40 days of water

this past weekend has been super convicting. God did some business within my heart this weekend. here's the deal...so often i fall into pride and getting puffed up. its so subtle sometimes, but all of a sudden i lose the weight of Christ's sacrifice for me and somehow think that there's something within me that God can use. yet, in reality...it isn't my duty do do things or even the "responsibility God has given me." it's God's work from start to finish...and it's a privilege to be a part of it...not my right because of some earned righteousness (reading my bible a lot, praying a lot, or being smart...ugh. its so true that knowledge puffs up but love builds up).


anyways...one of the things that God convicted me of this weekend was that i was sharing the gospel more than showing it. i was telling people about Jesus without being Jesus.

as i was relaxing, i stumbled upon this challenge from bloodwater:mission (bwm). it's called the 40 days of water. basically here's the deal. people around the world have nothing but bad water to drink, and we in America are blessed to have so many other good things to drink that we take water for granted. not only is our water clean, but it actually tastes good. 

the challenge is to drink nothing but water for 4o days starting on march 1st and ending april 9th.

take all the money that you would use on coffee, pop, gatorade, milk, and anything else you might drink, and give it to bloodwater:mission. 

you might think, "but i don't drink much that i spend money on. why should i do this?" well, first of all...every dollar counts. according to bwm, one dollar = one year's supply of clean water for one person. that means that the one coffee that you don't buy because you're doing this will provide water for three people for the entire year. 

the second reason to participate is this: by abstaining from anything but water, we will gain insight into what others outside of america have experienced for their entire lives. hopefully, God's blessing on us will be magnified, and our compassion for the people in the world will be deepened. 

if you would like more information about this, go to bloodwater:mission's blog or check out the website

let me know if you want to be involved. i'll send out an email or something so that we can stay in contact with each other. it'd be cool to just talk about our experiences and find out how much money we raise.

communion...is it more than a miniature meal?

for a long time i have been wondering if there's more to this thing called communion. why do we do it? isn't there something more to it than taking a few minutes and church to eat a cardboard-like piece of cracker and a tiny cup of grape juice?

its interesting that Jesus decided to get rid of the old covenant with all of its ceremonies and sacrifices and just leave us with two things to practice: baptism and communion. we take communion on occasion, but i'm convinced that its often misunderstood. we don't really know what it means, and none of us think about it very often.

what is the point of communion? i grew up being instructed that communion was pretty much a time to "get right with God" and "examine yourself." i have been taught that if i wasn't "right with God" then i shouldn't "partake." but, when i look at the Bible, it becomes more and more clear that this isn't a very biblical approach to communion. 

can we ever "get right with God?" where does this phrase appear in the Bible? we have already been made right in Christ, and repenting of sin is a part of our lives, but we don't need to do it in order to be in the presence of God. Hebrews talks about how we have confidence to approach Jesus because of his sacrifice, not our confessing. 

communion isn't about confessing our sins because we are already right with God through what Jesus did on the cross. we have already been completely forgiven through Christ's death in our place. he has freed us from sin and given us the joy of serving him.

communion isn't something that we do for God. rather it's something that he has given us to remind us of how much he loves us. when we take communion, Jesus wants to remember how he demonstrated his love for us. his body was broken like the bread we eat on our behalf. his blood was poured out to cover over our sins. communion should be something that's full of joy and liberation as we think about Jesus.

if you want to look at what the bible has to say about communion, check out luke 22:14-20 and 1 corinthians 11:27-32

there's much more to say on this, but i'd like to hear some feedback...what do you think?