Intimacy With God

This week we had the privilege of hearing from Shay Robbins who is a director of one of the Kanakuk Kamps. I loved listening to him because he is so passionate about the topic he spoke on, which was intimacy with God. We started by talking about seeking God, because if we are going to have intimacy with Him we need to seek Him. After that, we talked about how God speaks to us and the avenues He uses to do so. That was really convicting because it became clear why I haven’t heard from God a lot. It is because I haven’t been taking time to do things like really study His word or seek out Godly people to pour into me. If I want God to speak to me, I have to be willing to listen and make sure that  my heart is in a state where I can hear Him.  That leads right into the next thing Shay talked about, which is spiritual disciplines. The six that he talked about are:

1.     Study

2.     Solitude

3.     Meditation

4.     Fasting

5.     Prayer

6.     Simplicity

It was pretty convicting to see these and realize how poor of a job I am doing at practicing them. However, it was encouraging to hear how these things didn’t come easy for Shay either at first. For example, I am really bad at waking up early to have a quiet time. When my alarm goes off, the last thing I want to do is get out of bed. When Shay first started having his quiet time in the morning, he struggled with the same thing. In fact, it took him six months of pure discipline before waking up early became a passion. Now he says there are days where he can’t wait to wake up and spend time with God. It is nice to know that I am not the only one who struggles at that discipline. Sometimes it seems that everything comes easy for older wiser people, but Shay had six months of not wanting to wake up early before it became easy. It is also encouraging that if we are disciplines and really focus on getting better at something, it will become easier.

 Hearing that right before Christmas break was great timing because during breaks is when it is the hardest to manage those spiritual disciplines.

That ends my first semester at Link Year. Thanks for those of you who have been following this blog throughout the year. I really appreciate it!

Make Today Count

One thing that I have really been working on while at Link Year is managing my time and getting the most out of every day. I’m so tired of letting day after day go by without any growth because I waste my time on things that have no value. After talking through this with my mentor, he gave me a book to read that completely changed how I view each day. The book is called Make Today Count by John C. Maxwell. If you struggle at all with managing your days and getting the most out of them I highly suggest reading it. In it he goes through what he calls his daily dozen. They are the 12 things that he makes sure he focuses on every day. They are:

Attitude

Priorities

Health

Family

Thinking

Commitment

Finances

Faith

Relationships

Generosity

Values

Growth

For each one of those he goes through a few points on how to make the decision to improve in all those areas daily. However, he doesn’t stop there, because he knows that making the decision to improve is only a small part. He also goes into how to manage the discipline of improving. I love how he focuses on that because I’m so bad at managing the disciplines necessary to improve. One of my favorite things that he said in his book was, “Neglect enough todays and you will experience the “someday” you’ve wanted to avoid.” That is so true and it is why I really want to take advantage of every day. If I continue to go through my days without a purpose, then before I know it my life will be wasted and I will have hardly accomplished anything. My goal by the end of Link year is to incorporate these twelve things into my daily routine. I obviously won’t have them mastered by then, but my hope is that I will at least have a good start.

Another cool thing about this week is that we did something called Link Year Gives Back. Throughout the week we served at different places around Branson. One of the places that I went was the local food pantry. It was neat because we were able to help them out a lot and accomplish tasks that they simply didn’t have time to do. I loved seeing how grateful they were for the few hours of work we put in. While serving there, one thing that I realized was it doesn’t take much to have a big impact on those around me. All it took was sacrificing a few hours out of my week. I hope to go back in the weeks to come and continue having an impact on that organization.

That is all I have for this week! 

Thanks for reading! 

Do We Need to Rethink How We do Mission Trips?

Here I am, the week after Thanksgiving with only 2 weeks left before Christmas break... and then my year here at Link is half over. Looking back it is crazy how far I have come already in past few months. My understanding of the Bible, the Gospel, and my faith is so much greater than it was in September. However, there is still so much to learn and I am looking forward not only to the remainder of Link Year but also the years to come because my learning will not stop when I leave.

