A brief look at history, what role do you play in it?

Having a history course in college is fun and challenging.  I love all things that challenge my mind, but it also needs to involve a sense of "fun".  My class this year is a lot of fun and I have learned so much.  This year, we are discussing the time period from Luther to the present, and it is pretty cool to see the things that have happened in the church.
One person that I really enjoyed is Soren Kierkegaard.  He had a pretty rough life while he was here, but the beliefs he had has most certainly brought back some key ideals.  His emphasis on Christian faith and a lesser emphasis on reason was challenging.  Nobody listened to him at all and not many people even bought his works until he died.  Kierkegaard talked about "cheap" Christianity, which he said that one needs to recognize the "cost of faith" and pay the price of being a true Christian.  He challenged those who took "God for a fool" who thought faith did not matter.
 
Another man that has caught my eye was William Penn.  A lot of Pennsylvania people are happy with this man because he has founded the state of Pennsylvania.  Not a lot of people know that this man was a Quaker, whose founder was George Fox and talked about an "inner light" that Christ will awaken in us, and came to America looking for a place to allow religious freedom apart from Europe.  This man came to America to test, what he called a "Holy Experiment", of letting people believe in what they want.  This was very different than the European world but the Queen of England gave it to him.
 
These are only two examples out of the many examples that there are.  But, one question has always rung through my mind.  I read a book called "College Soup for College Students", and there was a story where the professor had a simple lecture that day.  The lecture began by asking the students who remembers their parents, and of course everybody's hand was raised.  The next question was who knew their grandparents, and then great grandparents, and then their great great grandparents.  Out of the class of 30 or so, only one or two students knew about their great great grandparents.  The professor than challenged his students by asking, "What are you going to do one this earth to be remembered by?" 
Pretty challenging question, and is the same one that I will leave you.  I encourage you, if you have not read my blog of "be everything you can be (http://smith6261.blogspot.com/2012/04/be-everything-that-you-can-be.html) then I would highly encourage you to.  Our lives can be made to do so many great things, but a lot of us do not want to because we do not know how.  I encourage you to walk with God to give him glory, and then to not be afraid to do something great in this world that we live.  Let not your name be known, but let someone know that a man or woman was so set on the heart of God that they wanted to do something and people were encouraged by it.  Yes, this does sound very optimistic, but if you understand that we need not make a name for our selves, you will get how we can change the world with God's love.

Be everything that you can be!

Wouldn't it be cool to be to do everything that you wanted to do?  As a little kid, I wanted to do so many great and amazing things.  I still do want to do great things, and the things that I have wanted to do have changed a lot, and I bet a lot of you that read this have had yours change as well.  But, we still have some goals that we like to set for ourselves.
I love watching the Big Bang Theory, (no, not the Big Bang theory of astronomy, but the show) and it is really encouraging to me somehow.  I have always admired Sheldon, yes, Sheldon, the most annoying and self oriented person of them all.  But, there is just something about his character that I really like. 
 
To me, Sheldon is the most funny character there is, and he is definitely the smartest (and if you do not know that, I bet he would tell you).  Something about being really smart and funny has been my goal, I am not good at either of them, but they are both a goal I would love to accomplish.  My mom challenged me a number of years ago that I am still trying to keep.  She was in her masters program and said that I could not get a better degree than her.  She now has her Masters degree and I have always wanted a P.h. D.  Just a goal I would like to have (reality has changed a lot to me and debt is something I do not want to get in but it may be still a goal).
The point of all of this, yes, there is a point, I am not just rambling on, is that we all have goals that we need to give God glory for.  How do I do that you may ask, well, there are a few ways.
1) Prayer.  One of the most common elements to have communication with God.  Ever do that with your job or a hobby?  I think prayer for everything that you do can be helpful in blessing the things that you do.  Prayer is not just for ministers, trust me, a lot of pastors do not get everything they pray for as well. 
But, what do you pray for, do you just pray that everything will go well everyday, or that you get a chance to minister to someone?  Ever try not to do either of them?  How about just pray a simple thankfulness to God.  Try going for a week, or if you need two, and just thank God for the gifts He has given you.
2) Look to where you want your goals to go to and what out come do you want.  I know that I have wanted to work for a P.h. D for so long.  I have tried to read so many books, I have tried to memorize every single thing, but for what?  To just show my mom that I could get a better degree than her?  My end result needed to change (college is expensive enough), and I could not keep going through just trying to show myself that I am better than someone else.  A P.h. D. is still in my future horizon, but it has changed a lot to allow myself to wait, see what happens in the future, and then decide.  This is a goal that I still have a while to go to, but with a changed mindset, my goal is still there, but I needed to reformat it.
A lot of us need to do that with our goals, they all may not need reformatting, just the ones that lead to bad endings.  I encourage you to look at your goals and gifts and try and see the end result.  Are they used for the better of yourself and society, or just you.  If they are for you, you may need to simply reformat your goals and your end result to glorify God through them.
Martin Luther was once confronted by a man at his church.  The man asked I want to glorify God, what must I do, must I become a monk?  Martin Luther asked him, "What is it that you do?"  The man said, "I am a shoe maker".  Luther replied, "Then glorify God through making shoes".  We do not need to become a monk, or a minister, or anything "godly" to praise God, just glorify Him through all that you do.
 

