99 Balloons

OK, I know this post should be the post about our outreach to the homeless men on our streets on Sunday afternoon, but before I can get to that, I need to share this video with you guys.

If this does not make you cry, then you need to ask God for a soft heart…

Accessible for all

On my way home from work this afternoon, I was listening to a sermon series from LifeChurch.tv on the topic of the church being for “Church People” and how this goes against what God wanted for the church. That the church is for the outsiders, and not for the ones that are already inside.

Listening to this topic, I started thinking about what is happening in the cell group where we used to go, and how awesome God is in working through these people to really go out and make a difference in the lives of the needy. The group, with us still included, are going to cook food for the men that sit on the street corners over the weekends, looking for piece jobs. They have work during the week, probably earning about R80 a day, but over the weekend they don’t have work and therefore are hoping that somebody needs a causal worker in the garden over the weekend.

Now, if this person is still sitting on the street corner at noon, the chances are pretty much 90% that they will go hungry for the day.

I am freaked out about the fact that we are FINALLY going to step out as a group of friends to really do something, and stop talking about how we can do what.

Just wanted to keep you on the up and up, and I will post feedback about the day with some pictures on Sunday, but in the meantime, please just pray for this group and for the peoples’ lives we are going to impact.

God loves you

Do you really believe this statement?

If you are like me, you have heard this statement at least a million times, but do you truly believe it, or do you, sometimes, like me feel that God cannot love me?

I am too bad to be loved…

But if we look at what God did for us, there is no way that God cannot love us. In John 3:16 it states that “God SO loved the world that He sent His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not have to perish” (own translation)

And then we take a look at 1 John 4:16

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
GOD IS LOVE. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

We need to get to a place where we can really understand the implications of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. We forget too often that we have been saved from our sins, and we simply need to repent and confess, in Jesus’ name, and His blood covers our sin.

Let us all start to really get to that place where we can keep this mantra going and really believe it

God is love, and therefore God loves me

Primary Calling

What is it that breaks your heart, the way it breaks God’s heart?

As you all know, 2010 is the year of change for me, and I really trust God for a new season in my life. To set me free from a dreadful and dreary job, and to release me into a place where I can really make a difference for the Kingdom of God. This is not to say that I can not make a difference at my workplace, but that just isn’t enough for me.

I currently serve in the worship team at church, and always have served in a worship team. That is just my way of doing corporate church. Due to this fact, I always believed that worship is my calling in life, and I must pursue doing that full time. But during the last couple of weeks, stepping into this season of change, my heart has been opened to that which breaks my heart.

Living in Africa, and being used to the poor and beggars all around, I have become insensitive to the needs of the extremely poor. In the last couple of weeks, God has really just softened my heart to the mission field, but specifically children. Whenever I look at a picture of a child suffering from hunger, I just feel an instant break within me, and I am unable to stop the tears.

Now, it is easy to actually do something for the poor. You can give them money, be it directly or through a charity that look after the poor children, like Compassion International, but that just isn’t enough for me. I really want to be with the children and just show them love.

With this revelation in my life, I have made a commitment to myself, God and my family, that I will go on a mission outreach two weeks every year, at least. If God ordains me to go more, I will follow, but what I can do at this point in my life, is two weeks, and I am going to make them count.

So, if anybody know about organisations that does mission outreaches, with which I can join up, I would really appreciate a comment or an email, so I can start to put the things I need in place.

Why do you want God to bless you?

Genesis 12:1-2 – The Lord and said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

During the last month, the Lord has blessed me with some extra money. His timing was great, since I had some extra expenses. As on so many occasions in the past, the amount that He supplied was quite a bit more than I needed to make my budget work, so I had surplus funds in my account.
Last week, while at a church meeting, I got a message from a friend who was on his way to the same meeting. The message said that he needed some help at a filling station nearby. I walked out of the meeting and drove to where he was. When I arrived, he told me that he was out of fuel, and that he didn’t have any money on him. As he was talking, the Spirit told me that this is why he blessed me with more than I needed, and I could fill up his car for him without even thinking about the cost. I think that I was blessed more by the situation than he was, because the Lord helped me realize a truth that will help me so much in future.

