Living Authentically

What does it mean to live authentically? This week in chapel we were asked this very question. Our speaker was Jeff Bogue, a pastor of a Grace Brethren church in Akron, Ohio. Jeff spent three days challenging us to live our lives for Christ. He pointed out that many times we think those who do not know Christ are the ones who are fakes when in reality it is those who claim to follow Christ that are living as posers. Jeff pointed out that knowledge is not everything. To truly know Christ we must be willing to trust that He loves us in the midst of our inconsistencies and failures rather than trying to hide behind a mask of perfection, trying to be happy plastic people. Jeff encouraged us to move away from the mask of perfection and live a life that displays our hurt, our love, our pain, and our joy. So what now? As Christians, we must live an authentic life. We need to completely surrender our hearts and our lives to Christ, we must be consummed by Him. The song "Inside Out" captures this idea perfectly. "My heart and my soul, Lord I give You control, consume me from the inside out."

Prayer

There was a recent chapel that I wanted to comment on. Last week was on the topic of "prayer", and we had one of our adjunct professors, named Kondo Simfukwe, who spoke for two of the days. He is a student favorite, and had some challenging things to say! The one day I was there, his question to the audience was, "Is my prayer life faith-fueled?"
He used the Bible passage of Luke 18. This is where the two main characters are a desperate widow and a wicked judge. I encourage you to look it up sometime and read over these interesting verses! The main thought to the passage was, if this little old lady was able to get the corrupt judge to grant her the request she wanted, how much more would our loving God grant us what we need?!
He gave two principles out of his talk: 1st, God is a loving, generous Father; and 2nd, We are a desperate, needy people. The phrase that he kept saying was, "God's crazy about me and loves to give me great things!" That was encouraging to hear, and really hit home for me!

PS- on a sidenote, that same day there was a song that we were singing for chapel, and it included this phrase: "Break my heart for what breaks Yours". Wow, how powerful of a thought is that!

The Super Bowl

Just the other day I was talking to a group of students here at Grace. We were talking about some of the Super Bowl parties that took place here on campus, and we were also discussing how the Super Bowl turned out...
I, like many of you, watched the football game last Sunday with some friends. I'm not sure how many of you are Colts or Saints fans, but I was just hoping for an exciting game, and it sure turned out to be! Going back and forth, it was a lot of fun to watch...
But something struck me as I watched! All of these athletes had all the money in the world, all the fame, anything and everything they could ask for. But did they have the Most Important thing, being a personal relationship with Christ?
I thought of Kurt Warner, who is a quarterback on the Cardinals in the NFL. He is an out-spoken Christian, leading Bible Studies and being able to witness to fellow players. There are many opportunities that they have to share the Good News, and each of us do, too! Whether that be at our job, or at school, or wherever we are, the Lord will open up doors of opportunity for us to be an encouragement and a witness to those who desperately need it...
Hope this encourages you today!! God bless~