LJ Photography: Journal Entry Week Three: The Character and Nature of God.

Ok. Week three down. I can’t believe I’m going into my 5^th week here. I hate how fast it’s going by. I mean seriously… HATE it. It makes me want to cry. It was hard leaving my family to come here, and I knew I was going to come back to them. But what am I gonna do when I have to say goodbye to my family here knowing that I’m never gonna see everyone like this again?

Anyway… that has nothing to do with lectures this week. Our topic for the week was the Character and Nature of God with Judy Smith. Ron and Judy smith are the pioneers of YWAM’s School of Biblical studies, an intense nine month course that digs into every aspect of the Bible, requiring the students to reads it 5 times before the course is done. So needless to say, Judy knows her Bible.

But probably the coolest thing to come out of this week (for me and a lot of other people I think) was the urge to look into the Bible for ourselves. Interpretation of scripture by speakers, pastors, anyone at all can be faulty. They’re people. Yes people can hear from God and God can speak truth through them, but look into it yourself and let Him affirm it in you. The Bible is the only form of truth that we can trust and we need to double check. Even just within our three speakers so far we’ve had conflicting opinions on passages and their context. That’s just something to think about. Let it stew around in your brain a bit. ;-)

Ok so Character and Nature of God. Judy broke it down into four main points for us.

1) God is relational

This was cool. We started by looking in Genesis about how we were made in God’s image. What we need to remember in understanding this is that God is three while God is One. He is made up of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Three beings in community and relationship together, serving each other, becoming one God. (Yes this is a hard concept to comprehend, but ask me for some verses on it if you want to know more. We had a special night lecture with Ron about it.) If we are made in God’s image, we are made for and invited into that relationship and community as He is in the Trinity. We see a piece of this concept in marriage. God said man was not meant to be alone and created Eve. We were designed for relationship.

It was in this section that we’ve also been painted a picture of what life and relationship with God was supposed to be like. After God made everything, he saw that it was good! And after He made man, He saw that it was very good. He has a good nature. He makes good things. This is important. Male and female were created equal. He blessed them both, not one over the other. They have a common creator and were told to do the same things. But God set boundaries, commands. This is a good thing; He shows that He’s in control.

It was in the fall and sin of Adam and Eve that the oneness and relationship that was intended was torn apart. Suddenly Adam and Eve are not working as a unit anymore. Instead, they start blaming each other and trying to hide their nakedness and shame with fig leaves. The results of this sin? His creation is now ruling over each other (women submitting to men). Death has entered the world. Everything that was intended in this relationship was broken.

But this fall and this condemnation does not happen without a promise of redemption from a loving God that created man for relationship.

Which brings us to point number two.

2) Salvation is from God alone.

There is nothing man can do once sin enters the world. It was God who had to come to us through his Son. Isaiah 53 prophesies his coming. It is no work of ours that redeems us. This seems like a basic thought for Christians, but it’s so key and we often forget it. Judy talked a lot about Abraham and how it was not his works (circumcision) that brought him salvation, but it was his faith and belief in God. God brought his people out of Egypt FIRST, then He gave them the law. It has never been about law or works. The law was added to teach us and to point to Christ, but has nothing to do with the promise of redemption that was made to Abraham. It prepared for the coming of Christ. It is a standard, but doesn’t deliver.

It was at the cross that God’s justice and mercy met.

There must be atonement. Blood must be spilled. But this holy and merciful God took it upon himself. We must count ourselves righteous through the cross and know that we can play no part in it, or we only believe half of the good news of Christ. Instead, we are called to live a life of gratitude and faithfulness.

There’s nothing we can do to add to what Jesus has done.

It is in understanding this that we learn to understand Judy’s third point.

3) God gives us our true identity in Him.

This is one of the hardest ones for me to apply. It’s not something that we haven’t heard before and it’s not something that’s necessarily hard to understand. But it’s certainly something that is hard to accept in our hearts and to let it actually affect the way we live.

Judy started off this session by making us rate our relationship with God on a scale of 1-10. Most of us were around 4,5, or 6. But by the end of it she said this.

“You’re all a 10. All of you. And that is because of one simple thing. God loves you. He came down and He rescued you. And there is nothing you can do to change how much he loves you. Nothing you do will make him love you any more or any less than he already does.”

