Yesterday about 10:00 a.m. I checked my email and saw that Shane’s granddad is sick in the hospital. If you are a prayer, please pray for him and Shane’s family…even though you may not know them. This is a difficult and trying time for them.
I had less than 8 hours to prepare a message for the teenagers, because Shane was scheduled to speak. I also had a full days worth of work at the office. I had nothing to speak on except what was on my heart and mind. As I have been posting on here, I have been reading “Chasing Daylight.” I am still in chapter 2 and did not get a chance to read any further yesterday, but I ran with a story from the Bible that Erwin referenced in the book. Rahab.
I called the message, Choose to Live, because that is what Rahab did. She chose to live. She had made many bad choices in her life, she was a practicing prostitute at the time God sent an opportunity for her to choose. She could have chosen to do nothing, because after all, what kind of life did she have to salvage? She could have chosen to live as she had always lived, but she didn’t…she chose to do good and to take a new path, a path pleasing to God. As a result…she chose life…she created a whole new future…things were different!
Well, things are different in 2 students lives today. I challenged all of the students to do 1 of 2 things:
#1 if they were a Christ Follower, but were living their life walking backwards into their future being paralyzed by the choices they have made in their past, to turn around walk head first into their future and choose the way of life when God brings them the next opportunity. (I revealed to them that they cannot see opportunities from God if they are walking backwards!)
#2 I challenged those who were not Christ Followers to choose life, the life of Christ. I told them just like Rahab, it did not matter where they were in their life or even what “wrong” choices they made that day, Jesus wanted to love them and to forgive them…Well 2 students made a choice for life, and they asked Jesus to be the Lord of their life.
Please pray for Shane and his family, as well as these 2 students who are starting a new journey to be a Christ follower.
You did a great job. God obviously touched students last night!
awesome bro. My granddaddy is doing the same…but he knew today..so today was a good one. Thanks bro-ham
he knew me is what I was trying to type.
Amen! I’d love to hear you give a message sometime. Sometimes I think that those messages that we don’t have much time to prepare for are the ones that God helps out the most with. On Monday, I gave a quick seven minute message on something I had just found an hour before. Apparently a lot of the preacher students I was speaking to said they learned something new from it. Only God can do that.
Rahab is an inspiring character, but it seems like she is so frequently overlooked.
It is amazing how God works!
Just kinda comment surfed onto your site… I started in flickr, followed a comment to a wordpress blog, that led to another blog that led to twitter… that some how brought me here to you. Dang the internets a cool thing.
Anyway, wanted you to know, I just spent some time in prayer for Shane and the 2 students.
For the students… simply prayed… more God.
I just wanted you to know I was saved last night too. Thanks for stepping in and thanks for sharing your God with me. Sometimes it takes someone to step outside of that safety zone to help any and all, and you stepped in for Shane and did a super job. Thank you for your committment to people–to taking the time to share and speak and not stress because it was last minute. Way to go. And by the way, you need more than 740 calories to burn.
Enjoyed that !!