13 Lessons, part 2

So, last week I posted part one of this and I continue now with more lessons I've learned in 13 yrs on this journey with Christ as my Lord. I've developed these lessons into a sermon series and am preaching this to our Grace Alive Youth Ministry on Wednesday nights at Grace Baptist Church, Belleview, FL.

Before I proceed with more lessons I've learned, it's worth noting that life is full of lessons and with each lesson comes an opportunity for us to either learn and grow from the experience or fail to learn and remain the same. I must be honest, I haven't always taken the former route, and quite frankly, I've taken the latter route too often. Let's remember that it's best to look at the experiences we go through as opportunities to become more experienced in life. Allow me to create an illustration that will hopefully clear that up: an employer seeking to hire an experienced professional is looking for someone with experience for one reason: they've most likely learned what to do/what not to do over the course of their years working in the field. In the same way, I believe that when God saves us, as we mature in our faith, we too will become more experienced and know what to do or not to do as it relates to our walk with God. So, many of these lessons have been learned the hard way, nonetheless, I am thankful I have had the opportunities to learn them and believe I have grown as a result of each experience.

Following are lessons 7-13 of the 13 lessons learned (see part 1 for the first 6):

7. OBEDIENCE TO GOD DOESN'T MEAN WE CAN'T HAVE FUN!
8. GOD IS ALWAYS IN CONTROL AND GOD IS FOR ME (AND YOU)!
9. THE BIBLE WILL KEEP YOU FROM SIN OR SIN WILL KEEP YOU FROM THE BIBLE! (this was a quote a preacher mentioned while preaching probably 10 yrs ago, and I wrote it down in the front of my Bible and have remembered it since...it's also very true.)
10. WORSHIP IS A LIFESTYLE, NOT JUST A MUSIC STYLE!
11. THE GOSPEL MESSAGE NEVER CHANGES, BUT OUR METHODS MUST IN ORDER TO REACH NEW GENERATIONS OF PEOPLE!
12. AGE DOESN'T MATTER IN CHRIST'S SERVICE...GOD CAN USE YOU NO MATTER HOW YOUNG (OR OLD) YOU ARE!
13. WE ARE SAVED TO GOOD WORKS, NOT BY GOOD WORKS! (Another way to say it: "We do good works because we're saved, not to get saved."

These lessons are not the only things that I have learned (as some of our teens have said: "wow, you only learned 13 things in 13 yrs" - LOL), however, they are thoughts that have stuck with me throughout this spiritual journey. These have become guding principles in my life, and knowing these lessons has allowed me to get a clearer picture of God and what He expects/desires of me.

My prayer is that each of you come to the same realization that I have: We serve an AMAZING GOD who wants to do AMAZING THINGS in our lives...but not just in our lives, He wants to do AMAZING THINGS through our lives to touch those around us in AMAZING WAYS.

Salvation is an AMAZING miracle and being able to serve the God of my salvation is an AMAZING opportunity. We believers must understand how great a responsibility we have and take our service to Him seriously.

I shall elaborate a little more in future post, but until then, I remain grateful to be in His service!

13 Lessons Learned in 13yrs with Christ, pt 1



The following is an account of a miracle that took place in my life:
The date was August 10,1997.
The place? Southland Baptist Church, meeting at Gateway High School's auditorium, Kissimmee, FL.
The "normal Sunday morning worship service" I attended that morning was not the EVENT! What is the Event? A Miracle took place in that public school auditorium where our church met at the time. What kind of miracle? A miracle of salvation! That's right, 13yrs ago I got saved! The term Saved is a familiar term that is often thrown about in "religious" circles. So much so that we may not even realize that when someone accepts Christ as their personal Savior (gets saved), a heavenly miracle has occurred in their life. No, Angels didn't come and visit me and the heavens didn't open up to reveal a bright light shining down on me. Physically, nothing out of the ordinary happened; but spiritually, an extraordinary miracle took place in my life. The very moment I gave my life to Christ, my eternal destiny was changed forever. Pre-salvation, I was on my way to eternal punishment in Hell, which was created for the devil and his demons. Post-salvation, I am now on my way to Heaven where I will enjoy eternity with my Savior and my God! I began a spiritual journey on August 10, 1997, and as with any journey, we have opportunities to learn and grow.
Over the next few days, I will post 13 lessons I've learned over my 13 year Journey with Christ.
Here are the first six:

1. GOD IS FAITHFUL
2. GOD IS GOOD...ALL THE TIME...ALL THE TIME...GOD IS GOOD
3. FORGIVENESS - CHRIST FORGAVE US SO WE CAN KNOW HOW TO FORGIVE OTHERS
4. JEHOVAH-JIREH: MY PROVIDER...GOD WILL SUPPLY MY EVERY NEED.
5. WITHOUT GOD'S WORD, OUR FAITH IS HINDERED. (Romans 10:17-Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God)
6. FREEDOM IN CHRIST MEANS WE ARE FREE FROM SIN, NOT FREE TO SIN.

Tommorrow I will post the other seven and begin posting personal meaning from my experiences and application from God's Word.

I praise the Lord for all He has done in my life, stay tuned!

Renewals

Recently, I've heard nightmares of people experiencing problems at the DMV when it's time to renew their license, or even replace a lost card. This year I have to renew my license by my birthday. In case you live outside of FL, as of January 1st, our state has made it a requirement that in order to renew your license, you need to visit the drivers license office, show proof of ID, proof of social security #, and show 2 proofs of residency(ie utility bill or some forms of mail addressed to you) in addition to the much higher fees enacted just to balance the budget. The point is, I think renewals should be smoother and not all these over the top measures that could make one go crazy. Thankfully for me, I know this ahead of time and don't need to renew until July! But lately, my thoughts have been about a spiritual renewal as I am seeking for God to renew both my life and ministry. We all go through the ups and downs of life, and I think it's great that God takes us through everything, no matter what it is, and makes it good for us (Rom. 8:28, 31)

I love how Paul wrote in Romans 12:2 - be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed (HOW?) by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. Certainly, our spiritual renewals are a much smoother time when we allow God to renew our minds, to make them new again - or even to have our minds refreshed and refilled by Him. God offers us FREE REFILLS! He will empty us of our old mind and refill it with the mind of Christ. This ultimately leads to a clear understanding of God's will for our lives, during which time He enables us with the ability to prove or demonstrate in our lives so that we can live acceptably in His perfect will.

Praise God for the renewing times he brings in our lives...and we can especially be thankful that he's not like the government and that when He gets done renewing us we will definitely look better than the pictures on our licenses. (we'll be transformed into the image of His Dear Son) Now that's something to PRAISE THE LORD about!

As I think about renewals, I wish to renew my desire to share my thoughts on a more regular basis and I, as always, invite your thoughts too.