"Greater love has no man than this: that he should lay down his life for his friends."
I am learning a little about what this verse means. I know the Man this verse refers to is Jesus, and I don't know that I will every literally have to lay down my life for my friends (although its possible, and many people do it). But I think it applies in everyday life as well.
Laying down my life means laying down my wants, my needs, my hopes, my dreams, my expectations. It means sacrificing my opinion, my sensitivity, my pride, my emotions for my friends. Whether it is silently and instantly forgiving or biting my tongue and smiling or giving up my own desire to be cared for, I am called to lay down my life for my friends. Because this is what Jesus did for me, and because this is how Jesus shows the Gospel in the everyday through my life.
Sometimes this takes conscious choice, literally stopping myself or shoving my own wants aside. Other times God just takes over and does it for me (those are the best times!). But this is how I choose to follow Jesus in every moment. I want this to become my habit, my routine. Yet at the same time, I don't want it to become routine, because every time I experience that bittersweet moment of letting go, I experience anew what Jesus did for me. And how greatly God's glory is revealed through that! I remember who He is, what He has done, and what He continues to do. I remember why I exist - to love Him. The most tangible expression of this love is sacrificing my own self in order that He lives the Gospel through me. That is what I want most. That is what my soul yearns for. It is hard, so hard, but the hard is good. I don't think it will ever become easier to do this, because I don't think it really is supposed to be easy. But I am thankful, because it reminds me of my Redeemer.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
I Am Who Jesus Says I Am
Tim said something at RUF this week that has just been sticking with me, so I thought I would share. He said, "Who you are is who Jesus says you are."
I am who Jesus says I am.
Talk about confidence! Since Thursday, I have repeated this phrase over and over - when I faced temptation, when I doubted, when I wondered, when I worried. I am who Jesus says I am. That has a whole mess of connotations, because Jesus says I am a lot of things - I am His, I am loved, I am His hands and feet, I am someone who has the Holy Spirit in me, etc. That means a lot of things, things that I haven't begun to process. Right now, it is enough for me to know that I am who Jesus says I am. That is freedom!
I am who Jesus says I am.
Talk about confidence! Since Thursday, I have repeated this phrase over and over - when I faced temptation, when I doubted, when I wondered, when I worried. I am who Jesus says I am. That has a whole mess of connotations, because Jesus says I am a lot of things - I am His, I am loved, I am His hands and feet, I am someone who has the Holy Spirit in me, etc. That means a lot of things, things that I haven't begun to process. Right now, it is enough for me to know that I am who Jesus says I am. That is freedom!
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
What it Means to Live Radically
I have been talking to people (Believers) recently and I keep hearing over and over again about how they want to do something. They love God, and they just want to go and tell the poor and abused and hurting about His love. They want to go to Africa and India and shine God's light and show His love. They want to do something big, something real, something that really serves God.
I totally understand this, probably a lot more than other people. I am very much a do-er. And I have experience in those things - I honestly have gone and served and been Jesus to people who don't know Him. I don't say that in a boastful way, but I say it because that is what God called me specifically to do last summer. I understand reading stories of great heroes of the faith and just wanting to go and do the same thing. That desire, that yearning, resides deep in my heart. I get passionate thinking about missions, my heart beats a little faster, I physically long to do it.
But - and this is where it hurts - this thrilling, exciting, life-changing, dramatic, wonderful, real thing called missions is not what God has called me to right now. And I don't think He has called all of these people to that kind of missions either. Some of them, yes. All of them, no.
Following God is not always easy.
When I am in Hungary, it is very easy for me to follow the Lord. I am very in tune with what He is doing, with what He has for me to do specifically every day, with how desperate people around me are for Him. It is very easy for me to live out my faith, to be God-focused every minute. I learn so much, I experience faith in a very different and real way, and even the hard is invigorating because it is part of the fight.
When I got home from Hungary, I remember talking to my mom and telling her that I knew I wasn't supposed to be in Hungary right now because if I cannot follow God like that here at home, then I am not ready to be doing it somewhere else. It is hard to follow God at home, where we are comfortable. For some reason, home is different. I don't see how people need Him as much, and I see the flaws of people as their own failures rather than their need for God. I try to do things on my own, I try to be God in my life, I try to do the things that will make me grow, I take charge of my relationship with God. And that is so completely utterly wrong of me.
