Serving A Complicated World

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I recently posted an article from Christianity Today in our Campus’ Facebook group and I wanted to follow up on that. You can only throw so much out through a Facebook post, you know.

The article took a quick look at Myanmar, the government landscape, the religious landscape, several people groups, and shared about how all of those in the country and out of the country interact. There are refugees involved, the chances of persecution, the Pope is also mentioned, but realistically his part in the article is just a part of a much bigger story.

You an read that article here – Can Pope Francis Help Myanmar’s Muslims Without Hurting Its Christians?

One thing of note about the article, for me, is that this story isn’t new. It’s not even a little bit new. Yes, the people are different and the arguments only sound similar to me, not exact, but this a human story.

The day after sharing the article I sat down to keep reading through Acts and I started in chapter 22. What Paul experiences sounds very similar to the article.

There is the question of religious nationalism, something that we may as well point out. It is increasing around the world and people (both Christians and just about everyone else) are becoming refugees of it. The people group mentioned by name in the article is Rohingya – Muslim refugees. You can read more about their plight here in CT. About half of their total population remain as refugees in neighboring Bangladesh. You also see pressure from different places. In Acts you have the Roman officials – some trying to figure out how to act rightly in the situation and others hoping to profit from it, trading favors with the other parties. It would make for great fiction, but its not. This is what we are like when we get together without respect and honor for one another.

This is the world that Jesus walked into when He came so long ago. This is the world He prepared His disciples for. This is the world that He died for. And, this is the world He sent Holy Spirit into.

In the chapters following 22 Paul gives a defense for the charges brought against him.

Paul shares that everyone back home knew what he was like, strictly following the rules and persecuting the believers of Jesus. Then, he met Jesus on the road to persecute more of Jesus followers. This Jesus called Paul follow Him and share His good news. Now, everyone knows that Paul does this.

As Paul declares his faith in the resurrection to King Agrippa, the same faith he says the prophets and Moses speaks of being fulfilled in Jesus, the Roman Governor interrupts him, yelling, “Paul, you are out of your mind!”

Paul responds in respect and kindness, sharing his intent that he would have everyone hearing this be the same as he is – except for the chains.

Once again, this would be beautiful fiction, filled with intrigue, repeated characters, back story, etc., only, it is all those things and true.

We see this story repeated throughout the history of the church and those who follow Jesus. The irony of it is that this apparently powerless citizen is looking at the powerful authorities before him. Neither of them created their respective powers, they were both present in another’s achievement. For Agrippa and Festus this is the great Roman empire. For Paul this is Jesus and His resurrection.

Only one of those movements still stands and moves today, and is no less miraculous. Rome is not known for an emperor of great military might, but a Pope seeking mercy on behalf of others.

Likewise,  as followers of Jesus, we can all seek after God and do so on behalf of others. We can pray, we can learn, we can go. The Rohingya is one group of refugees among many and Myanmar is one country among many.

May God’s favor and miraculous grace rest on those seeking to help, those in need, and all of those present and watching from afar. May God bless the Rohingya and Myanmar.

About Discipleship Training School

This January and in the coming years we are offering the DTS in Ogden, UT. What God did through the DTS changed me from a person who only cared about his own state and country to a person who cares about the nations.

You can read more about that here – Utah Discipleship Training School.

Devotions on Grace

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Hello!

This last week a couple of us from Ogden headed over to YWAM Salem for leadership training and visiting friends and family. If you are looking for a place to do a DTS or take some training as a YWAMer they have a lot of opportunities over there! I’ve benefited from their team out there a few times now and love the whole lot of them.

Grabbing the Grace We Need for Leadership

One of the speakers on my DTS, just for a night, was Jim Stier – he and his wife were some of the first YWAMers to Brazil and gave leadership to the pioneering process of YWAM there – he spoke about quiet times. The next time I heard him speak he also spoke about quiet times. At other times, he led discussions at big leadership meetings, I remember him challenging us to go before God in our quiet times. And this last week was really one big corporate quiet time. Each time he taught there was a depth to the topic at hand, but it always comes with the challenge to take time out of you day to intentionally spend time with God.

