Encouragers

When last I spoke to Jeff Kreiser, the missions pastor at my home church and a personal mentor, I was taken aback. I forget that every time he speaks to me it's almost like he's not speaking to me now. It's like he's speaking to me at my best, like that is what he sees instead of this transitional state I'm in right now.


It's hard to have a sit-down conversation with him, so I walked with him around the church after the last Saturday service of the last weekend of the Mission's emphasis month. He's super busy all the time, if you know of him, I would highly suggest trying to pencil in a cup of coffee with this guy. He's a 6'5" and 200 pounds (?) of Jesus-loves-you furry.

It wasn't anything in particular that he said, but in the way he just spoke with me, then and every other time I can remember. He has confidence that I am called to ministry. He has confidence that I'm worth investing thousands of dollars in for that goal.

You know what it feels like to have some one you view as a mentor tell you that you are worth thousands of dollars? It has a funny effect.

It actually makes you feel valuable. 


I was listening to Wayne Grudem's podcast lecturing through his Systematic Theology. This week is part of going through the incommunicable attribtes of God, that is, the character of God that is unlike us. In particular he defined God's aseity (from the Latin words a se, which means "from himself"): "God does not need us or the rest of creation for anything, yet we and the rest of creation can glorify him and bring him joy." [Systematic theology pg. 160] 

This doctrine has a powerful effect on me. It means God does not need me, but chooses to give me substance and value as a creation. That and many more times over in the fact that the Son died for me.

Jeff is just one person that demonstrates this doctrine to me on a regular basis lately. People like my sister and dear friend Caleb demonstrate it too much to really account for. It makes me feel like I can do anything. It gives me so much more millage than guilt will ever do. For me, holy spurs only work to one end; to identify sin and how crappy I'm doing. People demonstrating this God-like activity of voluntary value attribution has helped me on the road to recovery more than anything else as of late.

Feel free to comment or tell me what you think in the comments below.

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Thanks for reading.

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