Sara Shackelford's Blog
One Love / 09.28.09, 09:51 PM
I’m assuming most of you reading this blog have heard the worship song “Obsession,”
but in case not, it goes…
“Give me one pure and holy passion
Give me one magnificent obsession
One grand ambition for my life
To know and follow hard after You.”
This past week or so, I’ve been struck by how obsessed I’m becoming with Christ, with talking about what it means to live as a follower of His in this world. It’s the only addiction I’ve ever had in my life that is good, that is everything it should be. I’m learning that following him in every part of life and finding my every thought consumed is exactly what makes life have a purpose, what allows my life to make sense. I was reading in the book Unchristian (which you should pick up) and he says that he doesn’t really like the phrase “accept Christ,” that “following Christ” would be a better picture of what it means to be a Christian. As a team, I think we agree with this idea. At least for me, I couldn’t tell you when I “accepted” Christ, but I know I became a Christian when I made a decision to follow Him with my life…and that came many years after I prayed a sinner’s prayer. I’d like to include a passage from Shane Claiborne’s book The Irresistible Revolution (which you absolutely MUST READ, along with John Perkins’ Restoring At-Risk Communities). It’s long, but bear with me…it’s so true and something I didn’t understand for so long.
“…Conversion means to change, to alter, after which something looks different than it did before – like conversion vans or converted currency. We need converts in the best sense of the word, people who are marked by the renewing of their minds and imaginations, who no longer conform to the pattern that is destroying our world. Otherwise, we have only believers, and believers are a dime-a-dozen nowadays. What the world needs is people who believe so much in another world that they cannot help but begin enacting it now. For even if the whole world believed in resurrection, little would change until we began to practice it. We can believe in CPR, but people will remain dead until someone breathes new life into them. And we can tell the world that there is life after death, but the world really seems to be wondering if there is life before death. There is the kind of conversion that happens to people not because of how we talk but because of how we live.”
We have no contexts for our lives outside of Christ. I do, however, find that the closer I get to really embracing that truth with my life, the more I feel under attack from my enemy. It’s almost a voice in my head saying I’m unworthy, I can never really be different, my past is too unforgivable and I’ll just make the same mistakes over again. I’m praying that I can live in the realization that I am redeemed, that God says “as far as the east is from the west, so far I have removed your transgressions from you.” One of the Chicago area team captains made the point in an early city-wide devotion time that we have to be filled before we try to fill others. I want to be so overflowing with the love of Christ that He is the only explanation for the way I live my life.
More on what that looks like later -and how incredible our neighborhood is…for now, I need to catch a train home!
Peace
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Amen!
By Ashleigh / Sep 29, 09:28 AM / #
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain…slain for my transgressions, for yours, for all of us who are His. We ARE unworthy- ALL of us…never think it’s just you! May you know the generous grace of our Lord and Savior every day- for what has gone before, what is, and what may be. His grace is sufficient! Thank you for sharing your thoughts and life thru this blog, Sara! God bless you- with love…
By Kace / Sep 30, 12:23 PM / #
Hey Sara that’s awesome! God is so great and is so worth obsessing over. I pray that your obsession becomes contagious and that God uses you to spread that to your teammates and neighbors. It was great meeting you this past week, definitely praying for you all in roseland. Would love to get your newsletter! 701 S. Hayes St. Aprt. 3 enid, ok 73703
By Clay Carson / Sep 30, 11:29 PM / #
You are right about the “accept” Christ thing. I had never really thought about it until a year or so ago when I heard a guest preacher at Bellevue speak about it. His whole point was that Jesus is God – He does not need us, our acceptance, or anything that we can offer. He has to be our Lord and Master in order for us to be truly His.
By Heather / Nov 19, 12:08 AM / #