The point of the leadership gathering was that if we ourselves are not actively seeking God’s grace for continued grace we are going to run ourselves dry. We processed the question of how do we seek God’s grace and it was a fun discussion that caused us all to do a lot of processing.

The big point that I felt God drawing us to is that we find grace when we find Him.

Finding Him may look different for each of us, but it should be real. When Jesus came He really did come. When He sent the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit really did go. He’s created each of us, uniquely demonstrating the image of God, and each of us have really been created. We found God when He revealed Himself to us – it wasn’t by our own effort, bloodline, or spiritual heritage – and when we found God it turned out that He was full of Grace and Truth. He is still filled with Grace and Truth today. As we continue to serve Him, He shows up and changes the desire of our hearts from evil to love.

We can tell when it is real or not – when it is by our effort that we try or when it is by His presence that our heart undergoes its transformation from a heart filled with darkness to a heart ready to love His light.

That’s coming from John 1:1-18, Luke 17:5-10, and several passages of Paul’s letters.

Walking away from the conference, I’ve found that it helps me put both my own commitment to quiet time and walk with God into perspective – and it helps inform what I am looking for in outreach.

Try it out!

We spent our time looking at scripture, asking God to speak into our lives, and then sharing it with the group. Jim would give commentary and share pioneering stories, add some depth to the topic. It was something that was really good for me to reflect on again. There were lots of take away points, but it started with John 1:1-18.

If you’d like to check it out, I’d challenge you to read through that bit of scripture a bit slowly, ask God what He’d like to share, and check back in on the insights I’ll write down below. I’ll share what I got and it will be fun.

Ready?

Jesus, through whom God created the world, who John the Baptist spoke of, came among us.

The people who received Him and believed in His name – to them He gave the right to become children of God.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us … full of grace and truth.

The Law was given through Moses (which was true), grace and truth came through Jesus (because that is who He is!).

What are some of the things that stood out in a special way to you?

Creating through Communication

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Last night we had an awesome time with our life group and as we were closing we had this question to pray through and meditate on – what does total surrender to Jesus look like to you?

We were encouraged to ask God about the season we are in right now.

As I closed my eyes I had a memory of a cave in Indiana. It was the third cave of the trip and it featured a 30′ rappel right into its mouth. I would like to say it was just like the movies, but I haven’t seen any movies where the actor just bounces against the side of the cave and gets scraped up. Others were more successful at rappelling than I was that night. From there we hiked and climbed further down and I got to lead a couple excursions. Being the first light into the darkness is an incredible feeling. The one cavern I headed into dropped another 50′ – 60′ feet to the floor, fallen jagged rocks were every where, at the bottom was another hole going another hundred feet, and the scene would repeat over and over again.

That beauty would have remained hidden had someone not gone there, and it would have remained unknown to the world unless that person opened his mouth and shared what he or she saw in the cave.

That is where I see total surrender worked out in my life.

Some of the scariest things that I can think of aren’t the things that you can’t do anything about, but rather the ones you can do something about when God prompts you to do them. The whole goal may be impossible or outlandish, but the individual steps typically aren’t.

For example, seeing a person’s life transformed from someone living on the streets in despair to a life of gratitude, provision, and helping others in turn on your own is impossible. That said, being obedient to love the guy on the street isn’t impossible, rather, it is very possible.

Part of our call in Utah is doing impossible things through starting on the possible ones. And, when my life is in committed surrender to Jesus, He consistently calls me to impossible things.

The most possible start to almost anything God tells us to do is opening our mouths and sharing what He has told us to do with others. That is one of my greatest points of weakness. It is the point where you throw yourself into what God has said, what He has prompted you to do, and trust that He will be faithful with the rest. It may be the prompting to reach out and talk to the guy laying on the sidewalk (what will the other people think of me?) or call out the person on their morning run (what will this person think of me?), or maybe the person is obviously well out of your league (am I breaking social protocol?), or they are on their tablet siting next to you on the train, on the bus, or standing in a line (this person obviously wants their privacy…) – fear and insecurity can tag us out of obedience.

