Long's Peak

Long's Peak
I can't wait to go back.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Perspective From The Road

The conference I attended this last week in St. Louis deeply challenged me to live a "Gospel-centered" life. With this comes wonder, fascination, and perspective that stems from the greatness of God's love for us and the effort He put forth to saturate our minds, hearts and experiences with His goodness.
The wonder and ambition that comes from this Christ-centered paradigm brings confidence to me in a way I've never experienced. Being the "Woe is me" type of guy that I am, this is revolutionary and refreshing. It's like a forest fire cleansing away my worldly, selfish way of doing things and making way for for a holy, grace based view of my surroundings. More importantly, it gives me new eyes to see the need that always surrounds me... including my own. A life of reaction to need and application of the love that I have been shown is now paramount.
Grace has been reminded to me in light of the whole of scripture. Dr. Bryan Chapell completely dropped atomic bombs into my mind in the afternoon session on Tuesday. He exposed my selfishness, pride and overall horrible attitude by teaching grace in such a plain and easy way. This is my desire - to bring the simple truth of the gospel to a piercing volume in my life and consequently the lives of those I care about and those I come in contact with.
One of the most mind blowing things about the gospel is that God made it plain and simple to understand. The road block we face as Christians is solely how to communicate this truth - While we were His enemies Christ died for us.