It's funny how things come around in circles. I remember the first blog I wrote whilst here on my DTS and how I wrote about authority. I never really thought I had a problem with it as much as I did, but this week showed me the truth. This week showed me a lot of things.
Lordship week was the topic, and it was such an intense, but such a needed week.
Lordship is, in essence, understanding and then accepting the fact that Jesus not only loves us, but is also our King and Lord. Its such a difficult thing to put into practice in your life, because we are all prideful and think we know best and want to run our own lives. But the message of the Cross doesn't end at the salvation of our sins, there is another step that is so often forgotten, that step is submitting to Gods authority. Modern christianity is plagued by the problem of forgetting Gods Lordship in their message of love. Their needs to be an equal amount of love and authority conveyed to people. If its all love, people abuse that and we get lukewarm christians so prevalent today. If its all Lordship you get the “repent sinner” and fire and brimstone style preaching so popular years ago. Both of these aspects are in the gospel and are needed for a full relationship with God.
But there is a reason its so hard to come under God's Lordship, its because He is Big, Mighty, Powerful and we don't understand Him. And if we submit to him we have to do what he says, which means we have to be willing to go where He asks and say what He wants us to when he wants us to. And this could mean doing wild, crazy things that the world says is ridiculous. But if you trust enough in Him, and know Him well enough then it gets much easier.
So this week we got to know Him better. We gave up aspects of our lives to His care, got forgiveness for things holding us back and we worshipped him fully and lost so much fear of man and gained so much fear and understanding of God.
But now is the hard part. Doing it daily. Jesus told us to take up our cross daily, which means we need to lay down ourselves every day. And every day I am trying to, its hard, but I know this is the life I want to and am called to lead. Because only the best will do for me.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
My Path or Yours?
Another week, more knowledge and truth imparted. Golly gosh.
This week seemed to go by the fastest yet, outreach is approaching ever faster, its only 4 weeks from today till I leave for India. I still don't think that's gotten into my head yet. India man...
We had the October DTS come home for their debrief week this week and one of their teams went to India so it was good to feed off them and get as much information on it as possible. Be prepared for some pooh stories to come.. as well as stories of loving on unlovable lepers, orphans and the rejected and stories of God performing amazing healings and miracles through us. Its going to happen.
This week our school leader Sanerieve Sanerieve Fuiava junior (usually known as Live, pronounced Lee-vay)spoke. He is an amazing man, and it was exciting to hear his testimony of change from a bratty kid to the man of vision he is today. It was cool how he spoke about the crazy dreams and things God told him he could do and how many he accomplished. It made me excited. I have so many things I want to do, and God has told me to do, and they are scary, exciting and most of all BIG. But if God asks you to do them, how can I say no? I'm still not certain exactly what God wants me to do, to come back here and staff, or to go into full time missions work in Saudi Arabia, or become a sailboat captain?(two of those are valid options) But no matter what, the main thing is that I follow him. He has the most exciting life possible in store for everyone, but he asks that we follow him, with our heart, soul and strength.
One other thing that impacted me was that God wants to build our character before we can step into things. Moses spent 40 years in Canaan building character before God released him to free the Jews. Evem Jesus spent 20 or so years “growing in wisdom and stature” before his ministry. God will not put us anywhere we can't handle, so he will put us in situations where we are forced to grow into the men and women we should be, and are meant to be. And that's exciting because it means the problems we go through today mean we will be more amazing tomorrow, because to quote a cliché that I've heard so often but am only beginning to realise the truth in, “Life is about the journey, not the destination”
This week seemed to go by the fastest yet, outreach is approaching ever faster, its only 4 weeks from today till I leave for India. I still don't think that's gotten into my head yet. India man...
We had the October DTS come home for their debrief week this week and one of their teams went to India so it was good to feed off them and get as much information on it as possible. Be prepared for some pooh stories to come.. as well as stories of loving on unlovable lepers, orphans and the rejected and stories of God performing amazing healings and miracles through us. Its going to happen.
