i remember making a pasty concoction when i was about 5 or 6 with my best friend at the time kory westerhold. we were locked in the bathroom at my house and because we did not want my mom to come in and stop us from drinking it. the concoction was supposed to turn us into bat people after we drank it. it didn’t work.

Today while I was teaching Solo Por Hoy, I had this moment when I was filled with gratitude and an overwhelming sense of purpose. I’ve never felt that before. Nothing special was happening at that moment. I wasn’t teaching some profound Biblical truth or sharing some emotional experience. It just happened. Like God touched my heart and told me “I am with you.” It was incredible!

I can get in front of people and speak. I did it. Yesterday I lead not one but two break out groups at a conference here in Granada. It was great! I can do this. At least with a translator. Having a translator allowed me to breath in between thoughts and sentences making it much easier but this is a huge step for me.

The topic I talked about was small groups in the church, our experience with them and how they function. I was really prepared and I went over my material two or three times with Bekah. But the night before I had a near breakdown and I told Bekah some of the things that were going through my head. I was upset and I felt trapped. I felt like I was being pushed into this public speaking roll without any say in the matter. I threw out some pretty strong language and after we talked a bit, the lies that I had been listening to slowly started to come out:

You’ll never be able to do this.

You will fail.

What you have to say is not important.

You’re just not good at stuff like this.

After sharing this with Bekah, we were able to point out that these things in my head were lies and I went to bed feeling a little better about it but definitely not 100%.

I woke up the next morning and I went over my final preparations. I began to speak truth to myself.

I can do this.

What I have to say has value.

I can speak truth.

What I am talking about is important.

You can stop and breath!

I went to the conference feeling peaceful about everything and I was confident. My first group was at 10:30am and it went really well. Lots of interest and questions at the end. I left feeling great about it and I had a confidence that I’ve never had before. The afternoon session was a breeze and again the response was amazing.

God really is in control of this thing isn’t he? When will I figure out that he is trying to shape me into a leader who has something valuable to share with the world? Not quite there, but I feel like I took a big step in the right direction yesterday.

Today I am speaking at a conference here at El Puente. I am so nervous. I hate speaking in front of people. Last night Bekah helped me by talking to me and calming my nerves a bit. I have no idea why it makes me so nervous and it always has. I pray that I overcome this fear today.

I’ll give an update after the conference.

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

Carlos shared a dream with me that he wants to open a Christian book store here in Granada. The group that is here has mentioned the desire to start a coffee shop. This got me thinking…what about a coffee shop/bookstore here in Granada?

Why Christ came and why we go

Message text: Mark 10:45
For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Prayer: God help us to understand what it means for us not to serve Jesus but to be served by Jesus. Help us to understand what it means for Jesus to be a ransom for us. And not just for us but for many.

5 reasons why he came

1) He came to suffer.
The Son of Man (meaning fully human – like us) came to give his life.

2) He came to save.
The word “save” translates as a word that we would use to release a hostage. He came to give his life as a ransom “for” (this word literally means instead of or in the place of many).

3) He came to be our substitute.

4) He came to show us how to live.
He shows us what it means to be a servant – to be a slave to all. Jesus redefines greatness in the Gospel with a basin, a towel and a cross ultimately. He calls us to a life that looks different that the leaders around we see around us. He’s calling us to a sacrificial “slave-like” love to the people around us.

5) He came to serve us.
The word “serve” that is used here literally translates means to wait on – to offer service to. This is not Jesus saying that he wants us to serve him. He is saying that he wants to serve us. The whole point of Mark 10:45 is to encourage us to be served by Jesus – to let Jesus serve us. This is not how we normally think of Jesus.

Often the argument that is presented when faced with serving the homeless is that they are there because of willing choices that they have made that keep them in their situation. They are in the situation they are in due to their bad choices and decisions. Should we really help them?

This is where we need to realize how the Gospel changes everything because the reality is you and I were in our sin because we had chosen to be there and we were still there because we kept running to our sin time and time again. And yet we have a Christ that left his throne of glory and pursued after us when there was nothing in us to draw us to him. He came to us when we were totally undeserving. And as a result we don’t think about helping others the way the world thinks about helping others. We think about helping others in a totally different way because our lives are transformed by the Gospel and Jesus has shown us that there is another way to live than the rat race we find ourselves in today in the 21st century american culture.

What does this mean?

• Jesus is our servant.
  • This does not mean that we tell Jesus what to do. That’s not the picture here – we don’t order Jesus around as if we have authority. But the reality is that Jesus says things in the Gospel like John 14 – ask anything of me and it will be given to you. Jesus gives us everything we need. We need Jesus to serve us in order for us to live according to his radical call.
• We are Jesus’ servants.
  • There are places in the Bible where it says that we are servants of Christ so in a sense we are his servants at the same time. The Bible does not mean that Jesus needs our help. We often think that we are Jesus’ workers giving him the help he needs to advance the kingdom.

“So lofty is our opinion of ourselves that we find it quite easy, not to say enjoyable, to believe that we are necessary to God. But the truth is that God is not greater for our being, nor would He be less if we did not exist. That we do exist is altogether of God’s free determination,
not by our desert nor by divine necessity.

