Well the semester is well underway and going great! We have had lots of visitors at FOCUS as well as our small groups. God is bringing people our way, and raising more people up from among us! As I talked about in my last blog, spring is a time for change and the emergence of new leaders. How exciting! We have a number of girls stepping up and trying to do more for the kingdom than they’ve ever done before. Pray for them, that they will continue on and that we can be a great support and encouragement in helping them continue to grow.
One of the girls I get to study the bible with told me this week that she was explaining our study to her dad and why she does it. I think the idea was pretty foreign to him. She said that she told him, “You don’t understand, I get to do this with someone else when I’m done.” That was what she was most excited about. An eighteen year old is investing heavily in her own walk with God, so that she can then invest heavily in others. She also said she is excited to move out and closer to the school so that she will have a place to bring people in who maybe don’t have a good home situation and help them, and give them a place where they feel loved and cared about. That doesn’t really sound like a typical eighteen year old to me.
This is a picture from winter camp, that's her in the middle :)
I would like to finish with some things we've been discussing in our intern class that will hopefully be an encouragement to you. This is an excerpt from the last paper I had to write for class. We've been talking about what it means to be saved by faith.
"What is it that we are to have faith in though? Faith in God: faith that He’s the deal and that He’s got everything taken care of. This means we don’t try to earn our salvation. When we start thinking we can attain our salvation by what we do, we are no longer living by faith. We have shifted faith in God to faith in ourselves, and about this Paul says “You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” We are to have faith that Christ can and has atoned for our sin for the sake of our salvation, and that we could never attain such a thing by our own efforts. Faith like this, if it is true faith, will inevitably produce complete devotion to Christ, which is ultimately what God really wants from us; not a list of laws kept, but a life surrendered to Him brought about by our faith."
It's pretty simple. Be devoted to God. God's not looking for people who do everything perfect, who keep all the "laws," and do what "good" people do. God wants to look at you and see that you are crazy for Him and that you trust Him completely. And this isn't a cop out for not being obedient, this gives us reason to be even more obedient!"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" (Romans 6:1-2).
Be crazy about God, He's so crazy about you!
Much love and thanks,
Bri
