May 03, 2007
Thirsty
Last night I volunteered at night one of the Thirsty 07 conference at North Point Community Church, and though it is much, much (MUCH) smaller than a Passion conference, and with an entirely different energy, it was still a gift to be there and it was an insightful night, to say the least.
“After all our hands have wrought, He forgives
Oh the glory of it all is He came here, for the rescue of us all
That we may live”
Oh the Glory of it All, David Crowder Band*
During the night’s main session – before Francis Chan began his message – Louie Giglio got up to tell the attendees about the Do Something Now campaign. Do Something Now was new at Passion 07 and though the Passion staff had no idea what to expect, they were convicted with the opinion that a crowd of Christians shouldn’t gather without the world knowing it. That we shouldn’t gather without impacting the world (not that we can’t, as we do all the time). During those four days in January, and in the days since, the 20,000+ college students, volunteers and staff reached deep to donate and/or pledge more than $1.3 million to Passion’s world partners. (Including Blood:Water Mission, to which my friends and family gave more than $3,000 to build a well in an African village that currently has no access to clean, potable water.)
The single beneficiary at Thirsty 07 is One Verse – an organization that translates the New Testament to unreached people groups. Currently there are approximately 2,000 unreached people groups in the world who have never had a Bible in their native language. When he was telling us about One Verse, Louie said that we shouldn’t give just out of human compassion. We reach out to the least and the last in the name of God because it’s called WORSHIP. Worship isn’t just singing songs or raising hands (though it is certainly those things as well). Worship is when we take the songs we sing outside the building! Worship is doing work in His name that makes Him happy, simply for the fact that it glorifies Him and gives Him joy. What more could I do with my life than to aim to make the God of the universe happy? Why would I ever want to spend my time on anything trivial or meaningless again?
“We come rejoicing and singing
And crying out toYou
Can you hear the Holy Roar?”
Holy Roar, Christy Nockels
It is the cry of my heart that He break it. Break my heart, Oh God!
So I signed up to sponsor 100 verses and chose Acts 9:1-11:9. I chose that segment because it includes the story of Saul’s conversion – one of the all-time greatest stories of redemption and sin-covering grace. Paul’s story shows us that Christ uses us where we are; He takes us with all our baggage and all our insecurities and all our weaknesses. Saul thought he knew the truth about Christianity until he was confronted with the Truth of the Christ. When I read Paul’s letters I get weak. I am laid low by his humbleness; by his unwavering commitment to write words of truth, words of compassion to the early church - to people who believed in the resurrecting power of the blood, but for whom letting go of their old ways was often challenging. (Isn’t it always!) They ran the gamut – from the hedonistic to the legalistic – but Paul’s love for them all, his desire that they may live a life glorifying to the God who saved us, is evident in every word breathed into him by our Creator.
“Life flows from God… to all across the world. Creation is His!” You are God, Charlie Hall
When Francis Chan stood up to give his message he said that he’d ended up changing it after hearing Louie’s message earlier that morning. (Which I regrettably missed what with working my full-time job and all.) Instead Francis ended up speaking about humility using the example of Moses, who it is written was the most humble man on Earth. (Numbers 12:3) Moses was the only human being on the Earth to whom God spoke – not through visions or riddles or dreams – but in a conversation, as between friends. The Bible tells us that God opposes the proud, but that He pours His grace out on the humble. Humility is tricky, especially in a culture such as ours that cherishes high self-esteem and pride in one’s work. It can even become a trick of pride to try and be humble. “Look at how humble I am!” Francis said that humility was a hard lesson for him to learn. He used to think it meant self-pity or self-degradation. “Oh, I’m not a very good teacher. I’m not funny. I’m no good.” Francis said he finally understood humility when he realized that being self-deprecating was still being self-centered and prideful. And when he spoke badly about himself, he was actually speaking badly about his Creator.
When Moses told God that he wasn’t a very good public speaker, the Lord admonished him saying, “Who made your mouth?” (Exodus 4:11)
Humility is the absence of thought about oneself! My small group recently completed a study by Beth Moore that dealt a lot in the topics of pride and humility. Beth is fond of saying that you can either get on your knees and humble yourself before God or He will do it for you. One way or another, humility will come to every Christian.
Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love your God with all your heart, mind and soul and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. He said that ALL the law hangs on these two commandments. (Matthew 22:36-40)
It all comes back to that.
Posted by hannah at 01:33 PM
