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!
No comments:
Post a Comment