TAK Article: Reading through the Bible, again…

The Importance and Difficulty of Spending Time in the Word

An amazing teacher once told a friend of mine that if he really wanted know what was in the Bible and what it said that then he should read it. He added, “after about the 35th time reading it through it starts to stick.”

That was a rather great challenge to my friend and myself!

Now, I wasn’t actually in on that conversation. I was just listening in, sitting by a nice warm wood stove, all comfortable, and, at the time, thirty-five read throughs didn’t sound all that bad.

I’m just starting my third read through and, to put it simply, that nice warm woodstove is a long ways away.

My last read through of the Bible was spread out over several countries (no less than four to be sure). Before that my first was spent over the course of my teenage years (read as many). This time it will be through busy seasons in multiple states and with the added challenge of knowing I can be a lot more faithful in setting aside time to do so than I have in the past.

Time is funny; it seems like you haso much of it or so little of it or none of it, and yet you have neither more or less of it, ever.

I could use this time for other things, though, I find that when I give some of my time to reading the Bible I find the rest of my time a little more fulfilling. I find it more fulfilling if I actually get to do something with what I’ve read. Applying it to the way I live, sharing it with others, writing about it like this, or journaling about what I think and hear as I read has been very valuable ways to get more out of the time I spend reading.

This time, thus far…

Today I just got into the very first part of Exodus.

I tried something new for Genesis by reading through it generationally; the first part up to Abraham, then Abraham’s story, then Isaac’s, then Jacob/Israel’s, and then on through the end with the sons of Israel.

It is amazing… through so much of this we get to see God interacting with individuals. It’s a story that’s told forward and backward, many stories of family told to the next generations, collected and brought up to together by Moses for the people coming out of Egypt. When we get to Exodus the story jumps from a very large family to a very large nation in just a few verses.

I ask myself, what was it like for all of those people? Families?

There are so many stories told from just the first few generations. Our families work the same way, stories are told, identities are formed, “I was the child of…” I’m sure there are a lot of family stories from the end of Genesis until we see Moses’ family story come into the picture, though, we don’t get to see those in the Bible.

These stories would have shaped the identity of a nation. Stories of how they settled in Goshen, of how the first task masters came, stories of the cities they built.

As all these were being told, God desired to form new stories as well, and so, we pick up the trail with Moses and all that follows.

Getting to Know the Family Story

Do we know our family stories? Do we know the stories that helped form our own families? What has our fathers, grandfathers, uncles, aunts, grandmothers, mothers, and cousins told us about our history?

In the same way, do we know what is there in the Bible? What are its stories? Who does the Bible say that we are?

We have a lot of people in Churches that need to know who God is, what He is like, how to hear His voice, how to obey Him when he speaks. How can we teach these things? Well, I present to you my understanding, I believe we can teach these things through story.

God has given us stories about who He is through the Bible and through the experiences that He has walked us through in life. We need to learn how to share these stories with others so that they will learn about who God is, what He is like, how they can hear His voice, and how they can obey Him too.

This is His story, but it is a story that we are invited into. Each of our stories are unique and each story has similarity.

That is a piece of what makes His story unique! Both the Bible in its stories of God and men, women, families, and nations and in His story among men, women, families, and nations today we something that was written together. The more participants in the story the more clearly we are able to see who He is and and who we are.

So, in the end, the difficulty of spending time in the word is in the spending time. The importance of spending time in the word is the redemption of time, all of it.

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

TAK Article: The God Who Moves People

Intro

In the world today we get to live through a very interesting time. Some call it “multi-polar”, not referring to global warming, but a time in which the question of who is the world’s greatest power may be asked. As this question is being asked peoples and nations have so far seemed to have a tendency to tighten up their borders, define people as “us or them” more than usual. As a mission we are already seeing this in places like Britain and similar feelings across Europe, as well as, America.

It is not that it only happens during a multi-polar environment, but it can happen more openly and with greater justification.

Now in Acts…

As we read what Paul says here, in Acts 17:16-34, it sounds like God does have a hand in the forming of nations, when and where they exist, and that He does have a purpose in doing so. God’s purposes are not about being a dictator or an absolute story writer, but rather He does so that perhaps the nations can learn even more about Him.

I don’t think that Paul is just coming up with ideas here.

As we read the old testament we can see where God did this very thing.

After the flood God dispersed the people at the tower of Babel, giving them different languages, and creating nations out of them. Now it could be easy to point a finger at this moment of history and claim that differing nations are a bad thing. I don’t think so. Even if this is the first place that nations are mentioned it is not the last. In Revelation John writes of a great multitude of all nations, peoples, and languages gathered around the throne of God, worshiping Him.

With Abraham we see God calling him away from his own nation and into another nation so that all nations would be blessed.

After this we see Rebekah leaving her family and joining Isaac in Canaan. Leaving her family to join another. Leaving other gods and learning of God the Father.

During the lives of Hagar, Jacob, and Joseph we see hostility pushing people away. We also see God revealing Himself in their trouble. God shows Hagar that He sees her and promises to make her son Ishmael into a great nation. In returning to his home Jacob becomes Israel, seeing God face to face. Joseph in all of his trouble sought after God and found Him, becoming a ruler in the process and moving with God to save both Egypt and the children of Israel from famine.

During that famine God brings the children of Israel to Egypt and while they are their makes them into a nation as He calls them out of the same land. Through this He also makes His name known to all the nations in the land.

He also makes His character clearly known to the Children of Israel who then begin to write their stories with God down and so pass their understanding of God’s character on to us.

