This past weekend at HRC

I hope everyone had a great weekend, especially all the Dad's out there. I am way more then officially back from vacation it seems like, and our vacation was certainly a good one. I'm also feeling quite jovial today after the U.S's crazy day yesterday in the Confederation's Cup in South Africa, destroying African champs Egypt 3-0 to advance to face Goose's Spain on Wed. We'll probably get killed, but beating Spain would make my next conversation with Goose quite fun. My inner soccer nerd is also rejoicing in getting to attend the semi-finals of the CONCACAF Gold Cup in Chicago this July. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm soccer....

Last night our High School Youth Group kicked off our summer message series, God's Extreme Make-Over. We talked about how our world has become obsessed with making people over to be better (just look at TV: What not to Wear, Extreme Make-Over, Biggest Loser, etc.). As Christians we do all need to be better, but that's something we need to LET God do in our lives. I think too often we think "well, I accepted Christ into my heart, that's all I need to do." But really, that's only step one in the Christian life. The next step is to let God transform you into something better, which we seminary types give this crazy word sanctification to. Basically, what it means is that God sends his Spirit to make-over your life, to make you better. The results of letting God make-over your life can be found in Galatians 5: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness, and Self Control. Looks like a pretty good life right? That's what we can have if we let God make us over. The problem is, we too often try to do it all ourselves. Checkout what the Bible says about that route: "It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time; repetitive, cheap sex, a stinking accuimulation of mental and emotional garbage, frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness, trinket gods, magic show religion, paranoid lonliness, cutthroat competition; all consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants."To let God make us over we simply need to stop just trying to get what WE want, and instead start letting God take over our life.