weekend fun

So i'm not sure of my motive or goal for writing this blog, but we'll just see what happens. So, I led a middle school retreat this weekend with my sister's church. At first I was all excited about just having the opportunity to speak and have an audience to listen but then I kinda started not looking forward to it. It was definitely the devil. Believe it or not, when I meet a group of younger kids (namely one's that I'm about to speak to) I get a little uncomfortable, so that was the first obstacle. I got passed that and got to know the kids quite well. The next problem was that the maturity level of the kids was a crazy wide range. One of them had such a passion for Christ already that I only wish I had in 8th grade. Some of the others were already struggling with stuff that I didn't encounter till like junior year. So I had to figure out how to speak to such a crazy range of maturity. Well, as the day and night progressed I did a couple more personal Bible studies b4 the devotion and God put me at peace about what He wanted me to say. Ya see, it was a cool realization that the simple truths and methods I was proposing easily apply to any and all Chritians. In a nut shell I talked about the way in which we're called to follow and the costs of our faith. I focused on Matthew 16: 13-28 where Jesus and the disciples were at Caesarea Philippi. They're standing in front of the mouth of a cave and a big rock wall. In the wall there are carvings and platforms where idols used to sit. The area was used for Baal worship. So, as they're standing there Christ asks them who people say He is and then who the disciples say He is. Peter answers,"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus basically says: yep, well done. He says, speaking of Peter, On this rock I will build my church. To most people it is simply interpreted as the church being built on faith like that of Peter or something like that; however, I think it goes deeper than that. I think Jesus is refering to Peter but also to the rock wall in front of them. If you look at the picture of the location the evil there is evident and it seems to me that Christ is also saying that on top of all the evil in the world and right in the face of Satan He will build His church and will not fail. He makes that promise right afterwards by saying that the gates of Hell will not prevail. There are several cool things about that passage to me. The cave I mentioned that they were standing in front of was often looked at by locals as the literal entrance to the underworld where Baal would come to the earth. So, Christ is standing in front of this pagan shrine and the "Gates of Hell" and declaring victory. Cool thing #2, if you think of like Lord of the Rings and all the awesome battle scenes at the gates. Well, what is a gate for? defense. Not an attack. So, once again Christ says that the gates of hell will not prevail. To me that is clearly describing a successful attack by Christians. So how do we attack evil? This is where the hard part for the kids came...it's a lifestyle of attack. We attack evil by not giving in to evil and by living in such a way that we don't have to flee from evil b/c it flees from us. So when we walk into school or work we can carry ourselves in a way that makes others say," He has something I don't. I want that." So the weekend turned out being incredible and they seemed to respond really well. There were ome other things I talked about that I'd like to share but I'm tired so I'll write it tomorrow. Love y'all!