FollowBy Dan Amos
It’s all or nothing. Sunday, I watched the video clips from Challenge, and the message that we are either all in or all out resonated with me. There’s no middle ground in our salvation, and we don’t get to choose what it looks like. The One who spoke creation into existence sets the standard, and He alone is judge.
Challenge is an apt name. Those who go are challenged in their faith, challenged in what they think they believe. We spend a lot of spiritual time with very fine sandpaper polishing the surfaces of our lives, but we forget the big rocks, the fundamentals that make us children of God. There are times we need to pull out the 80-grit, coarse sandpaper and do some serious reshaping.
Even more, I think students are challenged to own their own faith. The faith of their parents may have shaped them, but Jesus wants a personal relationship with each of us. We don’t get a pass into Heaven because Mom and Dad are saved.
Lastly, once we understand our faith and own it, the challenge is to come home and live it out. Or, it may mean GO and live it out! Wherever it is God leads us, we are challenged every day to live a life worthy to be called by His name.
As a church, we wrote our challenge into a statement of faith. These are the things we believe about who God is, what He has done, His work in our lives, our response to Him, and what is to come. It’s a challenge because it sets us apart from the world we live in. We are challenged to acknowledge the Scriptures as inspired by the Holy Spirit and the ultimate authority over human knowledge and endeavor. It establishes the framework for understanding our world and events. It’s the common framework believers cling to as a Church.
These are the big rocks of our faith. We can find the statement of faith on the Elim website under About. In rejecting God, the world has put itself into opposition to these truths. When God calls us to Himself and we accept the invitation, these things become our challenge; they become the coarse sandpaper that reshapes our lives.
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