Passion: an annual Christian conference for college students and young adults. Hundreds of thousands of people join together in stadiums and arenas across the USA and around the globe to worship Jesus, breathe in His presence, be shaped by the His Word and join hands to extend His mercy and grace to the world.

Passion is rooted in so much more than a single conference; it isn’t about the crowd or the numbers, but in the potential of each individual story and every unique voice. To encourage people across the globe to live in such a way that their journey on earth counts for what is most important in the end. That’s the fame of the One who rescues and restores, and the privilege we have to amplify His name in everything we do.

I went to passion for the first time this past weekend and left with one regret: Why hadn’t I gone sooner?

To say that 3 days with thousands of complete strangers changed my life would be the only way to describe it. Incredible people all worshiping Jesus at the top of their lungs spurred a new love in my heart, something so uncommon in todays world became simply magical.

I befriended a family of 7 strangers, made my self vulnerable and shared parts of my story to encourage others to share their scars and wounds too. Not knowing exactly what to expect from this past weekend, its certain to say that it went far above and beyond any expectation I could have thought up.

Whether you are a believer, a new follower, a lost and broken soul (we all are there at some point) or whether you have never heard the gospel or the name of Jesus before here are 10 truths that everyone needs to hear:

1. You’re in a Movie.
   • Ya you, right here, right now are in a movie. Not to say that you have a star on hollywood boulevard but you do have a role to play in God’s story, the real star of the show. God the creator of the heavens and the earth, the one who knows every star in the sky not just in our galaxy but in them all, has a place for you in His movie. You may be asking, if I’m not the star, what the heck is my role in this “movie” that God has created? You have been placed in a unique position, you have a role in the never ending story of God called history. All the details you wish to know are to come, but nothing eclipses the overarching truth that God has put you on earth in a story that has already begun. Everything has been created by God and for God, divinely woven together. Everything that is true about Jesus is true about us, we are made from Him, by Him for Him. God has placed you in His movie, in the exact spot you are supposed to be. Whether you feel like you are lost and alone, scared of the future, or at the climax of your show, trust in His plan, the same plan that has been in place years before you even debuted on the big screen.
   • Every time you follow Him, you will be amazed by how epic your scenes become. You may be playing a background or extra role, but that in it self is stunning because you are in the movie when you should have been dead. Be in the background and let the star of the show shine.
2. 3 Words Define Your Life.
   • “It is Finished” - John 19:28
   • With these final three words Jesus bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Jesus spoke those words to YOU. He said them to you, to free you and launch you into God’s great story. In a world where we put so much weight on single words its hard to look past the superficiality of it all and hear the one that really matters. You may be filled with words such as abandoned, helpless, shameful, rejected, hurt, worthless, engaged, employed, ambitious, brave, calm, friendly or funny but not a single one of these words, that we so quickly let determine our self worth, matters. There is only one world that truly defines your life. Tetelestai: “It is finished” in greek. I’m so tired of other people defining me by their opinions and words. I am so tired of letting fake values dictate the way we think of ourselves and the way we view ourself in His story. He is speaking to you and He is telling you, Tetelestai, “Everything I have promised, I have done”. Jesus’ death put an end to the system, an end to sin, an end to guilt and shame and an end to self.
   • The system has been broken. No longer do we have to do enough good works to ensure we get into heaven. We will never be good enough to reach that point, we will ALL fall short.
   • Sin has been put to death. Jesus was the final sacrifice for all people and all sins. Sin makes us dead and spiritually dormant, but Jesus gives us life. Ask your self if you are truly alive in Christ?
   • Shame is no more. You do not have to carry it with you. No matter what you have done, how terrible you have screwed up or how many people you have hurt, Jesus paid it ALL. It’s time to blow out the candles on the pity party cake. You may have a past, but now you have a future.
