What Now?

The following song by Steven Curtis Chapman has always been a challenge to me.  It's called "What Now?"
It finds its inspiration in the story in Matthew 25:40.


I saw the face of Jesus in a little orphan girl
She was standing in the corner on the other side of the world
And I heard the voice of Jesus gently whisper to my heart
Didn't you say you wanted to find Me, Well, here I am and here you are

So what now? What will you do now that you've found Me?
What now? What will you do with this treasure you've found?
I know I may not look like what you expected, but if you'll remember
This is right where I said I would be. You found Me.
What now?

And I saw the face of Jesus down on Sixteenth Avenue
He was sleeping in an old car while his mom went looking for food
And I heard the voice of Jesus gently whisper to my soul
Didn't you say you wanted to know me, Well, here I am and it's getting cold.

So what now? What will you do now that you've found Me?

What now? What will you do with this treasure you've found?
I know I may not look like what you expected, but if you'll remember
This is right where I said I would be. You found Me.
What now?

What a challenging thought! We say that we want to know Him, but Paul reminded us that fellowship with Him is a fellowship with His suffering, and with that of those that He loves.  So when you see someone in need, what are you going to do about it? 
January is "Make A Difference Month" at IBC.  I challenge you to be praying about how we can put into practice the truths that we are seeing from God's Word this month. I challenge you to make a difference in the life of someone around you before this week is out.

My Bangla Road Dilemma

"Ok, Lord, but I'm still her father.  Can't I just take care of her a little bit?" 
By the time Chelsea was 13 years old, I had figured out that she was too much for me to handle on my own.  Even with my awesome parenting skills :0) and my super-hero wife, Chelsea had already proven that she was going to be an exceptional child and an exceptional challenge.  It was somewhere in her seventh grade year that I threw up my hands and said, "God, you are going to have to take over with this one."  And as is often the case, God said, "What took you so long?"  I can say without a doubt that the last twelve years have been an adventure, one that I wouldn't have missed for the world.  And Chelsea's strong will and determination have resulted in some mountaintop experiences for all of us.  When, after coming home from China in 2009, Chelsea shared with us that God had led her to surrender her life as a missionary, it was one of the greatest days of my life. 
This past June, when Chelsea was accepted to participate in the World Race, I wrote a blog entitled Dangerous Milestones, where I shared the peace that God had given me concerning her taking part in this exciting, but potentially dangerous adventure.  Over the past seven months, that peace has never waned.  I knew that God was going to do great things in Chelsea's heart and life and that He was going to teach her some amazing lessons through this process, but the one thing that I didn't expect, was that He was going to do the same things for me as well. 

Less than two weeks into her adventure and already, God has hit me with a 2X4. "He touched me, oh, He touched me..."  Chelsea's first ministry assignment is to reach out to the prostitutes in the 200 bars along Bangla Road in Phu-ket, Thailand.  She and her team are trying to build relationships with these women so that they can share the Gospel of Christ with them and see them set free from both their spiritual bondage and their physical nightmare.  Her facebook status "worship with the teams before heading out for another night in the bars...please pray for divine appointments and protection."  "Protection"??? One of my preacher friends said, "Bars? Do they have protection? Will they be safe?"  My only answer is that she is in God's hands.
I spoke with her briefly the morning after her first night of ministry and asked if they would be going back that evening.  She said, No, because the transportation costs to take the teams to the bars was too great to allow them to go everyday.  Their funds would only allow them to make two or three trips a week.
Suddenly, my fatherly instincts kicked in.  I can't let her travel to the other side of the world and then not be able to minister because she doesn't have the 900 baht that it takes to get her team to where the need is.

But even in that moment of passionate reaction, God spoke to my heart. "I am in control.  I know what I'm doing.  Don't interfere."
There is a reason that they have only so much budgeted for their time in Phu-ket.  It may be that God, or their ministry leaders, want them to find a way to provide the need without outside help.  It may be that they know that ministry that is this intense and heart-wrenching cannot be taken in large doses. It may be that a constant presence would arouse the suspicions of the bar owners or the girls' handlers.  I don't know.  But God does.  And so I wait.  I wait and watch to see what God will do.  I have had to release my little girl once again into God's hands.  I never thought I would be proud to say that my daughter spent last night in the bar, but these were the kind of people that Jesus spent His time with while He was here, so I guess there is no better way for her to be His hands and feet than to extend His love to the ones who need it most.

How About You?

How About You?

The fields are white, His Word is true,

The harvest is great, the laborers few.

And when I inquire, "Why perish the lost?

Why are they wandering, blind, tempest-tossed?

