So I've told y'all a little about my mission trip, but not much. I thought today I'd expand just what I learned that week, :) But, since I learned a lot I'm actually going to spread this our over two posts. Today I'll share with you the first two days, and then tomorrow I'll give you the other two.
Every year TeenServe has a theme. Last year was Restore and Rebuild, this year it was Love re:action. And our verses were 1 John 3:17-18. Here is what it said...
If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
Something we really expanded on that week was how to love not with our words, but with our actions. Now, it is a little easier to do such a thing on a mission trip when you are "forced" to go out and serve from nine until four... but when we come back home? Not so easy.
Every night we had a different topic that Mike Guzzardo(our AMAZING speaker) would speak on. I don't think I could pick a favorite, so I'll just share a little bit of each night with you :)
- Our first night was God's love, and how much he loves us.
Another little pointer Mike told us was this, "God will never love you more than what he does right now, but sometimes we let things(pride, guilt, fear, ect.) block out his unconditional love." You know, sometimes we all thing, "If I did this, maybe God would love me more." Or maybe, "Oh no, I did this so God now loves me less"... well that is not true. God loves us with an unconditional love. The only thing that changes, is how we accept that love, or deny it.
- The next day we talked about loving ourselves.
For some people, loving themselves comes easy, others... it takes so much effort that we just say, "forget it... I'm not worth loving.". But that is a lie. Just like we learned the night before, God loved us so much, that he sent his only son to die for us! And I'm sure that took a lot of effort for him, he loved his son, he did not want to put him through all those trials, through all the pain, but he did so anyway. If we don't have love, we can't give it. You cannot give what you do not have.
But we know this, right? And yet we still fall into this lie. How? Well... most people(I'm in this category, though I am climbing out!) find their identity in comparison. Ladies, we especially do this every day. Don't try and deny it. We go to the grocery store and we see maybe a friend, or a classmate, or just a complete stranger and we just start comparing ourselves to them. "Well, her shirt is cuter than mine... my shoes look nicer than hers... her hair is way better than mine..." all this nonsense, and unknowingly, we are knocking not just ourselves, but that other person as well down. Satan loves this. Comparison is his number one tool to get us to stumble. So when we find our identity in that, it is very hard to love ourselves, which makes it impossible to love others. So what do we do? We need to switch the source of where we find our worth. Have you ever heard of a car company that, when they make a car they take it to a rival manufacturer and has it critic their work? And then when they say something discouraging, the company says, "Oh... well they don't think it is good so obviously it is not." Yeah... no. They will defend their car, saying all the good things about it, building it up, they don't really care what others think about it. They believe in it... and that is all that matters. God is our manufacturer. His opinion is all that matters. God made us each fearfully and wonderfully made.
We need to stop comparing ourselves because you know why? We were each made to do something differently. Well, now you're thinking to yourself, "yeah, yeah Kayla... we know that. We've heard that our entire life. So what?" Well, what if you think about it this way. Paul did some really terrible things before he turned his life over to Christ. He pursecuted Christians, killing them mercilessly, and did not loose an ounce of sleep at night. Surely if anyone had a reason to dwell on their past, and compare it to the people around him, it was him. But he didn't. Imagine if he did though... we couldn't have half of our New Testament. So many lives would not have been changed because he couldn't stop comparing his past. Paul was an incredible man with a heart so for the Lord... imagine if he'd stopped and really thought, "I can't live this life. I've done terrible things, I cannot change." How different would our lives be if he didn't follow the path God had for him? Well... it could be the same for us. We need to stop comparing, stop trying to be like everyone else, and just live our lives with an identity found in God's love alone.
Every night we sang one song, and I just cannot get enough of it. It still gives me chills when I listen. Here it is...
This was an extremely long post, and for that I do apologize, but I hope that maybe God has said something to you. If he did, and you are comfortable sharing, leave a small comment. Even it is just something like, "I need to stop comparing" or "God does love me!" or maybe even, "That song gave me goose bumps!". I'm praying for all my readers daily, you guys are important to me and I hope that this year y'all are learning to run into Christ's arms, and your hearts sing no other name than JESUS!!
Have a fantastic weekend,
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