"who do you think you are?" - CMI Sealed Orders 2011

Over the next ten days, I will be posting the "Sealed Orders," a personal quiet devotional that is shared every afternoon as part of Central Music Institute, an intensive musical and spiritual retreat for Salvation Army youth.

The theme for Sealed Orders is "who do you think you are," which is an exploration of our identity in Christ.  Because of God's love, grace, mercy and purpose in our lives, we take on a new identity as defined in Scripture.

The purpose of this series is to point out different aspects of this new identity and to discover to what action that new aspect calls us.

In other words,

if you know  who you are,  you will know  what to do.

With only eight devotionals, we won't cover every aspect of our identity in Christ.  I will leave that to you to discover as you explore Scripture on your own.  What an exciting study!

So about this time every day, a new post will be available.  

Please consider joining us online for this devotional journey.

The CMI Chaplain - After the final Sealed Order

What a terrific ten days we shared at Wonderland Camp.  And now, CMI 2010 is one for the books.  I hope you will remember the Consecration Hymn and how we broke it apart day after day.

Maybe there will be a worship meeting years from now when that song will be sung, and you will be instantly transported to the Sharp Center in your mind.

Take my life and let it be

Consecrated, Lord, to thee.

But I hope (and have been praying since before CMI started) that you will internalize the things we learned together and that you will live them.

Will you be different because you went to CMI 2010?  And I'm not talking about musical ability.  My desire as chaplain, perhaps the best real test of whether I was truly consecrated as a chaplain, is that you in turn would hand your lives over to God day by day and make a difference in your corner of the Kingdom.

Now many of you are back to school and work, and life has returned to a familiar pattern of daily and weekly events.

Remember, you are the only one who goes where you go and has the gifts and talents you have.  You might be the only person on the earth who has the same friends, family, schoolmates and fellow employees that you have.

Maybe your new assignment will be to take 20 quiet minutes, sit down with a piece of paper and list out some things that you know need to change in your new, consecrated life.  Make a list of things you need to let go of, and another list of things that you need to pursue.

This might be a life-transforming moment for you - perhaps the first time you are writing spiritual goals for your life.

If you need some scripture to inspire you, go to Psalm 146 (Commissioner Carol Seiler preached from this on Sunday morning), Colossians 3:1-17, Romans 12 or Psalm 1.  If you find other scripture passages that are helpful, please let me know.

Anyway, allow God to speak to you and to lead you not only to set reasonable goals, but also to start living them out.  Today.

Thanks for being there at CMI and for allowing me to relay a little of God's wisdom into your lives.  Hope to see you next year, and I hope to hear great consecration and victory reports in the meantime.