Never Lose the Wonder of the Gospel!

As a senior gift, my amazingly wonderful, talented, and influential viola teacher gave me the book Disciplines of a Godly Woman, by Barbara Hughes. She told me that it was really helpful to her in college, so I placed it with the small percentage of my books that I was going to be able to bring with me down to Auburn. For some reason, it caught my attention this week, and so I took it off the shelf and began reading it. The second chapter is entitled “Discipline of the Gospel,” and lo and behold, every sentence echoed the call that I have been hearing that I really need to know the Word of God by reading it, and by the knowledge of the Scriptures, so much else follows. Read this excerpt by Barbara Hughes (emphasis mine):

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is unrelenting in seeking to convert every area of our hearts and lives. The Gospel is all-encompassing. It is in fact the only source of godliness. Seek anywhere else, and you have nothing more than self-reform at best and idolatry at its worst.

Wow. Talk about conviction, this is a straight knife to the heart. How often do I seek to reform myself according to how moral I think I should be instead of going to the gospel? How often do I dismiss what the Gospel truly offers? In doing that, I am just worshipping myself, and my ability to make the “ideal me” in my head and carry it out. Yet, the Gospel is the only source of godliness. Here are some more convicting excerpts from Disciplines of a Godly Woman.

            …the Gospel shapes everything about you…As women who understand and embrace the Gospel, we find God’s Word so dynamic that it at once defines us, satisfies us, and motivates us.

            …The Scriptures who us where we fit into God’s plan for the world and detail what we are to do with our lives…

            …remember that the Gospel is the foundation for every single thing you are and do.

I just wanted to share these quotes with you because they were so convicting and really clenched the conviction that I had gradually been becoming aware of through multiple sermons and small group meetings. Finally, I come to what I wanted to talk about in the first place! At the end of the chapter, Barbara points out something that should convict us all.

            Never lose the wonder of the Gospel!

She tells the story of a new believing woman who came to a small group study and was ecstatic about an amazing verse she just found, and read it aloud slowly to the group. The verse was John 3:16. Here, read and listen in your mind to what it must have sounded like when she read it like this:

            “For God…so loved…the world…that He…gave…His one…and only…Son…that whoever…believes…in Him…shall not perish…but have eternal life.”

In case you didn’t get it the first time, here it is again, in a slightly different form.

            “For God.

            So loved.

            The world.

            That He.

            Gave.

            His one.

            And only.

            Son.

            That whoever.

            Believes.

            In Him.

            Shall

Not.

Perish.

            But have.

            Eternal.

            Life.”

Do you get it now? How does it normally sound when those of us, raised in the Church, who can’t remember a time when we didn’t have this verse memorized by heart, spout it off? Something a little like this:

  “ForGodsolovedtheworldthatHegaveHisoneandonlySonthatwhoeverbelievesinhimshallnotpersishbuthaveeternallife.”

We forget the beauty of what it is saying! We lose the wonder of the Gospel!

Last night, after reading this chapter, I went on to do my scripture reading. I just started Ephesians, and spent a long time on just the third and fourth verses of chapter one. Verses that I’ve heard all the time growing up, and tend to go right in one ear and out the other.

            “³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴ even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”

Now, read that again, like you were reading it for the first time (unless, of course, you were reading it for the first time). Is the weight of what is being stated in this passage weighing down on your heart? How do we read right over passages like this? BLESSED in CHRIST with EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING in the HEAVENLY PLACES, by the one and only GOD and FATHER of our Lord Jesus Christ! As He CHOSE US in HIM BEFORE the FOUNDATION of the WORLD! That WE should be HOLY and BLAMELESS before HIM!

How do we lose that wonder? Or maybe it’s just me, tell me if that’s the case. But I don’t think it is. 

