on the reunion will be coming out soon! Keep checking your emails! 

Valentine's Day

As we all know, Valentines Day is this Friday! For some of you, it may be “woohoo!” and others may not really care at all! Either way, it is something that is so popular in our culture. Valentine day cards come out, chocolate is given, and flowers are everywhere. Yes, valentine's is considered a "love" day with your significant other, but is that all it has to be?? 

I have read many blogs on how we all have a Valentine, God, which is so cool, so remember that. We need to focus on our relationship with God and his love for us. This love makes us capable of loving others. But I want to look at valentines in a different way for this post. I want to challenge you, on this Friday, to be intentional with what you are doing. I am proposing that instead of just focusing on a girlfriend/boyfriend/crush/single awareness days, I want to challenge you to make Friday a day of loving the people around you. God calls us to love one another and care for one another, and I know on days like valentines day, people often get very self-centred. "I hope my boyfriend gets me this,and does this and that and that other nice thing" or "once again no boyfriend for me, I guess I will just sit at home and watch a movie by myself". How ridiculous are those two statements!? And yet we get trapped into believing that we deserve something amazing from someone else on this day!

Change that mindset! On Friday, I want you to think of how you can show God's love through your words and actions to the people around you. Yes, this should be our goal everyday...so I do encourage you to have this mindset daily. But especially on Friday, serve someone you don't know. Give them a flower, bake cookies for your class, write a letter of encouragement to someone, pay for someone's meal. Remember the time we went to Winkler and served the people of Winkler? Put that into action again.

Some people find valentines day very hard and discouraging; so be there for those people and show them that you love them and care for them!

John 13:34-35: 34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Here is a song that I have really enjoyed recently.

Amazing Idea Nadine!

I often loose perspective on life. One evening two weeks ago I had a huge realization that I was doing that again! I was having a tough day. To make a long story short I felt broken and frustrated for not living obedient to Him. He then brought me to Rev 3:14-22 which turned into one of the best nights of my life and I wasn’t with anyone the entire evening but Holy Spirit!

(Please stop and take a bunch of time and meditate on that (or any scripture really) right now and let him speak to you about it, I’d far rather have you do that than read the rest of this and you DO have time cause you are reading this :) )

          What He gave me was a huge reminder of my total dependance on Him. SO often I forget my TOTAL need of Him. Or I’ll loose my desire to meditate on the Word. That is a such a HUGE problem, this is a far worse problem than if I was to find out that I have cancer! If that was to happen people would come to the hospital, visit me, encourage me, pray for me, but being chill about reading His word is so much worse! How often are we not in this rut of thinking that the best life we can have is if we go after all the things we (think we) want and seek after Him a mid to moderate amount! To forget my utter dependance on Him or to be lacking in desire to know His Word is awful, I am toast without it. I can’t do ANYTHING good on my own, I fall into temptation in the snap of a finger on my own, I can’t love ANYONE on my own, I can’t even help anyone on my own, and nothing or nobody will EVER com close to satisfying me like He does. You think I’m crazy but this is true. I need, I need, I need Jesus! 

          Since then these last two weeks I’ve started to seek him a little harder. I’ve been waking up early enough to spend at least 2 hours alone with Him each day, listening to him, meditating on Him and His Word and worshiping Him, pleading for help, asking to never forget how week I am so that I might rely on Him. I don’t say this to make myself look good, rather, the opposite, I'm saying that I’m a mess, I don’t know who I am, I can’t do squat on my own, I feel like garbage on my own, nobody will ever come to Jesus because of me. But HE, HE gives life, HE tells me the truth of who I am, HIS grace is made perfect in my weakness, HE tells me that He loves me with all of the love the God of Love can muster, HE sends His Spirit to shine to others around me. Let us seek our God, who Loves us far more than we know, as hard as we physically can to Love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. 

Listen to this lights out Jam! 

You guys are HUUUUUUUUGE gems! I pray to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that He may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation of insight into mysteries and secrets in the deep and intimate knowledge of Him,

By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints (His set-apart ones), And so that you can know and understand what is the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power in and for us who believe, as demonstrated in the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places. (That's in Ephesians 1 and I'm prayin that for you guys today!)

-Seth

Draw Near

“But [Jesus] would withdraw to desolate places and pray.” -Luke 5:16

“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, He departed and went our to a desolate place, and there He prayed.” -Mark 1:35

      Over the past year, I have learned what a precious gift it is to wake up early and start your day with a time of quiet before the Lord, reading the Word, meditating on it, praying and listening.

