I have a few messages I wish I'd heard when I was attending Liberty:
1. Strive to grow in Christ. It's easy to assume that because you're going to convocation three times a week, church on Sundays, and prayer groups on Tuesdays, that you're growing spiritually. There is a BIG difference between doing spiritual activities and growing in Christ. Growing in Christ is hard work. It means spending time in prayer and in the word. It means fasting. It means being broken over sin. It means dying to yourself daily. It is not hanging out with Christian people or talking about Christian things or listening to Christian music or going to church at every opportunity. It is SO EASY to look at all the spiritual activities you're doing and think that you are growing in your relationship with Christ! Don't be deceived! It is so easy to go to church, prayer meetings, worship services, etc. and not even know Jesus Christ! Labor to know Christ! Wrestle with God just like Jacob did! Don't let Him go until He blesses you!
2. There is a real world out there past the Arby's restaurant and the Sonic. You study things in your theology classes, your GNED classes, Creation Studies classes, etc. and you hear about the people who believe different things from you. But until you're out there and you meet these people it's easy to let them be lumped into a huge massive group of faces you've never seen. Don't slip into the trap of focusing on their ideas and their arguments and their thoughts while missing their humanity. One day you're going to be in the "real" world and you will not be surrounded by people who believe Jesus is the only way or that human life begins at conception or that God created the world or that the Bible is true. When you meet these people you might be intimidated because they DO know a lot! They have arguments of their own. They are real flesh and blood people. People who want to be loved and cared for and acknowledged rather than steam-rolled over with arguments. And if Jesus is not more real to you than arguments and propositions and doctrines, you might get scared. That's why message number one is so important. Don't just know ABOUT Jesus Christ. KNOW Him. Open yourself and let Him start living His life out in you. Then you will go and love and serve and humbly point others to Him as the most precious thing in all the world.
3. Do uncomfortable acts of service. It's easy to be a "Christian" at Liberty. It costs you next to nothing. Nobody looks at you funny or asks why you're so obsessed with religion. Almost everyone there goes to church and convocation and knows a lot of worship music and uses big spiritual words like "compassion" and "mercy" and "grace". It costs nothing to be a "Christian" at Liberty. But a real Christian life is always costly. Christianity is more than going to church and having Chris Tomlin on your ipod and reading Christian books and watching Christian movies. Appearing to walk with Christ is easy. Walking with Him in reality is hard. It's going to cost you earthly comfort. Of course we are not saved by works or by anything that we do, but when a person sees how beautiful the cross of Christ is, they naturally forsake smaller pleasures for eternal ones, Christ-sized ones. So be uncomfortable. Pursue uncomfortability. People didn't find Christ living the cushy, pleasurable life while He was on earth, you won't find find Him by living that way yourself. Christ chose the path of costly love. It cost Him greatly. You have no idea how greatly it cost Him. It cost Him everything. So walk after Him. If you want to find Christ you must walk the paths that He chose. The greatest blessings in eternity lie waiting for those who take the lowest, most humble paths in this world. So do that. Do uncomfortable things. Loosen your grip on this world. Hold onto Christ.
4. Don't turn your political views or your knowledge of God into a way to get right with God. For a lot of my Christian life I have struggled with using my knowledge OF God as a claim that I know Him personally. I was using reading and studying theology and knowing the right books and the right authors and praying a certain way and reading so much of the Bible as my means of getting right with God. Simply, theology was my god. If I knew things that other people didn't I felt smug and I often looked down on them for not being as wise and well-read as I was. That's all crap. You don't get right with God by knowing the right things or saying the right things or reading the right books or anything like that. You get right with God by Jesus Christ dying for you. THAT is the only thing that matters. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That is Christianity. Christ took my sins on Himself and gave me His righteousness in its place. Don't gather all the "right" knowledge of God and miss the realization that Christ really did die for people who simply put their faith in Him and believe that His sacrifice was enough. And when you realize that He died FOR YOU, nothing else really matters. Don't complicate your heart and mind with a lot of other stuff. Certainly, you should study, certainly, you should have good theology and go to church and pray; but don't let those things turn into your justification or you'll be in serious trouble on judgement day.
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