A few pictures to keep you all updated

 My Sports DTS and the Rugby DTS

 A Goanno...this is for my nephew Noah (hope you enjoy)

A little taste of Sydney from a couple weeks ago

Missions

This week we had the topic of mission and what that means in our lives as we go on our outreach trips and what it means in the spectrum of the rest of our lives.  Our speaker was Waqa, who is from the Island Breeze YWAM base in Brisbane.  He is originally from Fiji and came to Australia about 15 years ago and has lived a life of mission ever since doing his own DTS.  He gave us a few statements telling us what being a missionary is about and it basically isn’t a job or an event it is a lifestyle.  With that lifestyle we are called to make disciples and not to make Christians out of all nations.  This is something that hit me as we try to make so many people fit into what we have molded Christians to be in the way we look, yet we fail to teach them how to live it which is the true mark of a disciple.

We discussed how the God we serve is a missionary God and if we read Genesis 1:1-4 then we can actually know all we need to know about who our God is.  In verse 1 we know that God created the heavens and the earth and everything in it.  God is omnipresent which means that He is everywhere all the time which we read in verse 2.  In verse 3 we know that our God is a God who communicates to us and His voice is a voice that brings peace within our spirit.  Verse 4 explains how our God is all knowing about everything and that He is all powerful and has power or authority over everything such as the enemy we face in the devil.  So when we look at who our God is in we hear about His glory and how Moses wanted to see His glory, but really in the Hebrew meaning which Genesis was written in there is no word for glory as it is unexplainable.  That is the God that we serve and are in partnership with, the God that takes our words away because of how amazing He is.

With our God being a missionary God the Bible is our missionary book, which was inspired by Him and His works.  The bible is the way that we can become closer to God and become in tuned with His will.  We all have many different bibles and if it all is inspired by God then why are there so many translations such as the KJV, NIV, and the Message?  Well the many different versions allow it to be cross cultural as it makes it possible to get past cultural and language barriers.  Waqa preached to us how it is so important to understand the vision of God and you can only do that by getting into His word, the Bible.

In getting in tuned with God’s word and helps us to see His vision and through that vision then we are able to be disciples and make disciples.  With this we have 3 challenges in every culture that we have to get past in order to achieve our mission or goal of a lifestyle, which missions is.  We have to overcome the issue of money as a source of integrity, sex as the foundation of a relationship and not using it in the context of why God created it, and power as a means of authority because God is our authority and we get our rights from Him.  These challenges are ones that are huge and in each area you have to get in tuned with their culture before you can actually tackle these issues.  This all takes hard work and time and this isn’t just in third world countries it is right at home in the community and things we need to teach ourselves and the next generation.

This week we got a true taste of missions and how it is something that is cross-cultural and one in which you have to be relational and take time to get to know other cultures and their interest.  Waqa is in charge of the Rugby DTS and brought down nine guys with him and 8 of them were from Fiji and one was from Scotland.  It was amazing to learn about their culture in Fiji and just see how generous and relational they are in the Fijian culture.  The truly love their neighbor over there and it is custom to invite others over for meals and if you don’t then you are seen as lesser of a person because you are going against the culture.  The Fijian guys here are very generous as they gave me this Fijian Rugby jersey, which is an $80 gift and they still don’t have enough money for them to go on outreach.  They also put on a show for us with their dances and songs and it seriously is some of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard, sounded like angels singing.  This generosity just continued to pour in from others this week as I was about $1,000 short for outreach and my church and its members took up and offering and through that has provided me with all the funds I need to go on outreach.  Our God is a God of love and with that He wants us to be a unified body from missions to Sunday church service and everything in between.  When we have faith and works in our faith with that love we are blessing others and God will bless us and I have seen those examples in my life over these last couple weeks.

Spiritual Warfare

Our topic this week was Spiritual Warfare and we had the privilege of having our leader Jeff Boardman speak on this topic.  Jeff has had a number of things happen throughout his life and was left to raise three kids on his own.  He is a man that has been through a lot and has a great testimony on what it is to engage in spiritual warfare.  He laid everything out on the table and gave us the fact that every day we are in war at all times and it is part of life not an event.  The only way that we can prepare ourselves for warfare is by knowing who we are in Christ and living responsibly before God.

Our verse for the week was Eph 6: 10-20, which talks about putting on the Armor of God.  By putting on this armor means that we know God and his character and through that we may cast out any dark forces that present themselves in our lives.  Some of the dark forces may be as simple as sin and the desires of it that the devil puts before us, however, they may also be manifesting in another person.  We need to understand that our battle isn’t against our flesh and blood it is against the supernatural dark powers.  The devil wants to lead us into deception, bondage, and destruction and that can manifest in a number of ways in each of our lives and we can all think of a few pretty easily.  So the foundation of staying away from dark forces and casting them out of your lives and others around you is to put on the armor of God, it helps you to recognize the strategies of the enemy, refuse to cooperate with those strategies, and then cut the strategies of the enemy off by the name of Jesus.

