Flip!

My youth group recently came home from Student Life Camp 2009 in Branson, Missouri. The theme, as evident in our t-shirts, was Flip! The camp focused on change and doing opposite of what the world does--love your enemies, lose your life to gain it, etc. etc. As a group, we learned a boatload of things from doing quiet time to sponsoring children from Third World countries. Even me personally, I would say I'd learned a different variety of lessons from camp, but looking at my notes from Worship Time, I see that they all connect. Flip! is a transition. Here are the steps:

Day 1: Focus on God's holiness. Once we had the foundation that God was holy, we realized that God deserves our fear, awe, and obedience. We were ready to let Him work.

Day 2: After realizing that God is holy, choose to change. Make it a personal choice to give up everything for God. Don't do it if you're not ready, because if you're not ready to give up everything for God, you are not worthy to follow Him.

Day 3: After making the personal decision to change yourself, choose not to sin. Speaker Francis Chan made an illustration with lemonade and chocolate milk. Both sound really good. We can drink lemonade, or God, and say that it's good; but turn around and drink chocolate milk, or sin, and say that it's also good. However, when you begin mixing the two, it starts tasting sour. God and sin don't taste good together; that's why you're only allowed to choose one.

Day 4: Now that you've decided to dedicate your entire life to God, do what He wants you to do. Go out into the world and live a different life. Sometimes you wish you could do great things, but sometimes God just wants you to do what's small. Rather than dreaming about what you can do tomorrow, ask God what He wants you to do today.

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That's everything in a nutshell. Basically, everything revolves around making choices. We can all take it easy and go through the motions, or emotions. We can focus on what everyone else is doing. But we can't change the world without changing ourselves first.

RIGHT NOW...pray and make the decision to make your faith personal. Don't follow God because your parents and friends want you to. Follow God because you want to.