Passion 2011

It is hard to write one superlative to sum up Passion 2011, so I won’t. Passion was about Jesus.

Now, I went last year in Atlanta, so I knew what to expect and was prepared to be blown away. And I was. I want to take you through the short list of things that God taught me and many others in that short weekend.

Is God at the bottom (i.e. Is He the foundation) of all my joy?

                John Piper begged us to ask this question about our lives. When it is all boiled down, is God and His Glory at the foundation of your joy/happiness/purpose or is it Self? This question when answered honestly is Self almost always. What do we do with this fact? This question demands that you examine your motives, and doing that will expose the true depth of sin in our lives that we oft ignore. Piper wants us to have a correct view of who God is and who we are. Piper wants us to be changed because we see how infinite, magnificent, valuable, majestic, holy, perfect and righteous that God is. Honestly, I don’t see God like this, and  my biggest prayer coming away is that my view of God would grow exponentially to a more right view and my view of myself would diminish to nothing.

               

Is the life that I am living worthy of the Gospel? Does my life make sense in light of the Gospel?

                Francis Chan begged us to ask this question about our lives from Phillipians 1:27-28. If our lives were weighed on a scale against the weight/glory of the Gospel, would they match up? Does the way we conduct ourselves in this world show people the beauty of the Gospel and the power of God in our lives? He wanted us to examine our hearts and pray that God would rid us of self and give us more of Him. This was a powerful message urging us to forget everything else and just know God.

*These two questions are great daily questions to be asking. When answered honestly, they expose the depths of our sin against a Holy God.

Learning to hold loosely my career, plans, life

                I got to have an incredible conversation with Mallory at Passion, which was a complete surprise to me. I have not written much about that nor have I talked that much about it with many people over the past year and a half. I need to be more open about it all and not hold it all in. We got to talk about how good and faithful God has been to both of us. Our relationship ended when Mallory started holding loosely our relationship and offering it to God to take away or use for His Glory. God in His infinite wisdom took it from us to teach us that He will be our only Satisfaction. The reason it was so hard in the flesh was because our relationship had never been better and there was nothing wrong. Mallory just began to walk by faith and God did the rest. We got to talk about how we are both so thankful for what God did, because neither of us has ever sought after God like we have the past year and a half. I had the thought yesterday that God might use this to show me what trusting Him looks like, what walking away from a good thing looks like, what obedience looks like, and that He is worth so much more than the stuff He has given us. Currently, I am praying the same way that Mallory began to pray 2 years ago. I am holding loosely my career, plans and life, asking God to use them for His Glory or take them from me so that I will know Him more intimately. What a blessing that short conversation was!

We desperately need deep, meaningful friendships

                After being in Midland for 7 months my friend base is still really small. I have met some great people, but the depth of relationship is still in progression. It takes time and experiences together to grow to a place of depth, and that just has not happened much here compared to A&M. My prayer before the trip was that God would begin some deep, meaningful relationships with the group that I was with, and He was faithful to do that. He really grew us together as a group and I know that I will continue to develop many of those friendships. Also, I was reminded of the incredible friendships that I have had for the past 5 years. I saw so many great brothers and sisters in Christ at Passion and was reminded of how faithful God has been to that area of my life. What a blessing!

Reaching the unreached, downtrodden, disenfranchised, broken, hurting, lost people is beautiful work

                I found myself in tears multiple times this weekend about what God is doing in the most broken places on earth. As a group, we raised over $220,000 to fund the project to translate 90 stories of the Bible into the heart language of the KOSO people of Mali, West Africa. This moved me so much, because of the stories of reaching the ends of the earth with the Gospel. Nothing gets me fired up like stories about that. Also, my Dad and others from His church just got back from a similar situation in Guinea, West Africa and shared some of the same stories. Praying that God would open a door for me to be a part of reaching the unreached people groups in the nations one day. Passion also has sponsored some amazing projects in Haiti to begin rebuilding peoples’ lives and the country itself. Check it out here and here! What a joy it was to see God’s people rally around bringing hope to the nations!

God has made us heirs with Christ

                Ultimately God makes much of us for His namesake and desires that we would make much of Him because of who He is and not just what He has done. Piper talked about a few ways in which God makes much of us. He made this one point that I had never thought about. Paul talks about us being made fellow heirs with Christ when we are saved. Since Christ owns the whole world and will continue that for all of time, it would be foolish of us to live to obtain the world for this momentary blip called time, when if we seek Him we will have it all for eternity. What a waste to live for it now and not get it. It is far better to give it all away now and get it for eternity. But beyond that, we get God in the most intimate, deep relationship for all of eternity which is far better than possessing the whole world. I thought that was great. I don’t necessarily understand it completely, but it is another reason to put off the things of this world and pursue Christ!

These are just a few of the many things that God taught me and is still teaching me. Please pray with me that our view of God would grow exponentially into a right view. Pray that our view of ourselves would diminish to nothing. Pray that our lives would be lived in a way that is worthy of the Gospel. Pray for deep, meaningful friendships. Pray that we would hold loosely our lives and allow God to use them for His Glory or take them away from us. Pray for our neighbors, co-workers, friends and the nations to know the hope of Jesus Christ. Pray that God would awaken our hearts to Him daily. Pray that we would know God. Pray with me.