This week our school leader Sanerieve Sanerieve Fuiava junior (usually known as Live, pronounced Lee-vay)spoke. He is an amazing man, and it was exciting to hear his testimony of change from a bratty kid to the man of vision he is today. It was cool how he spoke about the crazy dreams and things God told him he could do and how many he accomplished. It made me excited. I have so many things I want to do, and God has told me to do, and they are scary, exciting and most of all BIG. But if God asks you to do them, how can I say no? I'm still not certain exactly what God wants me to do, to come back here and staff, or to go into full time missions work in Saudi Arabia, or become a sailboat captain?(two of those are valid options) But no matter what, the main thing is that I follow him. He has the most exciting life possible in store for everyone, but he asks that we follow him, with our heart, soul and strength.
One other thing that impacted me was that God wants to build our character before we can step into things. Moses spent 40 years in Canaan building character before God released him to free the Jews. Evem Jesus spent 20 or so years “growing in wisdom and stature” before his ministry. God will not put us anywhere we can't handle, so he will put us in situations where we are forced to grow into the men and women we should be, and are meant to be. And that's exciting because it means the problems we go through today mean we will be more amazing tomorrow, because to quote a cliché that I've heard so often but am only beginning to realise the truth in, “Life is about the journey, not the destination”
Monday, March 8, 2010
Going and Sending
This week was yet another week of challenges for me. You'd almost think I was sick of it by now, but I'm not. Being challenged is good, being uncomfortable is good. It may not seem that way at the time, but if you're not being challenged then you're not growing and the opposite of growing is stagnation. So challenge yourself!
But that's not the point..or maybe it is...??!
This week we learnt about Missions with a good man called Bruce Skinner from the Wollongong base. He opened our eyes to the reality of missions, the countries and people that require our aid, the things that need to be done and the fact that it is everyone's personal responsibility to act.
He spoke about the great commission, the last thing Jesus spoke to us all that we need to go and make disciples of all the world. The first part of that is the word “Go.” To do this task we need to Go, get into the places of the world and not just wait for things to happen. It is active and purposeful.
Not all of us have been called to go however, but if we are not going to the world, then we certainly should be sending. This means we should be supporting those who are in missions, financially, physically and prayerfully. There are so many churches around the world who don't believe world missions is a need for them. Yes, the local community is important to reach, but chances are they have heard the Word before. There are at least 4000 completely unreached people groups with different languages. Who are we to deny the good news to them?
That last question is a hard one, because if we believe its true, then we must realise that we need to do something. And doing something is scary. God really challenged me on this during the week. If God called you to go to Saudi Arabia, a country where Christians are killed for their faith, do you trust him enough to go? That's a lot of trust and faith. It's lucky my God is a powerful God. I seriously don't know whether I could do it, but I think God is working on me with this issue of trust, because God wants the impossible to be done, and he is willing to use me. What an honour, what a fright, what an opportunity.
Lovingly yours!!
But that's not the point..or maybe it is...??!
This week we learnt about Missions with a good man called Bruce Skinner from the Wollongong base. He opened our eyes to the reality of missions, the countries and people that require our aid, the things that need to be done and the fact that it is everyone's personal responsibility to act.
He spoke about the great commission, the last thing Jesus spoke to us all that we need to go and make disciples of all the world. The first part of that is the word “Go.” To do this task we need to Go, get into the places of the world and not just wait for things to happen. It is active and purposeful.
Not all of us have been called to go however, but if we are not going to the world, then we certainly should be sending. This means we should be supporting those who are in missions, financially, physically and prayerfully. There are so many churches around the world who don't believe world missions is a need for them. Yes, the local community is important to reach, but chances are they have heard the Word before. There are at least 4000 completely unreached people groups with different languages. Who are we to deny the good news to them?
That last question is a hard one, because if we believe its true, then we must realise that we need to do something. And doing something is scary. God really challenged me on this during the week. If God called you to go to Saudi Arabia, a country where Christians are killed for their faith, do you trust him enough to go? That's a lot of trust and faith. It's lucky my God is a powerful God. I seriously don't know whether I could do it, but I think God is working on me with this issue of trust, because God wants the impossible to be done, and he is willing to use me. What an honour, what a fright, what an opportunity.
Lovingly yours!!
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