Free from Performing

The name of this prayer from Valley of Vision is “Reliance,” but I have re-named it “Freedom,” because when this mind is in me, I am free from the guilt of performing to make God happy with me.

“When Thou art angry towards me for my wrongs I try to pacify Thee by abstaining from future sin; but teach me that I cannot satisfy Thy law,

That this effort is a resting in my righteousness,

That only Christ’s righteousness, read made, already finished, is fit for that purpose;

That Thy chastening me for my sin is not that I should try to reform, but only that I may be more humbled, afflicted, and separated from sin, by being reconciled, and made righteous in Christ by faith;

That a sense of my sufficiency and ability in Him is one means of my being immovable;

That I can never be so by resting on my own faith, but by trusting in Thee as my only support, by faith;

That if I cast away my faith I cast away Thee, for by faith I apprehend thee and as Thou art very precious, so is my faith very precious to me;

That I fall short of the purity Thou requirest, because in thinking I am holy I do not seek holiness, or, believing I am impotent, I do no more.

Humble me for not being as holy as I should be, or as holy as I might be through Christ, for Thou art all, and to possess Thee is to possess all.

But to make the creature something is to make it stand between Thee and me, so that I do not walk humbly and holily.

Lord, forgive me for this.”

God's Words in English

Imagine that God’s Word looked like this:

To over 340 million people, speaking 2,000 languages, God’s Word does look like that.* It is written in a language they cannot understand, and because they cannot understand it, their lives are not changed by its power. This semester of Greek has reminded me how privileged I am to have God’s Word in my own language. Greek is vivid, colorful, and precise, but I didn’t grow up speaking it. I can’t do my devotions in it. Today, because of John Wycliffe’s English translation, I have the privilege of reading this passage in the language I understand naturally:

Thank you, God, for writing Your Words down and allowing people to put them into a language that I can understand. Thank you that Your Word is living and powerful. Thank you for changing my life with it.

*www.wycliffie.org.uk

The Trusted Office

What kinds of work would you describe as important or trustworthy? An FBI agent protecting the president, a food inspector, or a college president? Those are all great guesses, but they’re not what I’m thinking about.

I Chronicles 9 describe the jobs of the Levites who lived in Jerusalem. Some were priests working in God’s house. Others were gatekeepers. Four special Levites kept the treasury. Others were singers. Towards the end of the chapter, we learn about a man who had a “trusted office.” His name was Mattithiah, and he “had the trusted office over the things that were baked in the pans.” He seems to have a small job that wouldn’t be worth noticing, but God put his unique job in the Bible and called it a “trusted office.”

Sometimes my jobs seem as small and unimportant as Mattithiah’s pots and pans. After all, I’m just a college student. All I do is write papers and serve people food in the cafeteria, right? How can that be a ministry to God? Mattithiah reminds me that “fulfilling the will of God” isn’t about doing some “big” ministry, but it is about being faithful to the “trusted office” God has given. That trusted office can be as small as listening to somebody who needs to talk or smiling at a sad person in the supper line.

God has a trusted office for you, too. What is it?

“Mattithiah…had the trusted office over the things that were baked in the pans.” – I Chronicles 9:31

Birthday Explorations

Celeste had a birthday, and the peeps surprised her - twice, actually:)

The girls decorated creatively on Friday evening, and we enjoyed cake and played Ninja very energetically in the lounge. On Sunday afternoon, Bekah pulled me out of Greek homework; and she, Alisha, Beth, Valerie, and I spent two hours roaming the plaza. We did NOT buy anything, but we enjoyed feeling sophisticated in skirts and high heels, looking at an art gallery, smelling perfumes, and taking the following pictures. Please enjoy your tour.

This nameless gentlemen looked like he needed a good laugh. He is one of my many cousins.

The pictures above and below are taken on the same bridge. It looked out over a river that was still and beautiful (but smelly, I'm sure). I particularly noticed the landscaping on either side of the river: it was well weeded.

After wondering around in heels, we finished up the afternoon with a Skyscraper shake. It looked very large when the waitress brought it out, but the five of us polished it off nicely.

And this is a random shot of Bekah and I last Sunday evening. College does not serve supper on Sunday evening, so we vetoed our traditional peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwitch-on-store-bought-hamburger-buns in favor of a hot dog and a large tea at Sonic. (She had the hot dog, and I the tea, btw.) Thank you Bekah, for coming and doing the whole College thing with me! Thanks everybody for a great birthday!

God's Peace Showed to People

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." - John 14:27

"Ye are the light of the world." - Matthew 5:14

"And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another,

even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you." - Ephesians 4:32

"There is [he] that scattereth, and yet increaseth." - Proverbs 11:24

"Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it." - Luke 9:24

O Great God

O Divine Redeemer,

Great was Thy goodness

in undertaking my redemption,

in consenting to be made sin for me,

in conquering all my foes;

Great was thy strength

in enduring the extremities of divine wrath,

in taking away the load of my iniquities;

Great is Thy love

in manifesting Thyself alive,

in showing Thy sacred wounds,

that every fear might vanish,

and every doubt be removed;

Great was Thy mercy

in ascending to heaven

in being crowned and enthroned,

there to intercede for me,

there to succor me in temptation,

there to open the eternal book,

there to receive me finally to Thyself;

Great was Thy wisdom

in devising this means of salvation;

Bathe my soul in rich consolations of thy resurrection life;

Great was thy grace

in commanding me

to come hand in hand with Thee to the Father,

to be knit to Him eternally,

to discover in Him my rest,

to find in Him my peace,

to behold His glory,

to honour Him who is alone worthy;

in giving me the Spirit as teacher, guide, power,

that I may life repenting of sin, conquer Satan find victory in life.

When Thou art absent all sorrows are here,

When Thou art present all blessings are mine.

- "Victory" from Valley of Vision

Jesus' Love and Icy Pops

Someone showed me Jesus' loves the other day. It was very hot outside, and David, Austin, and I were working on a concrete round about, with cars breathing down our necks and the sunshine magnified by the asphalt and concrete. It was near noon.

A woman and her son crossed the round about toward us. "We're just out sharin' the love of Jesus with you guys!" she said with a bright smile, handing each of us each two frozen icy pops and her church card. We thanked her and the icy pops gave us new energy.

How often do we represent Jesus in by doing little, nice things for people? Sharing a gospel presentation is important, but sometimes it's effective to share Jesus' love in little ways - like icy pops!

Heart Weeds

I predicted that my summer job as a landscaper for the City of Hutchinson would provide no blogging material. I stand corrected. Pulling weeds and planting flowers for the city turns out to be the best jobs in a while. It’s a wonderful, brainless job, a great place to recover from three years at college; the whole first morning I thought of nothing all morning. (At one point, I started to think about something and decided it was too much work.)

City flower beds come in two types: Bed Number One, where the ground is tilled, spread with compost, tilled again, planted, watered, mulched four inches thick, watered, etc. and Bed Number Two, where the hard ground is spread with mulch. Tugging at weed in these beds, I remembered how people compare sin to weeds – the smaller you get them the easier it is to pull them out. But this isn’t necessarily so. Nice, big tall weeds with a tap root slide right out of the soil, while little Bermuda grass’ shallow roots intertwined with the soil and stick to the ground. What makes weeding easy or hard was the soil. Bed Number One don’t get very many weeds. When they do come, they are easy to pull out; the soil is loamy and soft. Bed Number Two is too hard to weed and is hoed by hand. The mulch blows off, leaving the ground exposed to the elements that sap the moisture, strip the top soil, and pack it down.

The Lord reminded me that my heart can be like those two beds. If it is tilled by conviction from the Holy Spirit, watered from the Word of God, and mulched by obedience to God’s will, the sprouting weedscan be pulled easily. If my heart is calloused to the Holy Spirit’s reproof, my Bible sits in the drawer, and I live to please myself, it will hurt badly when the Holy Spirit finally pulls out the weeds.

On Being "Filled"

Staffers at Christian Youth in Action open every evaluation with prayer for the student who is presenting. This year, I've found myself praying often that my students would be filled with the Spirit while they teach. I have to admit, when I started doing this, I felt a bit charismatic(!), but it is Biblical to pray that others might be filled with the Spirit.

Scripture makes it clear that being filled with the Spirit is dependent upon personal submission to the Spirit and does not happen automatically for every believer at all times. Jesus says in John 15:5, "Without me, ye can do nothing." Today, the Holy Spirit's indwelling ministry provides the power to live a life of love and obedience to God. Without this Power, I am left only with the power of the flesh about which Paul writes in Romans 8:8: "They that are in the flesh cannot please God." The following is another prayer from The Valley of Vision. It is titled "Fullness in Christ," and explores the connection between our position in Christ and being filled with the Holy Spirit.

O God,

Thou hast taught me that Christ has all the fullness,

and so all plentitude of the Spirit, that all fullness I lack in myself is in Him,

for His people, not for Himself alone,

He having perfect knowledge, grace, righteousness,

to make me see,

to make me righteous,

to give me fullness;

That it is my duty, out of a sense of emptiness,

to go to Christ, posses, enjoy His fullness as mine, as if I had it in myself,

because it is for me in Him;

That when I do this I am full of the Spirit,

as a fish that has got from the shore to the sea and has all fullness of waters to move in,

for when faith fills me, then I am full;

That this is the way to be filled with the Spirit,

like Stephen, first faith, then fullness,

for this way makes me most empty, and so most fit for the Spirit to fill.

Thou hast taught me that the finding of this treasure of all grace in the field of Christ

begets strength, joy, glory, and renders all graces alive.

Help me to delight more in what I receive from Christ,

more in that fullness which is in Him, the fountain of all His glory.

Let me not think to receive the Spirit from Him as a 'thing'

apart from finding, drinking, being filled with Him.

To this end, O God,

do Thou establish me in Christ,

settle me, give me a being there,

assure me with certainty that all this is mine,

for this only will fill my heart with joy and peace.

"Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God." - Ephesians 5:18-21 (NKJV)

Things I Do at CYIA (not necessarily related to CYIA)

Since many people are curious about what happens at CYIA, here is a look into a life at CYIA of KS.

1. We live, sleep, eat, work, and play at Newton Bible Church. I was raised in this church and calculated the other day that I have lived in this building for nearly 4 months, only counting CYIAs.

2. Grading papers takes a great deal of time, but can be quite entertaining. If this were not the public internet, I could tell you some of the hilarious introductions that come across staff desks, but this is public internet. Our students are good, though, and have good attitudes.

3. Sleeping. Only about 6 hours a day are spent in this most delightful of all pursuits. The day begins at 5:40 a.m.and ends about 11:00 p.m. at the earliest, after tucking in all the girls at 10:30. One night as I was headed upstairs at about 11:45 p.m., a very loud noise started going off in the kitchen. Another staffer and I investigated and it was the weather radio warning us of a thunderstorm warning. It kept making very loud, annoying noises, and we didn't know how to turn it off, so we just turned the volume down and went to bed. It rained very hard that night, and thundered and lightening-ed, which makes a lot of noise when you are the second floor of a metal building. I got only about 3 hours of sleep that night.

5. Eating Starbursts.

6. Practicing a mime song for talent night. I had never mimed anything until yesterday when my cousin taught me how.

7. Listening to the CBI Singers. They gave their last concert here Sunday evening. Bethany spent the evening with me in the dorm, and I enjoyed morning devotions with them before the left for the long trip back to Hot Springs. Bethany texted me around 12:30 a.m. that they got home safely.

8. Re-connecting with friends. Vanessa, Emily, Ellie, Luke & Amber, Gabe & Nola and children, Miss Elfrieda, Michaela, Bekah & Rohn, Chelsey, Cathy, and many others.

9. Having devotions with my dorm girls! This is one of my favorite parts of CYIA. Hearing what God is doing in each others' lives and being taught from God's Word is an important foundation for teaching clubs during the second week.

10. Most important, teaching clubs in the community with the CYIA'ers. Please pray for that the children who heard the gospel would respond to Christ's invitation of eternal life. Pray that those who made a profession of faith would grow in their new relationship with God.