What are we here for?

Psalm 82:3-4: Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

James 2:15-16: Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?

James 4:2b-3: You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

These verses and countless others in the Old and New Testaments challenge my worldview and beliefs about money and my purpose here on earth. My number one purpose is for relationship with the Father. Judging by how many times the Bible talks about caring for the widows, orphans, poor, weak and oppressed I would have to say that these people groups are close to God's heart and should be high on my list of priorities. Accordingly, God has laid a burden on my heart for this sector of society.

Recently, through a variety of methods, God has been revealing to me that many of my (and societies) views of money and comfort are incredibly selfish and self-centered. James states it very well when he says that we ask to spend on our own desires. How true!

What do we do when we get that raise, Christmas bonus, tax refund, or inheritance? We go buy the nicer car, bigger house, new TV, new toy, etc. Recently I read that John Wesley determined early in life what amount of money he needed to live and promised that anything that he earned above that amount he would give away to the poor. When he made that pact he did not earn much more than the determined amount, but by the time of his death he was earning 50 times that amount and was giving all of the extra away. He also said that if he died with more than 10 British pounds in his possession he would consider that he had stolen that money from someone in need.

How about it? How often do we decide that our car isn't good enough, our house is too small or old, our clothes are out of style, or dare I say it, our church building is inadequate? Meanwhile, a majority of the world's population is living hand to mouth with barely enough food to survive or decent clothes to wear. In the communities where we work the houses are tiny and often made of sticks and mud with black plastic as a roof. One woman in particular, whose house is about 10' wide by 20' long is always welcoming people to sleep in her house. I know that at least on one occasion 14 people spent the night in that tiny house. How many of us think that our 3 bedroom homes are too small, when more than likely our living rooms are larger than this woman's house?

These recent revelations have challenged me to re-evaluate all of my desires and plans. I still struggle with knowing when to give, how to really help someone, and knowing what is excess. This will likely be a struggle for the rest of my life, but I am content to know that God is still working on me.

Passion

As usual I really enjoyed worshipping together with other believers yesterday. The worship was quite powerful and the message very pointed. The brother spoke from I Corinthians where it says that when we meet together everyone should have something to share, and thus edify the body of Christ. However, he went a direction that I did not expect. He said that for that to be possible we must be spending that time investing in our relationship with God. If not, we will not have anything to share when we meet together. He went on to speak about the importance of our time spent with God, passion for God, reading the Word, and praying. This is an area where I have made progress in the last months, but still lack much in the way of discipline, especially when it comes to prayer. I have really enjoyed reading the Word; it has come alive for me.
As another preacher said recently, "If we don't have passion for God, we will not have passion for the lost." How true. It is very humbly to take an honest look at myself and realize where my passions lie. Too often I am more passionate about things other than my relationship with God. Where do put my energies and what do I spend my time thinking about?
Think about it!

Faith

I think that, perhaps, in a previous blog I have written about faith, but it has been on my heart again recently, so here goes. It has been revealed to me, once again, that having faith and trusting God is an incredibly freeing thing. This has been on my mind as we look toward the future, after we end our term here with MCC in July 2010. My human, westernized, inclination is to try to “figure it all out”. What am I going to do, how are we going to make a living, etc. However, I have heard very clearly from the Lord, a couple of times, that he is asking me to trust him. The amazing part to me is that, instead of feeling more stressed about not knowing how things are going to work, I feel free. I know that He has an incredible plan for my life and I know that all the resources in the world are his. Why in the world would I have any reason to doubt that he will take care of us? I am excited to see what it is exactly that he has in store for us, but I am at peace waiting on his timing.

Que el Señor les bendiga grandemente!

