What is Reality?

This past Sunday night, I was blessed with the opportunity to speak to our high school students. Fresh off my trip to Israel, I felt like God had a specific Word for these students about His Kingdom. Contrary to everything I have been taught about homiletics, I didn't take a single note or outline with me that night. I felt like God was writing a message on my heart and that I needed to do everything I could to get my thoughts out of the way so that God could literally speak through me. Pulling a stunt like that would have been a guaranteed "F" in my Effective Teaching in Youth Ministry class in college, but luckily there was no prof. there to grade me (and only one Bethel student who came that night to evaluate our ministry! ha!).

Interestingly enough, I was not nervous going into my message, like I usually am. One thing that I've noticed God has been doing in my life since Israel has been empowering me and giving me courage to be the man that He has called me to be. I really feel like a different person.

So Sunday night I got up in front of the youth, not with my own prepared message, but with a Word from the Lord. God's message for us that night was centered around one question: WHAT IS REALITY? I suppose I'm not surprised that this was what God had for us...I mean, isn't that what Jesus was all about? He spoke about His Kingdom more than any other topic. He warned the people that the Kingdom was at hand. He called them to something bigger than themselves, to something more real than the lives they were so caught up in.

This is what God has been laying on my heart, and this is what I passionately want to impart on my students--that there is something better than the lives we are living. That when we live our lives for ourselves, when we get caught up in our fleshly desires, when our eyes are focused on ourselves, we fall drastically short of the lives God has called us to live. This kind of life is terribly unfulfilling! Yet I believe God has placed inside each one of us a "Big Dream," a vision of who we can be in God's Kingdom and how we can use the passions He has placed inside of us to literally bring the Kingdom of God to earth. It's never too early to begin catching a vision of that "Big Dream" and to begin to take intentional steps toward that dream. One thing is for sure, though--we won't come closer to joining in God's Kingdom by living self-seeking lives or cutting corners in the area of our core character. We live in a culture that says "Do whatever you can to get ahead, to get an edge." The reality is, however, that there are no shortcuts to the Kingdom of God. Living in the Kingdom is an everyday commitment and sacrifice. 

I believe God wants to raise up a new generation of leaders, but His invitation is to come and die in this life, and enter into a more real way of living...life in the Kingdom. I believe we can experience this life NOW!

Are you willing to come and die?

Are you ready for a touch of reality?

God is calling us to battle...are you ready?