Bioluminescence.

Will I ever be free? Will my self worth ever be solely defined by Jesus Christ or is it a by-product of the fall that I continue to be trapped into defining my self worth by the way others treat me? Where is freedom?
What is freedom?

I’m going to be a teacher someday. I have a year and a half left of my degree so someday isn’t so far off.

I want to be a teacher for a few reasons. Firstly because I had some great teachers who taught me to love learning. They inspired me. I want to inspire the children I teach to be curious about the world they live in.

The second reason is because I want to help those children who find learning difficult. I want to find the ways that help them to do so and then do it. I don’t want any child to feel dumb in my class. I want them all to feel as though they have achieved something.

Thirdly, I want to be a teacher so that I can teach the kids I have in my class how to honor one another. So many people I know are broken from how they were treated at school. Kids can be cruel, but that’s not okay. I’m going to teach the kids in my class about relationship, about how to care for one another.

Lastly, I want every kid to know that they are special, no matter what they look like, or how they learn, or how much money they have. I want them to wake up each morning feeling as though they are ready to face the world, and I want to provide them with an experience of love that will last them a lifetime. Everyone struggles with the idea of feeling special, of feeling loved. I want to create an environment in my class that allows all of my students to feel safe and secure. I want them to know that their thoughts and opinions and feelings are important. I want them to see just how amazing they are- every day.

There is so much brokenness in this world. As a teacher, I have an opportunity to speak life into a group of kids every year. And maybe I can make a difference.

I’ve started to realise just how many lies I still believe about myself, lies that I let define myself. I just can’t imagine how hard it must be to live, drenched in those lies, without Jesus Christ. He restores my soul.

But if something gets broken, it has to be fixed before it can be used again. If someone downloads a whole bunch of malware onto your computer, it’s not going to work according to its purpose- at least not effectively. It’s not necessarily your fault. But you can get rid of it. It’s not part of what makes the computer a computer. It actually functions better without it. But if you don’t know it’s there, then you only know that the computer is not working properly, and that’s frustrating, and you might even consider just trashing it. Don’t do it to yourself. Find the stuff that’s in you that’s keeping you from your God given purpose, and ask him to help you be free from it. You can’t fulfil your purpose if you’re broken, but God is the ultimate healer. He created you, so He knows exactly what you’re meant to look like on your insides, in those secret places inside your heart and soul. He knows what your purpose is. He’s the best person for the job.

This weekend while on Summer Camp, I started reading Keith Green’s biography, which is called No Compromise. I actually started reading it because I’m going to be moving into my church (which is a massive, 11 bedroom house called the White House) in March and it’s required reading. Being as excited as I am about moving into the White House, I was keen to read the book. By the way, Keith Green’s life was incredible. If you haven’t read the book I highly recommend it.

What I didn’t realise was just how much God was planning to use this book to emphasise some of the things we had been talking about and praying about at Summer Camp. We’d been talking about the journey from law to grace to relationship, and what that looks like with regards to different aspects of the life of a Christian. It’s an interesting and yet somewhat confusing topic, but I found that relating it to the way we rear children (or the way I imagine I would rear my children- as well as seeing the example of those with children around me) made it easier to understand.

When you are a child, you are told what is right and wrong. Your parents make those decisions for you and if you break the law you are disciplined. As you get older, you begin to understand a little bit more about what is good and what is bad. You begin to understand the concept of ‘do unto others as you would have done to you’. Then, as you begin to journey into adulthood, you begin to understand the concept of choice. As a Christian, it means that you decide to do what you see the Father doing. You live in relationship with him.

As our level of maturity grows, the way we are raised changes. The law isn’t bad- in fact it is quite relevant at certain stages of your journey towards God. But you can’t be saved through law alone, for Romans 3:23-24 says

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Why then, was the law given? it was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child who was promised… Galatians 3:19

Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian. Galatians 3:24-25

The law was for us as children! God never intended that to be where we stop. He just wanted us to know that we couldn’t save ourselves. When you’re in a relationship with someone, you want to do things for them, love them, serve them. That’s where faith without works comes in, for a faith without works is also without love, and without love you are just a noisy gong (James 2:19-20, 1 Corinthians 13:1).

We also talked about how we often try to introduce people to the law or the church but often neglect to actually introduce them to God. We talked about how important it is to live a life that reflects God’s glory, as is repeatedly stated in 1 Peter. 

When I look at Keith Green’s short life, I am overcome by his incredible passion to share the love of God with as many people as possible. Keith and his wife Melody began to share the gospel with people as soon as they made a commitment to follow Christ, often welcoming recovering drug addicts or young, pregnant teens into their home. Keith was burdened with a passion to share Christ with everyone he came across, even going as far as giving away thousands of free CDs and doing heaps of free concerts because he believed that all who had ears to hear should be able to hear and not be restricted by their financial status. His constant struggle with humility astounded me. The journal entries his wife has shared in the biography show a heart distraught by its pride, and yet it is obvious that Keith was incredibly humble and eager to serve the Lord in any way he might ask. I looked at my life and I didn’t see pride. How large the log in my eye must be!

God spoke to me and to most of my community at camp about the need to reignite our passions both for him and for the lost. Keith’s life spoke to me about this too, and I have come away from the last few days feeling as though there is no more time to waste. Keith Green died in a plane crash at 28. That’s only five years older than I am now. God has spoken to us about the harvest that is plentiful, and has called us to be the workers. I don’t want to spend my life being lukewarm, for God says in Revelation 3:16

…since you are lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!

God has called me. Am I willing? I am. But it means that there is no compromise. I have to be completely willing to sacrifice anything that comes between me and God. Right now, that’s staying where I am work-wise, even though I often feel undervalued and disrespected. God wants to use me there. Right now, that’s my desire to get married. I’ve wanted to have my own family ever since I was a child, but I realise that right at the moment I need to put that dream aside. Forever, if God asks me to. I don’t think that he is asking me to give this up forever (I hope not!), but for now it is a hindrance to what God wants me to do- whatever he wants me to do, and so I must be willing to give it up. I don’t want to be a vine that doesn’t bear any fruit.

Right now, God is teaching me to be humble. To put aside my pride and relinquish control over my life to him. He is teaching me what it is to be in relationship with him, what it looks like to spend time in prayer and in his word. He is teaching me to be joyful in the sacrifice.

I will not compromise. My life is not my own. I have died to myself, and have been made new in Christ. I am nothing without him.