One of the things I will miss most when I’m in
Mexico
is my church.
My church has anywhere
from 25-45 people in attendance every Sunday, is incredibly inviting, radical,
casual in the way our service is done but serious about the Gospel, open, and
my pastor is one of the best speakers I’ve ever heard.
I’ve never once been there and thought “He’s
preaching to the choir this Sunday.
I’ve
got all this under my belt already.”
For
the past two weeks he’s been preaching about
praying as an
antidote to the individualism of our culture, fasting as an antidote to the sensuality of our culture and giving as an antidote to the materialism of our
culture.
A few notes on this materialism
stuff, because God has really been pressing these things into my heart and
challenging me in big ways:
-As our culture says “Attain more! Collect stuff! Obey your
thirst for worldly possessions!” Christ calls us to give more
-If you have only a little, its not hard to part with your
stuff
-Do I EVER give without letting others know I’ve given?
-Is there anything I do just for Jesus, or is my whole
Christian life for public consumption?
Do
I EVER have an audience of One?
-Your Father in Heaven will reward you for your generosity,
but if you get your reward from men, enjoy it now, because you won’t be getting
one later
-“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain
what he can’t lose.
-Jim Elliot
I have a lot of worldly possessions, and its far too easy to
find comfort and security in my stuff.
I
look for approval through how I dress and what I have- I’m what my pastor calls
a “glory-sucking vacuum”.
But human
applause doesn’t satisfy for long, and I’m far too easily pleased when I am
filled by it.
My God passionately
pursues me, He seeks me like I am treasure, He sacrificed everything to have me
for His own- if only my capacity to take all this in would be increased, if I
could only cease my scrambling for the attention and approval of my peers.
My expectations for myself are far too low, I
settle far too often.
Preparing to move
out of my apartment and move to Mexico is challenging- It doesn’t make sense
for all my stuff to sit around all year, and each item that goes into the
goodwill pile stretches my spiritual muscles a little more, giving me a freedom
that only makes sense when viewed with a Kingdom-minded heart.
I can’t wait to be stretched more in this way through lifestyles we’ll be leading in Matamoros. I’m so excited about doing this with all of you!
