In January the youth began looking at our acronym of IMAGE, which stands for five things we will do as a student ministry to lead students to become fully devoted followers of Christ: Invest, Magnify, Approach, Grow, Enjoy. We have had a great time in the youth group lately looking at what it means to magnify God with our lives. We’ve asked ourselves the question, do I show God for how good he is with how I live my life? As we’ve examined this question we have been viewing videos from a movement called I Am Second where several individuals, including current and former athletes and musicians, tell their story of how God has changed their lives and why they place God first in their lives. I encourage you to visit the site, watch a few of the videos, and ask yourself who or what is first in your life?

By Mary

Do you ever commit to something, then wonder a little later “what was I thinking?”? Last week, I committed to running the Illinois Marathon 5K with my good friend Brittany. Since November, we have been motivating and encouraging each other with our fitness goals. At that moment, this race seemed like a fun thing to do together.

After the initial “Rah! Rah!” we can do this, the doubts started in my brain. I started going through all the reasons I can’t or shouldn’t do this. The list went something like this; I’m way too old, still out of shape, slow, I don’t think I have ever run a 5K in my life, I can’t remember the last time I ran 5 blocks, I’ll collapse , I’ll embarrass myself… I won’t bore you with the complete list but I can assure you it got quite long.

After about a half a day of listening to all those thoughts spin around in my head, I realized that two of my old companions had showed up again. Fear and Pride. Argh! Why do I keep letting those guys have their way with me? How often do I let them run my life? God does not want that for me. Both of those totally block the abundant life God has for me.

Honestly, most of my fears were driven by my pride. The same pride that keeps my struggles in the dark, the same pride that won’t admit that I need help with something, the same pride that sometimes thinks I need to present this neat little life all tied up with a pretty bow, the same pride that often thinks I can “fix” whatever by myself without bothering anyone including God. Pride almost kept me from writing about pride. How ridiculously absurd is that?!

So this week, I am spending lots of time reflecting on how adversely pride has affected my life and reading lots of scriptures about how great God is and how He feels about pride and humility. Job 38 is very humbling reading.

Do you struggle with pride? If so, what does pride look like in your life?

James 4:6 (NIV)
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”[b]
James 4:10 (NIV)
10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Grace, we hear that word so many times and are given so many different metaphors to understand it, but I’m not sure if I really do understand it.  I mean, I can comprehend the words at face value that God shows me grace in that even while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me and provided a way for me to have righteousness with God.  But, when I really try to plumb the depths of the concept, I think my brain shuts off at a certain point.  I say this because I am very grateful that God would do this and thank him for it, but sometimes I think it falls short in terms of how I let it effect the way I live life.

When someone drives in a way I don’t like, speaks in a tone that bothers me, takes up more than one parking space, or leaves their shopping cart in the middle of a parking space I can be so easily angered.  You see, I am so determined to have everyone and everything operate under my terms and it really bothers me when they don’t!  That’s not grace though, is it….. You see, God designed us to be in a relationship with him and sin really messed it up.  Things didn’t turn out the way he wanted them to, but he went to great lengths to make things right again even though he had no fault in the matter.  And what really blows my mind is that I believe he knew the great lengths and pains he would have to go through (grace cost the life of Jesus) before creation for this relationship but he created it anyhow.  I hope and pray that I can become more GRACEful and that I can be more like Christ in the way that I relate to others.  Which brings still another question I can quite wrap my mind around…what would the world be like if I lived out grace in the way that Christ did?

- Aaron

When you travel do you ever save something from a trip? Something that reminds you of the great time you had, like an airline ticket, a ticket stub from a concert, or one of those plastic drink cups from a sporting event? Or do you have imprinted T-shirts from years past? My parents used to have a jar with assorted match books they had collected from different places they had visited.

Truth be told, if I were to clean out a couple of cabinet drawers in my house, there would probably be numerous items like that.
Let’s face it; most of those things are just clutter or junk. They are not serving a function; they don’t really bring me any joy. In fact most of the time, they do just the opposite by adding stress to my life.

The other morning during my quiet time with God, I gazed upon a couple of things straight out of my past. One was a jar filled with corks from bottles of wine that had been consumed with friends over the years. Funny how God sometimes speaks through ordinary things…
After looking at those old corks from days gone by, the thought came to me that they are really trash from the past. They have very little use. I could think I will make a cool serving tray out of them some day, but honestly that probably is not gonna happen.
Why in the world am I keeping those???
How true that statement is of some of my other material stuff and most definitely stuff from my past like; my mistakes, emotional pain, or hurt from others. Why am I hanging onto junk from the past?
One of the verses from the apostle Paul that I have been repeating over and over this week is Philippians 3:12-14.

Pressing on Toward the Goal
12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

I love this verse because Paul admits he is not there yet, but he continues to persevere. Christ died that we might have freedom from all forms of captivity, including our junk.

Is there junk you need to get rid of so that you can take hold of all the blessings God has for you?

-Mary-

A spirit of discontent has emerged as a common thread of conversation and prayer request over the past several months. Not the kind of discontent where people are frustrated or angry, but the kind of spiritual awareness of God working and stirring hearts. The Spirit has us asking different questions about our life, giving us a discomfort with average, mediocre or lukewarm faith. Many folks at Grace have expressed a sense of Holy Discontent. I believe this is God preparing us as individuals and a church for what is to come. I have found a resource from Willow Creek that I believe will help several in our church begin to better understand this fire burning within them. Click the link below and begin to better understand how God has and continues to use Holy Discontent to transform lives.

http://www.myholydiscontent.org/

I would encourage everyone to click the tab “find your firestorm” and begin working through the “finding” and “feeding my Holy discontent”. I would love your feedback over the next several weeks.

