God Loves YOU.

Day Two?
So prior to this talk during the prayer meetings that I am required to attend two or three times a week. I have been looking for jobs. I had a big group interview at California Pizza Kitchen which I believe was a God thing cause it is located in this mini outlet mall about 5 min from my house. I was standing looking at a map right next to the Pizza place talking to Mom on the phone when out of no where I hear a "Mali!?" hah. I turn around and see Kaylan Bearden (who was a senior last year on the CCU women's soccer team) and she was dressed in the little CPK's server outfit running into work.
Here are the strange points about this.
1. If I was standing anywhere else looking at a different map I would have missed her.
2. She was LATE to work which means she was running inside haha so that means there was only a short  
    amount of time that we would have crossed paths.
3. I go follow her in and she asks which position I would want to be applying for and I said server during the
    day and she was said that is exactly what they are looking for!
4. My conclusion is that God wants me to work at California Pizza Kitchen

So I will keep my blog updated on if I end up working there or not. :)

So then the talk thingy!

Dan Perkins was talking (David's brother and Dan is the head of the Missional Track)

He starts of talking about how in the new testiment "Jesus takes the language of law and changes it to the language of Love."

For example in the Beatitudes Jesus talks about the laws of the old testimate but raises the bar. He examines the HEART not just the actions. Like murder, and how hating your brother is just as bad.
Jesus redefines everything that had been taught in the Old Testiment. They stay as truths obviously He just goes into greater detail of these truths and examines them through a different perspective.

"Jesus looks at the heart MOTIVE, not rules, what is your motive?"
This is definitely convicting. It's one of those things where I personally can say well I haven't done that or blah blah I am good, but if I really begin to examine why I do specific things it becomes a little evident that maybe it is just because I am selfish. Just the verses in the bible that speak about how if you do good works you will get a reward in Heaven kind of makes you want to do good things for yourself. Love should be the motivation. Not rewards.

"Rules of the Heart, if you love God your actions will begin to reflect obeying God"
Super true. Sometimes I wish I had more time to explain to people who aren't Christians why I want to refrain from doing things that God would be disappointed with. It is not about rules. It is because I want to obey my Father. If you love someone, obviously you want to please them. Look at your friends, look at your relationships, (sometimes not looking at the one you have with your parents, sometimes us children are a little rebellous) but over all we want to please the people who love and care about us. We don't want them to be upset with one another. We long for acceptance and approval. We want to hear that praise of "Well done my good and faithful servant." It is just natural. Everyone wants to be accepted.
So it must change from you looking at God placing rules on your life to you wanting to OBEY God because He knows what is best for you.

"The primary change in your life will be you getting to know Jesus."
Again, if you view Christianity as a set of rules then you will get completely burnt out. If you keep tally of the good works you have done versus the sin in your life you will always fall short. Look at Martin Luther! He is evidence of this. Martin Luther was so terrified of the Lord and doing poorly that he began to drive himself insane. Once you begin to realize the Lord's love for you then your life will be renewed and you will have motivation to please Him. So if we learn to know the Love of God and Jesus then suddenly you have motivation to do well.

"Get alone before the Lord. Being in DLA (or COTS youth group) does not mean you are with Jesus."
Brent has totally talked about this. Get in that tent of meeting. The main point that Dan Perkins is trying to convey through this message was that in 20 years in 50 years are you still going to be going hard after jesus.
If you rely on that meeting of other people being intense with God when you are in a group setting and feed off of their passion then you are not contributing. It is true. Each person MUST bring the intensity for themselves. Let your alone time with God be the fuel that lights the fire in group settings. Fill yourself up first.
What will happen in 20 years or when you are busy with a family and you may not have time to go to youth every evening, you need to be able to be passionate about God when no one else is around. When you can't go to Desperation any more because you are too old, you still must have the same burning desire to know the Lord. God is worthy of praise. Always and Forever.

-*- So how do we stay passionate for God a year from now, 10 years or 20 years from now?
Begin to understand this key point. > GOD. LOVES. YOU.

To comprehend this we must break it down.
1. Who is God??
    Well haha, lets see here. God is the creator of the UNIVERSE. nbd. He breathed life, the milky way and
    galaxies. He is Great.
2. What is Love?
     The definition that Dan used was this, "Love is passion for someones highest good."
     So God wants us to be the absolute best we can be. He cares about us. Little unrighteous twerps that sin
     all the time and mess stuff up; HOWEVER, that is not what He intended. God wanted us to be holy and
     know Him and Love Him. Therefore He began to create a plan on how He was going to restore us to
     that state.

This is where it gets interesting and the way Dan was talking about it was with humor. But we can laugh for a second and then we need to focus on the magnitude of this decision.
"So God and Jesus were chilling talking about all the awesome stuff they created.. 'remember that time we made the earth and those people? and how perfect it all was, well... maybe we didn't do so hot on that person, but overall it was awesome!!' and idk other stuff went on and then God was like okay Jesus. We must fix this. Jesus is like okay. So God is like, 'you are going to go down, become a human and then live a perfect life and die for all of man's sins.' and Jesus is like.. 'what??? God I mean I hope you know what you are doing cause that that kinda seems idk crazy.'"
Or who knows what actually happened there but JESUS being OBIEDIENT, because He knows GOD loves Him goes along with it.

The next point is very very interesting.
3. "It was probably a harder death for God to humble Himself and become a Human than it was when He
    died on the cross. God made that decision before the cross so when Jesus became a man He knew all
    along what was going to happen. Jesus knew He would suffer a horrible death the moment He became a
    Human."
    "Jesus focused on the middle part of His life, He didn't look at His death. He looked at the joy He would
    recieve from teaching and loving people. He did not remember that decision to become a human and
    humble himself. It was what He would gain from the people He interacted with."
    How crazy, the amount that God loves us. It is very interesting to not only think of the death on the cross
    but also that decision before hand to become His own creation.
4. Jesus says in John 15:9 "as the Father has loved me, I have loved you."
    Since we know that God loves Jesus an amazing amount that means that Jesus loves us an amazing
    amount.
5. *** "The main lie the enemy uses against you is that you are unloved."
    And why you might ask? "BECAUSE LOVED PEOPLE ARE DANGEROUS."
    YEAH! If you know your parents love you and support you in anything you do it gives you the freedom to
    run after dreams harder because the harder you run the harder you fall. And if you fall you know you will
    caught when people love you. I could care less what strangers think of me for LOVING GOD. That
    allows me to be radical in my LOVE for GOD. Which means that I can make a difference. I know that my
    friends and family support me, and most importantly the GOD OF THE AGES loves ME.
6. "When you know you are loved you love back."
    Strange concept here.. haha when people are nice to  you, you are nice back to them. It is called how you
    make friends :) yay! So if God loves you and you understand that then you will want to love him back.


OKAY. RECAP.
So because God loves you and His, "thoughts about you outnumber the sand on the shore" then you will want to love Him back, forever.

Paul kind of understood the magnitude of God's love for us, as seen here in Ephesians 3:14-19

 ¹⁴ For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family^[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

TO KNOW THIS LOVE THAT SURPASSES KNOWLEDGE.

If you begin to read the things that paul has written, his passion is contagious and he is very inspiring. Thats all.