When John referred to himself as the disciple that Jesus loved, it wasn’t just something prideful or even humble way to keep from naming himself, it was the way John identified himself. When he thought of who he was and what most indentified him, it was the fact that Jesus loved him. Not the fact that he was a fisherman or the fact that he had a family. It wasn’t where he lived or who he spent his time with. It was the mere fact that Jesus loved him. Jesus himself held on to this truth that He was beloved no matter anyone else’s opinion.

This is hard for me to grasp. It’s not that I don’t understand that. And it’s not that I doubt God’s love for me. But there is just always something in the back of my mind that says “God I know you love me, but I don’t deserve it and I want these things that I’m doing for you to make me feel like I’m actually worth something.” And I’m always so afraid of pride. I’m afraid that by admitting that I have value and worth in God’s eyes mean that I’m full of pride and that I think too highly of myself. But if there’s one thing I got out of the first week with Glen, it’s that it’s not prideful to know your worth in God. It’s not prideful to see your true value in him. God loves me whether I’m trying to draw close to him or not. He loves me even when I’m not listening to what He’s saying. He even loves me when I’m flat out arguing with him over things that I do or don’t want to hand over to him.

When we realize this truth about God and what that means for us, we begin to see that truth in others as well. We start to see their value as God sees it, not in the value of the world. God has an irrevocable love for each one of us that just doesn’t make sense in our own human nature. We love conditionally. We can try to say otherwise, but it’s true. God’s love stretches far beyond what we can comprehend. But in trying to comprehend, trying to just a get a little glimpse of understanding, we come across this freeing truth.

I am who God says I am.

And I am His.

This will fuel honest, true worship. Suddenly the things that we do aren’t for God’s favor, it’s out of love for Him. When we realize that our Creator stepped out of Heaven to redeem his fallen children, when we realize that he loves us far more than we can ever hope or try to deserve, we will want nothing less than to serve him with out lives. We won’t serve to try to earn his love, but because of it. The Bible tell us that we love because he first loved us. It’s only by this irrevocable love that He has for us that we are able to even love Him in return.

We finally see the true nature of God. This brings us to Judy’s final characteristic.

4) God as servant

Jesus told his disciples as he stripped down and knelt to wash their feet that he came to serve. Our holy God, our creator and redeemer, the lover of our souls, came to serve and wash the feet of his men. This is not the picture that most people paint in their minds when they think ruler of the universe.

But God does not simply Lord over us. That implies dictatorship, abusive, controlling actions. Instead He humbled himself. He was generous, self sacrificing, caring, compassionate. He still is to this day.

This is the nature of God. He is Creator, Redeemer, Lover, Servant. He is relational, forgiving, just and merciful. He is good. He is a Holy God.

And this is the God that we are called into relationship with.

Intercession- Our intercession times this week were focused more on Australia and the Sunny Coast specifically. It was actually really cool to get to pray for this. I know when we prayed for Oz as a whole, it was a good time for our group. God was really moving and we were able to feed off each other’s prayers. Then when we all came back together there was a lot of similar stuff being prayed, so it was cool to see how God leads through that. Then on Friday we hiked up Mount Coolum so that we were overlooking all of the Sunshine Coast as we prayer over it. It was really something to get to come before God while looking over the area as a whole. I just kept hearing the word potential in my mind. There is SO much potential for this area. There’s potential for the churches if they’d join together and rise of to fight the depression that drives to so much suicide in the area. So much potential in the skate and surf community. So much potential to affect the rest of Australia. With the many churches and YWAM ministries all throughout the Sunshine Coast, I know God’s pulling back on the bow and ready to release something huge into the area if His people are willing to step up to the call.

Worship- Tuesday night on the beach with Ben was awesome. I love spontaneous worship like that. I think there’s something special when people come together and are willing to sit in the freezing rain to worship God. I didn’t want it to end. (…was that last week or this week? Wow. This is so sad) And then Wednesday night worship was SO refreshing! There is so much power in the presence of God and it’s a beautiful thing to be a part of 40 or so people who just can’t stop worshiping. God fills the room. He refreshes. Ah it’s been good. I can’t wait for Monday Base worship now. Worship days are my favorite days by far. Except intercession days too. Hmm… I think that’s every day.

