Follow me…

I’ve been reading through the Gospels recently. I wanted to study the life of Christ, and so I just decided to read the Gospels over and over again. There is so much that I could write about, but the thing that’s hit me in the face are these two words…

FOLLOW ME

Jesus has a way of getting right to the point. He doesn’t paint a false picture of what it’s like to follow Him in hopes of wooing more followers. Instead, He makes it clear that following Him isn’t easy, it will be hard, and it will have difficulties. But the result will be worth any momentary struggle, because you’re following Christ. He knows that He’ll be able to provide everything when people follow Him, because He is everything.

“While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fisherman. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

–Matthew 4:18-19

The thing that sticks out to me in that account, is the fact that they immediately obeyed. I follow Christ. There’s no question about that, and I will boldly proclaim that to the world. But, I don’t always immediately obey. I’m the type of person that can think of every excuse or reason to delay obedience.

“God, I can’t give that money right now. Things are really tight and I can’t obey you.”

“God, I can’t go talk to that person today. I’m so busy with my own problems, surely you can’t expect me to talk to them today.”

“God, I can’t go on that missions trip this summer. I have to be home and work.”

……etc

The fact is, I am quite talented at thinking up excuses when I don’t want to obey the Lord. Sometimes, I spend more energy fighting with the Lord, and coming up with excuses when it would be easier to simply obey. Jesus’ commandment wasn’t, “Follow me…unless (insert excuse here)”

rather

“Follow me”

I am issuing a challenge to myself and to you as well. Follow Christ, and obey Him immediately (without any excuses). This is going to require some retraining on my part, because I’m so used to making excuses to the Lord instead of obeying without questioning. Here’s the beautiful truth: Following Him will lead to the deepest and most enduring joy possible. If Jesus were to show up at my doorstep tomorrow and say, “Chelsea, follow me. Leave everything and follow me.” I want to obey. So, will you join me in not only following Christ, but following Him immediately?

“He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only.” –C.S Lewis

A severe mercy

When I first started writing this post, it was filled with me boo hooing all over the place, complaining, and an invitation to the worlds biggest pity party. You see, my brother left for Texas this morning. He’s transferring schools from Liberty to a school in Longview, Texas called LeTourneau University to play baseball. I’m so extremely happy for him because his dream of playing college ball is finally coming true!! At the same time, it’s going to be hard because we’re 11 days apart, we’ve gown up together and he’s my best friend.

Yesterday, I had lunch with a very dear friend, and a lady that I look up to and admire very much. I was sharing with her that I was having a hard time with my brother leaving. During our conversation, she mentioned a book we had both recently read entitled, “A Severe Mercy” by Sheldon Vanauken. The book is an autobiography about Sheldon and his wife and their incredibly beautiful love story. It also contains an account of a friendship they formed with C.S. Lewis and their journey to Christianity. I don’t want to give the entire story away, but towards the end of the book, Sheldon’s wife dies. Sheldon is devastated, but comes to realize that it was God’s severe mercy towards him. It was severe because his wife’s death hurt him beyond belief, but it was mercy because Sheldon was jealous of his wife’s relationship with Christ and was only able to truly draw closer to Christ after his wife died.

So here I am in my own time of severe mercy. It is going to be incredibly hard because I will be without my best friend being so close to me this semester. Sure, there will definitely be some difficult times. But as my dear friend pointed out to me, it is going to be a time of the Lord’s mercy in my life because my Father is going to be able to take me away from my “crutch” (my brother) and fulfill the longings of my heart with Himself. Even though I probably wouldn’t have initially chosen this road for myself, I trust that the Lord knows what He’s doing. I trust that He is going to fill my soul in ways I can’t even begin to imagine. So, I’m choosing to press into His arms and make Psalm 34:1 my prayer and goal.

I will bless the LORD at all times;
   his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

Be encouraged if you’re going through circumstances that you don’t necessarily like. They could be God’s severe mercy to you and His way of giving you more of Himself.

Piper on reading the WORD!!

I recently read an article where John Piper discusses how he studies the Bible. Since I just shared with you all my goal for the year as far as reading God’s word, I thought it would be fitting to share a few excerpts from the article. Enjoy!

There’s an old saying, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” How do keep your familiarity with the Bible from causing you to grow indifferent to it?

