Approved

Recently, my husband and I applied to a mission board as church planters to New York City.  The application process was involved, and the last step was an in-person interview and doctrinal review in Alabama.  The board wanted to be sure they are in agreement with us because many churches will be familiar with what the mission board stands for, though they do not know us personally.  If the mission board has approved us, then the church can know that we are in agreement and will be a good representation of them on the mission field.

As we prepared for our doctrinal review, I found myself very nervous.  My palms were sweaty and I was fidgeting.  Ben kept telling me to relax, so I know my nervousness was evident.  The funny thing is that I didn’t really have anything to be nervous about.  First, the questions were almost exclusively directed at Ben.  Secondly, the questions were about doctrines and passages that both Ben and I know very well.  We had prepared.  We had studied.  And yet I was nervous.  Would the Board of Trustees approve us?  Would this trip turn out to be in vain, and embarrassing if we returned home unapproved?

Gratefully, the Lord saw fit to join us with the mission board.  The Board of Trustees voted unanimously to accept us.  They placed their stamp of approval upon us as church planters.  No longer was I just a “candidate” as my name tag read.  Now I was approved.  Accepted.  Part of the “family.”

When I returned home and unpacked our belongings, I saw my nametag sitting on the dresser.  The word “candidate” caught my attention and I was again so grateful that I was now accepted.  But it made me think about my spiritual acceptance.  When I became a Christian, in that very moment of dependence by faith for salvation, God placed His stamp of approval on my life.  Unlike the mission board application process, I didn’t have to prove myself to God.  There was no waiting period, reference check, or interview with the board.  I didn’t have to go through a man, prove myself “good” enough, or list my character qualities.  Quite the opposite.

There was nothing I could do on my own to please God.  The Bible says that all of the good things I could ever do are just like filthy rags to God (Is. 64:6).  I can never measure up to His standard of absolute holiness and perfection.  I have missed the mark (Rom. 3:23).  But praise the Lord, Jesus Christ came and died in my place.  He exchanged my sins for His robes of righteousness, took my punishment, and gave me the right to be called a son of God.  Accepted.  Part of the family.  When God looks at me, He sees His Son Jesus Christ.  Now that is something to be excited about! 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:  4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:  5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,  6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.  7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace…”

Ephesians 1:3-7

Who is my neighbor?

In Luke 10 we find the story of the Good Samaritan.  Jesus was prompted to teach this lesson by a question from a young lawyer who asked, “Who is my neighbor?”  Jesus illustrated the love and selflessness of a “neighbor” through the story of the Good Samaritan. 

Several times in Scripture we find that the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves.  I am sure that many of us fail to keep this commandment on a regular basis.  We are so often consumed with ourselves, our schedule, our needs, our property, our family, etc. that we don’t even see the people around us.

Romans 13:8  Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.

Recently my daughter asked me, “Who is that, Mommy?” as she pointed to our neighbor on the sidewalk.  I replied, “That’s our neighbor,” and then explained that a neighbor lives next door to us.  Almost immediately I realized that while this definition would do for now, there is much more to a neighbor than just living next door.

Warren Wiersbe said, “My neighbor has less to do with geography and more to do with opportunity.”

You see, it’s not just the people next door, as I told my daughter.  It’s everyone around us – those “Divine appointments” that God allows into our lives each day.  People that we contact in business, play, and all around us.  I wonder how many of these “neighbors” or “opportunities” I have missed because I was so focused on my own agenda?

And yet, while the scope of a neighbor is very broad, I also realized that I must reach the neighbor next door.  God gives us opportunities to reach people all around us, but He plopped an easy, obvious “opportuntiy” right out our front doors.  It’s not just the people next door, but that’s a great place to start. 

Now that the weather is warmer and our kids are meeting play mates in the neighborhood, I am looking forward to building relationships with my neighbors on our new street.

In the Way

In the summer of 2006 I had the great privilege and opportunity of completing my missionary internship in Basque, Spain with Roy & Lou Ann Keiser.  It was a wonderful summer.  I learned so much – about missions, depending on the Lord, the ups & downs of ministry, and being faithful to the place where the Lord has called you.

Mrs. Keiser now has a blog entitled In the Way.  I think you will be blessed by what you read over there!  As an artist, Mrs. Keiser has a unique perspective.  When I lived with her for two months, I realized that she had never yet met an ugly person.  She finds beauty in everything.  As an author, Mrs. Keiser seems to have a gift for looking at an ordinary circumstance and drawing a spiritual truth or application from it.

Her latest post was on the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in Great Britain.  It’s just a news snippet to most of us, but I encourage you to read the lesson that Mrs. Keiser was able to draw out.  Head on over to In the Way and come away encouraged today!

{photo: Me, David, Lou Ann, & Roy Keiser at the Aqueducto in Segovia}

Consume my life…

I found this quote in the flyleaf of my Bible.  I had forgotten that I wrote it there during college.

