This notebook was a gift of God. Specifically from my good friend Olivia, but honestly, I know it's from the Lord.

Romans 11:36 says, "For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things."

Everything both belongs TO Him and IN Him. I belong IN Him. Romans 8:38-39 speaks about how nothing "in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." So if I can not be separated from the love of this Holy God, then certainly  I must belong IN Him, because outside of Him I can't possibly exist! Which makes perfect sense, for here I am on this earth because my God hand placedme here, with a purpose "which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10).

So to live outside of God's embrace is to deny that which we are. Just what are we? Genesis 1:27 says we are made in God's own image. Here I am, made by a Holy Being who knew me before I was born and has already prepared a purpose for my life, I being made in this Almighty God's image, therefore how do I even dare believe it to be somewhat possible to live outside of Him?

Yet, from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep I forget this obvious truth. I forget that I live IN my Savior.

Let's try to define more what it means to be IN something, to live IN something. To be IN something implies being emersed in it right? To be completely surrounded, engulfed, submerged, consumed by some thing, some person, some God. To live IN God suggests that we are surrounded by Him, which is confirmed when Paul writes in Romans 1, "For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made."

So we are surrounded by God! The God whose eternal power is clearly seen through his creation.

That breath? That breath you just took? Where do you think it came from? Was it just a bodily function of taking in needed oxygen and expelling poisonous carbondioxyde? Perhaps instead, it was a gift from God, Father over all creation. Perhaps it is like James says that we are merely just a "mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." Perhaps it is as Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing." A little mind blowing? Talk about loss of control right? With visions like these how could we possibly forget we live IN our God? To believers it's obvious we were meant and designed to live IN Christ, yet each and every day I leave Christ wanting more because I deem my life greater than the one he gave up.

Too many of us fall into routines of to-do lists, errands, jobs, tests, social outings, classes that we snuff God out of our lives. Is it intentional? Probably not, we are just busy people. But what it says to God is the same, "God, this thing I have to do is really really important, honestly more important than you right now. No offense or anything, but I'm just going to forget about you for a bit, but don't worry! I'll pick you back up Sunday for a few hours...but then I really need to get back to this predicament."

Can we really contain the God of the universe, Maker of humanity, and Glorious Savior to a couple hours a week? Oh how exhausting that really is.

My senior year of high school embodied this "boxing in" of God. I was a Christian sure, I knew and believe Jesus was the Son of God, died for my sin, and rose to give life. I went to church and lead devotionals occasionaly. I even sang as worship leader for my youth group, even wrote a few songs to God.

Yet my spirit was weak.

I thought I had enough of God, instead of wanting more of Him.

You.Won't.Ever.Have.Enough.God.

My spirit was so fatigued at trying to hold God down, attempting to limit his impact on my life. I grew numb. I grew spiritually exhausted.

Now, senior year went on and was an awesome year filled with great memories. It wasn't until college that i came to realize the remendous burden I carried, because  as new friends inspired me I began to understand the infinite importance of having  an untameable God in control of my life. Once I discovered how great it is to want for of God, and to realize I'd never be satisfied again, I felt the burden lifted from my spirit.

Because what you'll come to find is living IN God is what we are meant to do. It is where we belong. Matthew records Jesus saying, "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:30)." Living IN Christ is a freedom from the burdens of this world, free from the tension caused by worshiping both God and flesh. Tension caused by having enough God. When we instead live IN Christ, God takes that burden, that tension straight to Calvary.

Taking up Christ's yoke, having him in the driver's seat per say, is the only way to release this tension. Listen to me when i say:

NOTHING IN THIS WORLD WILL EVER REPLACE JESUS CHRIST

There is no other that will take burdens and tensions away like our Jesus. There is no replacement, just as there is no hiding from his love. If that's not comforting, I don't know what is. What Romans 8:39 is saying is that to live IN Christ, our Savioir, He who was perfect and died in my place, He who rose and overcame the world three days later to give those who believe eternal life through Him, He who ascended into heaven that we would as He said do even greater things than He, He who rains down his everlasting, unconditional, and perfect love on us each and every day even when we try so hard to keep him contained; when we live IN this man, this God, the burdens of this world fades from our souls and by grace of God, love, Christ's perfect love builds and empowers our bodies to live IN, and through, and for another world altogether. And it is to this world we believers are citizens of.

Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed.

It is by this transformation that we come home to God's life for us. A life characterized by power, hope, joy, strength, and freedom.

"You're everything
I could want
That I could need
If I could see
You want me
Could I believe?
'Cause You're perfectly
All I want, all I need
If I could just feel You're touch
Could I be free?"    

For the past five years my church back home has gone to Smyrna, TN to an old air-force base turned cooperative housing community called Wherry Housing Cooperative. 

The cooperative used to be a horrible place with drug trafficking and gang related crimes all over the place. But God shed a light over this dark place by calling a nearby church to start a ministry. This was fourteen years ago, and now families are walking their children along the streets, kids can ride their bikes outside, there’s a learning center for kids during the summer, block parties intent on forming long term relationships are springing up and the atmosphere of the entire place has drastically changed.

