That He May Work In Us

It seems the Cloud is on the move again. Not to a new geographical location, but in a spiritual sense, for certain. It's like God is saying, "Don't get too comfortable. Remember, you're a pilgrim, just passing through this life" (Psalm 84:5). There are some big changes happening at Walnut Hill--and they're great ones! But as the new girl just getting settled, change is rocking my world a little.

Without getting too introspective, I just want to share a thought. I'm learning, in the midst of all this change and upheaval, and through some other circumstances as well, that God is far more interested in doing a work in me than He is in my doing a work for Him.

When I type it out, maybe it sounds almost haughty, but bear with me for a second here. If we really believe that God wants to use us as His instruments...If, as Eugene Petersen puts it in His translation of 2 Corinthians 4:7-8, He wants to use "the unadorned clay pots of our very ordinary lives," then the work has to start in us. We must be emptied before we can be "filled to the measure with all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:19). I think I can get so sidetracked by ministering to others, by trying to accomplish something weighty for the Kingdom that I miss the point...

With this Father God who offers His Son to redeem and His Spirit to regenerate, it's the heart that matters most.

My young adult girls' Bible study had the most precious time of confession last Thursday. The Lord had been impressing the importance of confessing sin on my heart since Advent, and as we girls talked two weeks in a row about the things we let distract us from pursuing God, I was convicted that corporate confession was essential. Let me tell you, it was beautiful! There's something so humbling and yet so uplifting about laying down idols and burdens in the midst of community. And it's addicting--as I've gone through my week, I've been painfully aware of more junk in my life that is keeping me from being more intimately identified with Christ.

And isn't it good of God, isn't it just so like Him, to meet us in that place of deep conviction and show us the places that need healing, the things in our lives that must be dealt with? It's in the wake of (and really, in the midst of) confession that I'm recognizing His concern with my heart, His desire to work in me in fresh ways so that I'm not the same person I was yesterday or last year. He is the One who is faithful to finish the work He has begun (1 Thessalonians 5:24, Philippians 1:6).

So here's the Scripture I'm clinging to as things around me are changing:

"May the God of peace, who through the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the Sheep, equip you with everything good for doing His will, and may He work in us what is pleasing to Him, through Christ Jesus, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen" (Hebrews 13:20-21).

True Masculinity

Both of the Bible studies I lead in my home are studying Paul's letters. In the high school girls' group we're doing Romans (their choice--can you see why I love them so?!) and in the young adult girls' group we're going through Ephesians. In both studies, we're nearing the part about "wives submit to your husbands." Uhhg--that is such a hard part, isn't it? I find myself just needing to be reminded of what masculinity and femininity are supposed to look like, so that I can maybe make just a little sense out of these hard passages that speak of gender roles.

As if on cue, I came across possibly the best sermon I ever heard on masculinity the other day. This was the very last sermon I heard Carter Crenshaw (my pastor at West End Community Church in Nashville) give before I moved from the Music City to New England. West End is now posting Carter's sermons online, which is great news for me because I love to listen to him!

Before I ever visited West End, my sweet friend Shelley told me how Carter performed her brother and sister-in-law's wedding service, and how it was beautiful and poignant, and how Beth Moore (a friend of theirs through LifeWay) loved it so much that she endorsed it on her blog! (I later read the blog post--you can check it out on the Living Proof blog here. I can just picture Carter being "up in their stuff" and patting Rich on the arm over and over...he's so dear.) I attended West End for the better part of a year, and people from other churches would often tout Carter as the best pre-marriage counselor in Nashville. When I met with him one-on-one a couple of times, and especially when I heard this sermon on masculinity, I began to see that they weren't just being gracious. This guy means business!

The message is taken largely from a book by John Piper (one of my favorite theologians) and Wayne Grudem (the guy who wrote my 1200+ page Systematic Theology textbook). But Carter lends his wonderfully enthusiastic and studied flavor to it.

So the point is, listen to this sermon. If you're a dude, it will make you want to shape up and be a real man like Jesus. If you're a girl, it will make you want to quit flirting with fire and find a guy who seeks after Jesus with his whole heart. Seriously. It's good stuff. And if you struggle at all with Paul's telling the saints that wives should submit to their husbands, and husbands should lay down their lives for their wives, maybe it will bring just a little clarity to the whole messy issue.

Click here for the audio file.

A Salute to My Friend Walter (and other random thoughts)

Confession: I am procrastinating.

I'm supposed to be writing my next freelance article, a little piece on how to spice up your prayer life. When I say it like that, it sounds kind of cheesy and culturally Christian, but I'm hoping it will be neither in the end. You can read it next month and tell me what you think...)

But instead of writing the article, I'm sitting in bed trying to get over my writer's block and listening to Christmas music.

You caught me. I'm still listening to Christmas music. It's just that this Indelible Grace album, "Your King Has Come" is so dang good! I know it's January, a new year and all, but I'm trying to get inspired here.

Anyway, I digress. As long as I'm procrastinating, I thought I'd share a link with you. One of my dearest friends from high school youth group, Walter Jennings, is just about to finish his time in the Marines. He called the other day to say that he made it back from Afghanistan safely! I'm super proud of him, of course, and I was especially excited when he told me that his picture made it in the Washington Post--I just love the Post--and CBS News, as well as Bloomington's local paper, The Pantagraph. Apparently Bravo Company, 1st Battalion 5th Marines had an incredibly successful mission. Pretty cool stuff!

Check it out!

New article about adoption and my friend Svitlana

My latest article is posted at www.myMISSIONfulfilled.com. You can read it here.

This month, I got to write about my friend Svitlana, who has an amazing testimony. Svieta grew up in an orphanage in Ukraine and was later adopted--by not just one, but TWO families, one of which is the Causey family, dear friends of mine from Forest Hills Baptist Church in Nashville! Svieta is leveraging all that God's given her in some pretty cool ways. She will inspire you!

And as always, if you know women in their 20s and 30s, let them know about My Mission Fulfilled!

Thanks for reading!

love,
Chelsea

Advent Recap

I flew back to Connecticut today, and I came home to a dead Christmas tree.

So, Christmas really is over. But as I put away my decorations and drug my dead tree outside, I listened to Christmas music.

I discovered this weekend that all this time, all through Advent, I've had an Andrew Peterson Christmas album, "Behold the Lamb of God," on my iTunes. Not only that, but I learned of Indelible Grace's Christmas album titled "Your King Has Come." I just couldn't end the season without giving both a good listen.

So before you pack up your decorations and drag your Christmas tree to the curb, check out these albums online, or maybe buy them for next year. You can listen to "Your King Has Come" for free on Matthew Smith's website. Matthew Perryman Jones' rendition of O, Holy Night is what I was looking for all month--what an incredible song! And there's a song on Andrew Peterson's album that you just have to hear. Check it out, via Lala, below:

Labor of Love - Andrew Peterso...

Joy and peace to you in the New Year!
Chelsea

Advent Thoughts

It's Christmas Day, and I'll admit, I'm a little sad. I have always loved the anticipation of things--birthdays, vacations, holidays, parties--almost as much as the thing itself. And so it is with Christmas. As a little girl, I would lie awake in bed for weeks before Christmas, imaging the fun times with family and the many gifts under the tree. I would count down from at least a hundred days to the day, driving my mom crazy. And then Christmas would come. It would be glorious, of course, everything I imagined it to be and more. But then it would be over so quickly and I would feel sort of empty. I loved that anxious feeling, the beforehand waiting, the most. I guess that's why I love Advent.

And now it's over. Taylor and I packed up our presents and brought them upstairs. In a couple of days I'll pack up my suitcase and go home. When I get back to Bethel, I'll pack up my Christmas decorations and put them away. And this sweetness, this waiting for Jesus to come, it seems I'll have to pack it up as well.

But the beauty of Advent is that it not only celebrates Christ's coming to us in a manger, but anticipates His coming to us in undeniable glory. That anticipation, that waiting, does not have to be packed up with the Christmas ornaments. And when the Day finally arrives, it will not pale in comparison to my anxious waiting for it, as Christmas sometimes does.