Another lesson in rights

Just when I think that I have a good perspective on the things that are "mine" God sends another test my way to see just how tightly I am holding onto my possessions. On Saturday, as I was enjoying an hour away eating breakfast with my lovely wife, the jeep was broken into and the radio and a set of sockets were stolen. This happened on a busy street with lots of foot traffic. I never even dreamed that something like that would happen in that location. Anyhow, as in the past when various other small things have been expropriated, I was challenged, once again, to realize that all of the "things" that I like to think are mine, are really God's things. I can quickly judge just how tightly I am holding onto those things by my reaction when I found out that they have been taken. Do I rejoice or am I infuriated that someone would dare to do such a thing? Well, I wouldn't say that I rejoiced, but am happy to say that I have found that I can have peace even in such circumstances.
Here is the rest of the story: We had parked almost directly in front of an internet cafe where a friend works. We went in and said hi then walked 50' down the street to eat. A bit later the friend looked out and saw that someone was in the jeep so he said, "hey, isn't this steve's jeep". The kid said that it was someone elses and so, since he didn't see us anywhere, our friend went back inside to work. We returned to the jeep a bit later and quickly realized what had happened. I started it up to leave and, being that the power wire for the now nonexistent radion was shorted out inside, melted all the wires together that went to the positive battery terminal. After a quick "farmer fix" another friend accompanied me to our favorite electrician and he had it all fixed up before lunch.
On a side note, when I bought the jeep the ignition was so worn that any key in the world would start it. It was on my list of things to fix until a couple weeks ago a friend came to work and said that he had a dream that the jeep was stolen. Within a couple days I went and had the ignition replaced. What would have happened if I had not had it replaced? Who knows, but I firmly believe that God speaks to us in many different ways.

The Lord bless you and keep you. May His face shine upon you and give you peace."

Unknown destination

Every time that I reread "the faith chapter" (Hebrews 11) I am struck by the incredible faith represented in each of their lives.
I am excited, as I look ahead to the next chapter of our lives, to see where God is going to take us. It appears, at this point, that the physical location will be back in PA, but I am more interested in where He is going to take us spiritually. What opportunities are we going to have to minister to the poor, the needy, the widows, the orphans, etc? I find a tremendous in knowing that if we follow him wherever He leads we cannot possibly go wrong.

Fear

I realize it has been a long time since I have written anything, but this does not mean that God has not been doing anything in my life! Actually there have been a number of things going on, and I simply have not had the energy to try to put my thoughts together in coherent sentences.

God has been showing me recently how much of a problem fear is in my life. I have, for as long as I can remember, had trouble speaking up, making phone calls, going new places, meeting new people, etc. Recently we were listening to a tape of a message that we had heard a number of years back regarding "the Father's love". I was struck particularly by the verse from 1 John 4 that says, "Perfect love drives out all fear". In other words if I am comfortable with the Father's love I will not have any fear. If I know who I am in the Father, and realize deep in my heart, that He has made me just the way He wanted, and that He loves me just the way He has made me, I will not be bound by fear of man. I think I lay awake for a good part of that night repeating that verse over and over again, and basking in the peace and freedom that I felt with the realization that I do not need to live in fear of what others may think of me.
I am glad to say that since that night, a few weeks ago, I have been able to step out and do some things that I would have struggled to do before, and as I take those steps I enjoy an even greater release from fear.
I want to challenge you to honestly analyze your life to see whether fear may be keeping you from not only doing things that enjoy, but more importantly, keeping you from being obedient to God. Fight against that fear. Do not accept it! It is not from God! HE LOVES YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE! Why should you fear what ANYONE may think.

Blessings and Peace

Kingdoms

Here in Nicaragua there is always some kind of real news happening, often involving the government, that probably does not get any coverage outside of this country. Honduras has made the international news recently with its political machinations, but what has been going on here is probably just as newsworthy.
Thinking about this, and whether it was worthwhile writing about some of these things so that family and friends in other parts of the world could be informed, I was struck by the thought that all of the kingdoms of this world are the same. They (politicians) are all in it for the power and the glory. Even if they enter the political arena with pure ambitions they soon give in to greed, corruption, and the lust for more power.
From the, now-deposed, would-be dictator in Honduras, to the current president/dictator her in Nicaragua, and even to our own infanticide-supporting president of the USA, none of them is really interested in justice.
Why did Jesus say that His kingdom is not of this world? He had little interest in what the earthly kingdoms were doing. He was, and still is, more interested in establishing a heavenly kingdom.
What should this tell us? The church should not be spending its time trying to build righteous earthly kingdoms, but rather focus its energy on the heavenly kingdom. Rather than attending political rallies and protests, and arguing over whether a pro-war president is better than a baby-killing president; we should be proclaiming Jesus Christ and His kingdom. And, yes, He did command us to pray for our leaders!