::MID WEEK PREVIEW

Check out this week's Mid Week Preview, featuring our Director of Excitement, James Parsons, and our Lead Pastor Dean Inserra here.   

::DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING 

Tallahassee Biblical Counseling Ministries will be offering a discipleship class entitled, "Self-Confrontation."  This is an in-depth discipleship training program that teaches you how to study the Scriptures for answers to all of life's problems.  Its unique approach enables you to learn biblical principles from the Bible and practically apply them to your own life.  This class will also prepare you to help others to do the same. The classes begin May 17^th and will continue for 13 weeks and will be led by Caryn Shivar and Rev. Dick Brown.  For more information, please e-mail Caryn Shivar at carynlaurel@hotmail.com.

::SERVICE: TUTORING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS 

We're helping high school students prepare for final exams. Come to one or all tutoring days.
Contact Heidi Schaff for more information heidi.schaff@gmail.com or sign up on the Facebook page!

Volunteers Needed: 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Saturday May 14    Saturday May 21    Saturday May 28

  ::COLOMBIA CLOTHING DRIVE

We have a goal to clothe 100 families in the city of Cartagena that our group will be visiting this summer.  We're hoping to fill the trailer at the Warehouse, and donations are starting to be accepted this Sunday at every service.    

::YOUNG PROFESSIONALS NETWORK  

Thursday, May 26th, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm @ Chez Pierre where it all started!

We'll meet under the Oaks, so there should be live music and hopefully great weather!. Check out the facebook event for more information on this great way to meet new people. 

by Giana Lopez

     I am a captive of my sinful nature. If you would have asked me in tenth grade if I was a good person, I would have probably curtsied and given some Sunday school answer about how I am good because God had blessed me with Christian parents who raised me right. But now, I live under the weight of what a piece of crap I am without Jesus. The weight of it overwhelms me to be honest. 

     Lately, Dean's messages have been hitting home in my heart, and I've felt the tireless pressure of conviction telling me that something in my heart isn't what it should be. I've always relied on my 'past in Christ' to kind of prove it to myself that I'm living this thing correctly. I was raised in a Christian home by parents who love Jesus and love each other. I thought I was God's little helper at my high school. I was under the impression for a long time that I was living a life that pleases Christ. However, I've lately been realizing that I have been living a sort of made up Christianity that spotlights me and what good stuff I can do. I have found myself being painfully convicted during Dean's sermons, and I realized at Easter On The Moon that I have been clinging to control of my 'religious life' rather than surrendering everything I am to Christ. I had a white-knuckle grip on my Christianity out of fear that if I loosened my grip of control, Jesus would snatch my salvation right out of my hand and give it to someone better. Strange feelings of fear came rising to the surface-- thoughts that I'd never recognized and most of them were thoughts that I didn't know were there. 'What if Jesus lets me down? What if I live this life thinking I know the truth and then I get to stand before Jesus and realize I've missed the very essence of what it is to know Him?... What if I surrender my life to Christ and then He gets tired of watching me sin. What if He gives up on me?' In my mind, I thought that if I had the control over my spiritual life, I could avoid whatever failure or abandonment my heart was secretly fearing. However...

     This kind of fear is at the heart of unbelief, and this is EXACTLY what Jesus speaks against in His word. The Pharisees thought that they were religious and pious because they had shiny exteriors and lived lives that condemned sinners. However, on the inside they were dead and did not know the living water that only Christ can provide. All of my strivings were causing me to live like this. Maybe shiny on the outside but dead and thirsty on the inside. It's as if I've been carrying my good works to His Throne everyday, almost like a child saying, "Look Jesus! Pick me! Do you love me yet? Do you love me yet?" But He says that our attempts at righteousness are filthy rags, because they reveal an idolatry in our hearts that show that we think we can replace what He did on the cross. In other words, if I think that I can earn my Salvation, then what I'm really saying is that Jesus didn't have to come. And that is blasphemy. The King of Creation didn't hang naked on a cross for something I could have done by not having sex before marriage or not getting drunk. How little is my faith to believe that I could earn what ONLY Christ could do?

      I do believe that I know Christ and have been saved by Him, but I also think that as of late, I've been straying from what it is to walk with Him. He calls us to surrender. Surrender means that I have lost the right to worry about the maintenance and security of my salvation. That is Jesus's job. He has promised that He will keep me. He has promised that He will see me through. He says, "I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion..." (Hosea 2:19). He has promised that I could never do anything to convince Him to love me less. And if I claim to know Him, then I will certainly have to live off of those promises and stand on them to get me through the day.

       I want to live a life like Christ, who said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work" (John 4:34). How beautiful would it be to live off of and find sustenance from doing the will of God? What if I could trash my fear and my worrisome heart in light of the glaring beauties of who Jesus is. That is what I am now striving after. Not goodness or an impressive religious portfolio, but the heart of Christ as a wild and adventurous lover of my own heart.