Today's lesson in class this morning really impacted me. Evan got a clear plastic bin and wrote the word "you" on it, representing us, the people of the world. Empty. Then sin (a smaller plastic bin) comes into our life, and it's noisy and annoying. It rumbles around in our life, and we feel the need to get rid of it. So we take sin out of our life. Well, does that do anything? It just leaves us empty again. We don't just need to take sin out and leave ourselves empty, because odds are, sin will return. Once sin is out of our life, we need to fill ourselves with CHRIST (another bin, but this one has light). Once we have Christ, we need to seal our life with his mercy and grace (put the lid on). We immediately are illuminated and we brighten the world by sharing the light! Matthew 5:14-16 says, "You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." We need to let our light shine! So that when people look at us, they see Christ. They see that Christ is living in us and through us. Every day, every moment.
Deuteronomy 6:5, "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind." Notice it says "all" and not "some". ALL of your heart. ALL of your soul. ALL of your strength. ALL of your mind. What does that mean though? What does it mean to love God with all your heart? With all your soul? With all your strength? With all your mind? Every emotional decision, every fiber of your being, every trial, every thought needs to be centered around Him. BUT-- the most important thing before you can do ANY of these things is to love yourself. How can you love something so important to you if you can't even love yourself? How can you show others that you can love if you're constantly putting yourself down? It's easy, you can't. God gave us a heart, a soul, and a mind, and He gave us the strength to USE those things. We use our heart to love. We use our strength to persevere. He gave us a soul to define who we are. He gave us a mind to think and then share what and who we are: God's creation.
I learned a lot today, but if there's one thing that I learned the most, it's that you must love yourself to FULLY love God. It's not a one sided thing.
Good stuff. Thanks for being a positive light.
ReplyDeleteHey, this was cool to read. I think you gave too much credit to the class - you had some amazing things to say! Thanks for your contributing thoughts! and like Craig said, thank you for your light!
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