recent realizations

*I wrote the majority of this post 2 summers ago, when I was still working at Grace United Methodist Church. I wrote it, saved it, and never posted it, wanting to read and edit my word vomit later after some prayer. I changed little of its content and have decided to go ahead and post it now. Sorry. I am bad at blogging.

So it has been some time since I have posted anything on here, and there has been much that has happened that is worthy of me writing about and eventually I will write about that. (<- run-on, I'm sure of it.) But tonight I want to share something that I have just realized, or at least further understood. The gospel is both very simple and very complex. God is both as simple as LOVE and as complicated as one would figure the being who created all things and is constantly holding the entire universe together while answering millions of individual prayers must be. Simply put, God is very very big.

I have been given many opportunities to represent God to several non-Christians, as well as to many Christians, and it has been an awesome time. And what I am realizing, from events like preaching to my congregation last Sunday (2 summers ago), sitting down with another person and explaining the reason for Jesus, and answering an assault of questions about my religious beliefs from co-workers and friends, is that God has this uncanny ability to weave my story together with his.

I am not a fatalist, but I do believe that God is using all of the experiences of my life so that I may know who he is more and more and so that I can show my neighbors who he is more and more. Not that everything happens for a reason, but God is so big and awesome, that he uses everything for his reason. Life is way more complex than just destiny, it is a story being written, to which the beginning and end are already known, but we get to write the in-between parts together with God! It is so cool!

Here is what I am realizing as I live my life. I am to be a constant ambassador and missionary:

Peter writes, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." (1 Peter 3:15)

So we are to ALWAYS be both willing and able to be a witness to others about the majesty and grace of God working in us and explain why that gives us hope. This requires us to have hope. The repercussions of this are simple but hard. We must constantly be aware of the Gospel. We must live it. We must live in a different reality than the temporal one our senses are exposed to. We must also constantly be affected by this Good News. This is equally challenging, if not more so. In our unglorified state, we are greatly affected by our emotions and tempers, by our hormones and flesh, by those around us (both within and outside of the family of God); we are affected by the fall even with the cleansing of baptism. Our concupiscence is something to be taken seriously and seriously dealt with in prayer and community. That being said, we desperately need the Holy Spirit. We require his guidance and leadership. It is only by his prompting we can advance the Kingdom, so we must invite his leadership and counsel and humbly obey it.

Jesus presents the gospel in this way, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." (Mark 1:14)

The Kingdom is far more than an idea; it is a reality that is here. We need only repent and believe. And live.