Name Brand

I heard an interesting story on the radio from Luis Palau. Take a listen to the podcast.
This line stuck out to me. "People are craving the Name Brand... they want absolute truth." I make the mistake, far too often, of thinking that people don't want absolute truth when in reality they are craving it. People hunger for truth. And when it comes to God, He is the only Way, Truth and Life that leads to life everlasting. There is no other god than the one true God.
Nothing lives up to the real thing and we have the REAL "thing" in Christ. Consider this week how you can be an instrument of God in the lives around you.
Be blessed,
Naomi 

Opposite Way

Many, many times in the Gospels it shows Jesus talking with, healing, eating with, and basically hanging out with “sinners.” His compassion and heart for them to be saved is amazing.

He took time to talk to a Samaritan woman, even though he was weary from his journey, and despite the fact that it was unacceptable culturally for Him to talk to her. And through it, He changed her life and many others. (John 4:5-42)

He called fishermen (who were probably pretty smelly) and tax collectors (who were hated by others) to be His disciples. But wouldn’t that affect His ministry with everyone else, who probably couldn’t stand to be around them, and influencing their view of Jesus negatively?

Jesus went the opposite way of the world. Not only when He was feeling good or joyful, but in times of struggle, pain, and heart-wrenching moments. He thought of the thief on the cross, he thought of you and me when being scourged.

Jesus had a bigger picture in mind, and had Someone greater that He was living for.

Matthew 9:12-13 says “But when Jesus heard this, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Maybe today we need to sit down and learn what it means when Jesus says He desires compassion, not sacrifice. I know I do.

Speak Out - Madagascar

This past summer I spent two months in which the only constant from day to day for me was the pair of 8-inch work boots that I had on my feet. I spent my summer with the Teen Missions International Madagascar team. I felt the Lord tugging on my heart to go on a mission trip for a while and in November of 2007, I started to seriously consider and look into it.

The country and people of Madagascar have a special place in my heart. My grandparents, Rev. Amos and Ovidie Dyrud, were missionaries there for about twenty years. I have heard countless stories of my dad, two aunts, and uncle growing up at the boarding school for the missionary kids, and of my grandparents out in the field. My dad worked in a hospital in Madagascar for two years right after my parents were married, so my oldest sister was born there. He took my family back for three months as he worked in a hospital again right after I was born. We have pictures, trinkets, games, decorative papers and tapestries from Madagascar all throughout our house, so even since childhood, Madagascar has always subconsciously been on my mind. Then in August of 2003, my family went back to Madagascar for three weeks. We took a road trip from the capital city, Antananarivo, south to Fort Dauphin, where my dad grew up at the boarding school, and then flew back to the capital. It was then, seeing all the places  where my grandparents lived and worked, visiting the hospitals in which my dad worked and my sister was born, meeting the people who my dad grew up with and worked with years later, and just seeing the countryside and its people, that I fell in love with Madagascar.

Naturally, then, when I first thought about going on a mission trip, I wanted to go to Madagascar. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to arrange a trip there by myself with only one remaining American contact there, so I looked into Teen Missions International, an organization that my oldest sister went on a trip to Egypt with nine years ago. When I saw that they had a team going to Madagascar, I knew that it was the one I was supposed to be on! I sent out support letters at the end of January, and the Lord provided the over $5,000 I
needed to raise well before my deadline.

I left on June 20th and spent the first two weeks away from home at “The Lord’s Boot Camp” in Merritt Island, Florida. We lived in tents, got up at 5:30 to run the obstacle course each day, and took both classroom and hands-on classes to prepare us for the field. We learned things like block laying, steal tying, cement mixing, carpentry, and puppets, among many other things. All the teams took the same classes, whether you were a work or evangelism team. The goal of the classes was to make sure we would be useful on the field, and the goal of the uncomfortable living conditions of boot camp, the work boots we had to wear, the bucket bathing and laundry, the tents, the bucket flushing toilets and no running water, was to prepare us for the worst of mission fields. To be completely honest, I hated boot camp at first, but I knew I had to get through it in order to make it to Madagascar! It was through this time at boot camp that God helped me realize that I could not do it in my own strength; that I needed to surrender everything to Him.

When we first arrived in Madagascar, we had a few very long bus and truck rides. As uncomfortable as they were, they allowed for a lot of time to think and reflect. Missions has become heavy on my heart and Madagascar has always been very close to my heart, so I was hoping that this summer God would use this trip to reveal to me whether I am supposed to be a missionary to Madagascar or not. I found myself picturing myself living in Madagascar with a family some day and falling in love with the countryside, but I never did get a clear answer.

My team’s main work project was adding ceilings in the unfinished dorm rooms of the Bible Missions and Work Training Center that we stayed at in Mahajanga. We had four rooms to finish and we worked in pairs. The rest of the team worked on other various projects including building a railing (and chiseling rocks into blocks to be used as the foundation of it), building a staircase, and painting “English curriculum” animals, shapes, letters, and numbers on the outside walls of the school. We also taught the classes that we had taken to teams of Malagasy teens as we ran a boot camp.