Every day we are in war yet we determine how much of the enemy we have to fight be wavering from the word of God.  The war we fight is based upon how tight we keep an eye on the gate, meaning what decisions we make in different circumstances.  We can make sure that we keep the gates closed by not believing inferior or condemning thoughts in our minds, giving our attitudes and emotions over to God and denying and fleshly nature, the words that we speak, and the relationships we live in.  To do this we have to see the cross from the top and the outpouring of God’s love for us as His children.

If we take up the Armor of God we have authority over the evil forces based upon what Jesus did to Satan.  Jesus disarmed Satan and destroyed his works.  We can our authority for what Jesus did for us, He delivered us and the authority to exercise His power.  When we deny our flesh we have God and realize He that is within us is greater, the devil stops when we use the name of Jesus.  So how do we exercise this authority that Jesus has bestowed upon us?  We us the name of Jesus, the word of God, the dynamic guiding of the Holy Spirit, the blood of the lamb (denying the flesh), and the word of our testimony all in congruence with one another.  When we do this we realize that God and his character are perfect and it stays consistent as the day is long.

So then why is there evil in our world if God is so powerful and loving and just?  See this is the argument that we hear a lot and we give into the strategies of the enemy and doubt the character of God.  We should never try to interpret the character of God by circumstances, we need to see the circumstance, bring light to it through scripture, and then compare that to what we know about the character of God.  God gives all humans free choice or free will and people tend to give into the flesh easily and are then in a battle because they took off the armor of God and gave in to sinful acts.  Know that the temptations that we have each and every day are not more than any of us can handle because there is always a way to escape, we can depend on the character of God because it is our only true hope.

The next time you are faced with circumstance I hope that you aren’t looking up and asking why God has put you in this place rather you are looking down seeing the love of God and blessings He has given you.  We are always looking for more from God and we forget to give him thanksgiving and praise for the wonderful thing He has already done.  This is something that I struggled with this week as we are getting ready to go on outreach and I am thinking about when I get back home in June.  This is tough for me as I am unsure of so many things and how they are going to work out.  This was a time where I gave into the enemy and let my mind think about the “what if’s” when I get back and doubted the character of God.  By doing this I open the gate to be attacked by the enemy and I was as I was almost in panic mode, but then I went back to the word and found the verse Luke 12:24 which says, “Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn: yet God feeds them.  And how much more valuable you are than birds!”  This put things into perspective for me and helped me to realign with the character of God. 

I have two more weeks of lectures until I go on outreach to Coff Harbour, here in Australia for two weeks and then off to Borneo for the final eight weeks of outreach.

Lordship

This week we had the topic of Lordship with Mark Parker.  Mark is a guy who is very passionate about God and what it means to give Him Lordship of our lives.  Mark could be seen throughout the week shouting and losing his voice about one time each lectures session, it is this passion for God that allows his message to carry a lot of weight in your memory.  Mark is from New Zealand and comes from a background that wasn’t the best, he rebelled as a teenager as his older brother tried to bring him into the kingdom of God.  He had refused several times and then when he saw himself at the end of the road and not knowing what to do as he was in misery, God showed him His grace and mercy.  Mark claims this was the closest thing to an audible voice of God he has ever heard and it brought him to realizing how his life was taking a turn and it was a choice of life or death.  At this point Mark was about 20 and most of our world decides what we will follow between the ages of 18-24 and it drastically changed his life in being able to talk to us about how Lordship is a part of his daily life now at the age of 55.

During the first lecture we had Mark told us about a word that he had gotten for our DTS group, the word was overcome.  Overcome is so much bigger in this season, season of change, when we apply it to the year of 2011.  The number 11 is a number of incompleteness, destruction, shuffling, and uncertainty.  So then if we look forward to 2012 we know that is a solid number it is a solid foundation as there were 12 disciples.  Most of us are aware of the earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan and the possibility of more and that is no coincidence, as the body of Christ we need to reach out and overcome these circumstances.  When we think about the earth and how it is being shaken we need to realize it is our time to bring the people into the Kingdom of God.  We don’t need to take God to these places because God is already there what we need to do is to go there and find God that lives in each and every one of them.  The enemy, Satan, is out there trying to kill and destroy everything and what are we doing?  Are we going to let the enemy overtake these people, our neighbors, or will be overcome and persevere in the midst of all the catastrophes. 

