What IF...?!?!

So today going back to Calvary I had my iPod on shuffle ad a playlist full of a variety of secular and Christian songs on it.  What came on was "The Motions" by Matthew West.  Now I realize that I have already done a post about this song, in fact it was one of my first posts, but this is a different idea from this song.  I found his lyrics to that song very compelling.  Namely part of the chorus that says "I don't want to spend my whole life asking: What if I had given everything?"

This phrase had me thinking: Am I spending my life NOT giving everything? I think about what I am doing in my life.  I am currently at school.  I have a desire to learn theology.  I want to learn about God.  I want to teach God to the youth I am working with at Kearney.

This song is really a call to action.  Don't spend your time doing the tings of a Christian, such as going to church, youth group, prayer, Bible study and whatever else that you may do for your Christian life.  Don't spend your life simply doing those things, calling yourself a Christian and not doing all the things that Christ has asked us to do.

I gotta admit that it is sort of my life.  I like to sit back and just settle with my Bible reading and my prayer.  I don't want to get any further out in my Christian walk.  I get satisfied with where I am and I don't want to go any further.  Yet this feeds directly into the question the chorus of Matthew West's song, "What if I had given everything?"

What do I give? There are times when I give my all, there are times when I just don't want to do anything more than read Scripture.  Yet all over Scripture there are calls to action.  There are calls of a changed life for those who have placed faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

What if I had given everything? That is a great question to ask yourself.  Examine yourself and answer that question

Spiritual Life

We had Spring Break a little more than a week ago.  How is your spiritual life when you enter into a new environment? I can tell you for me, my Spiritual Life really struggled.  I got home for the week with the intention of getting into God's Word but never did.

Things got busy... I was working, shooting my guns, and I had to prepare a sermon.  Not to give excuses but that was what was going on.  I got off work and decided that I would rather give time to myself and not to God

As the semester gets busier, it gets easier to just pass on the Spiritual life and try to use that time to get homework done or whatever.

Just yesterday I was talking with my dean of Students and he gave me an analogy of our spiritual weapon (Eph. 6)  He related going to the shooting range and working on my shooting to my spiritual walk.  What are the Spiritual things in my life that need to be evaluated and worked on?

So I try to evaluate my spiritual walk, specifically reading my Bible.  I think that the most important thing that I need to work on is my application of Scriptural principles.  I can get  head knowledge in my head so easily, my brain can retain that information but my personality is not always one of action.  I have big talk but I don't have the action to back that talk up always.

I think that is one thing that I struggle with the most among all sorts of other things.

I really liked Dean Cory's analogy because it is something that I could relate to.  Of course all analogies break down when pushed too far but he did a decent job of relating the attention I give to Scripture to that of working on my marksmanship.  It is all well and good to be accurate with a firearm but when the situation calls for it, some people just freeze.  Don't be that guy.  I want to be able to be accurate and be able to achieve that marksmanship when the situation calls for it!