Wow. What a week this has been! Hallelujah! God has done so much in me that I'm sure I'll miss something in this blog, but that's ok. I am just so alive and I have joy in God that I haven't had for a while. I've learned some important things and been convicted by the Holy Spirit several times this week, and I've seen and experienced some pretty cool things too.
Where do I start? Ah, what the heck, let's just do a random order.
I'm doing a book study with my hall on A.W. Tozer's Pursuit of God. I really look forward to reading all of it, but even just the intro and first chapter have been really good for me. First I was reminded by my RA of a sermon by C.S. Lewis called the "Weight of Glory." Let me quote some of it:

...If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

I read this a couple years ago and then a couple months ago and then a couple weeks ago. Every time it hit me again. We are far too easily pleased. The church settles for program instead of worship. Christians settle for "accepting Christ" and then going on with their lives however they want, instead of pursuing him and finding out that he is exactly what they really need. He is the one thing that humanity desires without realizing it.
Here's a quote that I liked from Tozer's book:

There is today no lack of Bible teachers to set forth correctly the
principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals of the faith year after year, strangley unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual in their personal lives. They minister constantly to believers who feel within their breasts a longing which their teaching simply does not satisfy.

And another quote:

How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initical act of "accepting" Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls.

To desire God. That's what life is about. We talked about how a lot of people look forward to heaven to see people they love who have died. But that won't be the point in heaven. We will be drinking in God's presence and worshipping him for eternity. That is what heaven is. But if people don't desire God on earth, what do they have to look forward to in heaven? Yes, we have sin in the way now, but my point is that God is what we should desire now. God is all that is good wrapped up in one magnificent being.
But many Christians don't live that way today. Perhaps this is because a lot of churches focus on the outreach and do very little with discipleship--growing like Christ, growing closer to him, and becoming mature enough to disciple others. (We talked about this in my Intro to Ministry class the morning after we talked about it in Bible Study.) Let's look at some stats about the American church today: 4 out of 5 belivers say that having a deep growing faith is a top priority. BUT only 20% mention anything directly spritual as the most important thing they want to accomplish in life. And some stats from the WallStreet Journal said that 26% of born-again Christians don't believe that the particular religion someone lives by really matters because they all teach basically the same thing, 52% don't believe in the Holy Spirit, and 56% don't believe in Satan. Wow. Yeah, I know statistics can be misleading sometimes, but if these are even close to correct, there are some problems. I would love to discuss all the eight roots of the problem that we discussed in class, but this is getting really long. I guess I'll just say that I am realizing how important it is for the future of the church that we are discipling people. How about another random quote. Cal Thomas (I don't really know who that is) said:

The problem in our culture isn't the abortionists. It isn't the pornographers or drug dealers or criminals. It is the undisciplined, undiscipled, disobedient and biblically ignorant Church of Christ.

Keep this in mind my friends. We must intentionally witness to people and intentionally walk alongside believes to encourage, equip, and challenge each other toward maturity in Christ. This includes equipping the disciple to equip others as well.

So, this is already really long. I have a lot more to say, but I should probably do a little homework. So chew on this and come back later. Hopefully I can tell you about some other exciting things that are on my mind.