Patience is a Virtue

I am struggling right now with patience. Patience with feeling better from being ill, with my parents, with my friends, with my relationship with God. I am learning that not everything happends on my time, or the way in which I want it to.

So...in hopes of trying to releive some of this stress and anxiety - I'm blogging about Jesus!

This entry will focus a little on the sermon by my brothers good friend Luke Miedema at the Crossing Church on November 30, 2008.

Luke preached an amazing sermon -- partly I would like to believe because he had the support of a ton of his friends there! My brother and his girlfriend went to church at the Crossing for the first time ever, (and probably the first time being at church in a long time too) as well as about 5 or 6 other of Luke's good friends.

In any case, he talked about the "funcitonal gospel" or what we actually use to determine our daily behavior. Come to find out what we use as our functional gospel is entirely different from the gospel we should be living. The Christian life is a fight to believe the promises of God. Man I love that statement -- it inspired the name of this blog! Luke says we can do this in three ways
1. know yourself and know the top contenders for your heart
2. spot false gospels when they fail (because God will NEVER fail you)
3. preach the gospel to eachother daily

The question was raised "What is the most threatening thing to our faith?" I think this really responds to #1 on the aforementioned list. We have to know what the top contenders for our heart are so we can block those out and make sure we don't start looking to them as our gospels instead of Christ. We as humans always try and make our faith "grace + something". This takes away our precious energy from God -- all we need is grace, nothing more! Furthermore, this "grace + something" attitude towards life is ultimately sinful, which is a broken connection with God.

A good verse to end with:

"Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."
-Ephesians 6:14-17