The Cross Was Enough (Continuation from Manali)

I know it has been a week or so since I have talked about Manali, but I'm back! I am refreshed and strengthened in the Lord's presence, and I am ready to write about my favorite memory from India. I feel like it was right for me to wait and tell you guys about DNOW weekend, because God has spoken to me and broken me so much this past week. I wasn't ready to tell you guys about DNOW weekend, but now I can tell you with the fullness of God's Holy Spirit speaking within me. I hope you guys can feel my heart and see the love of God in our time in Manali. Prepare yourselves! I want you to forget about your surroundings and say in your heart "God, take control of my mind's attention and my heart's affection" as we put ourselves in the context of Manali, India and focus our attention on what God did through DNOW weekend.

You came down from Heaven's throne

This earth you formed was not your home

A love like this the world had never known

You took our sin, you bore our shame

You rose to life, you defeated the grave

A love like this the world has never known

On the altar of our praise let there be no higher name,

Jesus, Son of God

You laid down your perfect life, you are the sacrifice

Jesus, Son of God

Be lifted higher than all you've overcome

Your name be louder than any other song

There is no power that can come against your love

The cross was enough, The cross was enough...

The cross was enough, The cross was enough<3

This song resonated within my heart as Rory lead us in worship with over 50 or so youth inside our cozy little prayer room. Remember the prayer room? If not, just take a peek at my second post about India, the description is near the beginning of the post. Some of you may be wondering what DNOW weekend is, and I'm sorry for not telling you sooner! DNOW stands for Discipleship Now (I think) Weekend and it is a lot like Vacation Bible School, except we focus on high school students. Our message throughout the weekend centered around the meaning of God's love for us, and what it means to have that kind of love for others. To get all of us in the right kind of mindset, we began our time together in worship. It gave me chills hearing all of our voices together. It wasn't about making our voice heard or nice sounding for the people around us, it wasn't about ourselves at all, it was about lifting our voices up with everything it took to show God know how much we love Him and how awesome He is. I loved how time was no concept... we wanted to stay together as long as possible in that atmosphere. Have you ever felt like God was right there in the room with you? Some of the youth didn't understand yet what some of the words they were singing meant, but the beauty of it is I believe they will come to a place where God takes hold of their hearts completely. C and G will continue to love them and tell them about God, and we will continue to pray for them. With prayer and a willing heart to serve, anything is possible. Freedom comes when we surrender to the sound of mercy and Your grace, Father send Your angels down - TenthAveNorth

We broke the ice with our group by playing games so we could get well-aquainted with each other and our games cracked everyone up, haha. I was horrible at one of them, and kept getting stuck in the middle!! It was the game where you're in this huge circle and the person whose it asks someone, "Do you love your neighbor?" If they say yes, the people beside them switch places before the person it gets to one. If they say no, they have to say, "But I love people who are wearing ____." I wasn't fast enough, and I wore things that were easy to get chosen. Haha. It was so much fun, and everyone felt more relaxed afterwards. We also made bracelets! That was our craft for the day. Yes, we had manly twine-looking bracelets for the guys, but the girls got to make cute button bracelets and do whatever they wanted to with the thread we had. The thread had all sorts of neat colors, and I learned how to make some sweet bracelets. Notice I said learned. I was in charge of teaching them how, but I was new to the whole bracelet-making-skill. The happy-ending to this story is that a lot of the girls knew how to make insanely-good-looking bracelets! I also connected with my soon to be best-friend/twin and we made our first ever bracelet together. I wear it all the time now and she has the one I made for her:) I miss her so much. 

Our craft opened the opportunity for us to talk to the girls in our youth group and get to know them better. It was so good and they are nice people, especially when you consider the fact I neglected to teach them how to make bracelets. :) Rory was the first to present the message, and he talked to them about who Jesus is, God's promises, His love and the cost of discipleship. Next, I was given the opportunity to give my testimony. My heart sped up a bit, but God filled me with excitement! I told them of God's love and how He demonstrated that love to me throughout my life, and how much He wanted to be a part of their lives, too. Jesus wouldn't die for us if He didn't love us<3 and God wouldn't send His son to die if He didn't love us. What really broke me just this past week was the meaning of this love. After all this time, my mind didn't completely connect with my heart. The same thing C ma'am and G had been praying for their students, and the same thing I wanted their students to realize, hadn't been made known to me in the fullness of God's love for me. I didn't get it! It's so ironic when you think about it. There I was talking to the youth about God's love for them, when I hadn't grasped it yet! I'm going to go a little off subject for a moment and share with you what God revealed to me this past week. I know you want to hear more about Manali, but I think you will enjoy reading what I'm about to tell you. :)

This past week has opened my eyes and my heart in numerous ways. I went to crossroads camp as a chaperone for our youth group, and the theme for our week was called, "The Dwelling Place." I learned about what God meant when He said in His word He makes His dwelling place within us. The curtain is torn! We aren't separated from God anymore if we have the blood of Christ covering us. What blew me away came from the following passages:

Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself in us, and not to the world?" Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."

