Recent Thoughts

These last three posts have been some of my notes on Facebook. I will probably be posting stuff there first, since that is where more people will actually read it. However I really like the blog idea and so every once in awhile I still want to just write random things here that might not be on Facebook. Right now I want to write two different things called “Does God really Satisfy?” and “A look at the matchless glory of our Creator, what is true worship?”.

My thoughts are a blur as I try to pen the the feelings and ideas swirling through my spirit. These are some of my recent thoughts and some of things that God has been teaching me.

One thing I learned at Street Invaders that God has used to give me more freedom and teach me to live life a lot more naturally is that mistakes are ok. I gave myself permission to make mistakes. For so long I held too high of a standard so that I couldn’t really take risks and grow because I wasn’t willing to be able to make mistakes. And I’m not talking about moral failure but just not being worried about making a fool of myself or falling flat on my face. So I share what I’m feeling more often give advice that I know could easily be flawed but is what I’m feeling right now. And I say things more often that I think could be really funny but have no idea how they will be taken. But the most significant difference is in the way I approach God. I still come with reverence and a heart of worship but I don’t feel the need to always come the same way or do the thing that worked before. I can be more real and not worry as much about offending him. I can step out and pray radical things, can step out in faith and not worry so much if I’m sure he will catch me. Because even if he doesn’t come through in the way that I expect or hope I know that he is still good and that he will work it all out in the end.

Love Freely
The thing about love is that everyone who is human deserves to be loved because they were created in God’s image. I was talking with Victor Thomas a couple of weeks ago and he probably knows about half of the people at the U of R (a school of about 7,000 students) and he remembers their names. I asked him how he could do it and that is what he said. “You know God created each one of them in his image and so they are intricately important and valuable to him and thus to me as well. I just connect something interesting about them with their name.” When I heard that it totally just blew me away with the heart of God. If he took the time to number and remember every hair on our heads can we not at least make a committed effort to really care about people and learn their names and what they tell us about them? I want to live and love freely, even to those who will never love back.

“Trust God, he called me and I didn’t follow. Trust God.” That’s what a man said to me after I preached in Kindersley. He wouldn’t let go of my hand as we were shaking hands he really wanted to emphasize this above anything he could say. He chose the way of comfortability and he wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I was shook by the importance of his request, and the urgency with which he spoke to me. No matter how big my dreams for my future are, if they are from God I need to just trust him and step out to fulfill those dreams.

Never Compare, Comparison is the heartmother of envy, discontentment and distrust. It’s a weird way of saying it, but I am so inclined to look at my life and progress and compare with others around Paul says in 2 Cor 10:12 Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves… when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.”
When I look at others my focus leaves Jesus and I feel inadequate I see the strengths of others and feel lesser or I see the weaknesses and become proudful.

When I look to Jesus, I see all that I need.

Be natural, be yourself.
God created me exactly as he wanted me to be and in so many ways these last few years I feel like I have been trying to be a different person. Specifically, I feel that God created me to be one who just loves and enjoys life. I’m not someone that dominates situations or the man of God who just comes in knowing what to say and how to lead each situation. Sometimes I’ve felt a pressure to become that, but I just need to live as I really am. That way more and more people will naturally be freed from the weight of perceptions and allow themselves to live who they really are as well.

But in the end the biggest thing that he has been teaching me is just how ridiculously good he is. Even in situations where it doesn’t look like God is good, it seems more like he’s being a jerk. When I still trust him and love him he shows his true character in beautiful ways that I wouldn’t have expected. I can’t let my theology be determined by the experiences in my life but only by his word.

Break Free

Here is a song I once wrote for Foundations for Intimacy with God class

Break Free
Your eyes burn with brighter passion than any I have seen
help me as I hold to, cling to this hope unseen
strangely quiescent, my heart beats softly this somber night
pain now gone, and with muscles strong I stand up to the light
How could I resist you, my faithful fearless king?
Desperately I sing…

break free! break free, from this worn and tired mold
my heart stand strong, stand tall, Don’t fall for these lies yet untold
wash free, wash me in your fresh undying love
Holy Spirit peace and freedom light on me as a dove

Your blood holds my memories, now fading away
your blood bought my freedom Lord, what can I say?

