So I’m finally writing about the Awakening conference. Sorry it took so long for me to get to it.
So just to review, the Awakening was a worship conference that we had a couple weeks ago in Dublin, Ireland. It is put on by the World Race, and all of the current squads (there were 5) attend it along with any alumni that are able to make it. Jonathan David Helser and his band (the same group that was at training camp) led worship, and there were a few different speakers: Michael Hindes, Andrew Shireman, and Anthony Chapman. The worship and teaching was great, and God spoke so many things, but I figured I’d just hit on a couple of points that really impacted me.
For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control
2 Timothy 1:7
I am a confident man of God. Why? Because I am a beloved child of God. I can find all of my confidence in Christ’s love for me. There wasn’t any particular teaching at the conference that taught me this fact. Just God speaking to me through various times of worship or conversations with people. I think that most of the time I can appear to be confident. I enjoy being funny and can find a lot of confidence in my sense of humor. But beyond that, there can be a lack of confidence. There are so many times when I don’t speak up or don’t approach people to talk to them. Over the last 2 months, I’ve seen this problem play out most with my interaction with my teammates. Often, I’ve lacked the confidence to try to make conversation with them. But all of this lack of confidence crap is a lie from Satan. God made me to be a confident man of God, and like I said, I can be this confident man because of Christ’s love for me. One day during the Awakening, I was talking to my teammate, Rachel. We were talking about the power of our words; Proverbs 18:21 says that “death and life are in the power of the tongue.” We have the ability to speak life into people (or ourselves) or speak death into people (or ourselves) with our words. Rachel told me that I should no longer say that I’m not confident. No, I don’t always act like a confident man of God, but my lack of action doesn’t change who God has made me to be. Every day (and every moment), I can either choose to listen to the lies of Satan that say that I’m not a confident man or listen to the truth of God that says I am.
Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Ephesians 6:14
It’s time to wake up. The main focus of the teachings at the Awakening was that we, as Christians, need to awaken (hence the name of the conference) and get off our butts and go do what we were called by God to do. What were we called by God to do? To bring the kingdom of heaven to earth. In other words, go out and share the love of Christ with people and bring God’s glory throughout the earth. So often, we focus on the “getting to heaven” part of salvation. Yes, heaven is gonna be more than awesome, and it is an amazing gift from God that we get to spend eternity with Him in heaven. But most of us remain on earth for 60 to 70 years after receiving salvation. So obviously, there has to be more to it than just getting to heaven. And there is. The power of Christ that allows us to go to heaven also fills us here on earth. And we can take that power and bring God’s glory and kingdom to this earth until it is our time to go home to Him in heaven. The Awakening was perfect timing for me. During most of the first two months of the World Race, I had forgotten my purpose. After training camp, I was so charged up and ready to kick some spiritual butt for Christ. But during the past two months, I just got so caught up in stupid distractions that I forgot. But again, God is faithful and used the Awakening to wake me up and remind me of why I am here.
So yeah, I’m a confident man of God who is going to wake up and bring Christ’s love and God’s glory to people here on this earth. That is my purpose, and it’s time to start living it.
