Watch this video about the study: gods at war

“I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you love me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:23-24)

I absolutely love this entire passage because it is Jesus literally praying for those of us who are Christ-followers! That means that I can read this prayer and know without a doubt that it is meant for me! That gets me excited! It is cool to see how Jesus himself offers up a prayer of unity for all of us, which goes along perfectly with our theme for this summer! Our Savior recognizes the importance of a unified force of believers who live a lifestyle of love. Through our love for one another, we can show the world who Jesus is! It is verse 24 that really caught my attention though.

Jesus *desires* that those of us who follow him will *be with him *and *see his glory*!!! Does that encourage you that Jesus prayed that about us? I know it does me. God doesn’t desire that we merely “live better lives” or “do good stuff for him.” That’s so far from what he truly wants of us! He wants us to live lives that are completely satisfied by Him. He wants us to be with him. He wants to show us His glory. He is so good, and He wants to share that with us. I hope that is as encouraging to you as it has been to me.

During our journey this summer of Walk Worthy, we have built each week in our passage from Ephesians. We’ve discussed humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing with one another in love. It has all led up to this week where the topic is unity. Just as the Monday devotional in our journal said, it really is such a fitting topic for the week.

Romans 15:5-6 (NIV) says, “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

As we trust in God and learn to follow and pursue Him, our wills begin to line up in accordance with His good, pleasing and perfect Will (Romans 12:2). If this isn’t incredible enough, there is a further implication of this in our lives. As we each individually begin to align ourselves with the Will of God, we find that we also align our wills with fellow believers! Just think of it. When the church moves to follow Jesus, we all move in the same direction. What an incredible picture of a unified body of Christ!

Since we are a unified force, we are able to praise God with the one heart and mouth that Romans 15 speaks of, and we are able to glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! That is a beautiful picture, and that is worth maintaining the spirit of unity within the church!

Okay, now… Kid’s Kamp! It was such a great week! It was also a time of anxiousness for me. I mentioned my sister having surgery during the camp, I also had something else in my life that I really didn’t share.

My mom, Sheryl, has been on hospice medical care for a while now. She had a failed gastric bypass operation in 2006, and it has led to a whole onslaught of different types of medical problems. One of her biggest is chronic pancreatitis. It does not allow her to be able to eat without being in an intense amount of pain. Most often if she tries to eat, she ends up vomiting or hurting within the first or second bite. With some of her other ailments, her doctors have diagnosed her with adult failure to thrive. They are not sure exactly what her biggest problem is, so making her better is extremely difficult.

All of that to tell you guys, my mom had been removed from hospice care, and off of her medicine. She had been on pain medicines through her hospice provider, but 5 days before I left, they gave her a notice of them not carrying her after those 5 days. We didn’t know what to do, and with withdrawals eminent, we knew it was going to be a rough time. I struggled with going to Kid’s Kamp, or staying home. I prayed about it and knew that God wanted me to go to Kamp, and I told mom that. She told me that whether she made it through Kamp (she was 80lbs at the time) or not, if at least 1 kid came to Christ it was all worth me going.

However, while I was at Kamp, my mom, and Katelynn were on my mind a lot!

Before I left for Kamp, I got to meet up with Donald Moon in his office for a while, and the Lord just really used him to speak Truth into my life. One of the things he
told me was that I was holding on to burdens that Jesus has said He would carry for me! He shared Matthew 11:28-30 with me. It was something I had heard for so long, but it just really spoke a lot to me! I began that weekend to just give those burdens and struggles and uncertainties over to Christ! When Kid’s Kamp came, and Katelynn’s surgery came, My mom and Katie definitely were not out of my mind, but I completely trusted God in the outcomes of both! I trusted God to take care of my mother, whether that meant life or death. She is a believer, and she knows that dying in Christ is tremendous gain. I also trusted God to guide the hands of those surgeons. He did exactly that with Katelynn’s surgery. Everything went well, and she is recovering extremely well. My mom made it through Kid’s Kamp, it was definitely a battle for her, but she made it! As soon as I got home and visited her, her former hospice provider called her and wanted to re-evaluate her for coverage. Now she is back on hospice getting the medicines she needs, and has already started gaining weight from the 72pounds she was whenever I got back from camp!

I share this not to say pray and God will work things out just the way you want them to, but rather to say, whenever you hand those burdens over to Christ, it is so much easier to trust Him, and to be satisfied with the outcomes, even if it’s not the exact outcome we may want!