Probably the hardest thought of all for our natural egotism to entertain is that God does not need our help. We commonly represent Him as a busy, eager, somewhat frustrated Father hurrying about seeking help to carry out His benevolent plan to bring peace and salvation to the world, but, as said the Lady Julian, ‘I saw truly that God doeth all-thing, be it never so little.’ The God who worketh all things surely needs no help and no helpers.

Too many missionary appeals are based upon this fancied frustration of Almighty God. An effective speaker can easily excite pity in his hearers, not only for the heathen but for the God who has tried so hard and so long to save them and has failed for want of support. I fear that thousands of younger persons enter Christian service from no higher motive than to help deliver God from the embarrassing situation His love has gotten Him into and His limited abilities seem unable to get Him out of.” – A.W Tozer

Let us not forget what Acts 17:25 says – God is not served by human hands as if he needed anything since he himself gives men life and breath and everything else.

What do you have in your life that you can give to God that he has not given to you? Is God ever hungry in a way that you help alleviate his hunger? Aboslutely not – God is almighty. He needs no support. He is never lonely, hungry or tired. Let us never get the idea that we are necessary for the Gospel to be preached around the world. The reality is we could drop to dust right now and God’s plan would still be carried out. That’s the whole point of the Gospel. We need HIM. He does not need us to help him – we need him to help us.

• This means we submit to Jesus’ authority.

The majestic ruler and creator of the entire universe has stooped down to serve us. This takes our breath away when you really think about it. God coming to serve us. Not to be served by us.

So how does this look in our lives? How do we respond to this truth?

• Trust Jesus to serve you.
  • Christianity is not saying “serve God and be saved”. Stop trying to serve God. Admit that you need to be served by him.
  • You cannot save yourself. He has to cleanse you, transform you from the inside. Doesn’t the Christian life begin when we realize that we need to be served by God? That’s the whole point of conversion. Our eyes are open to the fact that we are dead and we need someone to save us. No matter how much you have done or accomplished in this world the fact is that you need him to survive and you need him to serve you in every single way.
  • The point of salvation occurs when we put aside our pursuits and even our desire to serve him and we say “I can not do it. I need you to serve me.” This is the Christian life. We don’t grow out of this. The Christian life is Jesus serving us moment by moment.
  • We never get to a point where we are self-sufficient and no longer need Christ like we did at the beginning. Even as we read and study God’s word right now Jesus is serving us.
• Jesus’ service to us is what enables our obedience to him.
  • Every time Jesus calls or commands us to do something it is his way of telling us “this is how I want to serve you”.
    • When Jesus says “in order to follow me you must give up everything you have” it’s his way of saying “trust me for everything you need”.
    • When we as husbands are called to love and respect our wives Jesus tells us “I’m going to give you everything you need to do this”.
    • When Jesus calls us to walk through a difficult time in our lives it is him saying “trust me to sustain you with hope and life that can only come from me that will get you through this”.
• When we trust Jesus to serve us, we will exalt Jesus by serving others.
  • When we are serving others radically like Jesus is talking about in Mark 10, with the strength he provides, than Matthew 5:16 will be a reality. People will see our lives and see our service and give glory to our Father in heaven. The one who gives the grace always gets the glory.
  • “Ultimately our Christian service exists only to draw attention to this source, to our crucified and risen Lord who gave himself as a ransom for all.”

• Our service to others demonstrates his sacrifice for us.

The bottom line:
The reality is we have been saved, served, ransomed, redeemed by Christ. He is serving us at every moment. That service in us flows over into service to others in a way that points others to the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf. The Son of Man did not come to be served by you. He came to serve you and to give his life as a ransom instead of us having to pay that price.

Today we went to Masaya to visit with RJ and Javier. We met their family. They were really warm and welcoming. Beautiful land on the edge of one of the lagunas in the area. I ate some fried fish and we sat and talked to Javier for a while about Nicaragua’s past. It was good to hear about this country from someone who is older (and who speaks perfect english). Oh and they have a spider monkey hanging out in the front area of the house!

“When we see him we will be like him”
- from David Platt’s message He Came to Destroy the Devil

Text: 1 John

This applies to our lives and the process of sanctification. We will become like him when we see him as he IS. While we wait, we fix our eyes on him. We continue in him. We abide in him. We worship him. We adore him. Everyone who has this hope of him coming, we purify our lives in hopes of his coming. As we fix our gaze on Christ, we are transformed in his glory. You become like what you behold. If you fix your eyes on this world and the pursuits of this world then you will become like the world.

Who of us wants to be found living in sin when Christ comes? Make sure that you are living in pursuit of holiness and righteousness when he comes. I pray that he finds me radically pursuing him and that I will not be found being casual about sin and playing around with sin.

Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. Praise God we are free. There is temptation everywhere, we fall at every corner. How do we avoid this? Fix your gaze upon Christ and allow him to transform your mind and heart. You are either a child of God or a Child of the devil.

I want to experience this at least once in my life:

[Aurora Boreal]