Piper: I pray Psalm 119:18 each time I go to the Bible: “Open my eyes that I may behold wonders in your law.” I think the point of communion—taking faith’s renewal and walking that prayer is that there are wonders everywhere in “the law,” in
the Bible, the instruction of God. And the psalmist is aware that he doesn’t often feel or see wonderful things as wonderful. So he asks to see. I do as well. I’m asking specifically that I would have spiritual eyes to see what is wonderful as wonderful. And don’t think that it doesn’t matter that you read glorious things without seeing them as glorious. It matters, and therefore we should plead with God to open our eyes.

How should we approach the Bible when reading it?

Piper:  I’m torn as to which approach to take in answering that. I want to say right off the bat that we should approach the Bible with reverence. And yet I’m aware that there might be people reading this who don’t even know enough about the Bible to know whether it should be revered or not. Maybe they’ve barely even read it. Because of the history of the Bible, exerting power in the lives of peoplefor good for over two thousand years, I think I would say to those people, “Come to the Bible with a sense of expectation and openness that here you might find something vastly more wise and more penetrating and more world-shaping than any of the contemporary ideas you are presently dealing with.”

And after they come, I think they will discover that this is the very Word of God and, therefore, it should be approached with a sense of reverence. And it should be approached with a sense of need and with a sense of expectation that God has given us this Word in order to meet our needs, to convict us of sin, to bring us to the point offorgiveness, and then to give us hope. Second Timothy 3:16 says that the Scriptures are inspired by God and are sufficient for sound doctrine and every good work. There’s nothing God expects of us that He does not provide in this Word. He helps us understand what to do and gives us the motivation to do it. There’s a high-level expectation that I think people ought to have when they approach the Bible.

How can we make time for the Bible?

Piper: I don’t think it’s merely a function of time. It’s a function of earnestness and faith. A person must build into their life a regular encounter with God, personally and quietly meditating on His Word. I think the early morning is the best time, because it sets the tone for the whole day. If for some reason that time can’t work, then midday or evening. Get the Bible, the time, and the place—make sure it’s planned—and then meditate on a portion of Scripture: a chapter, verses, or several chapters, depending on what you can do. Memorize some verse, or even phrases, that appear especially precious to you. You don’t need hours and hours with God every day, but you do need to have time with God orienting your mind, taking something into your communion—taking faith’s renewal and walking with God through the day, reminding yourself of what you saw in the morning.

Read the WORD!!

This year, I signed up for a “read through the bible in a year” plan. I’m on Day 4 and I’m still on track. (Okay, 4 days isn’t that big of a deal, but I’m taking baby steps!!) I’m really excited about digging into the word of God even more. I’ve read and studied the Bible for as long as I can remember, and I’m looking for a way to challenge myself. The plan I’ve chosen is called the “M’Cheyne One Year Reading Plan”. It takes me through the Old Testament once, and the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs twice. I’ve downloaded the app on my iPad (Christmas present!!) and each morning, it sends me a reminder. I have the ability to read it on my iPad, but I much prefer reading my actual Bible. The feel of holding my Bible in my hands is the best.

Is anyone else reading through the Bible this year?

What are your Bible reading plans/goals this year?

I’d love to hear feedback and ideas on how you’re going to study the Bible in 2012!!

I’m in love

I’m in love…

with two little girls from the Ukraine.

They stole my heart from the moment I laid eyes on them. Words cannot express the sheer joy that I’ve experienced since they have come to stay with us. When they arrived at our house around 9:00 pm around two weeks ago, I never expected that I would love them so much. It may sound silly, but I just expected that our family would take care of them, but I didn’t expect my heart to care for them the way it does.

The first night when the girls arrived, they walked into the house and one of them headed straight for me with her arms open and just hugged me. We chatted with them, through a translator for a few minutes before the translator and the orphanage director headed out to their host family’s house. They reached into their bags and brought out gifts that they had made for the family. My mom had sent them a letter and told them that she had 6 children. So they prepared gifts for us. That brought tears to my eyes. The fact that these girls, who live in an orphanage and have next to nothing would bring us gifts was so extremely humbling.

My dad put a translator app on his iPad, so we have been able to communicate with them through that. They have also learned a few English words/phrases. The phrase they use quite often is, “I love you.”

I’ll tell you one thing…I love them so much and they have done absolutely nothing to earn my love. I simply love them. When I wake up in the morning, and the first thing they do is greet me with hugs and kisses and giggles, my heart feels like it’s going to burst because there is so much love for them. If I could keep them and adopt them myself, I would do it without hesitation. I’m glad I still have a little over a week with them.

I would like to ask for your continued prayers for them. They are incredible and I know that they Lord is going to do great things in their lives.