January 5, 2019
I can’t even put in to words how crazy a passion conference is. The plain idea that 40,000 people of one generation could gather for the sole purpose of lifting up one name, the name of Jesus, is insane in itself. The sound of an entire arena declaring truths about God in song is priceless. The conviction of the speakers and how they expand upon the ins and outs of Christianity in such a powerful way is wave-making. The presence of the Spirit in the room is tangible. I pretty much just tried to soak it in the entire time. While I did not have some big revelation, I learned more about the Father. Sweet and simple, I learned more about my own faith. As Christine Caine said, “familiarity breeds spectacular disbelief.” Therefore, I am forever grateful for the opportunity to open my eyes to my own struggles and wavering in my faith to move forward. My journey in faith will never be done. Your journey in your faith will never be done. Just when we think we have it all figured out, that’s exactly when we lose our faith. God’s work in us is an always-evolving process; He has never stopped working in our lives. He never will stop working. Hence that if I ever think I have God’s whole role figured out in my life and have completely come to know all about Him, I will have placed my own shallow, short-minded knowledge over God’s infinite wisdom. That, my friends, is why familiarity is so dangerous to us grasping a passionate, on fire faith. As I said, I did not have a huge revelation or life-changing moment at Passion 2019. Lots of people did, and for that, I praise God. For those that maybe did not have a lightbulb moment like me, what was eye-opening and mind-boggling was seeing God’s life-changing work through our generation. The aura of the arena is only one that can be described as supernatural. To see God’s faithfulness and willingness to work through 40,000 teenagers/young adults is truly marvelous. Praise be to Him for that! What I have most realized looking back on the past few days of the conference is that I can never set expectations on what I think God should do. I went into the conference expecting that I needed to have some huge moment for it all to be worth it. What God revealed to me is that our work in Christ is to bring His light into the world so that others can experience life change. It’s not about me. My life is in Christ. Those who have already put their faith in Christ have simply one job: to be a beacon of light and to carry the love of Christ into the world. I can’t set expectations on what God should do in my life or anyone else’s because He will ALWAYS do infinitely more. Moving forward into reality after the Passion Conference, I am realizing I have to understand my role in the body of Christ before I can be sent out as His disciple. All I am expected by God to do is simply recognize I need Him, and when I realize that, I get to share in Christ’s riches as an heir of the perfect Father. The same goes for you. The Bible says, “And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering” (New Living Translation, Romans 8:17). We receive the SAME riches as Christ receives when we become a part of the body of Christ. For as we face persecutions and discrimination for our faith in this world as Jesus did, we get to also share in His eternal, abundant glory. How amazing! It is time we ditch our expectations of God. When we set expectations, we put up limitations on our own faith. The point of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was that we would lose ALL limitations on our relationship with God. So why do we build those back up by trying to manipulate God’s role in our life? My prayer for myself and our generation as a whole is that we would carry His love, without expectations of what He can do through us, solely believing that He can do immeasurably more.
With love,
C