More often than not, I find that when we do throw ourselves into whatever God has told us to do He does work it out for the best.  A lack of trust on either our part or on the part of the other greatly impacts the effects of our obedience, but God is faithful to back up what He has said.

The only thing that didn’t bounce against those cave walls so many years ago were the bottoms of my feet – face, hands, arms, shoulders, chest, knees all bruised – and that was because I didn’t trust the guy on the other end of the rope. Many of the dreams and hopes God has for this world remained unexplored and unheard of because we are unwilling to really trust Him in committed surrender.

If our trust falters, it gets harder, but God is still willing to take us there.

By the end of our moment of prayer at life group I had a couple of ideas of where God wanted me to go and this principle, trusting Him to communicate what He wants to do, was key to that. It also reminded me of my young heart for making stories and the desire to share those with others. So, that desire and call really has been there since I was a kid. I may go ahead and sign up for National Novel Writing Month as well – there is a project that I’d love to finish and it will be good prep for our creative writing side of the Discipleship Training School.

Looking forward to an awesome season of committed surrender!

 

Praying for the Hindu World

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Lights, smoke, incense, food, colors, water, and beauty – these are some of the first things that come to my mind when I think about the Hindu people I met in India. The cultures spread throughout the Hindu world are immensely beautiful, they are vibrant, and they are celebrated. And, they have a worship to contribute to Jesus at a deep spiritual level.

That is what the Hindu Prayer Guide is about – or at least that is my take on it.

As I’ve started reading through the guide I’m struck by how real the book is. So many times our own insecurity bleeds through our good intentions that we disparage the people and cultures we reach out to.

This guide doesn’t do that.

Where there is anything to be honored it jumps out at it and asks us to champion the good in our prayers – and that should challenge us to look at the way we do things too!

If there is something that steps in the way of life, like the fear that cripples a life or valuing one gender above others, the guide doesn’t step around it. It asks us to understand why these things are and pray for a deeper truth to be revealed to those caught in fear or confusion.

We have a billion Hindu neighbors that are looking for a light that is true, one that can finally win over all the darkness in the world, let’s join in prayer that the Light of the world would be known by our Hindu neighbors and that their worship, beauty, and celebration would be championed by the One who created them and loves them with a devotion that passes our own!

…

Days 1, 2, and 3

Pray for Hindu families, the influence that they have on the world, and that their beautiful worship of Jesus (Yeshu in Hindi) would set people free.

Ruth 4: 18-22

Lord, I pray that you would bring the line of Yeshu to Hindu families. Even when the family story isn’t good (as it is in these verses) we know that you seek the best for all peoples! Bring your blessings and your grace to the Hindu families and nations!

Psalm 96: 7-9

Lord Jesus, I pray that you bless the worship leaders in India to ascribe glory to your name. The bhajans sung to you are beautiful, the people who sing them are beautiful, they are filled with your bhakti (devotion).  When we draw near to you, you drive the enemy away from us and we get to join you in that!

Feel free to pray along with these prayers or wait on God and pray out what He places on your heart!

Fear

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What comes to mind when we think of fear?

Is it a reaction? Is it a way for our body to respond to something that startles us or maybe to protect us from imminent danger? If this is the first thing that comes to mind, then, no, that is not the sort of fear that I am thinking about. That sort of fear is healthy, and if you push it a little bit it might even get fun. It is definitely something that God gave us for our benefit.

This was the only definition of fear that I knew about growing up, though, the world of reality around me seemed to share that there was something more out there. This sort of feeling is often brushed off.

In the first couple chapters of Genesis we see the creation of the world and the creation of mankind in God’s image. We are created, breathed into, spoken to, given instruction, given responsibility, wondrously made not alone – this was what God desired for us. There was something special about these people He created. He had already gone above and beyond for is by creating us in His image, but to be a part of our lives – this is what he wanted.

