Tuesday, February 28, 2012

So many things to post!

So here it goes...I have so many things on my mind that I've been meaning and wanting to share here, but there's just only so many hours in a day. Today, while Theo and Stella are on a daddy-daughter date, and Naya and Liv are napping, I'll see what I can fit in. :)

I've been in a women's Bible study since we moved here. It's an incredible blessing and gift to my life. I absolutely LOVE meeting each Tuesday morning with this group of believing women to study God's Word. The study we're finishing up right now is the Beth Moore study 'James: Mercy Triumphs.' It's on the life and book of James. In my years of christianity, knowing Jesus and lightly-moderately reading the Word, I never knew how much meat was packed into those 5 chapters of James, in the New Testament. Obviously that was the problem....lightly-moderately reading the Word. No condemnation here at all, but I'm defintily recognizing how deficient I am in my knowledge of God's Word, and it's making me crazy! I want to devour it, but because of my lack of discipline and the busy-ness of my life I'm limited in how crazy I can go with it. I'm working on the discipline part, but I'm super blessed to be part of this weekly study where we tear through the Word and even have daily homework. I'm being consumed with the teaching James {Jesus's brother} brings. It's amazing and I'm praying God gives me the grace to put it all into action!

 I encourage you...get into a group study if you have issues staying consistent on your Bible reading/studying. It makes a world of difference!

Not only am I being consumed by James' teaching because of our women's meetings, but we're going through James as a church each Sunday! This is a total consuming of specific teachings here! God, help us to 'get this' in us! I wont have any excuse at all if these things don't become part of my lifestyle which brings even more fear of the Lord! Ah.

Another thing thats been getting the fire of the Holy Spirit roaring within me, is listening/watching sermons several times a week. Lately, I choose Francis Chan's teachings. I can't remember ever hearing another teacher so challenging to actually live out the actual Gospel. Not good ideas of what 'might' be in the Bible, or things that totally sound like they're in the Bible,...I'm talking referrences of scripture on how we're instructed to live. The other person I've heard teach primarily straight from the Word, and only 5% personal stories or ideas, is my husband. Now maybe that means I haven't heard many teachers in my life, or that I'm just paying attention to all of that, now, but eaither way I'm recognizing the importance and difference it makes to actually be taught straight from the scriptures! Having less {not none at all!} cool, funny, and interesting talk and more actual scripture reading is bringing life to me and actually renewing my mind as I listen and believe. It's a novel idea! :)

Over the last few months we've been praying and considering starting a cafe here in Ensenada. We've been wanting to do this for years and as we considered how the girls schedules are still quite flexible and we have some extra time on our hands, it might be the time to go for it! So as we prayed, the Lord led Theo to not move forward with the cafe, but to just focus on what He's done in bringing a community of believers for us to shephard here. At first I felt a little bummed out and because I'm still totally learning to trust God in Theo and submit with a gentle and quiet spirit {rather than resorting back to my take charge, and kick and push til I get what I think is best ways}- I felt disappointed. But I actually took the time to pray and ask God to confirm to me that we shouldn't move foward, and literally the next day while in the Word, I read scripture in 1 Timothy how they were instructed to 'give their complete attention to the tasks at hand' and other directions in that same vein, and I knew for sure that was the Holy Spirit answering what WE were supposed to do!
it had been a little while since I've recognized direct instruction from God like that and I was reminded that He's always wanted to lead me like that. Psalm 32:8 says this.... "The Lord says, 'I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you."
I love it. Thank you Jesus for your goodness and kindness to me.

Another thing happening in our world, is that God wants to give us a better marriage! We've been praying for years now for God's hand to remain on us and bless us by teaching us His way of a good and Godly marriage! We've had lots of hurts, mainly because of our loose tongue which has had little control during heated times. James teaches how the tongue is full of poison, and I can assure you, he's telling the truth! So we recently began the Love and Respect series at our neighbor's house and we're learning the power of the tongue in loving and respecting one another. It's funny how right after you learn some good stuff, you suddenly have TONS of opportunities to put those things into practice! It's insane. Ha! But we're super excited to work at these things and are feeling more in love than ever. Thank you Jesus for your faithfulness to us in this marriage!

This Sunday at church we had a new family of 8 join us! It was such a blessing to have the local YWAM leaders with us and it turned out to be quite a divine appointment kind of day for them with us. Lots of love, tears, prayer and ministry happened on their very first visit. God was there and it was awesome. If they continue to join us at Baja Fellowship {the name of our little home church!} we'll be up to almost 40 people including kids. Pretty amazing considering we didn't know at all that this was our assignment while here in Mexico and we've only been here for 6 months! God is amazing and is doing things in the Body. We're convinced that if God told us on the front end that this was our assignment, we probably wouldn't have believed at first, and then it definitly wouldn't have panned out as smoothly as it has thus far. God knows what He's doing. Today though, we need chairs! Haha, since church is in our living room and apparently God is bringing lots of people our way, we need more chairs! Kids sit on the floor already so adults can have the seats, but we're already out and will soon be putting the adults on the floor too! I guess this is a good problem! {I know not an actual dilema in life, but a just a 'hosting' problem}   :)
God, please bring us chairs!

Another crazy thing about this Baja Fellowship, is that apparently Theo is the pastor. :)  In my complete effort NOT to boast {because I just learned in James, that all boasting is lying...ah}, that my husband has had a heart for PEOPLE, and to teach the fullness and truth of God's word for years now. As the Spirit transforms him, he is becoming more and more passionate and set on teaching the word accurately and living the thing out for himself. {ourselves!} The comfortable, convenient, and relaxed thing that is trying to take over the church in America is truly a devasting and dangerous thing. And it's SO hard to get out of once you're in it. Theo being raised in Haiti has seen a whole different and very poor world, so he's much more balanced in his perspective of needs vs. wants, comforts and luxuries vs. actual necessities of life, and other things along those veins. I think it's giving him an easier platform to teach from than being born and raised in the US, in all the mess we're brought up in. He was raised with a whole different load of junk but that's for another post. :) 

Hopefully I'll be back on here before another month passes, but I'll end with some key things the Lord has been putting on my heart lately...

Regular confession and repentance of our sins is absolutly critical for our growth, maturity in Christ and humility in character. We need to pray about everything, all the time. {He said it, not me!} We need to actually live out more than 1 or 2 principles or commands found in the Bible somewhere. If we are calling ourselves christians, we need to be drastically different and biblically accurate, in lifestyle than the world. Having a solid group of believers that we fellowship and grow with is also crucial for us. {An arm severed from the rest of the body doesn't do any good on it's own and will soon die.} We need to learn from Jesus, what LOVE really looks like in our daily lives. And finally....we need to study the Word of God like our lives depend on it.....because it does. :)

2 comments:

  1. Finally had time to read this. I LOVE it! So happy for all the Lord is doing in your lives. I think the James study will be my next for the women here. Te quiero xoxox Rori

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  2. Yay! Thanks Rori...love and miss you! Also- you all will seriously LOVE the James study. SO much 'meat' in it!

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