Hey everyone! I hope you are doing well and have not had a hectic summer (as many of us have). As you all know Youth Camp is this week. A group of 21 students and 7 leaders (including Faith and I) will be headed to Cedarville, Ohio, for Lift Camp Central. A few notes before I explain what this post is all about. First, please be praying for the youth. Our prayers are that God would grow the group spiritually in a way that they have never been challenged to grow spiritually before. Second, pray for the leaders. Not only are the leaders taking on a week of hanging out with teenagers for 24/7 (which we all know can be a great challenge), but many of them are sacrificing a week away from their jobs (more specifically the paycheck), families, and normal routines. Not only pray for them, but show them your appreciation when they return (especially if you have a child going on this trip. Remember, they are investing time and making sacrifices for your children). Finally, you can all watch the services live at 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. here: http://www.christiannetcast.com/watch/tv.asp?station=lift

So here is what will be coming for the next few days. Each night we will have a devotional lead by me (Joey) for the guys, and Faith will lead for the girls. Each night we will discuss a different topic. This year I've chosen to have each night cover foundational truths from the Bible. What this means is on night one we will discuss God's holiness; on night two we will discuss our wickedness and desprate condition as sinners; on night three we will discuss our only hope, the God-Man Jesus Christ; on the final night we will discuss salvation, God graciously saving us, even though we are completely underserving. These are foundational truths. This is the Gospel. So here is a picture of what we are attempting to get across:

The message we want to get across is threefold. First, we want everyone to develop a high view of God. What I mean by this is we must see God as fully as we can in all of His glory (although He is unfathomable, He has revealed Himself in the Bible so we can know Him personally). Second, we want to see our condition as it truly is. We all are (or were) dead in our sin. I know this will leave us feeling like chopped liver, but this is the appropriate response we should have to our sin. We are above all, corrupt and sinful. We are completely underserving of God saving us. Thirdly, as our view of the holiness of God ascends and our view of our ill condition as sinners descends (atleast on the chart), our view of the Gospel of Jesus Christ becomes the central theme and motivating factor in our life. When we see how holy God is, we see how sinful we are and how much we need a Savior. Thus, we see the Gospel magnified in our lives.

There are three primary dangers. The first of these is closely related to the second and third, so I will say it first. First, we can become (and usually are) completely inward focused. What I mean is this message a lot of times becomes about us rather than about God. God does not save us because we are great and He needs us around so He has someone to talk to. No, God is great and deserves our worship (which is what He created us to do). Second, if our view of God’s holiness is low, then we will never see our sin as anything dreadful. It is actually through the lens of God’s holiness we see how sinful we are. To think of God as perfectly holy makes us realize how sinful we really are. Third, if our view of our sinfulness exceeds our view of God’s holiness, this can lead into some serious depression. It can also lead to prideful statements, such as, “I am too bad of a sinner for God to save me.” How ridiculous does this sound? Not too ridiculous. I had a close friend who would often say this. However, other people will see their sin for what it is sincerely, but they lose sight of how great God is, and ultimately lose sight of how great Jesus is.

May the Gospel break our hearts to see how great God's love is for us.

“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17