The Missionary's Goal

Me:

I read this on Friday, but just now posting it... Props to Oswald Chambers, and His awesome wife, Bibby Chambers who compiled all his writings into a devotional book. The underlining was done by me, for the parts that stuck out to me.

Chambers:

The Missionary's Goal

"He... Said to them, 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem...' "(Luke 18:31)

In our natural life our ambitions change as we grow, but in the Christian life the goal is given at the very beginning, and the beginning and the end are exactly the same, namely, our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we end with Him- "till we all come... to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ..."(Ephesians 4:13), not simply to our own idea of what the Christian life should be. The goal of the missionary is to do God's will, not to be useful or to win the lost. A missionary is useful and he does win the lost, but that is not his goal. his goal is to do the will of his Lord.

In our Lord's life, Jerusalem was the place where He reached the culmination of His Father's will upon the cross, and unless we go there with Jesus we will have no friendship or fellowship with Him. Nothing ever diverted our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in other where He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned our Lord even the slightest degree away from His purpose to go "up to Jerusalem."

"A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master" (Matthew 10:24). In other words, the same things that happened to our Lord will happen to us on our way to our "Jerusalem." There will be works of God exhibited through us, people will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude while the rest will show total ingratitude, but nothing must divert us from going "up to [our] Jerusalem."

".. there they crucified Him..."(Luke 23:33). That is what happened when our Lord reached Jerusalem, and that event is the doorway to our salvation. The saints, however, do not end in crucifixion; by the Lord's grace they end in glory. In the meantime our watchword should be summed up by each of us saying, "I too go 'up to Jerusalem.'"

September 23

Me:

These words seem to sum up the culmination of what I have been learning the past few years. The life of serving Christ has some big adventures and experiences of helping people you never even knew existed, but it also has times of living day to day in familiar places with people you know very well. But regardless of everything the love of Christ is the same, and rather simple.

Love God, and Love others.

As I prepare for going to India I am reminded that this is not my first missionary journey and Lord willing will not be my last. I will try to live my everyday as I am on a journey with God, because the reality is we are all on a journey, everyday we are on a mission to share the grace that has been given to us.

Why India?

On August 29th , two weeks ago, I committed to going to India for six months. My assignment is simple: take a camera, make videos and share them with the world.

What Am I sharing?
The stories of children who were, abandoned by their families and sent to an orphanage just because they were not seen as healthy. 100% of the children that live at Sara’s Covenant Homes have some form of disability or special needs. Many of these needs require special surgeries, medications, and proper nutrition.

This simple verse seems to have defined this journey God is about to take me on: James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.




GOD (is greater than) ME (plus) YOU (plus) PRAYER (equals) INDIA (trip Jan 2012-June 2012)
This picture represents that no matter how much You and I plan, donate, fundraise, give, create, and sacrifice, we can never be greater than what God can do. I believe through genuine prayer, and fasting that we will begin to understand what God will do in India through whatever means He sees fit.


God’s Part
John 15:16
You did not choose me but I chose you and appointed You to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.

My Part
Accepting
Isaiah 6:8
Here I am God, Send me to the World
I accepted the call to India because I have already accepted the call to Christ. In accepting this call I no longer have a plan or single place that I am called to, I am called to Christ. In my journey so far these words remind me that I will be sent many places but my call is to Talk with God daily. “No one has any right to demand where he will be put to work.” (Oswald Chambers Utmost For His Highest 5.7)

Your part
Acts 4:32
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.
As the body of Christ your part is simple to share what we have been given with others.
Some of you will Pray
Some of you will donate
Some of you will fast
Some of you will come to India yourselves
We each share a part in creating a change in this world, everyone's answer will be expressed in a different form but they will all stem from this basic action: love.
John 13:34
A new command I give you: Love one another. AS I have loved you, so you must love one another.

If you are reading this then you have heard the Cry of the poor
Now the question is what will you do?

India and Me

Once upon a time in a film school far far away... another day was coming to a close, and a chance meeting among friends and acquaintances was under way...
This is a portion of the events that transpired,

Caleb: Hey Luke, what do you think about making a documentary in India?
Luke: Well I’m interested, only problem is I don’t have a camera... Hey Anson you have a camera right?
Anson: Yea dude, sure do it’s a canon t2i.
Luke: I love that camera we used them all the time back at school.
Anson: Yea it is like my first camera I bought after working a few church camps
Luke: So... you think I could possibly borrow it?
Caleb: Wait, why don't you both go, I’ll connect you with the missionaries in India, they are running an orphanage and want some videos made.
Anson: Dude I’m in , let’s do this!

