Thank You

Once in a while I hear from one of our former students. I received this message a couple of days ago and I wanted to share it with everyone. It is not a testimony of our ministry as much as it is of God's wonderful grace and powerful calling upon the hearts of His people. Though this letter is to me as you read it you will see the real hero is Jesus. I have omitted certain personal details and the students name.

Hey Pastor Matt!
 
I'm just going to cut it to the chase

Thank you.

Since I was eight you've encouraged, mentored, and challenged my walk with Christ. I think sometimes when people are raised in church we turn on autopilot and sometimes check out and I believe that was me. I knew that God was real and that He loved me and stuff but I don't think I knew who God was.

I've even had to step down (from ministry) a few times because my walk with Christ was...pretty much non existent. I clung to a mask of smiles and handshakes covering a life of sin, and filth. I was living in sin and also mocking God with my presence in the church.

Thank God for my parents, who fear the Lord, for showing me Jesus even when I spat in their faces.
And thank you, for calling me out, for your boldness in what you minister to us because its God's convicting Word and nothing less.
 
My moms greatest fear was sending me off to college, she even tried to "Marry me off" but it was only Jesus Christ that could save me. He did! Believe it or not, on August 8th 2010, I fully surrendered my life to Jesus. I cant believe that I sat in church all theses years and played an act, but He is faithful and He still pursued me. and I just wanted to let you know that.

Jesus is moving at my school. I'm involved in some Campus for Christ ministries, but its the people, I have strong sisters and brothers in Christ that have been my iron sharping me. We know in our hearts that God has called us to do something big, so please pray for us.

But thank you. Thank you for your faithfulness and your love for Jesus, because you have been my role model all these years and great will be your reward in Heaven.

I just felt the need to tell you...so thanks again.

"And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"  Romans 10:15 (NIV)

Reflecting on 9/11

On September 11th, 2001 almost 3000 people died at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in a field in Pennsylvania. I remember getting ready for work that day, like any other day, when live coverage on the Today Show broadcast the horrifying video of planes cutting through the twin towers. I stood slack-jawed in unbelief at what I was seeing. Several minutes later the World Trade Center came crashing down in a plum of fire, smoke, and toxic ash.

Later reports came in of plane crashing into the Pentagon, the Pentagon! The country was bracing for the worst, how many planes were out there and where would the next crash be? Next the report came in of a plane that was possibly heading for the White House crashing in a field in rural Pennsylvania. That was a tense day with everyone hoping that the senseless violence had ended.


The days following 9/11 we saw the best of American charity, brotherly love, and solidarity. Churches were packed the Sunday following the attacks. Men and women from all over the country volnuteered to help at ground zero. Thousands of American young men and women enlisted in armed services eager to defend our country. Many of us prayed fervently, for the victims, their families, and for America.

Today the news is dominated by war on two fronts, the growing intolerance for Muslims, and the pitiful financial state of our nation. How did we get here? How do we get out of the mess we are in? When can we get back the way things were before 9/11? These are the questions I find myself asking but there are no real answers.

What is the best way I can honor the memories of those who perished on 9/11? I believe it is to live a life free from the fear of terrorist attack, support our troops, and most importantly pray for our nation. I pray for the recession to end, for troops to come home and lasting peace, and for the threat of terrorism to be wiped from the earth. Most importantly I pray for revival.

I pray that God's people would rise up and take hold of their mission to bring the Gospel to every soldier, Muslim, and neighbor. I pray that idols of greed and gluttony that consume America be crushed. I pray that we could love men and women who worship other gods without compromising our Faith in Christ, and show them Christ by how we love one another. Jesus is Lord and He is the answer.

My Joy ... Your Joy

 
“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. ” -John 15:11, ESV 

What was the joy that Jesus had? It is an insult to use the word happiness in connection with Jesus Christ. The joy of Jesus was the absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice of Himself to His Father, the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do. “I delight to do Thy will.” Jesus prayed that our joy might go on fulfilling itself until it was the same joy as His. Have I allowed Jesus Christ to introduce His joy to me?

The full flood of my life is not in bodily health, not in external happenings, not in seeing God’s work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and in the communion with Him that Jesus Himself had. The first thing that will hinder this joy is the captious irritation of thinking out circumstances. The cares of this world, said Jesus, will choke God’s word. Before we know where we are, we are caught up in the shows of things. All that God has done for us is the mere threshold; He wants to get us to the place where we will be His witnesses and proclaim Who Jesus is.

Be rightly related to God, find your joy there, and out of you will flow rivers of living water. Be a centre for Jesus Christ to pour living water through. Stop being self-conscious, stop being a sanctified prig, and live the life hid with Christ. The life that is rightly related to God is as natural as breathing wherever it goes. The lives that have been of most blessing to you are those who were unconscious of it.

Chambers, O. (1993). My utmost for his highest : Selections for the year (NIV edition.). Westwood, NJ: Barbour and Co.

The World Is Filled With Boys Who Can Shave

Check out this article recently published in the Washington Post by one of my favorite authors, preachers, and church planters, Mark Driscoll

What's Your Purpose?

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” -Psalm 139:14 (NIV)
 
Recently, a 29 year-old nurse, Melanie Stevens, found a cello lying beside a trash bin and put it in her trunk and left it there for a couple of days. She decided she wanted her boyfriend, a cabinetmaker to put a hinge on the front of it and to install little shelves inside so she could use it as a CD case.
 
What she didn’t know was that this instrument was a A 320-year-old Stradivarius cello valued around $3.5 million. As it turns out, the primary cellist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic left the instrument outside his home and a bicyclist stole it. No one knows why he later abandoned it, but he did and as fate would have it, Stevens found it.
 
Luckily, before her boyfriend got a round to making the CD case, Stevens saw a news report about the missing cello and returned it. The cello made in 1684 was one of about 60 made by Stradivari in his Cremona, Italy works. The Los Angeles Philharmonic bought it about 30 years ago. According to Associated Press, Robert Cauer, a Los Angeles-based instrument restoration specialist says the valuable instrument is damaged but repairable and should be back in service by this fall. Cauer added the prospect that the prized instrument could have been turned into a CD holder “is so abominable, I get sick when I hear it.”
 
Imagine something worth $3.5 million dollars being used to store CD cases, Cauer is right, it is abominable. A noble instrument like this one was designed for a much higher purpose than holding recorded music, it was made to create it. I wonder what Stradivarius would think about this?
 
God has created you. He created you for a purpose. I am confident that He wants you to fulfill the purpose for which you were created. Too many people settle for the common the ordinary, when God had much more in mind when He created them. They become CD racks, when He designed them to be a unique, one of a kind masterpiece.
 
Are you fulfilling the God’s purpose? If not, will you make a commitment today to discover His purpose and fulfill it?

Wilson, J. L. (2009). Fresh Start Devotionals. Fresno, CA: Willow City Press.