Monday, September 24, 2012

Assurance


Teaching would be a great…if it wasn’t for all the kids.  We’ve all heard that saying numerous times; I’ve even mentioned it in jest a few myself.  It wasn’t until recently, though, when I was thinking about that phrase that I said, “Boy, I’m sure glad God doesn’t feel that way about us.”

Just imagine it, the Creator being fed up with the created to the point He questioned if all this was worth it.  Imagine the questions in our heads; the fear that one might not retain their salvation because they annoyed God too much one day, the questioning “If I did/worked a little more to please Him would he forgive me”.  Can you imagine the sheer chaos the world would see if we a) had to work to get this forgiveness and b) work to keep our forgiveness!

Praise the Lord that we live in a world where God does not treat us the way we treat each other…even when it is in jest!  We are promised from the very beginning of our lives…even before our lives started that Christ sacrificed himself for us as atonement for our sins.  (Romans 5:8)  We praise the living God that gives us life while we were spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1, Col. 2:13).  This new life is a free gift, a gift of love, a gift bought through sacrifice.  We should celebrate with endless joy, in my opinion, what we are given…for it is the greatest gift a person can receive.

A problem can arise, however, when the devil stirs doubt in us; doubt if we are “good enough”, “if we deserve being saved”, if we “really meant it” when “we got” saved.  And this is where the beauty lies; we didn’t do a thing for our salvation…we can’t!  We are given sanctification; there is nothing we do or can do in this process…no appeal to the judge, no forming a committee, no application forms, no fees to be paid, no 6-8 weeks reply in the mail….are we getting the picture.  It is not by grace and a little bit of myself that gets the job done…it is by GRACE ALONE!  For it is grace you are saved through faith.  And this is not of you own doing; it is the gift of God (Eph. 2:8).  It is grace alone through faith; the faith that has been worked in us by the Holy Spirit, who opened our hearts and understanding to The Word in the Scriptures (Luke 24:45).

It’s a glorious thing!  God loves us so much that He sent His Son to save us; and on top of the grace that is given to us is also the knowledge that throughout our lives God will not grow tired or sick of us and change his mind about our worth.  So let’s take comfort and assurance in the Word of God; rest easy in the knowledge that It and He are constant.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Reinvent


It’s that time of the year; you know, when we receive flyers of stores around the world having sales on things like pencils, pens, erasers, notebooks, clothes, shoes, tissue paper, rubber cement….WAIT…ok, so I got carried away with that last one.  Anywhosal, school is starting up again; summer vacations, weekend trips to the lake, and pilgrimages to Comicon and Star Trek conventions are all memories of days past.  As a teacher, one of the school weeks I look forward to most is the first week of school.  Everyone is sporting their new outfits, their new “dos”, but most of all their new “you’s”.

We’ve all done it; maybe even every year, we buy into the belief that we can make a drastic change in our lives that will make us happier and allow people to glom onto our new personalities with happiness and joy.  What’s more than that is we do it again after Christmas vacation and dress it up as a “resolution to a new and improved me”.  If we tally it up the average teenager, from middle school through high school, will go through no less than 12 “new me’s”!!!

Adding to the pile is all our dear friends heading off to higher education….college.  I cannot count the amount of times I have heard from movies, my senior open house, and the first week of college, “College is the best time of your life.  You can reinvent yourself.  Become a new person.  Become the person you want to be.”

So what you’re saying “average people of America” is that I am not good enough just as I am or that I would be happier molding myself into something else more acceptable to other people?

What a sack of lies and deceit we spread to our youth.  We blame the media, video games, and all sorts of things on the breaking down of generations but isn’t it WE that do it to ourselves?!

I recently talked with a high school graduate that was obviously nervous about going to college.  They had heard much of the same aforementioned “words of wisdom” and asked me if I had any parting words for them.

Well, as in typical Cedric fashion, if I don’t have time ahead to really think through things I don’t always convey what I really mean.  So I said the ever-so-standby answer regarding “being yourself” and the such.  Now, however, that I have had time to mull it over a bit I would like to expound on my answer.

Sod on all that garbage you’ve heard about reinventing yourself.  Have you not heard and have you not read that you are a child of God (Jn.1:12); made in His image (Gen. 1:27).  Don’t you know that He knows the plans He made out for you. (Jer. 29:11).  So if God made you, and made you in His own image, and He knows the plans laid out for you, then why should we concern ourselves with being re-made in the images and for plans of mere people?  If we are practicing Christians shouldn’t we pray for God to lead us where His will for us is?  Shouldn’t we pray to continually be molded by God into the person He plans for us to be?

So students, my advice and prayer for you is to ardently seek God’s will for you.  Allow the will of Christ to mold you into the person He needs for His kingdom.  May any “changes/reinventing” done in your life actually be changes done by Christ Jesus according to His plans for you.  May the molding of your mind and heart be for His glory.