Disproportionate Expectations

It never fails to pain my heart.

When you work so hard to help high school students come to understand the influence that they have on people around them, it is extremely exciting when they catch a vision for what they can do with that influence. It also gets to be pretty cool to see them reaching out to their friends and to those that they are connected to with an invitation to come closer to Jesus.

Contrarily, it sucks so bad to hear a student so burdened for someone and yet not be able to get in the door of the other person's heart. It is so tough. And yet that's not the toughest part of this situation. The hardest part is when said "influential" student can't recognize that they aren't living a lifestyle that resembles repentance; the very thing that describes a follower of Christ.

How can you expect to change the world if you have not changed from the world, yourself?

No one is perfect. Not even one. Yet, in life, we come across countless numbers of individuals that live lives that are clearly contrary to the world and clearly have undergone some sort of transformation. It is these people that change the landscape and focus of the world. If anyone wishes to change the world, the must find themselves changed from the patterns of the world. Nobody wants to follow someone who claims to follow this radical Jesus but can't find anything radical in that person's life. It just doesn't compute.

Change the world by allowing the Spirit to change you.