So Luke and I began planning a two week trip to India, we had everything set for going in August, then plans changed.
Our contact in India needed someone who could be a full time Media Coordinator. They were looking for someone to come to India for six months.

I began to pray, have others pray, and waited.

It starts with a prayer

In the fall of 2009. The 1st semester of my Junior year of college. I was at war with myself. I knew what I had been taught my whole life; Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love Your Neighbor as yourself. Luke 10:27
But I was not living that way.
So I prayed, ”Here I am God, SEND ME TO THE WORLD.” Isaiah 6:8
Then God began to answer that prayer.

You see I was not Loving God, I was loving myself but did not even see it. Sure I looked like I was following Christ, I walked it, I talked it, but there was still a part of me that did not love God.
Not only was I not loving God, I was not loving my neighbor.
Who was my neighbor? the countless women trapped in the pornography industry. Women who are somebody’s daughters, somebody’s wife, somebody’s mother. For nine years I had been a slave to the sin of this age. It was a free drug; a hidden addiction.
In that fall of 2009 I looked at myself and saw that I was addicted to pornography, leading a homeless ministry, going to church, praying, and reading my Bible. But I was still falling into sin.
I was the me I did not want to be. I was falling and had no way out. I was on my knees and yet still sinning. I tried everything I could do on my own to stop sinning. But it was never enough.

Romans 7:18-19
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing.

But God said “Enough! My son, Follow Me! Leave your home, your family, your school, your future career and Follow me, I will get you out of this pit. Its breaking my heart to see you do these things. No longer!”
Come Follow Me.

So I left. I obeyed. I confessed. I pleaded,”God forgive me for I have sinned.”
I was ready to go right then and there. The day I left college after withdrawing from school which represented a life I could have lived. I was ready, I wanted to just run out my front door and go!
But God had a different plan.

God had to teach me. Purify me. Humble me. God had to take out every last part of my flesh that longs for anything that is not Him.

I. Purity
God sent me to Miami, FL in 2010 to aid with Haiti Earthquake Relief
But that was just a blessing God used myself a best friend and many others to be his hands and feet to Haiti in their time of need. Once I arrived in Miami the test was living at a Spanish Rehab center.
Pastor Obe, was simply allowing God to use his church and rehab ministry to aid Haiti relief and gave us a place to live while in Miami. It was here with everything I knew stripped away that God spoke to me to surrender to him. To give up my dreams of adventure, and learn to follow God daily.

II. Identity
God had to give me a new Identity, he had to rename me. No longer would I be an addict and slave to my flesh. Now that I was away from my home, God had me right where he needed me so that I could come face to face with myself and wrestle. Much like Jacob back in Genesis, I too had to wrestle with God. So I wrestled night after night, I would not give up. Even when it felt like I was winning, when I was pure, far from the addiction I once knew, far from the images that used to poison my mind, then and only then was my prayer genuine and from the very deep of my soul.

Then God touched me. I was reborn.

Death.
Burial.
Resurrection.

My new name was Child of God, Disciple of Christ, Set free from sin, a slave to righteousness. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. The Life I live in this body I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

III. Living
Living in the World but not of the World. It is one thing to be Holy on the Mountain top, but it is completely different thing to live it out day to day engaged in work, school, and tedious life.
I left Miami feeling the call to finish school. From May 2010 – July 2011 I was taking classes. By the strength of God, and perseverance from leaning on Him I was able to walk with my class, then receive my diploma in August after finishing summer classes. I was an entire semester behind but God provided a way.
But then I found myself, not living in the joy I had been given.
I had a new purity, a new identity, but I was still afraid.
Afraid to live out who God created me to be. I was not truly living as an heir to the Kingdom of God. This time through an “In Between Trail” that few people other than myself could see, I was again purified of any last thing that was not what God had created.

These words had to be spoken to me,
Psalm 16:2 You are my Lord apart from you I have no good thing
I could not move on from these words until God had his way in me, until He truly was the only thing Good in my life.

And now I wait...
For there is something on the horizon, God has answered my prayer...

He is SENDING ME TO THE WORLD as he has from the beginning, this time to India.

It doesn’t end.

He must become greater, I must become less. John 3:30

Day 310 of Discipleship. (10/26/10)

It has been long while since I last blogged.  Oh I have been journaling, now more than ever but have kept my thoughts to myself, close friends and Christ.  But I continue on.  I have faced many trials since I last left off on this small window into the story of my life which is only a piece of one bigger greater story, that I Praise he who is worthy that I could be apart. 

