06 Nov Relying on His Power
This season of Generation LINK in Clemson has been one of gospel sweetness as well as one of intense sanctification. Many of our residents from my first year on staff at Crosspoint Church Clemson have stayed for an additional year, making it a season of growing deeper in love and affection for one another as we continue to strive together in kingdom work. This striving does not come easy, for we are all each in our own ministries and together as a team being sanctified through the knowledge of our sin, the reality of our weaknesses, the desperate need we have for our Lord, and the daily recognition of gospel urgency and need in our community.
With this in mind, we need prayer. We have been challenging ourselves as a church with a Monthly Missions Challenge for the past three months. In September, our congregation memorized the Romans Road to help prepare us to share the gospel from Scripture anywhere and at anytime. In October, we each prayed daily for three lost people we know personally every day of the month and in our Small Groups, that the Lord would pursue and save them from their sin. Now in November, we are challenging ourselves to share the gospel with a specific person. Ask the Lord to give us boldness and confidence by His Spirit to obey and to share the gospel, not only as a church but also that our staff and leadership would be challenged also. Pray and plead with God to use us as vessels for His truth and His gospel, and that He would by His grace and mercy save those with whom we will share with.
With this in mind, imagine the urgency we have as a Generation LINK Team. We are coming alongside our congregation as fellow members and leaders of ministries to proclaim the gospel to our community through these Monthly Missions Challenges. As a staff, we need to be leading the way in these challenges, continuously modeling in heart, word, and deed our devotion to be on Mission.
The Lord has strategically used not only my membership at Crosspoint Church to help me grow in godliness and missional living, but also Generation LINK. The intense discipleship environment of Generation LINK has been a foundation of grace in my life to prepare me for loving service and passionate disciple-making. An environment of real leadership experience, theological training, and true biblical community reveals my sinful pride and autonomy inherent in my own heart, enabling me to cry out to the Lord for not only mercy and forgiveness, but also for the spiritual power and desire to obey and follow Jesus Christ as Lord. The sweetness of this intense sanctification is that we are all striving in this together as a team, encouraging and serving one another daily as we work and live side by side for the growth of the kingdom.
Through this second year on staff with Generation LINK, God is teaching me that success in ministry is dependent upon his power working through my weakness, instead of depending upon my own power to accomplish day to day tasks. He has also been teaching me that I need to be continuously aware and cautious of my thoughts, words, and deeds as I speak and relate to others around me; not only those whom I work with, and the members of my church I minister to, but also to unbelievers and to my own family. God?s calling on my life does not end when I leave the church office. God is continuously teaching me that His call for humble, Christ-like servanthood and bold, gospel-proclaiming witness blends into every area of life: my ministry, my Small Group, my marriage, my family, my neighbor, my waitress, my parents, and my friends. I pray that the Lord would continue to humble me and also our staff, as well as grow us in boldness to preach the gospel to our community, who desperately need to hear, repent, and believe.
Lastly, I am thankful to God that in this second year of full-time ministry through Generation LINK, the Lord has graciously allowed my heart to long for Christ?s return. Pray for us as we suffer for the sake of Christ. It has been granted to us that for the sake of Christ we should not only believe in Him but also suffer for His sake (Phil. 1:29). This suffering comes everyday as we strive to please God through bearing eternal fruit for His glory in Kingdom work. It happens in our homes, at our desks, in that discipleship meeting, when we sin against another, when we evangelize. But praise our Lord Jesus Christ, that we are able to consider daily that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For Paul also tells us,
?16So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.?
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Lord, help us be faithful to take your gospel to those in Clemson.
And come, Lord Jesus.
Rachel Dietrich
Generation LINK Resident
Crosspoint Church
Clemson, SC