This Is Me

Identity is such a huge issue. This whole idea of "Who am I?" runs crazy through each of our minds. We battle back and forth with ourselves. We see this deep, sometimes dark, thoughts of self worth and self image. Most developmental psychologist believe this conflict of "Who am I?" plays a major role in the life of adolescents. And I agree, but it doesn't this question ring in all our minds? Teens to senior citizens go through this. Christians, Muslims, and Atheists go through this. I go through this, and so do you.

Working with junior high and high school students, it is inevitable that this issue about identity and self worth will come up. I have heard story after story of young girls being destructive to their bodies because they don't like the way that they look. Or stories about guys who never lift their heads while walking through the hall way because they know someone will say something about them. It breaks my heart to hear about young girls starving themselves in order to look a certain way. Or seeing scars where they have cut.

Who am I?

Well, I was made in the image of God. I know that I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23), but when Christ came to earth, he took that sin for me. He was beaten, tortured, and killed for my sin. I was made holy and pure, not because of what I have done, but because of what Jesus has already done for me on the cross. Am I perfect? FAR from it. I was once dead to sin, but I have been made alive in Christ. All my worth is in him. All my image is in him. All of me is in him. I hope you can say the same, but I know that everyone who reads this can't. Next time someone asks you, WHO ARE YOU?? I hope you can stand up proudly and say:

This is Me

Come Lord Jesus, Come

I've grown tired of it. I am tired of people who I went to high school with dying....I am tired of hearing story after story of people either taking their own life or people throwing their life away and going to prison forever at the age of 21. I've grown tired of it. I can't keep it in anymore. I want hope, I want that feeling in my stomach knowing that everyone is happy and glad to be alive, but I would by lying to you if I said that was true.

I have been away from Topeka for about 4 years now. I keep in contact with a select few and others seem to slip through the cracks. I don't blame them, and I don't blame myself. It's growing up, right? But after hearing more news tonight about someone I went to high school with, I hit that familiar drop. I want to help. I want to be there for the families that feel that aftershock days, weeks, and years after. I wish I could be there for the person in their most desperate hour...or the day leading up to their life ending/altering choice.

But truth be told.....I can't do anything about it.

I do know of someone who can help. Someone who beat sin. Someone who beat death. It's almost Easter, so you don't have to read a sermon on here. Just please know that.....please know...that God is bigger.

Come Lord Jesus. Please Come.

This past week at church, we finished a series with our junior highers called "Face to Face" (Good help D-Heff). It was a great series where we looked at stories in the gospels where people came face to face with Jesus. We read the stories, talked about observations from the text, and ended up answering 2 main questions--1)What does this tell us about God/Jesus? and 2)What does this say about us as Christians?

Those two questions have everything to do with Bible study. Don't worry, I know there is more to it. Believe me, I am a senior at Ozark Christian College. But how much different would Christians be if they lived by those two questions? If they studies the Bible, knowing that there is something in the text that reveals the Almighty...that there is something in the text that speaks to us living in 2011? Look through the Bible and you will see story after story that speaks to the heart, speaks to our mind, and demands action on our part.

We studied 5 main stories--The prostitute who washed Jesus' feet, The Rich young ruler, The woman at the well, the blind man that Jesus healed, and finally the story of Zacchaeus. In all of these stories we find Jesus meeting people, and they walk away different. The rich young ruler had a tough time handling what Jesus put before him, but if we really come face to face with God there has to be some kind of change. My junior highers are bright--they smell bad, tell bad jokes, and fart in the middle of my lessons for laughs--but they are bright none the less. They came up with the following conclusions over the series:

1)God loves us no matter where we are or what we have done.
2)People almost always change after they met Christ.
3)People recognized that Jesus was who he said he was.
4)God cares more about the changed person than the past person.
5)Jesus came to seek and save the lost

Now for a bunch of farting smelly junior highers--that is pretty amazing!

Coming face to face with God was something that was impossible in the Old Testament. God was to perfect to actually come face to face with man--for man would certainly die! But...that all changed. When Christ lived out Philippians 2. Now we have the privilege of coming face to face with Jesus. I'll end with a question one of my 8th graders asked, "We have come face to face with God--what are we going to do about it?"