   • Self is no longer. The me, my and I mentality is gone. It is now the we, us and you. He gave up His rights so we can have the right to be children of God. His death became our birth right. It’s time to give up our dreams, plans, ideas and hopes and let His will be done. We owe him all, he gave us live when we were dead.
   • Tetelestai- says it all.
3. It’s time to prune your vine.
   • John 15:1-11 invites us to spend eternity in an intimate relationship with Jesus. He want’s us to grow close to Him, but who actually feels close to Jesus right now? Do you?
   • Jesus is the one true vine, the only source of life. Apart from Him we can do nothing, we are dead in our walk, we can bare no fruit. If we do not establish our roots in Christ, the world will quickly takes away our life and our fruits will wither away. The world presents many false vines in our lives, the media, money, and materials suck the life out of our secular and spiritual lives. We get caught up in a microwave society that promotes instant gratification and an endless lifeless cycle of “if only”. Once you achieve what you are looking for, whether it be the GPA, the perfect boyfriend/girlfriend, theres always something else that you think will be better or make you happier, the cycle never ends. Solomon had everything he could have ever wanted in life, but still says it all was meaningless in the end.
   • “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired, I refused my heart no pleasure… yet everything was meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 2:10)
   • Our Father is our gardener, he cares deeply about each branch of His vine. He knows them all and knows what we need most. Sometimes we need prune the branches that do not bear fruits. Is there anything in your life that needs to be pruned, cut off, so that you can bear more fruits? Are you holding onto a broken relationship, a past sin, or guilt and shame? It may hurt to cut them off at first, but God cares deeply for you and wants nothing more than to help you grow, He is the perfect gardener.
4. You should live in a tent your whole life:
   • Yep that’s right, the thin layer of tarp that people live outside in for months at a time… ok maybe thats just me… but still that tarp thingy. So you are probably wondering why you should live in a tent. Ok well you don’t actually need a physical tent but rather the idea behind it. Imagine the tent as your meeting spot with God. Only you and Him can go into the tent. We are called to worship alone because that is what truly lasts. We have come into believing that meeting with God is ordinary. But is anything but ordinary. Does is still BLOW YOUR MIND that you are talking to your SAVIOR?? That at the very second you are meeting with Him he is with you and WATCHING YOU, ya you, one in 7.125 billion people. He loves YOU! The very meeting we find ordinary is actually the most wonderful. IT IS INSANE, that you can go into your tent and talk to your Father, rest secured in His presence and feel his love. When you get into the tent the world out side is full of lurking hazards and dangers, but in the tent everything changes. You always have the tent to go back to, your safety, It is just YOU AND HIM. HOW AWESOME IS THAT? (sorry I’m a little excited) Restore the wonder in your relationship with God, don’t let it become mundane and burdensome to meet with God, the tent is there for the good and the bad. Fall in love with the awe and wonder of God all over again, step into your tent and free yourself for the distractions of the world,be sober minded and self controlled in your prayer. Praise God for knowing you, loving you and caring for you!
5. You’re out of options.
   • Options are okay but at some point you have to cut them off. We are told time and time again that our lives on earth are but a vapor. Poof gone. Don’t waste all of your time torn between options, or leaving things open to see what else could come along, the next time you are offered an opportunity to do work, go! Don’t contemplate it to the point of hurt and suffering like most people tend to do. God tends to work with those who are already working, not those who are waiting for something to plop out of the sky or those waiting for God to fulfill our own will. Divine alignment leads to divine assignments. We try to make our own assignments, while God sets people in places and calls us to do work. Sometimes you have to stop thinking and start doing.
   • We should care enough about the world to do work. There are plenty of lost people that need saving. If you are willing to be a laborer, then trust what God has placed in your hands, and trust that he will give you the wants of in your heart. There is no need to move across the world to do good works for God. Not saying thats not amazing and inspiring. Use where God has placed you right now to shine before men and expose the light of our Father. Shine on your campus, at your job, in your relationships, stop talking and start doing.
