Pride.

When God answers a prayer, He answers it all the way. I’ve been praying for clarity on what to do in a situation, and today, the Lord answered, and clarified what I’m to do.

It’s not what I want to do, and I’ll have to lay aside my desires and pride, but it’s what needs to be done. And it needs to be done with love and willingness, not hate and a grudge.

But, in the long run, I know that it’s the Lord’s will, and that by giving up my desires, I’ll be so much better off than if I tried to do it myself, and followed my flesh.

But it was amazing how bluntly, and openly, God answered my prayer. Literally, as soon as He worked, I instantly thought of my prayer, and realized He had answered it in that moment. In literally 10 seconds, he answered something I’ve been praying for all week. It literally took no time.

And again, it isn’t fun, but Hebrews 12:11 tells us that it won’t be fun now, but it’ll bear fruit later on down the road.

So I now have a choice, as is always the case with this kind of situation.

I can follow my desires, and more than likely have a terrible outcome, OR I can follow God, and let Him lead me to a beautiful outcome, much better than if I tried to do it myself.

--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--

Job 15-21

It's the same as ever, and Job's "friends" are still trying to convince him that he's done something wrong for God to have let destruction place its hand upon Job.

Job again, rightfully, defends his innocence, and rebukes his friends.

Something I found to be rather ironic is that Job, in chapter 19, asks for God's words to be written in a book. How ironic, that the very Words of God are searching for themselves. That the Bible begs for the Bible.

--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--

Achan, Jonah, and Lot.

Sometime, when I sit, and just think, I think about which Bible character I would have been. I joke that I'll be Paul, a missionary who walked everywhere, or that I'm related to Goliath. Sometimes, I even think I'm Elijah, a man who was often alone, but never lonely because I have constant communication with God.

Well, it would be nice if I were Paul, or Elijah, but the truth is, I'm more like Goliath. I'm more like someone who is a hindrance to God's work than a help to it.

I don't think I could be classified as a single Bible character, but I really think I'm a lot like Achan, Jonah and Lot.

I knew that the Lord wanted me to come to the OGTC after graduating high school, but I was scared. I didn't think I was ready. I was afraid I wasn't a "good enough" Christian. So, instead of listening to God, I took a track scholarship, and ran from God.

Well, there's my Jonah side. Running from God when He tells me to do something. I followed myself in fear rather than God in faith.

So I went to college to run track, awesome. I thought I was Mr. Big Shot. Gonna be a college track star. Gonna break all kinds of records and be famous or something.

And in the year I spent in college, I showed my Achan side. Achan did what he was told not to do, and he suffured for it, his family, and his people all suffered as well. His sin affected more that just himself.

If you look at the people I hung out with in college, not a one of them got good grades. Not a one of them had a good track season. Not a one of them had a really good year.

If you look at my family, it was total chaos. Granted, some of that predates my birth, but still. There was a fissure, a rupture in my family.

If you look at my old church, nothing really happened. The Lord worked, but, in my eyes, it was a very unfruitful year for Cornerstone Baptist Church.

How is it that my friends, family, and people all suffered for the year I was in college? Becasue I have a strong Achan side. Not only did I suffer because I sinned against God, but those around me did as well.

And finally, I have a Lot side. Lot was a Christian, the Bible calls him "Just Lot" despite his lifestyle. I was saved at the age of 9. I went to college as a saved Christian. I was much like Lot in my time at college. I was surrounded on all sides by sin. I put myself in a position where all I could see, do or think was sin.

Oh, by the Bible talks about :Just Lot: living in sin. It says he was VEXED. He was tormented. He was tortured by the sin. And, without going into too much personal detail, my year in college was a horrible, horrible time. The longer I was there, the worse it got.

However, we know that Jonah escapes the great fish, and Lot is rescued. The Lord allowed me to survive that year in college, and has, more or less, given me a second chance. I am ashamed, looking back, at that year. I wasted time, ran, hurt those around me, and put myself in sin.

I’m slowly, but steadily, forgiving myself for that year, and purposing in my heart to follow God, no matter how scared I may be, or how dim the future is. Redeem the time.


