I actually went to church and outreach yesterday after staying on campus all week. At outreach, I talked to a bright guy who had a terrible childhood full of abuse and drugs, but now had to stop using drugs because his body was about to give out. He grew up knowing about God and the Bible, but even though he was a counselor at a church camp, he said he hadn't believed in it. We had a good long conversation, in which he clearly showed me that his doubts are not based on good facts, but on an emotional objection. "I have a lot of friends who are good people. I just can't accept a God who sends people to hell because they don't believe in Jesus." This is an issue that probably every one of us has wrestled with at some point. But I think it stems from the faulty impression that God is somehow obligated to be kind to us, when really we were "by nature, children of wrath" (Eph. 2:3). We were completely contrary to God and there was absolutely no good reason for Him to show us favor. Instead, we deserved the very opposite. Salvation is completely apart from any merit of our own and is based solely on the mercy and grace of God. "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)." Ephesians 2:4-5
I don't know if you were watching the weather last week. If you saw a huge white cloud on the weather map in the midwest, I was probably under there somewhere. I woke up on Tuesday morning to a white blanket of snow on everything, with more falling. Public schools around here get canceled for very minor snowfall, but our classes here at the Missions Training Center never get canceled. Or so I thought. As I was chatting with my buddy Sam, the phone rang and the voice on the other end informed us that our classes were canceled for the day. It is a weird feeling to have a day all booked from 7 am until supper time and then suddenly have nothing to do. A group of us congregated in one of the regular hang out apartments and spent the day playing games, talking, watching movies, and even taking some time to worship. In the afternoon we got to help shovel the sidewalks around campus. It seemed futile, since I shoveled the same spot twice in the same hour. The wind didn't help much. Thankfully the next day the sky looked much happier with us, since it was bright and blue. This may not seem exciting to you if you live in Idaho or somewhere else in the north, but it is very unusual here. A local man told me he hadn't seen such snow in close to 20 years. Public schools were canceled all week and they're even canceled today (which blows my mind). We resumed classes the next day, but they were shuffled around since the teachers who live off campus valued their lives too much to traverse the death trap labeled Piney Point. (It is the same hilly, winding road that obscured the rock to pulverize my oil pan a few months ago.)
I actually went to church and outreach yesterday after staying on campus all week. At outreach, I talked to a bright guy who had a terrible childhood full of abuse and drugs, but now had to stop using drugs because his body was about to give out. He grew up knowing about God and the Bible, but even though he was a counselor at a church camp, he said he hadn't believed in it. We had a good long conversation, in which he clearly showed me that his doubts are not based on good facts, but on an emotional objection. "I have a lot of friends who are good people. I just can't accept a God who sends people to hell because they don't believe in Jesus." This is an issue that probably every one of us has wrestled with at some point. But I think it stems from the faulty impression that God is somehow obligated to be kind to us, when really we were "by nature, children of wrath" (Eph. 2:3). We were completely contrary to God and there was absolutely no good reason for Him to show us favor. Instead, we deserved the very opposite. Salvation is completely apart from any merit of our own and is based solely on the mercy and grace of God. "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)." Ephesians 2:4-5
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AuthorWe are normal people who believe that God would have us serve Him in Brazil. We are saddened by the existence of people who do not have access to the gospel due to their location and language. We want to live among such a people group and plant a church among them, shepherding the believers as they grow to maturity. Archives
November 2019
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