So many women are looking for mentors – other women who can help them navigate faith, decisions, all of life – but how do you find a mentor?
In this episode, Tiffany Ravedutti sits down with Christy Williams and Becky Napoli to discuss the biblical call of discipling and mentoring women, how we can make that happen, and how God blesses these unique relationships.
Camp is over and now your student may be asking questions like “How do I continue to grow in my faith?” or “How do I live out my faith in the world around me?”
Check out this video for four tips to help you journey with your student after camp.
It’s a question so many well-intentioned Christians ask: “How can I do more for God?”
You experience the love of God and the goodness of the Gospel, and your natural, automatic response is, God did something significant for me, so I want to do something significant for Him! How can I pay him back?
The problem is nothing we could do for God could ever repay him for the grace he has shown us in the Gospel. In fact, God isn’t sitting around waiting for someone to offer their assistance so he can finally get something done around here. And there’s really nothing we can offer to God that he doesn’t already have.
So… what can we do for God, we wonder.
To find the answer, we start trying things like serving in the church, reaching out to neighbors, and being better stewards and employees and husbands and mothers and friends. But at some point, serving stops being convenient. It starts creating tension, conflicts with our goals, becomes overwhelming, and, little by little, we drop the plow we excitedly picked up in an effort to perform for the God who loves us unconditionally. The problem for many of us is we have the wrong idea of what it means to serve. It’s not about what we can do for God out of obligation or recompense, and more about how we can partner with him in love.
To help illustrate the difference, I want to give you two different pictures of Jesus and the way he served the Father during his earthly ministry. These are beautifully illustrated in the book The Burden is Light by Jon Tyson.
AMERICAN JESUS
If we were to write the Gospels today, they would be infused with this winner script. They would probably go something like this:
“Jesus was born of a virgin (a great start), and as a teenager, he was passionate about his Father’s house. He started his ministry with a prophetic declaration about the kingdom of God, fulfilling truth in a new and spectacular way. He then called disciples, gathered momentum, confronted hypocrisy, healed the sick, raised the dead, and challenged Herod. Then he voluntarily died to become the savior of the world. He rose again in victory, proving to everyone that he was alive, then ascended into heaven. Right before he arrived, the heavens opened and the Father announced, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’ The angels stood to their feet, the disciples raised their hands in victory, and all of heaven rejoiced.”
For generations we have been trying to earn our Father’s applause by following this script. But of course, that’s not how Jesus’s life was ordered at all.
AUTHENTIC JESUS
The actual Gospels are not ordered like this. They show Jesus spending almost thirty years in relative obscurity. Before he healed a sick person, raised the dead, confronted hypocrisy, made disciples, preached to the crowds, and died and rose again, he was baptized. And at Jesus’s baptism, his Father declared, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”* Jesus hadn’t done anything public or important yet, so what could the Father have been pleased with? It’s simple. Relationship. Jesus spent thirty years abiding in his Father’s love, and that was enough. What pleased the Father was not Jesus’s accomplishments but his intimacy. This is the same thing that pleases him in our lives today.
Because Jesus was aware of his Father’s approval before starting his ministry, he didn’t have to compete with others during his ministry. The Father’s approval gave Jesus the security to avoid an addiction to success and scandalously give his life away in love. [1]
You see, Jesus lived a life of ministry out of love. He loved the Father and knew he was loved by the Father, regardless of his performance or success. There was no trying to pay the Father back for his love; his life was simply an expression of the love he had already received in his relationship with the Father.
When we go to serve God, whether it be in the local church, in the community, in our families or workplaces, we must adjust our motivation and remember this: God already loves you and accepts you because of Jesus. There is nothing that you can do to earn his love or repay him for it. So, when you serve, let it be out of an abundance of love and devotion.
Will it be difficult? Sometimes.
Will it be inconvenient? Often, yes.
But a life lived partnering with Jesus in love is a life lived as a son and daughter – not simply a servant.
If you’d like to find ways to get connected serving in this local expression of the church, click here. We’d love to help you find a place to serve that suits your gifts and talents and serves the body of Christ effectively.
[1] Jon Tyson, The Burden Is Light: Liberating Your Life from the Tyranny of Performance and Success (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah, 2018), 52-53.
In this episode, Tanner Smith interviews Lead Pastor, Bruce Wesley and Teaching Pastor, Yancey Arrington about this week’s sermon, “Real Faith, Apostasy, and Community”.
They discuss questions like: How does this sermon fit within the Biblical story of redemption? How did this message convict them, personally?
In this episode, Tanner Smith interviews Associate Pastor, Greg Poore and 528 Campus Pastor, Chris Alston about this week’s sermon, “Being Prayerful”.
They discuss questions like: How does this sermon fit within the Biblical story of redemption? How did this message convict them, personally?
In this episode, Tanner Smith interviews 528 Campus Pastor, Chris Alston about this week’s sermon, “Enduring Injustice”.
They discuss questions like: How does this sermon fit within the Biblical story of redemption? How did this message convict them, personally?
In this episode, Tanner Smith interviews Egret Bay Campus Pastor, Ryan Lehtinen and Clear Lake Student Director, Kyle Mikulan about this week’s sermon, “Making Plans in Uncertain Times”.
They discuss questions like: How does this sermon fit within the Biblical story of redemption? How did this message convict them, personally?
In this episode, Tiffany Ravedutti interviews Lead Pastor, Bruce Wesley and Teaching Pastor, Yancey Arrington about this week’s sermon, “The Surprising Pathway to Happiness”.
They discuss questions like: How does this sermon fit within the Biblical story of redemption? How did this message convict them, personally?
Tiffany Ravedutti interviews Ryan Lehtinen, Egret Bay’s campus pastor, and Greg Poore, Associate pastor about this week’s sermon, “The Wisdom of Real Faith.”
They discuss questions like: How does this sermon fit within the Biblical story of redemption? How did this message convict them, personally?
“Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, rejoice!” [Clap! Clap!]
What a great time I had singing this little tune in 1980’s Children’s Church! It might’ve been a little easier to belt out Paul’s admonition from Philippians 4 when my biggest concerns in life were scraped knees or broken crayons. But when real life hits hard, this is not the song that pops up as a favorite, that’s for sure.
Sometimes, rejoicing in our circumstances feels counter intuitive. You might ask, Am I expected to power through pain with a big smile on my face proclaiming, “I’m too blessed to be stressed!”?
When the bottom falls out and our disappointments are deep, or our grief is sharp, how can we truly rejoice in the Lord?
The truth is a Christian always has reasons to rejoice with gratitude, whether our situation is merely crummy or blatantly tragic. Here are some reasons the Bible gives that should cause our hearts to be glad.
1. We are loved and paid for.
When Jesus lived a sinless life and died on the cross, he showed love more deeply than any human could give. “By this we know love, that Jesus Christ laid down His life for us,” (1 John 3:16). Not only are we redeemed by Christ’s work at Calvary, but we’ve been adopted into God’s family. “See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God! And so we are,” (1 John 3:1).
Maybe you are aware that the Psalms frequently tell of God’s unfailing love. But did you also know that many of these were written amidst trials? A common pattern found in these chapters is an expression of fear, mourning, betrayal, or regret, but they follow up with remembrance of the deeds God has done and praise to him in light of his love toward the writer. What a valuable pattern for us to follow when our own hearts are faint and aching. “But I have trusted in your steadfast love, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has death bountifully with me,”(Psalm 13:4-6).
We can always rejoice because our souls have been saved.
2. We are never alone.
We see the relational character of God throughout Scripture. For example, even though the nation of Israel failed him over and over, he didn’t abandon them. “Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you,” (Isaiah 43:1-2). Just as a good parent wouldn’t dream of walking away from their children when they are most vulnerable and hurting, God promises to stay near to us.
When Jesus spoke of his Spirit dwelling within his children, he said, “I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you,” (John 14:18), and, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age,” (Matthew 28:20). We can rejoice in knowing God’s Spirit is ever-present in us.
3. We grow through hardships.
Adversity has a way of stripping us of trivial things to reveal the foundation of our faith. Peter wrote to believers in the early church who were experiencing exile, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith — more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire — may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ,” (1 Peter 1:6-7).
Scripture also tells us that God’s saving work is made very clear to us when our own strength is feeble. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” (1 Corinthians 12:9).
Perhaps you’ve experienced neediness and had to depend on God as your provider. Maybe you’ve longed for something that you couldn’t have and learned to see Christ as all-sufficient. It might be that unexpected events led you to learn about God’s sovereignty, or your grief brought you to know God as the Father of all comfort. We can rejoice knowing that our faith is cultivated through hardships.
4. We have a hopeful future.
Most of us have learned that we don’t always experience happy endings. Unlike inspirational sitcoms of the 90’s, there isn’t a guaranteed, heartfelt wrap-up to our biggest challenges. Sometimes, despite our most earnest prayers and faithful efforts, bad things happen. For the Christian, this doesn’t need to lead us to despair. Jesus said to his followers, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world,” (John 16:33).
We at Clear Creek love to sing the song by Andrew Peterson, “Is He Worthy?” There is a line in the second verse that I find myself unable to sing without choking up in heartfelt relief: “Does our God intend to dwell again with us? He does!” It reminds me of the vision that the apostle John wrote about in Revelation 21:3-4, which describes a future that every believer will experience.
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’”
Even the harshest earthly circumstances pale in comparison to the coming grandeur. We can rejoice because we know that we will share in the victorious eternal glory of Jesus Christ!
It’s not necessary to pretend that trials are fun. Even the most devout follower of Jesus wouldn’t choose to walk through suffering. Still, we know that even in our deepest valleys, our souls always have reasons to rejoice because God loves us, he is with us, he is working on us, and he has promised to make all things new!