The College Church

“Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you.” (Col.3:13 – MSG)

Are you even-tempered?
Are you content with second place?

And the doozy…Do you forgive the way God has forgiven you? Quickly and completely? Even when the person is a big jerk and doesn’t DESERVE to be forgiven?

Can you imagine what the world would look like if we actually APPLIED the principles of the Bible? Even just these three? Imagine if EVERYONE controlled their tempers. If NOBODY felt the need to be number one. Imagine if we ALL truly forgave each other quickly and completely, no matter who they were or what they’d done or how unfair it was…we’d just let it go.

The world would be flipped upside-down!
It would be a MUCH better place to live.
And we’d be happier. Much, much happier.

I’m going out on a limb and saying that it is not likely that the whole world will apply these three principles…or the rest of the life-altering principles of the Bible. But YOU can. You want to make the world a better place? You want to be happier? Then start by controlling your anger. Start by not fighting to be the best at everything or always having to being right. Start by forgiving people…I mean, REALLY forgiving people. Not just SAYING you’ve forgiven them while you secretly wish they’d have someone treat THEM they way they treated YOU!

Why don’t we listen to God and just do what He says? We’re so stinkin’ stubborn! If we’d apply even just these 3 things, we’d be so much happier…and it would begin to change the world.

-Jeremiah Smith

So I was reading this morning about the Israelites as they were about to FINALLY reach the promised land. Did you know that there were two tribes of people that literally came up to Moses and said, “Hey, we like it here. We don’t want to go to the promised land. Can we just stay where we’re at?”

And Moses basically said, “as long as you come with us to help fight and take over Canaan, then okay.” “But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the Lord; and you may be sure that your sin will find you out.” (Numbers 32:23)

Come on! I mean, really? You and your people were promised this amazing land by God Himself 40 years ago, you’re almost there and you say, “Nah. I like it here. It’s good land for our cattle.”

But that’s exactly what they did. Look at the maps at the back of your Bible and you’ll find the tribes of Gad and Reuben to the RIGHT of the Jordan river…aka, the land God did NOT promise them. Don’t get me wrong, they didn’t SIN by doing this. They just missed out on God’s blessing. They missed out on the incredible land God had promised them.

After all He had done for them-delivering them from slavery, parting the Red Sea, leading them by fire at night and a cloud by day, making water come from a rock, and providing food that quite literally fell from the sky…they STILL thought they knew more than God. Idiots!

What about you? You may necessarily be “sinning” by choosing your path over His, but you you most definitely are missing out. Quit acting like your plan is better than His. Does He STILL need to prove Himself to you? Really? He knows more than you. Don’t settle for YOUR plan. It’s not as good as His. Just relax and go where He tells you to go.

-Jeremiah Smith

On Thursday Scott Beebe and two other businessmen from Bluffton will be traveling to Nigeria to continue a long term partnership with the Fulani tribe of West Africa. Go to blufftontoday.com and read the article for Tuesday.

You are invited to pray for the team on our 24 hour prayer chain. To join the list email ashley_beebe@yahoo.com and she will give you a time slot.

Thanks so much for partnering with us, and Scott will look forward to sharing about the trip when he returns.

Over the years I’ve learned that no matter how much you try and live the way you should, you will still have people who don’t understand. People who take offense to you. Sometimes it’s because of a misunderstanding. Sometimes it’s because they don’t agree with you. And sometimes it’s just because you’re not perfect. Yes, it’s true. You can be a really, really good person – always trying to do the right thing and people will STILL be upset with you. Gasp!

And it hurts.

Jesus went through this too, so you’re in good company. For me, it helps to be reminded of that. In John 6, Jesus teaches some pretty wild stuff. The people listening and following him responded with “This is hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Jesus lays into them a bit and it says that “from this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” Ouch. I mean, we’re talking about God-in-the-flesh here. I can’t imagine the temptation He must have felt in that moment to do something AMAZING to prove that He had every right to say what He was saying! Jesus didn’t mess up or say anything wrong here…people just took offense to Him. And I think it hurt Him. He even turns to His 12 closest friends and says “You do not want to leave me too, do you?”

People will be people, and rejection doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve done something wrong. Maybe they’ve misunderstood you or think you’ve done something they disagree with…or maybe you DID do something wrong and dropped the ball somewhere despite your best efforts. But you can kill yourself trying to make everyone happy. Nobody likes to be rejected, especially when you are really trying to do your best. But what ultimately matters is pleasing God, not man.