Hard Lessons to Learn

I wanted to write this post for my Thankful Thursday post last week (on my personal blog), but I didn’t get it done.  I don’t think I was ready to be able to express everything I’ve been thinking about lately.  Now that I’ve had a few more days to think about them, maybe I can adequately share what I’ve been learning.

You probably know that I like cloth diapers.  And…I had a retail store called Doable Diapers.  But it hasn’t been making money, and we came to a point last month where we wondered if we should keep it open.  I had hoped it would grow and be profitable enough so that Ben would not have to work a full time job when we are church planting.  I put out my fleece prayer request, and God chose not to answer it.  I asked my family members and close friends to pray with me about wisdom for the right decision.  Last Tuesday, we decided to close Doable Diapers. 

I feel like things are being stripped away from me one by one.  I know God is working on me and teaching me, and that these are good lessons to learn.  Good to learn now, before we are in full-time ministry.  But they are hard lessons too.  They hurt my pride and self-sufficiency.  They make me weak, and that is when I can fully experience the strength and power of God.

I thought we were doing pretty good on this parenting thing.  Our kids seemed pretty well behaved.  Then Elaine burst into the “terrible twos” stage with a vengeance.  She challenges me on everything, and throws these horrible fits, mostly in public.  Any pride I had in my parenting ability is being stripped away.  Though I know it intellectually, I am learning that I can only raise these children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord if it is the Lord who is giving me wisdom and strength to do so.

I thought I was a pretty good Christian.  Doing the right things, saying the right things, living the right way.  Then I come face to face with reality that my prayer life is struggling, and my relationship with the Lord needs some repair.  It’s humbling to admit you haven’t been completely genuine.  But now I feel like my cup is overflowing every time I open my Bible, and I know this has been a good lesson to learn…again.

I thought I would help supplement the family income and provide a way for my husband to spend more time in ministry and less time at work.  Then my business failed.  And as I look back over the months of sporadic work and unemployment, I realize that it is God who provided our needs and upheld us…not Andrea.  And now with no Doable Diapers, it is God who will continue to be the provider for us now, and in church-planting ministry.

I thought I had a good relationship with everyone.  Then things blew up with my neighbor.  And I had to admit some areas where I had been just as wrong as inconsiderate as perhaps she had.  And that was humbling.  And I didn’t want to do it, but I realized that it is necessary.

One by one God is removing my props.  Everything that was Andrea.  Everything that I thought was good.  But He is replacing them with something so much better.  He is filling me with more of Himself, and that satisfies so much more than anything I could come up with. 

This has been a hard month.  Several really hard days.  Things seemed dark.  But He is giving me the treasures of darkness.

“And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places,
that thou mayest know that I, the LORD,
which call thee by thy name,
am the God of Israel.”
Isaiah 45:3 

We Will Obey God

In Acts 5, we have obedience illustrated in the lives of the apostles.  They were dragged before the High Priest in verses 16 and following.  The charge?  Preaching the Gospel and healing the sick.  When the angel of the Lord came and released them from prison during the night, he instructed them to go back to the temple and preach the “words of this life” (vs.20).  If I had been beaten and thrown into prison, I would have escaped the city at the first chance I had.  But not so with the apostles – they obeyed the instructions from the angel and returned to the temple the next morning to the preach the Gospel.

You can imagine what the response was when the High Priest discovered that they were at it again!  He was not happy.  He was incredulous that they had disobeyed his warning to stop preaching the Gospel (vs.27-28). 

Not afraid, the response was given in verse 29:

“We ought to obey God rather than men.”

So simple.  So profound.  So often not the case.  How many times do we bow to the wishes or demands of society?  We don’t want to stand out, so we choose to blend in.  Preaching the Gospel isn’t popular, so we just hand a tract instead (if we do anything at all).  We don’t want to confront sin, so we find a way to gloss over it or not deal with it.

I like what Gamaliel said in verses 35-39.  Though he was a Pharisee, he was very wise in the counsel which he offered.  He said,

“Refrain from these men, and let them alone:  for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought:  But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”

I know that sometimes I get very worked up when I come across something that I don’t like.  A political view that I think is wrong.  Someone spewing wrong doctrine.  People in powerful positions who water-down or twist the truth.  I don’t need to worry about them.  Yes – stand for what is right.  But really, if it is of God, I cannot destroy it.  And if it is of men, it will come to nothing.  I just need to rest in the Lord (Ps.37:7).

The last thing which I noticed in this story is the final response of the apostles.  They were beaten before the authorities let them go free.  They didn’t upset, or discouraged, or angry.  In verse 41, they were found “rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.”  And in verse 42, they returned right away to preaching the Gospel.  What an example they set for us, not only for response to persecution, but also that in trials we may “count it all joy” (James 1).

They Had Been With Jesus

From Acts 4

Peter and John preaching:

vs. 12  Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. 

The result among the people:

vs. 13-14  Now when they [the people] saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.   And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.

The result among the magistrates [the “enemies”]:

vs.15-16  But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves,  16 Saying, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it.

God can do great things through those who will take time to be with Jesus, and then boldly proclaim His Word and His message to the people.