Three years ago on this trip my youth minister, Trey, asked me if I’d want to lead a devotional that night. Each night a kid would lead a devotional for everyone, something usually short and concise and probably just a reflection of where they saw God at work during that day’s work.

As soon as he asked the question my heart told me I should really do this. You know how you can tell when your heart totally digs something? Well so of course I answered with a no. And all week I felt this cloud hovering over me, I knew God wanted me to lead that night and I was too afraid to obey.

You see I have this silly little tear gland that seems to always overreact whenever I start talking about God and things personal with a body of people greater then…say…five. And so I fled from God. And it felt terrible.

Fast forward a year. It’s Wherry time again. I’m crazy pumped.  Or as we of the Towne View Baptist folk say, “super stoked.”  First night comes, and Jen, Trey’s wife leads the devotion. I’m not sure at all what she was talking about because the entire time my mind is centered on this time last year when I decided that my fear was too much for God to conquer. I felt like Jonah honestly, pre fish belly Jonah, more like Jonah on the boat running from God, but everything pointing back to him.

And so I approached Trey after that night and asked him if I could lead a devotion that week. I had no plan, I had no idea what I was going to talk about. All I knew was that i had a 96.5% chance of not being able to get through it without crying. But I finally realized that God is bigger than my fear. I love that quote that says, “Don’t tell God how big the storm is, tell the storm how big God is.”

And so here I am, no plan, not even a hint of an idea of what to talk about, and with overactive tear glands that don’t take well to religion. Not to mention I had the last day. Go out with a bang right? So I prayed, and it was a simple simple prayer. All I said was, “Lord, give me words.”  And he did. And it was beautiful.

I opened my bible to the passage of the sheep and goats where Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Powerful words and a powerful message. I knew I had to talk about this, but at the same time holy crap how am I supposed to talk about this? “Lord, give me words.” And so God began building this devotional, laying on layer and layer, word by word until it was done.  

Devotional night came and my insides very much wanted to be my outsides if you catch my drift. And as I walked towards that chair where I’d present what God had been doing in me, “Lord, give me words.” Not a tear was shed, and after all had been said I remembered one thing. I had to pray. Man! I had to pray! I hadn’t written or prepared anything for my prayer! I think I’d probably had prayed aloud three times before then and two and a half of those being at the dinner table consisting of “Thank you God for this food amen.”

“Lord, give me words”

It’s a beautiful thing when God provides for us. It’s a beautiful thing that as we draw near to him, he draws near to us. He meets us where we are. In our fear, in our tension, in our world and calls us to his world of freedom and boldness.  Jesus says, if you love me, obey my commands. And at that moment, after finishing and seeing that the Lord had indeed kept his end of the bargain, at that moment I came to realize that faith in God, blind faith, faith of a child has unimaginable rewards. It’s a call into freedom from fear and all things of this world. It seems like the wrong choice, the harder choice, the one less favorable, but God knows what’s best, he made us, he knew us before we were born, and that which he calls us to be, is THE best life for us.  We just need to realize that his world is better than ours.

God is all glorious, all powerful, all majestic, all marvelous. I am made in his image. I have a part of this tremendous Creator in me.

Yesterday in small groups we read Philipians 2:5-11 where it says taht Christ, "Who, being in every nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness."

This is the physical representation of Christ's love. He had everything, all power, all glory, all majesty, and yet he gave that up to become human, for us sinners who find we only want God for his blessings.Christ gave up everything to become nothng for a group of disappointing children.

But it doesn't end there, because in verse 8 it says "And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself..."

So even after giving up the ultimate best thing of being equal to the Almighty God in order to become a fleshy man, Jesus Christ humbled himself. Sacrifice #1: Becoming man. That's huge. That's an amazing and radical love. That's Christ's love.

AND THENNNNN!!!

After sacrificing so much already he HUMBLES himself. How does he humble himself? Verse 8 continues "...he humbled himself and became obiedient to death - even death on a cross!"

Christ died for me whle i was still a sinner, while i still hurt him, and disappointed him, and angered him, and saddened him. Christ died for me while i wanted nothing to with him. He died for a people who time and time again plotted to kill him.

Notice how Paul writes "...became OBEDIENT to death..." Jesus had said in John 16:33 "But take heart! I have overcome the world." Jesus was above the rules of this world. He was above all the finite occurances of the earth, including death.

Thus even as he was on the cross dying he knew he had the choice to end every suffering he was taking on. The death on the cross was entirely up to him for he was above death.

But in his love for us he submitted himself to the ways of this world, not in a secretive manner. No, Jesus died the most horrible of deaths for his people.

I can't relate to this kind of love. I don't think any of us can outside of God. And yet it is this kind of love to which we are called to radiate. Jesus says in Matthew 5:46 during his Sermon on the Mount, "If you love those who love you , what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?"

Christ's love is uncomfortable, it's radical to this world. Verse 44 says "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

Christ's love is hard.

But if our goal is to bring heaven to earth how can we not obey this? God calls us to give to those who can't give back, or refuse to do so. He tells us to love those who won't love us back. He says to spend time in service to those who would never do the same for you.

And why?

So that "your light shines BEFORE men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

Christ did it, and s must we.

The crux of the matter is life is gift. So let us use it for the glory of God,

who became nothing

so that we might gain everything.