   • Those who know their God should do great exploits for God.
   • Cut off the options
6. Mr. Popular is gone.
   • Mr. homecoming king, captain of the football team, the big man on campus, the varsity cheerleader, the fraternity sweetheart, the most popular sorority member is no more. We are all equal in the eyes of God and it is time to stop caring about others options and our “status”. If the opinion of Jesus really mattered to us we would have a whole new world. (did the song start singing in your head?, it did mine, sorry I’m scatter brained sometimes).
   • We are called to do everything in anonymity and obscurity. God will promote you when He wants. He will find you and give you the mantel, but it’s time to GO! Don’t miss an opportunity to serve looking for other options, GO. Hear the call and go even when it doesn’t make any sense, stop asking questions when you can feel so much magnetism from Jesus. Cut off some options, give up control, don’t run from your calling, kiss some things goodbye and leave. There is no plan B, there is only Jesus, be His servant. Serving Him should be our goal in life. Now you may be asking, if I am serving in secret but following him, is that enough? It is far more important to be significant in God’s field than to be significant in this world. It is far more significant to bear fruit in His heart than to have stuff in this world.
   • Are you willing to do it all for Jesus? Are you willing to leave people behind? Drop all your expectations? Drop the success drive in your heart? And go to work?
   • Surrender your dreams an pick up His.
   • No one needs to know your name or your status but Him.
7. Your mind is a mirror to your heart.
   • The pursuit of intimacy with God is a battle. We make promises and then break them the next day, beating ourselves down further. But the pursuit of intimacy with God appears during adversity. So how do we struggle well? The Christian life is a fight for unrestrained intimacy with God.
   • Satan knows your tendencies, he wants you to sin, he wants to make things look attractive too you, he wants you to fall away from God.
   • So how do we fight back. Well first off God is with you even during the struggles. We can gain more control by preventing our temptations in the first place. If you are tempted by physical desires, don’t go to her apartment at night to “watch a movie”, go be private but in public, don’t compromise your integrity when you can prevent it.
   • Pause a moment and grab a piece of paper.
   • Now write out your full name and a ________, fill the blank in with the first thing that comes to your mind when saying your name aloud.
   • Sarah Elizabeth Lindstrom single, worthless, broken. I know thats 3 but those are where Satan gets to me. The lies he stirs up in my mind quickly become a window to my heart. Do not be deceived by His lies, by those bed time thoughts when you are most vulnerable. Every good and perfect gift is from God.
   • Do you not believe that God is a good dad cause you have had hurt in your life? Do you not believe he is a loving Dad to you? Do you really think there is a better dad out there? LIES LIES LIES, SATAN’S LIES
   • The best defense to sin is a good offense. Feast on the love of God and replace them with God. The same mechanism that satan uses against you is the same God uses to set you free. Load your mind with thoughts of God, his Love. Soon your mind will lose the lies Satan has placed there and be filled with the love of God. Your heart will no longer reflect sin, but love.
   • Your struggle is one of the greatest assurances that you are alive. Don’t wallow in it but change it and fight.
8. You suck.
   • Yep, You suck, its ok I do too. We all do. Want to know why? Because we can’t seem to take our eyes off of ourselves and look to Jesus. Many of us fall into duplicitous lives, full of hypocrisy and giving into the very things that God hates. We ask ourselves questions like “If I am a believer in Christ, why do I struggle like I do? Why do I give myself over to my struggle?” Do you see it yet? I, I, I, I. Take your eyes off of yourself.
   • The greater you think you are the more enslaved you are to your own sin.
   • It’s ok to be confused? If Paul was confused, the same man that wrote 13 books of the New Testament, then surely its ok that we are confused.
   • It’s time to GET OVER OURSELVES and ANCHOR YOUR SOUL ON JESUS
   • Through life ups and downs, remember these four truths about God:
   • 1) God’s transcendent wealth:
