"credentials"

Last Tuesday I was given the rest of the week off last minute and I prayed to see what God wanted me to do with the time. When I got home that night I had a package in my room. It was a couple CDs that I had ordered the previous week. One of which was Kari Jobe's latest. It was the one I was the most excited about getting. We sing a lot of her songs at GENESIS and one of my favorite songs ever, "Revelation Song," is on it. As I was listening to the CD that night, one song in particular stuck out. It is called "My Beloved". It is written as God speaking to you and says, "You're my beloved, you're my bride, to sing over you is my delight, come away with me, my love..." So I decided to go away with Him into the mountains of NH, where I typically go when I need time alone with God.

There is something so majestic about the mountains that draws out truth. The truth that God is and all He is I am not. When you are on the top of a mountain looking down at the valleys all around and other mountains in the distance you get a realistic view of how small and insignificant we are. The only other place you can feel this is on a plane. And yet all of the earth is in God's hand. Wow. That'll blow your mind to try to comprehend!

I could share many exciting parts of my three days up there, but the journal entry I want to share with you tonight is from Friday night. I was waiting for a friend whom I had not seen in a long time to get back to the area so we could reconnect and I started journaling.

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8/7/09 8pm

Where do I find myself.

At present, I am 25, a fourth (or even farther back) generation Christian, I have a degree in Bible and Women's Ministry from one of if not the best Bible college in the World, I have had the opportunity to serve the Lord in many states and have been blessed to share God's Word from a stage to women...

...and I am a sinner. I am equal to everyone else. It is almost as if none of my "Christian credentials" matter at all. And Wow! What God had to take me through to get me here. To level my pride. I would never wish it on anyone. To go through all I had to so He could use me... and still He doesn't have to use me. He chooses to because of His great love for me.

As I add Gordon-Conwell to my "list" I need to remember this place of humility... to not get so high and mighty on my head knowledge that I think other people have nothing to teach me. I am sure that some of the greatest lessons I will learn will come from people who don't have a degree. The blue collar workers who love Jesus and seek to be His hands and feet. The ones who work for the Lord with all their might with little spotlight time or acknowledgement.

Just beacuse God has put this calling on my life does not make me better than them. Just because God has taken me to places to learn about Him does not make me better than anyone. If anything it should put me on my knees to serve those who's work is just as important as mine and who's souls are just as important as mine.

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I should have remembered this while I was writing, and maybe it was in the back of my mind but after I wrote that I reopened my Bible to the chapter I was on that day, Philippians 3. In this chapter Paul basically says the same thing. He says he has so many "credentials" but,

"Whatever gain I had I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith - that I might know Him... Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own... One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (3:7-10, 12, 13b)

Paul continues to call us to imitate him and others who walk similarly. We are to set our minds not on earthly things but remember our citizenship is in heaven. Earthly accomplishments will fade with the earth itself. The only important thing is that we know Him. Not the god we construct Him to be, but the God for all of who He really is. That is why I am going to seminary. To have my small view of God corrected so that I can know Him fully for who He is. And it is my prayer that He would use the things I learn to help me challenge others to open up their small views of Him also.

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So my challenges to you are;
-Remember that the purpose of life is to know God. To love Him with all you are and to love people so they might love Him.
-Remember, your citizenship is in heaven. We are strangers on this earth.

Anything He allows you to do for Him here on earth is a blessing for you to bless others with. No degree, even from a Bible college (or seminary), will go with you to heaven. Only what you do with the knowledge will. The correct view of God you will learn and then mirror to the world is all that counts. If we are not doing that then we have failed, no matter if we have completed the course work. Let us press on to be the hands and feet of Jesus, not to try to be the brain.