Rend Your Heart February 25, 2009, Wednesday
Posted by Kyle Black in Bible Study.7 comments
Yesterday I was reading Joel 2:12-13
12 “Yet even now,” declares the LORD,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the LORD your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.”
After reading this I realized that I had always been looking at verse 13 the wrong way. I had never taken the time to look up the definition of REND. After talking to Lindsay about it she looked it up and we found that it means to tear, split , or separate. To see the definition go here. This led us to ponder what exactly ” rend your heart” actually meant.
I personally think that God is telling us that we need to come to Him torn on the inside. He wants us to not just tear our clothes (as they did in biblical times see Esther 4:1 for example), but to be torn on the inside also. God’s is telling us that He desires our heart instead of our garments. I love this verse in a new way now… especially when it is read with verse 12 “return to me with all your heart”. Think about it! God is telling us to return to Him with all are heart, but not just with the normal condition of your heart. He wants us to rend our whole heart. He wants us to come to Him broken, torn, and split so He can restore us as only He can.
So what does “rend your heart” mean to you?
Treating God As A Novelty February 24, 2009, Tuesday
Posted by Kyle Black in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
More and more these days it seems as if we are treating God as a novelty (cheap or showy jewelry). Remember when you were a kid and you got a cheap piece of jewelry…you wore it everyday and were so proud of it, but over time it lost its importance in your wardrobe. This is exactly what we do with God. We accept Him and then are so excited and everything we do revolves around Him but the newness wears off and we start trying to find a spot in our schedule for Him instead of finding us a spot in His schedule. Once this happens we start putting all the other stuff in our lives ahead of him (sports, TV, work, nap time, etc) I believe it is time we start realizing what God meant when he said “You shall have no other gods before me”. (Exodus 20:3) We have got to stop putting other things in our schedule ahead of God. I’m just as guilty of this as everyone else, but I’m saying its time we as Christians stop just saying we are and start living like we are.
God is not a novelty…so lets stop treating him like one. The movement begins today!
What I Learned From Screwing Up My Fast February 23, 2009, Monday
Posted by Kyle Black in Life.3 comments
Recently our youth group has been going through the “40 day revolution” by Operation Light Force. When they are doing this revolution they fast for the 40 days along with doing the daily assignments. I also fast with them to support them. I feel leaders should lead by example.
This time around I chose to fast from drinking anything other than water. For me this was very hard at first…but as the days have passed it’s been easier to do. Last Wednesday night at nSight (our weekly youth service) I had asked for a bottle of water right as I started to speak. Well we didn’t have any at the church so the person brought me a capri sun drink instead (not realizing that I was only drinking water)… I didn’t drink it right away because I got caught up in my topic for that night. Right after our youth service was over, I was swarmed by students with D-Now questions. It wasn’t until after I had a chance to sit down and talk with some friends that I screwed up everything. I didn’t even think about what I was doing…in fact it wasn’t until my sister in-law Hillarie pointed it out that I realized what had happened. I posted a picture to our youth blog and that is how she knew what I had done. To see the picture go here.
So what did I learn from this…I learned that it is always going to be the little things that keep tripping us up. I don’t know the last time I actually had a capri sun, but I did this last week. I have been able to avoid Dr. Pepper, morning coffee at school, sweet tea, but the stupid little kid drink that I had not drank in years got me. I think the reason for this is that we only prepare to fight the big fights. We prepare for the big battles and think we will be able to not worry about the little things because they are little.
So does this mean we should live scared about all the little things out there to trip us and cause us to fall? Absolutely not, but it does mean that we need to fully rely on God for everything. We need to quit thinking that we can handle the little things on our own and start relying on God to help us through the little things as well as the big ones.
