Pressing Toward Christ

 One of the lessons I try to teach my youth group is that we are either moving toward Christ or away from Him. Every single decision moves us in one direction or the other. 

This is a message I wish I had learned earlier and I fear it is hard to learn as a young person. You feel like you have your whole life ahead of you and you just want to live how you want to live. You don't want to think that your decisions have any effect beyond the particular moment you are on (but they do!). It is hard to think long term when we just want to be right here, right now. It's also hard to think that way when we only think about Christ in Church. I long for our young people to be on fire for God. Shoot, I long to be on fire for God. Holding nothing back, all in. We need the Lord to bring us a fresh wind and a fresh fire. So many of us are so tired and weary...mostly because we have been doing it in our own strength. But, if you are tired of living this way, I invite you to pray with me for God to infuse us all with a fresh energy and to show us when we are doing things in our own strength instead of relying on His. More of you, Lord, less of me.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14