"I will rejoice in doing them good"

I'm going to warn you that this is a pretty honest post.

Life is feeling very much like everything has got a bit much. My degree is great, but difficult and a lot of work and I massively struggle with self motivation. Hall group is feeling like a massive responsibility- a very scary one! Some stuff personally isn't going great- taking up a lot of my thoughts and difficult to see past. Not to mention the fact that I'm a massive idiot sometimes.

Yet I genuinely believe that God is working massively in my life. I have never been so aware of my faults and my failures- you would think that this would be making everything worse but it's so encouraging that I am such a sinful person and yet I am loved by the Almighty God more than I can ever hope to understand. I'm encouraged by the fact that He "sees the depths of my heart and He loves me the same"! What a Saviour! I've been struck time and time again by the privileged position I am in as a child of the living God! I am a joint heir with Jesus Christ! The God who flung the stars into space, who knows all of eternity, the God who has power over everything- I can call him my Father.

And the more I see my own sin- my anger, my jealousy, my pride, my stubborness, my sinful thoughts, my idolatry, my selfishness (I could go on!)- the more I can see how great God's grace is. My sin is deep- His grace is deeper still!

I've been convicted of turning away from my Father. I take the salvation offered to me and reject the relationship that is so great! I've been convicted of continually thinking of myself and how others think of me rather than turning to my Father. I've been convicted of not living my life to glorify Him.

I saw my service to God as a duty and a chore. I haven't been servant-hearted, I haven't been a cheerful giver, I haven't served God because I love him and because I am so caught up in His love and his grace that it can't help but overflow from me.

Yet God still chooses to use me.

And I don't think I've ever been so excited by that. Today thousands of people heard the gospel in a football stadium in Exeter. It was such a joy to be a part of that. And I know that my God can do so much more than I could ever imagine. So I'm praying for revival in Exeter. I'm excited for mission week in January. I'm resolving to pray for mission week, to pray for the lost in Exeter, to pray that God's Kingdom would be being added to from Exeter in the coming weeks and months.

God is so good to me. 

"They will be my people and I will be their God... I will make an e v e r l a s t i n g covenant with them. I will never stop doing good to them... I will rejoice in doing them good." Jeremiah 32:38,40,41