The Darkness Shall Not Overcome (Be a Firework)

John 1:5 "The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

If you don't live in Lincoln, you may not have heard about Ellen Kopetzky. She is a student at Pius X High School, who, a few weeks ago, walked into the ladies' bathroom to be confronted by a girl who stabbed her in the face and hit her over the back of her head. (It has been determined that Ellen was not the target of the attack: it was pretty much random.) It was the most violent school attack that has occurred here in Lincoln for 27 years.

Ellen Kopetzky. For you, a name. Someone you've never met.

For me, a friend. She goes to my church. I was in youth group with her a few years ago. Many nights, we walked home from youth group together, and if there were events that required driving, we sometimes carpooled.

When I hear about things like that in the news, I never think it could happen to people I know. And then it did. The world's darkness can seem remote and almost a little unreal, until that day when it roughly intrudes itself into your life.

Lately, I've become a lot more aware of the darkness of the world. And, honestly, it can be really depressing. Abortion. Abuse. Crime. Human trafficking. Horrible poverty.

My friends, the world is a very dark place. But how, as Christians, do we deal with it? In the face of so much darkness, what can the light do?

I like to think of Christians as candles, in whom the Holy Spirit has lit a flame. Sometimes, though, I feel like God has taken His little candle and set her in the middle of an immense, dark plain. Complete blackness for miles, pressing in unmercifully. Cruel winds. And this little, tiny candle with its fragile flame. And then I cry out, "God, help me! I'm so small, so little, and the darkness is so great." I feel overpowered by the blackness.

The problem is, that's looking at it the wrong way. We're not alone in the darkness: God is there, cupping His hands around our flames and shielding them. If we let Him, He will shine in that flame, so that it pierces through the darkness and stands brave, and warm, and true.

Those who know me well know that I love floating lantern fireworks. (Is that what they're called? I'm not sure. I'm talking about the big bag-like contraptions that you light a light in and they float away, like in the movie Tangled.) We don't set any off because my dad thinks they're dangerous, but I like watching them anyways. :)

On the Fourth of July, I went out on the field behind my house and watched them float, little spots of glowing, flickering light in an immensely black sky. I was over-thinking this the other day, and I realized that fire lanterns are an analogy of the Christian life.

Because when people watch fireworks, nobody is looking at the blackness. Yeah, there's way more of it, but no one cares. They're looking at the light. The darkness does not overcome it, but makes it more beautiful and draws more people to see it.

The darkness may be bigger, but the light is what matters.

Christians are called to be that light in this world upon which the darkness is falling so quickly. In Romans, Paul tells us to "cast of the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." (Romans 13:12b) And once we put on the armor of light, we must take the light into the darkness, bringing it to those who don't know about it, or don't care about it, or who have forgotten.

Yes, there will be darkness. But it will NEVER overcome. That's a promise. In the end, the light will win out. Meanwhile, through the grace of God, we'll shine, bright and brave, beacons of hope in a sea of despair. Let us walk as "...children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom [we] shine as lights in the world." Philippians 2:15

Grapes - The Continuing Saga

I've been blessed with a lot of friends and acquaintances over the past few years. 100% of them are Christians. 50% seem to want that identity to consume their lives, on some level. 30% try to make that happen, and only about 11% succeed.

11% succeed.  That means only 1 out of every 3 who seem like they're trying actually appear to have reached their goal to the casual observer.

Today's a little different than a normal week. This is an active participation devotional. You don't have to share your answers to these questions with anyone; this is meant to be an opportunity for you to be openly honest with yourself. No judgmental eyes are watching you. No one's going to force you to explain your answer to them. This is just you and Jesus.

Now. Where would you classify yourself, under those numbers at the top?  (you are not allowed to scroll down until you've answered this :)

I won't post my answer here, but I'll tell you this:  I'm not part of that 11% yet.

Why not?  Why can't we all honestly say that we've not only "surrendered our lives to Jesus", but are actually living out that promise in every aspect of our lives?  How does that even work?

A couple weeks ago, God drew my attention to a new aspect of the Grape metaphor. I think John 15 gives a lot of direction on this question.

John 15

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes^[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

I don't know if you've ever witnessed the natural phenomenon of a grape growing by itself on the ground.... I know I haven't!  If grapes are going to grow, they need the vine. It's impossible for us to follow God's calling to be grapes in the world if we don't remain on the vine. The church can't be Jesus to the world if it doesn't stay attached to Him.

I love the way Eric Ludy put it one of his sermons..... a lamp can't shine unless it's plugged in. If it's not attached to its outlet, then it just stands in the way, as a pointless piece of decorum, and people trip over it.

Grapes aren't designed to be decorations. You don't see people walking around a vineyard, complimenting the grapes on how beautiful and ripe they look. Grapes are made to be crushed. They are designed to be poured-out.

Second question: What is it in your life that's cutting you off from the vine?

And here's the toughest one of all: Are you willing to remove that from your life?  Even if God wants it to be completely gone (and not just lessened)?

I've been reading Leslie Ludy's book Set-Apart Femininity, and in it, she referenced a study guide that was on her blog. This guide was called: "Cleaning the Sanctuary". The goal was to identify and remove all the garbage that was cluttering your heart, and preventing Jesus from entering those areas. It included almost 15 entire pages of tough, direct questions about how you were handling your life. It was a pretty excruciating process to complete. Jesus called to mind all kinds of things that I'd done in the past, and not only did He call me to remove those actions from my life, but He also probed me to confess to my mom that I'd done them. Cleaning the Sanctuary, and all that it involved, was no cakewalk...to say the least! 

But now that it's over, I can't even believe how much closer I feel to Jesus!  Everything that I'd been hiding now lay completely exposed at His feet, and now, He has the space to turn that into something beautiful.

Chances are, if you didn't classify yourself as part of that 11%, there's something cutting you off from the Vine. And without the vine, us as grapes die fast.  The things keeping you from the vine may not be inherently wrong, like some of mine were; in fact, they might actually be good things taken too far. But, whatever they are, I promise you: if you choose to lay them down at the foot of the cross, and completely let go... He will make something beautiful out of it. 

Injustice

Today. Today in the world approximately 7 billion people call earth their home.

Out of those 7 billion people, there are 250,000 thousand child soldiers.

Out of those 7 billion, about 3 million women, girls, and even a small number of boys are currently enslaved in the sex trade.

Every year 1.5 million people die of hunger. That's one child every five seconds.

Every year 3.4 million people die of a water related disease. That is almost the entire population of Los Angeles.

Statistics, as sad as they are, have a way of numbing us to the pain and reality of the situation. Let's break it down.

These people aren't statistics. These people have faces with names who have dreams and hopes. In reality, they're probably not much unlike you. These people are someone's daughter, son, wife, grandparents, husband, baby. These are real people, not just a number written down on a piece of paper. These people are not just statistics.

We could talk for hours of the different injustices in the world. The list goes on and on and we've only mentioned a few. If I were to ask you what the biggest injustice is, what would you say? Is it abortion? Is it the alarmingly rate of orphans whose parents have died of aids? Is it the lack of clean water and food?

While all of these are important issues, there is a bigger issue at hand. It is an issue that all the other issues stem from. The biggest injustice in the world is that there are people out there in the world today who have never heard of the name of Jesus. That is where all of the under issues fall under. I remember on my mission trip to Nepal we met a lady who have never heard of Jesus and God and so, beginning with creation, we shared the Gospel with her. How do you explain the Gospel to someone who has never heard of Jesus? Living in a Western culture, it's difficult for us to wrap our minds around the fact that there are people who haven't heard of Jesus. But the fact of the matter is, people are dying everyday without ever hearing about Jesus.

And what are we doing about it? Please know I'm not trying to guilt trip you into going on a mission trip (even though I'd highly recommend it!) or anything like that. But we must learn to capture God's heart for the nations. We must begin to realize how desperately he loves these people, these people who have never heard about His Son and live their lives in captivity and fear and hopelessness. Because, you see, Jesus died for these people just as much as He died for you and me and all of us living in the Western world. We are blessed to grow up in a country where we have all heard the Gospel multiple times but we can't be selfish with what God has blessed us with. Pray that God will give you His heart. Pray that your heartbeat will become one with His.

You don't have to go overseas to tell people about Jesus. I promise you that, if you really look, you will realize that you are surrounded by people who desperately need Jesus. Maybe they've heard of Jesus before but their perception of the Gospel is warped. There are people who are broken, homeless, hurting, lonely, feeling unwanted and unloved and desperately need to hear about a personal God who loves them so much that He gave up His most precious Son to die the worst possible death so that we wouldn't have to be separated from Him for eternity. I challenge you to go out and radically love others!

Losing

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered to loss of all things... in order that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him. … That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

~ Philippians 3:7-11

You're a loser.

No offense, and don't stop reading because you feel insulted. :)

Let's break down this passage from Philippians in order to understand why. But before we do so, a quick disclaimer: I'm not responsible for any random tangents or ideas that don't make sense that may appear in this post. I wrote those, um, while I was, um, asleep.

Now, let's talk about losing! Some of you may be familiar with the idea that when we give everything we have and are to Christ, we can be deemed losers; there's even t-shirts out there that say it! But what does this really mean? That's the question I'd like to explore today.

Paul makes a comparison in his letter between gain and loss. In life, there are certain things that we “gain.” This could mean a variety of things. I'm sure that you can think of a thing or two right now that you've gained in your life. Actually, stop reading and think. What is one thing that you've gained? Maybe it was by your own accord, or maybe it was with the help of someone or something else. If you are at a total loss, I can think of one or two for all of us; have you ever broke at a qualifier? Placed at a tournament? Won a speech category? Qualified for Nationals? Even if you've never done any of these things, I know you've gained skills and talents from competing in NCFCA. These can all be classified as something that we've “gained” in our lives.

However, Paul doesn't stop by just saying that we give up awards that we've won or skills that we've learned; our gains. Rather, we count everything as loss, in order to gain Christ Jesus. Have you ever thought about what everything means? Think about it. Is everything something that you have? Is it the whole universe? Outside our universe? Every atom that's ever existed? What does everything mean to you?

Yeah, that's right. Everything.

While you're sitting there with your mind blown, let's talk about loss. Have you ever lost something important to you? We lose little things all the time; maybe we don't get an A on that test we wanted to, or we don't win the contest we entered, or a friend moves away, or someone on our basketball team plays better than we do. Stop and think about one thing that, no matter how big or small, you've lost. Little disappointments and losses in life can often get us down; but this is the exact message that these verses want us to understand. When we lose, we shouldn't think about what we've lost for ourselves. Rather, we should rejoice! Why? Because when we lose, we are gaining Christ. When we suffer joyfully the little things that let us down, we're able to be drawn more deeply into the heart of Jesus. We give everything up, so that we can love Him better.

But the heart of this message to the Philippians goes deeper. Are you ready to give up everything? Actually, you don't have to be ready. Jesus demands it of you, every day; but not for no reason. We don't just give up everything because we want to be recognized, or because we think that that is the right thing to do, or because we want people to see that we believe in Jesus, or because we want the world to know that being a Christian is the thing to do. All of those reasons could be right and good, but the real reason we surrender everything we've gained and choose to become a loser is because knowing Christ and being found in Him is worth more than anything. Ever. Paul knows this, and he wants the rest of the Church to know this, too. Nothing we have, do, or want could ever be worth more than knowing Christ Jesus our Lord, amen?

There's a song by Love & The Outcome called “Heart Like You”; some of its words go like this: “What could be worth more than You? What do I have I wouldn't lose? I give up the world to find my soul, pour out my life, give You control, I just wanna be what You want me to be, I just want a heart that's true, a heart like You....”

Let's go out there and show the world how to be the awesomest losers EVER.

God, I just want a heart like You. I give everything up, because I want to love You. I'm not afraid to lose everything, because I know that nothing could ever be better than gaining You. I'm not afraid to suffer for You, because I know that I am found in You. And I'm proud to be a loser for You.

Written by Caroline Andrews

It's Not That Complicated (Emotional Purity)

I've never kissed a guy.

I've never had a boyfriend.

I've never been romantically involved with anyone.

So how am I still giving my heart away?

This is a question I've struggled with for a long time. Physical purity is pretty easy for me to maintain. But what about all that goes on inside of my head? Many people call this aspect of purity emotional purity.

I've just finished reading a book called, It's Not That Complicated, by Anna, Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin. They point out that while violating emotional purity is not a sin listed in the Bible, it is a helpful classification of some sins we (especially girls) struggle with. 

Emotional purity can include:

• Idolizing a guy/male attention (Ex. 20:4-6, Is. 44:9, Col 3:5)
• Lustful thoughts (Col. 3:5, 1Jn. 2:16)
• Discontentment (Pr. 19:23, Phil. 4:11-12)

An area of emotional purity many girls struggle with is having a crush. Most girls have them. Some people encourage them, saying it's a normal part of our development, while others condemn it as a heinous sin. So, what are we supposed to do about it? Both sides have some truth to them. Yes, having a crush is normal, but it can also escalate quickly into sin.

So, how do we know when "liking" someone turns into a serious obsession? Again, the Botkin sisters had some helpful advice here. They list some indicators that our desires are becoming, well -- less than pure.


1. Seeking our will above God's 

• Am I seeking romantic fulfillment before God's timing?
• Am I trying to write my own love story, instead of letting God take the pen?

2. Thinking we have a claim over a young man

• How would I feel if he expressed interest in another girl?
• Am I thinking possessively about him?

3. Building castles in the sky

• Am I planning out my future with this person?
• Do I spend most of my free time imagining my life with him?

4. Letting our brains go out the window

• Am I so focused on how I feel about this person that I ignore serious warning signs?
• Am I disobeying my parents, explicitly or implicitly, by my relationship with this person?

I've found that considering these points is usually enough to get my brain back on track. When my sinful thoughts are locked up inside me, and I don't consider what I'm actually doing to myself and others, it's hard for me to stop. But when I think about what I'm doing, and ask God to help me find my way out, he always provides.

Our hearts are hidden. Emotional sins don't seem that bad. After all, it's just a little daydream! But the Bible says, "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." (Proverbs 4:23)

I'm assuming most of you have read or memorized Philippians 4:6-7, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I recently realized that this verse directly applies to this topic! When we are constantly asking God for help, his peace will guard our hearts and our minds. I pray that this verse will speak to you as much as it has to me.

Written by Magali Laporte