GOD IS HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mind-bogglingly huge.  Living in America can give us a pretty skewed impression of who God is.  Going to another culture really opens your eyes. Personally I have always viewed God (and Heaven) in a pretty limited small way. When We got to Heaven, I naturally assumed that everyone would speak English and be singing Chris Tomlin and Hillsong United songs.

Obviously this might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but that was basically what I pictured. But then I got to sit and worship with these people in there churches.  I got to see how passionately they worshiped and loved God. And even though I couldn’t understand every word (or most words for that matter), I knew what they were talking about. I felt the connection because of the bond that we share in Christ.

So now I think I can truly see Heaven in a new and more accurate way. Everyone, all people, all tongues, all nations, will be worshiping together. And God hears all of us. He knows ALL OF US!! Isn’t that amazing?  Not only does He know you intimately. All of who you are and what you do and say and think and feel, but He also knows the little boy in Africa that speak Swahili. And the little girl in Kosovo and and the man in France that runs a bakery. I find that so amazing. And I certainly can’t wait to sing with the brothers and sisters that I met in the Dominican Republic in Heaven one day.

I got a tetanus  shot today in preparation for my upcoming mission trip.  I have come to a conclusion that tetanus shots do not feel very good. In fact, not only do they not feel good, but they actually hurt. Now I am not one to hurt easily; I actually have a very high pain tolerance, but this shot even got to me.  This shot, though, got me thinking… tetanus shots= good. It is good to be protected against tetanus which can kill you. Why then does it hurt.

But then I came to a shocking realization…Almost all good things in life come with some pain attached. If you want to succeed in a sport, you have to train hard at it. You have to run and push yourself through a lot of pain to train your body. If you want to learn, you have to study (doesn’t seem painful, but who actually enjoys studying?).

Following Christ also involves some pain. It isn’t easy to follow Christ. People will mock us. People will assault our believes. We will have to make choices that are not easy, and that go against everyone else around us. Following Christ can end relationships. Following Christ can distance family and divide houses. In fact, Jesus himself had this to say in Matthew 10:34-35, “³⁴ Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵ For I have come to turn“‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—”

But, just like this tetanus shot, it will save your life. Even though following Christ can be painful, the life that it brings is always worth it.

Remember guys. This needs to be huge. It is for any student from 6th grade to 12th. Can’t wait to see all of you there.

Worship:

Nehemiah’s prayer begins with worship of God. In verse 5, he says ⁵O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God. Worship is an important element in prayer because it humbles us before the Lord. Raising up the Lord inevitably makes us lower. The higher he goes, the lower we become. It can’t happen any other way.

Confession:

Confession is the next crucial aspect of prayer. ^6b I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. ⁷ We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. Confession again forces us to examine ourselves compared to God. Confession is an admittance that we are not good enough for God. Confession says that we don’t deserve God. However, it also says that we are grateful for His grace.

Faith in God’s Promises:

Another important aspect of Nehemiah’s prayer is that he had TOTAL faith that God would answer his prayer. The key to having this kind of faith is to pray things that God has promised to us already.  Ne 1:8-9 “Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, ⁹ but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’ We have been promised a lot of very cool things, such as Forgiveness, Peace, Guidance…but we have not been promised a boat, or a really hot boyfriend/girlfriend, or to pass that test that we totally didn’t feel the need to study for. Will God give us these things? Maybe, maybe not, but if we pray for things that He promised to us, we can be 100% certain he will give us to them. Because God is faithful.  And god is Truth. He cannot let a promise go unfulfilled because then god would be a liar.

Request:

It wasn’t until after this, that Nehemiah finally made his request to the Lord.

So with your next prayer, are you just going to ask for what you want, like God is a Genie that just can’t wait to lavish you with everything you could ever imagine, OR are you going to pray humbly for the multitude of things that God promised if we ask for them?

However, as cool of a book as it is, you have to read Chapter 3 to read the book of Nehemiah (sorry, you can’t skip it). This is basically a super specific account of all the people that helped build the wall, and the sections that they built. It would be very easy to simply breeze through this chapter, and think very little about it. I mean it is merely a list after all. But if you really look at this chapter, it is one of the coolest passages on unity that I have ever read.

