If God said… “You can ask for one thing and it will be done, what would you ask for?”

If you were dying and God came to you and said, you can ask for one thing and it will be done, what would you ask for? I know what I would ask for…. I would ask that my kids would love God, listen to God, follow God and worship God all the days of their life! I am serious! Hands down, my greatest desire for my children is that they know and believe and desire to follow God with their entire life. If they are not a straight ”A” student or if they are not the top athlete or do not end up with the best job in the world making a huge salary, but they love God and desire to follow His ways, then that would bring the most joy to my life. 

So I/we must ask ourselves, what is it that we are passing on to our children? What fingerprints are we leaving on them? If I am so passionate about my children knowing God and following God, then I must be willing to fulfill my role according to scripture. What does scripture say to us parents? We are to train up our children in the way of the Lord. There are only two batting stances in baseball, left handed and right handed. There are only two ways a child can go… toward God or away from God. It is our responsibility to train them toward the ways of the Lord.

 

This past week I received an Acronym of the word TRAIN that I believe is an excellent guide for us to follow when it comes to training up our children. 

 

T teach and disciple them in the ways of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4)
R replenish their hearts with encouragement ( Ephesians 6:4, Colossians 3:21)
A accept and value their gifts from God (Psalm 139:14)
I inspire them with love ( Matthew 3:17)
N navigate them toward Jesus (John 14:6)

As parents, we prepare and train our children how to survive the battle – they ultimately must choose to what degree they will fight! Let’s do our part and pray that they do theirs! 

You know, we as Christians spend a lot of time talking about compassion and kindness, as we should, but seem to fall short when placing Ephesians 4:32 into practice. The word “kindness” in this passage actually means “to be useful” and this is what our Lighthouse Community Groups are venturing towards this winter. Mission minded is the mantra for our groups this quarter and they are off to a great start. Several of the groups are digging deep and providing an entire Christmas for some of our struggling families, others are providing a Thanksgiving dinner, while still some are working at several charities for our underprivileged neighbors. They’re not just thinking about it, they’re doing it. James impels us to take our faith into the streets and be “useful” and this is what our LCC adult ministries are doing this holiday season.

Don’t get mad at me, I am not the one who said it, He is!  Jesus said in Matthew 10:39, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Oh, how I long to “live” and in doing so miss life altogether at times, at least the life Jesus intended for me! What a ride I have been on struggling to make this life work. I find myself wondering…What more can I do, what else can I try, where else can I turn, what else will make this emptiness go away? I wonder how much time and energy I have spent “finding life?” Sad to say, no doubt many more hours and much more energy than I even care to know. I have spent years and years looking for “life.” A life of contentedness, joy, fulfillment, purpose, meaning, etc.. It is not the gain of life that offers me such things, it is the loss of life for the sake of Christ.

Last night the Senior High Youth Group had a great discussion on the death of Jesus (Matthew 27).  When Jesus died the world went black, the temple curtain was torn, graves were opened and righteous men who had died were resurrected and showed themselves to many witnesses in Jerusalem, the earth shook, the presence of God was felt.

Did you read that?!  The earth went dark and shook and dead men came alive?!?  What?!  This isn’t your average Sunday School Jesus death scene.  Where were the zombies when I went to VBS?  Did they just leave that part out?  And the earthquake?  What about that?  Why do we picture this scene of Scripture as a dramatic and wrongful but otherwise uneventful death?  That’s not what the Bible says!

I have been on a mission as of late to bring a fresh perspective to my students, to help them see the stories of Scripture as if for the first time.  I want my students to ask questions, to see beyond the surface of the story, to have a sense of wonder when they think about who Jesus is and what He is.  In short, I want my students to be in awe of God.

It happened just yesterday… God awakened in me a deep curiosity. I was attending a men’s bible study at my church participating in a discussion on James 1:19-25. It was then and there that the questions began running rampant in my mind and heart. What does it mean to humbly accept the word planted in me? What does it mean to have the fullness of Christ in me?  What does having a treasure in a jar of clay really mean? And so it was right then both my head and my heart started on a journey of which they are both continuing to travel. If the fullness of Christ is in me, I want to know all there is to know and the effect on how I relate and fellowship with Christ, how I share Christ and how I grow in Christ. 

The Senior High ministry has started a Student Leadership Team.  The team is made up of six students who have committed themselves to two goals: introducing students to Jesus, and helping students who know Jesus to get to know Him better.  Our team’s first project was to create a group covenant, a team contract with a list of expectations that we will hold one another accountable to.  The students made the list, and it has things on it like reading the Bible six days a week, church attendance, and setting an example of godliness.

What a year we have had so far with AWANA…  we had 86 kids on our first night, and have held those numbers (even had more some nights) each week!  I am so blessed to be a part of this program.  We have seen kids having fun, learning, and growing each week.  Last week we did something that we have never done before...