I was not assigned a teaching job, so I actually had very little interaction with the Malagasy kids. As I struggled with having a good attitude about this, it made me wonder if maybe it was God telling me that I’d be back someday and that I needed to let my teammates have their turn. But then maybe it was God’s way of telling me that the Malagasy kids don’t need me and that it’s not His will for me to go back to Madagascar as a missionary. God has not revealed His specific plan for my future to me yet, and I am learning to be content with where He has me now.

by Hannah Dyrud

Speak Out - The Word Is Alive

“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any twoedged sword, and piercing as far as the division of the soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the
heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

A few months ago, I started volunteering in the Emergency Room at a hospital near my home. I thought it would be a fun and exciting thing to do, and I haven’t been disappointed. I didn’t expect, though, that I would have the opportunity of working with a Muslim girl just a few years younger than me. As the weeks went by and we gradually got to know each other better, she started sharing more and more about her personal life, such as family problems and hard decisions she was trying to make. Soon, we got on the topic of religion.

I have always prayed that God would give me chances to share His Word with others, and He blessed me with another opportunity in the hallway of the ER of this hospital. My Muslim friend started telling me how her father wanted the family to take a trip to Mecca. As I asked her questions about her Muslim faith, she told me the things one must do to be good enough to make it to heaven. Then, curious of what I believed, she asked what the “three Gods thing” was, meaning the Trinity, and why we thought Jesus was so important. This gave me the open door to share with her who Jesus was as the Son of God, and what He has done in my life, saving me from the penalty of all my sins.

She thought it was cool that I believed in God, but was very strong in her Muslim convictions. I shared a few verses with her, but she didn’t seem to really realize the impact Jesus, being true God, made by dying on the cross and rising again. In fact, she said Jesus was just a prophet, a very good man. As I left that night at the end of my shift, I felt hopeless. I started to question myself, “Did I say anything right? She didn’t seem to grasp the importance of what I was saying at all! She had grown up in a strict Muslim family her whole life. How will her heart ever change?”

As I drove home with a heavy heart, the song “The Word is Alive” by Casting Crowns came on the radio. God must have known what I needed to hear! The chorus of the song says, “The Word is alive, and it cuts like a sword through the darkness with a message of life to the hopeless and afraid, breathing life into all who  believe. The Word is alive, and the world and its glories will fade, but His truth, it will not pass away. It remains yesterday and forever the same. The Word is alive.”

Then it hit me. Of course my words can’t change someone’s heart, but the living Word of God can! It’s not me that can save a soul or convince someone that they need Jesus. It’s His Word, which is “living and active…and piercing as far as the divisions of soul and spirit.” That is what changes people’s lives. Salvation is about Christ, and God’s Word is about Christ. We should always be ready to share our faith, and in doing so, should always be ready to “preach the Word.” (2 Tim. 4:2) The Word is alive.

by Lydia Franz
originally posted December 2008

Speak Out - Go Green

Has your attention been drawn to the Green movement lately. It’s hard not to thank about, because it’s everywhere. I try not to laugh as I surf the net and find an article on “How to Green your Funeral,” but in all seriousness going green actually makes sense. Why not put in compact fluorescent light bulbs or buy organic produce from local farmers? Why not walk if you don’t have to drive or hang dry your clothes instead of using the dryer? In Genesis 1, as God creates the world we see the phrase “and God saw that it was good.” Verse 31 says, “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” When God created the world, He did a good job. I love Spring. I love it when the snow melts. I love the way the air smells so clean after it rains. I love seeing new life as trees bud and flowers blossom. And as we appreciate God’s creation around us, shouldn’t we also want to take good care of it?

Why is everyone so caught up in being green? Why this huge social conscientiousness to protect our environment? Remember when NBC “went” green? They advertised green during every commercial break and wouldn’t you know it, green was referred to in all of their programming that week. People care about the world they live in. They want it to be a good world to live in.  If you are listening to all the hype, we have to be green or else our world is going to fall apart. We have to save the world. So what does green have to do with being a follower of Christ?

In 56-58 A.D. Paul described the condition of mankind in Romans 1: 28-32 “Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” (Read Romans 1:18-32 for full context)

     That is the condition of our world.

Romans 3:21-24 says “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

     But, we also see that there is salvation for all. We have all sinned, but we are all offered grace and redemption through Christ.

To be green means to be mindful and intentional of protecting the environment.

Matthew 5: 13-16 says “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

To be green you have to recognize there is a need and then become part of the solution.

     So I say we should copy this strategy.

     Go Yellow.

The world does need to be saved. But, we are not talking about the physical world. This world of souls needs spiritual salvation. If you have a cause and you believe in it, you tell people. Tree huggers have earned their name because they have a passion for what they believe. They fight to protect what they value and they share their passion with others. Do I have a passion for Christ? Do I have a passion to see souls saved? We are lights, but we won’t shine if we stay hidden under bowls or in our houses, safe circle of Christian friends, convenient Lexus cages... Just like being green means taking action, so does being a witness for the Lord. Get out there; get active. Be a mentor, teach Sunday school, tell people Jesus loves them, invite your neighbor to church, volunteer at a soup kitchen… Love people and live your life in such a way that it points to Jesus and gives Him glory.

     To be yellow means to be salt and light to a dying and dark spiritual environment.

Be a light that shines for Jesus amidst the darkness of this world. Go yellow.

by Naomi Andrews
originally posted June 2008