Inside of that creation fear hadn’t been felt by the first of mankind and it was beautiful.

But, that was about to change. One of the instructions given by God included one simple request, “you may enjoy every tree in the garden except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” The first of us heard this, they understood it, but when another came and questioned the words of God they disobeyed the one request.

Up until this point they had only each other and God, everyone had been good to them. Perhaps this really was a hard test. How many of us have heard some one say something negative about someone else? It is certainly within us at this point for our heart to give pause and question someone, even a friend, just by hearing the words of another.  The first of us followed this other’s voice and disobeyed God.

The response was immediate and terrible – the words of God were true! At that point fear, shame, and guilt flooded into the lives of those who had sinned. Their relationship with God was separated, driven apart by disobedience, and the fear, shame, and guilt bore fruit in their lives. They hid from God, they were ashamed of being naked, they accused one another to shift the blame away from themselves.

These three things that had no authority in their lives were now present and wreaking havoc.

When we step away from God’s instruction and desire for our lives death follows in the wake of our decisions. We may think we can master it after it has come, but that isn’t the case. The only thing on our part we can do is say no while we still can, but we were past this point in the story.

When God reveals Himself He shares what will now happen and the world begins to change. It isn’t what He had hoped for, but the changes in the world are for our own good. He addresses the other in the conversation as well, the serpent in the story that had accused God, to the serpent He promises defeat – that someone from the woman would come and defeat the serpent. It is a loaded statement, a prophecy that takes the rest of the Bible and mankind’s history to reveal in its fullness.

Today, we are still having a hard time because of this moment – fear, shame, and guilt are still present in this world, but that victory that God spoke of has come and is still coming in its fullness.

There is certainly that sort of fear that God has given us, the startled jump or the burst of adrenaline that can keep us safe from danger, but there is another fear that we experience in our lives – it isn’t a fear that God desired, but it is present. In Christ, we can master it, but it does take mastering. It is difficult to explain, but one of my teachers shared it this way, “When you are afraid it’s not that you are feeling fear, but it is fear feeling you.” In our own disobedience we can give such a vile sort of fear authority in our lives.

As a child this was the sort of fear that bit at the edges of reality, as I grew this was the sort of fear that could incapacitate incredible young men and women from making right decisions, on outreach this was the sort of fear that showed up when you went to speak and couldn’t find your ability to speak. It is strange, but this is the reality I’ve seen over and over again.

However, there is hope!

One of these hopes is that God is fulfilling His promise through Jesus Christ – as we stand near to Him, as we cling to His Spirit in intimacy, we find ourselves surrounded by His authority. This returns us to a second hope – we are still created in the image of God! One of the instructions God gave us in the beginning was to aggressively defend the creation He was giving us. We still have that command and it can be found again in our relationship with Jesus.

In this world we will need to stand against all sorts of fear – the fear of sharing our faith among them, fear of rejection included, the fear of what others think but don’t say. This isn’t our fear to deal with – we can stand with Jesus to reject that fear’s authority and bring something better in its place.

Let’s not wait around for fear to show itself – we can take the fight to fear on the ground that God desired for us, in relationship with Him and in good relationship with each other!

Communication

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Hello Friends,

We’ve been pretty quiet over here and we are hoping to change that soon!

The ACTS school was a success – a success largely credited to the students, staff, speakers, and friends of YWAM who pulled the school off! My thanks go out to you!

We’ve spent the last couple months resting, visiting our families, and continuing to learn about what God wants to do out here in Utah, as well as, in our own lives, families, team, communities, and world. I’m really excited for what the future holds. God is doing a lot in the world and now isn’t the time to spectate, but rather to engage. Each of us have been created for this time – not to watch it drift by, either bewailing it or passively agreeing that “yes, those were the good old days” to our children. Rather, this is the time that God has invited us into to create the world that our children and grandchildren inherit.

It is August, right?

