IKEA & God's Word

(posted by Ruth Abigail Smith)

I am originally from Houston, TX and in Houston we have a popular furniture store called IKEA. Now if you know anything about IKEA, you know that if you choose to purchase something from IKEA, you will end up putting it together yourself. My family is not the handiest, so putting together furniture was never a strong point for us. It was always a hassle and took forever to do! But one thing I can say is that they did not expect you do it without the proper tools and instructions, which were always included in the package. They had pictures and a step by step process that required no thinking as long as you were willing to read everything carefully and follow the directions to a T. If this was done, you were sure to have a nice looking new piece of furniture in your home.

Funny that life is a lot like that. I never thought that I would ever compare the Bible to IKEA’s instructions, but they are very similar. God has given us instructions for day to day living in His word. Yet, we insist on figuring things out for ourselves or justifying the way we want to live by customizing our lives according to personality, experience, and preference. What good are instructions if you are unwilling to use them? Or only use them when you feel like you need them? Or only follow them partially? I have learned that no one knows the product better than the manufacturer; and lucky for us the Bible is straight from the author of life Himself. We owe it to ourselves to read the instructions and then following them accordingly; God gave them to us for our benefit, but yet we work so hard to try to figure things out for ourselves when we don’t have to.

One of my favorite scriptures is Joshua 1:8. It says, “Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so that you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.” (NLT). God has promised success and prosperity to those who follow HIS instructions. That is great news! Now I am not oblivious to the fact that there are some things that are not as easy to understand and do not seem very clear in scripture; but luckily we have direct access to God who has promised to give us wisdom and understand if we just ask for it. Even in the midst of uncertainty we can still follow those things we know to be true and trust that God will take care of the rest.

(posted by Ruth Abigail Smith)

Your Place in Line

"Can you keep up?"~ Beyonce.

This one night a few years ago I was driving down the road. I looked at the car next to me and this guy I used to know in college was driving next to me with his window rolled down and was looking at me waving and shouting my name. We pulled over and had a little reunion on the side of the road. So we decided to go to a bar to hang out. After that night I never saw him again. But he said one thing that stuck with me since then. He had gone to Romania and people formed this long line to receive these health supplies they were distributing. "The thing is, everyone was pushing and shoving to get to the front, everyone was fighting over there place in line. How different yet alike we all are. Everyone in the world cares about their place in line."

It's so true. I think the world paints this false illusion that we are all in competition with one another to get to the front of the line. A collective voice of advertisements, tv, magazines, billboards, songs, etc, tells us that we need to buy this, be that, and look like this in order to keep up with each other, in order to get ahead. Spend your money, time and energy on whatever it tells you you need in order to push your way to the front. Even our driving reflects this truth, who can get to the stop light first? People obey the voice with such vigor and delight because it promises life and validation at the front.

And you know what would be really ironic and hilarious? If at the end of life God nonchalantly picked up the line by both ends with the tips of his fingers and turned it around making the front the back and the back the front. Then everyone who had worked so vigorously, spending their lives fighting to get to the front of the line would find that they just lost the "competition" they thought they were in. They would find that they were last. All that hard work to get themselves ahead just put them behind. And those who spent their lives letting others in and putting others ahead of themselves were humbly, casually, carelessly, selflessly making their way to the front with out even trying.

"but many who are first will be last, and the last first." ~ Jesus

You Can Thank Me Now

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen... 2 Cor. 4:18

Well, that's a hard thing to do. Basically see a thing that you can not see. That is what Paul is saying that we are to do.

But especially when you are facing trials and "troubles of many kinds" how can you even see past your own self, your own trials, your own broken-ness. All you can see is what you see, which is the trial right in front of you, which causes you to look completely inward.

This is the imagery that comes to mind. It is like you are in a tiny room that is so small you can't even take a step. The walls are mirrors all around you. It gives the illusion that it should be big, spacious and full, but in reality it is only reflecting your own image and situation over and over until you cannot look beyond yourself. You cannot see others. You cannot love others.

I am familiar with this room, I've been in it many times. There are many doors through which you can enter: pride, pain, self-pity, envy, selfishness, etc. But I have have only found one through which I can exit. The door of Praise.

And we can only praise God in our pain when we see what we cannot see. His goodness when our situation feels awful. His faithfulness when it seems like he left us. His purpose when it feels wasted. And it really just takes faith to be able to see these things. But I think when we ask him to help us see the unseen, his spirit will show us.

This morning I was praying about some trials I am facing right now. And I felt like this is what God said to me, "Later on you will thank me for this, so in the words of Drake, "You can thank me now." Literally, that's what I heard... haha God knows how to speak to me :)

Steven Furtick says, "There is always a story behind someone's glory, there is always a pain behind someone's productivity for Christ, there is always pruning behind someone's fruitfulness." And some how I think that can help us praise God in the trials that he allows us to face. Because he is using something temporary to do something eternal.

So if you're facing a trial right now, that is what you can see, but it is temporary. The fruit, the glory, the purpose is what you cannot see... but it's eternal. It carries eternal weight and value. And maybe there is a way that in believing that, you can actually see it... you actually begin to see what is unseen.

"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Cor. 4:17-18

We can thank him now... for what we will thank him for later.

New Vision for 2013!

If you currently attend the Young Adult Community at Hope Church you may have heard of the exciting changes that will be taking place in January 2013. Since the launch of the ministry in 2009 our vision has been, "to be a Christ-centered community for young adults." We reached out to the 20 something age group at Hope and we met on Sunday mornings at 11:15.

Early in 2012 we sensed God leading us to launch a new vision in 2013. The primary focuses of this new vision is, "to reach young adults in Memphis and develop disciples who bear much fruit." John 15:8 says, "This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples." This verse is the catalyst for our new vision.

Tuesday Nights: Part of the change in the vision is to create a new, dynamic worship experience for young adults all over Memphis. This new worship experience will launch on January 22, 2013. Our goal is to provide engaging authentic worship with powerful and passionate messages that will spur us on towards growth in Christ. Pastor Issac Curry will be preaching our first series, "Under New Management: Living the Life God Intends For Me." We will go hang out somewhere near by afterwards.

Our reach will also expand to now be geared towards the 20 and 30 something's all over Memphis!

Discipleship is our goal and to do this we will be launching a bunch of new discipleship groups that are intended to be more in depth groups. These will begin to launch in February. We hope that these groups will facilitate deeper relationships in community and especially growth in people's faith that they would develop as disciples of Christ who would in turn help make more disciples by investing their lives in the lives of others.

Sunday's at Hope the young adults will be sitting together in the main service at 11:15 at Hope. We'll be in the far right, very front section, down by where the pastor's sit. Then we will go to lunch afterwards!

The purpose of this blog is to be a place that we post different devotional type messages, we will ask different people who attend the young adult community and people in the various discipleship groups if they'd like an opportunity to write up a post of something God is showing them or teaching them. So this blog will be made up by other young adults that way we can stay connected spiritually through out the week. Hopefully it will be a source of encouragement and way to build up your faith.

Getting involved with this new vision will be made easy through the different teams we are developing to help run the ministry. We have a greeter team, follow up team, coffee team, hospitality team, lighting team, data entry team, video/powerpoint team, and worship team. If you would like to be involved through serving in any of these ways or have questions, email Molly@hopepres.com

We are looking forward to what God is going to do in our city and in our generation in 2013! Please be praying with us and helping us get the word out. Invite some friends to our opening night on Tuesday Jan 22nd!!

~molly