One of the things that has challenged me a lot while being at Link Year was Urban Entry, which took place the week before Thanksgiving break. For one week we went into a poor community in Kansas City and did mission work at a place called the Hope Center. What really challenged me was actually not seeing a poor community because I have gone on multiple mission trips to poor areas, including one to Africa. It was how the trip was set up that really made me think of my heart behind going. In every mission trip I had been on up to this point, it seemed as though the organization we went to serve ended up serving us in many ways. Now that sounds crazy, but the more I think about it the more I am convinced that is how it was. For example, I've been on three mission trips to Peoria, Illinois where we worked at an inner city mission and also out at a summer camp. Every year I went our hosts at the camp made sure we had a comfortable place to sleep, plenty of snacks to eat and Gatorade to drink, and big meals to eat. The result of this is each year I would go back, I was looking forward to those things often times more than actually serving. I went thinking about how much fun I would have and how I would enjoy all the things provided for me. In essence, the trip became about me and the experience that I would have. Not that it is bad to have fun on a mission trip or to enjoy the things provided for us, but if that is the sole reason why we enjoy going, there is a problem. And maybe the mission trips you have been on were not like the experiences that I had, and that is great because you probably figured this out a lot sooner than I did.
It was not until a little over a week ago that the way I approached mission trips was revolutionized for a couple reasons. First of all, we slept (all 30 guys) in a small basement on a cement floor. So it was crowded, uncomfortable, and did not smell all that great. Secondly, at the beginning of the week we were given tickets with which we would "buy" our meals and showers. As I'm sure you can imagine, we were not given enough tickets that we could spend them on everything we wanted. We had to budget them well all week or the last couple days we would have been broke. Because of this system I never felt full all week. Now don't get me wrong, I had plenty to eat by the standards of most of the world, it just wasn't what I was used to, especially since one of the meals I ate was a bowl of rice and beans. So what do all these things have to do with changing how I think about mission trips? It's simply this: I would honestly never say if I went back that I would be looking forward to the hard floors to sleep on or the smaller portions of food to eat than I was used to. Be careful not to misunderstand me here. I definitely would still look forward to going. I just would not look forward to the conditions. That is how I wish more missions trips were set up. Why? Because every time I was tempted to complain or think negative thoughts about sleeping on a cement floor or being hungry, I had to check my heart about why I was there. Was I there just so I could be comfortable and have a fun experience or so I could serve others? It also made me rely on God's power to have a good attitude and be able to serve others with all my energy. You see, in all the mission trips I had been on earlier, it was so easy to make them about me. I did not need God's power to have a good time because I was always comfortable. If I had made Urban Entry about me and not about serving, it honestly would have been one of the worst weeks of my life. I would have been tired, hungry, and pretty grumpy. Thankfully, I was able to get over having it be about me and loved serving.
Please don't think that I have this all figured out. It will always be a struggle to take the focus off myself in whatever I do. I simply now have a goal for how I want to approach every mission trip I participate in from now on.

Hope that challenges your heart behind mission trips as much as it did mine.

Thanks for reading!

November 13

This week has been unique for a few reasons. First of all, the speaker we were supposed to have was not able to make his flight, so he ended up not coming. However, we did not at all have a shortage of good speakers to listen to this week. To start us off on Monday morning, we had Paul Etheridge, a United States Veteran and Kanakuk Wilderness Directer, speak to us on the Armer of God. It was really neat having a veteran come speak to us on veterans day. And having been in the army he was able to give us a whole new perspective on the importance armer, whether physical or spiritual. After Mr. Etheridge spoke, the Men's Director of Link Year, Seth Higgins, spoke on the question Who is Jesus? That was the topic focused on for the remainder of the week. The whole point of his talks were that we would leave with a solid grasp on who Jesus is and why he can be trusted. There are three different forms of evidence he went over that help prove the existence and validity of Jesus. The first is eyewitness evidence. In other words, are the Gospels accurate and can what they say be trusted. The second form of evidence is documentary. How do different manuscripts that have been found dating back to the First Century support the New Testament and is there information in ancient secular works of literature that support the New Testament? The third form of evidence we went over is scientific. For this we broke down the gospels to see if they support whether Jesus was really the Messiah or just someone who claimed to be; and did he really die and come back to life?
 I will go off on a little tangent here to talk about the argument that says since Jesus could have known what the prophesies for the Messiah were, he could have intentionally fulfilled them. First of all, there is no way that he could have done that because how could he have arranged where he was born, the soldiers gambling for his clothes, or his legs not being broken? There are many other prophesies like that which he had no control over. What is so ironic and funny though is that the very people who were trying to disprove him being the Messiah (the Pharisees) were the ones who fulfilled some of the prophesies, proving that he was the Messiah that was spoken of in the Old Testament. The Pharisees knew the Old Testament very well and would have definitely known about the prophesies for the Messiah. Yet, they still betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, which was prophesied about, and chose to have him crucified, which was also prophesied about. I thought that was pretty cool how God will use anyone or anything to fulfill his plan. It was really neat being walked through all that information that supports Jesus' validity and I feel like I have a much better grasp on why we can trust who He is.
The Last thing I would like to mention is that we had the privilege of having John Stonestreet come and answer any question we had for a couple hours Wednesday afternoon. He knows so much about current topics on culture and how we as Christians should handle them. If you don't know much about him here is a little info:

http://www.colsoncenter.org/connections/speakers-bureau/entry/22/14249

Two things that he said that I loved and can really take away are:

1) "Don't emphasize things that the Bible doesn't emphasize or question things that the Bible doesn't question."

2) "The mark of an educated person is that no one ever simply gave them an education. They were constantly seeking an education for themselves."
What I got from that is I can't expect to just sit back have knowledge and wisdom come to me. I need to be proactive and search for it whenever and wherever I can, along with lots and lots of reading.

Next week we go into Kansas City to do urban mission work which I am really excited about!

Thanks for reading!

The Cost of Following Christ

This week our speaker was from right here on the Link Year staff. Our very own Brian Wang spoke, and did an incredible job presenting his message. His main theme for the week was the cost of following Christ in a world that pulls you down. In his vary first session he gave an analogy that will stay with me for a long time. It was simple but so true. He said how at 211 degrees, water is just really hot, but at 212 degrees is boils and creates steam. And steam can power a locomotive. The only difference between boiling and not boiling is one little degree. Here is a video that explains this further:

So what does this have to do with the cost of following Christ? Brian explained that so many of us live our Christian lives at the 211th degree. We don't give the extra effort or go the extra mile. However, what does Jesus call us to do? The verse that Brian based his whole talk on was Luke 9:23 which states, "Then he [Jesus] said to them all: 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.'" This is one of the hardest verses for me to read and follow, because it requires that I completely let go of all my desires and plans. Brain pointed out three things that we need to understand as we follow Christ: 

1) Self Denial

2) Complete Dedication 

3) Willing Obedience 

I can say that I want to do these things and really live by them, but when I look at my life it is nothing like this. I live for myself. I'm only dedicated when it's easy. My obedience is based on my terms. This video by Francis Chan speaks into this and it blew my mind: 

 

I love Jesus as a savior, but do I love Him as a role model? Do I really want to serve how He served? To live how He lived? The truth is that I don't. I am too attached to this world, to my future plans, to my comfort. But what does Paul say in Philippians 3:7-8? He considers all the pleasers and possessions of this world garbage in comparison to knowing Christ. In other words, they do not even come close. Brian's left us with some really challenging questions to end, such as, what "garbage" do I need to get rid of in my life to fully pursue Christ? and what is keeping me at the 211th degree? I will constantly have to be asking myself these questions because it will always be a struggle to let go of living for myself and give my life to God. It's a daily struggle, but thank God that He does not expect me to do it on my own. He is always there to help me. I just need to be willing. 

Hope that convicts/encourages you as much as it did me. 

Thanks for reading! 

Who Am I?

After last week I was not sure if we would have another speaker as good and Jefferson Bethke, but I would say that BJ Thompson has been just as good. It is incredible having one amazing speaker after the other. BJ has tackled some huge questions this week such as: Who am I? Who are we as believers? And why are we here? The question that has impacted me most is who am I? This is a question that I know I have to constantly be asking myself or I will forget, like I so often do. When I forget I fall into living the performance lifestyle. I see my relationship with God as a performance relationship. I work so hard on doing good things and go before God and say, "Look God, look at all I have to offer." Unfortunately it is never enough, because there is no way I can perform my way to God. When God looks at all my good works and says they are worthless, it leaves me with only my sin, which is pretty depressing. I know that there is a standard that I can never reach on my own. At this point there are three things that we tend to do. We run because we know there is a standard and choose not to live by it. We sit because the weight of the standard overwhelms us so we become depressed and don't do anything. Or we make up a new standard to make us feel good about ourselves and become self-righteous. How do we get out of this mess of living a performance based life? One thing that I realized, when BJ mentioned it, was that our biggest issue is not understanding that God loves us unconditionally. It is believing that God loves us unconditionally. Not many of us truly believe that there is nothing we can do to change how much God loves us. BJ left us with three things we need to do to experience God's grace.

