Be Yourself in Christ

Benay and I feel that lives are changed through friendships. Each "hello" has eternal consequences. We don't believe in forcing the Good News on anyone. We believe people give their lives to Christ as they see the way people live for Christ, first through friendships and then learning for themselves why these people are different. A transformed life is the best witness to Christ's power.

As we blogged on Monday, I was reminded of that this past Sunday when the three brothers shared their testimonies. How they saw lives changed in the men who were already at the recovery center. This made them want to know more about why the other men were different. The day to day lives of these saved men made a huge impact on the not-yet Christian men.

Their story made me think of a story I read in a book I am currently reading. It's called Total Forgiveness by R.T. Kendall.

Here's his story:
Once, while addressing a group of missionaries in the south of France, I stayed in the home of a Christian missionary who had been a Muslim. I was astonished at this change of life and marveled at his conversion. He told me that he had been led to Christ by some British soldiers when he lived in Madagascar. But what I really wanted to know was what had actually won him over to Christianity. "What argument did they use?" I asked. "What line of reasoning persuaded you to turn from Islam to the Christian faith?" He replied, "It wasn't what they said; it was who they were." His statement really challenged me. It made me see the folly of imagining we are going to win people over by our superior arguments-our great preaching methods. What impresses the world most is changed lives for which there is no natural explanation."

I Am Second

If you like to hear strong testimonies of the power of Christ then you need to click here.

My dad shared this site with me. You will know some of the people who share their testimonies and others you won't. You will be touched by all of them.

It starts with an Oi (hi)!

Too often we Christians muddy up the Good News of Christ. We feel we have to drag someone to church service, we have to have a lesson ready, we have to be ready with a sermon and sometimes we are pretty judgmental of those who don't yet know Christ. All can be, and usually are, huge turn offs to those who don't even know Jesus.

Our family believes that everything begins with a hello.....a friendship. Every conversation we have has eternal consequences. We try, imperfectly, to live with this mindset.

We have a saying in our family to "choose the best over the good." What does that mean? Sometimes you have to say no to a very good thing in order to do the best. Benay and I have discovered this when we moved to Brasil. As a missionary you can literally do tons of "good things" and feel pretty productive but you will eventually kill yourself with "church work." But is that really what God wants? Does He want us to do lots of "good things" instead of focusing more time and energy on less "best things?" We decided a while back to say no to some "good things" and just try to do the "best things" that God asks of us.

One example happened this afternoon. The best soccer team in the world (that would be Internacional for those new to this blog) played a game today in a little stadium close to our house. Bronwyn, Garrett, Ansley and I had decided to go. Ansley then got a call from her friend whose grandfather had died yesterday. She asked Ansley to go with her family to the burial today (here people are typically buried in about 24 hours). Ansley didn't hesitate. She went with her friend. She was dying to go to the game and see her favorite player but she knew what God was asking of her. She chose the "best" over the "good." She understands how the love of Christ works and she was Christ to this family today. Benay and I could not be more proud of the way Ansley (and all of our kids) are Spirit led. Who knows what God will do with what Ansley did today?

What Ansley did reminded me of a story in Max Lucado's book entitled: Cast of Characters.

He says, Discipleship is sometimes defined by being normal.

A woman in a small Arkansas community was a single mom with a frail baby. Her neighbor would stop by every few days and keep the child so she could shop. After some weeks her neighbor shared more than time; she shared her faith, and the woman did what Matthew did. She followed Christ.

The friends of the young mother objected. "Do you know what those people teach?" they contested.

Here is what I know, she told them. "They held my baby."

I think Jesus likes that kind of answer, don't you?

That's My King

We first heard about this video from our small group from Abilene, Texas. A couple of years later my dad sent the same video to us. It's an almost six minute description of Jesus given by Pastor S.M. Lockridge who was a pastor for the Calvary Baptist Church in San Diego, California. He pastored this church for 40 years and, from the bio I read, through his various ministries touched the lives of over 100,000people.

This is an incredibly powerful video and, whether you've seen it 10 times or have never seen it before, it's worth every second it takes to watch it. Like Bronwyn, our oldest, said after watching it, "I've got goosebumps."

Enjoy:

How Jesus Messed Up My Life

As missionaries, we face many challenges. Sometimes, they can seem overwhelming and we might, in weak moments, look at the lives of others and wish ours were as "simple" as theirs appears to be. I, Benay, think of when I was a school teacher and how I thought that was the hardest job in the world - until I got this one. I used to look at what other people have or what their kids do and wish that I had stayed in the states so my life could be like theirs. We are encouraging our church members here to really BE church - not just DO church on Sunday. Honestly, being church is harder. It is much easier just to go to services each week and get your earful.

A few months back, we read a post on a blog - http://www.mattritchie.wordpress.com/ - that we could really relate to. We translated this post and shared it with our church members. And, even though we face challenges, we wouldn't go back for anything. Here is the post that we loved:

If I had gotten my way 15+ years ago, I would be a wealthy, big-city litigator right now, wiling away the years in an expensive office building during the weeks and at every Cowboys game on the weekends. I’d have a big house worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’d go to a nice, clean-cut church where I’d check in every Sunday morning and otherwise do all of the things that good Christians do to make sure they can punch their ticket into heaven. And I’d listen to conservative talk radio, just to remind myself that there is no need to change the order of things: everyone is making their own choices and getting just what they deserve.

Life would be good.

But the more I read the gospels; the more I try to understand what Jesus was really all about, the more he has the audacity to come into my life and totally screw it up. He makes me think about every dollar I spend - who is benefitting from it and how? He makes me reflect on the kind of car I drive and how it affects God’s creation. He challenges me to make my children into risk-taking disciples, instead of neat, middle-class carbon copies of myself. He asks me to go places where I am uncomfortable, and to invite people into my house when I’d much rather have a quiet night alone. He intrudes on my free time and tells me to invest it the things that matter to him. He tells me that the politics that seemingly support my interests aren’t necessarily the ones that support his.

Far from being a cosmic Mr. Fix-it, Jesus is taking every priority and ambition that I ever held and - without so much as asking - turning it over like he did the tables in the temple.

But the truth is - having come to know the Jesus who messes with me at every turn - I would never go back to the old one. For all his annoying qualities, this is the Jesus that feels authentic to me. I feel like I finally am coming to know him for who he is. And in spite of all of the discomfort and downright inconvenience that he causes, I’m coming to see that the things that he is about are the things that really matter in this world.