--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--

Job 8-14

Chapter 8 starts off with Bildad trying to convinces Job that he's sinned, or is wicked, and that's why God has done this to him. Bildad talks for the whole chapter, and Chapter 9 is Job's rebuttal to Bildad,a s is chapter 10.

In Chapter 11, Zophar starts to talk, and again tries to tell Job that it's his fault these things happened to him. Job answers in chapter 12, and says he's "not inferior" to them, implying their error, and that his friends could learn from beasts and birds (12:7)

Chapter 13 is Job warning his friends to get their acts together, and that they start to understand God truly. And in chapter 14, Job is lamenting in his sorrow, which is rather understandable.

--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--

Prayer Cards.

I saw Mark Tolson for the first time last night in exactly two months. We talked for a bit, and I took a look at one of his prayer cards; I think it's an updated one. Anyway.

I was thinking, just a moment ago, what my prayer card will look like. Will my picture be in the center, or the sides? Will it be just me from the waist up, or from head to toe? Will I still be single, or will I have a wife? Kids? Will it be a picture where I'm posed, or will it be a picture of me preaching? What's my prayer card going to look like?

Then I started to think, "Wait a minute. I don't really deserve one. I haven't gone through any training. I'm not like Mark Tolson, or Matt Allen. I'm not a Trent Cornwell or a David Gardner. I'm still in school."

Because, in all honesty, I have a long way to go before I can say I'm ready to be a missionary.

But, as I continued to think about it, I realized that I'll never be ready, and I'll never deserve to be a missionary.

I mean, that the Lord would pick me, out of all the billions of people on earth, to take His holy words to Spain is amazing. There are thousands if not millions of people who are more qualified to take the gospel to Spain, and the rest of the world, than myself. It's very humbling that the Lord would pick me to work for Him, let alone in Spain.

I can't ever study enough to be worthy of being used by God either. I can't ever work hard enough to make Him need me, or so important that He HAS to use me. I'm really just some guy, saved by Christ, who God decided to use.

I feel like I'm trying for something that's "out of my league" with being a missionary. Yet, I know that the Lord has called me to Spain, and as the Lord hath called, so shall I walk (I Cor 7:17)

I don't deserve to be a missionary, let alone have a prayer card, but, for some reason, God decided to use me to be one. It's really humbling, the more I think about it, that God would decide to use me, in spite of my flaws and failures, flesh and weakness, sin and struggles to be a missionary.

It really is.

--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--

Job 1-7

Chapters 1-7

To summarize what's happening here, Job had everything. Satan comes and takes, and destroys all of it, save for his wife, because he thinks Job only serves God because God has blessed Job so much.

Job's "friends" show up to comfort him, and sit for seven days in silence as Job mourns. After those seven days, they cannot take it any longer, and begin to speak to Job.

Eliphaz speaks first, and accuses Job of living in sin, and Job rebukes him. Bildad says that Job must not be righteous because God would surely bless the righteous.

--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--

Against Satan

The last three days have been completely exhausting, for some odd reason. I'm too tired to blog, but I will say this: When Satan comes against you, don't try to stand in your own power. Jude:9 tells us that even Michael the archangel didn't dare make a railing accusation against Satan, but called upon God to rebuke him.

I wish I would have realized that three days ago. I've been lazy, and let Satan start to bind me again. Nothing too major, but I kinda got comfortable, and thought I was something, and I could stop Satan on my own. What a bad decision.

Anyway. That's that. I'm exhausted. I get to lead Bible study at Scott's on Friday. I'm happy.

--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--

I John- Jude

I John

Verse 6: Backs up "If you love me, kepi my commandments." If we love Jesus, we'll listen to Him

Verse 8: When we sin, we don't hurt only ourselves. When you or I sin, we cause our church, brother & sisters, mom and dad, pastors and everyone in our lives to suffer. Just ask Achan.

II John

Take nothing... Don't worry about stuff. Ask for nothing. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God...

Stuff isn't important, and we ought not love it.