If you are giving your best to God, doing everything you can to follow and obey and grow and do everything in love…well…people will still reject you. But it’s really okay. God’s opinion is all you need to be concerned with. Keep focused on what truly matters!

-Jeremiah Smith

Routine and consistency are two attributes of life that I am trying to continually develop. For me, when I get out of a discipline routine, it affects the various domains of my life. Usually, my routine starts very early…assuming I get to bed very early.

With three children, each having school and activities, the need for routine and discipline is compounded. When things unexpectedly creep in on the discipline and routine that you have created it is a priority to scratch the appropriate parts of your routine. It is as if each of my disciplines (reading, journaling, blogging and exercising) are ranked in the sub-conscious. You can see that I was not able to write on this blog last week. Why? It was not ranked as high as reading and exercising…or in the case of this past week; preparing to teach, going out of town on business, visit to the Emergency Room.

Careful not to get frustrated or put out when you can not hold fast to your routine for a short period of time. Set a time to come back to it and get back to your consistency. Societally we tend to commit in a moment (and sometimes publicly so), and subsequently forget, or just fail to produce as time progresses. Instead of declaring to the world what your intention is (i.e. blog more, say no to drugs/sex/rated R movies, read/pray more, meet regularly with someone)…pick your discipline, do it quietly for a while, then let others know what you have been doing; that is leading through your example instead of your intention.

-Ashley Beebe

Up on our mirror in our bathroom is a verse I’ve committed to memory…

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 4:6-7 (Hey, I didn’t even have to look that up to type it!)

I can’t even begin to tell you what a difference this verse has made for me since it’s been on my mind daily! It’s a great reminder to stop freaking out about things that don’t even matter. And if they DO in fact really matter, give ‘em to God. Let Him take it and relax. Experience the joy and peace God intends for you.

And I love how Paul threw in the whole “with thanksgiving” part. It’s like he wrote this down and went back to add “with thanksgiving” because it’s such a HUGE part of not being anxious…to turn your focus from what’s wrong and bad to what’s right and good.

Amazing how applicable and helpful the Bible is. I just don’t get how people find it to be outdated and boring. I don’t imagine that people who feel that way could possibly be doing much reading…or applying.

So how about you? How are you with this whole “being anxious” thing? Do you give it God or tend to try to conquer the world all by yourself? Do you focus on what’s wrong and bad or what’s right and good? Do you focus on things that don’t even really matter in the grand scheme of things? Are you truly at peace the way God intends?

-Jeremiah Smith

There’s a short verse that has really been rattling around in my brain recently (there’s alot rattling around with all of the empty space!) and although it contains only a few words, it really packs a punch. Jesus said it in Luke 12:34 and it says, For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

What do we treasure today? In asking some college students that question recently, the answers ranged from cars to clothes to USC and Clemson! The list is endless. The next question we discussed was how to define what we treasure. Simply put I believe a practical definition of what we treasure comes from what we spend our time doing, what we spend our money on and what we talk about the most! Think about that for a second –isn’t that true? You could make a pretty good assessment of what’s important to someone by looking at their calendar, their wallet and their language. So what do you treasure?

That question leads us to this one; What should we treasure? Earlier in the “treasure” chapter we find a story of a farmer who had done very well with his crop. So much so that he didn’t have room to store it all in his barns. But instead of sharing his surplus he decided he’d build bigger barns! Little did he know that his life would be taken from him that very day and of what benefit would his surplus be to him then? The story concludes with this thought, This is how it will be for anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God. Wow! That statement really causes me to stop and think about what I really treasure. It’s apparently not all about money or phones or sound systems or flat screen TV’s or cars or boats or the latest greatest gadget, but about things that will last for eternity.

One of my campus college leaders used to tell me that the only two things that would last for eternity are God and people, so invest your time wisely. This is true. Relationships are the only thing that we can take with us, so why do we spend such an enormous amount of time on stuff that doesn’t really matter? Good question.

I pray that you will treasure this week that which is important for eternity.

-Rob Jacobs

Last night at college church, Scott had everyone text the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “icon.” We had answers that ranged from Michael Jackson to Oprah. From Tiger Woods to the Beatles. From Taylor Swift to Dr. Phil.

Technically, what we’re talking about here are “cultural” icons. According to dictionary.com, “A cultural icon can be an image, a symbol, a logo, picture, name, face, person, or building or other image that is readily recognized…In the media, many well-known manifestations of popular culture have been described as ‘iconic’, with some writers saying that the word is overused.”

