The Final Conversations with Christ- Part 3

As soon as Judas left the room, Jesus said, “The time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory, and God will be glorified because of him. ³² And since God receives glory because of the Son, he will give his own glory to the Son, and he will do so at once. ³³ Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer. And as I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for me, but you can’t come where I am going. John 13:31-33

Imagine being a disciple, sitting in the room with Jesus as he was speaking these words. For approximately three years, the disciples’ lives had been devoted to simply following Jesus. They learned from him, modeled his lifestyle, and had become dependent on his guidance. It must have been such a confusing, scary, and challenging moment. While Jesus had given the disciples plenty of warning as to his death, and had promised them great hope for the future, the disciples simply could not wrap their minds around the fact that their leader was physically leaving them. Today, we are blessed to know how this story ends. However, that was not so for the disciples.  Rather, this final conversation was a moment in which the disciples had to trust that Jesus would see them through, despite the fact that they did not know what their future would look like.

This week, I would like to share a poem written in memory of my grandfather (written by my father, Rob Sturdivant). While trusting in God now may look a little bit different than it did for the disciples, the principle they modeled is something extremely relevant today. The fact is, while we may sometimes feel like we are in a free-fall, God’s plan is still underway. Likewise, we must put our trust in Him to see us through.

Why? To Wow!

Why?

Why did I get brain cancer?

I don’t know, but this I know…God is Good.

Why haven’t I been completely healed from this cancer?

I don’t know, but this I know…God is Good. 

Why wasn’t the surgeon able to remove all of the tumor?

I don’t know, but this I know...God is Good.

Why didn’t Chemo and radiation stop the tumor?

I don’t know, but this I know…God is Good.

Why have I had to endure this diminished quality of life?

I don’t know, but this I know…God is Good.

Why have I had to endure the indignity of lost physical and mental capabilities?

I don’t know, but this I know…God is Good.

Why have I been spared from even the slightest headache from this brain cancer?

This I know…God is Good.

Why have I been surrounded by friends and family to support me through this?

This I know…God is Good.

Why have so many people been given the opportunity to share with me how I have touched their lives?

This I know…God is Good.

Why have I been blessed with a wife that has a gift of caregiving?

This I know…God is Good.

Why have I been blessed with two beautiful grandchildren this year?

This I know…God is Good.

Why have I been given the opportunity to share Christ with new people brought into my life this year?

This I know…God is Good.

Why, in spite of my failings in life, have I been chosen to be a child of God and a joint heir with Christ?

This I know…God is Good.

When at last this journey is over and God calls me home, I will kneel down at his feet and declare…

This I know…my God is Good.

Wow!

I encourage you this week to reflect on the story of the disciples in Jesus’ final moments. They had to place their trust solely in Jesus, despite the fact that they did not know what their future would look like. They had to remember as their teacher, friend, and Savior was being crucified, God still had a plan in order. As you are going through life, perhaps there are challenges that seem simply inexplicable. I challenge you, instead of fretting, to place your trust in the Lord. While you may not know the why, you may hold tight to the fact that through it all, God IS good.  

Written by: Tamara Sturdivant/Rob Sturdivant

Edited by: De Ann Sturdivant

The Final Conversations with Christ- Part 2

NyQuil is a beautiful, beautiful thing. As someone who spends the 3-6 days of a cold feeling like I’m constantly being punched in the face while wearing nose plugs, I’m all for an over-the-counter nap in a bottle. And who can blame me? Being sick is the worst. So of course when I’m up all night thinking about how much I can’t breathe, I’m gonna take a dose. And that’s fine.

What’s not fine is taking a swig for the next 4 months every time I sneeze. You might say “Well duh, that’s excessive and dangerous and bordering on dependency.” But what you don’t know is I am totally guilty of this.

And so are you.

What?! That’s crazy, I know. But hear me out, because the collective body of Christ has been coddling their hurts long past necessary for generations, and it can put us in a spiritual coma. In my own life, I’ve seen this manifest in two ways: my unwillingness to stop being a victim, and doubting God when He miraculously intervenes. What does this look like exactly? It looks like the times I am hurt or betrayed and my primary interest is letting the world know my pain and not finding resolution. It looks like digging up old dirt and smashing it on my shirt like a badge of honor. It looks like receiving rapid and miraculous emotional healing from the Lord after one of the most difficult times of my life and denying it because I “feel like I wasn’t grieving long enough.”

During Sunday’s message, Pastor Aaron said that “the time of your struggle will depend on who you run to first.” I’m pretty sure this advice will be among the first I give to my children one day, because boy could I have stood to hear it five, six, even ten years ago. King David, a man with more struggles than you and I could ever hope for, knew it. In Psalms 39:7 he writes “And so Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you.”

Knowing what we know about God being a rock on which to stand, a shelter to seek refuge in, and the guard of our hope, why then do we continually run to our own publicized despair for fulfillment in times of crises? Would you refuse to walk for years after breaking a leg? Did the blind man Jesus healed refuse to open his eyes and see because that’s not how you deal with being blind? Absolutely not.

