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Called to Stay

“For I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

We are all called to something, and that something is quite a calling. We are called to represent Christ Jesus as His disciples in this world and the moment we get baptized in the faith we are affirming and confirming to our community of faith that we accept this call from the Lord our God.

Let me repeat what I just said. We are ALL CALLED to REPRESENT CHRIST JESUS as HIS DISCIPLES. We are all ministers, not just some, BUT ALL. Some are called to be a minister vocationally and others are not, but the calling to be a minister for Jesus is a calling that we have been given. That is what it means to be a disciple. So I say now for us all to:

Remember your baptism and be thankful.

I have known for several years now that I am called to be in the vocation of ministry and for a time I believed and still believe that I am called to ordination, however what God has unveiled to me recently is that my calling is one that is specific and important. I honestly don’t know if I will seek out to be ordained in the United Methodist Church, what I do know without a shadow of a doubt is that I am called to be an advocate for teenagers, a youth minister.

And yet as I am committing to staying many of my counterparts will not stay in youth ministry for the long haul. Why is that? I know that some and even dare say many have felt a calling outside of youth ministry, but this happens so often that it can be perceived as a trend and this is a perception that can be very costly to the future of the Church.

We hear a lot of people being called to ordination in our churches today, but not so much of the people called to Children’s and Youth Ministry, but hey when people are called to be a pastor they definitely may start their ministry journey there, but eventually they will leave. At one point I thought I was going to leave, but not now.

Yesterday one of my graduating seniors thanked me for making this student’s last year count.

That solidified everything for me.

It gave me purpose, motivation, and affirmation.

One of my students did that for me.

I want to be a part of that kind of ministry, a ministry with students.

Youth Ministry is my calling and where I will stay.

This I pray and claim in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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Love and Accept

Whenever you cross my mind, I thank my God for you and for the gift of knowing you. 4 My spirit is lightened with joy whenever I pray for you (and I do constantly) 5 because you have partnered with me to spread the gospel since the first day I preached to you.

6 I am confident that the Creator, who has begun such a great work among you, will not stop in mid-design but will keep perfecting you until the day Jesus the Anointed, our Liberating King, returns to redeem the world. 7 It is only right that I should feel such admiration for you all—you hold me close to your hearts. And, since we are partners in this great work of grace, you have never failed to stand with me as I have defended and stood firm for the gospel—even from this prison cell. 8 Before God I want you to know how much I long to see you and love you with the affection of the Anointed One, Jesus.

“Our Mission is that EVERY STUDENT would feel LOVED and ACCEPTED as CHRIST LOVES AND ACCEPTS ALL OF US where we are, for who we are, but doesn’t leave us there. We exist to encourage, empower, equip, and energize the young people of this world to be a partner with God in transforming the world.”
 
I think and believe that Larissa believes that Ian is important and I believe that Ian feels the same for her. The way Larissa looks at Ian with abundant love and acceptance is how Christ looks at us. She doesn’t see anything else, She doesn’t look at his outside but at all times she loves and accepts him.
How are you in your life looking at people? Is it in line with how God looks at them?
Today commit to love and accept.
This simple choice can and does change and transform our world.
Amen.
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Longing For

Don’t be anxious about things; instead, pray. Pray about everything. He longs to hear your requests, so talk to God about your needs and be thankful for what has come. And know that the peace of God (a peacethat is beyond any and all of our human understanding) will stand watch over your hearts and minds in Jesus, the Anointed One. (Philippians 4:6-7) 

Many of us have heard this verse, many times. When I have a verse that I have heard a lot through my life I tend to go towards the VOICE translation when I read it again and like clockwork it provides results. Today let’s look at the first words about he says to pray about everything.

He longs to hear your requests. 

He longs for it.

Think about the last thing that you have longed for.

Do you remember what that was? With us sometimes our longing goes to less worthy of things. Possessions, Food, Human Relationships, etc.

But when was the last time you longed for God?