Let’s see, September, October – yes, ten years ago next October several friends and I were standing around a map up in Warm Lake, ID. In case you’ve never heard of it before, there is a YWAM campus out there. It’s a beautiful place in the Boise National Forest. As we stared at that map God did something in our hearts – we felt a tug to go. Incredible places with foreign names, culture, and food – and the promise of great risk.

I had figured that we were alone in that tug, but I would keep finding it in other places and with other people too – the most surprising place for myself was in eastern Germany. We were visiting a family that my Father-in-Law had known for a long time. I had heard stories about their family, but this was the first time meeting them.

As they spoke the I found myself somewhat shocked – they swapped stories of trips that they took beyond the Iron Curtain. They’re eyes grew youthful as they joked about the risks they took and remembered how far they had gone and what they had done thanks to God. Incredible places with foreign names, culture, and food – and the promise of great risk, a very real, great risk for all of them. They’re risk helped create the world that I now know and the world that my children will know.

We live in a world with the promise of great risk – if we are willing to take it.

We live in a world of incredible beauty, culture, and food – if we are willing to go.

If you feel that tug on your heart to go and change the world, to create a change in the world with a God who loves to communicate and change the world through what He says, then we want to help. Keep yourself posted about what is going on out here in Utah and ask questions, pray, ask God where your place is in this world.

He has created you for this time!

Many blessings on you all!

In Christ,
Troy – Campus Leader

ACTS: Multiplying YWAM

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Throughout the history of the Church we see it spreading through multiplication – not just addition – it grows where people make sacrifices and give their hearts to Jesus. We read about this in the book of Acts.

The Risk

For my part I felt that God had given me an incredible vision for my home.

Michigan was where my family was,  it was where all my relationships resided. Everything from the roads that we drove on to the kinds of grass that grew along them helped me know who I was. I won’t even get started on the fields and trees. A year before I couldn’t even imagine leaving my county let alone my country for a foreign land – missionaries were the crazy ones. Now, I was one of them.

I was considering leaving all of this again so that I could bring something back. Taking the discipleship training school with YWAM was incredible. I wanted the people in Michigan to experience that too. And, I wanted to be a missionary.

In the back yard of my family’s home I prayed again.

Before me was the opportunity to take a school that would help me become a pioneer – someone who would go where there wasn’t already a YWAM base and start one.

My friends had invited me to come back to India to take the school, it was their second time running it and the first time it would be in India. For twelve weeks we would learn from speakers that had already pioneered. We would work together to build our pioneering projects and then we would head out. It sounded kind of easy, but in reality pioneering something new is at least as difficult as they all said it would be. I didn’t know that yet.

At some point during my night of prayer I felt God say to go for it.

Looking back on that night I can say it changed my life, and I am grateful for that.

The Sacrifice

The Church, in its many forms, has consistently grown when people who love Jesus give up what they know for what they do not. It grows when we take risks. It grows when we hear God say to do something that doesn’t make sense, but in our heart we know it is Him saying it and we do it anyway.

We do not always get to conform to the culture around us, hardly so at times, and we will be considered crazy. That is not a bad thing because so was Jesus, and He turned the world upside down by listening to His Father’s voice and doing what His Father said too.

Now, I am not in my home state of Michigan.

I am in Utah, the home of many other people. I have been setting out on this path for the last nine years to make it back home to do what I headed out to do. During that time God has been faithful. He has shown up in the nick of time and provided for us. He has been faithful to give me time to learn and the time to enjoy the people around me. I have a family that He has given me.

Utah is the home of other people, but I remember my heart for my home and it has multiplied to make room for this place too. It has multiplied to make room for India. It has multiplied to make room for the Syrians who I first started paying attention to five years ago.

As often as I hear His heart break my heart multiplies to make more room for His.

When we make a sacrifice God is faithful to multiply it.

The Response

What is on your heart that you are carrying with God?

How is He telling you to go for it?

There are no small sacrifices in the kingdom of God – He is faithful to see it. If you stay true to His path He will keep showing you where to go next. If this is the life that God has called you to then I challenge you to take that first step with Him – it is worth it, and even more, He is worth it.

