Feb 24, 2012
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
Psalm 8:4 KJV
I find myself asking this question today. What is my life, and who am I that God cares for me? I have done nothing good in my entire life apart from Jesus Christ. I find my thoughts consistent with Paul’s in Philippians 3:7-14: Everything that I used to hold onto and count as precious to me has practically turned into garbage compared to the glorious riches in Jesus Christ. For my first few days as a new student, I was completely shaken because my whole life since graduating college has been completely emerged in sin. I felt like an imposter being here. How and why would Jesus, the God of the Universe call me to give my life to Him? And why here at Gospel for Asia?
My whole life has earned me nothing but the wrath of God. Every “good” word and deed I’ve ever spoken and done have done nothing but store God’s wrath against me on the Day of Judgement. But after all of that, Jesus came and changed everything.
When did I start loving people? How are my passions the COMPLETE opposite of what they once were? I’m going to heaven? This is so hard to accept. But I believe Jesus. I believe God’s Word. While I was yet God’s enemy, He sent His son to take the punishment that I deserved for every crime that I’ve ever committed against God. The punishment for every single lie I’ve ever told, every object I’ve stolen, every woman I’ve lusted after, every ounce of anger that used to bubble in my being, every idol that I worshipped, every idle word and every curse against man and God that I’ve sputtered out of my mouth has all been taken from me and placed on Jesus’ shoulders. The love of God led me to faith and repentance, and I am now forgiven. I am forgiven because Jesus took my place.
Now, the only rational response is to abandon everything for this amazing King. The only decision that makes any sense at all in the light of this hilariously good news is to forget all of my dreams of “success” and to give up every fleeting pleasure on this earth in exchange for the only thing that will not burn away when all is said and done: The Kingdom of God. I can’t take ANYTHING with me when I die, so why not store up that which is waiting for me on the other side? God has made me a new man. He saw something in me and decided to call me His own.
Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!
May the whole world hear this beautiful news and know this same God that has rocked my world. Woe unto me if I preach not the Gospel.
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Nov 30, 2011
When I was a young girl I planned my life and was certain that by the time I was 25 years old I’d be married with four kids and succeeding in a career. Now that I have reached 25, I can testify to the truth of the statement, “God can do far more than what we can ever imagine.” I am so happy that God doesn’t take direction from me! His plan is a perfect, holy, blameless plan with a purpose greater than we know.
I am not married yet, but I have found a LOVE more beautiful and perfect than I have ever or will ever deserve! As I grow in my faith, my outlook on life and my purpose in it is unbending. A once panoramic perspective of me, myself and I has become a vast vertical vision of Jesus, His suffering children and the passion to uplift them.
I once thought it was impossible to know a mother’s love unless you actually were a mom. God proved to me otherwise when He blessed me with the opportunity to love and be loved by hundreds of underprivileged children in Asia. I have begun to understand a mother’s connection with her children. It is something of divine essence that is just so difficult to describe in words, songs, or poetry. I experienced the unfeigned sacrifice, or at least the inclination of it, to add to them even just a single trace of joy, safety, peace, and everything else righteous that a child deserves.
My idea of success now transcends all of life’s preconceptions, notions, and ideologies. I am nothing but a season, a chance that soon will pass. I’ve learned that success is not determined by how much I can accumulate, how great a name I can make for myself, or how high I can climb the ladder. Success is determined by the choices I make every day that will influence whether I am storing up the fleeting things of this world, or living in the light of eternity.
Growing up, I used to wish for lovely shiny things for my birthday. Now my only “wish” this year is to see progress toward the fulfillment of the vision God has placed on my heart: for underprivileged, orphan, and abandoned children in Asia to be raised up in God’s love and become the future leaders for His kingdom work. Please help make my “birthday wish” come true by spending a few minutes in prayer for the underprivileged children in Asia today!
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Oct 6, 2011
Words are powerful. We have the power to use our words to be used to speak boldy about the Truth of God. We can yell, sing, whisper, scream and worship the Lord through our voices. For others they have no voice, they cannot speak, or scream but they can communicate just the same as people who can speak. They are Deaf.
I’ve been signing for many years now. It started with my hunger to know different languages in my Sophomore year in high school. I took a class and didn’t learn how to sign but I learned the alphabet and about the deaf culture. What intrigued me about sign was how expressive you could be. At my school there was a deaf girl who was in the marching band and played the cymbals. This girl amazed me how she pushed herself to not let her being deaf stop her. Little did I know that God was going to use her to be a big and important part of my Life in Him. I had a class with her and was eager to learn her language. Often I would pass notes to her and ask her questions. I found out that she was a believer! I then started to hang out with her and through fellowshipping with her I started to learn sign language very quickly and started to hang out with a lot of the deaf community. I then expanded my education of sign language and took ASL classes and kept going on to the next level. I was a little fustrated because I thought that I was waisiting my time taking so many ASL classes and I didn’t know what I really wanted to do in college.