God is the one who I want to follow, not myself. I want to grapple with these hard things that make up following Him at home. I want to know Him and see Him as I do when I am apart from where I am comfortable. And that means I become more and more aware of my sin - my independence, my need for control, my self-reliance, etc. As that happens, I learn what it means to truly follow God. It is not always easy, in fact, most of the time it is really hard. But it is worth it. And its beautiful in a very different way because it is hard-won. It is wrestling and finally accepting. It is joy because I know intimately that God loves me and will not leave me as I am.
I am not saying that the mission field is easy. That is actually the opposite of what I mean - the mission field is hard and frustrating and tiring. But sometimes it is also easier than my mission field here because this is where my temptations constantly get the best of me. This is where I allow myself to be distracted and fall astray. So the idea of the mission field is tempting, because it is simpler in some ways.
We are not all called to be missionaries, but we are all called to give up our lives for the Lord. Every single one of us is called to surrender to Him and allow Him to do through us, whether that means working hard in class or smiling at our neighbor or volunteering downtown or moving to Africa and giving up the life we know. The challenge comes in living out this "radical" lifestyle that we are all called to in our everyday lives. How do we sacrifice it all for the Lord at home? How do we honor Him and serve Him and care for the widows and orphans and proclaim the Gospel with our lives every single day? That is truly the ultimate challenge. That is what it means to seek after the Lord. As my former college pastor says, God needs "boring Christians." He needs the accountants and the engineers and the bankers and the teachers and the stay-at-home moms and the contractors and everyone on the list (the above list was completely random, although the first three were listed because working in those careers would be my personal hell. Thankfully God needs us all!). Because the people who impacted my life the most were not ones we would typically view as radical. Those people who volunteered to teach my Sunday school class, who led Bible studies, who encouraged me at church every Sunday, who asked about my life, who loved me as Jesus does - those are the "boring" Christians that God used to shape me.
It comes down to loving God and loving His people. I could list a number of people who probably have no idea how much they impacted my life, just by following God.
I totally understand this, probably a lot more than other people. I am very much a do-er. And I have experience in those things - I honestly have gone and served and been Jesus to people who don't know Him. I don't say that in a boastful way, but I say it because that is what God called me specifically to do last summer. I understand reading stories of great heroes of the faith and just wanting to go and do the same thing. That desire, that yearning, resides deep in my heart. I get passionate thinking about missions, my heart beats a little faster, I physically long to do it.
But - and this is where it hurts - this thrilling, exciting, life-changing, dramatic, wonderful, real thing called missions is not what God has called me to right now. And I don't think He has called all of these people to that kind of missions either. Some of them, yes. All of them, no.
Following God is not always easy.
When I am in Hungary, it is very easy for me to follow the Lord. I am very in tune with what He is doing, with what He has for me to do specifically every day, with how desperate people around me are for Him. It is very easy for me to live out my faith, to be God-focused every minute. I learn so much, I experience faith in a very different and real way, and even the hard is invigorating because it is part of the fight.
When I got home from Hungary, I remember talking to my mom and telling her that I knew I wasn't supposed to be in Hungary right now because if I cannot follow God like that here at home, then I am not ready to be doing it somewhere else. It is hard to follow God at home, where we are comfortable. For some reason, home is different. I don't see how people need Him as much, and I see the flaws of people as their own failures rather than their need for God. I try to do things on my own, I try to be God in my life, I try to do the things that will make me grow, I take charge of my relationship with God. And that is so completely utterly wrong of me.
God is the one who I want to follow, not myself. I want to grapple with these hard things that make up following Him at home. I want to know Him and see Him as I do when I am apart from where I am comfortable. And that means I become more and more aware of my sin - my independence, my need for control, my self-reliance, etc. As that happens, I learn what it means to truly follow God. It is not always easy, in fact, most of the time it is really hard. But it is worth it. And its beautiful in a very different way because it is hard-won. It is wrestling and finally accepting. It is joy because I know intimately that God loves me and will not leave me as I am.
I am not saying that the mission field is easy. That is actually the opposite of what I mean - the mission field is hard and frustrating and tiring. But sometimes it is also easier than my mission field here because this is where my temptations constantly get the best of me. This is where I allow myself to be distracted and fall astray. So the idea of the mission field is tempting, because it is simpler in some ways.