Discipleship Training School – Apostolic Catalyst Training School 

The Beauty of Duck Valley

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What do you think of when you hear the words “Indian Reservation”?

Most of the time, I find myself thinking about all the bad things first – racing from experiences to images, words people have spoken, hate and curses, racism, political ideas that were once considered good, people who I have listened to who defended the use of force, and stories from people of what that use of force looked like. A whole legacy of ideas and their consequences.

Mixed throughout all of them, however, are moments of beauty.

Laughter – sweet, rich, and joyous laughter.

Kind faces that show far more hospitality than I deserve.

Story on top of story that shares of God’s unrelenting desire to pursue His loved ones.

These are the memories mixed in with everything that I remember when I hear those words – Indian Reservation. Given the lessons and wisdom that many first nations people have taught me I am indebted to them for the life in Christ that I get to live.

Duck Valley

One of the places close to my heart are the lands of the Shoshone-Paiute people. It is little place, set in the high desert of Idaho and Nevada. The hills are deceivingly tall and distant when coming from central Idaho, where the mountains are much more abrupt, as a friend and I discovered when we tried to go “just a little ways.” Though it is high desert it is also filled with water for irrigation. And yes, there are certainly a lot of ducks.

I have only been there twice – once eight years ago and the second time just a couple of weeks back.

Both were special and this last trip taught me several lessons that I’m taking to heart as we move forward in ministry.

The first was to trust God when He speaks.

I was so stressed out while trying to put things together. I didn’t have anything set up like I wanted to and it felt like I was going to run it all into the ground.

However, God worked in His ways and He led the outreach.

What does that look like?

Favor where you least expect it; divine appointments; relationships; hospitality; and sometimes just saying “yes”. Wherever there is openness to relationship there is an opportunity for God to move in and open doors.

The second was related to that – look for relationships.

Does this sound like common sense?

I mean, it probably should, but I find it so abstract at times.

God Himself relates to us relationally, we relate to others relationally, but as we step forward to move this kingdom of good relationships forward, it can seem tempting to rely on non-relational methods. I doubt that most of those methods are wrong. Though, when we employ a method in the place of relationship our testimony suffers.

An example of this came on the day I headed home from Duck Valley.

The night before, we were enjoying dinner at the local diner when one of the cooks introduced us to one of her relatives. It turns out that Duck Valley is also home to a lot of beef cattle and the annual branding is something to be invited to – and we were invited.

Now, I’ve never gone on an outreach where you could call a branding day a “method” to build relationships, but it certainly was a place of relationships, with lots of hard work, yelling, smiles, and laughter.

Jesus was also getting invited to all sorts of places.

The wedding in Cana was one such event where I’m sure there were a lot of relationships happening. He was often invited into the homes of others and when He showed up to a town it seems like his first place to stop was the home of a friend. We see Jesus focusing on places of relationship. Sometimes there is a method to open up the possibility of relationships (in our case it was baskets filled with supplies, food, and fun things for kids), but our focus needs to be on the relationships opening up – not the methods bringing an opportunity.

So what holds us back?

Is this all common sense or actually countercultural?

I know that in my life it is often countercultural to rely on others, to ask for help – to look at a very good relational moment during ministry and not weigh it in the scales of productivity.

How are we all doing at this?

Are we focussed on relationships or on the methods we are employing?

What is our first thought when we think about sharing Jesus with someone? Is it the amazing relationship that we get to introduce to another person? Is it the little relationship moment that is happening as you greet a person that has been created in the image of God?

Or is it a thought of productivity? Do we think of a system of verses, a certain way of doing it, figuring out the right angle, how long until I get to go home?

These questions might be rough, but both the good and the bad reflect my own heart – I can remember a time for each one of them.

Do we see the beauty that is right there in that person, created in God’s image; do we see the beauty that is there in that moment, a relationship that is humbling itself like Jesus humbled Himself to the point of death?

Relationship or method?

Beauty or an invitation to more beauty?

