September newsletter article

I was one of the "good kids" growing up. I did my homework. I had friends that were more or less responsible. I was active in church and youth group. I believed in Jesus.

Really, though, underneath my "church kid" appearance, I was coasting. It wasn't until my junior year of college that I really started to understand that believing in Jesus and loving Him are two very different things. And the reason I started to understand was because I had two friends that didn't just believe in Jesus - they spent time with Him, interacted with Him, let themselves be loved by Him, and loved Him in return. Because they allowed me to witness that relationship at work in their lives, I caught a glimpse of what a relationship with Christ should look like in my own... and I began to grow.

You see, I was a Theology major in college. I studied the Bible inside and out. I aced exams on Paul's letters. I knew about Christianity. But none of my professors and none of my classes pushed me forward the way that my friends did. That's because the thing that truly transforms people is not hearing a convicting sermon, or being trained in theology: what is transformational is seeing Christ active in someone's life. That's why Paul spent so much time giving encouragement and instruction about how to live in community with other believers: because iron sharpens iron. When we let others walk alongside us and bear witness to our relationship with God, He uses our story to reach and encourage others. It's not because we are perfect or wise or holy... it's because Jesus, the Word of God, lives in us, and He is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. He can take even our sinful, broken stories and use them to encourage and sharpen the hearts of our brothers and sisters. But he can't do that unless we let others in.

We do not exist in a vacuum. We are constantly influencing the lives of the people that God directs into our paths, whether we want to or not: but we can choose to live with intentionality. We can choose to share our lives with others - not superficially, but honestly.

I leave you with a quote from Thomas Merton's No Man Is An Island.

As long as we secretly adore ourselves, our own deficiencies will remain to torture us with an apparent defilement. But if we live for others, we will gradually discover that no one expects us to be "as gods." We will see that we are human, like everyone else, that we all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and that these limitations of ours play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.

Verses Referenced:
Colossians 3:12-17, Proverbs 27:17, Hebrews 4:12, Romans 1:11