rebelling against low expectations
When I was a child, I often recited The Lord’s Prayer without an afterthought as to what I was actually uttering. If you’re anything like me, the art of prayer can be a difficult spiritual principle to grow in. Some churches teach to pray out loud or inside your head, while others remark that you need to say, “Our Father,” or “Jesus,” for it to be blessed and valid. Friends of mine raise their...
Every week, we proclaim glorious truths of Jesus Christ and His substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf through song. We lift our voices among fellow brothers and sisters, sharing a unity of our love for this Christ, who has utterly transformed us and raised us from death to life. Our once hopeless lives have been redeemed. We owe our complete and total allegiance to Jesus Christ, our Savior and...
Rebelutionary, you are a target. As scary as that sounds, it’s a good thing to be aware of. As children of God, Satan is after us. He constantly works to distract us, lead us away from God, keep us from spreading the Gospel of Christ, and attempts to sabotage every good thing we do for the Lord. But even though he has supernatural powers beyond what we alone are capable of, we have something far...
Lately, God has been teaching me about his character, especially his overwhelming faithfulness. I say overwhelming because every time I try to understand it I get…well, overwhelmed. It’s one of the craziest and most amazing things I’ve ever known. He’s also been teaching me about my character—especially my unfaithfulness to him. Distracted Again I have a tendency to get distracted...
I sit down at my computer once again. My fingers touch the keys. My thoughts wander. I have to write yet another paper but feel pulled toward so many other things at this moment. Why am I even in school? What about all the other things I wish to do? Does it really matter how well I complete my schoolwork? Being in college has often landed me in this situation, and I’m sure I’m not alone. What...
Once upon a time, an awkward, homeschooled sixth grader walked into a room that would change her life. That room was the Brightmoor Youth Center. That sixth grader was me. My youth group has changed me as a person. I say this not as an exaggerated, cliched statement. I say this as an unadulterated truth—I am a different person now than I was four years ago because of my youth group. When eleven...
“You need to celebrate!” my mentor told me. I’d just told her something I’d been praying for and working toward for months had happened. I laughed, feeling like a hypocrite. I’d just told my mentee that morning to celebrate what God was doing in her life. In our culture, we don’t celebrate a whole lot. Yet celebration is a spiritual discipline. The Israelites, following God’s law, made...
Theology matters. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” It is the duty of the Christian to study doctrine and understand what has been given to us through special revelation, and that we not only be sincere in our faith but match its sincerity with content. It is crucial that we wrestle with...
“Mission” is a pretty loaded term in Christian circles and conjures different images for different people. Churches have “mission partners,” people are “sent out on mission.” What springs to mind for you when you hear the word “mission”? Is it people hiking through the jungles of Bolivia to reach some distant tribe? Or setting up churches in unreached places? Is it university event weeks or...
Priorities. We all know what it means to have them, and most of us strive to structure our days accordingly. Any Christian who has been in the church long enough has the head knowledge that God should come before all else. However, is having God as our “top priority” what we ought to be pursuing? Now, don’t get me wrong–of course God should still come first! I am not suggesting that there is...
rebelling against low expectations