Matthew 7: 20-21 basically tells us that we need to know God to declare Him Lord.  It isn’t that we are asking God into our lives He is already there as He has invited us into His life.  Where we fix our eyes will tell us what kingdom we will glorify.  When we come to Christ and repent for our sins and are forgiven we are cleansed of all our transgressions.  Yet, so many of us try to live a Christian life where we try not to sin and if we have our eyes on sin then we will always fall to sin, however if we have our eyes on God we won’t sin.  What we have our eyes on will control us and of course we may fall and sin, but we will know right away as our conscience will be convicted.  So the Kingdom of God is filled with day by day choices and to give God that Lordship is the decision we make and can align with these three questions.  Who is your Master?  What is your Mission?  Who will be your Mate?  These all are some of the greatest questions people have in their faith and they need to align those with what God is speaking into their life and what He has given them.  We need to obey, love, produce fruit, be disciples, carry the cross, give up all possessions that rule your life, and be reliable when God moves.  If we are doing all of these things, which are fruits of the spirit, then we will honor God and His kingdom because He has created us as image bearers of Christ as we were born to rule Gods creation.  What we fix our eyes on will control us.

In the Old Testament the Tent of Meeting was a place in which the people sacrificed animals on the alter before God.  Today in the New Testament we don’t have a place that we come to and sacrifice such things.  Today we the body of Christ are the Tent of meeting and we give a living sacrifice, which is ourselves to God so we may die to our flesh and let Him work through us.  So our body becomes a temple and it contains a body, soul, and spirit.   To get do the perfect will of God we have to have Him fill us in all of these areas and the biggest way the enemy will try to deceive us is by doubting the character of God.  God said, “I AM” so when we think about that we get a glimpse of the glory of God as He is the beginning and the end and the holiest of holies.  So we need to live for the I am rather than for the I am not and we will see great things happen through God.   This means that we are to sacrifice ourselves before the Lord each and every day and ask Him what He has for us in what we do rather than us trying to make what we do fit into Him.

So how do we go about putting ourselves on the alter each and every day before we start our day?  We have to start by giving Jesus thanksgiving as He was the one who paid the ultimate price for us so we may live.  Then we have to praise God and thank Him for the great things He has done in regards to His character that the enemy wants to make us doubt.  We need to come before the cross that Jesus died on for us and confess any sins that we may have so we can be cleansed to hearing the voice of God.  With hearing Gods voice we need to surrender things before the cross so our flesh doesn’t get in the way of God’s plan.  This means giving up any material possessions that hinder you from doing God’s will and giving up anything from school, mission, and/or relationships that He hasn’t yet spoken into.  God has greater goals and plans for us than we could ever imagine so when we give ourselves over to Him, He will give us greater things than we could ever imagine in the right timing.  If we humble ourselves and resubmit each and every day to God we are going to see amazing things and He is going to work miracles through us and supply us with more than we need.  If we do this we will have a greater foothold on the enemy as we will always see the good no matter the circumstances because God is good.  So this is the message we need to take to these nations in the midst of catastrophes as we can love our neighbors from half way across the world into the kingdom of God and fill that emptiness they are all suffering from.

So I experienced the abundance of God’s love this week as I was given more than I can imagine possible. I came to Australia with an 8GB iPod that I used to listen to music and hear God, as it was a way for me to feel his love through worship.  Well in about the second or third week I heard God tell me that I was to surrender my iPod to someone here on base.  It wasn’t that the music on there was bad or that I made it an idol it was just something I valued and limited me from hearing God’s voice.  So I gave it up and it was very difficult as it was expensive and something that I valued as it was the only worship music I could listen to as I can’t play any instruments.  Before the cross I surrendered my education, my relationship with Rachel, and my passport as I had no other things to surrender as I already surrendered my iPod earlier in DTS. During the time of surrendering things at the cross that hinder us from hearing God I was given and 32GB iPod, which is four times the size of my old one and I was in awe of how God was giving me an abundance of His love.  I was thinking that it was amazing how He had given me an iPod that is greater than the one that I had from me being obedient.  Then I received and overflowing abundance as I was given another 8GB iPod and now I have two iPods due to surrendering things to God.  I learned a very valuable lesson about surrendering things to God this week and through that also I realized that by being obedient He is going to bless us and not always take away everything we surrender to Him, thank goodness.  So each and every day when wee surrender ourselves to God as a living sacrifice we will be able to be used in a way that glorifies Him and maybe even see amazing miracles or changes in people.