I know your name, I know you’ll never leave! x2

Listen now, the angels weep
for God is moved to tears for his sheep
hear now as the angels weep
the Father’s crying over his keep

Summer Testimonies

Well, the summer has gone swiftly by and I sit typing this in amazement at the greatness of God and that he would choose to use me. In Psalm 105:1 the Psalmist commands us to:

Give thanks to the LORD! call upon his name! make known his deeds among the peoples!

So I just want to share some of the cool things that God has done this summer in my life. I go to FIRE school of ministry in North Carolina and it doesn’t finish until like July 24th or so. So I only had 5 weeks of summer holidays. For the first three weeks I went to a program in Saskatchewan called Street Invaders. This is it’s 20th year running. I formerly went there the summer before grade 12 and God just radically opened up my eyes to how much bigger he is than I ever could have imagined. One of my friends Aidan went with me to Street Invaders and he had injured his ankle about 8 months before in football I think. I had seen the brace on many times. But at Street Invaders God totally healed his ankle. Also I felt the presence of God in a more powerful way than I could ever remember in my life before then. He is so good and I realized that there is far more to christianity than I had even thought possible.

So this summer when I came to Street Invaders my expectations were pretty high. I got to be a assistant leader for a team of 12 of us young people from England Alberta and Saskatchewan. We spent one week at Eston College in Eston doing a boot camp. It was a time of pretty intense spiritual renewal and meeting with God each night. The nighttime services would start at 7:00 and go on sometimes until like 1 or 2 in the morning. They were very freeflowing and Spirit-led. I still remember the night at Street Invaders four years earlier when in worship I knelt down and closed my eyes and looked up to heaven and I felt that I saw Jesus with his arms wide open saying “I love you David”. I would never be the same.

Then my team got together and went to Kindersley Saskatchewan for two weeks. We were heavily involved with Kindersley Christian Fellowship church while we were there and they were some of the most hospitable and welcoming people I have ever met. The first week we started doing a VBS at the local park and usually between 6-8 kids would show up. Some of these kids came from really hurting homes and it was really cool just to be like fathers and mothers to them and show them the love of our heavenly father. Honestly even though nothing really extraordinary happened that alone made it one of my favourite parts of the trip.

That Sunday the church let our team almost take over the whole service and get to step out in ways that we never had before in leading worship and doing drama’s and dances and I was even invited to preach. It was pretty much my first time preaching in my life to a whole church. So needless to say I was a bit nervous but I really felt that I should share what God had been teaching me these last nine months about hunger for him. So that’s what I did. Although during worship before the message I felt like God wanted to heal some people, he said “there are people here with pain in their ears, eye infections and an infringement on their bones”. I thought it was also very likely that this wasn’t God’s voice at all and I just wanted to make something happen. But as I got up to preach after praying I just spoke those things out in faith, it was either God or it wasn’t and after all the pastor of the church had said to me “Don’t hold anything back today”. It turns out each one of those was right on and so the whole church prayed for those people. I haven’t heard any testimonies from those but one lady in the church did get healed that day. She couldn’t lift anything very heavy for two years and that day she was showing me how she was lifting this big pitchers of iced tea. Praise God!!!

The next week in the afternoons we went out and did street ministry. We actually got to do treasure hunts two or three times. One team went out and they had the clues “Tim, frozen food aisle, cancer” and at the frozen food aisle they met a guy named Tim who had cancer and they got to pray for him. So God was definitely sending us to be there for him. My friend Stephen had 7-eleven black hair, piercings and mohawk. And sure enough in the seven eleven we saw a guy with black hair mohawk and piercings. We introduced ourselves and I showed him the clues and that he was God’s treasure and I asked him if there was anything that we could pray for him for? He asked me if we would pray for him right there in the store or by ourselves outside and I said “Whatever you are most comfortable with” and he opened up right away the burden of his heart and he said “My son is in the intensive care unit of the Saskatoon Hospital right now, and it’s because of that I feel like I can’t really trust God right now. So I would appreciate all the prayer I can get but I just don’t want to be there.” With that we left and prayed for his son Dexter.

