Sunday, October 27, 2013
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
¿Qué pasa, amigos? Hoy escribÍ mi testimonio en español. Voy a usarlo en mi crusada. Las chicas y yo en mi crusada estamos escribiendo canciónes para cantar en la Ciudad de México. Estoy muy emocionada para pasar tiempo y amar los prostitutos ahÍ.
Last week in Tijuana, we
had a powerful time of prayer over the Latinos in our two schools and in all of
Latin America. We asked God to show us
His original design and purpose for this people and how He sees them. I don’t go into the world to meet their needs;
ultimately I lose my life because He is worthy of worship, and I love Him so
much that I desire to bring Him joy.
Likewise, Jesus did not serve only because there was a need, but out of
love for the Father. I want to labor
with God in His unfulfilled dreams.
In America, we see little
fruit because the world has affected our roots.
What do we believe about God and ourselves? It is not until we have a bigger picture of
the gospel that we will have much fruit.
Often I forget that Jesus died not only for my sake but also for the
nations. He has blessed me so I could be
a blessing to others. I can’t give what
I have not received. I can do all things
when I know I am His beloved; otherwise I’ll be giving out of my own strength,
which is very limited.
This week Jeff Pratt
shared about treasures of darkness (Is 45:3).
I’ve only gone through little trials in my 18 years of life, but God’s
best for me is going to involve pain because He wants to purify my love for
Him. In my comfort-driven Christianity,
I don’t really know what it means to fellowship with His sufferings (Phil 3:10-11). The truth is that if He would protect me from
pain, He would also have to protect me from His love. Shared pain brings deeper intimacy than
shared joy. God has many servants but
few friends. Friends carry each other’s
pain. If I am a follower of Jesus, I
will be known by my scars. There is a
price to pay for His anointing. Because my
appetite grows best for Him when all is not fine and dandy, I should never try
to escape my season of “captivity.” In the
midst of hardship, I should keep my eyes focused on Him and worship Him for who
He is. As He exposes areas of darkness
in my life, the enemy is overcome!
I will never stop understanding God's love. I realize that
passion for Him is not a result of my dedication to Him but the result of His
longing for me. I don’t always feel Him,
but always have a deep certainty of His love.
He is always there, but we aren’t aware of His presence. He loves me in different ways. He is my lover and my bridegroom (John 3:29),
my husband (Isaiah 54:5), my friend (Proverbs 18:22), He has the
characteristics of a mother (Isaiah 49:14-16) and a father (2 Cor 1:3-4).
I’ve been asking God to
open my spiritual eyes. Before Jesus did a miracle, He first saw.
Prayer trains us how to spiritually see.
Jesus stopped for the spiritually broken and desperate people. Like blind Bartimaeus in Luke 18, I want to
be willing to do whatever it takes to get His attention.
DTS: Die to Self. I’m dying to my false self, so I can risk
finding my true self, who God created me to be.
This hasn't been an easy journey but it's been SO worth it! Please continue to ask God to bring us
revelation of Himself, that we would be desperate for nothing else besides
Him! Tomorrow we’ll be spending an
entire day in silence alone with the Lord.
Also, please pray God would continue preparing us for the outreach and
that He would anoint our lips to speak Spanish.
Thank you, friends!
Friday, October 18, 2013
Saturday, October 12, 2013
I just learned how to surf
for free! It’s not as hard as I
expected. It was hard at first, but the
surfers told me that I learned pretty quickly for my first time. It’s my new favorite sport!!!
God has used John Ray, the primary speaker over the past few days, to give me a fresh perspective of the gospel and open my eyes to some doctrines that aren’t biblically supported. I am still asking God to help me discern truth, and many of the things that he said were contradictory to what I have always believed. But I don’t want to believe something just because I have always believed it to be true, or others have said it to be true. I desperately want to know the truth.
In the next few paragraphs, I tried to summarize some things that God has been speaking to me.
God’s heart is to reconcile all people to Himself. In the church, we often try to dress up dead people and make
them act like living people. If we don’t
realize that we were dead, we don’t see our absolute
need for Jesus. In reality, no amount of exercise on a dead body will bring them
back to life. Jesus did not only
come to save us from our sins. He came
to show us how to live. His entire life
on earth and His life today are essential for us. He came to make us fully
alive in Him, so we could in turn live a life, not for ourselves, but
for others, for His glory. We can find
our identity by following the life of Jesus, by emptying ourselves so we can
become who He wants us to be.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Saludos, amigos! It’s been a jam-packed two weeks in Ensenada. I have been meaning to update my blog but God
had other plans and shut the WiFi down the entire first week. It feels like I have been here for a month,
and I already feel at home here. God is
doing a work that truly only He could do.
Some of the highlights of the past two weeks include:
·
Bonding with the 31 students and 20 staff
members. My prayer is that God would unify
us and make us one even as Jesus and the Father are one (John 17:11). We come from all over the world: Mexico, Scotland, England, Bahamas, Canada, Australia,
the US.
·
Hay mucho oportunidades para hablar en español
en el base. Uno de mis amigas mejores es
de México y vive en mi cuarto. Dios es marvilloso. Él es siempre fiel para protegir en este
camino.
·
Listening to one another’s testimonies. As we are vulnerable and real with one another,
God is healing wounds from our past.
More than ever before, I am overwhelmed with thankfulness for Jesus’s
saving work in me.
·
I asked Jesus to tell me what He thinks of me,
and I believe that he said this: “I’m
dancing over you. I am pleased and
delighted in you. I want to dance with
you. Don’t doubt my love. Don’t doubt my voice. Fall in love with me, because my love for you
will never change.” As He was speaking
to me, I envisioned Him dancing with me.
I was following in His steps, but sometimes I would try to take the
lead. He asked me, “Will you let ME take this dance?”
·
While reading “Forgotten God: Reversing our
Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit” by Francis Chan, God has been showing me
that I have not completely submitted to His lordship. I wonder why I am not radically radiating
Jesus, when I often attempt to play Holy Spirit’s role and operate on my own
strength. Painfully, I am learning to
die to myself. I’ve had to realize that
God is NOT who I want or imagine Him to be.
He is who He is and is not limited by my small
perception of Him. But He’s SO much more
beautiful, holy, intimate, worthy, and glorious than I could ever imagine.
·
This past week we’ve had the opportunity to
glean from a woman named Kay Charlotte.
I have never before met someone as bold, blunt, and humble. She used group object-lessons that she felt
the Lord was specifically putting on her heart for our group. One such lesson involved dragging our baggage
everywhere we went for two days. In another
lesson, we spent an hour contemplating on our life’s legacy in a graveyard, and
yesterday we decorated a brown bag to represent who we are, the good and the
bad. Learning about my identity in Christ
is forever changing me. Here are a few
of the haunting questions she asked us: what
are you feeding more: your personality (gifts)
or character (the fruits of the spirit)? Am I living
in Egypt with not enough, the wilderness with just enough, or in the Promise
Land with more than enough (of God’s blessings and supernatural power in my
life)? How bad do I want the promise
land of God so that God can use my life to make a difference for His glory? This point hit me hard: delayed obedience is disobedience.
·
Psalm 51:17 greatly spoke to me: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a
broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
I am stoked for how God is going to continue to
move! Thank you so much for continuing
to pray
- that the Lord would mightily reveal Himself in this time
- that the enemy would have no hold on us
- that Jesus would continue to open our eyes and break our hearts so we can be used for His purposes
- for rest as many have been tired and some sick
- for rich, intimate encounters with the Lord
I love and miss all of you, but I know that Jesus wants me in Mexico in this season!
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