The Truth, an Update, and a Sting

Ok. So here it is. I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO KEEP UP WITH THIS BLOG LIKE I SAY I WILL. There, I said it. Yep, don't expect me to be incredibly consistent. Instead, I'm going to focus on when I, a college student, do find the time to write, making sure it is a post with good writing. Please consider this as an exception to that rule.
So, how about a short update on my life before I dive into the deep stuff? I successfully graduated high school (yay!) and am now a Freshman at Auburn University. This summer, I went to Kyiv, Ukraine for the second time. I am planning to go a third and am even starting to think of something a bit longer than two weeks, so please pray for me as I approach the Lord about that. As far as college goes, I love it. Waaaaay better than high school. I miss my family, but God has blessed me with great new friends through RUF, a roommate who has become one of my closest friends, and a church that I feel is challenging me in ways I need to be challenged, as well as fostering a sense of community in this deer-in-the-headlights freshman.
It truly is amazing how much God has blessed me since arriving here in Auburn. After Camp War Eagle (orientation), I felt very conflicted and unsure about my decision to attend Auburn University. Registration was rough and I didn't meet anyone else in my major, and believe me, I met A LOT of people. In just the first week, though me and the girl I share a bathroom with began to become great friends, and through her I met other people who are a lot like my friends from high school and so easy to get along with. Then, a couple weeks later, after still feeling a little alone, RUF started. For those of you who don't know, RUF stands for Reformed University Fellowship. It's the college ministry of the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America), but don't think that you have to be reformed to go. Just go, and someone will talk to you and make you feel welcome, and help you understand who we are and why we do what we do and believe what we do. Slowly but surely, I have developed a great group of friends from RUF. I've met people in RUF who are in my major (History), and older than me so able to give me advice. I've even met a graduate student who is studying what I want to, which is archival work! A group of older students have sort of taken me under their wing and were the ones who first made me feel welcome in RUF when I was feeling really separated at first. I am so thankful for them and how they have reached out to me! God placed me in a small group with a great mix of older and younger, boys and girls, discussing the Church, and it has really made me think about the Church and its purpose and value, something I hadn't really put much thought into before. In high school, I didn't really have many girlfriends, other than my best friends I didn't really get along with other girls. Here, I've already made good girlfriends, and have a support group better than anything I've ever had.
I'm sorry, I didn't intend for this to go on so long. One last blessing! It is so evident how God has been using basically everything he has placed in my life since arriving here to challenge me to take my faith more seriously. In church, in RUF large group, in RUF small group, in Freshman Fellowship, in the books I'm reading, in the conversations of the new friends I've made, God has been pointing out to me a lack of taking seriously the call to read His Word and know His Word and how He has revealed Himself in His Word. So a lot of what I'll be posting in the coming days/weeks will be related to how he is pushing me in that area.
Okay, one last thing...so for those of you who know me well, you know that strange things happen to me that don't normally happen to other people. Like the fact that I am a magnet for all flying objects, no matter where they are aimed or how far away I am from them. Well, today, the second coldest day of the semester (so far, and the coldest was yesterday), when it was 50 degrees or less outside, I got stung by a bee. A yellow jacket, to be precise. I walked into World Lit from the ridiculously cold and strong wind, took off my jacket, grabbed it by the collar to put on the back of my chair, and immediately felt a sharp numbing/stinging pain on the middle finger of my right hand. I dropped my jacket, thinking I had just been shocked, and looked down at my hand while shaking it, realizing in a panic that there was something on my hand. I flung the offending yellow jacket on the ground and stomped on it madly. All the while with headphones in, blasting Mumford & Sons, in front of my Lit class. It was really great. I got excused from class (by the way, on the one day of the semester when we actually weren't going to do anything, we were going to watch a movie), and went to the Foy Desk in the Student Center. Which, if you don't know anything about the Foy tradition, you're supposed to be able to ask them any question and they're supposed to be able to find you the answer. The RIGHT answer. I asked the girl working what I could do on campus about a bee sting. I thought she might tell me to put mustard on it, or tell me about a drug I could buy in the C-Store, but she told me to go to the med clinic. AND THEN GAVE ME WRONG DIRECTIONS TO THE MED CLINIC. So I walked around one area of campus for about forty minutes before finding the med clinic, and then being told that I wasn't having an allergic reaction and I could wait an hour and a half for an appointment. No thank you. So I walked outside, broke down for the second time (I started crying after the twenty-five minute walk to where the chick told me to go brought me no where), and called my parents. They gave me good advice (thank you), and then I started the long trek back across campus. Remember all this time that my fingers are throbbing. Because as my wonderful mother explained, your fingers are sympathetic, meaning that pain in one means pain in all the others, basically. So yeah I had a wonderful afternoon. Mustard helps bee stings, by the way. Oh, and since I now have a band-aid on the top of my middle finger and it's still throbbing, whenever I pick something up with my right hand I feel like I'm flicking people off. I'm not complaining, I promise, I find it all rather funny (now). Actually, this morning I had been dreading going to orchestra rehearsal because I really needed to study and yet I also really needed to practice. So I guess this is God's way of getting me out of rehearsal with a friendly painful reminder that I wouldn't dread rehearsal so much if I would just get of the couch and go practice.
Anyways, I'm sorry this was so long and so poorly written and I'm sorry it's been so long since I last posted. I'm not making any promises about future posts though! Just so I don't let anyone down. :)
God bless!
-Colossians 3:12-17