I love vacation days … learning … and being encouraged to strengthen my relationship with Jesus. I really love it when those three things come together as they did last week. I spent three days at a workshop in Oklahoma, and the following is a just a sprinkling of teachings I heard that made a lasting impression on my heart.
» Salvation isn’t just about solving my spiritual legal problems and getting to Heaven. It’s about learning to live like Jesus here and now.
» Jesus was faithful to His Father while being in sync with the prevailing culture of His time. To truly be like Jesus, I need to do the same.
» If I am struggling with temptation and sin, and I have God in my life, imagine how much those who do not have God are struggling.
» Jesus put me here to heal hurts. If hurting people don’t break my heart, something’s wrong.
» Life is hard. Hard is normal. If courage required the absence of difficulties, none of us would live boldly.
» Every day that I’m alive is a special occasion.
» People repeatedly reject a message of good news if they don’t trust the messenger.
» Being real is not denying my struggles and my weaknesses but owning them and learning how to deal with them. Real church is a place where being me is okay as I struggle to become like Him. It’s a place where I admit who I am while I am on the way to who I am going to become.
» I can impress people from a distance, but I can only have a positive influence on them up close.
» Weakness creates unity, compassion and interdependence in the body of Christ. Arrogance creates competition.
» God has incredible dreams and plans for people that they’ve never heard of. I have to create an environment where those dreams can come true.
» My sin is what’s keeping the church from being what it’s supposed to be.
~s