We are not all called to be missionaries, but we are all called to give up our lives for the Lord. Every single one of us is called to surrender to Him and allow Him to do through us, whether that means working hard in class or smiling at our neighbor or volunteering downtown or moving to Africa and giving up the life we know. The challenge comes in living out this "radical" lifestyle that we are all called to in our everyday lives. How do we sacrifice it all for the Lord at home? How do we honor Him and serve Him and care for the widows and orphans and proclaim the Gospel with our lives every single day? That is truly the ultimate challenge. That is what it means to seek after the Lord. As my former college pastor says, God needs "boring Christians." He needs the accountants and the engineers and the bankers and the teachers and the stay-at-home moms and the contractors and everyone on the list (the above list was completely random, although the first three were listed because working in those careers would be my personal hell. Thankfully God needs us all!). Because the people who impacted my life the most were not ones we would typically view as radical. Those people who volunteered to teach my Sunday school class, who led Bible studies, who encouraged me at church every Sunday, who asked about my life, who loved me as Jesus does - those are the "boring" Christians that God used to shape me.
It comes down to loving God and loving His people. I could list a number of people who probably have no idea how much they impacted my life, just by following God.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Glorious
A major theme in my life (well, in everyone's life, really) is the glory of God. I've thought a lot about this topic, but over the last five months, God has shown me even more about what His glory is.
For a long time, I thought that glorifying God was my responsibility. If you've read this blog for any period of time, you know that I frequently try to justify myself, to prove myself worthy of salvation, to show God that He didn't make a mistake in saving me, that I will make it up to Him. And He continually reminds me, "Sara Beth, you cannot make it up to me, nor do I ask you to. I love you and I will never leave you. You are mine, and I delight in making you new."
I realized last semester that God cannot get more glory than He already has. I wrote a whole blog post on this that you can read here. Essentially, God has all the glory. He is the only One worthy of glory, and all glory that exists is His.
Man's purpose is to glorify God and love Him forever. My favorite definition of glorify is, "Reveal or make clearer the glory (of God) by one's actions." So how does my life reveal His glory?
The way that God's glory is most revealed is through the salvation process. When I choose to follow Jesus, God is glorifies. The fact that God left His heaven and His throne to come to earth in the form of Jesus, to among man, to live a perfect life, to die my death, and to overcome the grave in order to set me free and draw me to Himself is pretty mind-blowing. God gives me the choice to follow Him, but it is not me choosing salvation that reveals His glory. Rather, God reveals His own glory in my salvation. He saved me, He drew me to Himself, He redeemed me, He is making me new. I really do nothing in this equation. God's glory is revealed by His own actions as He saves me and molds me after Himself. He does the work. When I follow His will, that isn't me revealing His glory - that is God revealing His glory through me.
I can do nothing. All God desires of me is that I love Him. Everything else flows from that. He does the work. He proves Himself through me - He proves His own glory through my life. Yes, in His ultimate love, God chose to not only save me but to reveal Himself to others through my life, not by what I do but by how He works in me.
I don't know if this makes sense. I feel like I have pressured myself to do so much to show God or prove Him or bring Him glory or be worthy of Him, when actually I have no other role but to love Him. And loving Him isn't a responsibility or a job - it is a joy, a natural thing, an uncontrollable response to His love for me. Yes, this does seem to get convoluted in my life, but when it all comes down to it, this is what I know to be true: I love my God. And that is more than enough. He delights in that love and wants nothing else from me.
For a long time, I thought that glorifying God was my responsibility. If you've read this blog for any period of time, you know that I frequently try to justify myself, to prove myself worthy of salvation, to show God that He didn't make a mistake in saving me, that I will make it up to Him. And He continually reminds me, "Sara Beth, you cannot make it up to me, nor do I ask you to. I love you and I will never leave you. You are mine, and I delight in making you new."
I realized last semester that God cannot get more glory than He already has. I wrote a whole blog post on this that you can read here. Essentially, God has all the glory. He is the only One worthy of glory, and all glory that exists is His.
Man's purpose is to glorify God and love Him forever. My favorite definition of glorify is, "Reveal or make clearer the glory (of God) by one's actions." So how does my life reveal His glory?
The way that God's glory is most revealed is through the salvation process. When I choose to follow Jesus, God is glorifies. The fact that God left His heaven and His throne to come to earth in the form of Jesus, to among man, to live a perfect life, to die my death, and to overcome the grave in order to set me free and draw me to Himself is pretty mind-blowing. God gives me the choice to follow Him, but it is not me choosing salvation that reveals His glory. Rather, God reveals His own glory in my salvation. He saved me, He drew me to Himself, He redeemed me, He is making me new. I really do nothing in this equation. God's glory is revealed by His own actions as He saves me and molds me after Himself. He does the work. When I follow His will, that isn't me revealing His glory - that is God revealing His glory through me.
