Wednesday, 30 September 2009
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Currently
Living Water: Powerful Teachings from the International Bestselling Author of The Heavenly Man
By Brother Yun
see relatedBrother Yun's inspiring message is one I recommend to anyone dissatisfied with dry, shallow christian life.
"How is it that terrorists are willing to strap explosives to their chests and die for Satan, while many Christians are as timid as a mouse and afraid to witness to their neighbors?...When the Holy Spirit enters your heart and takes over, you will not be afraid, for a holy fire of God's love will consume you. You will not be the same person as before, and fear will vanish, for 'There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us.' (1 John 4:18-19)
... "Are you afraid to tell others about Jesus Christ and the transformation He can bring to their lives? Or are you worried those people might embarress and ridicule you for your faith?
You see, true boldness can never come to those who have not yet died to self. People who have already died don't care what others think or say about them. Dead people don't worry about their reputation or whether people will look down on them.
If you want to make a difference in God's kingdom, you must first learn to die to yourself."
"The Holy Spirit should continually fill and overflow you. When this happens you will start to see miracles and many people coming to salvation, just as in the Bible.
" I want to share with you the key secret for how Christians can experience a continual flow of living water in their lives. In my opinion, this key is the one thing missing in the Western church and among sections of the body of Christ in other parts of the world.
"The answer to experiencing God's living water is not to seek more and more Bible teaching.
"The answer is not to attend more Christian conferences or seek new ministers with new messages.
"Please listen carefully. The key for experiencing the flow of God's living water in your life is...
"Obedience."
No wonder we are losing our society to secularism. Christianity has been in North America for centuries, and we are still baby christians in the terrible two's.
"...I am not talking about obeying the Great Commission by paying more attention to your missionaries newsletters pinned to the notice board of your church. Nor do I mean that you should sign up to be involved in a local initiative. These may be starting points, but when you seriously dedicate your life to doing whatever God wants to make the name of Jesus known throughout the earth, and you begin to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, then you will begin to find your life overflowing with living water. It will then flow to your family, your church, and the community God has called you to reach. ...Whole nations can be flooded by the presence of Jesus."
Only the Holy Spirit can reach hardened sinners. Unless we are filled with Him we are as impotent as petroleum jelly in a gas tank.
The past weeks have been a challenge. Trying to analyze the situation accurately and determine if God wanted the children to not be adopted...Or if he just allowed it... Or if he was going to do something beyond what we had decided He should do. He doesn't generally take my advice, I've noticed. It's a good thing too! I suppose all of us wish for things when we're young which later we were glad didn't happen. The circumstances troubled me very much until God sort of gave me a light bulb moment to realize that my real problem laid not in the circumstance. My problem was wanting my family to stay the same, instead of wanting to be filled with God.
The end of this foundational chapter in Lexi and Jose's story is still unresolved. Mom considered adoption, and couldn't find the necessary peace about it to go ahead. So she talked with the ministers, and they're counsel was to not adopt.
...you know...I'm sad of course to let the children go, but there's such relief in reaching a final decision we can have peace about.
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
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... How do you blog about a most unexpected turn of events? Two weeks ago, we thought the children would be adopted and i would head to Belize, and maybe even china or afganistan in a few years... God had a better plan evidently. The would be adoptive father lost his job, and after it was clear they could not get the funds they had hoped for, they backed out completely. I can't put into words how hard it is to explain to a child that their forever family will never be theirs after all... We just said someone had to sign a paper and they didn't want to, which is basically what it was, i suppose.
So after the children's intense month-long conditioning to trust this couple, being let down is fairly confusing to them. And how will they trust a stranger again if an adoptive family would apply for them?
Pray for us if you think about it in the days ahead. Pray God would make His will plain to us. We are strongly considering adopting lexi and jose. Thank ya much!
Monday, 24 August 2009
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Whoa. Xanga has been on the backest burner of my priorities, but thankfully life goes on. Xanga was made for man, not vice versa.
So, I guess a lot has changed since the last post on this site.
The kids will be transferred to their adoptive home, Mike and Vonita Wagner very soon-
Sept. 1.
They're so excited to have a daddy, and they love Vonita too. The Wagners live near Charlottesville. Mike is a pastor at their conservative brethren church, (which is the same as our mennonite church, basically, except they believe in immersion.) ...All in all, the social workers are floored that it's going so well. They said it's a very unusually happy transfer.
