By His wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

[earedredwine-blog]

Profound Love

            This time last week I was with about 250 middle school kids, dancing and screaming at the top of my lungs at the last Wyldlife club at Northbay. Why? Because of Jesus. Not because I enjoy hanging out with middle school kids, or listening to them sing, or seeing them look awkward on stage while they play a ridiculous game, or dancing with them to overplayed pop songs. While I do enjoy all of that with them, the reason I was there was not because I enjoy it. I enjoy it because of Jesus. And I was there because of Jesus.

            Around October or November of last year I decided that I was going to be a Wyldlife leader. I went into college with no desire whatsoever to lead Young Life, and if asked this time last year about Young Life, I would have said that it was a Christian club where a lot of lukewarm/fake Christians went—and I didn’t want any part of it. I had my community at church and I had no time to go to these things called “Club” or “Campaigners” because I had dance every night of the week. I knew going in to college that my roommates, who I had met via Facebook, were planning on leading Young Life, but I had no desire. Leading to me was a lot of hanging out with people 1-5 years younger than me and I came to college to hang out with college students.

            But I also came into college eager to do ministry. I had spent my entire high school career missing the gift of sharing Jesus with others, and I knew that needed to change once I got to college. I also went in to college expecting to find a great community of people who were on fire for Jesus. I had been to Miami before and met some people who were following the Lord, and I had heard that they were pretty easy to find at Miami. So I went to every Christian party/get together that the upperclassmen offered—which included Young Life parties and Terrific Tuesday. At those parties I decided that I was just going to meet people and ignore any fears that I had about meeting new people. The YL community quickly became the group of people that I felt most comfortable around and the people who seemed so passionate about their ministry. But that wasn’t what changed my heart.

            I started to pray about it because I was starting to feel a pull toward Young Life. I started to realize that my plan for ministry might not be God’s plan for ministry. And when I heard about the middle school ministry, Wyldlife, I was pulled ever more. Which is weird to think about now because I never had a heart for middle school kids. My major is Middle Education, but I always claimed I wanted to teach grades 4-6, but would never teach 7-9. But here I was with a heart for Wyldlife. Out of nowhere. Or at least it felt out of nowhere.

            And slowly it all started to come together. I was reminded of the summer I spent mentoring the middle school interns at my church and the year of dance that I spent with a team of middle schoolers. I was upset at the time when I got placed on the team, but I started to realize that it might have been God giving me his heart for those girls. I was reminded of my desire to teach and how much I have always loved hanging out with kids. Granted, middle schoolers aren’t necessarily kids, but you get a pretty good mix of maturity in 7th and 8th grade. The more I prayed about it, the clearer it became that that was where God wanted me to do his work.

            Shortly after I made that decision, I was almost positive that I was going to be placed at Lakota. Part of me thought there was no way that I could start Wyldlife when I had little to no experience with Young Life at all, but that was just my flesh. The Spirit was reminding me that my competence comes from God and God is perfect at bringing his children into the Kingdom. There would be no amount of experience that would change God’s plan to bring middle school kids into the Kingdom. I do not have the power to mess up his sovereign will.

            At placement night, every school name that came up that wasn’t Lakota, I just knew my name wouldn’t be called. And when all of team Lakota, East and West, got on stage, I almost jumped up before my name was called. I think if my name wasn’t called, I still would have at least half jumped out of my seat and sat back down in shock—that’s how sure I was. But after I got placed I couldn’t help but wonder why in the world God had revealed it to me. I don’t believe in an intuition that comes from ourselves, I believe that God reveals things to us and gives us wisdom and insight into his will and desires for our lives. So I asked God why he chose to reveal where I was getting placed. He answered by saying that he wanted me to have his heart for it, and he wanted his desires for that school to become my desires. It was going to take a lot of sowing with little fruit to show and my desires and love were not even close to being enough for what it was going to take to get Wyldlife started.

            Then here I was at camp, switching between feeling like a failure for only having two girls and feeling blessed to have two girls. I am so blessed to be in a position where I get to see growth. I get to go into this next school year ready to start club and run after kids harder than ever. And I can look back at where we were last year and see how much we have grown since then. And then, hopefully I can be at camp next year with a full cabin looking back at our tiny cabin and the experience I had with the two girls I brought.

