Monday Morning Perspective

I know it's Sunday and not Monday but I thought I would go ahead and post. We are on our way to Nashville for a conference and I doubt I'll get around to blogging tomorrow. Our son John has been working for NAMB this summer in Atlanta with their program called Generation Send. In a nutshell, it's learning how to do life on mission. It's going to a coffee shop and being intentional about starting conversations with people that turn to Jesus conversations. It's walking down the street and engaging with others. I like to think of it as learning to truly walk the way Jesus walked when He was on earth. They also help church plants and serve in various ways. It's an amazing way to live life not just for 6 weeks in the summer but always. Anyway, they are having a conference for two days in Nashville. All of the Gen Send people go and since we have to go pick John up we thought we might as well go to the conference and learn a few things. We have Stephen with us since he did this same thing last year in Atlanta so we are excited for that and of course ready to see John and bring him HOME! So I told you all of that just to let you know my reason for posting today instead of tomorrow. For those of you who hate details and don't appreciate the more wordy folks, I apologize =)). 

So it was a good day at both campuses. We had 3 first timers at our East campus. 

We celebrated at Greer the decisions made at student camp last week and had a superb message from my man out of 1John. 

Today we were challenged with the love that God hates which is the love of our world system and philosophy. We were challenged to live out the gospel in every area of our life and not compartmentalize our faith. We know that many times we say we don't love the world with our mouth but our actions and lifestyle speak very differently. We are called to invest in things that are eternal. Invest in people because every person will spend eternity somewhere. We know that the nature we feed most is the one that will grow so we need to feed our spiritual nature and starve that old nature. We should all be thankful that Jesus didn't give in to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life when Satan tempted Him. He wasn't nearsighted looking at the here and now. He was looking at the big picture, the cross. We need to look at the big picture as well and not get caught up in the stuff of this world rather invest in what is eternal. This world is winding down anyway. As Will Rogers said, "we spend money we don't have on things we don't need to impress people we don't like". We don't want that to be said of us. Have a great week!