Potential

Man, what a great week this has been. I'm so happy to be in Colorado. I feel like my summer has finally begun and it feels great. Yesterday was an awesome day as I went through my first staff meeting, helped out at the food pantry, lunch at chipotle (so good!), worked on my first youth service next week and saw the Lakers roll the Celtics at buffalo wild wings with a couple of youth along with TJ, Jody and Ron. Such an awesome day. I have enjoyed every moment of CO thus far because of the great people that I have met and the experiences that I have been apart of. One of my favorite activities has been laughing. I can't even begin to explain how funny the people here are. it's unbelievable. I laugh at literally everything but here, everyone else laughing so I don't feel so dumb. haha.
So basically next week will be the dawning of a new era for the youth at Engelwood First and I say that because until this point, there hasn't been a ton of spiritual development in the youth group gatherings and that is changing because I get to bring the word every week. I'm so excited. I was inspired by the Lord and a message that Pastor Paul gave at Metro last week to talk about potential for my first message here. Think about it, as Christians and humans in general, we all have the potential to do amazing things. Potential very simply is the capability of something becoming an actuality. Maybe that wasn't a simple difinition (haha) but I think you all know what I'm getting at. For Christians and believers we have the potential to do some amazing things for the Lord but there are some things that get in the way. The main 3 things that come to mind to me is sin, our influences whether it be friends, family, entertainment, etc. and lastly ourselves. Adam and Eve, God's first two humans ever. They had the potential to live in God's perfect image, to live amazing lives but what happen? Adam disobey God with the help of Eve and their lives were forever changed and ultimately they didn't live up to their full potential. One error in judgement, ruined their lives. See what happened to Adam and Eve can very well happen to us if we aren't careful. Adam sinned, listened an influence in his life instead of God, and allowed his actions to get into the way of God's plan. This is so applicable to our lives, especially in the lives of teenagers because of the seriousness of peer pressure and the outside influences that are in young peoples lives.
Honestly, this topic has got me thinking about my potential in my life but more specifically about this summer. There is great potential for this summer to be amazing for me and the people that I will be working with but at the same time, I have to be sure to keep sin out of my life as much as possible, be careful with what and who influences my life and also make sure my ways aren't getting in the way of God's way. Serious stuff there folks. Despite the challenges that I might face over the next 8 weeks, I'm very excited to see what God does through because I know I have the potential to do amazing things and you do too. so I close with this challenge, are you living up to your potential? If not, what do you need to change to get there and for God to use you the way he wants to use you. Cool stuff will begin to happen when the performance-potential gap is narrowed in your life and more specifically your relationship with the Lord. Well time to break down this message some more so that's all for now. I will leave you with a funny picture of me "gettin down" at Jered and Jordan's wedding last week. Peace and chicken grease.

Blessings
Joe
Col. 3:1-3



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