Another funny one I got while we were praying for clues was “Applebees”. That’s a restaurant where I live in states but as far as I know they don’t have any in Canada. So I felt like “Well, this definitely can’t be from God then” but I wrote it down anyways. As we are going out we are in the parking lot of A&W and somebody on my team says “Hey look at that license plate it says ‘APPLE B’”. I whip out my paper and look at the license plate and sure enough that’s what it says. So we whip out of the parking lot and start chasing down this car and following them. They park and then we do and some of the girls start talking to them and it turns out that their last name is applebee. They were just on their way to church and I get to pray for them. The wife is sick and they were visibly touched by our prayer and talking with them.

We also did the treasure hunt with houses and got to pray for a whole lot of people and talk with them about God. One lady we actually got to mow her whole lawn and pray for her, just sharing the love of God with no strings attached. One thing about Kindersley is that there is very little for the kids to do and so many of them have gotten into drugs. So we helped out with this brand new program called ikids. A really good way for kids to have fun and play games on these big tvs and also play games in the gym. By the last night we were there 47 kids showed up to it.

Just getting to know the team and caring about each other and having fun together changed a lot of the way that I see ministry. It’s such a healing thing just to have fun together and make crazy inside jokes and really make a safe place of belonging. I learned that it is ok to make mistakes, I realized that I had stopped giving myself permission to make mistakes. I wanted to do everything right and if I wasn’t confident I could do something well I often wouldn’t step out and try something crazy. But in an environment like Street Invaders where it’s such a place of love and acceptance I learned I could step out in totally new areas in safety. That was really powerful. Everybody on our team was so amazingly unique and beautiful in the way that they lived their life. I really miss them already.

After that I worked for a week at Dallas Valley ranch camp. I had been going to this camp ever since I was 9 years old and so this was like my 12th summer there or something. It was one of the best weeks of camp that I have had. I got a cabin that really just loved to have fun together, it was kind of tough to get them quiet to go to bed. But I loved the way they included everybody and just made jokes all the time. I really wanted to show them the reality of God and how near he is so I let them hear a 10 minute clip of a teaching from a pastor who had to leave the pastorate because he lost his voice. It became really strained and raspy but as he is talking about the greatness and soveriegnty of God who heals all our deseases (Psalm 103) you can actually listen as God totally heals his voice. It is so beautiful. Also I told them some testimonies and prayed for healing as often as I could. One of them had pain in his thighs that totally went away and another had pain in his feet that went away by morning.

The most powerful time of camp was the campfire on Saturday night. This is a time when campers share what they liked about the week, any decisions they made for Christ, and what they are going to do when they go home. One camper shared really powerfully and personally what had been going on in her life. And it just freed everyone else to release the pain in their hearts. People were crying all over and testifying how partying and drugs never satisfy compared to Jesus. It was unlike any other campfire I had ever been at. When I got back to the cabin one of my campers pulled me aside and said “David I need to recommit my life to Jesus tonight”. God is so good.

Days Drifting by…

So four posts in one day seems pretty good compared to my average. I guess today is a day where I have been thinking a lot. In four days I am flying back to Canada and then going and doing this thing called Street Invaders

www.streetinvaders.ca/

after that I will be working at this camp for a week

www.dallasvalley.com/

then going to the wedding of this cool guy

www.stevenhepting.com/

So it will be a busy summer, many memories and much joy. Summer has probably become my favourite time of year. Even though I’m a true Canadian and love all the snow and ridiculously cold weather (-50 Celsius and -70 Fahrenheit is the record for my area in how cold it gets). I just love all the different cool things that happen in summer time.

