Love Christ

      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...

          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...

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...

 To whatever end... As I have been walking through my day-to-day life, the Lord has placed this phrase on my heart numerous times. It wasn't hard for me to figure out what it meant, to whatever end means, to what end, what length are you willing to go for Jesus? My heart has been pulled to those who have yet to hear the name of Jesus. Those who may never get the chance to hear His name on this side of Heaven, therefore meaning they won't spend eternity with us. Every time I think about it, I get to emotional, but I believe that God is speaking through this new series to show and challenge us in our evangelism. The Great Commission. We have all probably heard it numerous times before, but I want to look at it again because I believe it was spoken and there is power in it. Let's look at The Great Commission in the book of Matthew.  "Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain wh ere Jesus had told them to go. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some...

      The first part of this series discussed the hard question, "Why would God let bad things happen?" I highlighted that God doesn't cause bad things to happen to us, but He does use those things to grow us. I want to continue that today. Continuing to ask questions and seek God is good and deepens our relationships with Him.     There is evil in the world. It is sad, but it is the truth. God knew that He would send His son to die on the cross and that people would reject that gift. I think it's easy to look at a hard question like this and ask, "Why wouldn't God save _____." Why wouldn't God heal my hurting and sick family member? Why would God allow that person to leave us? Why would God let someone get cancer? Deep down, no matter how hard we try to conceal it, these questions and doubts from the devil try to swarm our minds and our hearts every day.      I went on a mission trip to Jamaica last week, and it encouraged me to continue to ...

  Things are not always clear-cut in our lives. There will always be things that we don't understand, things that we question. As I have been praying about what I wanted to write about, God reminded me of questions we have throughout our relationship with Him. This new series is all about the hard questions that we wrestle with. A question I always hear and want to start with is, "Why would God let bad things happen?"      A father told this story about his son that I think applies to our relationship with God. His son was curious; when a candle was burning, he went to touch the flame of the candle. The mother saw this and wanted to protect her son from the flame. The father knew it wouldn't scar him, it wouldn't hurt him forever, and by touching the flame, his son would learn not to touch fire. The father and mother disagreed and did not let their son touch the flame. A couple of days later, they went to a barbecue with a full-fledged fire. This fire had embers...

      Here is another beautiful aspect of creation that will really help to tie everything in this series together. There is a dark hole in the center of the whirlpool galaxy. For years, scientists have directed telescope after telescope to different parts of the galaxy to try to discover what it holds. Scientists finally built a telescope that was big enough and had enough power to be directed into the center of the whirlpool galaxy, and when they did, they had one chance to press a button that then would send a picture back to Earth. Look at the picture that was sent back to Earth... If you look at the center of this picture, it looks like a cross. Again, this isn't proving that God is real, but it was a revelation for me that He is everywhere.      Jesus sees and fully knows the craters we are afraid to show the world. In the deepest, darkest part of our struggles, our shame, Jesus is there. In the darkest part of our craters, we are reminded of the...