I want to challenge you to start thinking differently about blessings from God. Our primary goal on earth is not to have a nice, comfortable life and see how many belongings we can gather. We are here to glorify God, and sometimes (more often than we think), we have the opportunity to glorify Him by being obedient to his calling to be a blessing to those around us.

Compassion International

Our family just sponsored the following kid through Compassion International.

Meet Sandy…

For a mere $38 a month, you too can make a difference in a child’s life.

In Private

If you want to live like Jesus publicly, you need to live like Jesus privately…

Yesterday morning driving to work, I was listening to the first sermon from the sermon series, Carbon Copy from LifeChurch.tv, and this line jumped out at me.

What is the impact of this statement on your life?

For me, it is usually very easy to put up a facade to the world, and to look like this super duper Christian, but are you really? And for how long will you be able to keep up the facade?

Does this statement mean for you that you need to make time to spend private time with God, on a daily basis, or does it maybe mean you need to remove certain things from your life that may have a negative impact in your relationship with God.

Think about it.

Pray about it.

But, please, do something about it.

Fear of failure

I was reading this blog post on Stuff Christians Like which got me thinking about why I am so afraid to make a move.

I am sitting in a job I don’t like, and is pretty much a dead end job, and I really want to make a move out of my industry, but I am afraid…

My good friend Fritz is a great example for me, with regards to this. He left a good paying job to go do something that he loves doing. And Fritz, I really admire you for doing that.

Now, following the Haiti disaster, I was telling my wife, I wish there was a way that I can GO and help out. Not help out financially or anything, but to go to the area, and help and minister to people out there.

Or, looking at Charity Water every once in a while, I feel like I want to go on one of the trips myself, but every time fear gets the best of me.

Or every now and then, I feel like I should go into ministry or start my own business, but I am always too afraid to fail.

What would my wife say?

What would my family say?

What will I do when I come back?

How will I support my family?

Do I not believe that God will take care of me and my family? Why am I such a coward?

May God start to work in my heart and my life, to get this cowardly feelings out of me.

May God start to make Matthew 6:25-34 real in my life, and may I start to really trust in Him to give us what we need.

²⁵“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^[b]?²⁸“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Forgiveness

I have decided that the year 2010 is going to be the year of big change in my life. Not in the New Year resolution way, but in the way of changing my life to a place where God wants it.
To get out of my dead end job, to get closer to realising the calling God has for me on my life, and to be a better husband, father and son.
I am starting a journey with my Father in heaven of revamping my life. To make the difficult and uncomfortable choices. To die to myself once again.
The one major thing on this list of things that needs to happen is that I need to forgive. To put a certain issue behind me and to heal the one relationship that can get between me and my wife, other than our own.
This has been a long week, with God convicting me on a daily basis while in prayer to really put this issue behind me. To go out of my way to fix this relationship and to stop telling myself that I was wronged, and it is not my fault.
We as Christ followers, need to stop with this easy, worldly practice of feeling wronged, and even if you were wronged, you need to make the first move to put it behind you.
I have now had this issue in my heart for close to 6 years, and I can honestly say, for the first time in these 6 years, I can say that it is behind me, through the power of the Lord.
Maybe you have something like this in your life that is keeping you from reaching that place that God wants you to be in. That little something in your heart that becomes a sore, and when it gets infected, can throw your whole life off course.
Maybe you need to go and spend some personal time with God in this issue, and get it sorted between the two of you so that you can reach that place of forgiveness.

Wearing the veil

As you all know, I have been going through a bit of a slump the last month in my relationship with God. Getting to comfortable in my ways, and getting back some of my old habits I had before committing my life to God.

This all while keeping up the front of not going through the slump, like Moses wearing his veil.

Exodus 34:33-35 (NIV)

When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face.  But whenever he entered the LORD’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded,  they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the LORD.

Now, we generally make the mistake of thinking Moses put on the veil to hide his radiant face, but we learn in 2 Corinthians 3:13 that this was not the case

We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away.

Well, I am ashamed that I was wearing a veil for a couple of weeks, but thanks to God’s grace I was able to drop my veil once more.