Our difficulties with all this…

God doesn’t stop here, but He keeps on revealing Himself to the children of Israel and to the nations around them. God desires to be known and as He moves in the nations He makes Himself known.

With all this said, as nations and people, we don’t usually respond well to being moved around.

When new people come into our lives who look different or do things different than us we generally call them names. We refuse to give them thought. We find what we want is more legitimate than what they want.

This isn’t a new thing.

In your spare time do go there, but for now remember back to the story of how sin entered our world. It’s all in Genesis chapter 3.

We see Adam and Eve in a good place, in good relationship with one another, but in a vulnerable place as well. Their vulnerability wasn’t in God’s lack of protection, but in our lack of action. God had called mankind to both protect and develop. To be both warriors and gardeners.

Adam and Eve did not defend the garden, but listened to the serpent’s lies.

As soon as we see sin in the life of mankind we see anger, accusation, shame, an incredible and immediate separation of relationship between two people who were not before separated and separation with relationship with God as well. This was just after only one sin!

Since that point, immediately and over the thousands of years we see our story of relationships with each other getting worse. The very next story in the Bible is about murder. One generation from the first sin we see murder and jealousy in the picture. As we go on stories keep on getting more numerous and greater until we are where we are at today.

The only way out of this mess is through Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life.

As we give ourselves over to His grace and His Lordship we can actually make a difference, we can actually change. We have no excuse to be stuck in this same rut while Jesus is standing on the side willing to pull us out of it.

Moving onto Daniel…

In the book of Daniel we again see God’s commitment to make Himself known.

In disobedience the kingdom of Judah is exiled to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar is there and he recruits some of the princes and well off kids to become his magicians and wise men. Daniel was among them, as well as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They served the king and testified to him of who God really was and what He is like.

Over and over again God makes Himself known to King Nebuchadnezzar. Through many dreams, visions, and experiences God does seem to win over the King’s heart near the end of his life too.

Again, at a later time we see God showing Himself to King Darius. And again, we see the King responding to the experience of having to throw Daniel, his friend, into the den of lions by running back to the den the next morning asking desperately, “Daniel! Was your God able to deliver you?” If you don’t know the story, Daniel called back with, “Yes.”

In both of these situations the children of Judah were not where they wanted to be and yet God was using them to make Himself known. They were uncomfortable and the people around them couldn’t refuse the power of their God.

Eventually God called them back to Jerusalem and they were able to go, and still God made Himself known in brand new ways during the lives of Ezra and Nehemiah.

Still, the best was yet to come, Jesus was still yet to come!

In our days…

Just the other day I was trying to find something good and educational for Jay Edward to keep himself busy with. So I looked through Netflix for some nature shows and I stumbled on an episode about the Frank Church Wilderness. A biologist and his wife spent a year in the wilderness following wolves, elk, deer, salmon, etc…

At one point they spotted an injured elk and saw that the wolves had started following it. They had their cameras ready and thought they were about to capture some excellent footage of the wolves hunting, but that didn’t happen. As the elk was separated from the herd the wolves started getting closer and then another elk showed up. A perfectly healthy elk came to help protect the injured elk.

The biologist was flabbergasted. He said, “everything I read about in my textbooks tells me that this shouldn’t happen. This is incredible! This isn’t the survival of the fittest that I read about.”

Some people have the idea that nations are about survival of the fittest.

Again, this probably isn’t a new idea, though, we can see that this is the worldview through which many of the world’s nations have been making decisions. I have at least listened to others say that this is how the world works and in some circles it is a popular view. However, this isn’t how God designed the world to work. It may work itself out in such a way, though, only as long as we are obedient to such a way of thinking.

My father helped me understand this better when I was young and said something silly or asked a question, I don’t remember which.

He told me that when he was young he believed that the Germans weren’t very bright. In his recent history they had lost both World Wars and half of their country was occupied by the USSR. Then, he found out that our space program, one of the most significant things that he knew of, was staffed by many German scientists.

His thoughts of the German people changed as he learned more about who they actually were rather than relying on what he had picked up from his generation’s culture.

I’ve found myself in my father’s shoes many times as I’ve traveled around the world. I’ve learned that lesson in eastern Germany, in the Netherlands, in the Middle East, and South Asia.

On my second trip to South Asia I was busy writing things down when a young boy asked me a question which I didn’t take the time to listen to. He repeated himself and I still didn’t give him much thought. The third time his mother translated what he was saying. “Uncle, may I have some water.”

I realized something about myself at that moment, remembering what my own father had taught me about his experience with the Germans was the same lesson I needed to learn now. I hadn’t paid attention to what my young friend had said not because he was speaking in a different language, but because he was different and I didn’t think he had anything important to say.

Yet, he did have something to say, and said it in a way that was honoring.

What may be our response?

In life I think we really have two choices. We may dishonor God’s character and His calling on our lives by choosing to honor ourselves above others in sin. We are capable of this path. I have seen it at home, in my life, in the governments of nations, etc.

While I was in the Netherlands such an event happened.

A government had been elected that chose to be tough on immigrants and refugees from other nations. As far as I could understand what was going on and as it was told to me, the principle of interaction with refugees was to make this place as uncomfortable as possible so that they would not get attached and want to leave.

That is one way we could look at immigrants and refugees coming to the United States.

The other option is for us to honor God’s character and His call on our lives through obedience to Him. Refugees and immigrants are people on God’s heart, people that He wants to have greater relationship with. In our obedience we can facilitate that. Again, while I was in the Netherlands, the people of the church saw what was happening to the refugees and many of them turned to  God in prayer. They believed that God’s heart was toward them just as it says in the Bible. Within only a little time the government fell apart.