What I have loved this Advent is learning to relate to God as the One Who Comes. It wasn't just in that Bethlehem stall that God revealed Himself as Immanuel--no!--He has been Immanuel for all of eternity past. He is the God who is present with His people.

In fact, it's the pillar of cloud, again, that reminds us of God's ever-present-ness with the Israelites. It was the cloud by day and the fire by night, the Shekinah, Hebrew for "dwelling," that reminded God's people of His care for them and directed them where they should go (Numbers 9). God came to Moses in the burning bush. He spoke to Abraham. He walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden. He said to Joshua, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." God with us. Not just beginning with Jesus, but from the beginning of creation.

In Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus, John MacArthur writes, "You see, God only whispers in His creation. He revealed a shadow of His glory in the Shekinah. But He speaks with absolute clarity in His Word. 'God...spoke' (Hebrews 1:1), and not in a whisper, but in full voice. Still, there was an incompleteness in it all until, '[God] has in these last days spoken to us by His Son" (Hebrews 1:2).

"Now that is God shouting. You can't mistake it. Christ is God, and you see every attribute of God manifest in him. His judgment, his justice, his love, his wisdom, his power, his omniscience. It's all there in person as we see Him walk through the world, working his work, living his life. The fullness of God may be seen as it was never seen before in Jesus Christ."

And this is the One we call Immanuel, who saw fit to leave his heavenly dwelling and make his home among us, visibly and personally. This is the Incarnation we celebrate at Christmas: the coming of the One of whom the prophet Zechariah said, "Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you," declares the LORD" (Zechariah 2:10). He is the one

who enables the psalmist to declare,

"say to those with fearful hearts,
"Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you" (Psalm 35:4).

But there is more! The One who came to us then, and who made himself continually present by imparting the Holy Spirit to dwell in the hearts of believers (John 14:26), is also the One who will come again! Revelation 21:1-8, one of the Advent Scriptures, gives us a beautiful description of what will happen on that Day:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"

And so our Jesus, the supreme expression of God with us, will come and dwell among us fully and finally. He will make everything new and--the most encouraging thing to me this first Christmas after Grandma Russell's death--will do away with the affects of sin, all pain and death and mourning. Glory! This is the holy paradox: our God has come...and He is coming to reign forevermore!

Advent Confessions

Our 6 p.m. service tonight at Walnut Hill was beautiful. Not only did we sing Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus, but the sermon was about sin. Call me crazy, but I love a good sermon about sin.

Don't get me wrong--I'm not one of these legalists who loves to wallow in condemnation and guilt. It's just that sometimes I'm so painfully unaware of my need for a Savior. And if you ask me, that's the worst place to be at Christmastime. After all, how can you rejoice in being free if you don't recognize the depth of your sin to begin with?

I have a sweet little gaggle of high school girls who come to my house once a week to study the Bible. It's the most precious time. And yesterday, as we were munching on M&M cookies, talking about boys, and discussing Romans 5, one of them said something really insightful about sin and our need for God's grace. I shared Spurgeon's famous quote with them: "If your sin is small, your Savior will be small. But if your sin is great, then your Savior will be great also." We talked about how Spurgeon (and Paul, whom he was sort of paraphrasing) wasn't saying that we should sin more...he wasn't even necessarily claiming that some sins are greater than others. Rather, he was alluding to how we understand our sin.

Here's a confession: I sometimes pretend my sin isn't such a big deal, that I'm doing okay, really. And that's when my Jesus starts to seem awfully small, too.

So tonight, I relished the reminder of sin's potency in my life. There was a time of silent confession, reminiscent of Sundays at Third, that seemed oh-so-appropriate just days before this holiday where we celebrate the Incarnation. My sin is great. So great, in fact, that it demanded the death and resurrection of God's own Son to reconcile it. That God would pay that price for me, for the world, is the real miracle of Christmas.

Tonight's Advent Scriptures included John 3:16-21. I think I might have skipped over those familiar verses had it not been for the timing of this evening.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.

John 3:19-21

Oh that we might come into the light this Christmas and let our sin be exposed! Then, and only then, will we realize how great is our Savior King, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Come, Thou long-expected Jesus,
Born to set Thy people free.
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee!