Teaching, for the second time

You didn't think I had abandoned my thirty day attempt already did you?

Well, if you did I can't help you because I'm not giving up that easily.

Tonight I got to teach the boys from the Proteens class. The last Wednesday if each month they separate the class by sexes and sometimes have a special teacher come in.

Tonight it was me.

Now I taught a class before with a mix of ages and about six people including the regular teacher and his wife while omitting myself from that count. And I felt okay about it. I was told I did well. It''s hard for me to gauge how I did because I was in my head the whole time trying to keep from messing up, making sure I wasn't coming across as too nervous.

This time, the age ranges were compressed being all teens other than the regular teacher and totaling nine not counting myself. So a larger group.

The first time I was to teach, no one showed up, literally everyone was out of town. Then I got my second attempt with the small group, and though I had not felt nervous the Sunday that no one showed up, upon seeing the people actually showing up, I started to get really nervous.

This time, that didn't happen. Sure there was a little something there, maybe a worry that I would be boring, or not communicate the message well enough, but overall I was more comfortable this time around.

My lesson text was three pages longer this time as well.

I based it around the Lecrae song "Don't waste your life"

Working in examples of how we should be soul winners for Christ, but all too often we get caught up in the world and miss the opportunities that come our way, in effect, wasting our lives.

And a lot of it is things I am working on in my own life. The other thirty day challenge I want to undertake is from both lesson I have taught.

Rather than ignoring my calling, take thirty days, and each of those days witness to someone, invite them to church, let the light of Jesus Christ shine in me that all men may see it.

Take the blinders off my eyes and see the lost of the world for what they are, dying and going to hell.

To take the dress shoes off my feet and put on running shoes that I might run the race for Christ, telling everyone what God has done for me, of the salvation freely available that one, at least one, might not go to hell.

Thirty days to change lives, to grow, to be a fisher of men.

But I think I know who's life would be changed the most, that of myself. If I were to lead one person to Christ, or in reality if God were to use me to share the Gospel with someone and see them come to salvation, something I have never done, what would that do for me?

As I have been trying to grow in my Christian life for the past year since I got back in church, that is one thing I haven't done and can hardly imagine the impact that would make upon me, to know that God used me.

That though He doesn't need to use me, He chose to use me, with everything I've done in this life to let Him down, to turn away from Him, or even at times to spit in the face of the gift He has given me, the He would still use me. That I am worth something to Him.

It's a shame that Christians are generalized the way we are, but sometimes we need to ask ourselves where these generalizations come from.

We call ourselves Christians, but how many are pursuing the great commission, and how many are leaving that work to the preacher and deacons?

We call ourselves Christians, and we get large groups together to talk about outreach, but how many are reaching out after the meeting?

Maybe it's just me, but it seems the group that mobilizes to outreach in the largest percentage of a class are the teens. I have seen them handing out fliers, water, carwash, cpr class, easter egg hunt, childrens activity day.

But why is that, do we get that jaded once we aren't teens?

Is it easier for someone who hasn't been out in the world as much to still have their heart open for the things God can do?

I don't know the answer to those questions, and don't really need to know the answer. What I do know is that it is far past time for me to wake up and start serving God to the fullest of my ability.

This blog is one way I try to do that, I started it a few months before I posted my first blog to it with the intent to use it to glorify God through my writing, one of the gifts God has given me.

Re-read that, a few months before I posted my first blog to it. That easily I had fallen back again from my desire to serve the LORD.

It is a struggle every day for me, not to serve God, but to remember to do the little things that would glorify Him like talking to a stranger about salvation, or about the things God has done in my life.

I hope that at the end of these thirty days my life will be changed, I hope that I will no longer think twice when I see someone and want to share the gospel with them. I hope that the fear of repercussions will be gone, and that I will view any possible harm that could come my way for sharing the Gospel as worth every second if even one person hears what is said and takes it to heart.

I want to see my life changed, I want to see the LORD move in me, and then through me to others.

When I started this blog I named it A Million Voices, One Light for a reason, because we all have our own voice, we have different ways of communicating, different skill sets that take us different places. We are all those million voices. But I fervently desire to see us turn the light that is in all of us, the one light of Jesus Christ and shine it on the world that they might hear the voice of God rather than our own, and see their way to salvation, and out of the world with all it's wickedness that wants nothing more than to drag them straight to hell.

We need to shine this light.

John 1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.