John 14:22

But it doesn't stop there, read this:

"I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."

John 16:12-15

And this is what shook me to the core... This is an excerpt of what Jesus prayed for us before his crucifixion:

"I do not ask for these only (I think he is referring to the original disciples), but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, that they may be one as we are one. I in them, and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."

John 17:20-26

I broke to pieces. How did I miss this? God loves me just as much as His son Jesus? I'm not worthy of that kind of love! I'm in complete awe by this, and God's love poured into me that night and broke me to pieces. I didn't get it before, but I get it now. Jesus interceded for me, he died for me, and he lives in me now. He loves me. He cares about my life, and he wants to be a part of my life forever. Why? Just because. I didn't do anything to deserve this, but God says I'm worth it. God says I have value, not because of anything I do, but because He made me. Why would I ever want to be apart from His love? My insecurities, my worries, my problems, my wants- all of them look so small now. Now I live in the security of knowing Jesus Christ, and my life is given meaning and the power of the Holy Spirit.

He not only loves me, God gave me the power of His holy spirit! What?! Why? Because He wants to be alongside me forever! He wants me to be fulfilled and content in His presence and love, and He wants me to share with others this freeing truth. God is not far away from us, He wants to dwell in our hearts and show us how good it is to be in fellowship with Him- how it was meant to be this way from the very beginning, before Adam and Eve sinned. Even though they sinned against God, God from the very beginning had a plan for redemption and reconciliation with the people He has created and He has continued to love since the dawn of creation. Why would we still be here if He didn't love us and want to reconcile us to himself?

Please don't miss this! Don't miss what I'm saying to you, because this is so important. This life has been given to us for a reason, and it has meaning in the eyes of God. He wants you to know Him fully, and He wants to love you so badly. I didn't let Him love me, because I didn't understand what love was fully. I just had bits a pieces of what people have shown me over the years, but now I see! I almost missed out on the supernatural and earth-shattering love the God of the universe has for me. He loves you, too, and that is why I had to share this with you. It's so worth my time, my money, and my life. It's worth it, and I'm not going to live a life apart from His promises for me, and telling you of the promises He has in mind for you, too. Ask questions. That's how you learn and grasp things. I came to know more about God's love for me because I was willing to be open to God and ask Him questions that confused me in my heart. Instead of just accepting what a pastor or speaker said to me, I decided to look at it for myself and talk to Him about it, too. He answered me, out of the almost 7 billion people in the world, He still values me and wants to hear and answer my questions! It's breathtaking, right? My desire for God has overcome everything else now, after realizing all of these things I have just shared with you. God is so good, He is so good... He's enough. Read over the verses again, and open your heart to what God may be wanting to say to you. It will change your life. :)

Just think about it. When you begin to really believe God loves you just because He made you, and not because what you do for Him, it will set you free. You don't have to try to impress God or worry that He will make fun of you, or reject you. You don't have to worry about Him loving you less, because He will always love you the same. It's completely backwards for us, because when it comes to other people, we have to face all sorts of conflicting things and the possibility of disappointing someone, causing someone not to like you as much because of something you did, being made fun of or ridiculed by someone because you aren't "good enough" for them. Ironically, none of us our good, but instead of this causing the God of the universe to turn away, what does He do? The exact opposite. He says to us, "I understand you more than you do, I know all of your secrets and failures, I know you are imperfect and you will mess up at times. I know all of these things, and I love you just the same as I do my perfect Son. Stop trying to be good enough, I already did that for you by sending my Son. Stop trying to find excuses to why you can't come to know me, let me dwell within your heart and show you the good I have in store for you, my son, my daughter." This is what I feel God is trying to get through our heads. We can't compare him to some normal person. We shouldn't compare him even to the most Christiany Christian we have ever known. He's so much more than that, and He will be so much for you if you let Him. He will be your Father, friend, counselor, strength, helper, stronghold, and numerous other things. He will finally satisfy the heart you've been dealing with ever since you were born.

I'm going to stop here for now. There's a lot to think about just from what I've already shared with you, so I'll leave you with this last thought before I go-

What does God look like? Not physically... but the character of God? We all too quickly compare God to the people we come across, the "Christians" we see and the "love" we see on movie screens. Our view of love has been distorted by the people we are surrounded by, when God's love is not a human kind of love. It's not conditional, like ours is. His love for us is eternal and unconditional, do you understand what that means? He loves us with a perfect love. Something none of us can even fully grasp, because of the deepness of it. He loved you before you were even a thought in our world. He has planned great things for you before you were even a you. He cares about you more than anyone else around you does, and it's time for you to come to know His love for you. It makes no sense to walk away from what's best for you. It's like you are letting yourself die from a curable disease that can be cured in just a moment if you let the doctor administer the cure to you. Why not let Him love you? Why not let him heal you?

I'll leave it at that for now, thank you guys for reading my blog:) I know I write books haha It's hard for me to have a short thought. Enjoy the rest of your Saturday. <3 May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Your sister in Christ,

Mallory Faith Campbell