Long and Deep

The past two weeks here have been something else. So much stuff has gone on during the lectures that I am bursting at the seems to share it. This is just what I have experienced, and I know that I have friends out there who are not Christians and that this stuff may not make sense, but it is what I am up to and what I'm going through, and it is very real.

Last week's lecture was about The Cross, what happened, what it meant and how do we respond, or apply its significance into what we do. We also looked a lot at something else that my family is well acquainted with: choice. We looked at some scripture in a light I had never seen it before. In the Story of Jesus' betrayal right before his crucifixion, he was arrested right after praying that his Father in heaven would take the burden of suffering that he was about to go through away from him. What response did he receive to this prayer? When Peter pulled out a sword and attacked the guard arresting his Lord, Jesus rebuked him and told him that if He asked for it, His Father would send him 12 legions of angels. TWELVE LEGIONS that's something like 72,000, and if one angel can kill all the firstborn in Egypt, or make armies flee, what with 72000 of them do? Was that the answer Jesus received from his prayer?
"Well Son, if you don't want to go through with it, we can pull the plug on this plan of salvation and you can come home."
If that was the answer Jesus received from his prayer and he still decided to go through with everything that he suffered....I can't use words anymore...WOW!
And that's just one thing I got from last week...;) If anyone wants more on choice send me a message and I will SO share other things that I learned, cause I'm so excited about them

This week we've gone a direction of learning about Walking with Jesus. What the heck does that mean? Well the focus of the teachings has been from our speakers experience that God wants intimacy.
Oh sure the creator of the universe wants to hang out with us individually, do you detect my sarcasm?

Well here's a few things that I've come to realize. God's will, or calling on our life is NOT the best place for us to DO something for his kingdom, but the best place to get to KNOW HIM and hang out with him as in a close relationship.

Another thing, we often feel like we can't get close to God because we've got so much junk in our lives, so we try to change and get ride of the junk so that we're able to get closer to God. But, if he's forgiven us of our junk and he's not paying attention to it, why should we? If we focus our attention of who He is and trying to get to know him the result is that we change. WOAH! Crazy. And out of that comes this; everything that we want to do for God will be an overflow our of intimacy with him. The closer we get the more we want to do for Him.

I don't know about other people, but for me that's about 180 degrees different from how I used to think about it.

Want a true story? Well I'm still struggling for the money to pay for this trip, but the other day I had some donations come in that allow me to pay for my school fees to YWAM. Unfortunately they were not enough to pay the activity fee, which is a snowboard pass. This is not a big issue for me. I have back country equipment, and I love hiking, so walking up a slope that no one else is riding and then riding back down is something I would love to do. At the moment there is not enough snow for that so I wait. However, this morning, after our community open night last night, sitting on the table in the community room was an envelope, labeled, "Matt For Snowboarding Pass" and inside, was more than enough required to purchase a pass. Which is a sum of 1160 CHF. WOW! God really is good and wants to give us gifts. Someone might ask about people who are suffering in the third world and why God didn't send the money to them. I don't know the answer to that. but after this week's lectures about intimacy with God and His provision I feel like this...I've heard stories of crazy provision from God and have believed them, but never thought that they would happen for me. Yet here's God, giving me a gift through an anonymous person, to do something that is considered extravagant. God's calling on our life takes us to the place where we are able to come to know Him more, not to do things for Him, He's God, He can do things for Himself pretty handily.

Let's end here,
Matt Clarke
Go Big or Go Home!