One of the things that you find is that EVERYONE helped build the wall.  There were rulers next to common blue-collar workers. There were Priests next to the CEO’s of the companies (Ok, so obviously that isn’t an exact description of their jobs, but you get the point). No one was too good to serve. I feel like that is sometimes missing in our churches today. They say that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. I find this to be pretty true.

Well, in this society, they weren’t too good. One of the rulers was responsible for building the Dung Gate. Talk about glamorous. They didn’t complain about work being too hard, they just did it because it needed to be done. There is much work to be done in the kingdom. Are you willing to step up and do the work?

Well once I figured out how to aim with a blowgun, I quickly began to have fun. It started as shooting pop cans from across the room.  However, that soon got boring, so instead I started shooting Ryan in the face. That was a lot of fun. In fact, it is still fun, so if any of you guys have Nerf guns, I highly recommend Ryan’s face as a target option.

However, I think my blowgun skill have moved to the point where I am ready to hunt leopards in the amazon with poison-tipped darts. I can feel it. The time has come. So if you want to go leopard hunting with me, buy a Nerf blowgun and practice. That is my Random Thought for today.

The problem is that many of us pretty much pray this prayer to God all the time. How often do we as Christians fall on our knees to plead to God for more grace?  For more strength? For more forgiveness? We don’t need to ask these things from God. He has already given us what we need. When we are baptized into Christ, we get everything that we need. We receive forgiveness and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Often when we sin and fall short, in our guilt and shame we plead for God to be merciful on us and forgive us and give us more grace.  He already has…2 Corinthians 12:9 “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” Christ’s death is enough for us. In 1 Peter 3:18, it says that “Christ died for sin once for all….” One time, was enough for all sins; every sin you ever commit is covered by the blood of the death of the cross.

We don’t have to walk around miserable and defeated when we sin because we know that our sin is forgiven. Already, we don’t need more. I will however caution you. Paul writes about this to the Romans in 6:1-2, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” We should never sin just for the sake of gaining more grace.  Being forgiven will NOT justify living in sin. But it doesn’t mean we have to live in constant fear of not being forgiven either.  We have the good life already because we are forgiven.

But WAIT… there were two more??? I thought it was the Three. Well, yes, these two were never actually included in the Three. Bummer, right? Well, the story goes on to say that even though they were never really included in the group, they were potentially more famous than the other three. These two were named Abishai and Benaiah.  So what happened to these guys?

Well, Abishai, even though he never was a part of their group became their commander. Yep, he was put in charge of them. And Benaiah was personally chosen by David himself to lead his bodyguard. Hmm…I guess sometimes it pays to not be a part of the group.

A lot of times we get in our minds that a certain group is exactly where we want to be. Maybe they are the cool kids, or the they get the special treatment from teachers. But this story shows us exactly what can happen when we aren’t a part of the group… Amazing things. They could have changed to be a part of the Three, or been bitter that they weren’t, but instead they continued to do what they were called to do, and so they were rewarded because of it.

We are called to live for Christ. If that means that we won’t necessarily get to be a part of a group, oh well, because God can do amazing things where you are.

It says all there is to know about leadership. Well, I suppose not ALL there is to know, but it tells us exactly where we need to start. V. 3b-4 reads “‘When one rules over men in righteousness, when one rules in the fear of God, he is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings the grass from the earth.”

I believe this brings out 3 very key points about leadership. The first is that leadership should be based on GOD. As David said, it is those who lead in righteousness and the fear of God that are effective. God gives us the Bible for principles of love and compassion and forgiveness. A lot of us will find ourselves in positions of leadership at some point in our lives. Maybe we are already there, but if we rule with an iron fist, we will be far less effective than if we rule justly and righteously.

The 2nd principle we find here is that Godly leaders will actually LEAD. It is often said that if you are a leader and no one is following you then you aren’t really a leader. This is true. David says here, that a Godly leader will be “like the light of morning at sunrise.”  A leader is a light.  A light helps others see things. A Godly leader will actually make things clear. They have a clear vision, and will clearly light the way to accomplish that vision.

The 3rd thing this points out is this: A Godly leader produces fruit. David says here that like the sun after the rain, we will bring forth grass. A Godly leader will inevitably insight growth. Leading on God’s principles and with the Fear of Him, is enough. True, it is ultimately on God to cause spiritual growth, but I believe it is on the Spiritual leaders to be the tools for God to use.