Friday, February 17, 2012

God blesses you when...

This week as been absolutely crazy! Yet for the most part, it's been a good kind of crazy. This past Wednesday night, I preached a 'part 2' continuation of the previous week's sermon about how we need Jesus to live. We dug into how Jesus' work on the cross doesn't JUST affect our eternity, but it also affects our lives in the here and now too! I think that there are too many Christians in the world today who lose sight of this, and in doing so rob themselves of the freedom, joy, and LIFE that Jesus brings about to those who have accepted Him as Lord and Savior of their ENTIRE life! I talked about how the New Testament writers use two words to talk about Jesus' work on the cross, Soteria and Sozo, which both can be translated salvation/saved/heal/etc. Sozo is the word that's used when talking about our eternal salvation/healing, while Soteria is the word that's used when the New Testament writers are talking about the temporal/physical salvation/healing in the here-and-now! It was an exciting evening to preach this sermon to, because there were 47 people in the room! I was able to share my testimony and give encouragement to those who had been living in the deception of Jesus not having any affect on their lives in the here and now. Over all it was a moving night, but not because I had anything to do with it. I felt God moving and I really felt Him preaching to me just as much as He was using me to preach to the students.

I went back to the room in the next morning, because I had left something there, and I found that someone had written on our white board, and renamed CSF. They wrote "Christian Satan Followers." At first I was a little taken back by it, but then I had to chuckle a little bit as I erased it. The first thing that popped into my head what what Jesus said in Matthew 5.11: "God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers." I certainly have been feeling God's blessing on CSF this semester, and in the lives of both myself and these students. I know good things are happening and about to happen and it's making me really excited! I look forward to posting more updates for you all! In the mean time please continue to pray for Emily, myself, and the students here in CSF and at LHU! Love you guys!


Pat

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