Jesus wants you to put your burdens on Him. He wants to carry those for you, and He wants to work in those, so you may be able to walk upright before Him, instead of bent over holding weight you don’t have to hold! If you have something that’s burdening you, go before Jesus with those!

Love you guys!

Guys and gals, I live one blessed life. I hope and pray to live a life that portrays what has been so freely given to me and to freely give it to others.

Since most of you weren’t there, here are a few pictures from the week. Enjoy

Wednesday night, although being one of the hottest days I feel like I have ever experienced, was a blast. The turn out was awesome, the students had a great time, and I had the opportunity to finish the night with a short fifteen minute message answering the question biblically of what happens to a Holy Spirit filled Christian who continues to struggle with sin. With the students sitting on the floor, and me teaching from a chair, it was almost like a grandfathers story time scene, which really made me question, why God has been so gracious in giving me this opportunity to do life and share the Word with the students of PaulAnn. It was sweet. As I asked the question, there were an assortment of answers on what exactly does happen to believers who continue in this struggle with sin, which led us to read a passage out of Romans 7 together. In this passage, Paul confesses that although his mind wants to follow the ways of God, he finds the sin within him still prevailing which leads him to proclaim:

“For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Something we tend to miss, living in the context we do of the West Texas Bible belt, is the reality that at the moment of our salvation, when the Holy Spirit enters our lives, for the first time ever, we are aware of our sinful nature. Before, we didn’t care, but now we have a love for Christ and a desire to live for Him given by the Spirit and a sinful nature that continuously wages war against these new desires. How often do we assume (myself included!) that once we’re saved, all of these sinful passions and desires will disappear? What tends to happen (especially among youth) is that as we fall more in love with Jesus, and our sins are more apparent, we begin to question, am I really saved? Because in our minds, “good Christians” don’t really struggle with these things do they? What a beautiful gift the Father has given us with the Word! We can immediately jump to Romans 7 and see the apostle Paul, a man who gave his life for the sake of advancing the Gospel and living for Christ, doing what? Struggling with his inner sin. So what’s the conclusion, I asked the students. Going back to a VBS type exercise, we memorized Romans 8:1 together.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

We have an assurance that when the Holy Spirit has drawn a sinful man or woman to the knowledge of the person and work of Jesus Christ they are now IN Christ. And in Christ, because of the incredible love the Father showed us by crushing His own Son for us, there is now zero condemnation for those who trust Him. Although we have ceased to ever be perfect, and on this side of heaven, never will be, the condemnation for you and I as believers was erased through the cross. That is a hope to live for and take rest in, even when we seem to mess things up time and time again. That is a hope that makes us yearn to continue in this battle with sin, knowing that in the end, Christ triumphs.

Love you PaulAnn fam!

I want it to be known that Brad Holcomb came in 2nd place.

To all my Super Summer family,

You will always be in my prayers as the days go on. I encourage you to never forget Ephesians 2:8-10, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the GIFT of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his WORKMANSHIP, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that WE should WALK in them.”

If you look at the greek word for workmanship, it comes from the greek word Poima, meaning poem or masterpiece. Yes, that is what I am saying. You are God’s masterpiece! As an artist works on his masterpiece, it takes time and effort. It just doesn’t simply happen over night. I know that each one of want to be farther along in your walk with Jesus, but hold on tight to Ephesians 2:10. I say this with all my heart, that God is making each one of you into a masterpiece. If anyone of you has the feeling of unworthiness, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ that you will cast that away, because you are PERFECT in God’s eyes. You were created to WALK in the good works created by and through Christ Jesus, prepared beforehand.

It is my prayer that each one of you knows how special you are and how endless the possibilities there are for you in Christ. Seek after Jesus everyday by study God’s word; preparing yourself for the battle against future temptation, and Satan himself.

Love Your Super Summer Father,

As one of the “newbie’s”, I’d just really like to start off my first blog, just thanking Jesus for an incredible opportunity to share the love of Jesus with the children here at PABC! I would also like to thank you guys for allowing Brian, Darren, Allie, and myself to invest into your children’s lives. It is truly a sweet sweet blessing to get to see the kids worship Jesus, and grow deeper in love and in knowledge of Him!

This summer has been amazing! Getting to work alongside some of my dearest friends, learning from great leaders like Brian and Darren, is something that I thank Jesus for! It is also so encouraging to start the workday off with time in the Word with the interns! This is all so new to me, since I haven’t interned before, but it is something that is special and dear to me already! I look forward to what Christ has for us as we continue this summer!

