Intent

I just finished a rather long teaching stent with the teens at Farragut. It started a few months ago when I taught a Sunday morning series on "Spiritual Disciplines". We covered the basics, such as, fasting, prayer, scripture reading, and then took a step further and looked at meditation, silence, etc. After this series, we taught a series on Practical Christianity. We tried to answer the overall question of, "how can I apply my christian beliefs in the 21st century?" After this, Michelle and I split the teens into two groups, boys and girls. We covered "gender specific issues" for a few weeks. I focused on maturity, chivalry, and leadership. Michelle looked at beauty, firendship, and purity. When we were done with that, I taught through a series I got from Andy Stanley entitled, "It Came from Within". In this, Andy talks about 4 main "monsters" that come out of our heart: guilt, jealousy, greed and anger. Each one of these affects our relationships around us. We must get rid of them, so that we can have a pure heart. Finally, the last few weeks I have been talking with the teens about intent. For example, when we do something, what is our real intent? Do we read our bible becuase God says so, or because we want to know God better? Why do we go see those kinds of movies? Why do we hang out with those kinds of people? Why do we take "long weekend" vacations and not make an effort to go to church (more on this topic later)?

I didn't recognize it before, but God led me through the last few months of teaching, showing how these topics are related. We need spiritual disciplines to be like Jesus. There are certain ways a man treats a woman, and vice versa. We need a pure heart, because God will not accept anything but purity. We are created in the image of God (Gen. 1: 27), and in short, we are spiritual beings. God is more concerned with the intent of our decisions, than our decisions on their own.

For years, I wasted a lot of energy on JUST following rules. I would go to church, but not really participate. I would read my bible, but not really listen to what God was saying. In other words, I would "clean the outside of my cup, but not focus on the inside" (Matt. 23:25). Recently, I have tried to change that. I have focused more on my intent of decisions that I make. In some instances, I have chosen not to do things, because of my original intent. What is interesting, is that because of this focus on my intent, I have found I have a lot more free time for more important things such as water gun fights in the backyard with the family....