Why won't some Christian go lead them in,

Out of hell’s pathway ravaged by sin?

Why won’t they show them the Way that is True?"

Then the Lord asks me, "How about you?

You know the story of mercy and grace.

You found me waiting when you sought my face.

You have been purchased by My love divine,

You claim to be one that I will call mine.

Why don't you tell them of My love so rare?

You be the one this message to share."

The harvest is waiting, we must count the cost,

For if we delay, their souls will be lost.

The time of the harvest is passing us by,

And if we don’t reap, we’ll mourn by and by.

But if we are faithful, God’s Word is true,

And we'll be rejoicing eternity through.

Pastor Marty Hughes

What Will He Ask You To Give?

Yesterday was an amazing day in my life, a day of beginnings.  I took my daughter to the airport to begin the next phase of her life's journey and as our last hug for eleven months came to an end, I felt the magnitude of what God has asked of me.  He asked me to release her and trust her to His hands.  Then last night, we had the first service of our Faith Promise Missions Conference and Brother Jerry Byars challenged us about faith and finding out what God would have us to do for Missions in the coming year.  These two events stirred similar emotions in me.
I have had a number of people ask me if I cried all day yesterday.  The answer is no.  The process of releasing my daughter didn't happen all at once, so yesterday's farewell was not terribly traumatic.  I learned from Dr. James Dobson many years ago that I needed to begin to let her go a little at a time as she approached her adolescent years, so that she could learn and grow and so that I would be ready when the time came to let her fly.  Shelley and I have encouraged our children to make their own decisions, offering godly counsel, but allowing them to make choices and deal with the consequences.  They have not always chosen to follow exactly the same path that I would have chosen for them, but as I look at their lives right now, I can see the hand of God moving them and both of them have learned to listen for His voice and to follow it wherever it leads.  God gave me the responsibility to teach them what is right and then release them to His care.  The result, in my life and that of my family, is that I am now being blessed by the life and testimony of my children.  I am learning from them new ways to worship and serve the Lord with gladness.  And by God's grace, I can now count both of my children as joint-heirs, co-laborers, and best of all, friends.  What God asked me to give up was control, something that we never really have anyway.  What He gave me instead was a relationship that is both fruitful in His service and joyful for me.
When I think about Faith Promise Missions, my mind goes to a similar place.  This is not a new thing for me.  I have been giving regularly to Faith Promise since I was 12 years old, almost 40 years.  And God has never let my giving to His work become a burden.  Long ago, He taught me that my life and all that it entails is not my own.  It belongs to Him.  Just as my children are gifts from God, so everything else in my life ultimately belongs to Him.  He asks me to surrender control to Him, and promises that if I do, He will allow what He has given me to germinate and grow into something that will be fruitful in His service and a joyful blessing to my life.  As I heard Brother Byars' testimony about Faith Promise last night, the question wasn't, "Will I give?" but "How much will I trust God for?"  And since I have already learned to give Him control in my family, it's not too hard to surrender control over my finances as well.
I challenge you to be a part of Faith Promise Missions giving.  It will change your life when you decide to trust God with all that you are and all that you have.  Then you can just sit back and see what God is going to do with what you have given Him.

A Heart For The Harvest

In Matthew 9:35-38, we are given a picture of the heart of Christ.  Jesus was busily traveling throughout Judea, teaching, preaching, and healing. But in verse 36 we are told that He paused for a moment and just looked at the condition of the multitude around Him.  They had come to the end of their own resources, they wandered around in confusion, and they didn't know what to do or who to turn to, and it touched the heart of Christ.  He had compassion on them.  It was this  poignant moment of need that led to His famous challenge to His disicples, "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest."  It is from this narrative that we get the theme for our Missions Conference that begins tomorrow night.  We are asking God to give us "A Heart For The Harvest."  Sometimes we get so caught up in the necessary busyness of life and service that we fail to take note of the multitudes around us.  As a result, we lose compassion for their needs.  I would like to challenge you to pray for three things as a result of the services this week: 1. That God would make it very clear in your own heart how He wants you to be involved in the Harvest.  2. That God would stir up in our church a new passion for missions and for reaching our community and our world for Christ.  3. That God would provide the vision, the resources, and the manpower to make our church a base of operations to turn the world upside down.
Let's begin by committing ourselves to be in every service of the Missions Conference and to listen for His voice through the sermons and presentations.  Let's welcome God to speak to our hearts and then be prepared to put into action the things that He leads us to do.
The only thing that has changed in the 2000 years since Christ made this statement is that the harvest is now even more plenteous.  Let's get busy reaping.