Grace – Unmerited Favor

7/8/2013

In the summer of 2008, immediately following my freshman year of high school, I went to Impact Summer Camp. I had not yet begun regularly attending Living Hope Community Church with my family, but my sister brought me along with their youth group into an encounter with God that left me changed forever. Five years ago, I was saved during a worship service at Impact 2008. God met me where I was at and redirected my life. It’s always hard to explain what happens during a salvation experience. It’s much easier for me to point to the effects of my salvation. Australia, Cancun, Nicaragua, Hillsdale, Worship Music, Piano, Medicine, etc. All of these experiences, passions, and dreams came from what Jesus accomplished on the cross and accomplished in my life.

I told you that story to tell you this one:

A couple weeks ago, I heard that the worship team for Impact Summer Camp 2013 was in need of a keyboard player. I thought that the opportunity sounded God-sent, so I sent in an application and a short video audition. I received a positive response almost immediately. A couple days before the camp started, I received a phone call informing me that the bass player had dropped out and that the band would love to have me on to play bass instead. I informed them that Noah was proficient at keys and waited for a response. Today, the Impact band + Noah and I played the opening service for Impact 2013.

It’s amazing how quickly God can change a person’s life. God has pulled me back to the place I was saved only five years later to show me the incredible work that he has done in my life. Furthermore, he is giving me the opportunity to share that same saving grace with the next generation. It just makes me laugh to think about it.

I told you that revelation to share this lesson:

As a minister of God’s grace in whatever capacity, you will never know the full extent of what God accomplishes through your sacrifice and willingness to serve. The sinners who meet Jesus today are the saints and martyrs of tomorrow.

Surgery

6/25/13

Today, I had the opportunity to assist in a surgery for the first time. Yesterday, Mike Riley brought me into the operating room to see five gall bladder removals. Today, I scrubbed in with the surgeons and was allowed to hold the scope for four gall bladder removals.

The surgical procedure was quite interesting. To reduce the size of scars and lower the chance of infection, the surgeons will create four small incisions into the stomach rather than one large one. Long instruments are then fed through the four incisions and all of the surgical cutting, cauterizing, and even sewing are done underneath the skin. To see what is happening, a surgeon inserts a long camera and light into one of the incisions. This camera is called the scope. My job was to be the eyes for the surgeon.

God has given me a lot of time to think about surgery and what lessons that can be learned from it. Here are my thoughts:

1. The first step in surgery is cleanliness. Everything instrument used for the surgery is sterile. Every surgeon operates within a sterile field. The patient must be cleaned to reduce all risk of infection. The same has been true for my walk with Jesus. Before ripping out any weeds in our bodies, Jesus cleans us. I know that when I’ve been battling something for a long time and fail, I’m prone to respond by being indignant and channeling my emotional response into a renewed conviction never to fail again. The renewed conviction has always ended in failure that goes beyond how far I’d ever failed before. There is no emotional conviction, mental determination or physical sacrifice that can ever match the sustained power of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. God wants to clean you before performing surgery on your heart, mind, and body.

2. Although surgery is very clean, it is certainly not beautiful. I guess I had thought at one point that a removal surgery would be rather graceful and intricate. Nope. The human body is a massively complex system of sustained consciousness. But for all their complexity, our internal organs are not anything close to being pretty. Especially not gall bladders. A gall bladder removal mainly involves blood, bile, and cauterized flesh. Spiritual surgery has never really looked pretty either. When God puts things into light that have been hidden for a very long time, the revelation is usually disgusting. More than likely, spiritual surgery is going to be very messy and rather painful.

3. Surgery is worth it.

“Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” – Hebrews 12:10-11