A Lesson From David;Part Two: Seizing Your Opportunity

We left David unappreciated and under-challenged, yet we realized he was being trained and waiting for his opportunity to glorify God.  Now, in the second part of this lesson, we will learn about seizing that opportunity.  Next time we’ll learn about how to recover from tragedy, but that is for another day.

One day, David is performing his normal, ordinary, mundane job.   When all of a sudden Dad comes up with good news.  He gets a promotion!  David is no longer just a shepherd, but Dad is willing to send him to deliver food to his brothers in war and bring back a report.  Great!  David is promoted from shepherd boy to pizza delivery guy!  Awesome!(I’m being sarcastic if you can’t tell)  But it’s an upgrade none the less.  So, David obeys willingly.  He arrives at the battle field to some big guy challenging Israel to send someone to fight to the death with him.  The losers nation becomes the other nation’s slaves.  Even worse, the giant is cursing out his nation, his brothers, and his God.  Big mistake!  You don’t want to get on the nerves of a guy with the power of God at his back.  You can imagine how ticked David is now.  But, he delivers the food.  He asks his bros about the giant.  At this moment David’s life goes from mundane to thrill ride.  God tells him plainly, “This is your opportunity, your time to shine for me.  Now go out there and make me proud!”  If you’re saying, “Now timeout!  You’re not telling me that a kid is going to take on a giant trained killer?  No way, he’d wet his pants and go running home to his mommy!” you’re right.  But this is not an ordinary kid.  He knows God’s got his back.  He’s not scared!  God’s Spirit and strength is pulsing through his veins.  After all his hard work, focus, and dedication to God, he’s not going to throw in the towel right when God shows his perfect opportunity!  Now is the what he’s been waiting for.  He’s psyched for this.  He wants to go for it.  The adrenaline is pumping and the testosterone is pulsing.  Now back to the story.  David, like any good boy, goes and asks the king’s permission to fight the giant.  After all, the nation depends on the battle so the king might want to know.   If you’re saying, “Wait the king is never going to let some kid fight the battle that could make or break his nation.  He’s gonna laugh right in David’s face.  He would never let this kid fight.  I mean he doesn’t know he has God at his back, he just knows him as a ordinary shepherd boy!” you’re right again.  No king in his right mind would let a kid decide the fate of his nation, especially against a giant killer.  But God is controlling this situation.  He communicates to Saul somehow that he is gonna have this kid kill the giant.  Somehow Saul believes him and lets David fight.  David, still fearless, seizes the opportunity with power, valor, and glory.  After turning down the king’s armor, David goes down into the valley to meet the giant.  The Goliath is insulted by having a boy sent to fight him.  So, he starts trash talking David.  He says he’s going to feed him to the birds and animals.  But David knows how to bark back!  He tells that giant that cursing God was a big no-no and he’s going to pay with his life through God’s power.  That tore it! The fight began.  With one slick flick of the sling David planted one right in Goliath’s forehead.  Goliath falls to the ground.  The Israelites cheer!  Goliath is dead!  David goes over and chops off Goliath’s head with his own sword to make sure and to show him disrespect.  But, let’s take a look from Goliath’s side.  Can you imagine the look of wonder and disbelief on his face in those fleeting moments when he knew he was going to die.  He must have known then that only a God could have pulled such an upset.  He saw a powerful, brave young boy powered by his God.  Goliath had, no doubt, never met anyone who was stronger than him.  And then to be humbled by a mere boy?  He must have known there was a more powerful force behind this boy, and he knew it wasn’t his god.  Now back to David.  From this point on David’s life was riding high.  He felt like he could take on the world through God.  His relationship was strong with his God and nothing could separate them.  But his life is just about to hit free fall, but we’ll here about that next time.

-Peter

You can find the first lesson from David here.

Beaten,broken,and put back together.

Just like a board after a few hits it breaks just like I fall apart after being hit a few times. I use to think that after the pain subsided I would be numb and I would no longer feel the pain but the truth is the pain it doesn’t go away. So you may be broken and beaten having fallen apart. So what’s next? Well its time to seek God and that’s something that will happen over and over again. You got to die to live and live to die to fight sin. So you die to sin and are alive in Christ but you can also look at it as living in sin and dieing so you can live to serve God. So you might be thinking of why I am writing this to you. Well I’m writing to whom it may concern and apparently that includes you since you are reading this. Being put back together is a painful process.  It is like welding two pieces of metal together.  A flame melts the metal and as the medal dries it becomes solid and the two pieces become one again. I use metal because its stronger then wood. Your heart may be broken but when a friend helps you its like your heart is medal and is no longer easily broken. Then when you have God your heart becomes like a diamond nothing can break a diamond but a diamond. So your life is good for a while and then all the sudden something terrible happens. Now that diamond heart is shattered like glass. It takes time for your heart to heal but it does. Like the song Broken Wing from a Thousand Foot Krutch says “you’re a broken wing, not a broken thing, you can heal in time, if you try.” All it takes is one prayer. No matter what you’ve done, are doing or are going to do God will forgive you all you have to do is ask. He will forgive you. Look at the word forgiveness. If you look at the middle of the word you will see that give is ion the middle of  For-give-ness. Forgiveness from God is God giving you His love and acceptance. As God’s  adopted son or daughter you can come to God because of what Christ did for you. He’s your father so as the Bible says “ Let the little ones come to Me.” That in itself is amazing being able to come no matter what.

 

From Your Brother in Christ who are Believer’s in the One True God.

 

Daniel

 

  P.S. If you every need someone to talk to I’m here for you.

Causes

Today I wrote love on my arms to raise awarness for the cause To Write Love on Her arms which is about sucide, depression, and other stuff like that. Tomorrow I’m doing The World Vision Thirty hour Famine to raise awareness for the hungry. Causes like these are a great idea and so I would like to challenge you to support a cause if you havn’t already done one or helped support one this year.

How He Loves

There is a song that I have been listening to a lot lately and it goes like this :

He is jealous for me
Love’s like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for me.

Oh, how He loves us so
Oh, how He loves us
How He loves us so.

Yeah, He loves us
Oh., how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves.

So we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If grace is an ocean we’re all sinking
So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way

That he loves us,
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves.

He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves

Cause He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves

Yeah, He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves.

In my opinion, this song is totally beautiful and so true. But, some people haven’t yet experienced this love. They live everyday in this routine of life, but there is never anything special about it. Maybe they get high one night, drunk another, and have sex another. Or maybe they do all three in one night, and that is what fills them. They work to fill this hole in their heart that they can never seem to get totally filled up no matter what. No matter how many drinks they have, how many pills they take or how many people they sleep with. It just remains empty. They can have 500 friends, be an amazing athlete and have incredible marks in school, but nothing changes. They are still empty. They are still lost, searching for something real and good. And maybe that’s you. The song I mentioned above, well I have been listening to it on youtube a lot in the past little while. The version I listen to is by Kim Walker, half way throughout the song she says this :

“His presence… His love is so… thick… and tangible… in this room tonight. And there some of you here that, that have not… encountered the love of God… And tonight, God wants to encounter you… and wants you to feel His love… His amazing love… Without it, these are just songs, these are just words, these are just instruments… Without the love of God it’s just like… we’re just like up here, making noise. But the love of God changes us! And we’re never the same. We’re never the same after we encounter the love of God. never the same after we encounter the love of God! And right now, if you haven’t encountered the love of God. And You would know… because you wouldn’t be the same. would never the same again! And if you… if you wanna encounter the love of God right you better just brace yourself! Because he’s about to just blow in this place! And we’re gonna encounter the love of God, right now! So God, I speak to all the hearts. And I ask God that every heart be open right now. Every heart be open! Every spirit be open up… you, God. To you, and a love encounter. A love encounter from you tonight! A love encounter from you tonight.”

Those words blow my mind. She just like sums up a life with God in like a paragraph. You’ll never be the same once you encounter God’s love. So like, if you haven’t yet, I encourage you to do that, because you’ll never be the same. That hole in your heart will finally be filled with love and joy and peace like nothing you have ever experienced before. Its so amazing. If you want to, and have any question, just let me know. Comment on this post or anything.

Jenna.

Anti-Conformity: Going Bold

Written by David Brooks

Key Verse: Don’t be like the people of this world, but let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him. Romans 12:2 (CEV)

Things to think about:
• What does anti-conformity mean to you?
• How do you stick out?

So God has placed us in this earth for a reason. He wants to tell others about him. But how do we really follow that? Does not cheating on your math test really count for “being good?” Or how about not taking that last cookie even though you’ve already had 12! Do these things really make us Christ followers?

You’ve all heard the phrase “Christian vs. Christ-follower” right? We even saw a video about it today. So if we’re supposed to follow Christ, then we don’t just stop at the Don’ts. We keep going into the dos. Some people in here have parents who expect you to just barely pass, maybe even with D’s. Some of you have parents you say “don’t eat red-meat because it’s in the Bible!” Right. Well, right here and right now, I want to break a little news to you, you may be winning gold stars left and right in your parent’s eyes but not in God’s. He doesn’t just look at you and “Judge you by your cover.” No, he takes a look way deeper.