God lead me to join Gospel for Asia- School of Discipleship for this year and He has shown me that everything that we have learned, skills he uses for HIS Glory! When our class goes evangelizing I have had oppurtunities to share with them Jesus and the Gospel in sign language. One of the times are class went out there were two ladies sitting together and the Spirit urged and tugged my heart to go pass out tracts to these two ladies. I walked up to them and started to speak and they signed to me ” We are deaf.” I smiled at signed to them “Good,because I know how to sign.” The ladies were so happy that I could communicate to them. Then, the Spirit started to move through me and I sharing my testimony on how the Lord changed my life and how He has redeemed from darkness. One of the ladies eye lit up and she was saying how weird it was that I was telling her that because she wanted to change her life but didn’tknow how. I told her how only Jesus Christ could only bring true change because of what He did for us on the cross and gave her a tract. After she was telling me that her bus came suddenly and she waved bye and left on her bus. I was awestruck that the Lord used me as a vessel through my hands and ASL to be able to touch her heart with what He wanted me to communicate to her.
And I thought I was never going to use my sign language here at Gospel for Asia. Please pray for those ladies. They are in my heart as I type this. And you may never know when your skills may be used for the Lord. He let us learn it for a reason.
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Jul 25, 2011
“Only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider how great things He hath done for you.”
This has been my favorite Bible verse for several years. It’s found in 1 Samuel 12:24. This verse has always encouraged me to do my best in serving the Lord. How can I serve Him with anything less than all my heart when He has done such great things for me?
Well, about a year and a half ago I found another verse that uses the same wording, Mark 5:19. Jesus has just healed a man who was possessed by a legion of demons. The man, being set free, sat at the feet of Jesus, the Bible says, “clothed and in his right mind”. His neighbors saw this and were afraid – they begged Jesus to leave their coasts.
Well, this man wasn’t about to let Jesus leave without him! He wanted to follow Jesus and be a disciple. He was free and could now go about the Lord’s work. As Jesus was entering into the boat the mat who was set free, followed after Him and begged to be allowed to go with Him.
“However, Jesus suffered him not but said unto him, ‘Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee and hath had compassion on thee.'” – Mark 5:19
And that’s the last word on this man. There’s never another mention of him.
Throughout this year I’ve thought about that verse a lot. Go home and tell your friends how great things the Lord has done for you and hath had compassion on you. I’m excited to say that right now that’s exactly what the Lord is giving me the opportunity to do. I’m finishing up my School of Discipleship year very soon and when I’m done at Gospel For Asia I get to go home and tell all of my family, friends, and supporters what great things the Lord has done for me! I have the opportunity to tell people how great our God is and to encourage them.
So, what ever did happen to the man Jesus sent? The Bible doesn’t tell us – but I’m pretty sure that God did great things through him and that he was unstoppable.
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Jul 12, 2011
It has been too long since I’ve posted a blog but I wanted to share a big thing God is teaching me through His Word in the book of 1 Samuel. I decided I wanted to do a character study on King David. But I don’t like topical studies as much and instead wanted to just read through 1 and 2 Samuel. But along the way, the Lord has changed my plans and instead I found myself looking at all of the other characters, including King Saul.
This book shows us that both King David and Saul started good, humble and young. Its the same when God callers us into the ministry, we started good, young, humble and full of zeal and passion and eager to do whatever God would have us do and to joyfully do what those above us ask of us. At least, this was how it was for me!
You probably know the story…Israel was a theocracy (God was their King and ruler). They rejected God as their king and wanted to be like all of the other nations who had kings. So God gave them what they wanted and gave them King Saul, Israel’s first king. He was not God’s idea for a king…he was what the people wanted so God gave them what they wanted. But it would cause problems and a downfall of the nation Israel into evil, corruption and all kinds of problems.
After Samuel’s anointing of Saul to be king, in 1 Samuel 9:21 it says, “Saul answered, “But am I not a Benjamite, from the smallest tribe of Israel and is not my clan the least of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin? Why do you say such a thing to me?”