1) Understand that we are a mess. Jesus came for the sick. He does not want us to come to him acting healthy. However this is so contrary to human nature. We don't want to admit we are a mess. We like to see the mess in others to make ourselves feel good. But we need to understand that our ability to admit we are a mess is to the degree we understand grace.

2) Understand that although we are a mess, we are deeply loved. Again, this is so opposite what we naturally think. When we really understand that we are a mess, the last thing we feel is loved. But, as we see in Ephesians 1, God loved us and adopted us into His family before we were born or did anything for Him. We did not have to prove to Him that we were worthy of being loved. He loves us no matter what.

3) Let grace transform us. When deep mess and deep love meet, grace transforms. This transformation can only point to God, because there is no way we could do it. The most powerful testimony is a life changed by grace, because it cannot be credited to us.

That is how we avoid the performance life and live in the identity God has for us, which is that we are His dearly loved children.

Thanks for reading!

Jefferson Bethke

Time continues to fly by here at Link Year. Just a few short weeks until Thanksgiving. Then Christmas follows only 3 weeks after that and my year is half over. Really makes me want to use my time well because Link Year will be over before I know it.
This week we have had the incredible opportunity to listen to Jefferson Bethke speak to us. This is the first speaker who is here a full week, which is neat because he can really go deep into certain topics. Jeff is amazing at communicating and keeps his audience drawn in. Our 45 minute sessions felt like they were only 10 minutes. One of the topics he spoke on was how the Bible should be seen as a story or narrative. If we look at it as a narrative, when we read certain parts we have to see how they fit into the whole story. We can't just take what we want. When reading a story, you don't start in the middle. You start in the beginning. When we read little bits all over and choose what we take from the Bible it becomes like a math book in that we can create formulas to say whatever we want. We need to read it in the scope of the whole story. I have never put much thought into this before. I often have seen the Bible as a bunch of little separate stories. However, now when I read from the Bible I will constantly be thinking of how it all fits into the scope of God's whole story.
Another topic that Jeff talked about was temple. In the beginning heaven and earth were created to be together. They were to be one in the same. However, at the fall of man, they ripped apart, but not completely. They are still together wherever there is a temple. The temple is where heaven and earth meet. In the Old Testament, the temple was a building. However, in the New Testament Jesus became where heaven and earth meet - the temple. That is why the Pharisees questioned his authority so much. He claimed to be able to do what only the temple could do, such as forgiveness of sins and debt collection. The temple was now in flesh and could go out to the world and further the area where heaven and earth meet. After Jesus leaves earth, guess who becomes the temple. Christians do.  We as believers are now where heaven and earth meet and have the job of increasing this area. God's goal is not us eventually going up to heaven. His goal is to fully restore earth to what it was. The fact that we as believers have Jesus living inside of us and we are were heaven and earth meet should drastically change how we live. How different should we be than the rest of the world? I was pretty convicted on that point this week. If I am God's temple - literally where heaven and earth meet - then I want to honor and glorify him in any way possible. It really puts my life goals and want I want to accomplish into perspective. They are pretty small in comparison to God's plan.
I wish I could share all that Jefferson spoke on but unfortunately that would take hours. So I will leave you with that.

Thanks for reading!