      Our Saviour, Jesus lived the perfect life while He was here on earth. He modelled for us what it looks like to life a life completely surrendered to the will of our Heavenly Father. So becoming imitators of Christ should be our goal.

      If Jesus retreated from the business of the day and the business of ministering to people to spend time alone with His Heavenly Father, then how much more should we take time to be still before the Lord? 

     Jesus knew that He wasn't here on earth for His own purposes. He was here to do the will of the One who sent Him. In the same way, we aren't here on earth for our own purposes. This life is not about us! It's about doing the will of our Father, and glorifying His Son!

      Jesus knew that in order to do the will of the Father, He would have to know the will of the Father. So Jesus took time away from everyone else to spend time alone with the Father.

     So often we get focused on 'doing things for God', that we strive and strain in our own strength to accomplish great things for God. But if we have that mindset then we're going to fail. We shouldn't focus on doing great things for God, God doesn't need us. Instead, we should be focusing on doing great things with God. Our gracious God decides to let us be a part of His amazing plans!

    Let's make it a habit to seek God in quiet times, early in the morning or whatever time you will be most attentive to what God has to say to you. Let's not run on ahead of God doing things for Him, when He wants us to draw near to Him so He can tell us what He wants us to do with Him.

      Like and football player waiting for the coach to tell Him which play they should run, or like a soldier waiting to hear his orders from the general, we need to meet with our Heavenly Father to learn more about who He is, hear His commands, learn His will, and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Only then can we “live a life worthy of the calling you have received”(Eph 4:1). 

   Have an amazing week as you live the mission God has called you to!!


***Don't forget to book off April 4-6th for the LDP REUNION!! ***

Pray BIG

Over the past two weeks God has been challenging me to pray big. I often pray that I'll have a good day, have a restful sleep or that a headache will go away, but how often do I trust in God and tap into the power that is available to me?

“…I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth.  The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you”  “But I tell you the truth: it is for your good that I am going away.  Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you”- Jesus (John 14v15-18, 16v7).

Wait... did Jesus say that it was good for His disciples that He left? If the disciples would be better off with Jesus-in-the-flesh gone then what was coming must be pretty amazing. With the Holy Spirit coming we have power available to us just waiting for us to tap into it. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to us.

Last week God put a huge burden on my heart for the lost. During my prayer time God started to put my classmates on my heart. In my classes there are roughly 28 people (4 of us whom are Christians) who will be with me for the next year and a half. I started to wonder who I should be praying for. Then it was put on my heart, "Pray big." I realized that I wasn't just supposed to pray for one or two people to come to know Christ but I was supposed to pray for ALL of my classmates come to Christ. It's prayer requests like this that don't make sense on a human level. How do I, as a single person, witness to 24 people over the next 18 months? That job is way to big for me. Praise the Lord for the Holy Spirit! As Mark 10v26 states, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God." I know that God loves each one of my classmates. I know that He desires a relationship with each one of them. I can't force that on any of them but I can be obedient to what He has called me to do. Right now He's calling me to pray big. Not for just one, two or five of them to come to Christ but for all 24 of them to know His incredible love.

What are some "BIG" things that you need to pray for?

Trust in Man or in God?

Trust- What does it mean to trust?

As we go throughout our lives, we will run into people who we can really trust, and those who you may have been hurt by that you cannot trust. Trust is something that we all do daily. I think that sometimes we get caught up in trusting man more than God. 

What is trust anyways? 

Trust means to rely on the integrity of someone who is being true to you.

Trusting in God is something that I have had to work on these last couple months and something that I am continually working on. After going through the tragedy that occurred in fall, as I have mentioned before I have had to really work on not blaming God. However, sometimes when I am feeling upset, I have a hard time trusting. Why should I trust that I will be safe or anyone else, when my cousin got hit? These are some of the thoughts that go through my head. However, I know it’s not God’s fault, but I realize that my trust in him has changed, so this is something I am working on constantly!

We will all go through hard times in our lives and have people disappoint us. It is so important that during those times that we trust God and trust that he has a plan for each situation that we may encounter. Trust is not an easy thing. That means we have to give up our fears and concerns to God and totally rely on him.

How can we work on trusting in God?

