Let Your Kingdom Come

This past weekend I was in Texas. Yeah... Texas. That's what I said. I still can't believe I was there. I went with a group of 13 college age adults from Wayne and Holmes County. We drove through 4 states (Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas). I had never been to any of these states, so my eyes were fixed out the window for a good part of the trip. We left on Thursday morning at 7, and then drove for the next 23 hours... not getting into Waco, Texas until 7 the following day. (There is a time change). The reason we went to the Lone Star State was for a missions conference called World Mandate. The mission for the conference was pretty simple... Let Your Kingdom Come.

I have never been so filled with joy, then I was the last 3 days. Gathered with 4000 of my brothers and sisters in Christ, we jubilantly declared that His Kingdom Will Come. There were hundreds of stories of faith that were told, mostly by a man named Jim Yost, who has lived in Papua New Guinnea for the last 30 years of his life living out the gospel and proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ.

I was reminded of the goodness of God, and how in His love, he has set me free and taken of the chains that have held me down for so long. For a lot of my life I have believed the lies of Satan. Satan often tells me I am a loser and I am not worth anything. He tells me that no one likes me and no one wants to be around me. For the last 8 years of my life, I have struggled with self identity and self worth. I would walk into a room and be so afraid of what people think of me. Jesus Christ released me from that this weekend. He told me my name. He told me that I am Joshua and I am a Son of the Most High God.

God deeply cares about humanity and desperately wants to give us life... so much, that He did. He sent Jesus. In Hebrews, it says Jesus is the exact representation of of God. Essentially that means that if God were to become human... (which he did) Jesus is what God would look like, (And Jesus is what God looks like in human form, because Jesus is God).

This weekend I was reminded of the simple truth that we all have learned in sunday school... that Jesus loves me.
He loves me. Me.

As I sit on this comfy couch at New Grounds Cafe in Sugarcreek, I can not help but rejoice that Jesus loves me.




More to come from my memories of Texas


Be Encouraged that you are loved by the King


JN