Learning Just About Everything

The last week has had a wide variety of speakers and topics. Last Thursday we had the opportunity to hear Andrew Munneke unpack the Gospels for us. He talked about different topics such as why the Gospels were written and what is the synoptic problem and how it affects the validity of the Gospels. Well all of that was incredibly interesting and I learned so much from it, my favorite part of his time here was when he got into the teaching of the Gospels and talked about how they applied to our lives. There were a couple things from what he said that really convicted me that I will share, first of which is from Matthew 5:13-16. This is the passage in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says we as Christians are the salt and light of the earth. What I did not realize until Andrew mentioned it was that Jesus does not say that we should be the salt and light of the earth. He says we are the salt and light, whether we want to be or not. When He says we are the salt, he is saying that we are the ones who will preserve the earth. If there is a a lack of salt or preservation in our culture, the fault does not rest on the culture, but on the church. Since we are salt, we will preserve something - whether it is ourselves or the world. We as Christians should never create a subculture where we surround ourselves with other believers only. How will be preserve the world and make it salty that way? We need to go out into the world and make a difference. Not just stay where we are comfortable around our Christian friends. That was pretty convicting for me because I tend to stay where I'm comfortable and where I don't have to worry about being influenced by the world. But do we ever see Jesus do that? He spent most of His time with sinners and tax collectors. That is something that I need to improve on.
Another thing that Andrew mentioned which really stuck out to me, was when he said, "Don't let your faith become a vehicle for your flesh." What he meant by this was not to try and look righteous to impress others. I fall into this trap quite often. There are so many times where I think, "If I do this, I'll look really good. If I memorize this passage of scripture I'll impress so many people. If I know more of the Bible I'll be able to answer tons of questions with scripture and amaze  everyone around me." That is exactly what the Pharisees did, and Jesus didn't think too highly of them. It is not that those are bad things to do and get good at. In fact they can be incredibly good things. But what is my motivation for doing them? Is it to glorify God or to impress others? That is why I constantly need to check my heart and make sure my motives are pleasing to God.
So far this week we had The Joe White speak to us on leadership and how having a heart of grace is the most important characteristic of a good leader. It was an incredible talk and it would take such a long blog post for me to even scratch the surface of all he had to say. I pray that I am able to apply it all to my life and let it transform me into the leader God has called me to be.
We also heard Adam Martin speak on money management. All I can say is that budgeting is so important and something I need to get way better at. Fortunately there are things to help me with it. If you are a terrible budgeter also, I highly recommend using Mint.com. Here is a short video that shows how it works:

That is all I have for this week. Thanks so much for reading!

Learning From the Best

     As I mentioned last week, on Saturday, October 4th, we had the privilege to hear both Josh and Sean McDowell speak at a Heroic Truth Conference. The amount of knowledge and wisdom they both had was incredible. Sean spoke a lot on what is truth and how our culture tries to change the definition of truth. Josh spoke on how we know the Bible is true. He talked about how there are hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament that were fulfilled in the New Testament. What is mind-boggling is that the chance of just eight of those prophecies being fulfilled is the same as filling the state of Texas two feet deep with quarters, marking one of them, and having a blindfolded person find the marked quarter on his or her first try. What Josh also mentioned that is incredible is how there are thousands of Biblical manuscripts (a few of which he has and showed us) that have been found dating back to the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th century AD. What is neat about that is what those manuscripts say match what is written in the Bibles we have today. What was written not long after the life of Jesus has not been changed over hundreds of years. Also, the fact that there are thousands of Biblical manuscripts dating back to the first few centuries is important because to test the validity of historic works or literature, you must go by the time span from when they were written to when the earliest copy of them were found and also the number of copies that have been found. Here is how the New Testament compares to other great historical works:

      As you can see, the New Testament blows all others out of the water. After going to the Heroic Truth Conference I feel like I have a much better grasp on the validity of the Bible and what Biblical truth is. However, there is so much more to know and I am excited to continue learning by reading some of Josh and Sean's books. 

      One other thing that I want to share this week is how I was impacted by a Louie Giglio sermon called "The Dash" that I recently listened to. If you don't know, Louie Giglio is on of my favorite pastors and I love listening to his podcasts. The one that I listened to this week challenged me in so many ways that I couldn't help sharing part of it with you. Here it is: 