We need to be spending time in the Bible. The Bible is full of so many truths, and like in any relationship, before you trust the person, you have to get to know them first. Another way that has helped me is by reflecting on my own life and seeing where God has worked. I know God is true, I know that he loves me, and I have experienced it. Reflecting on your experience with God helps you realize that you can trust Him.

I want to encourage you guys to look at your lives and see where you are putting the most trust in. Is it on man or on God? 

Some verses that are good reminders of trusting in God is

Proverbs 30:5- “Every word of God is flawless;
    he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.”

Psalm 56:4-  “ In God, whose word I praise—
in God I trust and am not afraid.
    What can mere mortals do to me?”

Psalm 118:8 “It is better to take refuge in the Lord
    than to trust in humans.”

The WOG

Word.

Of.

God.

You NEED to get in the WOG! Lets be real, the world lies to you, the world will lie to you, today, tomorrow, this month, in the movies you watch, the messages ads give to you, what your friends tell you, what leaders tell you, what christians tell you, unfortunately it happens and WILL happen. I could even tell you a whole bunch of garbage right now and if I put enough out of context scripture references in there you might believe me! That’s why it’s so important that YOU know the WOG, that you know the truth, so that you know right away when you are being lied to. Find out what it says in there yourself! In our culture satan is sly, we get pulled away from God without even knowing it because we get sidetracked by genuinely good things or we don’t realize we are believing lies but meanwhile our focus has come off of Jesus. 

Deut. 6:

4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. 

The point is that we need to be dwelling and thinking about God’s words ALL the time! It’s NOT ok to be chill about talking to God and hearing from him. ’Talk about them (his commands, his love, what different verses mean, remind yourselves of promises) when you sit at home and when you walk along the road (at school, with your friends, with your family), when you lie down and when you get up!’ What does that look like for you to “Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads?" or to "Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates”? Maybe you need to memorize a chapter of scripture, (Which is SOOO rewarding btw) maybe you need to get in the habit again of MAKING a solid amount of time each day to read it and talk with him. It’s not always easy but I promise you that it will be two things: 1) SO worth it, and 2) you WILL love the word more and more as you read it more and more! His heart burns with passion over you, He has set his affections in you, He is so patient and He’s just longing for you to come to him. He WILL reveal so much more of His love and Himself to you as you contend for it! 

Blessings, Love you guys!

          -Seth

New Year, New Start

Happy New Year Everyone! 

 

    We've said our 'goodbyes' to 2013 and it's time to embark on the adventure that will be 2014. While looking over Facebook statuses on New Year's Day, I noticed certain hashtags that seemed to be trending. Hashtags like; #happynewyear #2014 #goodbye2013 #newyearnewstart #freshstart #resolution #thisyearwillbebetter #thepastisthepast #movingon #newyear. 

     These popular hashtags seemed to allude to a hard year, a 2013 that maybe wasn't what they expected. And these hashtags also reveal a hope for a new start, a new and better year in 2014. 

     But friends, we don't have to wait for a new year to leave the old behind and start fresh again in Christ. The Lord's mercies are new every morning!

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”

-Lamentations 3:22-24

      Jesus paid the price for our sins when He died on that cross and rose again 2000 years ago. He concurred sin and death so that we can now live in the freedom that He gives everyday! We don't have to wait for a new year, to make new resolutions and try harder to be a better person, or have a more fulfilling life. The only true fulfillment we have is in Christ, and we could never be a good enough person to handle our sin problem.   Jesus, in His love, already handled that for us.

So this New Year, as we make (or don't make) our New Year's Resolutions lets keep a few things in mind...

  

“Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” -Lamentations 3:40

Lets remember that it is only in Christ that we truly get a #freshstart

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” -2 Corinthians 5:17

“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” -Ephesians 4:22-24

Lets remember that we may have plans or resolutions for the new year, but it is God's plans that succeed.

"Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails." -Proverbs 19:21

     Maybe 2013 was an amazing year for you, maybe it was a difficult year. Regardless of how you viewed your 2013 always remember that we serve an amazing God who loves us deeply, blesses us lavishly, and has a plan for each of your lives.  Lets draw nearer to our Heavenly Father this year, realizing that He is all we need. 

 

I encourage you to read Lamentations 3:19-33 today. Happy New Year!!

“Let all discipline, striving, and resolving be in response--and in REJOICING over-- what you have already accomplished in us, not what we think we must accomplish for you.” -Ruth Simons