            The crazy thing about it all is that I willingly went to camp with middle school kids along with many other leaders my age or older. High school and college students served and loved those kids that entire month of Wyldlife camp. Young Life staff members planned and prayed over program to make it the best week of these kid’s lives. All for the gospel of Jesus Christ. For middle school kids. The rejects. The kids that are annoying and crazy and immature in the eyes of the world. Being at camp, genuinely having fun and loving these girls, is something profound. It’s absolutely crazy. Just like the love of Jesus. Because, while the world may see these kids as annoying and crazy, Jesus loves them and sees them as beautiful. And that is why we were all there. We were all there to share Jesus’ love with those kids so that they could meet Jesus themselves and decide to follow him.

            When telling people about camp and the crazy things that happened with the kids, many people said, “I could never do that.” I can’t do it either. At all. I am just being used. That is why it is such a testament to the unfailing love of Jesus. He wants these kids to know him. He wants them to know his love for them. And he has decided to use me as one of those people. I feel incredibly blessed to be used in such a way.

            I am used, but I am also equally loved. I give to these girls, but I am constantly receiving Jesus. I am never left empty or forgotten. The unbelievable love of Jesus is what gave me the love for these middle school girls. Jesus gave me the joy of being crazy with them. He gave me the patience to handle their immaturity. And he gave me the desire for them to understand how much they are accepted and adored. Wyldlife gives glory to Jesus, because there is nothing of myself that I have to offer middle school girls.

[earedredwine-blog]

Stop Striving.

            Stop doing.

Our lives are not measured by what we do. Not even our good deeds. It doesn’t matter what good deeds we do to make ourselves feel better and make the world better. Life isn’t about what we do to leave a legacy behind after we die.

            What are you living for? Really think about it. Where do you find life? Where do you find worth? Where do you find acceptance and love? Where do you find justification for your existence? Why are you even here?

            Why don’t we know the answers to these questions? Because we should know the answers to these questions. It is what keeps us going. It fuels our decisions and our thoughts. It determines where we find our worth.

            If you measure your life by what you do and how successful are you, then ask yourself; what is success? Who created what is successful and what is not? If your success equals your worth, you are letting the world decide your worth. But the truth is, the world thinks you are worthless.

But thank God that it is not the world’s place to determine your worth. And it’s not your place either. We are all searching for justification, satisfaction, our reason for existence, and why we matter to the world. You can do all you want to leave a mark on the world. You can change lives, leave a legacy, live the “dream” life, but you will never be satisfied.

Jesus died on the cross to bring us life and have satisfaction in Him. Sin strayed us away from perfect love that would fill us up so we wouldn’t search in empty places to find fulfillment. Sin covers its emptiness and disgust in beauty so that we are easily enticed. But sin pushes us to strive to achieve perfection and it only yields brokenness.

So Jesus conquered sin for us. He lived the perfect life we could not live and freely gave it to us. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus took our sins—our imperfect lives—on the cross and covered us in his perfect life. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old is gone the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We were not just fixed, we were made completely new because of Christ. We don’t have to strive for perfection anymore because we are covered in Jesus’ perfection. God’s love for us shown on the cross is our justification.

            “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by the grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ” (Romans 3:23-24). We were given free and perfect justification. Justification that frees us from the need to perform and struggle to make our lives meaningful. Jesus made our lives meaningful and it had nothing to do with what we do or who we are.

            “For I was crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

And we don’t have to clean up our lives to receive this justification. Jesus wants us to come to him with our weaknesses and imperfections. And the minute we start to try to do good works, we are trying to justify ourselves and make our lives look good. But our own justification will never be enough. Perfect justification comes from Jesus alone and it satisfies and frees. We are free from the need to perform. We are free from the need to continue to do good deeds, to never fail, to never let people down—because we are justified by the blood of Jesus Christ.