Just a little about me, Christ changed my life in 2004, during a Life Action event here at PABC! I had been going to the church for a while, thought I knew Jesus, and then He just showed up, and made it known in my life that I really didn’t love Him! I was just selfish and liked the thought of not going to Hell for eternity! After Christ made that known, I was baptized, and the Lord has just been growing me, breaking me, growing me back up again! To say it’s always been easy, is definitely not true! Through things like divorce, deaths, suicide, the Lord has still remained good, despite my understanding of some of the situations!

Kids Kamp is this week! I am stoked and am ready to see how Christ changes the lives of the kids there! If your children are going, I hope they are ready to have some great fun! I hope they are ready to worship Jesus with Micah! I also hope they are ready to worship the Father through His word!

Please be in prayer for camp, and that Jesus will change the lives of the kids who will be there! That some for the first time may truly see the goodness of God, and as a result, give up living for themselves and their advancement, and begin living life for God’s glory and the advancement of His kingdom!

I also ask that you pray for my sister Katelynn, who will be having a mass taken out of her leg at Cook’s Childrens in Ft. Worth! She really wanted to be at camp, and is sad she has to miss it! Also, her twin is nervous about not being there (she will be at camp) while Katie has her surgery, so I just ask God for a peaceful mind and spirit, trusting that God will take great care of her!

Once again, thank you so much for this beautiful opportunity, and I do look forward to getting to know you guys, and knowing your kiddos!

Only because of Jesus,

As a two and a half year old Christian who for the most part didn’t grow up in the church, I have had to learn what it looks like practically to relate to many youth that did. As eye-opening and humbling as it’s been there still remains one question that I have always asked when I see Christ professing teens feeling dragged to church by their parents, falling asleep during worship service and for the most part being pretty apathetic toward the whole scene the older they get.

Where have we taken the Gospel? I have heard testimony after testimony of kids who claim to give their lives to Jesus between the ages of 5 and 10 (usually at a vacation bible school or other youth event where the pastor talks about hell being really, really hot) and by the time they start cutting it close to graduation they mostly have reached a level of boredom in their walk, or they have come to a conclusion of intense guilt, shame, and an unbiblical fear because somewhere along the way, living what it looks like to be a “good Christian” has overtaken the message of the Gospel. As frustrated as this made me at first, I began to see something really similar in my own life.

As I started seminary in August, it became pretty clear after a short time that replacing the Gospel for a reliance on my own “self-righteousness” had taken over my life. Now, as one who works and attends one of the most gospel-centered churches I know of, how does this happen? How can we so easily make this life about our work and accomplishments and abilities to remain a “good person?” And when we do that, what’s the outcome?

The outcome is guaranteed disappointment. If we’re being honest, my life has never consisted of a perfect minute, much less a perfect day. If my joy, fulfillment, life, and salvation are based off what I can do, I’m sinking into an ocean of death that I can’t escape. About a month ago, I preached a FUEL lesson to the youth on Romans 3 where Paul goes into extensive detail about the sinful nature of all man, and concludes with the unimaginable gift that was given to us who believe through the person and work of Jesus.

I made the statement that if I were to walk into a doctors office for a routine checkup, only for the doctor to come in and tell me, “Well Brad, everything looks great, your hearts doing great, your blood-pressure’s solid, and your cancer free.” My reply is, “thanks?” Why am I not rejoicing? I’m not jumping for joy because I didn’t go into that office expecting to have cancer! If I go in however and he comes in to tell me that I have a malignant tumor on the left part of my brain and only have a few months to survive, Im left with the greatest feeling of despair I have ever felt.

At the end of those few months, when I approach the doctor again, he has radically different news..the cancer has completely left without a trace. There is no more cancer. As I leave the office and look around, colors now have greater clarity, my senses are heightened, I feel a joy that I have never felt, and i want nothing more than to call everyone with the news that I have found life!

We must get back to a point where we are consistently, daily reminding ourselves as to why we live the lives we live. That for those who believe, by grace through faith, we have been saved–we are debt free. We are not longer seen as sinners in the eyes of a perfect, God but saints, sons and daughters regardless of anything we have done or will do. We are free’d from the bondage of the sin that enslaved us before and there is no more condemnation for any who believe, and it’s all done by the love person and work of Jesus Christ.

The Gospel must be at the center of our existence and the only way we can ever lead our youth in this gospel-centered thinking is to embrace it completely ourselves.

With that being said, lets take a step back and ask the question, have we?

This is my prayer for all you youth this summer. What a great promise that as we share our faith, we grow in our understanding of Christ and what He has done for us! Be watchful for opportunities to share who Christ is and what He’s done! Love you guys!