     I wanted to begin today by bringing us back around this little, precious window called life. And I want to ask you today, what do you want your life to be about? Do you want to have said in that day (when we die) I wish I had cared less about what people thought. I wish I really hadn’t cared so much about what my neighbors thought about me going and telling them about Jesus.  I was so concerned that they were going to think I was an idiot, think I was a freak or some kind of bizarre Christian nut job. I wish I hadn’t spent all my money… on stuff. I wish I had looked into the eyes of Jesus more and gained the courage that he has to walk out in life in the highs, in the lows, in the good, in the bad, in the darkness, and in the light, and say you know what, it is hard right now but Jesus is greater. And this little life I’ve got, I’m going to proclaim that Jesus is alive and that my hope is in someone who has conquered death, hell, and the grave. I’m not going to be a complainer in this life. I’m not going to be beat down by my circumstances. I’m not going to be dragged under by the undertow of negativity and all the heartbreak of this world and seep into depression and denial and numb myself and go on autopilot and comatose living. I’m going to rise up out of that and say you know what, I’ve only got a certain number of heartbeats and maybe it is a hard life and maybe it is a broken world and maybe it’s not all adding up the way I thought it was but I do know Jesus, so in this life I’m going proclaim Jesus because I know there is eternity coming and I want in that eternity to have the reward of saying in life, I proclaimed Jesus… because this life determines everything about eternity. I don’t want to say God put me on a platform, he gave me opportunity, he gave me a chance, he gave me connections, he gave me conversations, he put me in rooms with people that I didn’t know, he gave me little moments to give a two minute answer. I’m so glad now that I didn’t bite my tongue, that I didn’t back down, that I wasn’t afraid, that I didn’t say well you know I just didn’t want to upset anybody. I’m so glad that I proclaimed Jesus with my life. I’m so glad that I talked about the things that really matter. I’m so glad that I invested in the kingdom because this life set the tone for eternity. And now it’s forever and I can’t go back. I can’t undo it. I can’t rewind. I can’t say please give me one more chance. So I just want to leave us with that tonight. Can we just maybe ask God over these next few weeks to awaken us to the reality of heaven, to awaken us to the reality of hell, to awaken us to the reality of eternity? To blow us up out of the little bunker of this world and to live lives that matter for him.

     That is my prayer. I don't want to live a life focused on myself and focused on things of this world because this life is too short and I don't want to waste it. It's all I've got and there is no going back. That is so easy to say but so hard to do. My sinful nature always brings me back to being concerned about what people think, or how much stuff I have, or whether or not I'm comfortable. I don't live radically abandoned to Jesus, but I pray that by God's grace I can get there. Hope that challenges you as well. 

Thanks for reading! 

Already Week 4

It is crazy that we are already on our fourth week here at Link Year. The time is flying by and information is coming at me almost faster then I can take it in. This week we had the privilege of having DA Horton speak to us. DA currently serves as the National Coordinator for Urban Student Missions at the North American Missions Board. Before that he worked with Reach Life Ministries and Reach Records, along with being an urban church planter and pastor. He is also the author of the book DNA: Foundations of the Faith, which I will talk about more in a bit. He has gained so much knowledge and wisdom over the years from his various experiences and commitment to studying the Bible and walking in tune with the Lord, so it was a huge blessing to have him with us. Here is a link to his website:

http://www.dahorton.com/

Due to a flight cancelation, DA was not able to get here until Wednesday, instead of Tuesday, so Adam spoke to us on time management Tuesday, which I will highlight first before getting into DA's teachings. To start off Adam's talk he gave us a sheet of paper with the seven days of the week broken down into 30 minute time slots. He then had us fill in everything we did that was necessary, such as class, eating, sleeping, work, etc. and see how much free time we had. It was amazing to see all the open slots of time I have throughout my week that I waste on useless things. He then told us about prioritizing. One of Adam's favorite lines is, "You will always make time for what is important to you." Therefore, he has a list of his top 5 priorities and before he commits any of his time to something he filters it through his priorities to see if it will hinder his ability to focus on them. If it does, he will say no to it. Saying no is something that is really hard for me because I am a people pleaser. Adam had two things to say on that. First, saying no or not now can lead to great productivity in the future. Second, when we say yes to something, we are indirectly saying no to something else. Hearing those two points was really eye opening and will definitely help me in my ability to say no to things of lesser importance. Also, using his method of filtering everything I do through my priorities will make me much more productive and able to focus my time on things of the greatest importance.

