Between the papers I should be working on right now, being sick, and working on planning multiple events, this week has been busy to say the least. Last night I got told "I see an awesome blog post coming from you very soon..." and it's been driving me crazy all day. What does it say about me that blogging was my motivation to get work done today?
For the last three years, my home in Athens has really and truly been the uga bcm. It's where I've sought the Lord, where I've gotten to serve, and where I've found my best friends and roommates. I count it a blessing to be a part of an organization that sees such life change year after year, day after day. The love in that place is indescribable to me. But as with anything, we've come to realize that we could do a whole lot better of a job. The past few weeks we've been talking a lot about what our vision for our ministry is-- we're scrapping everything and beginning a new process of building from the ground up and I'm way excited about it. Everyone is. As Dinner Theater and Women's Ministry have come to a close, my time on leadership is ending and with it closing a chapter of my life. I don't love that thought, but I know the Lord isn't done using me in the bcm and more importantly isn't done using the bcm in me.
Last night I got to watch the Body worship together in spirit and in truth. We cried our hearts out to God last night as Wes boldly presented the gospel of Christ to us. We've missed having Wes around, but I think more than anything what we have been missing in the past few weeks is setting our hearts to be open to hearing the Word of the Lord. It's funny how the Lord continues to hammer home the same themes in my life as of late. During the first set of worship, I began to meditate my heart on this thought: "But God." It's based out of Ephesians chapter two and I believe it's one of the most powerful phrases in all of scripture. I count it no coincidence that minutes later when Wes began to speak, he spoke on the exact passage the Lord had been placing on my heart that night. Between that and talking with Wes some more today, I have been reminded once again that the gospel is a truth that we need to hear every. single. day. It's not just the entry point into Christianity, it IS Christianity. Each day the things I learn should be run through the question "how does this effect my perspective of the Gospel?"
Wes put it this way: "I don't go beyond the gospel, I just go deeper into it." mmm.
We talked through the fact that it's not just that we do bad things, it's that we have a bad heart. In the old testament Moses looked at the people of Isreal and told them "you will not obey" but only one chapter later Joshua looks to them and says "you cannot obey." That's us, guys. We can't do it. Ephesians 2 tells us that were dead in our transgressions. Dead things just don't come back to life... Verses one through three unpack the fact that not only were we dead and walking in sin but we were followers of Satan and were objects of wrath. I don't even like writing those words. I don't like the way they taste. I don't know about you, but I find that offensive. And with good reason, I guess. Most of us would agree that we haven't always been such good people, but it's shocking to think about the fact that scripture tells us were followers of the ruler of the kingdom of air... Not much we could do about it. Not anything we could do about it.
BUT GOD... being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. It is by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. --v. 4-10
I could unpack that for hours, guys. That is the beauty of the gospel. Not by anything that we have done, but simply by the power and the love of Christ we have the opportunity to cancel out all of the junk that come in our lives. But God. mmm.
Wes put it this way: "Every other religion says 'do, do, do'. Christ says 'done'." That gift is free. No catch. It is done. Tetelestai.
We talked last night after Gathering about the fact that there was more passion and joy in the bcm that night than there had been all year. And it wasn't because Wes was there. It wasn't because the worship was sweet. It wasn't because we programmed it well and it wasn't because the band had it all together. It was because the offensive, beautiful truth of the gospel was proclaimed last night. The question becomes this: are our lives beautifying the Gospel? Wes was right when he said that we're excited about new programming for the B, but no amount of programming is going to make a bit of difference. It's all about the conditions of our hearts. That place was filled with the Lord last night and I couldn't be more pleased that our hearts have been opened, especially as we head out on Sunday to serve the people of New Orleans.
And of course, Jacob closed out the night with the words that literally continue to pop up everywhere in my life. Abide in Christ. Love on people. These are the truths of the gospel.
"And this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit." --1 John 4:10-13
I drove two of my sweet friends, Patty and Kelvin, home from Gathering last night and we had some sweet time worshiping together with the new Passion cd. We had the volume up loud and tears rolled down all of our faces as we shouted to the Lord the truth from Psalm 187:7, "All our fountains are in You." It was beyond beauty.
Good things are happening in Athens. Time to get up off the bcm couches and go.
I want to leave it with this: one of my favorite pictures from last summer. The very last night before heading back to Nashville, myself and four of the other girls on my team stole a bed sheet (confession. we stole it. guilty.) from Ridgecrest and went to town painting it in the hallway. We might have even messed up the carpet. I titled my album from that night "Staff Worship" because that's exactly what it was... a night of beautiful music and an even more beautiful visual projection of how the Lord had shaped and altered our hearts through loving on kids that summer. All the pictures from that night shake me... I absolutely cannot wait for camp to start again.
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