Amelia Student Ministries - Amelia Church of Christ

Most of you probably realized at some point that I have been out of the country for the last several days. While this is not the first time that I have planned on leaving the country, this is the first time I actually have gotten to. I cannot even begin to tell you the extent of all that I learned on this trip (at least not in the roughly 300 words of this blog post) but I can say one thing that really stood out to me this week…

GOD IS HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mind-bogglingly huge.  Living in America can give us a pretty skewed impression of who God is.  Going to another culture really opens your eyes. Personally I have always viewed God (and Heaven) in a pretty limited small way. When We got to Heaven, I naturally assumed that everyone would speak English and be singing Chris Tomlin and Hillsong United songs.

Obviously this might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but that was basically what I pictured. But then I got to sit and worship with these people in there churches.  I got to see how passionately they worshiped and loved God. And even though I couldn’t understand every word (or most words for that matter), I knew what they were talking about. I felt the connection because of the bond that we share in Christ.

So now I think I can truly see Heaven in a new and more accurate way. Everyone, all people, all tongues, all nations, will be worshiping together. And God hears all of us. He knows ALL OF US!! Isn’t that amazing?  Not only does He know you intimately. All of who you are and what you do and say and think and feel, but He also knows the little boy in Africa that speak Swahili. And the little girl in Kosovo and and the man in France that runs a bakery. I find that so amazing. And I certainly can’t wait to sing with the brothers and sisters that I met in the Dominican Republic in Heaven one day.

I got a tetanus  shot today in preparation for my upcoming mission trip.  I have come to a conclusion that tetanus shots do not feel very good. In fact, not only do they not feel good, but they actually hurt. Now I am not one to hurt easily; I actually have a very high pain tolerance, but this shot even got to me.  This shot, though, got me thinking… tetanus shots= good. It is good to be protected against tetanus which can kill you. Why then does it hurt.

But then I came to a shocking realization…Almost all good things in life come with some pain attached. If you want to succeed in a sport, you have to train hard at it. You have to run and push yourself through a lot of pain to train your body. If you want to learn, you have to study (doesn’t seem painful, but who actually enjoys studying?).

Following Christ also involves some pain. It isn’t easy to follow Christ. People will mock us. People will assault our believes. We will have to make choices that are not easy, and that go against everyone else around us. Following Christ can end relationships. Following Christ can distance family and divide houses. In fact, Jesus himself had this to say in Matthew 10:34-35, “³⁴ Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵ For I have come to turn“‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—”

But, just like this tetanus shot, it will save your life. Even though following Christ can be painful, the life that it brings is always worth it.

As it is the Christmas/New Year’s season, 244 is going to be going on a break. I know, this is super disappointing for all of you. I’m sorry. However, I also want to make sure all of us get our family time in.  So…244 will be returning on January 16th. I know this seems like a long time. “Why not the week before?” you may be asking. Well, I (Thayer) will be out of the country that week on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. I can’t wait to join all of you again, but until then, HAVE A GREAT HOLIDAY!!!

Hey everyone. 244 is going to be starting up again on Sunday, September 26th at the Church. We will be having our FALL KICKOFF EXTRAVAGANZA!!!! Clearly I want to emphasize that fact because Extravaganzas tend to be large. That means that I want all of you to invite as many friends as possible. We are going to be having a cookout, a 2 v. 2 Halo Tournament, as well as a number of other games that might start up (Ninja? Psychologist? Patty Cake?? Ok, probably not Patty Cake).

Remember guys. This needs to be huge. It is for any student from 6th grade to 12th. Can’t wait to see all of you there.

It seems that whenever we are looking at how to pray, we look toward Matthew 6, to what we call the Lord’s Prayer. This is a great example of prayer that is given to us from the mouth of Jesus. But I think when we only look at that particular prayer, we are forsaking a whole lot of other prayers that we can look at. One such prayer is found in Nehemiah 1. So lets look at some of the key elements of this prayer.

Worship:

Nehemiah’s prayer begins with worship of God. In verse 5, he says ⁵O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God. Worship is an important element in prayer because it humbles us before the Lord. Raising up the Lord inevitably makes us lower. The higher he goes, the lower we become. It can’t happen any other way.

Confession:

Confession is the next crucial aspect of prayer. ^6b I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. ⁷ We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. Confession again forces us to examine ourselves compared to God. Confession is an admittance that we are not good enough for God. Confession says that we don’t deserve God. However, it also says that we are grateful for His grace.

Faith in God’s Promises:

Another important aspect of Nehemiah’s prayer is that he had TOTAL faith that God would answer his prayer. The key to having this kind of faith is to pray things that God has promised to us already.  Ne 1:8-9 “Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, ⁹ but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’ We have been promised a lot of very cool things, such as Forgiveness, Peace, Guidance…but we have not been promised a boat, or a really hot boyfriend/girlfriend, or to pass that test that we totally didn’t feel the need to study for. Will God give us these things? Maybe, maybe not, but if we pray for things that He promised to us, we can be 100% certain he will give us to them. Because God is faithful.  And god is Truth. He cannot let a promise go unfulfilled because then god would be a liar.

Request:

It wasn’t until after this, that Nehemiah finally made his request to the Lord.

So with your next prayer, are you just going to ask for what you want, like God is a Genie that just can’t wait to lavish you with everything you could ever imagine, OR are you going to pray humbly for the multitude of things that God promised if we ask for them?