1-0n-1- missing you whit! I know God’s got something planned for you over there in New Zealand and I can’t wait to hear what it is when you get back. But it’s great to get to talk to you in these one on one’s. It’s cool talking through everything that goes on with all of these different areas. Sometimes it seems a bit overwhelming but it’s good putting it all out there and seeing it for what it is. And I love seeing what God’s doing in your life too. I hope that’s not weird. Lol I Hope I can encourage you and pray with you in the same way you do for me. I know it’s technically your job to do the whole praying and mentoring thing, but I want to be able to pray with you about stuff too. So I think that’s cool. Especially since we have outreach together!!

Speaking of which…

Outreach prep- YYYAAAAYYY!!! I can’t wait! I know it’s gonna be intense, but it’s gonna be sooo good. I can’t wait to hear more about what God has for us over there and to grow closer to each other and push each other closer to God as well. We have SUCH a good team, I really can’t believe it. God’s gonna do something awesome!

(Our Thailand Cambodia Team)

Churches- Ok so I got adopted by Nell and Stevie from Maroochy. And while it’s sweet of them and they have a great heart in it… it kinda adds a lot more stress so me. Instead of coming into a home and having a nice meal cooked for us and providing that family atmosphere (which is the point of this whole adoption thing) we ended up walking through the market (which was fun) and down the beach and ended up just going and getting fish and chips. Which sounds like it could be nice except that it was about 4 hours and I had all of my journaling to do and I was exhausted from all the outreach and hikes this week, and to be quite honest, I can’t afford to pay 12 dollars for fish and chips. They’re sweet women, but what I need more than anything on those Sundays is rest. I kind of felt like we switched roles and I went out there to entertain them (wow I feel like I’m coming off really snobby to people that don’t know how all this works. Lol) So I don’t know… it was really sweet of them to drive us down there and to want to spend time with us, but it adds so much more stress on me.

Good Life this week was AWESOME. It was a hard, convicting message but I have a feeling it will stick with me for a while. The main thing for me was just the fact that nothing belongs to us. NOTHING. We have no right to anything. The 10 percent tithe that the Bible talks about, is just a guideline, a minimum, a jumping point. But if we understand that nothing that we have is ours, we see the world and the church in a whole new way. If God calls us to give everything away, things that we’ve worked hard to get, we need to be willing to do so. Because the ability to work hard is not even ours. It’s God given. We need to lean on the provision of the Lord to live like the apostles, willing to give everything they had. Makes me excited for Giving Monday. I can’t wait to see what God asks me to give over.

Reading progress-It’s good! I don’t know if I’m behind or ahead actually. Lol but It’s cool reading Mark. He gives so much detail in certain stories. It’s like you’re standing there and he’s like… giddy getting ready to tell you what he saw. It’s cool seeing how it differs from Matthew. I’ve also been getting to read Passion and Purity and I’m pretty sure I’ve underlined the entire book. It’s SO good.

Local Outreach- Ok here we go. I LOVE Friday nights. We finally got to go down to the skate park after being cancelled two weeks in a row. What a humbling experience getting to join in with the skate ministry that’s been here. It’s so cool to see how much the younger guys LOVE the skate ministry guys. Dez and Codan get there and people just flock to them. So me being there with a camera on the side I feel like there’s not much I can contribute to what’s already in place. (I know God has me there for a reason and I know that’s where I’m supposed to be, so I’m not worried. I’m very content =])

It was cool getting to hang out with the skaters. To be honest, it’s just fun. I love the culture and getting to take pictures. And letting them try to teach me how to skate. It was busy Friday night so I didn’t go out much. I took a lot of pictures actually. It’s amazing how that can open doors.

That’s how I met Sarah. She was sitting on the side watching some friends and we got to talking about photography. She was really open and we talked about the way she parties and I explained to her why I don’t. We talked about school and what she wants to do with her life. Then we had a little mini photoshoot. It was cool, definitely set up by God. So be praying that she continues to come back and that the relationship grows, because I’d love to be able to show her how much God really loves her.

And finally, I just have to throw this in there. The hikes this week were AMAZING. I think I was having hiking withdrawals and what a way to get rid of them! Glasshouse was the best hike I’ve ever done. And it was cool because after you finish a hike like that, you get to the top with this great feeling of “I conquered this mountain!!” and then you sit back and hear God say “hey… I made this mountain.”

I might be small compared to my God. And I might be weak without Him. And I can only comprehend a tiny bit about the goodness of His nature. To quote Ryan in his Devo this week “God is a vast dude.”

But He loves me.

And nothing I ever do can change that.

I know my worth in God. Do you?