School starts next week...And, as a side note, I'm feeling a bit StRaNge thinking of being the oldest student in school. I'll be taking a little math, a little home ec., a little Spanish, some Government, and... *gasp*...Greek! Can't wait.
Then, after the year is said and done...(and hopefully I will have graduated),... I'll kiss the states goodbye and fly off to a land somewhat more difficult to live in and much more interesting. (Belize is a central american country, for all you people like myself who stared blankly at maps in school, and almost failed your geography tests with flying colors.) :)
To the right of Mexico, it is tucked in above Guatamala, bordering the Caribbean Sea.
The motive for going to this remotish part of the world would be to help my cousin Gabriel's wife with her 2 little girls, as she runs the boarding house for teachers at the mission school. If possible, I would be delighted to get to know the children in the community and maybe teach a sunday school or something like that.
That's pretty much my life I guess. Except, one more thing which would be another star to pin my little ship to. Today I'm at the college library while Mom is in her classes. A few hours ago, an asian looking man came up to me and asked me if I am a mennonite. He asked if I recognized him, and I did of course. He's been to our church three times over the past few years, and he's a good friend of uncle David. He's devoted a lot of his life to teaching school in China, and ministering to the underground church there. He talked a bit about that, and when I mentioned my love for missions, and especially among the persecuted church he started smiling broadly and encouraging me to go to China. He said after I am done in Belize, to contact him and his wife, and they would be happy to help.
I know my heart says yes, but this definately requires a lot of prayer first.
God is so good. He's provided such an awesome family for the kids...He's given us a wonderful church body...He's given us His protection and calling. It makes my heart wanna sing!
signing off~ charlotte
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
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"ssshhhh! It's sleeping."
This evening Lexi was sitting with Mom and Jose', looking longingly at a cookbook. Informatively, she said ,
"Mommy, my tummy snored."
Friday, 20 March 2009
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It's not true because we believe it. There is no ultimate reason why it's true, as that would imply there is a higher standard of truth to judge God by. It's not true because...fill in the blank. It's just true.
It seems there comes a time in most of our lives, when we will stop being able to believe God because of our logical understanding of Him, and we must turn to Him because of our experiential knowledge of Him. This is why changing people's hearts cannot be done solely through logic, but it must be by the work of the Holy Spirit. Our job is to be veins for His blood.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
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Currently
Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up: A New Look at Today's Evangelical Church in the Light of Early Christianity
By David W. Bercot
see relatedToday it rained. Mom says the chickens got wet. "Have you ever smelt a wet chicken?" she intoned,"They stink."
Cold rain. Pillows. Book. Friend on the phone.
Tomorrow comes a myriad of x's, y's and z's filled with innumerable possibilities as to the courses of their relationships. They have been loyal friends since the time of their childhood, when z was a somniac, y was always asking why he was held responsible for the death of the cat, and x was trying out the newest fad diet. ...Now, as they progress into middle age, Z has become louder. Y still wonders... and X is a bit plumper, (she's beginning to resemble her distant cousin O).
Still, they patiently make their way across ='s, and the many division lines that seem to obstruct all relationships. I suggest that we have a moment of silence for their amazing example of fortitude and flexibility.
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
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http://icanhascheezburger.com/ -A site with amusing pictures.
This little guy needs some antidepressants and grammar classes.
my favorite...can you relate to this?
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
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"God will use whatever He wants to get our attention. To show us He's enough."
He's been calling for a while. Time to let go.
...by the way please remember Becky Sauder and especially her family right now in prayer as they face cancer.
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
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"It's Greek to me"
Thanks for your input and prayers. Continuing on the same train of thought as the last post, here are some notes from Ken Ham's talk in Lynchburg last night.
"Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Romans 10:17
Faith does not come by evidence, but by the word of God.
...So... No human was there in the beginning to see why the universe is here. We all share the same evidence. The same grand canyon, the same fossils, the same geologic strata. The fight is not over the evidence. The fight is over interpretation of the evidence based on our "starting points". We all at some point develop a starting point which determines our world view. This is why it doesn't work to stand up on a platform and haggle with an evolutionist over the evidence. We must understand their starting point if we hope to reach them where their at.
So how can we change the hearts of people around us if we can't prove Christianity with evidence? What if someone comes up and says, "I 'd like to talk with you about evolution vs. creationism, but I don't want you to use the Bible. I don't believe the Bible. I 'd like just the facts."
