The last few days have been my best in such a long time...I feel so blessed right now, by the people around me and by the incredible God who is showing me so many things. And this is despite the fact that I've been dealing with a migraine for over a week now. God has filled me with joy, and I'm so overwhelmed and grateful.
I’m especially thankful for my school. We have an incredible blessing in students who volunteer to lead worship on Sunday nights for everyone who wants to come, and who take the initiative to put together a short Bible study each week…
It feels like God has been reminding me of a lot of things in the last few days, and the message at worship was another pointer to a truth I’ve known, but had more or less forgotten. We read parts of Galatians 5 and focused on these two verses:
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”
And later in the chapter, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.”
Our leader pointed us to these verses, pointing out that we are truly free—but we so often live like we aren’t. As he said, God has freed us from our chairs and given us the ability to stand…but we choose to sit around anyway. We ignore God’s clear commandments, not because we can’t obey them, but because we won’t.
Then the second verse in Galatians…what do we do with this freedom God has given us? We love each other. We remember what God has done for us, and we respond to Him in gratitude and obedience…and love.
This came after a powerful sermon that morning about Noah…my pastor’s main point was that Noah was an ordinary man made extraordinary by his faith. He was a recipient of God’s grace, and rather than just sitting around, he chose to obey—and God blessed his obedience immensely.
That was both convicting and inspiring to me… Noah is one of the greatest heroes of our faith, and yet I can do what he did: obey in faith. That’s incredibly encouraging. At the same time, though, something so simple is more than challenging enough for me to work on for the rest of my life…
And, in case you were wondering, this post is really for me…with my short-term memory loss right now, I won’t remember these messages much longer and I want to have them written down where I can see them again. If they encourage anyone else, I’m incredibly glad. If not, forgive me for taking up your time. Get off your computer and go love somebody =)
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