When we act in accord with who God is and what He has called us to do, giving place in our hearts for Christ’s grace and lordship, we can change the way things are going in the world and bring people into relationship with a God who wants to make Himself known.

This is what He has called us to do, what do you say?

Weekly Update: June 15th, 2013

Hello everyone!

Once again it has been a whirlwind of a time since my last update; our school has finished, all our friends have spread out, some of our friends new parents, and we are visiting our family in Michigan.

Well, let’s get started!

The School Of Apostolic Pioneering that we were a part of finished with all students graduating and having excellent projects to pioneer in the next couple years. Some could be seen as very traditional projects, while others were definitely leaning on YWAM’s value of being visionary and doing things in radically new ways!

After the school finished we wrapped up some debrief items and shared plans for promoting the school in the future. 

At once, with really only a day of packing, we through our things in the Jeep that has been lent to us and headed off to Michigan. We started off with four passengers and dropped people off along the way. We were also able to visit several friends. We arrived four days later and for the first time, save for Mom, my family was able to meet our son.

Taking him to the farm was great! My Grandfather immediately swept him up and started showing how to roll pool balls around our pool table just like he used to do with us. We also spent some time shooting our bows at targets, practicing our softball skills for an upcoming tournament, and chased the cows back into the fence. The more our youngster is over there the more he is realizing that cows aren’t actually big dogs that go “wuff” too!

We are planning to spend our time here until just after the 4th of July and then head back to Idaho. We will be spending a lot of time with family, as well as, support raising, making connections, and scouting out the land for future YWAM bases.

Thanks for keeping track of us!

 

Other Updates

– During our time in Michigan we are hoping to do some praying and imagining about what future YWAM locations could look like here. As we do so, we will start putting up small articles on the different cities we go to and would love to hear some of your ideas as we do so too!

– Just yesterday we had our first prayer trip! My brother and I headed up to the highest point in Michigan’s thumb, north of I-69, and prayed for the surrounding cities. You could see several from the top of the mountain and it was a really beautiful place to spend some time in prayer. 

 

Scripture

Just a few days ago I was praying about what to read and it felt like I should read through the new testament during my time in Michigan. I also started reading the book unChristian by David Kinnamen and Gabe Lyons.

In David’s book, through in-depth research, they take a look at how Christianity is viewed by 16-29 year-old’s in the USA. The research, done through the Barna Group, is pretty stark… though not the majority, many of the Americans in that age group who are not already a part of the Church view it in an unfavorable light. What is worse, most of these perceptions come from experiences in churches or among Christians.

After reading this, my first go at reading Mathew brought me to the end of chapter 7, right through what is known as “the sermon on the mount“, a large continuous collection of Jesus’ teachings. The biggest thing I noticed about them was how all of them were concerned with how we live our lives. They have very little to do with pointing out how others live their lives wrongly, they even contain a teaching warning us of it.

Go and see for yourself, it is only two chapters.

This section scripture contains a big  part of the heart behind living our lives as a follower of Jesus and paints a true picture of what Christianity needs to look like.

 

Praise Reports and Prayer Requests

– Praise God that we all made it here in one piece!
– Praise God that my Grandfather is able to play with our son!
– Please pray for my Grandfather, he has several serious health concerns!
– Please pray for the costs we have that go along with delivering a baby! We still have $1,200 dollars to raise by the end of the month!

Thanks for all your prayers!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

 

 

Weekly Update: May 5th, 2013

Hello everyone!

We’re a couple of days into our 10th week of the School Of Apostolic Pioneering here at YWAM Idaho. This week’s topic is on strategic missions and understanding the world in which we live. We’ve heard a lot of stories about what God is doing in the world and it is all very exciting!

Last week we had Michael Brodeur, who works with the band Jesus Culture, author of the books Revival Culture and Destiny Finder, speaking on creating and maintaining a corporate culture within churches, organizations, and ministries. He also spoke quite a bit about the 5-fold gifts of the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher (found in Ephesians 4:7-16).

Our family is navigating the school’s schedule pretty well. Our sixteen-month old son likes to get outside as much as possible (even if his skin will become sunburned), so my wife will take him out to play in the volley ball court’s sand or I will give him a ride on my shoulders along the river and through the pine trees. All of this is right next to our training center and it makes the situation very livable.

Thanks for keeping up with us through our updates and encouraging us through your prayers!

Other Announcements:

– Last Friday we’ve had our first bible study with a group of local high school students. We partnered with a friend who is going to the school and, in total, nine students came to our first night! This Friday will be our second of four Bible studies before we travel to Michigan to visit with our family there.

– Since we’ve arrived we have been trying to get more connected in the community and it is certainly working! My wife is involved in several ladies’ groups and just this week our family has been given a vehicle to use for getting around Idaho this summer. Not only that, but our friends are also lending us their gas-efficient car so that we can drive to Michigan too!

Scripture:

It’s been really nice to have the bible study going on at our house! Last week we read about Philip, mentioned in the book of acts (the same as I wrote about a couple of updates ago), and how his life was lived out to become a legacy.

This week we are going to read about Rahab, spoken of through the Bible in Joshua 2; Joshua 6; and Mathew 1:5 (called Rachab). It is a story of tragedy, though, in the midst of it, there is victory. It seems an appropriate thing to share. Much of our experiences in the world could be seen through the lenses of loss, failure, and strongly questioning God’s presence or activity. However, there are victories that we often miss when we look only through these subtle (perhaps bold) lenses.

The victory of the story is Rahab.

In the middle of a destroyed city, full of questions, filled with thoughts of failure, certain and unquestionable loss, you see two men racing in and saving out Rahab and her family alive.

This is a common theme throughout our history — though it becomes bleak, God is working to bring all things together for the good of those who love God (Romans 8:28). It will not work out good for everyone, but for those who love God, it will. That said, it will almost always be clouded by our limited ability to see given what lenses we see it through.

Praise God that He reveals Himself to us! So that we may see bits and pieces of Him and the good He wishes for us!

Praise Reports & Prayer Requests:

– Praise God that He has provide for us during a wave of needs this month!
– Praise God for the students He has given us for this school and their growth!
– Praise God that all of us are healthy and well!
– Please pray for our time in Michigan, that all would go well and our paths would be made clear!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

Weekly Update: April, 23rd, 2013

Weekly Update: Tuesday, 04/23/13

Hello all!

Few! The weeks have been flying by!

We are more than half way through the school now and the visions of our students are getting bigger and bigger! This week our YWAM base founder is back to talk about what really gets things done when our visions get bigger than what we can do by ourselves.

Four things shared yesterday were the principles of having a biblical foundation (are we walking in the promises and paths of scripture), relying on our intimate relationships with Jesus to keep us going through difficult times, continually hearing God’s voice, and visioning with God (seeing what is not yet present). Here’s a quick question, has anyone reading this found any of these principles especially important? Leave a reply in the box below if so!

Another exciting development of our school is that our excellent cook was able to take a couple of weeks off and head down to Bethel in Redding, CA, today. I will be filling in until she gets back and am really looking forward to the opportunity, though, she will be a hard person to fill in for!

Our family has also been able to become more involved with the community here in Cascade too. My wife is going to a “mom and tots” get together, a local Bible study for women, and serving with the emergency pregnancy care center that is just starting up as well. I’m still finding my place among the other people in Cascade, but I’m hoping to make a big impact too.

We pray that this finds you all well and that God blesses you very much!

Thanks for keeping up with us!

Other Updates:

– We’ve had several people visit the Cascade/McCall are recently and they are saying that the place feels different. I’m not sure what this means yet, but we have been praying for the people in the valley and that the place would be a place where God is welcome. The visitors are all bringing good reports.

– One of the local youth is interested in the Bible study idea! I’ll be meeting with him today to talk more about the possibilities of having a Bible study night at our house.

Scripture:

Just this last Sunday, the Pastor at the church we attend gave the announcement that the next series of sermons will be on the book of Ephesians. Upon hearing this I glanced through the book and came upon chapter 4.

In this chapter Paul is bringing together a strong argument that, as followers of Jesus, who were saved by God through His love for us, we should love each other. A character of this love is our unity. It was God who brought us together and in His love he equips us and changes us into new people. As a new people this needs to be our own model as well.

How can we love others in such a way that builds them up and unifies them?

Leave your response in the box below!

Praise & Prayer Report

– Praise God for His provision!

– Praise God for our wonderful friends!

– Please pray for our finances as a family!

Thanks for all your prayers!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

Weekly Update: February 22nd, 2013

Weekly Update: Friday 2/22/2013

Hello again everyone,

Well, if anyone has been following these updates since I left for South Asia last December, that sandwich I ate at the airport in Helsinki was as amazing as it looked. You can probably find them in the big nice looking place to eat about half way through the international terminal, if you’re transiting through the air port in Helsinki, of course.

If you’re interested in all the happenings of what my 9 weeks in South Asia looked like, hang on, I’ll be writing that up in due time.

For now, our family Is getting settled into our nice little apartment here in Cascade, Idaho. It is a very comfortable cold outside and a decently comfortable warm inside. The air is much dryer than either the Netherlands or South Asia, which I am very thankful for; dry cold air helps my health to no small degree. We still have a couple of bags to unpack, some furniture to rearrange and replace, still a little bit more cleaning to do, and with that we should be all settled in.

It has been really exciting to see many of our old friends again! The winter in Idaho isn’t always the easiest time for finding our friends in YWAM. The vast majority are either in Asia or back with family raising support. Still, we’ve been able to visit four out of the five families that are still around.

Within the next couple days we’ll also be ready to get started on the School Of Apostolic Pioneering that will be running from March 10th though May 31st. We are going to have a great line up of speakers, students, and staff (which of course includes us)!

If you know anyone who really wants to start a new ministry or YWAM location, please, let them know about the SOAP!

Thanks for partnering with our family!

Other Updates:

– Our son is an excellent traveler! After a slightly troubled night of sleep in Amsterdam, He managed to sleep half of the time on our flight from Amsterdam to Chicago and lounge around for the rest! From the look on his face it seemed that he found it the lamest thing ever done, though, he wasn’t cranky bout it at all!

After the first flight, he played around in Chicago O’Hare airport for another eight hours; following that, slept through the next flight, the entire night in Boise, and arrived in Cascade without any jet lag at all!

– Last Saturday I was able to talk with my friend in Enschede about the prayer meeting that we had started. It was a fun time, but we won’t be able to continue it. I was a little sad about that, but when I prayed about it I felt that God was saying that seeds were planted in Enschede for another prayer meeting and that the prayers we have prayed for the city will be effective.

Thanks for praying for us!

Scripture:

Since coming to Cascade I have been feeling the need to read the Bible and receive what I need from God through it. It isn’t that unusual, of course, many times after I travel I get off track with reading my Bible and haveing my quiet times with God.

This time, though, the need has been much greater.

After being gone for so long and just returning from my time in South Asia it is easy for me to become withdrawn. I suppose you could say I am a bit culture shocked.

Yesterday, I asked God if there was a book in the Bible that He would like to start revealing Himself to me through and help me through what I was dealing with. It felt like He wanted to go through Psalms with me again and to start with the first psalm.

It was a very special time with God!

The first psalm is about where you set your mind and what you do; do you put your trust in ungodly things? Do you walk in the way of sin? Do you sit around in scornfulness? As I read it I started to see how selfish I was for not looking beyond myself – in a way, scornfulness. It says that the person who is blessed is the person who sets his mind on the law of God. Jesus Himself says that the greatest commands of the law is to love God and to love others.

It helped me to start my day with a new perspective and new confidence.

You all should try it out too!

 

Praise & Prayer Report:

– Praise God for our time in the Netherlands!

– Praise God for my wife’s visa!

– Please pray for our family’s finances and continued support!

– Please pray that our family would adjust well for life and ministry in the United States!

Thanks for all your prayers!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

TAK Article: Living

TAK Article: Living

It is good to be back in the Netherlands again!

There have been many good things that have happened to us in the last two months, though, I promise I will not share all about them right now. Today, on Valentine’s day, my wife and I are celebrating our three-year relationship anniversary! As of today my wife and I will have been in a relationship for three years!

While the last two months may be quite outstanding with things to share the last three years have been even greater!

During these three years we’ve been able to learn how to live out our lives together in a way that brings glory to God and shares His love with those around us. After all, that is what we do.

Love God and Love Others

What do the greatest commands of the law mean to you?

When a man asked Jesus what was the greatest command was in the entire law (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy of the Bible) He replied that it was to love God through everything that we aspire to do, everything that we think about, everything that we are, and everything that we actually do – as well as showing love to our neighbors as we would wish to be loved.

What do these commands mean to you? Are they on your mind? Do you think about them before you act?

As followers of Jesus Christ we are all called to expand His kingdom. There are no safe zones in our hearts where we may hide from God or off-limit places in the world where His kingdom and His law (the greatest commandments of the law) will not go.

How do we wish to do that? Where do we want to go?

It is far too easy for us to become entangled in cares of this life that do not matter; also, if they are cares that do matter, we spend too much time worrying about them. Everything that we need we can trust God to give us.

I want to see this happen through discipleship.

Over the next while my wife and I will be settling down in Cascade, Idaho. We finally have our visa, which God has made possible in perfect timing, and we can now move back into our apartment. That said, I’m no longer only looking forward to a place to settle down anymore. I don’t care for it and I pray that my heart would not grow overly fond of any comfortable apartment. My heart is fond of Jesus Christ and I wish to turn as many hearts to Him as possible!

Cascade is a good place to do this, I know the language of everybody there for a change and I have a place to live where I can invite people over for dinner with my family. Yes, that may not seem like much, but I am a follower Jesus Christ – He will provide me with anything else I need.

I want to talk with people, I want to encourage friends, I want to meet in groups, I want to discuss the Bible and Jesus’ life, I want to gather around food, etc…

Throughout our history these are the things that God has used to change people from who they were to who God desires them to be – to sum it up, this is living out discipleship with Jesus and others.

We need to realize that the greatest medium of God’s grace is our lives.

Every aspect of our lives is another way in which God can reach somebody who does not know Him yet! Further than that, every aspect of our lives is another way we can encourage each other to love God even more!

Valentine’s Day

Today, many people are celebrating the emotion or feeling of love – I admit that I know very little about this specific holiday, but for my wife and I it reminds us of the day that we began our relationship. It was a very special day for us.

We committed ourselves to love each other and seek out marriage together.

Three years later we are married and have a beautiful little son that is walking around and threatening to tear apart the entire house!

That process has taken a lot of God’s grace and committed love from both of us as well. It is the same way when we consider our relationship with God – He will give us the grace that we need to become the son or daughter that He desires us to be and we need to commit ourselves to loving Him. We do this with our entire lives.

I pray that each of us would reach out to others with our entire lives as well!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

Weekly Update: November 21st, 2012

Weekly Update: Wednesday 10/21/2012

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

We pray that God will bless all of you and show you all the things that He has done for you this year!

Our time in the Netherlands is going well.

We have an understanding of how the next couple months will look for us and God is providing for all of our needs to accomplish them. Within the next months we are hoping to see the Enschede Prayer Team continue, we are having a missions fair at our home church here in Enschede, and I will be off to Asia from December to February.

We are looking forward to a very busy and exciting time!

Though, I don’t want to miss what has been happening in the last month since I last updated our weekly update… I see the irony.

My wife is the one heading up the missions fair for our church’s  missionary members, which means she is very busy emailing, writing, and visiting people. She is also sorting things out for the immigrations sale that we will have at the same time.

While my wife works at this, our son likes getting into bookshelves and plants, and cabinets that he shouldn’t – of which there are plenty of each.

I’m reading through my fourth book dealing with early church history and trying to understand the implications it has on us today. It is really important for me to keep learning and sharing what I learn with others. Writing things down here on the blog is one way, talking about them with my father-in-law over coffee several times a day is another that I particularly enjoy.

So, with that, my mind is often caught up in several different places at the same time. What happened at this time, who said what when, Jay Edward trying to pull down a great big potted plant  or playing with his grandpa’s books now, etc.

In all this I am preparing to travel to Asia; I have the opportunity to teach at a discipleship training school, help a couple of outreach teams, and learning/showing how to make water filters out of clay pots, sand, gravel, and water.

Out of those three, doing the research and showing people how to filter water will have the most impact on my time there.

It is a project that comes out of our prayers for Asia.

During my first trip to Asia we learned how terrible the water there can be. As we prayed about what to do we felt that God wanted us to bring water filters, but we never found a way how. Since then, our outreach have been focused on helping people learn about basic hygiene and preventable sicknesses.

Yet, we’ve still had the problem that most people do not have access to clean water.

Earlier  this year I learned of a water filter that may fit our unique demands. On this trip I’ll research them more, see if I get sick when I drink the water, and do my best to share them with my other friends who will be able to share the water filters with even more people.

Be praying for my time away from family, success in the water filter project, and safe travels!

Thanks for partnering with our family!

 

Other Updates:

– We had an update this past week that the National Visa Center, in the US, has all of our documents again. Please pray that the process will go smoothly from here!

– In order to use my time well in the Netherlands, I’ve begun pioneering a prayer team for the various ministries in Enschede. This project is going well and I’ve sent invitations to other ministries to see if more will join the prayer team.

 

Scripture:

The last time I wrote here I had just finished Isaiah and was in Jeremiah, now I’m finished with Jeremiah and am in Ezekiel.

The two books are very similar; it seems that Ezekiel is written even more like a journal than Jeremiah. Ezekiel writes about the amazing visions and experiences he has with God and the strange and very persistent ways that God has him speak to the people who have been taken captive by the Babylonians. They speak at the same time, to the same group of people, about most of the same things, but in completely different places.

Jeremiah speaks from Jerusalem and later from Egypt, Ezekiel speaks from Babylon after being taken there as a captive himself.

You need a really good imagination to see the things that Ezekiel writes about. He writes about God’s throne sitting on towering angels, being spiritually taken to Jerusalem and digging through walls, and hearing God tell him to do dig a hole through his own house’s wall and act like he’s going into exile – just so people will ask and give God an opportunity to speak to them!

It’s an interesting and challenging read!

 

Praise & Prayer Report:

– Praise God for our time in the Netherlands!

– Please continue praying for my wife’s visa application!

– Please pray for our family’s finances and continued support!

– Please pray that our family would receive everything God has for us during these months together in the Netherlands and after we are apart!

 

Thanks for all your prayers!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

TAK Article: God is a good communicator!

TAK Article: God is a good communicator!

A couple of days ago I was up late at night and I just couldn’t fall asleep. My mind was wandering all over the place.

Well, as it wandered around I found myself thinking about church and then how important it is for us to hear God’s voice – both privately and together with others. I realize that hearing God’s voice may sound odd at first, as it was for me, but it has become the most important practice in my life for  completely following Jesus.

I hope that this article will help you do that too!

Hearing God’s Voice in Nature

It is incredible to realize what God has done in order to speak with us. That’s the heart of what I say when I talk about God speaking to us through nature.

Rod Wilson, a teacher for my Discipleship Training School, quoted this to us during his week on God’s character and spiritual warfare (the verse is from Mathew 6:28-29).

‘ “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They do not toil or spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” The Greek word to “consider” means to diligently study – Jesus commands His disciples to study nature!’

Rod continued to teach us a lot about hearing God’s voice and other challenging topics for which I am much indebted to him for.

One of the stories he used to describe this was from when his family was serving in New Zealand.

They were in a tough financial spot and were trusting God for provision. After praying as a family he walked outside and saw a seagull fly overhead with a piece of bread in his mouth. Right then, Rod went back into the house and shared what God had told him when he saw the seagull. God had told Rod that He was their provider just like the seagull’s.

And then, in a short time, God came through just like He said He would!

Likewise, there was a time when my friends and I were camping in the White Cloud mountains of Idaho. It was just a few hours before we would leave and I really wanted to take some pictures of the rock pika that lived nearby our camp.

As I watched them scurry over and under the rocks I noticed that they always had one or two pika standing guard. They would also whistle to each other to communicate danger, when one would stop standing guard, or just to let everyone else know that it was safe. It was interesting to me for some odd reason, though, I quickly realized why.

I had been trying to understand how it is that God can find pleasure in what we do. Not just the “holy” things, but in everyday things and the things that really get us excited.

That’s when it started to make sense!

God has given each of us a unique identity and He enjoys seeing us walk out that very identity! The rock pika that I watched were doing just that – being rock pika!

By living out the identity that God has given us we are worshiping God!

About half a year later, I was able to share that same principle with a youth group that was serving the Nez Perce community in Lapwai, Idaho. Nobody else could have done the things that God had given them to do there because God had created them for this time and this purpose.

He has given the same honor of a uniquely created identity to each of us too!

The Psalms of the bible have a lot more to say about hearing God’s voice through nature as well. King David describes in Psalm 19 that “the heavens declare the glory of God” and in Psalm 97 that “the heavens declare His righteousness.”

Psalm 104 is another excellent example of nature reflecting to us the greatness of who God is. Have you, like King David, ever looked at creation and been amazed at the one who created it all?

God’s Voice is Effective

The very first time I came across the idea of hearing God’s voice was at a winter retreat with my youth group at church. A lot of my friends were there, especially, one friend that came back from a DTS who would teach about this very topic.

It sounded a little odd at first, but I figured that I should at least listen to her and try.

I don’t remember whether it worked right then or not, but it certainly did later that night. As I would be reading through my Bible I would run into a question and then, quite innocently, ask God a yes or no question about it. He actually answered! I didn’t hear it with my ears, so to say, but I could feel it inside of me. I remember later holding out my hands and asking God to press down the “yes hand” or the “no hand” – it still works, but I have learned since then that God can communicate in even better ways than that!

At the end of the week we had an altar call of sorts; our Youth Pastor laid down a small wooden cross on the floor and gave us some nails. He told us to nail down our commitment to Jesus. And asked us, is our faith only tacked in, nailed half way, or driven in all the way?

I really wanted to nail down my faith all the way! However, I thought in that moment, “Maybe I should try to ask God first?”

Firmly in my heart I felt God say one word – “paintball.”

My heart sank!

No, what? How could God mention that? There’s nothing wrong with paintball! I thought that my commitment to God was sure, completely given to God, but with one word God pointed out something in my heart that I was not willing to give to Him.

I had given paintball a place in my heart (or rather the pride it created in me) and placed it above God’s place in my heart.

That day, I thought that I had placed God above paintball in my heart, but that wasn’t the case. I only did so long enough to nail my nail into the cross. I was too prideful to admit where my heart was at in that moment because I wanted to show myself very committed to God in front of my friends.

For the next several months my life was very empty because I felt too ashamed to ask God for forgiveness and was too afraid of what others would think of me if I gave up paintball claiming God told me to.

Fast forwarding to my DTS, which was later that year, on the first evening of lectures, we were doing an exercise on hearing God’s voice and, again, I was going along with it because I didn’t want to look like an unspiritual person. My motivations were out of fear  for my own pride, not out of love for Jesus.

We were supposed to draw whatever picture came to our mind.

The first thing I saw was a merry-go-round, ‘What is this? God wants me to draw a merry-go-round?’ It didn’t seem very spiritual to me, but I did it.

Next, God gave me a picture of a slide. ‘A slide? What does a slide have to do with anything?’ I tried to go ahead and draw a slide.

Lastly, God gave me a picture of the last 4-H fair I had been a part of. ‘What? Why would God want me to draw this!’ I dropped, maybe more of threw,  the pencil onto the table.

At that moment God gave me two Bible verses, fast, completely clear, I could see them written in red in my mind. One, I believe, was Psalm 41:9, the other one I am not sure about, but it’s message was the same. Our teacher had already said that if we get a Bible verse we should read it, so I did. Psalm 41:9 says this:

“Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread,

hath lifted up his heel against me.”

God came and told me explicitly, in a way that I could not deny that it was Him, that I had been the one betraying him this entire time. Nothing had ever hit me so hard before; I placed my Bible back on the table and sat silently until class was over.

That night God showed me how to repent of betraying Him and my relationship with Him started to heal from that point on. It was hard, but I am very thankful that God spoke to me the way that He did about my pride.

My heart is much more alive having listened to Him!

God’s Voice Will Break the Rules

Even as I have been taking the time to write this article and reflect on God’s relationship with me I can see that this is true – God is willing to break all kinds of “holy”, “spiritual”, and “religious” rules so that He may have intimacy with us.

There is a story in the book of Acts that talks about this.

In chapter 19 we read about a controversy among the followers of Jesus.

Both Peter and Paul had been telling about how God wanted to be known by all people and was making Himself known among all people. However, there were others in the church that couldn’t accept this because the people who were choosing to follow Jesus were not choosing to follow the Jewish law as well.

At this point in the book of Acts there has been many examples of God acting this way. The primary argument of the others had been that these people were breaking the rules of God’s religion.

Then, after everything had been heard, James quotes this from the prophet Amos.

“After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.” – Acts 15: 16-18

What is King David’s fallen tent?

Well, in the story of King David, told in parts through 1st & 2nd Samuel and 1st Kings, there is a time when the ark of the covenant is lost in battle. This was a great big box covered in gold that contained the ten commandments and several other sacred things. It represented God’s presence to the children of Israel and God did express Himself from the ark. There were also a lot of rules that God had given the children of Israel concerning this ark. If these rules were broken terrible things could happen to the people breaking the rules.

However, this seemed to apply to some people and not others – and there is a strong connection among the people who broke these rules and lived.

Later during King David’s reign, we find him receiving the ark back from his enemies (they really did not want it anymore) and taking the ark back to Jerusalem. He does not follow the rules and take the ark back to the place it is supposed to go. As the ark travels David is also sacrificing cows to God every short while, another thing that only special people were allowed to do. And finally, at the end, he places the ark in a tent where it is accessible to almost anybody, sits there around it by himself, and has a group of people singing to God in front of it as often as possible— all of which are terribly against God’s rules for the ark of the covenant!

And do you know how terrible God’s punishment was?

Well, not very terrible at all; in fact, God calls King David a man after His own heart!

King David cared less about the rules concerning the ark than he did about being close to God. This is the heart attitude that God enjoys! When we do not want to be too close to God we end up with religious rules that hold us away from God!

This was the same way that Jesus acted too – He was holy, God’s presence on earth, and was very much known for hanging out with unholy people.

Jesus called many of these people to become His disciples. As these people were given the Holy Spirit, like Peter and Paul, they went out and spent their time with even more unholy people. Many of these people chose to believe what they were saying and saw the proof in their lives and chose to follow Jesus as they were. And so on and so forth…

In the end, God’s voice will be heard by everyone in the whole world!

His voice will not be heard by only special people, in special places, at special times, but God has chosen to speak in ways that allow everyone hear Him! He wants to have an intimacy with everyone!

How should we hear God’s Voice?

My wife and I were visiting a house church once and the evening’s question for the group was this, “How do you hear God’s voice?”

There wear a lot of good listeners there! Some people heard His voice the most when they were reading the Bible, others while listening to music, others while sitting at the beach or hiking through the forest.

We shouldn’t trick ourselves into thinking that God only speaks in one way, or that the way we’ve always heard God speak is the only way that everyone else should hear God speak.

God is very creative; I’ve mostly included stories from my life, so these are probably tilted towards my ways and ideas of hearing God’s voice. However, I think that there may be some common threads that you will find to be true in your life as well.

The greatest of these, I believe, will be your desire to hear God’s voice and putting in the effort and time to hear His voice. God is speaking to you and He will speak to you, but are willing to listen? Are you willing to put down the things that He says to put down? Are you willing to go through the pain of hearing His voice?

My testimony is a good example of the pain that may occur when you start hearing God’s voice, it is called conviction and it is a good pain! If you feel God’s conviction, take my advice! Repent of it, turn away from whatever God tells you to, run to Him! He is far better than anything of any worth in this world or any to come! In Him is good, true, and perfect love!

I can almost promise that if you start hearing God’s voice that this will happen. It is worth it, though, because intimacy with Him is worth everything.

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

TAK Article: Servant Leadership

TAK Article: Servant Leadership

Over the past year God has been teaching me a lot about being a servant. He has been doing this through the books I read, the relationships I am committed to, and especially when I take the time to listen and hear His voice.

Perhaps I can pass something of that along!

Servant Leadership

The first time I heard of “servant leadership” was at a team training week preparing our team of young people to lead youth groups on missions trips over the course of the summer. We were mostly familiar with each other and our two-weeks of training were broken up with teachings in the morning, workshops where we created a program for the Summer in the afternoon, followed by times to hang out and have fun in the evenings. That morning our base leader came to teach us about values, servant leadership, and conflict resolution.

He opened up his Bible and told us to turn to John 13: 3-10.

‘Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.’ – NIV

My take away from that morning was that if I wanted to lead people then I would need to serve them too. However, it took me several more years (plus my future wife and our son) to learn the greater part of what Jesus was talking about.

Servant Leadership in Practice

What I missed that summer morning was the very nature of leadership that God desires for us. Mark 9:35 says this, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”

At that point in time, and for several years after that, I operated out of the idea that those who were the leaders had the authority to tell others what to do. As a follower, it was my job to do exactly what my leader told me to do and I wasn’t responsible for anything more than that.

This was the point of view that I took when I listened to people talk about leadership, read stories from the Bible about leadership, and did my best to practice leadership. In many ways, this was my paradigm – the way I filtered the world around me. I could recite a lot of stories from the Bible where God and others leaders used this model, but even  when that was not the case I would have still perceived it to be true because this was the paradigm that I understood leadership from.

During my time in the Netherlands, in the spring of 2012, I started reading You see bones, I see an army, by Floyd McClung.

In that book Floyd McClung talked about leadership in a way that I had never heard before, nor would I have understood prior. It was this, to serve is to lead. Leadership does not come through training, degrees, titles, positions or power over others – it comes by being a servant to the people around you and building influence through that.

He used the same verses of the Bible that I had always read and heard, but now they made a lot more sense!

Shortly thereafter, as I remember it, I spent some time asking God about this. Is this why Jesus has influence in the world today? Is this what His kingdom is built upon?

In my heart I felt a resounding yes, the only reason that Jesus, God with us, has influence in the lives of people today is because He came to us as a servant. He didn’t use His position in heaven to force things to happen in the earth, but He gave Himself to us – He served us.

Applying Servant Leadership

Just recently I also read The Servant, by James C. Hunter.

I found that this book brought a lot of the challenges of servant leadership together and then practically worked them out.

The book follows the story of an educated businessman and several others as they learn about what it means to be a leader. In the beginning of the book almost everyone thinks that it is their job is to serve the people above them and control the people below them, but then as the book progresses they find that their ultimate goal is to serve the people that they are leading.

I highly recommend the book to anybody!

One of the principles shared in this book was that in order to lead people you needed to choose to love them through meeting their needs – not to feel warmly about them, but to actually act in their best interest. The book goes on to say that character traits we find most valuable in a leader are what you would call this sort of action oriented love.

The attributes listed were taken from 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7.

‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.’ – NIV

As stated in the book, love is: patient, kind, humble, respectful, selfless, forgiving, honest, and committed. This sort of love requires action!

Committing to Lead as a Servant

As a I write this my wife and are still in our first year and a half of marriage, we already have an eight-month old son, and we haven’t had a really solid place to live during any of that time. God has been unbelievably faithful during this time, but this has also been the time when He’s chosen to hammer out my commitment to lead like Him the most.

Towards my wife… I’ve always known that the Bible says to love her and even to lead her (which could seem like a rather intimidating task in itself), but it didn’t make sense before God really started revealing this idea of being a servant. Yes, I should love her like Christ loves the church and control her too? No, that’s not the message, God calls me to love her and lead her – to serve her, to make it possible for her to become even more of the woman God created her to become! Now, that’s something that I can be excited about!

Towards my son… well, in the months right after he was born it was really difficult to serve him with all my heart. A lot of the time my actions were driven by guilt or fear of becoming a bad father to him. Instead of this, God’s call for me is to serve my son – to build a strong relationship with him so that he may know what it is like to have a strong relationship with our Father too!

Towards others… as I am learning it, the most effective way for us to show God’s love to other people is to love them through our actions. Is that really leadership? Yes, it is leadership – if people do not see God’s love for them through you they will not follow you to Jesus.

That, as the realization of it hits my heart, is the greatest challenge of leading as a servant! Are we willing to serve others just like Jesus has served us?

The Challenge of Servant Leadership

Jesus shared a lot of stories about being a servant to those around us. He certainly went to the point of death for us and even further!

That is the last point that I will share – it is not spoken by Jesus when He was walking the earth, but after He rose from the dead and took His seat next to His Father. This is what others came to understand and applied to their lives. Perhaps you would consider it in your life too?

Philippians 2: 1-11.

‘Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ – NKJV

May Christ be with you!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom