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Intentional Author

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Intentional Author The last thing I wrote about was what having a posture of surrender looks like. Surrender is giving back to God what was His in the first place and trusting Him with the outcome.  There are some things in life that are much easier to hand over to God than other things. When it comes to things we are really looking forward to or hoping for, it typically is so much harder to surrender those things to the Lord. We desire to be in control, to know how the story ends, to write it how we wish. Most of the time we’ve already planned out how life is going to go, so that when something happens that is different to what we planned, we blame God for messing up, or not getting the timing right. Truth is, it’s us and our desires that don’t always align with the will and the timing of the Lord.  When we’re in a season of hope, hoping and waiting for something to happen, we get so excited and put so much trust in our plan that sometimes, it hinders us from seeing the...
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Surrender

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      Something that the Lord has placed on my heart recently is the idea of surrendering. What does it look like to truly surrender it all to the Lord?     The first thing that I think of when I think of surrender is the act of opening my closed fists. So often in life, I find myself holding onto things that the Lord blesses me with or brings into my life with my fists closed tightly around them. While this isn't always bad, it leaves no room for God to be able to work and move through those things. Another thing about the posture of closed hands is that we can't receive anything when our hands are closed. The devil loves to get us to hold on so tightly to the things of the world and convince us that they are God's best for us; when in reality they're far from it. When I live my life in a posture of open hands, I am allowing the Lord to place things in my life that He wants there, and I'm allowing Him to move and work through them.     Something else ...
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Jesus Embraced the Interruptions

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      Jesus embraced interruptions. I remember the first time I heard this, I was walking with a group of my friends to the dining hall. Someone stopped us and we ended up talking for an hour. We didn't know who the person was, but we ended up having a really good conversation with them. We continued walking and talked about how we could have just kept going on with our days, but by stopping and talking to someone, we ended up learning so much not only about them and ourselves but also about God. Jesus embraced the interruptions.     Since that night, I haven't been able to stop thinking about Jesus' ministry. Jesus knew that He wouldn't have very much time on earth. He knew that He would end up on the cross, but that didn't stop how He treated those around Him. Jesus did so much during the time He had on the earth because He formed relationships with His people. He could have gone from city to city, rushing through to share the Gospel with as many people as He ...
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To Whatever End pt. 5

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      The human brain naturally thinks about what is effective and what isn't; what works and what doesn't. What is the best use of my time, and what isn't? It can become dangerous when we ask questions like, "How effective is sharing the gospel?" "How do I even know if sharing the gospel is affecting someone?" The thing about God is that He is outside of our time and our understanding. There are things on this side of Heaven that we may never understand. There are going to be times when we question why something does and doesn't happen; why someone does and doesn't react a certain way. When sharing the gospel, it is so important not to get into this mindset. God is the only one who is capable of knowing what is truly inside other people's hearts. We have to be confident enough in our God that when we say yes, we believe He will do the rest. Someone else's "yes" is not on your shoulders, but saying yes to God and following where...
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To Whatever End pt. 4

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      This series is about evangelism and ministry, and while I am talking a lot about ministries far away, I don't want to forget and neglect the ministries in our backyard.      I heard a sermon at a college ministry that was talking about The Great Commission. The pastor told this story, he was in his freshman year of college, and he had a group of friends he spent a lot of his time with. It was during exam week when he was hanging out with one of his friends one-on-one, which hardly ever happened being that they spend a lot of time in a group together. He asked, "Do you know who Jesus is?" The guy responded, "Who?". This shocked him, he had never met someone before who had never heard about Jesus. He shared the gospel with his friend, and the friend asked many questions, leading them into a long conversation about Jesus. Once they had been talking for a while, the friend said, "I'm not sure the Jesus, you just told me about is the Jesus that y...
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To Whatever End Part 3

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          The greatest example of someone sharing the word of the Lord is Jesus. Take a look into Jesus' ministry platform, it was twelve people. Jesus spent His entire life ministering to twelve people, getting close with them, living life with them, asking and answering hard questions with them, and living out The Great Commission with them. While Jesus did preach to large crowds a few times, He also withdrew from large crowds to focus on individuals. I'm not saying that you should turn away those who come to you looking for Jesus, but what I am saying is not to neglect the best example that we have been given.     Jesus's focus was to turn the disciples hearts to the Lord, not just get them to make a one time decision.  Matthew 7:21-23 says, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not proph...
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To Whatever End Part 2

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I have a heart for Jamaica, I have been on two mission trips to Highgate and have fallen in love with the community. I want to share a story with you today about one of the leaders of the church. Each night after we finished hosting the Vacation Bible School, our team would have a debrief. In that debrief, we would talk about our day, what was good, bad, and funny, but also have the time to pour into each other. We were sitting in the pews of the church, surrounded by the church leaders during our debrief one night when one of the ladies said, "I will never understand why you would leave the comfort of your home, and come to a place like this, for people like us." That hit me hard. This is The Great Commission; we do this because God calls us to. It broke my heart that a leader of a church didn't understand that. I tell that story because I believe that it is so important to know what God says and to be active in His word as we are open to His calling. This doesn't me...
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