When Jesus died on the cross he was treated as if he did everything that we did so that we would be treated as if we lived as he did. And this was not given to us because we did anything. It was given to us because of his mercy. That is pure love.

But what does it look like knowing our good deeds are worthless, what others think is worthless, the impact we make is worthless? All that holds worth is our free and perfect justification from Christ. So while the world keeps saying “do, do, do,” Jesus says, “receive, receive, receive. Receive my free gift of righteousness.” “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). All we have to do is remain; apart from Him we can do nothing. Nothing. When we remain, when we receive His gift, Jesus is all that matters.

So we don’t need to try anymore. We don’t need to clean up our lives or do good things so the world can determine our worth. Our worth comes from the fact that the perfect and all-powerful Father loves us with an unfailing and everlasting love. Love does not exist outside of the Father. So we don’t need to look anywhere else.

So what’s the point of doing good things if we are covered in perfection, loved no matter what, and good deeds are worthless? My answer to this question is, how can you remain in Jesus and love God with “all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” (Luke 10:27) and continue living selfishly? If you remain in Jesus, your life will overflow out of that love. Your life will overflow Jesus.

A good deed does not inherently have worth. Nothing you do makes God love you more or less. And nothing you do gives you more or less worth. Nothing. You are already loved beyond your comprehension.

            Out of thankfulness for this gift of love, you live for God. You don’t focus on this mission trip, the fact that you helped that person, your good grades, the amount of people that complimented you, the awards you have, the amount of times you shared the Gospel, or the sacrifices you have made to help others. You simply live in the justification that you have been given and know that your good deeds are worthless because you have already been justified. When you realize that they are worthless and you simply do them because you have been justified, that is when they become good. Because they are selfless and because you are bringing glory to God alone.

            If we remain in Jesus and receive His free and perfect gift of righteousness; if we simply focus on loving Jesus with every fiber of our being, we won’t see good deeds as good deeds. We will see them as life. We are just living life bringing glory to Jesus and being fully satisfied and joyful in Him alone.

[earedredwine-blog]

Why do we follow the world?

Lyrics to March to the Sea by Twenty One Pilots

There's miles of land in front of us And we're dying with every step we take We're dying with every breath we make And I'll fall in line A stranger's back is all I see He's only a few feet in front of me And I'll look left and right sometimes But I'll fall in line No one looks up anymore 'Cause you might get a raindrop in your eye And Heaven forbid they see you cry As we fall in line And about this time every year The line will go to the ocean pier And walk right off into the sea And then we fall asleep And as we near the end of land And our ocean graves are just beyond the sand I ask myself the question Why I fall in line Then out of the corner of my eye I see a spaceship in the sky And hear a voice inside my head: Follow me instead Then the wages of war will start Iniside my head with my counterpart And the emotionless marchers will chant the phrase: This line's the only way And then I start down the stand My eyes are focused on the end of land But again the voice inside my head says, Follow me instead Take me up, seal the door I don't want to march here anymore I realize that this line is dead So I'll follow You instead So then You put me back in my place So I might start another day And once again I will be In a march to the sea

[earedredwine-blog]

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God is Love, But Love isn't God

            As flawed humans we have misconstrued the meaning of many joys that God has given us. We have screwed up the meaning of love and fit it into this tiny box—making it something that we can fully comprehend. I don’t believe that God created love, I think that God and love are one in the same. But I also don’t think that love is God. That is, this perception of love that we have, this love that we have fit into a tiny, comprehensible box. God was not created, he was and is and is to come, and therefore love was not created. Since God is love, there is no way to find love apart from God—it doesn’t exist. But that also means that love is not fully comprehendible, because God is not fully comprehendible.

            So as humans, and as Christ-followers, when talking about God being loving, we can’t pretend like we even know what a loving God looks like. Yes, we have evidence from the life of Jesus that displays the love that God has for us, but there is more that we can’t see, comprehend, or feel. It’s beyond us. It’s beyond what we as humans can fully grasp.