I can do nothing. All God desires of me is that I love Him. Everything else flows from that. He does the work. He proves Himself through me - He proves His own glory through my life. Yes, in His ultimate love, God chose to not only save me but to reveal Himself to others through my life, not by what I do but by how He works in me.
I don't know if this makes sense. I feel like I have pressured myself to do so much to show God or prove Him or bring Him glory or be worthy of Him, when actually I have no other role but to love Him. And loving Him isn't a responsibility or a job - it is a joy, a natural thing, an uncontrollable response to His love for me. Yes, this does seem to get convoluted in my life, but when it all comes down to it, this is what I know to be true: I love my God. And that is more than enough. He delights in that love and wants nothing else from me.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Catching Up
Since being back at school things have been a whirlwind! Honestly, I cannot believe that midterm is in just two weeks! These first weeks back have been wonderful.
When I moved in, I loved spending time with my wonderful roommates and my friends! It was so good to catch up with people and hear about their semesters/lives. Its nice to get back into the routine of classes and such too. I love my classes - all but one are in my major, and I am more thankful than ever that I decided to do an ICP (create my major)! I could not be happier with all that I am learning.
Rush was the first two weeks of January - talk about jumping into the fire! But it was fun to hang out with my fellow Tri Delts and talk to freshmen as they came through the rounds. Bid Day was so exciting!
The next weekend, I went to Charleston to see my brother! Roecker won an award at his military school; only one freshman from each company was selected, and he was chosen! I had not been to Charleston before, and I was excited to explore the city. Even more, I was excited to hang out with my brother! It was so neat to see the Parade and then meet a few of his friends. We went to dinner and then a movie that night. On Saturday, we wandered around Charleston on foot all day. It was perfect! I loved Charleston, and it was fun to explore it all with Roecker.
Last weekend was Big Sis Rev for my sorority, meaning that my little got a little! It was fun to spend the time with Angela preparing for our newest family member. I am so happy that Mary is my grand-little! She is absolutely wonderful, and I cannot wait to get to know her better! My Tri Delt fam cracks me up - we are a silly bunch, but I couldn't have picked a better family to belong to!
This past weekend, I ended up going on the RUF Winter Conference. We were a small group representing my school, but we had a blast! I couldn't have imagined it being better! It was fun to get to know people that I hadn't known before. We hung out and hiked and danced. I got to play with some little kids during the afternoon, which I loved - sometimes I really miss being a nanny! It was a great time of rest, fellowship, and encouragement.
Now its back to school - another week of classes ahead. Next weekend is Destination Unknown (a Tri Delt function), and spring break will be here before I know it!
When I moved in, I loved spending time with my wonderful roommates and my friends! It was so good to catch up with people and hear about their semesters/lives. Its nice to get back into the routine of classes and such too. I love my classes - all but one are in my major, and I am more thankful than ever that I decided to do an ICP (create my major)! I could not be happier with all that I am learning.
Celebrating Hilary's birthday!
My roommates and I had a superbowl party, but we didn't even make it a fourth of the way through this rice krispy treat from Raegan's grandmother!
Rush was the first two weeks of January - talk about jumping into the fire! But it was fun to hang out with my fellow Tri Delts and talk to freshmen as they came through the rounds. Bid Day was so exciting!
Katie and I before Pref Tea
The next weekend, I went to Charleston to see my brother! Roecker won an award at his military school; only one freshman from each company was selected, and he was chosen! I had not been to Charleston before, and I was excited to explore the city. Even more, I was excited to hang out with my brother! It was so neat to see the Parade and then meet a few of his friends. We went to dinner and then a movie that night. On Saturday, we wandered around Charleston on foot all day. It was perfect! I loved Charleston, and it was fun to explore it all with Roecker.
Outside the church where my grandparents were married!
Wandering the parks of Charleston
My sweet and beautiful little, Angela!
We are so excited to have Mary in our family!
The RUF winter conference gang
(We had just finished dancing in freezing temperatures - it was 12 degrees that night!)
Now its back to school - another week of classes ahead. Next weekend is Destination Unknown (a Tri Delt function), and spring break will be here before I know it!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
