There is no better time for a kid
than Summer Camp, and Montlure is finishing its third week! Pray for Stephanie
Hamilton! Pray for the counselors! And pray for the all the children and youth
who will be blessed by getting away from their routines in order to get into
Jesus.
This year I will serve as chaplain
for the senior high camp andam excited to bring this year’s theme at Montlure:
Power Up in the Spirit. The third day’s lesson draws from 1 Thessalonians 4:4-7,
which says in part:
…our gospel came to you not simply
with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. You
know how we lived among you…You became imitators of us and of the Lord.
This passage reminds us of the
importance of authenticity in the Christian life, of speaking not just a
particular, Christian language but living the peculiar, Christian life, for the
Gospel calls us not just to proclaim “simply with words” but to be the kind of
Spirit infused people who live with a deep conviction in the Lord. Simply put:
the Gospel calls us to move beyond our rhetoric and into relationship.
Please note the conjunction: and.
As Presbyterian Christians, we believe creed and conviction live in harmony
with conscience and call. We are called to live into God’s truth because we
believe God is relational in God’s essential character and nature (Holy
Trinity), because Jesus came to live among us as God’s living Word upon the
earth (Incarnation), because this same Jesus sends us out in the power of the
Holy Spirit to be instruments of reconciliation and work toward God’s justice
and joy (Missio Dei). This powerful message is conveyed through our
authenticity.
Paul’s asks the Thessalonians to
imitate him and the Lord, to see the Lord through his (Paul’s) living. As I sit
awaiting the campers’ arrival at Montlure, I am reminded anew of the
significance of our example: our children learn the truth of their baptism as
they see how we love them; our youth learn to live deeply into their baptism as
they watch – and they are watching! –
the faithfulness with which we seek to follow Jesus. Who we are matters!
May we throw ourselves into God’s mercy, trusting in his love, seeking to listen to the
Spirit’s nudges that will lead us into joyful mischief that launches us toward
sacred conundrums that cause us to learn anew of our absolute and utter
dependence upon God, and that he is
faithful to enable us to become Spirit people, the living stones of a Holy
Temple, our adoption as children of the One, True God!
Pray on these things,
Brad
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