As it came time for Saul to be chosen among the tribes as King over Israel, they tried to bring him out to show the people but he was not found. Finally, with the help of the Lord, the Lord showed them that he has been hiding among the baggage (paraphrased from 1 Samuel 10:20-22)
Those two passages show Saul was a humble man. The Lord was also with Saul and Saul had the Lord’s anointing on his life. This to me sounds like an awesome beginning for the leader of Israel and to lead the nation in godliness.
He started out so good! But it didn’t continue like that nor did it finish that way. Saul’s first act of unbelief and disobedience came when he waited for Samuel to come bring a burnt and fellowship offering. But after 7 days (the time set by Samuel) he took the role of priest into his own hands and offered up the burnt and fellowship offerings. Samuel finally came and upon seeing what Saul had done, he rebuked him and called him foolish. Because of this, God rejected Saul as king and Samuel declared his unfitness to being Israel’s King. From here, Saul went down hill.
Later on, Saul was commanded by the Lord to go completely kill the Amalekites because of what they had done to Israel. First of all, something I never thought of before is that the Amalikites is a picture of our flesh. God commanded Saul to completely take them out and leave nothing alive. In the same way, God calls for us to completely kill and crucify our flesh and leave no room for it. Saul disobeyed and spared some of the animals including King Agag, the Amalikite king. In this way, we are not told to change our flesh, reform it or in some ways spare certain parts of our flesh…we’re told to completely kill it! This was just a side thought!
Upon Saul’s disobedience to completely wipe out the Amalikites, Samuel approaches Saul with rebuke and says in 1 Samuel 15:17, “Although you were once small in your eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you as king over Israel.” That verse shows that Saul was once humble and small but is no longer. You see Saul then voicing a confession and repentance but I don’t believe it’s sincere, but rather that he’s trying to defend his position, title and fame as he says in 1 Samuel 15:30, “I have sinned. But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel;come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord your God.” Saul goes down hill and the Lord’s anointing and spirit left him. God had sought after a man after His own heart who would then be king of Israel, this being David a young shepherd boy.
As Saul grew to know David he saw that David was met with more success then Saul and his name became well known (1 Sam 18:30). In 1 Sam 18:20 it says, “Saul was very angry; this refrain galled him. “They have credited David with tens of thousands,” he thought, “but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?” And from that time on, Saul kept a jealous eye on David.”
1 Samuel 18:12- “Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with David but had left Saul.” Saul was afraid of losing his position as king and someone else taking that spot.
As this story of Saul goes on, he gets worse and worse and spends the rest of his life bent on killing and getting David. He became jealous, took his eyes off God, and tried to defend his kingship!
Looking at my life I see that in many ways in ministry I have been a Saul at times. I’ve started out good and humble but I’ve found myself jealous of another brother or sister’s success and I’ve been worried about going to a different department in the ministry and I’ve been worried and jealous about someone else taking my position in my department. I have struggled with this and one day it got the worst of me and found myself falling, emotionless but yet just wanting to cry and I had to step out. Thankfully this hadn’t led to bitterness, anger and revenge like it did to Saul. I’ve been praying every day that I would stay humble and rejoice in others successes. Later on, God showed me that it was He that humbled me because of my pride and desiring position and defending it and being jealous of others’ positions and successes.
Thank the Lord he protected me and my heart as I gave it up to him and now it’s so freeing to be able to work together with my brothers and sisters at GFA with no hard feelings of bitterness and jealousy of their position or success. The Lord is the one who puts people in positions and makes people successful…I’ve been learning to praise and thank God for this! We’re a family and we’re the body of Christ but I find myself being like Saul or being like the 12 disciples and trying to be the greatest, when instead we should rejoice and praise God for each others’ positions and successes in the ministry and work together in love and unity realizing that God has everyone in the place He desires for them at the time. Maybe someday God will raise me but I must be faithful in the ministry to where He has me now! There’s freedom in this! After all, it’s God’s ministry and in the process of reaching the lost in Asia He gets all the glory!
We see that King David sinned badly and made huge mistakes such as murder and committing adultery. But after all this, God still kept him as King and called him a man after his own heart and even made Jesus come through his family line. Why did David still have this? Because even in his faults and failings, he still allowed God to work with him and he sincerely repented and chased God’s will, didn’t defend his kingship, unlike Saul who was the opposite! Ultimately, Saul dies and falls on the sword…such a wasted life to someone who started out good, humble and had so much potential!
So, it’s not about how good we start, it’s about how well we finish! This to me has been a warning to my heart which has helped me to stay in the ministry, following God with all my heart! I’ve been praying and desiring to stay humble and therefore I believe God has given me practical situations to practice it and it’s been a struggle, but He never gives more than we can handle!
I could go on and on about this topic and all the things God is showing me through his word. Praise God!
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