I mean really longed for Him to depths of who you are that if you didn’t have time with God you don’t think you could go on?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know when that was and that is how God feels for us ALL THE TIME. Ouch. Don’t worry though, don’t be anxious, because no matter what you do and really don’t do He will always long for you and I. This desire is what lead him to the cross. He longed to be connected with his creation again and again and again. So today I share this and I share this prayer with you.

Peace Be With You.

God,

Help us to long for you and your presence and your love as you long to give that presence and love to us. Help us to be ourselves, to see what we have, and to do what matters to you. Help us O Lord we pray. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy. In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

 

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Legacy

Legacy_Title_postcard

So we are now representatives of the Anointed One, the Liberating King; God has given us a charge to carry through our lives—urging all people on behalf of the Anointed to become reconciled to the Creator God. He orchestrated this: the Anointed One, who had never experienced sin, became sin for us so that in Him we might embody the very righteousness of God.

God has given us a charge, or a task to carry through our lives. God has given us a tool, a gift to help us live our lives in a way to points not to ourselves but to God. This is our legacy. God is our legacy. Christ is our legacy, and everything that they stand for.

Moving on it says urging all people on behalf of Jesus to come back to God.

He orchestrated this.

He desired this.

He wants His creation to return to Him, because He misses His creation and He desires to pour love upon us, and then in so doing ask us to partner with Him in pouring on love to all the world.

More simply put. Love is our Legacy.

These simple verses capture the heart of the good news. Lowering Himself, the sinless, Jesus took our sin upon Himself and canceled its power through His death and resurrection. As believers are united with Him and embody God’s righteousness, experiencing forgiveness, reconciliation, and new life. This righteousness is a new creation gift that can never be separated from the Giver, and so believers only experience it because they are “in Him.”

Because of Jesus’ acts on the cross we know that the worst thing is NEVER the LAST THING.

That is our Legacy.

Let’s pray.

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Love Will Thaw…

Tonight at our weekly Fusion Worship Gathering at FUMC Student Ministries we end our lenten series on the movie Frozen. For the last couple of weeks we have been using Frozen as a guide to let go and rejoice in the Lord’s presence as we approach Easter.

It really has been a lot of fun for me and hopefully everyone to see the Lent season through a Disney movie. We have been using Frozen because the story that is told through this movie is one that we are very familiar with and one that God wants to redeem. All of the characters in Frozen in some way fear something. Elsa and Anna get most of the audience’s attention throughout the movie, but let’s not forget what Hans, Kristof, Sven, and even Olaf fears and ultimately through this movie if we look carefully and intentionally we see the depths of God’s love and grace.

When I first watched Frozen I was reminded of my hope for the students at FUMC Student Ministries, but also of the hope for all teenagers everywhere.

When I first came to Cleburne as the Director of Student Ministries there was about a month where all I could think about was that after everything that teenagers go through they are looking for hope, for something to give them hope. As I was thinking about  this, I kept coming back to a thought.

That thought is best expressed in the hope that we have for our students at FUMC which is listed in our Mission Statement.

Our hope is that EVERY STUDENT would feel loved and accepted as Jesus loves and accepts all of us for who we are and where we are, but doesn’t leave us there.

I kept having that thought.

Total love and complete acceptance is what the cross is. That is why Jesus did what He did, because being apart from God is not acceptable to Him and will definitely not lead to an abundant life.

When Elsa confronts her fears and embraces love she unleashes the power of love on Arendale. When she does that the snow and ice thaw before everyone’s very eyes. I wonder if Sin is like ice and it freezes our hearts so much that we are separate from God . For many you may think that this visualization is helpful to understand the depths of what happened on the cross. I invite you to embrace this visualization and close your eyes and imagine the visual of sin being seen as ice and then in one moment in time that ice begins to melt and is lifted.

The world’s sins for all time are lifted from the world.

Then the scene begins to change drastically.

The sun comes out and shines brightly on fields of spring. See what I imagine when I think of this is a love that goes beyond anything we have ever thought of or imagine and furthermore I imagine a limitless field full of bluebonnets with the sun shining brightly upon it and all who are in this field feel the warmth of Christ’s embrace and love.

That’s what Easter is all about.

Amen.