            God is love. So who are we to tell him what love looks like? He is the King of the universe, and we are going to tell him what love looks like. We have tainted the meaning of love with sin. Ask anyone what love is and somewhere in the definition will most likely include happiness and a good feeling. What if love isn’t happiness and a good feeling? Where did we get that definition from anyways? The media and other people have defined love for us and we have shaped it from our own experiences, rather than letting God shape our view of himself. God is love. Our flawed conception of love isn’t God.

            So when people use the argument that a loving God wouldn’t send people to Hell, I would ask, what does a loving God do? What did Christ do? Christ laid down his perfect life for us so that we could live his righteous life and he could take the wrath of God on himself. Who’s to say that the wrath of God isn’t loving? Just because it’s uncomfortable and doesn’t seem to fit in our box doesn’t mean that it isn’t truth. Truth can’t be contained just like God can’t be contained. He showed us that when he died and defeated death by rising to life three days later. Not even death could contain Jesus. And our minds cannot contain Jesus either. Our words cannot contain Him. And our feelings cannot contain Him.

            Love isn’t always comfortable and has no definition that can be put into words. The best display of the love that God has for us was on the cross.

            Out of His love, God created us to live in His love and be in a relationship with Him, but we turned away from because He wasn’t enough. We wanted to live life on our own. The world looked fulfilling to us. So we ran from God. But the world was a desert with no food or water and we became thirsty and hungry and desperate to be fulfilled. So we filled ourselves with the world—only to become more empty. This sin led to death and eternal suffering in Hell. But Jesus stepped in for us all and took the suffering and took the death. Our sins died with Jesus on the cross. And on the cross He laid down his life for us so that we may be able to live the clean and righteous life that He lived. “God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” Romans 5:8. But he defeated death three days later, breaking the chains of sin and giving us freedom and eternal life in Him.

            We did nothing to deserve this love. We were still sinners, still against God—and he chose to die for us. He chose to be sin for us so that we could be set free from sin and be reconciled to God. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” 2 Corinthians 5:21. We did nothing, but God never stopped pursuing us. That is a display of his magnificent love for us: Love that we will never fully comprehend, because if we did, the world would look a lot different.

            If we truly comprehended the love that God showed us through his son, we would not fear because we would know that fear cannot exist where there is love. This love that he has for us is the craziest and most wild romance that we will ever be able to experience, yet we try to find love in other places.

            But love doesn’t exist apart from God.

            And if God decided to show us his love through his son, who are we to tell him what is and isn’t loving? Who are we to tell him how he needs to be? We are his beloved and he is all-knowing and omniscient. He cannot be contained by our definitions of love, words, or human minds. God loves us more than we can ever imagine, but it isn’t the kind of love we think we have experienced through the world—it’s beyond greater than that. And the minute we start to define his love is the minute we take away the freedom Christ gave us and the ability to receive His love.

[earedredwine-blog]

Kingdom Work

            When we are invited to come work in the Kingdom of God, we don’t get to have a say. Working in the Kingdom of God means that we surrender everything to God. We give Him everything and trust that He knows how to give us exactly what we need. He puts us in a place that pushes us to fight the sin that we need to face and uncover the areas we need to work on.

In this place we get more of Jesus and every day we learn how to live in the freedom He has given us. In this place we learn how to love God more and more. We abide more in His love and less in our selfishness. We bring only Jesus the glory and we rejoice in our own weaknesses. Because the almighty God’s power is made perfect in out weaknesses. (But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9) We are weak and we will fail and when we give our lives to Jesus to do Kingdom work it will never be comfortable, because our flesh is screaming “NO! I hate this, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” When we walk in the Spirit, the flesh will always try to fight back.

So we may not have comfort, but we have a Godly peace that transcends all understanding. Our comfort zone is not freeing. It’s the chains that bind us to indifference and selfishness. To be free is to live fearlessly by giving up everything to let Jesus live through you. That is the place where we were meant to live. We are not meant to live in the false comfort of our flesh, but the real and true strong peace that God offers.

