October 8th recap
10 Oct
Tonight we started by looking at the story of Moses in Exodus 3. We saw that Moses slowed down long enough to actually notice that the bush wasn’t burning up. We talked about what it meant for God to show up right in the middle of such a mundane and unexpected place. Was it that God had shown up, or that he had always been there? This begged the question: what would be different about our lives if we were absolutely confident that God was ALWAYS with us?
Chantelle read through Psalm 46 inbetween the first two songs of the night, and the crowd seemed less than impressed. The unimpressiveness had nothing to do with Chantelle, but instead it had everything to do with a room full of people who have just become bored. The only problem with the boredom is that I believe it is brought on my disbelief. I’m convinced that if we truly believed what the Psalmist is saying, we would respond much differently. We would respond with a “WHOA!”, instead of the pretty common “hmm…”.
Psalm 46 says that the Lord Almighty is WITH US.
Psalm 73 says he’s not only with us, but he is also holding us by our right hand.
And in typical biblical fashion, Colossians 1:27 says that Christ is actually IN us. Not so much WITH us. It’s not really Christ AND us. It’s just Christ. In us. Our only hope is Christ IN us. That’s very WHOA. Somehow we’ve let that become hmm…
I closed by showing a bottle of ocean water that Lindsay had filled up earlier that day. I said that I had “the Pacific Ocean in my bottle”. Not ALL of the Pacific Ocean, but every drop of that water was 100% Pacific Ocean. And when Christ is in us, we can know that it is 100% Christ in us… not ALL of Christ, but more than enough.
Moses’ only hope in delivering his people from the 430 years of oppression and slavery was that God would be with him. Our only hope for living the Christian life is Christ in us.
On the 1 to 10 intensity scale, this was a 10. But I believe in your kids. We had some amazing conversations afterwards with some students who were tired of living a “Christ and me” life.
Christ in us is surely an amazing thing, and i am not sure it is just the teens that struggle with unbelief. It is all of us. Thanks for the reminder. Personally as I ask God to be set free from any sin- hands down I pick idolatry, unbelief and pride. Some of our other sins are more noticeable, but these keep us from the kingdom impact and the spirit filled life.