Jude

First off, what an amazing book. I love verse 23. Even though I have no saving power in myself, I can throw someone a rope to climb from the fires of hell. Read Jude:23, and never doubt God can use you to do mighty things.

--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--

Check this out!

Vision Baptist Church of Alpharetta will be hosting a winter retreat from December 31-January 2 in Pigeon Forge TN. The Our Generation Summit is an annual gathering of Christians with a heart for world missions. Pastors and missionaries, teachers and students, businessmen and families join for three days to learn how to better fulfill their role in reaching the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ."With His work of redemption complete, Jesus had one final message to His followers before His acension: All authority is mine. My last command to my church is that you go to the ends of the earth and preach the Gospel" says Austin Gardner, veteran missionary and pastor of Vision, "People often wonder what is the point of a church. This is it."Speakers at the event will include pastors and missionaries from around the world, who will be teaching classes on subjects such as media in missions, cultural adaptation, history of missions, and many more.Located once again at the beautiful Music Road Hotel in the center of action-packed Pigeon Forge, the OG Summit provides a fantastic venue for any church or youth group seeking an easy-to-organize winter retreat filled with excitement and passion for Christ.Discounts are available for early and group registration. For more information, visit http://www.ogsummit.info/, or call (770) 456-5881

--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--

Woe unto me!

"For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid upon me; yea woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel."—1 Corinthians 9:16.

I don't really think people understand how much power, as a Christian he or she really has in his/her hand. Jude:23 tells us (in reference to others), save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh."

I think of it like this: I'm standing at the edge of hell with a rope in my hand. Just below me, and out of arm's reach, is a lost soul, hanging on to a small rock, or a twig sticking out of the side of the pit. The soul's grip is slowly weakening, and he/she is starting to slip into hell. However, I, standing on the edge of this pit, have a rope, a means of escape. My arms are not long enough to reach this person, but I can drop them a rope, and they can climb it to escape.

The rope in this case is Jesus Christ. There is no other way to escape hell, save faith and grace through Jesus. Without that rope, that soul is going to slip into hell, and be tormented forever.

Words cannot tell the pain that one in hell will feel, yet woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.

It's really simple. As a saved Christian, I have the only way out of hell. I'm not that way, and I can't save anyone from hell, but I can throw a lost person a rope. I can tell them about Jesus, and His sacrifice for us.

Granted, some people will reject the rope, but we're still required to throw it to them, and woe upon us if we preach not the gospel.



--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--

I Cor 13-16

Chapter 13

To summarize this chapter, all that needs to be said is that you aren't as other people. The whole chapter is about the importance of love. And greater love hath no man that he lay down his life for his friends. We read that without love, nothing we do will amount to anything. Love is the crux of a Christian life.

Chapter 14

Verse 19: Five words that people can understand are better than 10,000 they can't. Don't overly complicate things as a teacher/preacher. Be basic, and just teach the Bible for what it says. Related to Nem 8:8

Chapter 15

Verses 14-17: Christ is the essence of any Christian life. Without Him, and what He's done, we might as well call it quits.

Chapter 16

Verse 14: Let all things be done with charity (love). It goes back to Chapter 13. No love, no anything.

--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--

Facts, numbers, and apathy.

So, when it comes to missionaries giving their presentations, some of them really like to throw around their statistics. They'll get up on stage, give their speech, show their video, and, at some point, will say, "The country where I'm going is only 2% Christian." (Or whatever percentage it might be.)

And I've heard it all over the place, in many different states, from many different mouths.

"I think those stats were stretched a bit. He wanted to make the need look greater."
"I wonder where those stats came from. They don't seem very accurate.""I bet that guy's lying so we'll feel guilty and want to support him."

I've heard it many, many times.

Are there some people who really do stretch the truth? I'm almost sure of it.
Are there some people who lie about stats? I'm almost positive.
Are there some guilt-trippers? I'm almost certain.

However, I'd like to think that the majority of missionaries really do come with the most accurate facts they have, and don't really stretch the truth at all.

And even if they did stretch the truth, so what? That still doesn't change the fact that there is a world on its way to hell, and we're just sitting here, making excuses, and trying to defame people who are actually trying to do something so that we'll feel better about our apathy.

