Saturday, May 27, 2006


Throwing the CCC Gang Sign at the '06 Retreat Posted by Picasa

Is That You?

Last weekend we took our annual high school Bible study retreat and it was a stinkin’ blast! Our old Young Life guy, Bill Reazer came all the way out from St. Louis to bring our kids some sweet and hard-hitting talks about why we do the things we do and how to really change from Romans 7. We stayed at Don and Judy Sharp’s outrageously beautiful lake house while Kim Reid fed us amazing food until we busted and her son Nater took everyone skiing and tubing on their boat. It was a ton of fun and a great time for our high school friends to be away from the normal routine and focus on being together and hopefully growing closer to the Maker of that beautiful place.

We spent the weekend living inside this question, (and I’ll never again see or say these words without thinking of Reazer’s face) “What are you doing… I mean what…what are you doing?” The Apostle Paul nails us all with his penetrating and transparent self-examination of this person who knows what’s right, wants to do it, and yet doesn’t… whoa. Why do we do the very things we hate? Doesn’t it just feel like being trapped? Reazer guided us through Paul’s thesis about the sin inside us dismantling our desire to do God’s will and took us to that last plea at the end of the chapter, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God- through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

See, our only hope is in Christ. This isn’t behavior modification. It’s all about relationship. It’s not that we’re supposed to try, try again… it’s that we need to be rescued, and we need the Rescuer everyday. Bill ended on Sunday talking about Jesus healing the man who was blind from birth in John 9. He pointed out that when the man returned with his sight to his home, no one recognized him. Being rescued by Jesus made him totally unrecognizable and all his friends were saying, “Is that really you? Are you the one who used to sit here and beg? No way… what happened to you?”

That’s what I want in my life… I want to be rescued everyday from myself and my own heart and I want to be changed by Him. I want to be unrecognizably different so that people look at me and say, “Lee? Is that really you? No way… what happened to you?”

1 comment:

Cody Blair said...

beautiful image from John 9. glad to hear the weekend was so great, and thanks for posting that picture. I'm praying for you guys this week and the kids at Sharp Top.

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