The Rock Church – 2/15/09

Two questions:

1. Do you believe in the afterlife?
2. What are you doing to prove it?

• You have faith in gravity and oxygen, love and God.  You’ve never seen these things, but you trust them.
• We are all creatures of faith
• "You get saved… You get equipped… You get sent out"

1.  Identify a specific burden you want to help someone carry

• There is some burden in your family (or elsewhere) that you are called and equipped to help
• Who do you feel burdened to help – who / what does your heart break for?
• Nobody can help everybody
• Who has God called me to help?
• 2 Cor 5: 17-21… God has given us the ministry of removing the barrier between people and God and He’s given us the message of reconciliation.  He is pleading through us, to somebody.
• Ask God – who is it that for me?  Who do you want me to focus my energies on reaching?
• Honor God with not only your money, but also your time, and you will be so blessed, you will overflow
• Everything you have is borrowed

2.  Identify a friend you can serve with

• God created us to be dependent upon one another
• Humans are the most evolved creatures, yet are fully dependent on one another

3.  Spend time planning ahead and thinking out of the box on how you can carry that burden.

• God, show me how I can help them
• What does your faith in God look like?;
• The answer should be:  I faithfully serve, pray, study the Word
• You don’t need to go to work saying "I’m a Christian".  Live it, and they’ll see it.  The best evidence of who you are is what you do.
• God’s power is in His word.  The Bible, creation, healing, etc
• God only forgives those who ask for forgiveness and repent
• God’s greatest work is what he’s able to do in people

4.  Deliver the person to Jesus

House hunting

The last couple of weeks have been filled with drama around the search for a home to buy.  We got pre-approved and put an offer on a house on 2/18, and later the sellers countered with only $1k off their asking price.  We countered $5k higher as a ‘final offer’ and they are not interested.

Lord, I pray for your wisdom and guidance as Jen and I determine what to do with our living situation.  I desire only to follow your will.  Please make your direction apparent.  I trust in your plan.  Amen.

It’s been too long

It’s been way too long since my last entry.  Why would I stop right after my baptism?  It doesn’t make sense to me.

However, I have experienced what I feel is the Lord preparing me for work.  I have been heavily engaged in not only studying for the PMP exam, but also learning how to develop web pages.  I feel called in this way, and it feels like a natural ‘fit’ of my talents, abilities, and passion.  My feeling is that whatever I develop needs to be free to the user, and (obviously) centered on being Christ’s "hands and feet".  I need to stay sensitive to how He is calling me in this (or other) way(s).

Later in the evening…

In my Rock Church sermon study tonight, pastor Miles said the following: "You get saved… you get equipped… you get sent out".  This directly correlates with (and confirms?) my prior entry (above) in my energy toward learning to build websites.