Hello from Kenya!
It is only been two weeks and God is already rocking my world! Though the funny thing is I experienced God most through a book and it occured on a "rest day" and not out on the field. But God always talks to us through his plan and not ours.
I started reading Victory Over Darkness, written by Neil Anderson, once we landed in Kenya. When I wrote about this blog I had only read the first three chapters and God had already began to break me down. Now I have finished the book but I am only going to discuss the changes in me that took place from the first three chapters.
The break down continued even more when my team listened to a sermon from Nick's father. In the sermon he hit on regeneration of our old self through Christ and the empowerment that comes with it. When I say regeneration it is more than understanding that is Jesus is your savior. It's understanding your "Identity in Christ." Your "Identity in Christ" is understanding through his crucifiction, death, and resurrection we are bound to him. The old is gone and we are a new creation. Now I have heard this before but never fully understood it. What this means is that when we are bound to Christ we are no longer sinngers. We are SAINTS who choose to sin. We have the power to overcome sin and are no longer dead to it. Once we realize this we can stop dwelling on our past to see growth. We are saints who grow or mature to become Christ-like. Therefore, we grow by how we see ourselves.
But in order to see ourselves correctly we need to see how God see us. Since we are bound to Christ, God see us as, "the light of the world," "salt of the Earth," "children of God," "sons and daughters of God," "ministers of reconciliation" (I love that!), and the list goes on (check it out for yourself in the bible). It is amazing that no matter what we do everyday God always see us as bound to Christ. Once we realize what God thinks of it we can have experience growth because it is not what we do that makes us who we are but who we are that dictates what we do. Therefore, we have to start seeing ourselves for who we truly are. This is life changing stuff to me. My entire 22 years of my existence I have been thinking about my past actions to keep me from making certain mistakes again. Now that I understand I am a new creation the things I once did is not who I am. I am free of those things and can think of myself as how God sees me, which is a SAINT! With this, nothing can hold me back and I know I am going to grow to be more like Christ.
Sam
