January 28

Good Morning,
I pray that the day is finding you well.

CLC is coming May 15th.

CLC, Christian Leadership Conference, is held annually at Camp Collins that is located near Gresham Oregon. It is a wonderful event and a time when everyone can come together and fellowship.

I am part of a team that is putting CLC together.

We were looking for a theme when someone said, “Let your Life Speak.” Everyone thought that it would be a good theme and with the breakout sessions focusing on the core values of Love, Respect, Honesty, Responsibility, and Service. It began to come together nicely.

I mention this for two reasons.
If you are in the area or can be in the area for this event we would love to have you. Please let me know.
2. The theme got me to thinking.

“Let your Life Speak”

George Fox once said, “I am not so concerned about the time and the date of your conversion I will see your baptism being worked out in your everyday life.” Basically what George was saying was, “Don’t tell me about it, show me.”

We churchy people like to use words like “justification,” and “sanctification.”

Justification is whether or not you are “justified with Christ,” whether or not you are “saved.” This is, as much as us churchy people would like to have this be a corporate thing, a personal knowledge with Christ. Only the individual can say whether or not they are saved in Christ. No one else can make that determination for them.

As Jonathan Edwards notes:
Men may have the knowledge of their own conversion: the knowledge that other men have it is uncertain, because no man can look into the heart of another and see the workings of grace there.[1]
· Stoddard’s Nature of Saving Conversion
Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections, (Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2004), 110.

Sanctification is the level of Christ-like-ness one is achieving. The outpouring of Christ from the individual, as much as we would like this to be measured by ourselves, is actually measured corporately.
Simply put, justification is something you only know in your heart and sanctification is something that others see in you.

“Let your Life Speak.”

Do our words match our actions?

Are we in unity or in conflict with are very being, ourselves?

As I continue to think about my thought life, I must continue to think:
We have shown our ignorance of Him in the very way we determine to serve Him. We serve Jesus in a spirit that is not His, we hurt Him by our advocacy for Him, we push His claims in the spirit of the devil…Have I been persecuting Jesus by a zealous determination to serve Him in my own way?[2]
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, (Uhrichsville: Barbour Publishing, 1935), January 29.

My prayer is that everyone would be able to attend CLC May 15, 2009. That we would be given the ability to come together and search what it means to be justified, helping those that are still searching. So we can come together and converse about what sanctification is and how our core values fit squarely into this, most of all so we can come together and rejoice in the Lord.

What is our mission?

What is our vision?

What is our purpose?

Why are we here?
[1]Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections, (Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2004), 110.
[2]Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, (Uhrichsville: Barbour Publishing, 1935), January 29.