Easter seminar: Shepherding your heart by Dr Tedd Tripp

So I'm officially three months behind in blogging, but I'm determined to catch up!

This year my church didn't have an Easter conference during actual Easter holidays because the speaker was not available then. We had it a bit later and the topic of the conference was "Shepherding your heart". Dr Tedd Tripp has a book called Shepherding a Child's Heart which I've yet to read. He was a very, very good speaker who addressed the core issues of our heart.

Three months have gone by but I still remember this point:

When we act out a sinful pleasure we think that it is going to give us greater joy than God. Our heart is captured by it, and thus we turn it into an idol in our life. In that moment we are effectively telling God that this sinful activity is better than Him. 

I think this point struck me most because when I sin I don't think about comparing it to God. I don't think about whether I can find greater happiness in God in that moment. But when it was plainly told to me, it really struck me how stupid and shameful it is to replace what God offers us (supreme, eternal happiness) with the world's (temporal, never satisfying happiness). It's like purposefully denying myself true pleasure by going after a counterfeit. Setting up idols in our heart breaks the first commandment of "Thou shalt not have any other gods besides me", and after this conference I understood how often we break this commandment. It struck fear in me and caused me to carefully evaluate where I look for happiness and pleasure.

We see in the characters of Apostle Paul and Moses, how they exchanged their position and pride of a Pharisee and royalty for God's kingdom. Paul counts the way he used to obtain happiness from the world as dung when he compares it to the happiness and love of Christ. Paul did not love an idealogy, but he forsook all for a PERSON. That person is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Furthermore, Moses gave up his royalty in Egypt for a position of slavery. Moses concluded that serving God is more valuable than being served in Egypt.

Both Apostle Paul and Moses believed that disgrace for the sake of Christ is of greater value than the pleasures of life. And they showed it openly by their life of ministry.

I was really, really impacted by the example of Moses. He really "lost" everything for God, yet when I think about it, he really didn't lose anything in comparison to what he gained.
These two main points was what I learned from the conference. Overall it was a sobering time of reflection and searching of my own heart and relationship with God.

"But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which if of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection..." Philippians 3:7-10

Other points:
- Human beings are instinctively worshippers. Haha I remember this point really clearly because he gave an example of humans in comparison to the animal kingdom. He said that you don't see bears lining up along a riverbank clapping and cheering for each other. Only humans require something to worship. We are created for worship and we do not cease to worship - we simply choose to worship things other than God. We exchange the glory of God for the worship of created things.
- Pleasure is God's design and it's not wrong to have pleasures. But are we desiring the right things? When we aren't filled with God, we search for other things to fill ourselves with: material wealth, love from others,etc. which leads to coveteousness and wickedness. We EXCHANGE God's goodness for the world and in the end find ourselves empty of true happiness and purpose in life.
- God isn't concerned about your happiness as much as your HOLINESS.