            Life as a Christian is no meant to be easy. We are guaranteed suffering. But we are also guaranteed great rewards. Great love. Great peace. And a great relationship with a magnificent God. Following right at Jesus’ feet does not mean we feel nothing. Yes, Jesus takes the suffering that we deserve, but we also have to get messy. That’s the life we are called to live. We are called to walk in step with the spirit and deny the flesh, but our flesh will never give up until we die. It is a constant battle and we have to always be fighting. But God fights for us. He is our strength because we cannot fight alone. We will lose. We lose the battle without Jesus.

            And He knows what He is doing. He knows exactly what we need. If we are to keep a child-like faith, we must remain dependent on Him. We must be continually looking to Jesus, knowing that He gives us everything that we need. We must realize that we do not know everything and we never will know everything. We must remain curious, questioning, and humble. We must never doubt God’s power and believe that nothing is impossible for Him. And we must give ourselves fully to what God asks of us.

            Because if we trust in His limitless and loving power, we would never withhold any part of ourselves from Him. And we must not make it about ourselves. It’s not about ourselves and what we want, but about what God wants and how He created us to work in His Kingdom. It should be our absolute joy to bring all of the glory to God—I never want to get in the way of His glory for a second. I never want my selfishness to take praise away from Him.

            Why don’t we give ourselves fully to the work the Lord asks of us? Because we are scared? Because we aren’t comfortable? Because He didn’t put us where we wanted?

            We are invited to work, not needed to work. I am thankful that He doesn’t kick us out the minute we start to complain or give half of ourselves to His work. That just magnifies His perfect grace. That despite when we turn away from Him to follow our selfish desires, He is still there. He still uses us to reflect His glory, even though we are so broken. He still calls us to do huge things that pull us out of our comfort zone. I am so thankful that He pulls us out of our selfishness, for diving into the mess of our lives to bring us life and save us from ourselves. Because when we are doing Kingdom work, it is not for ourselves. We are told that living a life for Jesus means that we will be hated and rejected (Everyone will hate you because of me, but those who stand firm to the end will be saved. Matthew 10:22). How awesome is that? Because it forces us to rely solely on Jesus for our worth, identity, and satisfaction.

            It’s not about “me.” It’s not about living a happy and comfortable life. Ever. Kingdom work is fulltime, lifetime work, and Kingdom work never lets us settle into our selfish ways. we have been set free and been invited to let God work through us. A kingdom of selflessness in perfect and never-ending love that lasts through eternity. It’s about living fearlessly and loving God. It’s always going to be hard work, but nothing compares to a life living in selflessness and complete faith.

            But this hard work should never be draining. It’s only draining when you are focused on performance and works. In order to work in the Kingdom, you simply have to abide in God’s love and let Him live through you (I am the vine; you are the branches. If you abide in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5) God is the source of life and love. A waterfall for the thirsty. We are empty buckets that can only be filled with this waterfall. If we remain under the waterfall, we will constantly be overflowing and our lives will be an overflow of God’s love. Loving God is first and then working in the Kingdom is an overflow.

            But standing under this waterfall takes trust. Trust that God is going to give you all that you need. Trust that wherever God takes you is where He wants you to be. Where you will grow closer to Him. Where your gifts will be used the most. Standing under this waterfall is humbling, because it shows that you really can’t do anything and it is God doing all of the work. It’s humbling, but awesome to know that a God that never fails and defeated death is doing all of the work and He is letting us be a part of it all.

[earedredwine-blog]

It is a Gift

Ephesians 3:7-8 "I became a servant of this gopel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less that the least of all the Lord's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ."

How often do we go into ministry with the same mindset that Paul had? He isn't complaining about the fact that he is imprisoned, he is instead calling himself a servant of the gospel by the gift of God's grace. He is saying that God, out of His perfect grace, has given us the gift of sharing the gospel. It is a gift to share the boundless riches of Christ. How often do we see it as a chore to be a servant of the gospel?

Being a Wyldlife leader and going to dismissal or games to meet kids and hang out with them could be seen as a chore. I don't see it as an awkward chore right now and I have resolved to never let myself see it that way. I constantly pray that I will always see ministry as a gift.

God has given us this gift so that we can know Him more and live the life He has created us to live. Even though we constantly turn away from God and go our own way. Even though we can never be perfect. Even though we can look like hypocrites. God let's us proclaim his beautiful son's name.