Do not mistake me, I am not suggesting that we all adopt a “rub some dirt in it and buck up” attitude when it comes to emotional and mental trials in our lives. Some wounds really do take time and time and more time to work through, whether it’s through prayer, counseling, support groups, doctors, or all of the above. You wouldn’t offer a Band-Aid to a gunshot wound, and emotional wounds should by no means be treated that way either. But eventually, we must stop with the quick fix, spiritual “NyQuil” to which we can become addicted. Each time we drink in the same despair and self-pity we use to feel better temporarily, we are putting ourselves to sleep spiritually. So often we do not evaluate the cost of the time spent dwelling on things God has already tried to speak freedom from for us, and the cost is the deeper spiritual growth we have not experienced because we are too busy licking old wounds.

I spent years sipping spiritual NyQuil like tea-finding a whole array of things to be hurt over for the sake of being hurt. It was not until I began truly and honestly running to God, and not any ear that would listen, that I accepted the healing He had for me and began moving on to bigger things, things I had no idea were in store for my walk with Christ. So this week I leave you with this challenge: Take time to examine your own heart about the wounds you wear, and keep on keepin’ on.

Written by: Brianna Vanderveen

Edited by: Jenelle Kelly

The Final Conversations with Christ- Part 1

“It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father…” John 13:1

The idea of Jesus sitting down with his disciples and having a final conversation with those He loved was especially poignant for me, as Sunday was also the anniversary of my mother’s death.

My mom knew she was dying long before it occurred to me – I think I was in a sort of denial, unable to see the forest for the trees. During that stretch of time, we had some special conversations and experiences.

Then we were informed that Hospice would come in and make her as comfortable as possible during her last days. Those days passed quickly. And in the early hours of January 10, 2009, as I sat by her bedside, she breathed one last time.

In the sad and confusing days and weeks that followed, I clung tightly to our final conversations. And while, obviously, the situation surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection was significantly different than the passing of my mother, I imagine when the disciples realized what Jesus had been doing for them during those final hours they were amazed and deeply comforted.  

I think sometimes we just skim through these last chapters of the gospels because we know how it ends. But over the next few weeks, we’re really going to get deep into His final words to His disciples – words that would include events that seem unsettling – not what they would expect from a savior. But those words also included specific instructions and pointed to comfort.

In the portion of scripture we studied, while Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, he talked about His relationship with humanity, about humanity’s relationship with Him and how humanity is to relate with one another. We focused on the idea that Jesus wants to wash away the dirt and the grime that gets on us just by nature of going through life.

I love that about Him. I take great comfort in the fact that He left intentional final words to those He loved.

If Sunday was any indication of what we’re in for during this series, then I think we should be expecting greatly from the Lord.

Written by: Jaime Hlavin

Edited by: Tamara Sturdivant

Choosing Today

I have an irrational aversion to being reminded about things that, I sincerely believe, I haven’t forgotten. The same goes for being asked to do something that I very much wanted to do for another person without being asked. If a valuable project at work is being neglected, or a family member is running out of a favorite after dinner treat, I will sometimes take it on myself to take care of it. But as soon as I get the resolve not to wait to be asked, I get worried that before I’m under way I will be asked – and then the thoughtful gesture I’m planning to make won’t seem so thoughtful anymore. Because once you’ve been asked it’s more a matter of obligation, and you get no credit for showing initiative.

Nobody thinks this is my best feature – in all honesty it’s a kind of pride.  So when the new year came around and I was in service this Sunday with a slew of resolutions already in mind to improve my relationship with God, imagine my chagrin when we got a litany of five choices we can make to be more engaged in the Body of Christ. Some of these were in areas I had forgotten I had realized a need for improvement before. And some were areas I already wanted to change; so if the Holy Spirit wanted to lay it on our hearts today and my resolutions weren’t in the execution phase yet, then how would I get any credit for wanting to do those things already? Didn’t God know I was working on that?

To recap, the five choices in Sunday’s message we can and should make are:

1.     Choose to take responsibility for your own spiritual growth.

2.     Choose to practice contentment in all areas of your life.

3.     Choose to serve with regularity in your church.

4.     Choose to invite people, routinely, to meet Jesus through seeing Him in the lives of His people.

5.     Choose to bring your full tithe to God each week.

David in the book of Psalms reminds us that “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it; the world, and all who live in it,” (Psalm 24:1). That includes you and me. We have nothing the Lord didn’t give us, and we can do nothing that He doesn’t enable, or at least permit. That’s good to remember in a culture where we often find a church to attend and wait for it to do something for us. We need to refrain from a consumer mentality toward church, and instead find our own shape within the body and strive to interact within the whole. That way the focus is off ourselves and on the Lord and his people.  Matthew puts it better in saying “the greatest of you will be a servant” (Matthew 23:11), and this verse comes in a larger passage about avoiding self-aggrandizement, impressive titles and hypocrisy. This is a very practical cure for the temptation to be proud – after all, servanthood is real work, and there’s nothing wrong with being too busy for sin.

Some of these applications are very practical, and those kinds of messages are my favorite since I’m most likely to follow up on them. If I resolve to be more responsible with my financial giving, to take the initiative to invite someone to a church event, or to find an area of need where I’m gifted to serve, that’s more likely to yield fruit than just promising God that I’ll be a better witness or become more sacrificial in general. These are steps I plan to take, or at least I want to take. You and I could probably improve upon at least two of these this month, and maybe all five of them given enough time.

But apparently I still need the reminders. Don’t give me too much credit.

Written by: Chad Halcom

Edited by: Brigit Edwards