Associated Students

Volunteer for 24-Hour-Prayer Room at Torrey Conference 09'

Would you like to volunteer at Torrey Bible Conference 2009?

Consider praying for others.
There will be a 24-hour prayer room in the AS Conference room (lower SUB) available to all students who need an environment in which they can be prayed for at any hour of the day or night.
It has been said that "compassion" is to "suffer with" another person.
This will be a main focus at Torrey conference! God wants to teach us to tangibly take compassion upon each other, not just "feel" compassion, but to live it! To SUFFER WITH our brothers and sisters.

"We stand in awe of the ocean, the thunderstorm,
the sunset, the mountains, but we pass by a human being
without notice even though the person is God's most magnificent
creation" - St. Augustine

It is a blessing to care for others because it opens us up to the heart of the Father, it gives us a glimpse of a new dimension of His deep love for His most loved creation. His Beloved. His son's and His daughter's.
Would YOU consider praying for others this week in general? This Year?

Sign ups are available through our AfterDark coordinator (who is overseeing the 24-hour-prayer room).
Do a directory search in BUBBS for "After Dark Coordinator" and ask for a time slot (slots are one half hour each).
Sign up for as many as you like!

Take advantage of this opportunity, whether to be better stewards of the blessing of brothers and sisters whom God has given us by praying for them. Or by allowing God to break you and accepting the compassion of others.

In John 11, an account is written of Lazarus - a close friend of Jesus - who was dying. Jesus chose not to come right away. But rather Jesus showed up at the city where Lazarus lived 4 days LATE. One sister of Lazarus, Martha, admits her frustration with Jesus saying: "Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died..." (21) She admits that Jesus could have done something about it! Where was He when His friend needed Him? But then Martha admits to Jesus something she also realized about Him (though she did not fully comprehend her own words): "but I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask." (22) And after this, Jesus saw the sisters and the crowd of people who had gathered to morn the death of Lazarus, even weeping and "He was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34And he said, 'Where have you laid him?' They said to him, 'Lord, come and see.' 35 Jesus wept." Wow!
The story goes on to say that Jesus was AGAIN moved with compassion deep in His Spirit because of the people. It was after this that He had men move the stone and raise Lazarus from the dead!
Jesus had this in mind ALL ALONG. Even when all others could see was Jesus leaving the sister's to feel totally lost and hurt as they watched their brother die, and his great friend (Jesus - the only one who they believed could keep him from dying) come into town 4 days late. But Jesus sets the people up for 2 great things: First, the experience of His compassion! He demonstrates that He wanted to take compassion upon the pain that the sisters and that the crowd was feeling. He was moved in His Spirit to suffer with the people. Even leading Him to weep, because He was so near to them in their pain and suffering! What a God we serve. The second thing was only made valuable to the people because of the first: Jesus displays His glory and power by raising Lazarus. But by first having deep compassion Jesus communicated the heart with which He was raising him: Compassion. A heart that had suffered closely with people.
Sometimes all we want is for Jesus to fix our problems, to "Raise my Lazarus" if you will. With a complete disregard or thirst for the compassion that God wants to shower upon us. If we served a God who was constantly fixing our hurt without taking compassion on us, we would not honor him, no, we would (in our flesh) desire to constantly take advantage of him. But our God wants to suffer with us. So that we can grasp what He is doing when He chooses (yes, whenEVER He chooses) to raise our Lazarus - that He has first taken compassion on us utterly depraved people. But He sees us as hurting and broken sons and daughters, for whom He cannot help but burn with Compassion.
I propose that when we reject the compassion of Christ, we miss His glory when He brings us through suffering. We must first accept compassion from Christ in the midst of our suffering in faith that even now whatever He asks from God it will be given to Him, only then will we grasp and appreciate what Christ has done for us! It is only then that we can look back on a trial of suffering and say, "I am glad it worked out that way." Because our focus in the midst of our suffering was completely saturated in the loving compassion of Christ that was there alongside us, suffering with us, even weeping with us.

If you would like to practice compassion, and pointing your brothers and sisters to the God who can do all things but first wants to reveal His compassion to them, then please consider this opportunity.

If you find that you have missed the opportunity to signup for a slot, feel free to walk in and begin praying for others that may or may not be in the room. But do not miss the blessed chance to grow in grace by suffering with others during this conference.

Blessings

Continued...

Torrey Conference Volunteer Opportunities