According to Ken Ham, this is like preparing for a dual, when the other guy says, "Before we get into this, I'd like you to lay down your sword." So of course, like any unbiased and tolerant Christian we hoe in with just the facts trying to use our reason to prove the existence of a Creator. The problem is, now we have joined them in their starting point, -human reasoning.
When Paul preached the gospel in Jerusalem after Pentecost, he was preaching to a people who had been raised with the starting point of God's word. They knew about Creation, they believed in the Divinity of God, they knew about the fall of man. They knew that sin's punishment was death. Paul preached salvation, and it clicked. They got the message.
They already had their foundation right, and all they needed to complete their faith was Jesus.
?
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Sin and death
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God created the universe
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"Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?" -Acts 2:37
Sorry guys. Western culture is not like this. It used to be, from what I've heard, but now the majority of even church-raised children go to public school and are fed evolutionary geologic time-tables and Big Bangs. There are a few with the right starting points, but by far America is not an "Acts 2" culture. The foundation for the American worldview looks more like this:
Ultimate purposelessness/
hopelessness outside of pleasure
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No absolutes/complete tolerance
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Human Reasoning
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Our culture is more like the Greeks. The Greeks followed Plato and Aristotle, who said that all the gods and everything evolved over time out of nothing. They were the evolutionists of the era. Complete tolerance, and lots of philosophy. When Paul went to Athens in Acts 17,
"he saw the city wholly given to idolatry." ..."And certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this Babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection."
"...Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars hill, and said,' ...I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him I declare unto you. God made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of Heaven and earth." So Paul defined God then preached the gospel. "And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear you again on this matter."
In our culture today, we cannot preach the gospel without defining God. If you go to the local college and say "God", they say "which one. We study many gods and hold them on an equal basis". If you say "sin", they say, "There are no sins, only unhelpful behaviors."
So, we must understand these people's starting point. Then we must answer their questions with the God beyond their wildest dreams.
I need to repent of the fear of man. It's time for the salt to stop being ashamed of it's saltiness.
Monday, 16 February 2009
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Knowing?
uh-oh. here comes a long one.
Recently it seems Satan's been delightedly trying to rupture my faith. It's like I know so much; have been taught so much, and yet...when there's pain and God doesn't seem to be coming through...
So today I wrote out some reasons why I believe in a divine Creator.
For one, the universe had to come from somewhere, so there must be some higher power. The God who created the universe had to have a lot of wisdom judging from His creation. What kind of God would make people, then sit back and watch them running around committing adultery and human trafficking and the holocaust? Is it God's lack of justice and compassion or man's incredibly perverse nature?
According to Islam, the fall of man did not make man inherently sinful. This would seem to make the sin in the world completely what Allah allowed Satan to do, for what purpose, I do not know.
Also, "Buddhists do not believe that we are inherently sinful and in need of redemption and forgiveness. On the contrary Buddhists believe that underneath the layers we wrap around us to insulate us from the sufferings of this world we all have a Buddha Nature which is good, pure and true. The task is the peeling away of these layers and revealing this shining goodness." - www.orkneybuddhists.org.uk/introduction-to-buddhism.php
And then their are those who say all roads lead to God and it's not the destination that matters but the journey, and we can all just relax and stop being so intolerant and judgmental of others who don't share our convictions because there are many truths and our truth is only one of them. In fact, we might as well not try to pursue much truth anyway, because the only reality we can ever be completely sure of is that we exist. All other seeming reality is merely our perception. I have a slight problem with that though. To me it sounds like, "We know we can't know anything." ...
huh...?
And then there is the old wise logic that says if you believe in evil then there must be a good. Like cold can't exist without hot, evil can't exist without good. And this good must not be in man, from whom such evil comes. It must be of a higher Source. No other religion has ever claimed to have a God like mine. No other religion has ever had such a loving, moral, and completely scientifically sound book like the Bible.
All of this may seem elementary to some of you. Perhaps it is elementary, but it is rarely taught or believed in most of the world and in our nation. Most of my generation has been searching for answers and coming up empty-handed. Sometimes those empty hands find their way to a knife and a way to end all the uncertainty and pain.
Last night I heard an African American preacher saying, "God has no fans. We are all players. Get in the game!"
Ignoring the inconvenient questions and pained expressions will not make them go away. The body of Christ, (not just the conservative body of Christ), is hurt when we don't function like a body.
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About Me
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Musings of an intermittantly blonde fifteen year old. No, that doesn't mean I'm piebald.
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"The key to change...is to let go of fear." -Roxanne Cash
