"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