Circuit Riders- Day 6

Session 1

Session one of the day began with worship!!! I was sitting in both the humility and glory of God. During worship, I thought of God enthroned who would be the Lion with the heart of a lamb. God has so much glory that all the elders and creatures in the heavenly realms bow down in worship of him which I believe makes God the Lion, but he has the heart of a lamb which is of vulnerability and servanthood, sacrificial love that he would send his son. He has a lens of grace that allows him to see us washed clean by his blood. Then I thought of Jesus who was humbled to a man, he was the Lamb with the heart of a Lion. The center of who Jesus was during his time on this earth was moved to do marvelous things. When Jesus's heart broke for the broken, his heart was moved, and having the heart of the Lion he performed many signs and wonders. Jesus was the lamb in his humanity when he walked the Earth experiencing grief, tiredness, weariness, anxiety, and other common human struggles. 

With the first speaker Chase Cofer, we looked at worship in the scriptures. Something important in worship in the scriptures is when Abraham worshipped God more than the promise of God. He placed Isaac on the alter fully believing that God would not let Isaac die. Abraham trusted God with that promise, and he worshipped God with his son. Abraham was willing to lay down God's promise because God's promise was not idolized. Another important thing to realize is that our feelings don't need to dictate how or if we worship God. Come to God as you are in reverence of who he is and let him change you. Responding to who God is takes our minds off the problems of this world and puts our minds on the greatness of our God. Something beautiful is that we get to draw near to God when before people could not enter into his presence in the same way. Another thing we did was look at different expressions of praise and express our gratitude to God using some of the expressions. It was freeing to just let our worship of God expressed in different ways (clapping, shouting, singing, etc.) come out. 

Session 2

The next session was about intercession fostered in vibrant environments of prayer. When we intercede, we become willing to pray a prayer that is sacrificial submission to the will of God. We tap into the heart of Jesus through intercession, and the heart of Jesus brings great change. Intercession is a beautiful thing because we can never truly pray too much. A heart of intercession connects us to the heart of God for our world. We had many times of intercession during Circuit Riders, and I realize how important intercession is through everything I experience. 

Another thing we talked about is emotionally healthy spirituality. We looked into how to grow in our emotional wellness. We realize the importance of our emotions and how they do contribute to our calling. A part of developing our emotional wellness is valuing our relationship with Jesus and being invested in through our relationship with Jesus. We should work on growing and maturing in our faith and emotional wellness as that brings us into deeper connection with God. 

Monday night!!! 

I think that Monday nights was something I was most looking forward to when coming to the Circuit Rider school in California. I was watching them online from Michigan, but I wanted to really get the chance to experience it in person. Up until Monday night, I was still feeling exhausted. I was getting a good amount of sleep, but I still was very tired. As worship was starting, I decided to pray with God. I sat there asking God "How did you do this? How did you spend your life going through the tiredness, the grief, the struggles of life? How did you even not sleep and instead go and spend time with the Heavenly father?" I wrote down in my journal about how I wanted God to show me how to endure the cost of being a Christian that pours into others as I spent this week learning about Jesus and the life he calls me to. I spent time sitting in these feelings of tiredness, and then I realized that this is what Jesus endured motivated by his love for us. He was so motivated by his love that he did endure humanity but also so much more than that. He endured all the sin of the world placed on him, he was grieved, he was tested, and he humbled himself to the place of a servant for us. He did this as a sacrifice out of his love for us. When we look at the humanity of Jesus, we could realize the greater love he has for us. This deeper revelation of God's love brought me to tears. We don't realize how deep the Father's love is for us as humans, but he being love sure does. 

The message was about being poor in Spirit which is talked about in the Beatitudes of scripture during Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is stating the reality of someone who is in need of a savior when talking to the poor in Spirit. When we recognize our need for a savior, we realize that we alone can not earn our own salvation and therefore we can't boast in our own ability to do so. Only through Jesus is where we are gifted salvation. God knows we need him, but we need to know our need for him because that is how we can enter heaven where there is perfect dependence on God. The preacher also talked about five core false needs: control, being the hero, gaining peoples approval, perfection, and knowing everything. This is all attributes of God who is sovereign, our savior, kind and loving, will be glorified, perfect, and all knowing. God is truly who we need. 

Monday was a fun day, and in the end I feel that day something shifted in me. I just had a deeper revelation of God's love and power. We have a need for Jesus. We can have all the things in this world, and still feel a lack of fulfillment. That is because the love of Jesus is what can truly fill our hearts.