the Fellowship of the Unashamed.

Hello everyone,

Thank you SO much for your comments on my last post! I just read them this morning (apparently my email won't notify me if there are comments...hmm...) and I got a huge grin on my face while I was reading them. Thanks for being so faithful in your readings!

Anyway, this past weekend (Feb. 5-7), I went to Spring Hill with my youth group. We had a blast-the band was Red Umbrella, and our speaker was John Vermilya (go to his website or something...google him! so great!). He was fantastic! I came away very challenged in my faith. The theme for the weekend was "One life, one faith, one God" and the prevailing question was "If we are truly disciples of Christ, are we showing that in our lives?" I think that we, as American Christians, don't always evaluate things from the perspective of "how is this glorifying God", and we instead make up excuses about "not wanting to be too extreme" or "not wanting to scare off the non-believers we are trying to reach." The conclusion I've come to is this: we (especially as Americans) are very accustomed to and expect our "comforts"- cell phone, iPod, laptop, car...you know what I'm talking about. We get so caught up in our selfish desires for these things, but we never stop to ask God about where He wants us to spend that money/time/whatever. We say that we don't want to be "too crazy" in our faith, but how is that even possible? How can we become "too extreme"- the more we surrender to Christ, the more like Him we can become. In this movie we just watched in my history class, called Schindler's List (not my fave...), at the end of the movie, the main character is looking around, realizing the Jewish (the movie is about the Holocaust) lives he would have been able to save, if he had just been willing to let go of _____. He is brought to tears and realizes that so many people could have been reached, if he had just not been so selfish. I don't want to be like that at the end of my life- when I get to heaven, I want to know that I had used everything that was entrusted to me to fully benefit God's kingdom to the extent I was able. I guess I just think...how can we kid ourselves any longer? God can see through our excuses. He isn't fooled. Let's just stop trying to fool everyone around us and turn our lives to Him. Not that we can do it on our own- in fact, far from it. The more we surrender to Christ, the more we must rely on Him. I know this isn't as easy as I'm making seem (ha! easy? no way!) but in 1 Corinthians 13:11, it says, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." Am I putting my childish ways behind me? Notice that the Bible doesn't talk about this time between the two stages of life, where the writer was going through "adolescence". Why are we, as American Christian teens, allowing ourselves to go through that stage?

Anyway, yes. Those are the thoughts that I've had over the past week... I'm tired of the excuses and compromises. I'm ready to give it all, because that's all this life is about.

Em

oh! Here's this sweet quote- kinda sums up what I've been thinking about.

"I am a part of the fellowship of the unashamed...The die has been cast. I've stepped over the line...I am a disciple of His. I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure. I am finished with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, mundane talking, chintzy giving, and dwarfed goals. I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded or rewarded. My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way rough, my companions are few, my guide is reliable, my mission is clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, diluted, delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, or negotiate at the table of the enemy. I am a part of the fellowship of the unashamed."
-Don Ray (missionary to the Congo, 1940s)