Now Back to DA, who spoke to us on Wednesday and Thursday. In his time here he gave us an overview of his book DNA, which simply breaks down theology into simple concepts and illustrations so that anyone can dig into scriptures and know the foundational truths that believers in Christ need to know. Having that book will be such a helpful recourse to turn to and I'm excited about working through it in the future. A few of the topics in it are: what is the Bible? who is God? what is sin? and many more. My favorite parts about his talk, however, were all the questions that came up about certain issues in the Bible and how he responded to them. Some of these questions were: should we believe in predestination? should women teach in the church? which view on the end times in correct? What I love about his responses (and Adam does this as well) was that he did not tell us his view as the correct view that we should all believe. Sometimes he didn't even tell us where he stood on certain issues. But he always pointed us to scripture and told us what the Bible said on the topics and encouraged us to wrestle with them and study them more. The reason he does this is so that we don't leave saying, "Well I guess predestination is true because that is what DA said."  That is not making faith our own. Rather he would have us leave saying, "I believe that predestination is true or not true because of what it says in scripture." I love that way of teaching and my faith will be so much stronger because of it.

This weekend I have the opportunity to go to a conference here in Branson with Josh and Sean McDowell teaching. I'm sure I will have a lot to write on that in my blog next week so be ready!

Until then,

Spencer

7 Pillars of Link Year

This week God wrecked me in more ways than I could have ever imagined. I was convicted and encouraged countless times. In class throughout the week Adam Donyes spoke on the seven pillars which Link Year rests on - the seven things Adam wants us to leave Link Year with a solid grasp on. They are:

1) Authentic Accountability (Proverbs 27:17)

2) Biblical Worldview (Colossians 2:8)

3) Growing in Gratefulness (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

4) Heart Transformation (Romans 12:2)

5) Maximizing Moments (Ephesians 5:15-16)

6) Privilege Responsibility (Psalms 103:10) 

7) Student of Scripture (Joshua 1:8) 

I would love to tell of how every one of these impacted me but due to time I will just touch on the two that were the most convicting, the first of which was growing in gratefulness. We are an incredibly entitled generation. I am an incredibly entitled person. The sad thing is, as a Christian, being entitled is directly contrary to the Bible, yet I continue to live in it. There is no way to be entitled and be walking in the will of God. Absolutely no way (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). Over and over again in the gospels I see the example of Jesus giving everything for me. God chose to leave the splendor of heaven and come down to broken earth in the form of a man and die a grueling death for me, and yet I think I deserve amazing meals, nice clothes,  a car, or whatever else it is. However, there is absolutely nothing I have ever done for me to deserve a single thing. I could have the worst day ever in the history of the world, and it would be better than I deserve. When Adam said that last statement in class my mind was blown. It seemed a little over the top for a second, but when I thought about it, nothing could be more true. I am a sinner with absolutely no good in me (Psalm 14:3). Therefore, the only thing I do deserve is hell. The fact that I don't have to go to hell means that I have been given far far more than I could ever deserve. Yet, so often I have the audacity to question God and complain to him when I don't get what I want. So how can I overcome this sin of entitlement and become more grateful? The answer is to never forget the gospel and what Christ has done for me. Here is a video that Adam showed to drive this point home: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1DxoJqdopY

Like the video showed, when I realize that in the picture of the gospel I am Gomer, the prostitute, I should automatically become the most grateful person ever. I betray Christ every day and turn from him, but he still chose to buy me back. To by back what was already his. 

The second pillar that blew my mind was Maximizing Moments. Backing up this pillar is the verse Ephesians 5:15-16 which says, "Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." What got me about this pillar was when Adam asked the question, "When you die and are before God, giving Him an account of how you spent your time, what will you be able to say to Him?" Wow. That made me think. Will I be able to say, "God I did everything you called me to do. I spent countless hours praying and meditating on your word. I invested in my family. I took time to reach out to the lost." Or when I am before God will it be more like this, "God, I never missed watching an NFL game. I was a pro at navigating facebook. I watched every episode of all my favorite tv shows." The truth is we will all be accountable before God for how we spend our time, and I do not want the day that I stand before God to look like the second example... because that is exactly what Satan wants. Every day I wake up there are two plans for my life: Satan's and God's. Satan's plan is for me to waste my life. He knows he can't have me in hell, so he will do everything he can for me to live a meaningless life as a Christian. God's plan is for me to use my life fully for his glory. It is so hard for us to live a life like that because Satan is not just going to sit back and let that happen if he can help it. When we become precious to God, we become important to Satan. Like Ephesians says, the days are evil. Satan is here to kill, steal (yes, even time), and destroy. How will I let this knowledge affect how I live? I hope and pray that I will take it to heart and not let Satan distract me into living a life of wasted time and opportunities.