Trained by Jesus

We have many great speakers here. All talk about something that they have a passion for or that is in their job description. They all care about us TREKers and our well-being and how we will do in the assignment part of our experience.
One of my favorite speakers is Steve Klassen. He owns the MARK Centre and also is in charge of our work duties we do everyday. He is an amazing guy and he takes God’s word and work very seriously. He teaches the class ‘Trained by Jesus’. He wrote a book that walks you through the book of Mark and he also memorized the whole book of Mark. We have him teach maybe twice a week and if we can squeeze him in, we try for more then just 2! He does such a great job and he has a passion in his heart for us and it shows. Every session we take a small portion of a chapter from Mark and just chew on it over and over. We pick out phrases and phrases or just simple words.
Yesterday we were invited to his house for Chia while doing a lesson. And the Chia wasn’t the only thing delicious! His lesson was amazing. We studied Mark 8:31-38. We talked about how, in this scripture, Jesus first talked about his torture, death, and resurrection. Until now in the Bible, Jesus said nothing about his death and how he would raise again. We also talked a lot about the cost. The cost of giving everything up for God, the cost of surrendering it all, and the cost of just living a life for Jesus.
It really makes you think. It really makes you sit back and ask, ‘Am I willing to lose everything, my life, for Jesus?’ Yea, we can say that pretty easily, but do we mean it? Would we really do everything we can do to live for God? Would we, if we had a gun to our heads, renounce the name of Jesus? or stand strong for him and for what we believe in? It’s a serious question and something that, as Christians, we need to realize what all Jesus gave up for us.
We also talked about suffering a little. Steve made a good point when he said that there is 2 sides to every coin. When we talk about suffering we went through in our lives, do we talk about the good times we had or experienced during that time of suffering? A lot of the time we may just talk about how ‘God caused this’ or ‘God allowed this to happen’… but do we ever say ‘God showed me this in that time of hardships’ or ‘God did something amazing in the midst of the trials’? Most of the time we don’t. Why? Yea… we may go through hard times but something good will come out of it. God only wants what’s best for us… and he will be with us through everything he puts us through. He loves us so much and he will never leave us.
I have learned a lot from ‘Trained by Jesus’ and we are only half way through the book of Mark and with only 2 weeks left, we know that it won’t get finished. We are disappointed and are amazed with that book so far. If you haven’t ever read it… I recommend you to. You won’t be sorry. God has a lot to show us… and we just have to look into that marvelous book and see for ourselves the love of God.