Archive for the ‘News Updates’ Category

25
May

I will rise.

   Posted by: brandyness

Micah 7:7-9

7 But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD,
I wait for God my Savior;
my God will hear me.
8 Do not gloat over me, my enemy!
Though I have fallen, I will rise.
Though I sit in darkness,
the LORD will be my light.
9 Because I have sinned against him,
I will bear the LORD’s wrath,
until he pleads my case
and upholds my cause.
He will bring me out into the light;
I will see his righteousness.

The overwhelming burden that floods my heart is for those who are called by God into the ministry but are not currently pursuing it. I was talking to a good friend a couple of days ago about this passage. It is amazing how much guilt plays a part in convincing people they are not good enough to do the work of the Lord. We are all sinners, saved by grace, this is true.

I love hearing stories about people whose lives were changed. Someone who lived a hard life of drugs, sex, and crime and is changed by the saving grace of Jesus Christ has a powerful testimony indeed. These people have learned something that “church” people sometimes struggle with.

I was saved in an AG church when I was five years old. I have never been “bad” nor have I ever craved a lifestyle outside of the safe boundaries of the law of grace. If at this point in my life, my ministry, in pursuing my calling, I were to give into a sin that I had avoided my entire life, I am not sure how I would recover. I know about the grace and mercy of Christ. I cling to them everyday. My credentials as a believer are grounded in the fact that I receive that which I do not deserve.

This verse does not seem to be speaking to an unbeliever who is aware of the mess they are in and want God to rescue them. It is the voice of someone who enjoyed the benefits of serving the Almighty, and the something happened that would have caused their enemies to gloat over them. Something happened that would have justified giving up. But amidst this we hear almost a whisper of hope…

“Though I have fallen, I will rise.”

Sins committed while in the ministry are almost seen as unforgivable, but I do not believe that is a correct view. Yes, those in positions of leadership need to live up to what the Bible says, but when they give into temptation, we should not toss them aside and act as if they are unredeemable. They should pay the consequences for what they have done, but if God forgives and restores, who are we to say that it is not good enough? The hardest part of this verse…when WE sin, when I sin, when YOU sin, God’s grace is ready and waiting to restore you.

Although you should be heartbroken by your choice to commit wrong against your God, you are still called. You still have work to do. Make it right, and get back to work!

10
Mar

The Lord of the Harvest

   Posted by: brandyness

Matthew 9:37,28

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

What is the harvest?

Who are the workers?

How does this Lord “send out” workers?

This passage of scripture is learned by many people, some even from a young age, as it pertains to missions. Rightfully so, I believe. It is important to learn to pray for the lost, and even more, to pray that God would send people to tell the lost of the hope they have and the redemptive possibilities thanks to the sacrifice Christ made. I find it interesting that in this passage of scripture that Jesus considered the “harvest” something other than a group of previously evangelized people who were yet to make a commitment for Christ. When Jesus identified the harvest, he was talking about people who were “harassed and helpless. Like sheep without a Shepard.”

I think perhaps it is my own wrong thinking, but I have always pictured the “ripe” harvest as the previous. Maybe it was referring to a group of people in a small town in the Midwest who were missing someone who was passionate enough to convince them that the gospel was worth their time. It could also be a group of people so devastated by a natural disaster that they were willing to immediately cling to any good news that would come their way.

And to some extent, maybe these are the ripe harvest.

But I think that when we look at the next chapter, the part where the Lord of the Harvest is ACTUALLY sending out workers….a real life demonstration of that for which we are implored to pray…we see that maybe the ripe harvest is not as obviously willing to receive the message as I had previously thought.

When Jesus looked at the lost, and when we look at the lost, sometimes there are two different pictures. Jesus saw the lost through the lenses of the understanding of the power of the gospel. There is no other story like it. There is no other fact in history that demands such a change in our lives. There is no other message that has been ripped apart, put back together and then thrown aside and ignored, because to give it your attention means to give it your life.

Jesus understood this.

When the call of God rests heavily on your life, it is your responsibilities to trust in this power. It is not something that is always given to you supernaturally. There are times when we will doubt the power of God. There are times when we will wonder if the sacrifices we are making are even reasonable considering the possibility that perhaps we “heard God wrong.”

I don’t think that people call themselves into the ministry. I think ministry is something other than what the flesh desires. Ministry, from human understanding, means instability and constant possibility for failure. But through the lenses that Christ looked through in Matthew 9, the picture is very different. A choice to follow Christ, pick up your cross, and be obedient to the call from Heaven, is a choice of ultimate stability and guaranteed success.

I can’t think of one other career choice that can tempt with that kind of outcome.

12
Jan

The God of Endless Possibilities

   Posted by: brandyness

There are times when we stop and take account of our lives.  Doing so today, I have found myself in South Korea.  I have been here for three years, and have loved living in another culture.  I have recently been approved to start raising prayer and financial support to be a Missionary Associate with the Assemblies of God.  The opportunity I find myself preparing for is one that God hand picked for me, and placed in my heart almost four years ago.

Back to taking account of our lives.  I am from a small town.  Like really small.  Like no stop lights small.  When I moved away to college, they combined it with the larger town close by and now it has a whopping one stop light.  How did I get from that place, whose name would not ring any bells to anyone over 100kms away to living just south of one of the largest cities in the world?

God, the God of endless possibilities.

I have always been fascinated by God’s relationship with Moses.  When God told Moses to “go,” and Moses asked who he would tell them had sent him, God responded with a chilling “Tell them I AM sent you.”

Goosebumps, anyone?  Yeah. Me too.

I have known of God’s call on my life from the time I was 14.  I knew that my life would be spent in its entirety to serve God in whatever way He deemed fit.  So naturally, I wanted to know, as did Moses, who was sending me.

So one day in prayer, I asked God.  Who should I say sent me?  There was no answer, only the special silence that only God can pull off.  I wanted to KNOW God.  I wanted to KNOW who was sending me to do all of these undisclosed missions.  And mostly, I wanted to have a really cool way to sign letters to missionaries.

Imagine:

“May God be with you, and be blessed by the God that is the I AM.”  Moses had an amazing way to sign his support letters.  I wanted this. I wanted a name for God that was just mine and His.  Something that was personal to me, that would demonstrate how God was going to work in my life.  That is when it came one day in the same strange silence in which I made my request know.

Tell them that the God of endless possibilities sent you.

I didn’t know what this meant, really, but it would sound great in a newsletter!!

“Blessings from the God of endless possibilities.”

And so I have come to know God in this way.  He has spent the several years from this moment showing me how He can turn any situation around.  When I think that I have thought of every possible way something can work out, God blows me away with a solution to a problem or issue that I could have never imagined.

He is a creative God, you know.

So please, join with me as I learn to serve day by day- the God of the impossible.