Dear Friends
We will be in Palomas this coming weekend, April 13. In May, we are going on the first Saturday, May 4, and we will celebrate Family Day at that time. If you would like to come, please contact Emiliano or me and we can explain details about the van going down and returning from The Light. We are looking for volunteers to help in all of the administration that goes on to host the events, both in April and in May. Come and experience a week-end mission trip!
In April, we will continue with our theme of Discovering our Purpose in life, with an emphasis on distinguishing between God’s Purposes and our purposes, between listening to the Holy Spirit for guidance and listening to the world. What in your life do you think God may want to do that only He can do? This can often involve healing a broken heart, or overcoming bitterness in a person’s life, or it might be some big challenge like getting an education and job that appears beyond your reach. It can be many things. One of the most exciting things is when you know that God wants to use you to touch a person’s life the way He wants. Perhaps they need deliverance from an addiction or salvation, or comfort. It can be many ways that God wants to touch our world through us.
In the story of Moses, we see a young man who had a passion to help his people in relation to the oppressive Egyptian slave-masters. But, he had a passion without a calling from God. He killed an Egyptian and had to run to a neighboring country to save his life. His passion may have been placed there by God, but the HOW and the WHEN were not. So, he ended up spending many years simply as a shepherd, away from his people. Of course, God even used that to help shape his life for his later calling.
Then, one day, God caught his attention by setting a bush on fire but the fire did not consume it. God was ready to tell Moses about the HOW and the WHEN. How often do we think we have God’s plans figured out, and then we also figure out how to implement them, but we never really wait to hear what He is saying to us? I suspect we have all been guilty of that and then paid a price for getting ahead of God.
The remarkable thing about Moses’ calling was that when he finally did hear from God, he came up with all kinds of excuses: God, I can’t talk to Pharoah, he won’t even let me. And if I did, my people won’t listen to me. And even if they do, I am a terrible speaker, I’ll never be able to make your case for letting my people escape Egypt (slavery). The job was obviously way bigger than Moses would be able to accomplish on his own. But God reassured him. Ex 3:11-15
"But I'm not the person for a job like that!" Moses exclaimed.
Then God told him, "I will certainly be with you, and this is the proof that I am the one who is sending you: When you have led the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God here upon this mountain!"
But Moses asked, "If I go to the people of Israel and tell them that their fathers' God has sent me, they will ask, 'Which God are you talking about?' What shall I tell them?"
"'The Sovereign God,'" was the reply. "Just say, 'I Am has sent me!' 15 Yes, tell them, 'Jehovah, the God of your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has sent me to you.' (This is my eternal name, to be used throughout all generations.)
God has missions for all of us. Ways He wants to touch other people that will make an ETERNAL difference in their lives. It is truly amazing that He would want to use us to bring His changes to our world, when we consider how weak and flawed and inadequate we are. And, of course, we are inadequate to do the job. But, that is exactly what God wants, because then His power can be displayed through us!
When Paul starts talking about the amazing things God has shown him, he points out that he had a weakness that God had never healed in his life, and then he explains why:
2 Cor 12:7-10 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. NIV
As we are explaining to the kids in our program, having a passion for something does not become important or valuable until it is used for God’s purposes in God’s timing and in God’s way. That is when His power will rest upon us, and we will see God move mountains to accomplish His purposes through us. Things will happen that we could never do without His intervention. It can be an exciting and amazing journey. I pray we may all be able to recognize God’s voice and then have the boldness to act upon the things He tells us. We can and we must pierce the darkness that is all around us in this world with God’s light.
The LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.
Jim and Pat