He doesn't simply save us and then bring us to live in Heaven or ask us to sit back in happiness and watch Him do His work in other people. He gives us the gift of working in His perfect Kingdom--despite our imperfection.

It is a gift to be put in a situation where we have to step out of our comfort zones of worldly peace and enter into a situation where we have nothing to do but put our full trust in God. When we do that we are filled with Godly peace, the kind of peace that transcends all understanding.

If we look at ministry as Paul did, we take ourselves out of the center and put God in His rightful place in the center. We usually receive gifts when we didn't do anything special to deserve it , but we still joyfully accept it. We didn't do anything to receive this gift, but we should still joyfully accept it and rejoice in the fact that we get to share the Good News of Christ's love. If Paul wasn't given this gift, I'm sure he would have begged and pleaded for the opportunity to share the Gospel.

If you weren't given this gift, would you beg?

Would you humbly fall on your knees and plead that you would be allowed to share this love?

Or would you rejoice in the fact that your life is so much easier without this burden of sharing the Gospel?

It is a gift to go into our schools as Young Life leaders and love kids. Or to share the gospel with anyone else in other ministries. It is not a burden or a stress but a gift that lets us experience God's love for us and His perfect faithfulness. It is not something that we should dread or do half-heartedly, it's something that we should respond to with over-flowing thankfulness because it is a gift that we did not deserve.

It is a gift because it forces us to live on faith in Jesus Christ alone. It is a gift because we are required to deny our selfish and sinful desires and run after God's desires for our lives. When we do this we bring God the glory rather than ourselves.

It is a gift to serve in the greatest and most powerful Kingdom in the world; to share the Gospel with lost souls and reflect God's glory.

"And we all, who with unveiled faces reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes form the Lord who is the Spirit" - 2 Corinthians 3:18 

When we rejoice in this gift, we get to reflect the Lord's glory! We are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory because of the amazing grace that he freely poured into us. When we do ministry, we get to reflect His glory.

Jesus took our sinful lives on Himself so that we could be made righteous. So that we could reflect the Lord's glory and be free of our sin. He suffered so that we wouldn't have to and He will present us as clean and blameless before the Father who is the King.

Jesus dove into the pit of death to get us and bring us to life.

Why wouldn't we see this wonderful news as a gift to share with those who are still longing to be awakened from the dead?

We come bearing life to give to all people. Don't hold it back because you feel that it is a burden. It is a gift from God's infinite grace.

[earedredwine-blog]

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"We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved." Hebrews 10:39

[earedredwine-blog]

The Gospel is Offensive?

Many people try to sugar-coat the Gospel by saying “God loves you,” and ending it with that. But love is nothing without action. We can’t tell people who have never heard of Jesus, that if they really concentrate, they will be able to feel God’s love. The evidence of His powerful and perfect love is through His life as Jesus. And if we’re going to talk about Jesus’ life and why He had to die for us—well that’s pretty offensive.

“Jesus saved you.” From what? Honestly, from yourself. We cannot pretend that our default mode as human-beings is generally moral. We can’t pretend that the crap that goes on in this world is suddenly ok now because it’s normal.

If I told you that 27 million people were doing something, would you say that was normal and ok? I mean 27 million people. That’s a lot of people, so it must be ok and we must not have to worry about it. In fact, let’s just join them!

What if I told you that 27 million is how many slaves there are in the world today? I think it’s safe to say that most people will be blown away by that fact because slavery is a blatantly disgusting injustice. But what if I said that casual sex is an injustice? Just because society has deemed it normal does not make it normal.

The world tells us a lot of lies that tend to make sense because people mindlessly believe what they hear and see. Many people can argue that religious people mindlessly go through the motions and believe what they hear because they don’t really have to think. I would agree that many people are stuck in that default mode, but buying into what the world tells you is exactly the same default mode that is not easy to escape. It’s not easy to escape the flow.

As Christians, we are called to live a life that is against the flow. To question what we are told every single day and to look at Jesus for the truth.

