God is Good, so I'll be Good and Do Good

I am so thankful that the Lord allows us to be a part of His work! I was immensely blessed with the opportunity to speak to 2nd and 3rd graders during their week at Pine Lake Christian Camp! I never cease to be amazed at how the Lord moves in the hearts and minds of children to allow them to understand His love, their sin, His grace, and their need for a Savior! Wow! Thank goodness we can rely on the work of the Holy Spirit to move, but how awesome that He allows us to be a part of that work, and deliver the good news! My heart is so full of love for the Lord and for His children!

Jimbo's Surf Shop was the summer theme - so we spent the week hitting the waves and getting a crash course in the book of James. It was TOTALLY TUBULAR Dudes & Dudettes! A quick review....

Night 1: God is Good! We deserve to be punished for our sin, but because of His great love for us, God sent His Son Jesus to take our punishment for us, forgive our sins and offer us eternal life in Heaven. God is SO GOOD. We started memorizing Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." God is good for creating us and allowing us to be a part of His work.

Night 2: Be Good! Because God is so good, the desire of our hearts should be to obey Him and take steps to Be Good! We cleaned a lot of trash up off the beach and added a few things to make it a better place. We need to do the same thing with our hearts...get rid of the trash (Anger - James 1:19, Favoritism - James 2:1, 8, Unwholesome Talk - James 3:10/4:11, Envy - James 3:16, Pride & Boasting - James 4:6, 16).

To Be Good, we also have to add some good characteristics to our lives...Perseverance - James 1:3-4, Wisdom - James 3:17, Listening - James 1:19, Peacemakers - James 3:18, Prayer - James 5:13-16.

Night 3: Do Good! God is so good, that I want to do good for the glory of His name! We learned all about surfer Bethany Hamilton who believes in God's goodness and gave her life to the Lord at a young age. When Bethany's surfing career was halted by a shark attack, Bethany chose to be good and persevere, trusting and giving glory to God. After she lost her arm, it took Bethany only 3 weeks to get back to the waves. Now she is Doing all kinds of good with her life - sharing her story and the truth of God with others all around the world. 2nd & 3rd graders learned that they are not too young to Do Good with their lives, by caring more for others than themselves. God created all of us to DO GOOD works (Eph. 2:10). We studied James 2:14-14 - if our faith is not active, it's no faith at all!

Surfer Cari & Surfer Ton ready to shred the nar ;)

God is good, so I'll be good and do good! Surfer Ton & I thought it was totally rad to share God's truth with these little surfers.

Here's a pic of 2 kids of faith surfers. Drew and Braden are super stellar dudes that both made a decision to follow Christ while at camp. Praise the Lord!