Just a few weeks ago Todd Bentley came to Concord which was really cool and fresh fire did a conference weekend that was really amazing. We met with one of Craig Kingsley’s interns at Concord Mills mall and Mike noticed a guy with a cast on his leg at the mall so we went over and talked to the guys and prayed for him. The first time the pain went down a little and the second time he put full pressure on it and walked on it and said “What did you guys do?!?!” All the pain was gone. It was really cool. He had had surgery five weeks earlier and hadn’t been able to put any pressure on it before that. Mike ended up leading both the guys to the Lord and is still keeping in touch with them. Praise God!!!!

God has proved himself faithful again and again in finances in my own life. Sometimes it’s hard to trust him when all the bank statements and every other voice is saying “there’s not enough”. The still quiet voice of God speaks faith and trust. I am still in control, no circumstance has yet kicked me off the throne. God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supplies as Hudson Taylor would say.

Also in the area of Joy God has taught me a lot. In 1 Thess. 5:17 I think we are commanded to “be joyful always”. And James says that his commandments are not burdensome so that must mean that he always has a provision of joy in every situation that we need it. We just need to ask him for it. Sometimes I lay hands on my chest and just ask God to fill me up with his joy and keep asking for a minutes. Then I just can’t stop smiling and laughing at the incredible goodness of God. when
When God fills my heart with joy and gladness and full contentment in his goodness then life is just so easy. Ministry is so easy, witnessing is fun. The trials and tribulations of life are barely noticeable in stark contrast with the overwhelming goodness of God. O praise him you his people, O taste and see that the Lord is good!! Psalm 34:8

YOU ARE GOOD AND DO GOOD!!!!!! Psalm 119:68

Quotes

I really like quotes. A lot. They are short and really cause you to think. They are short enough to meditate on and change your life. Kind of like bible verses Here are some of my favourite.

“All my friends are but one, but He is all sufficient.”
The life of William Carey

“And people who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives… and when the bubble has burst they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted.”
- Nate Saint

take the limits off God, when he’s big you don’t have to be. -Christy Scott

Satan can do absolutely nothing to me that you don’t permit God. -Jennifer Toledo

When you trust yourself you are only at peace when you are in control, when you trust God you are at peace all the time. -John Paul Jackson

The Bible is the only book whose Author is always present when one reads it.
—Unknown

What is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without restraint.
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as they are disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good in preference to the flattery of knaves.
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters. -Edmund burke

Faith is like a Dandelion planted at the foot of the cross which matured and the winds of time swept the seed through history and planted it in your heart.

I see full-blown transformation of every human paradigm of reality itself. A generation completely raptured in the overwhelming love of God. I don’t care about pioneering new theology, cultural movements or witty new ways of delivering the gospel. I want to love and to experience the love of God more. I think this is the corporate goal of the Holy Spirit. This is true mysticism. -John Crowder

fasting is really feasting on God

“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten. either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.” Benjamin Franklin

Repent that times of refreshing may come from the Lord. God longs for us to repent so that he can refresh us.

Seriously have the highest view of God possible. NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE. Take the biggest struggle the biggest problem in your face. The demons laughing at your destiny and God is more powerful. Take the biggest obstacle on the path of your destiny and God is far bigger. Please never forget that God is the single most powerful being in the entire universe.

We misunderstand faith, divorce it from action, and confuse it with talk.

Prayer is finding out what God wants to do, and then asking him to do it. But it has to be with faith and with passion. – Graham Cooke

”I would permit no man, no matter what his color might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.” –– Booker T washington

“If Shakespeare were in you, what poetry you could write! If Mozart were in you, what music you could make! That cannot be: but here is something that can: If Christ were in you, what a life you could live! This is faith’s logic. God wants you to know that you can rise above the level of your limitations. ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’” Dr. James Stewart

Resolved, to examine carefully, and constantly, what that one thing in me is, which causes me in the least to doubt of the love of God; and to direct all my forces against it.
Jonathan Edwards
Resolution Number 25.

We are more aware of what we’re going through rather than what God is going after. -Josh Lamekeh

“I want to live up to my eulogy” Jeremiah Roberts

What level of compromise are you willing to accept?

