Oh, the popular American phrase, “supersize me”. It is so often associated with McDonald’s and obesity. But when I think of “supersize me”, I think of everything about America. America is just often bigger, not always better, but bigger. There are positives and negatives about that. I think of TV shows like “Man vs. Food” or phrases like “Everything’s bigger in Texas”… things are just bigger.
However, one thing in America that is not bigger is Christianity, and more specifically, the calling of Christians. We often fail to see just how much God wants to use us, the great ways He desires for us to follow Him. Two things that I heard over and over this past year at college were “Kingdom work” and “participating in God’s action in the world”. American Christians often fail to take these things seriously… maybe all Christians (I haven’t spent enough time in other countries to truly know). Sure, we do good things, follow some rules, etc., but we do not do true Kingdom Work, we do not push ourselves to our spiritual limits and force God to refill us because of how we are serving Him and the Kingdom. We do not step out of our comfort zones. And I am the worst at all of this. I may go on these “grand” mission trips: Zambia, Australia, now the World Race. But I’m just like you. I fail so often to allow God to stretch me and mold me and “supersize me”. We were made for something more, something greater, and I know I fall short of this all the time, and I bet you do too. A quote from my old youth pastor has always stuck out to me, “you can settle for what is good, or you can strive for what is best.” Good is fine and all, but do you just want the good or do you want the best God has for you and you can be for God? It is time to change that, starting now; not when I get on the World Race, but now, while I’m still at home, while I still have lives I can impact here. Change starts now and God will continue to work in me and mold me and change me. May He do the same for you.
Some of you may not know, I love Christian rap music. The beat, the rhythm, the lyrics, it just gets me going, gets me excited. And some words at the end of a song have been really sticking out to me. The artist, Lecrae, says…
“Hey man, the way I see it, I think we were made for more than just the simple things that we aspire toward. We were made for more than just telling stories of how much money we can get from selling ‘poison’ to people. It’s time to talk about who we are and who we can be. Man, we need to build each other up, not put each other down. I feel like we’re not talking about nothing right now.”
The scary part is, we don’t even have to sell “poison”, we can sell a watered-down Gospel and it is essentially the same thing. Anything that is not the full Gospel, the full Truth of Jesus, is “lukewarm” and “spit out by God”. May we stop being lukewarm, may we start striving to be who God has called us to be. To talk to others about our story and God’s story, challenging each other to be more, and encouraging each other, not destroying each other. Take heart, we’re all in this together.
