Picture a six year old boy coloring in his coloring book. As he has this bright crescent smile across his face, his sister approaches him asking to borrow the crayon. Fearfully, The little boy grabs tightly onto his crayon saying “NO”. He takes the crayon back to the book pressing with a great force that breaks the crayon in half. Suddenly, the little boy darts to his father crying, “Daddy! Daddy! my crayon is broken, I can’t color anymore Daddy.” The father takes the broken crayon and sits beside his son and says “broken crayons still color.”
What you believe about yourself is what you believe about God…
That little boy was me, Fabian Cortez. During my 10 days at training camp for the World Race, God broke my insecurities drawing me to be vulnerable with my brothers and sisters in Christ. I learned how to trust others with the brokeness that I held onto for so long. Everywhere I walked I carried an identity of a false self by feeding into the custom of society. I had allowed my circumstances to dictate my view of God. Until that crayon shattered, I clinged to the walls that I built between myself and others. However, my father in heaven whispered into my ears proclaiming that broken lives still color. He took that crayon and showed me what it looked like, to forget structure, to abandon what I knew to be comfortable, and showed me what it meant to walk in his loving grace.
“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.” Ephesians 2:8
For so long I battled with the fact that grace was God’s empowerment to me. When someone gives me a gift, I don’t say, “that’s very nice-now how much do I owe you?” No, the appropriate response is to say “Thank you.” Yet, I as a Christian, felt obligated to work my way to God. Because grace is a gift I should respond with gratitude, praise, and joy. Grace is activated by a heart of change, grace does not keep record of wrong, grace will restore you back to sonship, grace doesn’t pick other offenses, and grace will find me before judgement finds me. Through breaking my crayon, God lured me into his invitation to walk into my true identity.
But that’s not all…
After God dealt with my heart individually along with my squad, he unified us into a community. When reading through the gospel, everything the disciples did was in community. So what did that look like at training camp?
Here is another story to view what happened to our squad as a community.
Imagine you are sitting in the pews during a church service. Your pastor asks for an individual to come up to the front, so a young gentleman boldly steps onto the stage, the pastor locks eyes with the man addressing that he has cancer. However, the pastor turns toward the congregation asking for everyone to look under the pews to see if there are any items there. Three people spread across the sanctuary stand up with items in their hands gathered from under the pews. The pastor starts with the person on the far left, asking what item is in her hand. She says it is a bottle of water, the next person in the middle of the sanctuary has instructions stating open cap, pour powder in bottle, then shake. The last person on the far right has a crystal packet for the bottle of water. The pastor ask the three individuals to come together and read the instructions once again that was gathered from the lady in the middle of the congregation. This time it made sense that each individual had an item that formed a bottle of water with flavor. Though, that bottle of water with flavor is now given to that gentleman standing on stage to cure his cancer.
The moral of this story is that someone’s destiny is tied to your assignment as a Christian. We all hold a gift that God has given to us to steward and use for the kingdom of God. I watched God unify my team together in the spirt by forming a community that sought after their gifts, and practiced them before the Lord. Through community, the kingdom of God will advance. Observing 30 individuals that are passionate, hungry, and thirsty for God will open the doors for Jesus to write his story on earth by the obedience of his servants.
Ya back to that question, what did community look like?
Well, the first night of camp a gentleman did not have a tent but without any hesitation, people starting giving up sleeping pads/bags, pillows, sheets, etc. for a brother to sleep at night. By day two my deodorant had fallen apart and a women on the squad reached out and handed me her D.O. Yes! it was a shocker at first but the humility that she had, portrayed the love of Christ working in her. Later on the week, all the squads went to the camp grounds for the night to practice survival skills. Within an hour at the campgrounds, one of the squads known as Gap year which consisted of young men and women who just graduate high school had multiple injuries occurring. One boy was chopping wood when a fragment of the wood flew into his head causing him to have stitches. Then two or three young adults of the same squad had setup an eno/hammock and the dead tree concaved on them. And this is where community began to form our squad closer, as we walked upon the campground of G squad, we saw these young people crammed under the tarp as the rain began to pour down. Our squad grab each others hand and circled the tarp of G squad and fiercely started praying over them. One by one my squad was leading prayer, individuals were squatting underneath the tarp laying hands on the young generation before us. In that moment, the heavens were rejoicing with us as we lifted our brothers and sisters in Christ. The stories didn’t even stop there, while on day 7 our squad went to the trailer parks sharing the good news, my teammates were having visions, prophetic words, hearing the voice of God, etc. that brought life to families. This is what community is about, being lead by the spirit and standing by your brothers and sisters in Christ.
I want to end by challenging everyone with this scripture in mind.
“Now these are the gifts Christ has given to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.” Ephesians 4:11
Our oneness in Christ does not destroy our individuality. The Hoy Spirit has given each Christian special gifts for building up the church. Now that we have these gifts, it is crucial to use them. Are you spiritually mature, exercising the gifts that God has given you? If you know what your gifts are, look for opportunities to serve. If you don’t know, ask God to show you, trust me he will gladly want to partner with you. Finally, as you begin to recognize your special area of service, use your gifts to strengthen and encourage the church.