Is it a small thing in your eyes to be loved by God – to be the son, the spouse, the love, the delight of the King of glory? Christian, believe this, and think about it: you will be eternally embraced in the arms of the love which was from everlasting, and will extend to everlasting – of the love which brought the Son of God’s love from heaven to earth, from earth to the cross, from the cross to the grave, from the grave to glory – that love which was weary, hungry, tempted, scorned, scourged, buffeted, spat upon, crucified, pierced – which fasted, prayed, taught, healed, wept, sweated, bled, died. That love will eternally embrace you.
Richard Baxter

The great God not only loves His saints, but He loves to love them.

D.A. Carson
Nothing binds me to my Lord like a strong belief in His changeless love.

C.H. Spurgeon
Measure not God’s love and favour by your own feeling. The sun shines as clearly in the darkest day as it does in the brightest. The difference is not in the sun, but in some clouds which hinder the manifestation of the light thereof.

John Bunyan
Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be not miracle, but you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the riches of life which has come to you by the grace of God.

Phillips Brooks
Learn that urgency in prayer does not so much consist in vehement pleading, as in vehement believing. He that believes most the love and power of Jesus will obtain the most in prayer.

The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to top him, nor out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be loved by him.
Matthew Henry

Must you go to China? How much nicer it would be to stay here and serve the Lord at home!” She made it plain at last that she would not go to China.”
- J. Hudson Taylor’s new ex-girlfriend

“You can do something other than working with God in His purpose, but it will always be something lesser, and you couldn’t come up with something better.”
- Steve Hawthorne

“I have seen, at different times, the smoke of a thousand villages – villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in the world.”
- Robert Moffat

“The command has been to “go,” but we have stayed – in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth… but 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland.”
- Robert Savage

“While vast continents are shrouded in darkness… the burden of proof lies upon you to show that the circumstances in which God has placed you were meant by God to keep you out of the foreign mission field.”
- Ion Keith-Falconer

“I wasn’t God’s first choice for what I’ve done for China… I don’t know who it was… It must have been a man… a well-educated man. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn’t willing… and God looked down… and saw Gladys Aylward… And God said – “Well, she’s willing.”
- Gladys Aylward

“Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees.”
- J. Hudson Taylor

“The man… looking at him with a smile that only half concealed his contempt, inquired, “Now Mr. Morrison do you really expect that you will make an impression on the idolatry of the Chinese Empire?” “No sir,” said Morrison, “but I expect that God will.”
- Robert Morrison

“Here am I. Send me.”
- Isaiah

“Jehovah Witnesses don’t believe in hell and neither do most Christians”
- Leonard Ravenhill

“Had I cared for the comments of people, I should never have been a missionary.”
- C.T. Studd

“Young man, sit down: when God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine.”
- said to a young William Carey

“Oh, that I had a thousand lives, and a thousand bodies! All of them should be devoted to no other employment but to preach Christ to these degraded, despised, yet beloved mortals.”
- Robert Moffat

“We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.”
- John Stott

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
- Jim Elliot

“A tiny group of believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story.”
- K.P. Yohannan

“I have but one passion – it is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.”
- Count Zinzindorf

“God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supplies.”
- J. Hudson Taylor

“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
- John the Baptist

“If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.”
- C.T. Studd

“The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner.”
- William Cameron Townsend

“If you are sick, fast and pray; if the language is hard to learn, fast and pray; if the people will not hear you, fast and pray, if you have nothing to eat, fast and pray.”
- Frederick Franson

“What are we here for, to have a good time with Christians or to save sinners?”
- Malla Moe

“I tell you, brethren, if mercies and if judgments do not convert you, God has no other arrows in His quiver.”
- Robert Murray Mc’Cheyne

“It’s amazing what can be accomplished if you don’t worry about who gets the credit.”
- Clarence W. Jones

“Two distinguishing marks of the early church were: 1) Poverty 2) Power.”
- T.J. Bach

“Do not think me mad. It is not to make money that I believe a Christian should live. The noblest thing a man can do is, just humbly to receive, and then go amongst others and give.”
- David Livingstone

“From my many years’ experience I can unhesitatingly say that the cross bears those who bear the cross.”
- Sadhu Sundar Singh