The country of Spain has about 46 million people living there. I've done a good bit of research about religion in Spain, and the highest, most liberal number of reported evangelical Christians (not just Baptists, but anyone under the evangelical name) to be 400, 000. But since I'm stretching those facts, or so you say, let's triple them. Let's say there are 1.2 million evangelicals in Spain.

With the facts tripled that still means only about 2% of Spain claims to be evangelical, and that's assuming they're all born again. Let's also not mention the close to two million muslims living there, and that between 5 to 10% of Spain's population is homosexual. We won't mention that. It'll be easier for you to be apathetic.

We have a choice. We can either continue to make excuse to make our apathy look good, and attack the ones who do care about world evangelism, or we can start actively getting involved in doing something.

I'm going to do something.

--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--

I Cor 10-12

Chapter 10

Paul tells the Corinthians that they ought learn their history (the Israelites in the wilderness) and that they should not be ignorant. I feel that the same would be a good thing in my life. Often times, I'll hear the real men of the church talking about some obscure character in the Bible, and I have no idea what's going on. I often don't know what I should know, and many times just sit there, listening to real men talking as opposed to contributing to conversation.

Chapter 11

I thought it was interesting that, "whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink of this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." It would seem that anyone who partakes of the Lord's supper without being saved is just making things worse for himself. Or maybe I'm just missing something, and incorrect.

Chapter 12

Unity is key. Without unity, nothing will be done, and the latter half of this chapter is completely about a church working together as one body. If one of my legs decides to walk o the left and another to the right, I'm going to be in a bad way. Same thing if one part of the church goes to the left, and another part to the right.

--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--

Family.

Before I begin this post at all, I want to be very, very clear about one thing: I am NOT trying to take a potshot at anyone. I am not angry, upset, bitter, or trying to be ungrateful. I am not saying anyone failed, or trying to put anyone down at all. I'm just saying something that has been on my heart lately.

I don't live with my parents anymore, and have no blood relatives near me. I'm kinda, sorta, on my own, and that's not a complaint. Basically, it's like I have no close family here.

However, as the days go by, I've noticed that there are two families here that almost come off as parents to me, in a kind of goofy way. It's more like I'm an orphan child who is kinda raised by a few different people, yet belongs to none. (Even though I am NOT my own, because I am bought with a price, and belong to Christ.)

It's really nice to know that there are finally adult men, who are more than just males in a church, who I can talk to. I really enjoy seeing Christians, and being surrounded by Christians, and yeah.

I don't know how to say it, really, but still, I feel very content with where I am, but I still want to be grown in the image of Christ, and grown to glorify God more and more.

I don't know. I hope I didn't offend my mother, father, pastor Trimble, or anyone like that with this post. I'm grateful for them, but at the same time, I'm so amazed at how helpful it really is.

Blah. Don't get mad at me.

--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--

I Cor7-9

Chapter 7

7: 37 -Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well.

The ability, or blessing, to be able to stay steadfast in my heart, as well as the Lord, is one of the things that I am strongly praying for. Paul says that we do well if we don't need. I might be incorrect here, but I think he's talking about need of a spouse/physical relation. I'm not totally sure. But either way, I would do well to stop saying I need this, or I need that, and to start controlling my will a little better.

Chapter 8

As a saved Christian, who is starting to mature in Christ, it it my job NOT to be a stumbling block to other, younger, less mature Christians. My job is not to cut them down, but to lift them up. And the things I should do, should a younger Christian see them, ought glorify God, and not cause a seed of confusion (as to what I'm doing) to be planted.

Chapter 9

There are people who are watching you at all times. Paul says that people were putting him through an exam. That he was constantly being watched and tested. And he was able to give them a good answer to their questions. Can I do the same? Do people who watch me [either as unsaved, or other Christians (ch 8)] have a reason to say I'm not as spiritual as I ought be?

--Pray for Spain. Pray that the Lord would raise up missionaries and native Spaniards to take the gospel to the millions of lost souls in Spain.--