So when people believe in Jesus, but don’t believe He had to save us, it’s because the world has told us that we aren’t that bad, that people just need to calm down, it’s all good, we didn’t need saving.

The Gospel is offensive because it is telling someone that they need saving from themselves. But we live in a society that is all about ourselves. How can YOU succeed? How can YOU make the most money? How can YOU move up in the world? What can YOU get? We, by nature, are selfish beings living in such deep-rooted sin that we don’t even notice what sin is anymore. Only by the perfect power of the Holy Spirit can we see evil and run from it.

But we are so blinded and enticed by the world; the sex, the money, the success, the happiness, the wealth, the fame, the selfishness—that we can’t see the perfection that calls us into His arms.

We need to be saved from ourselves. Everyday. Saving is not just a one time deal, it’s an everyday kind of deal. Because, by nature, our flesh is against God. Our Creator made us knowing exactly how to fulfill us and give us the life that we were created to live, but our flesh is trying to give us the opposite. And it’s so easy to follow your own flesh. Our flesh knows what is attractive to us, knows how to make us turn away from perfect love. Our sinful nature tells us to get what makes us comfortable and happy. In our sin, we are lazy people who are ok with watching others suffer. We don’t know how to do anything good for ourselves or for other people. When we haven’t surrendered to Jesus, no matter how hard we try, we continue to submit to our own fleshly desires. We continue to fail, we continue to feel empty, confused, trapped. We try to find fulfillment, but we can’t find it looking in ourselves.

We are thirsty. We try this well and that well looking for water because we are so thirsty. Crawling through the desert, weak and wounded, and we cannot find water. But the well that never will run dry is right in front of us giving His life for us.

But we are dead souls bound to our own selfish and empty desires, blindly crawling through the desert and we cannot see until God opens our eyes. We cannot come to him unless we know how much we need him. We were dead until Jesus came to bring us to life. He came in human-likeness. The likeness of sin—yet He was without sin. The flawless sacrifice to bring us to life.

"For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

 5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God." -Romans 8:3-8

And when He died, He broke our chains, which bonded us to our sin. We were no longer bound to our own selfish desires that took us away from God’s perfect love—we were bound to Jesus. And we still are bound to Jesus, forever.

There is no way you can understand the Gospel if you do not believe with all of your heart that you were a rebel—thoughtlessly submitting to your own sin and disobeying God. By admitting that we, by nature, are evil, we are offending ourselves. We are saying to ourselves that we can’t do it on our own, that we aren’t strong enough, smart enough, fearless enough, and we can’t love enough in order to live the life God created for us. We aren’t and we can’t. Not alone. But we weren’t asked to do it alone.

 So we do we try?

 God asks us to do impossible tasks, but He doesn’t ask us to do them alone because He knows that we can't. So out of His incomprehensible love, He died for us. Even though, by our actions and words, we told Him we hated him. We ran from Him telling Him that He didn’t know what He was talking about—that we knew exactly what we were doing. We were selfish.

But He loved us so much that He forgave us. He told us that it was ok that we ran from Him and disobeyed. He wants us so much that He died for us. He is calling us by name to come into His all-powerful Kingdom. He is asking us to be part of the biggest thing in the universe. How could we ever say no to His amazing invitation? How could we tell Him that His grace and mercy weren’t enough? His suffering wasn’t enough and we still want to try and figure it out for ourselves.

You will fail if you do it alone.

You will NEVER fail if God does it through you.

The Gospel takes humility. It takes falling on your knees and surrendering your broken life to Jesus. Because He is the only one who will take your completely broken and wasted life. He wants your life. Because He will make you whole, fill you up with His perfect and unfailing love, and send you to do work in His glorious Kingdom. We have the chance to work for someone who is wisdom and strength and love and joy. We have the chance to play on a team that will without a doubt win. We get to give God glory with our lives! We are free from sin because Christ set us free. It was nothing that we did ourselves, but God’s grace alone. And because of this grace we get to do His work and share in the inheritance of His glorious Kingdom.

 Fall at His feet and surrender your life to bring Him glory and you will see the glorious work that He can do through you.