“I pray that no missionary will ever be as lonely as I have been.”
- Lottie Moon

“All my friends are but one, but He is all sufficient.”
- William Carey

“How little chance the Holy Ghost has nowadays. The churches and missionary societies have so bound him in red tape that they practically ask Him to sit in a corner while they do the work themselves.”
- C.T. Studd

“I have always believed that the Good Samaritan went across the road to the wounded man just because he wanted to.”
- Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

“The more obstacles you have, the more opportunities there are for God to do something.”
- Clarence W. Jones

“Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”
- William Carey

“God’s part is to put forth power; our part is to put forth faith.”
- Andrew A. Bonar

“All the resources of the Godhead are at our disposal!”
- Jonathan Goforth

“I feel now, that Arabia could easily be evangelized within the next thirty years if it were not for the wicked selfishness of Christians.”
-Samuel Zwemer

“The Indian is making an amazing discovery, namely that Christianity and Jesus are not the same – that they may have Jesus without the system that has been built up around Him in the West.”
- E. Stanley Jones

“This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
- Jesus

“All roads lead to the judgment seat of Christ.”
- Keith Green

“Obedience to the call of Christ nearly always costs everything to two people- the one who is called, and the one who loves that one.”
- Oswald Chambers

“Christians don’t tell lies they just go to church and sing them”
- A.W. Tozer

“I have said that there is nothing in the world or the Church, except it’s disobedience, to render the evangelization of the world in this generation an impossibility.”
- Robert Speer

“I will lay my bones by the Ganges that India might know there is one who cares.”
- Alexander Duff

Rowland Hill once commenced a sermon by shouting, “Matches! matches! matches! You wonder,” he continued in his usual tone, “at my text. But this morning, while I was engaged in my study, the devil whispered to me, “Ah! Rowland, your zeal is indeed noble, and how indefatigably you labour for the salvation of souls!”
“At that very moment a poor man passed under my window, crying, “Matches!” very lustily. And conscience said to me, “Rowland, you never laboured to save souls with half the zeal that this man does to sell matches.””

“Today Christians spend more money on dog food then missions”
- Leonard Ravenhill

“It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home.”
- J. Hudson Taylor

“We talk of the second coming, half the world has never heard of the first.”
- Oswald J. Smith

“God cannot lead you on the basis of facts that you do not know.”
- David Bryant

“And thus I aspire to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named so that I would not build on another man’s foundation.”
- Paul

“Why do we insist on building the largest and most impressive structures in our city when people on the other side of town are hungry, jobless and worshipping in storefronts?”
- K.P. Yohannan

“If every Christian is already considered a missionary, then all can stay put where they are, and nobody needs to get up and go anywhere to preach the gospel. But if our only concern is to witness where we are, how will people in unevangelized areas ever hear the gospel? The present uneven distribution of Christians and opportunities to hear the gospel of Christ will continue on unchanged.”
- C. Gordon Olson

“I spent twenty years of my life trying to recruit people out of local churches and into missions structures so that they could be involved in fulfilling God’s global mission. Now I have another idea. Let’s take God’s global mission and put it right in the middle of the local church!”
- George Miley

“God provides the men and women needed for each generation.”
-Mildred Cable

“Oh dear, I couldn’t say that my church is alive and I wouldn’t want to call it dead. I guess it’s just walking in its sleep!”
- Church member

“When he landed in 1848 there were no Christians here; when he left in 1872 there were no heathen.”
- said of John Geddie

“I am ready to burn out for God. I am ready to endure any hardship, if by any means I might save some. The longing of my heart is to make known my glorious Redeemer to those who have never heard.”
-William Burns

“At the moment I put the bread and wine into those dark hands, once stained with the blood of cannibalism, now stretched out to receive and partake the emblems and seals of the Redeemer’s love, I had a foretaste of the joy of glory that well nigh broke my heart to pieces. I shall never taste a deeper bliss, till I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus himself.”
- John G. Paton

“Save others, snatching them out of the fire.”
- Jude

“The evangelization of the world in this generation.”
- Student Volunteer Movement Motto

“Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring.”
- Jesus

“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”
- John Piper

“His authority on earth allows us to dare to go to all the nations. His authority in heaven gives us our only hope of success. And His presence with us leaves us no other choice.”
- John Stott

“Today five out of six non-Christians in our world have no hope unless missionaries come to them and plant the church among them.”
- David Bryant

“Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ.”
- Francis Xavier

“Christ for the students of the world, and the students of the world for Christ.”
- Luther Wishard

“We who have Christ’s eternal life need to throw away our own lives.”
- George Verwer

“Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of Hell.”
- C.T. Studd

“When I get to China, I will have no claim on any one for anything. My claim will be alone in God and I must learn before I leave England to move men through God by prayer alone.”
- J. Hudson Taylor

If you had one year to live

Clayton King

Another post that makes me think about the swiftness of life

Really Cool blog

Hope Road

I just read this post and it is neat the eloquence in expressing the deep beauty of the word of God.

Praise God!

So I guess it’s time for my once a month blog post . I’ve been reading a lot of blogs today. probably one of my new favourite bloggers is Luke Geraty. He is charismatic an incredible rapper and highly theological.

http://voiceofthelamb.org/luke/

It’s really interesting. Mike and I have been talking about where to go for internship with FIRE. I was originally thinking about just going home to Regina, but he wants to go to Guinea Bissau with Wade and Kate and their friends Jack and Polly. We would canoe to neighboring islands to preach to the satan worshippers and just have amazing adventures. I don’t know if my parents would go for it. But it really stirs up my heart that it would be a really amazing experience.

School is winding down, we have only two weeks left. I did a lot of the work early so now it’s actually not too busy for me. I love writing papers and reading books. Perhaps that’s why I’m not too eager to leave the whole school environment and maybe go to Bethel school of supernatural ministry for a year or two after FIRE and then maybe get a masters of divinity after that.

Also being thankful to God is really important. Last week I was really feeling dull in the Lord and just not feeling his presence at all and kind of just a weight on me. And so egven though I didn’t have any passion at the moment I felt like just acting like I did. There was nobody else in the house so I just started thanking God with loud shouts and rejoicing. Really yelling my prayers with all my heart and praising him. Something totally broke and the joy of the Lord just came over me. It was really cool. I love God, sometimes I don’t understand him or his actions on the earth but I know that I can trust him. He is good.

My Grandma is Gone

This morning as I was leaving to school, I got a phone call from my Dad that my grandma had passed away early this morning. She died peacefully at I think the age of 88 but still it was really sad to hear that she’s gone now. She lived a beautiful life of perseverance and generosity. She made me and so many others quilts and great food. She was often laughing and looking on the bright side of life.

We had a time of prayer and worship spontaneously in one of Dr.Brown’s classes and God really filled me with peace in the midst of this time. He is so good.

Fresh Love

check this site out

http://www.kvministries.com/

and then go to media, and then infusions. I have just been watching them. They are so powwerful. God is so powerful.

School is going well, surprisingly fast. But the biggest thing that God has been teaching me is just to move from knowledge to true faith. Faith without works is dead. I want to know Christ more than anything else. Get back to simplicity. Get back to Love.

I listened to a message by Heidi Baker this morning on the year, faint, cry. Podcast and she was talking about the crazy trials they have been going through. About their pastor Sithole, who was one of their main pastors and the syncretistic muslims came and yelled “You be quiet! Quit speaking about Jesus!!” and they cut off his lips, and then they cut off his tongue. “We will silence you and your church!” Eventually they completely cut him in pieces as a message to shut up about Jesus.

This man’s brother konyada hears the terrible news about what happened to his brother and goes back to that exact village that killed his brother. With all of these Muslims there and he calls them together and he yells out “I want you to know that we are the church that loves! And we love you, and we bless you, and we cry out for mercy upon your lives.” And hundreds and hundreds of syncretistic muslims bowed their knee to Jesus that day.

The power of Love

God is love.

And if we know God we should be known as Lovers. There is something powerful about love that shakes the darkness.

I just wanted to leave you with that. Pursue Love.