     • All the power and wealth belong to God. All the heavens of the heavens of the heavens belong to Him. God creates out of nothing, He has no limit. We are limited to our resources. Our God’s wealth goes beyond creation because He is the creator. Meditate on that. God never worried, trust in his provision.
   • 2) God is sovereign in his knowing:
     • He knows EVERYTHING. The truth is only from God, never from the enemy. The extensive, exhaustive breath of His knowledge is incredible. He sees every single detail and knows every piece of the puzzle yet knows everything from a birds eye view. Its ok to start responding to questions about God’s knowledge and plans with “I don’t know”. Because truthfully we don’t know, but we certainly will wait because He knows and all will be revealed in His time.
   • 3) God is inscrutable:
     • God wants you to feel small. The cross proves that He is for you. You can not scrutinize God because He is in control.
     • But wait? You don’t agree. You have been hurt somewhere along the way that you don’t understand how God could let such horrible things happen to you, you do scrutinize Him. But God is not our ambulance, God wounds us like a surgeon, precisely so we can look to the cross. He is at work in the mess.
   • 4) God is perfectly self-sufficient
     • You know what is awesome, that we can not do anything to win His affection. If you can not put God in your debt than you are free to be loved by Him. A check list mentality does not bring love or freedom. You think you have done everything you are supposed to do, yet when things go wrong you get hurt and question why God doesn’t love you. He owes you NOTHING. Yet he has granted you EVERYTHING!
     • God wants to bless you, He is for you and loves you. But we have to be tethered to the underlying truth that GOD IS FOR GOD. For HIS glory. We were saved for the praise and glory of God. He gives out of grace not out of need. Marvel in His love for us, what abundant and ridiculous love that is.
9. Joy begins at the Intersection.
   • True abundantly joyful life begins at the intersection of faith and works. Since God is for God, all commands are to lead you into a deeper and better life, not to take anything away. Walking in His ways, working in His ways. When life is no longer about us and all about God everything loses it’s control on you. By the grace of Christ, God does not love some future version of yourself, God likes you NOW. Do not belittle the cross of Christ. He is for YOU. Get over yourself and start going out and doing work for Him. Yes we have been saved and no longer have to do works because of the cross, but true life in Christ begins when that faith is coupled with good works. We should be in such awe of Christ that we want to do any and everything we can to spread His love! Start spreading the love and bearing fruits. Don’t over complicate God’s will.
10. It took 27 hours to save the world.
    • From the time that Jesus was crucified on the cross, 6 pm on a Friday, and rose again 27 hours had passed. Saturday, the sabbath, followed Christ’s death and is such a beautiful display of Christ’s sacrifice. While the people of Jesus are at rest, Jesus is going to the depths of hell to fight for us! If that doesn’t make you drop your jaw in awe and wonder I don’t know what will. God wants us to understand He won the Fight, Christ lives in you. It’s time to breath out the I can’t and breath in the but Jesus Can. Trust in Him, surrender, confess, release.

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The Christian life is impossible, but that is why it is called the Christian life. Jesus Christ was perfect and we will never be, lucky for us, HE PAID IT ALL. 

Thank you for bearing with this epically long post. There was just so much to be absorbed, shared and re-evaluated.

Whether you believe in Jesus or not, its time to stop knowing about Jesus and start actually knowing Him. Passion 2015 opened my eyes to so many incredible truths and so many questions that I have needed to ask my self for too long. I entered into the weekend dead, falling back into a depressed state and returned alive, new and rejuvenated by the breath of truth.

It’s time to spread the passion felt at Passion to our campuses, our work and our relationships. Life is fleeting and not guaranteed, do not wait for a better option, for a better you, but GO. Find the intersection between faith and works and start to spread the truth that Jesus is life, love and joy!

I bought my ticket for Passion 2016 as I left last Sunday, I can already hardly wait to be back and hear so much more about Jesus. For now I will carry my rejuvenated self only because Jesus carries me. I am about to go and do the things that I have been meaning to do for years, months, weeks, it’s time for me to cast down my nets and prune my vine.