I know that my own heart will generally choose to shy away from those questions, but as God cares about us He will be the one to ask them eventually. In 2007, I attended the Discipleship Training School and God used that time to ask a lot of those questions.

If you are looking for a time to settle some of the questions I’ve included here or you have more of your own – I would like to invite you to consider that DTS. The next DTS starts on August 22nd.

…

P.S.

I would also invite you to read more about my friends. They are a family committed to relationship and inviting others into relationship with our creator. They have taught me a lot about valuing relationships over methods.

The Red Road

Also, I am sure my friends at Cowboys With A Mission would like to share that working with cattle is a perfect time to build relationships and share the gospel.

Cowboys With A Mission

Whoever has ears…

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“Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge.” (Mark 4:1)

One of the stories that Jesus told to this big crows was the story of a farmer who went out to sow seed. Depending on where the seed fell, some bore fruit while others didn’t. When Jesus was alone with His disciples, he explained this story (or parable) to them.

“Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?

The farmer sows the word.

Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.

Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.

Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown” (Mark 4:13-20).

This morning we talked about this story at our Bible School in Idaho. It is a story that many of us have heard, perhaps multiple times, and yet it can leave us with questions. We might look at this story from the perspective of the farmer and ask ourselves: ‘Why does he sow in places that will never bear fruit?’ Or we might ask ourselves how this teaching applies to us doing ministry.

Though these questions and perspectives are valid, we often overlook the context in which Jesus was telling this story. Jesus was talking to a multitude, so great that He had to get into a boat to address them. Though He did not explain the meaning of this story to all these people, He did tell all of them this parable. In the very immediate context therefore, we can say that these people where the different types of soils and Jesus was the farmer sowing the word among them. But He knew their hearts. He knew that even though many had come, not all of them would receive His message and bear fruit from it.

“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” (Mark4:9b)

That is how Jesus ends his parable for this multitude.  And though we know the explanation of the four soils, while the multitude did not, perhaps this is a challenge for us as well. Where are we at? Are we troubled by the things that come against us? Or are we taken up by everything life has to offer? If so, just be careful that it doesn’t overtake the work that God has been doing in your life.

I know it can be easy to loose heart or to get distracted. Let’s make sure that we try to be there for each other and pray that God will continue to bring our minds and our hearts back to Him no matter what is going on in our lives.

To God be the Glory!

The birth of a King

Posted on by ywamutahcampus

With Christmas, we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; a story that captures the heart even of many people who otherwise don’t belief in, or don’t follow, God and Jesus. But the Christmas story wasn’t just a cute story about a baby. Though new life is often celebrated, Jesus’ birth went unnoticed by many. Yes, God sent his angels to announce the birth of His Son to shepherd’s who were watching over their sheep in a field near Bethlehem. He also sent a star to announce Jesus’ birth to wise men from the East. But of His own people, it seems only 1 old man named Simeon, and 1 old woman named Anna, realized who this little baby was, without being told so by angels.

But when Jesus talks about His birth, it isn’t in the same jolly atmosphere we often associate with the Christmas holidays. Jesus talks about His coming from quite a different perspective.

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Luke 20:9-15 “He (Jesus) went on to tell the people this parable: ‘A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out.

Then the owner of the vineyard said, “What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.”

But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. “This is the heir,” they said. “Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.” So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him'”  (NIV, 2011).

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Jesus is the heir who was sent to this earth to be killed. His birth was followed by death Mat 2:16; His life would be a stumbling block for many and would cause pain to His mother’s heart Luke 2:34-35. Though He came to “bind up the brokenhearted” and to “set the captives free” Isaiah 61, His own life, was one of suffering (NIV, 2011).

And that is whose birth we may celebrate again in the next couple of days. The birth of a Savior; the birth of a King.

God bless you all as you remember His birth and celebrate this precious life that was given to us. May God be with you all, and may He continue to guide you and bless you as you start the new year of 2016.

NIV, 2011. Holy Bible, New International Version. Retrieved from https://www.biblegateway.com/