Evangelism

This week we had the topic of Evangelism and our speaker was David Pierce.  David has a ministry called Steiger Ministries and they go into the cities and clubs that are dark and demonized.  They have a band called No Longer Music and with that band they are able to get into these places in Amsterdam, Brazil, and several other places that are possessed by evil spirits.  David uses the music and atmosphere to bring the gospel to these people in very up front and convicting ways.  He uses the Cross and crucifixions of Jesus as well as the resurrection to show them how amazing and powerful God is and then he speaks about it through singing and then has ministry time at the end of his sessions that see hundreds come to the Lord each performance.

To start off the week he set our foundation and convicted us right away of being stagnant in the Lord and His plans for us.  He explained how God’s power is amazing and as it says in Eph 1:18 the power is available to all who believe.  In the book of Acts we see the account of the numerous miracles that Jesus performed when He was here on Earth and that is the Jesus that is alive today.  God wants to use each and every one of us and it isn’t about our abilities or gifts, we need to realize that through God anything is possible.  In the Bible we learn of the power of God after the Disciples feed the 3,000 and then are going across the lake and are met by a storm and Peter walks on water because he called for God to show His power.

We know that God is all powerful and trustworthy and all that stuff, but are we willing to go into battle for Jesus.  This is where we are unsure because weather it is being a missionary, sharing the gospel, or met with challenges in everyday life we seem to limit ourselves because stepping out of our comfort zone is too risky.  Faith is a choice and not a feeling and we choice to be obedient or not.  Faith without risk isn’t true faith because it allows you to rely on your own ability rather than God’s.  Yes, risks are a part of faith and in John 16:33 God promises us adventures, but he also promises trouble.  Wayne Gretzky, one of the greatest hockey players of all times said, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”  So we need to take our shots to share the gospel when we have a chance or else we may fail to do God’s perfect will and bring that person to the Lord.  We need to be warriors in our faith because when we are in Spiritual Warfare praying and sharing the gospel with people we are in war.  The enemy, Satan, wants to kill and destroy us and our purpose.  So what I am saying is that we need to put on our Shield of Faith and we need to have supernatural and unreasonable faith that God will give us radical dreams and His boldness and power through the Holy Spirit.  That is what is honoring to God and allows Him to work through us.

So we have to have faith to be warriors for God and that is what He calls us to do.  However, God wants us to be equipped to go into battle so before we share His word we have to know Him and have a personal intimate relationship with Him.  In the Bible we know that God can and will destroy the antichrist with His breath.  So when we know God we can have Gods power working through us and that is the only way people will listen, when they see God’s Power.  Many of us try to do works for God and change the world, but we fail because we are casual about it and don’t do it through God but on our own.  That isn’t God’s will; He wants us to do all works through Him and out of our relationship with Him.  So get desperate for God to move in your life and be honest in your prayers and you will see breakthroughs because you came to Him with an earnest heart.

God has a heart for the lost, Luke 15: 1-7 talks about the parable of the lost sheep.  God has a heart for those who are lost and in darkness and wants to bring them to light, God’s love is unconditional and He wants all people to come to Him and receive His kingdom.  This is what God calls each and every one of us as believers to do, make disciples of all nations.  So how do we do that?  The Cross is powerful and if we take the cross out of our message then we have failed to give people an accurate picture of Jesus.  The Cross needs to be portrayed as more than a piece of jewelry; it is the passion of Jesus and shows how Jesus isn’t happy or passive about injustice.  It shows how God cares for us and wants us to be clean and is the basis of all God’s purpose.  The only way we come to Jesus is on our face at the foot of the cross.  How great is that to humble ourselves and give over all our transgressions, infirmities, and inequities to Jesus and be healed and pure again.  So we need to get a real revelation of the cross and let it pierce our hearts so we can answers the calls of Jesus and find the lost and bring them to the kingdom.

As a Christian and in missions at this moment I was really convicted this week as I realized I wasn’t living in fear of God rather I was living in fear of man.  I made the step in obedience in coming here to go into all the world and make disciples yet I had failed to let God move freely in my life as I worried about finances, reputation, and embarrassment.  This was fear of man as I didn’t want to take risks in being up front with people because our culture tells us to accept people.  Well, God also tells us to do that but He also tells us to bring the truth to those who live in sin and do it in a loving way.  Our culture today is making exceptions to all kinds of sins and we are asked to accept that culture, but Jesus offended culture He went against it by helping the Samaritan and tax collectors.  The cultural values were to hate these people yet Jesus didn’t do that He offended the status quo, yet did in a loving way.  So we need to go into these places and be humble in our attitudes and find all our pride in God, we need not to condemn other but to convict them and bring them to the kingdom through love.  Be challenged everyday as I am with being obedient to God and stepping out of the boat.  The most important thing we can do outside of the boat is doing the next thing God asks you to do.