See, you can listen to ONLY CHRISTIAN music, and ONLY eat clean, white meat, and only go to church on Sundays or Wednesdays for that matter but if in your mind you’re thinking, “Oh wow! That kid is listening to ’s new hit single! I wanna listen!” or “That sundae looks so good! I mean yeah sure, my mom said to not eat sugar after 7, but what the heck! Screw her!” Then you’re just as bad as having eaten steak, and listened to in the first place. Now I’m not trying to get those of you who do the “only Christian” music thing, to stop doing it. I’m just saying that if you’re gonna do it, then the rest of you needs to match that. You can’t not listen to on your iPod, but still watch it on MTV. And you can’t go for 6 burritos without feeling just as bad as having eaten that sundae. I mean honestly guys, let’s be real.

So we’ve talked about the don’ts but let me give you an example: I brought along with me my health project – a skeleton. So first we have to do a little background check on ourselves: let’s look at Genesis.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them
Genesis 1:26-27

Ok, so we know we were made in His image and his likeness. We can see that this is evident in the verses we just read, right? And for me, in my opinion and in my walk with God, being created “in his image” means being created with the standards He has: Perfection. Now I know we can’t achieve perfection but there’s a saying that goes like this. “Shoot for the moon and even if you miss, you will land upon a star.” So I believe we should always strive to keep His standards which are referred to in the books of the law: Leviticus, numbers, and Deuteronomy.

So knowing that, I’m gonna give you a cool way to destroy your health project. No no no!! Just kidding! But listen up: I’m gonna have Kevin come up and sort of follow me here. So for every standard we lower, he’s gonna cut something off.

Standard #1 – Just do your best: Not as in “try harder.” As in “do what you did before.”
Standard #2 – I still love you. HAHAHA so basically your dad says, “I know you’re doing as well as you can, but just remember: I still love you” you go for the “whatever” attitude and flunk your test because you didn’t try.
Standard #3 – You are you, and no one can change that: Do what you wanna do!
Standard #4 – You’re so far down, why not just sin a little more!

This is what happens with your standards if you don’t catch yourself. You find yourself at breaking point where things start to be noticed. Your standards were at the moon, but now they’re just about level to the floor. No use for those anymore. And that’s exactly what happens. We start not to care. We become complacent and desensitized. Is this what God wants for our lives? The answer is simple: NO.

This is the main idea: don’t just sit on the fence. MOVE. Because sitting on the fence is just as bad, if not worse than the ones who committed the sin. If you and your friends are walking home from school and one of them pulls out a bottle and invites you to drink, what are you going to do? Just stand there and say “no thanks. I don’t drink,” or drink with them? No, instead listen to the Holy Spirit and tell them that it’s wrong and that there’s more to life. I mean, it may sound a little out-of-the-box but just do it!

Jesus isn’t a convenience store. He doesn’t want you to call him up AFTER you drank or after you cheated on your test. He wants you to call him before. He wants you to know that you do need his help.

One of my friends posted a note about this topic. Here’s what he said: “Yesterday I became frustrated with the way things with Young Life were being handled. Our meetings never seemed to go anywhere and all we ever did was jokes and never actually get anything done… let alone on time. We did get things done but our meetings always seem to have a lot in them that was a waste of time. Having plans at 6:30 I was annoyed with the fact that the meeting had gone 15 minutes over. My plans had been disrupted and I never made it to what I had intended to be at that evening. After being brought to my senses I realized, later, that there are going to be times like this- where my plans don’t coincide with Christ’s. When we choose to follow Jesus he asks us to drop everything so that we may serve him whole heartedly. Taking a look back, were my plans really more important than a meeting where a bunch of committed Young Life leaders were discussing ways to improve our outreach of the news of Jesus to high schoolers? … Not really. No one was dying. No one was hurt. I was right where I needed to be and I didn’t realize that because I was so set on having things done my way. I very quickly realize that I need to ditch this way of thinking because following Jesus Christ will never fit into my schedule. The better way of thinking about it is that my way of doing things will never fit into His schedule. We who have decided to follow Christ need to offer ourselves as living sacrifices (Rom 12:1) and realize that our will virtually has no say in what God’s will is. If God wanted me to be at my other plans for that evening then he would have made a way. But I didn’t go. I didn’t make it. So what? I was doing what I was supposed to and if that’s good enough for Christ, well, then its good enough for me. “

So what do you think? Is Christ convenient? Is he your pick-me-up when your first of six rockstars in the morning don’t work? Is he your 2nd, 3rd, or maybe 5th friend that you talk to? If so, then he’ll remember that at the Rising. For me, I want him to be my all. So instead of just settling for “good” or “ok” go for the gold. Be Michael Phelps’ of doing more. Be the first, not the last to raise your hand for a question in science or health – even if you know it might be a long, controversial conversation. Don’t be afraid to stick up for your faith. Do know that nothing can separate you from God’s love: Romans 8:38-39. Don’t be ashamed if you get shut down by a teacher. You may have just planted a seed: 1 Timothy 4:12. Do know that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you: Philippians 4:13.