...with all your soul,

For the past few weeks I've been using the book, Primal, by Mark Batterson to write a sermon series for the high school youth group at Western Oaks. Last Sunday was Soul Sunday. This was all about loving God with all your Soul.

"The average person looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feelings, eats without tasting, inhales without the awareness of odor or fragrance, and talks without thinking." -Leonardo da Vinci

Loving God with all your soul means that you see, hear, feel, taste, smell, and think. Loving God with all your soul means that you recognize God's creation and presence. Loving God with all your Soul means that you're in awe of what God has done and continues to do.

1 Peter 1:18 puts it this way-Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. (Message)

Have you ever really considered God's words in Genesis as he finished creating the universe? "...it was very good." Genesis 1:31 Even God himself was in awe of His creation! Are you? If you blow through life forgetting to see, hear, feel, taste, smell, and think, chances are you aren't in awe of God.

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Angels in the Outfield

In the Disney movie, Angels in the Outfield, there is a 'memorable' scene where the coach holds a press conference in order to clear up any confusion about angels helping his team. At the conference, he is prepared to deny all the rumors about angels. Something ends up coming over him though and, instead, he ends up saying that he actually believes that angels have been helping his team. (If only this were the Cubbies!) Most kids likely don't question anything about this movie-probably because it seems like nothing more than a fantasy. It does bring up an interesting question though: do angels exist? And if so, what role do they play in our lives? As abstract of a topic as this is, we are going to tackle it this week at Cutting Edge. We'll be challenging the students with a story from Acts 12 where Peter is freed from prison by an angel sent by God. We'll be using this passage to teach the students that not only do angels exist, but they have God ordained roles in our lives. Not sure for yourself? Neither was Peter. For a while, he thought he was dreaming as the angel was rescuing him! Once his chains were removed, though, he quickly stopped doubting.

Check out Psalm 91:11- "For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways..." Maybe the term 'guardian angel' isn't so cliche after all? We're shown in many places throughout scripture that angels do, in fact, exist. I think we are just skeptical though because we've made angels out to be recycled dead people floating around the world with butterfly wings, halos, and harps! The bible doesn't give us concrete evidence of any of those things! Instead, it does show us that angels are real, that God created them, and that he uses angels to protect His people-just like the angel that rescued Peter from Prison in Acts 12!

Love God with all your heart....

Did you know that hearts have cellular memories and brain-like hormones? Probably not, but research suggests as much. Research has also shown how the majority of heart transplant patients receive a whole new set of sensory responses, cravings, and habits.

Thankfully, neither I nor my loved ones have had to experience the thought of getting a new heart. At least not in the physical sense. In Ezekiel 36:26, though, God makes it pretty clear that I have experienced a heart transplant in a different sort of way. "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

You see, when you decide to follow Christ, it is your heart that is changed. More often than not though, we tend to let our heart stay the same, and merely change our behavior.

God calls us to something different though. He calls us to a life where we receive a new heart-a heart that has new cravings and new habits. You see, it is important that our behavior changes to reflect God's love in us; but the reason that behavior changes should come from a new heart.

That is what loving God with all your heart is about. It's about noticing pain and suffering and doing something about it. Mark Batterson puts it this way-Loving God with all your heart means that your heart breaks for the things that break God's heart.

Primal: A Reading Rainbow Moment

Two weeks ago I dove into a new book. This one has been sitting on my shelf for quite some time and I've felt rather guilty about it as the author sent me a copy for free. (By the way, thanks Mark Batterson!) Anyhow, I was captivated within a page. Batterson is a great story teller and he doesn't mess around with fluff at the beginning of his books.

A friend of mine always asks what the nugget of any book is. This book's nugget is pretty clear: "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength." -Mark 12:30

As this is the greatest commandment, you'd think that Christians would spend a lot of time making sure we're doing it. I don't know that we are though. I think that is why Batterson spends nearly 200 pages on what it means to fulfill this commandment.

Primal made me think. It made me question. At times, it made me hurt.

I'm going to go ahead and recommend this book to you. Definitely read it. If you don't want to buy it-I'll give you mine. (Seth Godin told me to.)

I thought it was so good that I wrote a High School sermon series based off of it. I'll be blogging about that soon! I hope you'll read this-really, I do.

Once upon a time...

....I scheduled an hour every Monday to write a new post.

For my two readers out there, I am deeply sorry. The posts will begin again roughly about now.

3rd Place

Last night Matt Mead, head coach of the Lady Eagles basketball team of Robert Morris University, came and shared with us during halftime of the Superbowl.

He had some great things to say. One comment really stood out to me though. He told the students to put themselves third.

In today's culture this isn't something that is easy. More often than not we are thinking of ourselves first. We want to be noticed, be the best, look the best, have lots of friends, fit in, win. Just think of the whole premise of the Superbowl-both teams were there to win! They weren't putting the other team first at any point during that game!

If we live in a culture that enforces being the best then how is anyone supposed to put themselves third?

In Matthew 22 Jesus tells us to love God, and love our neighbors. These are the greatest commandments.

Put God first, others second, and yourself third.

Are you third or first?

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Daddy!

This last week at HS youth group we took a risk and opened up a can of worms. For the past few weeks we've been talking about love. This week we wanted to get the students to really think about the love that God has for them.

They know God loves them. You probably know it too. You've sang the song (Jesus Loves Me), you've read it in the Bible (John 3:16, among others), and you've probably been told a time or two.

But do you really know? Do you really feel God's love? Do you really think God loves you?

In Matthew 7:9-11 we get this great description of a dad. It finishes up, though, by telling us that God is our dad. There is a huge difference though between our dads on earth and God being our dad. You see, God is perfect-in every way.

Thus, the can of worms. Some of the students in our youth group have great dads, others have OK dads, some have crappy dads, and still others don't even have a dad. You also fit into one of those categories. Regardless of which, though, everyone shares this common bond: the dad that they do or don't have is not perfect. He has flaws.

God calls himself our father. A lot of times we refer to him as our father. For some of us though, that's a hard thing to think about because we aren't fond of our earthly dads (or don't have one).

When a child is little they have this ingrained perception that their parents are perfect. Eventually that wears off though, and they realize that their parents have faults (there is a psychological term for this, but I can't remember or find it!).

One of our youth volunteers, Steve, puts it this way:

• "The point is that our Heavenly Father is perfect without flaws and needs to be seen on a different level than our parents. When we are little our parents seem like gods, until we see them make a mistake. But no matter your relationship with your father (or mother) it is very important to keep improving your relationship with God."

That's awesome insight right there!

When a child loves someone (especially a parent) and they see them, their natural reaction is to run to them. I have a good friend who's son will run to him and scream "Daddy!" every day when he gets home from work. He doesn't schedule time for his daddy, he doesn't plan a conversation with him-he runs to him. Why? Because he knows his Daddy loves him and he wants to love him back.

Do you love God like that? Do you know that God loves you like that?

Your daddy is supposed to love you. Whether he does or doesn't or whether you have one or not, your heavenly daddy loves you-seriously loves you.

God's your daddy. Will you run to Him?

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