Jerris

One of the struggles that everyone seems to have is the tension between finding and expressing your individuality while also feeling as if you belong to some sort of community. It’s always especially interesting as you see groups of teenagers all dressing the same weird ways together so they can show how they are different. Craig has been coming back to something over and over for the last several weeks and that is the need for us as Christians to be different. It’s not hard to see that the world has crazy ideas of success and for what is okay (i.e. A former governor using the corruption for which he has been accused as a launching point for book deals and the reality TV spotlight). We should not look like the rest of the world, but should live in a way that is transformed by us striving to live as Jesus would live in our shoes. So what does that mean and how can you really do that while still connecting to and reaching the world that we are supposed to be different from in a way that connects them with the love God has for them?

My simple answer is, “I’m still figuring it out.” But I think that when we look at the life of Jesus in the Bible and some of the things that the Bible has to say about how a follower of Christ lives in the world, there are some good starts. Even as you read through the Old Testament stories as God is telling Israel the ways in which they will serve him, you see God telling the people to be different from those around them. Many times God says, “I am holy and you shall be a holy people.” Holy, set apart for a purpose, different. Holy in the middle of it all, practicing love, justice, humility, and living to please God. God tells his people that living this way will not only lead to blessing and fulfillment for them, but will serve as a message to others that God is good.

So I guess maybe being holy doesn’t always mean that we are withdrawn into a holy quarantine, but as we live in the world, we seek godly things and set his will as our measure for what to do since there are many things that can be justified with the world’s logic, but not all things are wise in the sight of God.

How have you engaged the struggle to be different while still belonging and connecting with the world?

- Aaron

Rough Week by Mary

Do you ever have a week that is just rough on you, mentally, emotionally, physically or spiritually?

This past week has been one of those for me. As some of you know, my mom passed away the first part of January. For a number of years, I have been taking mom on a vacation to somewhere sunny and warm this time of year, typically this past week. So I am a little sad, missing her and her sense of adventure.

Also, this time last year one of the kindest, fun-loving friends I’ve ever know passed away after battle an illness for eight months. While she was battling the illness I never dreamed it would take her home. I am missing her laugh and her playful spirit.

Additionally this past week, a young couple that I love bunches was devastated as they discovered her pregnancy was ending in a miscarriage. My heart just cries for them.

Lastly, to be totally honest, this time of year I struggle to keep myself out of the dark hole of depression. All of these circumstances this week seem to have just piled one on top of another.

The thing is that I realize that I am in the middle of a spiritual battle. Satan is trying hard to knock the love of life and the joy I have deep inside right out of me. Fortunately, I have some great weapons that I am using to defeat this attack. First of all, I am spending time first thing every morning with God. Mostly this week, I have just been telling Him of my sadness and asking for His comfort and peace. He understands.

James 4:7 tells us to” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” As my shield, I am carrying index cards with verses that remind me of God’s faithfulness. Anytime I have a depressing thought, I have been whipping out one of the cards to block the attack.

Lastly, I am trying to spend extra time with people I love. Just being around them or talking to them on the phone lift my spirits.

Do you have any great weapons against spiritual battles that have waged against you? I would love to hear about them.

“O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.” Psalm 63:1-5

A week from today marks Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten Season. Lent has always been an interesting thing to me. I have definitely misunderstood the point many times in an attempt to rid myself of a caffeine addiction or to give up fast food, but I am learning to appreciate the meaning behind Lent. Lent is a journey; a time of remembrance and preparation for the celebration of Easter when Jesus took our place on the cross and then rose again. Lent falls at the same time every year, but this year I feel like Lent is coming at a very interesting time for me personally. I have been seeking for something…Longing for something…Craving more and becoming annoyingly dissatisfied with my relationship with God. So maybe I need to take advantage of this season of Lent. Maybe I need to allow this journey to the cross to be an opportunity for soul searching and devoting myself to seeking the face of God. I want my life to be changed forever so that when I read Psalm 63:1-5, it is more than just words on a page. I have been contemplating lately, what my life would look like if the verses above were an honest portrayal of the way that I lived. What am I willing to do to make that happen?
God give us the discipline to seek Your face and to let that wholly and completely change us.
-Brittany Black

It’s always easy to agree that we should follow the plan that God has for us, it’s just not always easy to know what that plan is.  I’ve spent a good portion of my life trying to figure out the plans for it and my efforts to figure it out have often left me frustrated.  Perhaps the most frustrating were the times when I was “sure” of what I should do next, but things didn’t turn out anything like I had planned.  1 Chronicles 17 tells the story of when David decides that he should build a house for God and approaches the prophet Nathan with his idea. Initially both men agree that of course God would want them to do such a great thing as to construct a more permanent place of worship for God, but God informs them otherwise.  He reminds David of the true purpose for which he has blessed David to become king and tells him of the other plans he has for the king.

There is so much blessing in devoting ourselves to those things which we are certain that God is calling us to right now while always seeking his leadership on the next steps.  I believe that it has been placed within us to dream and seek out God’s will, and even in those times when I am left frustrated when things do not come out exactly as I had planned, I am even more blessed when I see the ways in which God works his plan.

What are some ways that you can seek God’s plan for your life?

On my 20 mile daily drive through the country to Champaign this week, I have been looking for signs of Spring. I know that it is early in February and Spring is 40 days away, but I am a Spring fanatic. I love everything about Spring in Illinois. Even in February, if you look closely, you can see the change of season happening.

While I was searching for signs, like different types of birds returning, the thought occurred to me, “I wondered if others could see more signs of Christ in me?” Have I shown love and compassion in the everyday frustrations of life? What would others say about you? Could they tell that Christ is in you?