What is the Gospel (Part 2) Why I am called to ministry.

This is not a story I share very often with people, but is most certainly the story that has had an influence on me in my call to ministry.  So, if you are reading this based off the title of this blog post, you are going to get to know a little bit more about me :).
When I was younger and just getting my little mind wrapped around the ideas of Christianity, I met a really good friend who had a big impact on my life.  She was a girl, (of course because I just got into high school and I did not want to be talking to guys), but we were more friends and did not really want anything deeper than that.  We talked off and on when I found out shes never been to church since she was younger. 
When I found out why she has not been going to church (for reasons I cannot say on here) I encouraged her to try again except at a different church.  She disagreed with the idea for a month or so until she out of the blue said she was part of a youth group.  My friend was really excited and could not wait to show up again. 
One night she called me sounding extremely upset, almost to the point of tears.  When she finally started to open up to why, she told me that she never new why Jesus died on the cross.  I began to walk her through the Gospel and tell her about the amazing love that Jesus displayed to us and how we are cherished and loved by him.  I heard her crying on the other end of the phone and heard her rebuttal that the world does not seem to care.  I began to tell her that the world is the evidence of our need for Christ's death and that no matter what we have done, as long as we come to him we can have life.
Her next words to me threw me off, she said I do not want to hear it anymore.  I did not know what to do, this was the first person I ever told the Gospel to and the only words I could get out were, "why"?  She said, because it hurts to much, to know that a man went and died for me, then rose again, for me, is really hard to bear.  So, I stopped explaining everything to her.
Everyday I wish I could have that conversation back.  I want to tell her that it hurts, but it hurts to make us realize more what he did for us!  But, we need to open our hearts to him, and it is so hard to do that because we do not want to give up our deepest hearts desires.  I know I did not before, and that is why I did not finish telling her how I felt, because I did not know how I felt.
If this post does anything (if it does anything at all) I hope that it encourages you to find what the Gospel means to you.  Everyday I think about the opportunity that I had, and I feel like I did not do enough.  But, if you draw closer to Christ in your walk, and you find what the deep message of Christ's love means to you, you do not even have to tell people about it because your actions will show it!  I pray that this blog will encourage you on your journey to Christ.  If anyone has any messages to share of how the Gospel has impacted them or has impacted a friend of yours I would love to hear it. :)  

The Gospel, is it more than just a book?

I took a Ministry in it's Context class over the month of January, and the class was a lot of fun and life transforming for me.  But, it made me ask myself a lot of questions I have never asked myself before.  One question that still rings with me is what is the Gospel? 
 
Before I took the class my answer would have been the word the comes before the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  But, as the class went on, I found that I was terribly wrong.  The Gospel means so much more than that.  What it means more than that?  Yes, yes it does, but I would like for you to ask yourself some questions that may help you find what the Gospel means to you.
First, how has Christ been revealed to you?  God is in everything, he made everything and everything points to Him.  But, there are some things that catch our eye that point us to God.  I remember when I first met my now girlfriend Alycia.  It was like love at first site in Burger King, watching her steal my friends fries told me that she acts just like me.  Now, I did not see her as someone that I was going to be with forever, but I knew that I wanted to get to know her more.  This is what it is like when we meet God in our lives, when see Him in His creative work in us, our friends, or our world and we say, "Wow, who did all of this?"
Do you see God as a loving God that speaks love into our lives?  I have seen Him over and over again when I look at the beauty of His creation.  Nothing speaks greater depths to me than that I am here, on this earth.  I am a living, breathing, being that witness' the stars, the grass, the trees, and so much more.  What do you see that captures your heart that points to God?
Second, what needs do you have?  This question is not necessarily financial needs, or relationship needs, but needs that are deeper than that.  I have mentioned this so many times in my blogs, but I truly believe that we need to recognize our need to overcome our desires over the worldly things.  To many times we skip this and do not invite Jesus into these.  But, that is the message of the Gospel to me, that Jesus comes into those worldly desires, and he sets us free from them!  How great is that?  Those deep struggles that hurt us, that make us weak, can be overcome through the power of the Gospel of Christ!
Finally, how do you live it out?  I believe that the Gospel is not a "one and done" thing.  It continues in our lives and transforms us from the inside out.  It makes us new people like Peter.  With a new name and a new hobby to fish for men instead of fish.  When the Gospel is spoken into our lives, we live differently and we think differently.
 
My girlfriend went to a thing called S.O.S. (Service Over Self) a few years ago.  This is a ministry that reaches out to the people of Binghampton TN.  While there, she went on a trip with a leader to talk to people.  When they were coming back they found a man that never heard the Gospel of Christ.  While her leader was finding out what needs he could meet, he gave Alycia a Bible and said, "Go tell him the Gospel".  This is a message that we all have, we are not to be silent, but I encourage yourself to ask yourself what the Gospel is and also ask your pastor to help you find what it means.  I hope you get the chance to be able to find what the Gospel means to you and I also pray that you get the chance to tell someone else about it as well.