Hope

In my life, hope has been a very important part. And when I lost hope, I became lost and afraid. Life sucked, and I feel no reason to live. Act 27 has a great story of finding hope in God when there seems to be no hope. It starts when Paul is sailing to Rome and the hit a bad storm.

Verse 20 says...

When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued to raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved.
Then Paul later says...

22But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed...

God said to Paul...

24Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar...

This really spoke to me in a way that showed me that through the storms in my life, there is hope. I was blinded by the clouds. I could not see the hope in God's people. I couldn’t see hope in the Church. But what God wants us to do when we have no hope is to have courage.

I then realized that there is a hope, a hope for the church, a hope for my friends, a hope for all man kind. This Hope is Jesus Christ. Through faith in Jesus Christ, there is hope. Through the storm we may be scared, scared that our things will be lost, but after our things are lost not one of use will be lost, because we have Faith.

In closing I would like to encourage you to have faith and never give up hope, because with out hope we are lost.

Missions

“Missions”

When people hear the word “missions” they sometimes think of something of the sorts of Mission Impossible with Tom Cruises. The spy types of stuff. Or they think of a “mission” to stop AIDS.

The word “mission” according to the American Heritage Dictionary means, a body of persons sent to conduct negotiations or establish relations with a foreign country.

So I’m not here to talk about great movies or how to stop AIDS, I’m here to say that missions is to “establish relations” with God’s people.

So right now, I am going to talk about overseas missions, just because I have been given the opportunity to go to Rwanda. This mission trip is a short term mission trip so I will only be there for 2 weeks. So lately I have been asking my self…

What can I do in this time?

How can I bring God to these people?

Right now, I believe that God is chuckling at me right now for thinking these silly questions. So after God had his laugh, he reminded me who He was.

I am the great I am

How great is God—beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out. Job 36:26

I’m not the giver of salvation. I’m nothing but a grain of sand. But realizing how small I am reminds me of how BIG our God is. So this means I can’t bring God to these people because God is already there. He has been there from the very beginning. Back when the first person laid eyes on the land of Rwanda, God was there.

God is in the trees

God is in the soil that grows the crops

God is in the water and in the sky

He is everywhere and waiting to be shown.

So back to my first question, what do I do? God is already there, so why am I needed. Just as God “hear his peoples cry” in Egypt God sent a man named Moses to stand against Pharaoh. God never left the Israelites; He was with them every back breaking day. Do you know how I know this? God saved Moses from death, and God made Moses the prince of Egypt, God had a plan for Moses from the day he was born.
So what do I do?

God has planned every moment of my life from the day I was born, and I believe that every God given opportunity is an opportunity to show Gods glory. I said earlier that God is “waiting to be shown” and what I mean by this…

We, as God’s instruments, are not giving them something, we’re showing them what God has already given to them.

We’re there to show that God is in the trees

…there to show them that God is blessing their crops

…there to show them the Love of Jesus Christ though our being.

…there to show the glory of God in the sky and the water.


Rob Bell is a founding pastor of Mars Hills and writer of the book, Velvet Elvis. I like the term he uses. Instead of Missionary, he uses the word “Tour Guide.” Like a tour guide we are going to being showing.

So in closing, God is everywhere, we’re all made into a plan that God created at the beginning of time.

So I am going to Rwanda...

So I am going to Rwanda…
So I am going to Rwanda...I am very excited about this great opportunity I have been given. This week I have been getting a little scared not know what to expect. God has been with me through out this time. I have been reading a lot this week. I have already read more this summer than I have read in the school year. So any way, I am currently reading "In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day" by Mark Batterson, and the whole book refers to a passage in 2 Samuel 23:20

20 Benaiah son of Jehoiada was a valiant fighter from Kabzeel, who performed great exploits. He struck down two of Moab's best men. He also went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion.

In the book I am reading, Benaiah is known as a lion chaser, and what I mean by this is that Benaiah was not a wimp, he didn't turn away and run away, he saw a opportunity. Little did he know that this very fearful situation would create a job as one of King David’s bodyguard.

22Such were the exploits of Benaiah son of Jehoiada; he too was as famous as the three mighty men. 23 He was held in greater honor than any of the Thirty, but he was not included among the Three. And David put him in charge of his bodyguard.

So Fear...What do we do with fear? We could continue to fear and lose all hope in being able to evangelize to the Rwandans. Fear would lead to many missed opportunities. Or you can chase that lion...and face those fears. You know, when Benaiah face the lion, I sure he was fearful, but this situation prepared him self to be one of King David bodyguards.

Just as I believe that God will do. I believe that God has been preparing my life for His plan...

So what is fear... when I know that when I face my fears, God will smile because I am being shaped into a man of God.

So I believe that life is worth chasing those lions.

WWJD

“WWJD”

The abbreviation “WWJD” is a very powerful saying. What Would Jesus Do? To live my life in that question is what we all are called to do. We want be “in Christ” and the best way in doing that is to do what Jesus did.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord Romans 6:23

Jesus did so many things; He was perfect in every way. The story that Jesus lived could not have been any more perfect. Because what Jesus did was change the perspective on the world.

