NEXT '09

This weekend has been without a doubt one of the most amazing weekends ever. I attended NEXT (formerly known as New Attitude). This conference is given by Sovereign Grace Ministries and it is mostly for my generation of young people (youngish anyway). The speakers were Joshua Harris, D.A. Carson, Kevin Deyoung, C.J. Mahaney, and Sinclair Ferguson. Each of the sermons were amazing, all together they went over Jesus. First we talked about His preeminence, then who He was, then His life, and finally Sinclair Ferguson (AMAZING!) did two sessions, one of the resurrection of Jesus, and the other on His return.
I was struck anew with God's grace and compassion for me. I am still in awe that He would have chosen to save me. This weekend just brought me closer to my God, and gave me the full realization that this life is only for HIM. He is not a means to an end, He IS the end. I wish that everyone could have come to this conference you all could share in the awesomeness of God and benefited from all of the teachings. God met me not only in the sermons but in worship. It seemed as though this weekend God wanted to make my sight clear and see Him more fully. The first night during worship I suddenly felt His presence and He spoke to me. Although I gave my life to Jesus several months ago, I was still holding back on some of the sins I had committed in the past. I didn't even realize that I was doing this, but as God spoke to me I saw that I had foolishly held on to one sin in particular and had convinced myself that I could never be as good of a christian as everyone else because I had committed this act. Almost as though He was standing right next to me I heard Him say, "Do you really believe that your sin is more powerful than my blood?" That woke me up! As though showing me His wounds to prove what He had done, He reminded me that He had made me whole again; His blood covered everything. How could I have ever doubted Him? Although I hate my sin, and will never be able to change it, I can only glory in my Redeemer more for what He has done for me. I feel as though my eyes have been opened yet again. To realize that this is only the beginning and I will have the rest of my life and eternity to get to know God more makes me tingle with anticipation.

Terri and Vance, I don't know how to thank you enough for paying for registration which allowed me to go to this conference. It was life changing. I love you so much!