So this is really about popularity. If you’re so popular that the vast majority of people instantly recognize your picture and name (in a good way!) even after you’re long gone, you’ll probably be labeled as a cultural icon. And now that we live in a media rich society, icons are popping up everywhere. Word spreads fast when you’re really really good at something, people generally like you and you are making the news.

Of course, I don’t think any person, Christian or not, would argue that the most popular and original icon is Jesus…although, John Lennon did say once in an interview that the Beatles were “more popular that Jesus.” John, I respectfully disagree.

Believe in Him or not, Jesus stands head and shoulders above all other icons and He always will. The Beatles and Tiger and Michael Jackson will probably still be talked about 200 years from now, but Jesus will always be bigger. He was the first and He’ll be the last. Our world will NEVER stop talking about Jesus. Philippians 2:10 says it this way: “God lifted [Jesus] high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.”

Don’t get me wrong…I don’t think Jesus is really concerned at all about His iconic status. He’s not checking His fan base or the latest opinion ratings survey. He existed before time, created everything out of nothing, and will always be. He’s not exactly competing for popularity with the likes of Ringo Starr or Oprah.

-Jeremiah Smith

These are the icons that were sent in last night…

Dad
Fergie
Britney Spears
Dr. Phil
Channing Tatum
Rob Jacobs
The Beatles
Jay-Z
Taylor Swift
Master Chief
Michael Jackson
Tiger Woods
Parents
Robert Pattinson
Oprah

It’s still close enough to the beginning of a new year and so I have started tracking through the Old Testament on my way to inevitably falling short on my latest New Years resolution to read through the Bible in 2010! But this year I’m taking my time, not too stressed if I fall behind, and really trying to take it in. You know, the Old Testament can sometimes be intimidating with its complexities – what I mean are there are a lot of books written by a lot of different people on a lot of different subjects covering a large space of time! But as I was reading from a Bible handbook the other day I was overwhelmed by the simplicity of the overall theme and the way it was expressed. It said “The Old Testament is an account of a Nation. The New Testament is the account of a Man. The nation was founded and nurtured of God to bring the Man into the world.” Pretty simple, huh? So there’s your theology 101 lesson for the day!

So as I’ve been perusing the pages of Genesis I’ve come across one of my favorite characters – Joseph. As I was reading his story once again I was struck by his incredible attitude and adaptability to any & every situation. I mean the guy had his life threatened by his brothers, was thrown into a well, was sold as a slave, was set up and went to prison unjustly, was let down by a friend who was supposed to get him out of prison and then finally caught a break! But here’s the amazing part – not once throughout his life story recorded in Genesis do we see him whining, complaining, or even bitter toward those who had mistreated him. I mean, let’s be real –how did you react the last someone wronged you, said something behind your back, betrayed you. It’s not easy to respond with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc.!

Or how about when life throws you something totally unexpected…my wife & I were just talking yesterday about one of her co-workers, dear Christian friends of our who have waited so long for a child of their own, finally decided to adopt, and now unjustly lost their baby. Other co-workers at school commented on how this will certainly shake up their faith and how this is why they can’t reconcile believing in a God who allows things like this to happen to good people. I don’t know about you, but it makes me angry when things like this happen to wonderful people who I care for too. And yet I know their response will be one of disappointment and yet unwavering trust, deep hurt but not without hope, all a part of learning to fall in love with the sovereignty of God. And our dear friends are also spiritually mature enough to realize that it is in these very times that the rest of the world watches us to see how we will respond – the natural way or a supernatural way!

And so we see this supernatural response exuding from Joseph’s every word as he makes this statement to his brothers after being reunited with them later in life. He says in Genesis 50:20, “You intended to harm me but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of lives.” You see, Joseph saw something that few of us see – beyond ourselves to a bigger picture. When we face hard times it’s natural to respond with the typical OT “eye for an eye” mentality but Joseph was able to see God’s hand in the adversity of his life. That’s big, that’s unusual, but that’s something that God honors! Another OT character, Job, who had more than a little experience with adversity put it this way, “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away – blessed be the Name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)

So the next time something happens this week, big or small, that rocks your world, stop and think about Joseph. Think about how God might possibly use that which is no good to be all good because He is always good and has a plan and a purpose for everything in your life!

-Rob Jacobs