So let’s start at the beginning, Jesus was born in stable by a virgin named Mary. Okay lets stop there and realize why this is so prefect.

Characterizations of a Stable…
-very loud because of all the animals
-the remains from the animals, and the smell was probably horrendous
-the manger may have had hay in it, and hay is hard and itchy. Not a place where the king of kings should be lying.

So you see that the stable was not the ideal place for the Son of God to be born. If you think about this Jesus is serving other already at this point in his life. He lowers Himself to be born in the lowest of low places, so that others can have the comfort in the inns.

But it gets better, next God sends a might choir of angels to the sky above the field were the shepherds watched there sheep. Now this is odd. Let me tell you about shepherds of that time.

Characterizations of a shepherd…
-poor
-lowest of the low
-like the modern day “gangster”

So why would God do this? This is why it is so perfect. God wanted the Shepherds who were hated and looked down on by the society they live in. This shows God’s love for everyone, because if God can love a shepherd He can love any one. The people in the early church would have understood this. That is why it is so perfect.

Then there were the Magi of the east who came to worship Jesus.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." Matt 2:1-2.

This is important too, because that the wise man want to worship Jesus. I think that if you title has the word “wise” in it, that may mean that there pretty smart. And these smart men went out in faith by following a star in the sky. What this is saying is that Jesus king of the rich and king of the poor. So this is perfect.

Now let us look at Jesus’ ministry, Jesus had twelve disciples. But these disciples are not your normal disciples. Jewish history tells us that to be a disciple of a rabbi you have to educated in the in the Pentateuch and torah, and some student don’t last the education and if the don’t make the standards of the rabbi, the rabbi would tell them to go home and learn the family trade.

When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. Mark 1:19 -20

So in the bible Jesus was know as a rabbi, but Jesus did it differently. Instead of looking for the educated, he walked up the Sea of Galilee and saw James and John. Now James and John were education in the torah and when it was time to become a disciple of a rabbi the rabbi told them to go home and learn the family trade. They said in the passage, James and John were working with their father. So what I believe is that they were learning the family trade because they had not been adequate to be a disciple of a rabbi.

So for a rabbi named Jesus to come along and pick James and John to be His disciples was a big deal. James and John jumped on the opportunity to follow Jesus. To be a disciple of a rabbi, a teacher, to learn every thing they know until some day when Jesus send out his disciples to the world.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Matt 28:19

So now we have the perfect example of who we want to follow. So you see that the question “What Would Jesus Do?” is a very good question to be asking our selves every waking second of the day. Because that is who we want to be like. It’s how we become in Christ.

So I had an opportunity to go to Rwanda the summer of 2007 and I learned a lot of the lifestyle the people of Rwanda were living. Rwanda is a very poor nation and there is a lot of people with not a lot of homes. And in 1994 there were the Genocides that happen and it brought great fear to many people. The average person in Rwanda has only one meal a day if that and the Water supply is a river or a pond near the place they live. It really ripped my heart out to see the poverty that was before me.

Just to walk down the street you would get many kids and many young teen mothers that beg for money. They would beg so hard, like it was the only thing that would let them get though the night. It was hard to just walk by and do nothing, most of the time I didn’t have very much money on me anyway.

It was a long time before I realized what Jesus would have done.

In the day of Jesus’, He would say that it was hard of a rich man to love God, and easy for a poor to love God. But one thing I have realized in Rwanda is that if a person is poor they have no hope.

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? James 2:5

But I say there is hope because Jesus said there was hope. So what would Jesus do in this situation? Now, Jesus was not a rich man, money wise but he gave something so much more valuable. He gave hope. Jesus didn’t just hand out money to people because He was rich Him self, but what He did was lay his hands on people he gave stories to the people in ways the people could understand. He would feed 5000 people a miracle.

So I though to my self, money is not the important thing right now, the important thing here is the giving of hope. For Example, if I were to give some one, say 5 dollars to buy some food. Now it would very nice for the moment to have some food, But five dollars doesn’t last forever, So if I would have reached out my hand and put a friendly smile on, this would have made the person feel like there are people in this world that care. Some thing greater that money, I don’t even know what it would be like if someone from the richest countries come to one of the poorest countries to spend time with the poorest people just because they love them. That seems like a great feeling.

Isn’t this what Jesus did? Jesus was so prefect, that when people came around they all wanted some thing. Jesus gave water that quench eternal thirst.

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:13


Now back to the original question, What Would Jesus Do? Some would say that we don’t know what Jesus would do just because we don’t have that perfect example live on this earth in to day’s world and going through to day’s problems. But I think that if we are in Christ we will see God’s heart, and when we see God’s heart we see hope and we see, life worth living.

So when I walk around, and think of WWJD I stand and remember that I am in Christ, and when I am in Christ, theirs no telling what we can do.