is it worth it?

to know and follow hard after Christ could cost us more than just a few dollars a month in the offering; is this gospel worth the ultimate sacrifice? to pick up our cross and daily follow after Him could mean a temporal life of suffering before the eternal life of glory; are we willing to pick up where others have left off? are we willing to push the borders of our imagination through the strength that God so graciously provides with the purpose of spreading the renown of the mighty Savior until every tongue, tribe, and nation is represented in the Kingdom of light? It was never promised to be easy though...


the question again: is it worth it? paul says yes in philippians 3:7-10 (click to read).

disco bowling - June 5th

yeah, that's right. disco has come back from the past and joined up with bowling to make an awesome time!

here's the info: june 5th - meet at park place lanes, Rte. 28, salem, nh at noon wearing your best disco garb! (here's a few ideas for clothing - check with your parents or the thrift store)

prizes for best dressed & best score.

cost: $15 for 2 games, shoes, pizza & soda. [$30 max/family]

**release forms are required for this event**

BEREA CLEANUP!!!

mark your calendars - we're going to berea to help with a cleanup effort at the camp.

we'll leave on friday, april 30th and return on saturday may 1st.

more details to follow.

it's going to be fun and we'll get to help out our friends at berea.

you'll need a release form/waiver for this event.

verse of the week

¹ God is our refuge and strength,
       an ever-present help in trouble.
 ² therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
       and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
 ³ though its waters roar and foam
       and the mountains quake with their surging.
       Selah

psalm 46:1-3

take a minute to read the whole chapter

coffee house - this friday!!!!

don't forget - coffee house this friday night at fbc. come out to support your friends as they perform music, read poems, and more. if we're lucky, pedro might pull out his centathlon skills. that's right, 100 events. ok, so he's not actually gonna do that, but he'll be there, which is enough, right?

7- 9:30 pm.

bring $5.

if you don't like coffee, there will be other drink options + plenty of food.

you don't want to miss this.

do you love God? i mean, seriously? pt. 2 [a test]

if you haven't read the first post in this series, i would encourage you to do that before you read this one. it will give you a little bit of the context behind this whole discussion on loving God.

with that said, let's keep thinking through our love for God.


do you love God? i mean, serious? pt. 2 [a test]

i want to give you some criteria for determining how deep [intense; heartfelt; real] your love for God is. this post will just be a series of questions that i would really encourage you to sit down and think through. take 20 minutes out of your day. sacrifice some non-essential part of your day [a video game; facebook; texting] and instead sit down, by yourself, and think through these questions. maybe even copy and paste them and print them out then write down your answers on the paper.

you might blame me for being legalistic in some of these questions, i promise you i’m not. i’m asking these questions out of the conviction that what your life looks like on the outside reveals where your heart truly is; that what you love with your heart changes the way you live your life everyday. think about the heart as the root of who you are; it’s below the surface, no one sees it but you (and we don’t even understand our own hearts fully) and God. your every day life is the fruit and leaves and branches of the tree. if your root system is shallow and unhealthy, your leaves and fruit will be unhealthy. i didn’t make that example up, Christ did. he used it in luke 6:43-45.

your every day life; how you spend your time, money, energy, what you say, your attitudes, your choices; reveal what’s truly in your heart. it’s not legalism. it’s practical. a good spring doesn’t produce bad water. a bad spring doesn’t produce good water. here's a quote from a book called crazy love. "when we put it plainly like this--as a direct choice between God and our stuff--most of us hope we would choose God. but we need to realize that how we spend our time, what our money goes toward, and where we will invest our energy is equivalent to choosing God or rejecting Him." (francis chan)

one more disclaimer, then we’ll get going with the questions; this isn’t to say that you don’t have struggles. obviously we still struggle even after we love God. we still fall back into our sinful patterns of life where we love and worship ourself-made idols. killing idols and self-love is a life-long process. but it’s a process of progress. if God is truly inside of us, then we will grow.

i don't want you to doubt your salvation; i want you to examine whether or not you love God. that's it. if you don't love God, then it's time to examine your salvation. if you find that you do love God, but that it's an apathetic, half-hearted, lukewarm love, then it's time to step back and see what your true priorities in life are. we'll talk about both of those groups (those who don't love God and those who half-heartedly love God) in future posts.

here are the questions.

what does it mean to have a meaningful relationship with someone?

through the gospel we have a relationship with God; how does that affect the way you live?

do you have any desire to share the gospel with the people around you? the gospel is God’s message of hope for the world. it’s the work of Christ in the gospel that saved us and put us into relationship with the God who created the universe; the God who created us. if you don’t have a desire to spread that life-changing news, why not? He gave us new, abundant life. this leads into the next question...

we all “witness,” “evangelize,” and tell other people about the things we love (the things we’re excited about); would someone who recorded all your conversations know that you love God by what you talk about? or would they think you love sports more? or a girl (or boy) more? or a tv show? or facebook? or your friend’s opinions of you?

we all spend money on the things we love (the things that we value); where does your money go? does every penny go towards progressing your plans for your life (your hobbies; likes; your itunes library)? is it really God’s money? or is it yours?

the things that we value the most, that we love the most, are the things that we run to when life gets hard; they’re the things that we find refuge in; that we find comfort in; is it your first instinct to run to God in prayer and through His Word? or do you run to loud music in your room and use that as your coping mechanism to deal with life? or do you run to play your guitar? or run to go food? or do you run to _____________________ (fill in the blank)?

would you be willing to drop everything at a moment’s notice for Christ? of course that’s not necessarily a realistic scenario (maybe it will be for some of you or for me), but the question is, would you be willing? is God as valuable as the treasure hidden in the field which the man found and then sold everything he owned so he could buy the field (matthew 13:44)?

does the gospel matter to you? does it the fact that Someone died for you affect you in any way? does that truth that God continually pours out His grace in your life ever change the way you live or think about life? do you see God in your life, or do you view your life as being controlled by a combination of blind luck and your own savvy?

here's a quote from francis chan (a pastor in simi valley, california) in his book "crazy love." it's also a few questions; don't turn your brain off yet, think these through; be honest with yourself:

"are you willing to say to God that He can have whatever He wants? do you believe that wholehearted commitment to Him is more important than any other thing or person in your life? do you know that nothing you do in this life will ever matter, unless it is about loving God and loving the people He has made?"

this is where worship connects to love. the things that we love in life more than God, or equal to God, or that we love without glorifying God, or that we hold back from devoting to God, are idols. we’re false worshipers. more on the connection between love and worship in the next post.

think about it.

unity [2/19/10]

check out tim's message on the unity of God.

click here for audio