The Ultimate Challenge

The article below was written by one of our Outloud Youth, Nelson Berry. Nelson shared his testimony in our morning service last Sunday. He wrote what he describes as 'The Ultimate Challenge' originally on his Facebook. What impressed me about Nelson was his willingness to take responsibility for his own faith and relationship with God. I see Nelson being a catalyst, someone who wants to make a difference. Even those who have been part of the church for a long time can benefit from his enthusiasm.

The article is a bit raw, written from a teen perspective but some good food for thought.

THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE
(Written by Nelson Berry)

So, i was rather frustrated today, about a lot of things. Number one reason came to be, the church, and its laziness and faithless drive. It seemed to be that most just stand and sing and sit and leave after the sermon and go home to their perfect lives where they never do anything for god. Then it got me even more frustrated to realize, i was the exact stereotype I'd just stated previously. So in a fit of frustration and rage, i came to an end with it :D. god showed me something deep in my heart. I need to let go and just drive with faith.

THE CHALLENGE:

1) Take a good long, critical look into your life. I know this been said a thousand times, but grade yourself as though you are a stranger looking at yourself and see if you could immediately ****(that means right away, within seconds) tell that your life was devoted to god.

2) Now look at your life again, only this time look at all the crap you do. An example being: Hey i working at subway, take part at school, practice guitar, play computer, try to read the bible, want to do the musical...

3) Now take away anything and everything that is taking you away from god entirely. Example: Computer, Musical, other small things.

4) Re-organize your life, and instead of finding new things to fit into your extra time, fill it all with god stuff.

5) LIVE YOUR FAITH. If you have friends who make fun of you for loving Jesus, then stand up for him, shake it up and get made fun of more. Shake up your faith with god and let it grow, into unconditional love. This life time, this life time is short compared to eternity. Why should we care and hide our faith from people, if we're gonna be spending all eternity with god? Start loving god out loud, and in public, and totally be faith driven.


ADDED CHALLENGE: Fast from your computer. If you spend way to much time on it doing stupid facebook crap, fast from it. If you take too much time to watch TV fast from it. OR better yet even if you don't have these problems fast from them, I'm sure you'll find that you get closer to god.

Its time we started living out faith and being the church, the building we all go to on Sunday is just a building when there's no people in it. what makes it a church is US, the church community and body of Christ.

Good Luck with what ever god throws at ya :D