I stand before you today a man.  Nothing more, nothing less, but I am a man that seeks the will of God in my life.  My prayer is that he uses me, that he takes me and molds me, that I will have no glory of my own but to share the Love of Christ with the world.  But the world is big place, I cannot bare it alone, I need the help of others.  Brothers, Sisters, Mothers, and Fathers in Christ, people of God that love one another and desire nothing more than to serve Christ.

I have been blessed in ways I cannot see.  I have been sustained in ways I did not think possible, I have been comforted in places I did not know I would need comforting.  I have been forgiven in ways I did not deserve forgiveness.  But all this is the Love of Christ, God the father raining down directly and through others.  My words are nothing because I was once full of sin, but God set me free! God set me FREE!!! He paid the price, and I am FREE!!!

The Trial

I returned home from Miami, Florida; my mountain top experience, a spiritual greenhouse in which tremendous growth occurred.  It was not easy, but as all ways in order to prepare me for the next step.  Another moment of testing to prove of what I’m worth.

Believe you me it was not easy, and I still have far to go, But I stand today, not who I once was but what I have become.  

Where I am at

There are certain things in life that are God breathed.

Creation

Communion

Covenant

- God created the world

- Then sought communion with his creation

- Then fulfilled his covenant with man, by sending his own flesh and blood. His only son to be sacfice for our sins. All he asks is that we accept and commit to living for him, and bring others to do the same.

Simple.

So simple it seems that we cannot understand. We try to do more than we are supposed to do. I try to do more than I am supposed to do. Way more. I get so far ahead of where He wants me. I wade far out into the water and then a storm comes and I am tossed by the waves. He says come back, to the shallow. You are not ready to be there. Stay here we will do this together. Ye of little faith why did you doubt...

Now I see...

Now I see who I have hurt...

Now I see what I have learned...

Now I see I am no where close to where God will take me in my lifetime, If I continue to follow Him...

Now I see but as a poor reflection in a mirror, then we shall see face to face...

And now I will show you the most excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and angles, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all knowledge and all mysteries, if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love I am nothing. If I give all I posses to the poor, and sacrifice my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy it does not boast. It is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies they will cease, where there are tongues, they will be stilled: where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when perfection comes the imperfect disappears. When I was a child I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man I put childish ways behind me. Now I see but a poor reflection as in a mirror then we shall see face to face; now I know in part then I shall know fully even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain faith hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13

There and back again.

I have been home for 1 week.

I am Blessed.

I am thankful.

I am taking it day by day.

“No one has any right to demand where he will be put to work”
– Oswald Chambers


(I wrote this before I left, but I feel like I need to share it now.)

To My family:

Mom: I love you with all my heart, I can’t begin to thank you for all you have done for me. You have sacrificed years of your life to raise me. You pray for me, you feed me, you clothed me, you provided shelter for me. I don’t know anyone else with a more giving heart than you.

Dad: You are my hero, my protector, my teacher, my team mate, my provider, my father here on earth. I thank you for the hard work and commitment for this family. You have worked hard to provide for our needs and bring us to church. You have provided me with wisdom and strength to face each day and rely on God when we are weak. I remember one time when you where upset and you went to your closet, I went after you to find you and saw you praying with your Bible. That is the best thing I have ever learned from you, and you may not even have known it.

Sister: You helped take care of me when I was young, and you helped make me presentable when I was a teenager. I thank you for being my friend when I was a quiet little boy and for helping me become gentlemen. You may not understand or agree with what I’m doing I only ask that you try to understand why I am doing this. I love you and am always here for you.

Brother: You are on the edge of becoming a man and have many trials ahead of you. Look towards God, obey your parents, find good friends, and read your Bible. You are talented in ways I am not, don’t waste it. Use your gifts God has given you and look towards older, wiser, men who follow Jesus for advice.

Donkeys (Brothers): We have been through much together. We grew up together. We have faced ridicule, embarrassment, honor, judgment, anger, fights, pranks, trouble, police, parents, pastors, forgiveness, grace, and love. We are a brotherhood, we stand strong. Our friendships will last the test of time. We are separated now but a time will come when we are united again. Stick together while I am gone, fight the good fight. Seek the knowledge and grace of God in his word and in relationships. Honor women, be humble, be kindhearted, and be slow to anger. Look towards whatever is pure and holy, for the eyes are the window to the soul.


“I am not saying this because I am in need. For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty, I have learned the secret to being content in any and every situation, well feed or hungry, whether living in plenty or want. I can do all things through him who gives me strength”
- Paul Philippians 4:11-14