It has been so wonderful being a part of Vineville Baptist Church and learning all about the seasons of the Church (as a whole). From Advent and holy week, to celebrating Easter for and the Ascension, to this Sunday which is Pentecost - the birthday of the Church.
Pentecost was the day when God breathed his Spirit onto the Apostles and gave the gifts that would allow them to spread the word of Christ throughout the nations. Praise God!
Thank you Lord, for sending Jesus your Son, and for giving us the Holy Spirit to comfort us, to guide us, to teach us and to convict us when we sin so that we may repent.
Happy Birthday to the Church- may we continue to do the good work God has given us to do, until the day our Lord brings us Home.
This was a Hymn we sang this morning, and the words (especially the second verse) mean a lot to us!
In the mean time...I'm trying to balance out my excitement and my 'fear of forgetting something'... it's been a while since I've done this! It's been seven years since my last overseas mission
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and MAN have I missed it!
Mom and I with Katiya in 2002, orphanage in Bryansk RU
Puppets for the kids at The Church of the Ascention, Bryansk RU
Zhenya Rozhkov, Me, Kim and Pasha Rozhkov, 2003, Bryansk RU
I love the people of Russia. I love the language, the kindness, the beauty of their history and redemption, and the strength and reverence of the church. I miss the hunger, the need for Jesus and His love, and I miss being inspired and humbled by our Russian brothers and sisters and their fervor for spreading the gospel and living it out each and every day.
I cannot wait to fall in love with more people, and further in love with my God. Haiti is a beautiful place with such tragedy, with such a need for love, for help, for the Word of God, and for His hope. I can only imagine that these people will be as special to me as the brothers and sisters in Russia. That, as we travel to do our best to lend a hand and a heart, we will steadily be changed and humbled by the Spirit through these beautiful people. Through their smiles amidst their adversity, through their joy and through their stories of sorrow, I pray that God will change our hearts. I pray that we will not come home unaffected by His grace and His mercy. That we will not allow our hearts to return to selfish indulgence when we know that there are people across the planet in dire need of salvation - of love - and of water, food, and shelter.
We are so excited to be traveling to Haiti with family and friends. It's the only way I've done missions up until now, and I'm grateful for the chance to do it again. God has blessed us greatly by surrounding us with people who are willing to go, willing to help, and even those who cannot go but are willing to donate and pray. You are also the hands and feet of Christ. Thank you for ministering to Brandon and I and to the rest of the team.
We will have a commissioning service for the Haiti team this Sunday at 10:45 (normal worship time) at Vineville Baptitst Church, Macon. If you are able to come and pray with us, please do so! We will be leaving June 2nd (before the crack of dawn) and will return June 8th.
The first big step in our journey is so close I can taste the sweat already... :)
BRING IT ON! We are ready, Lord!
a video about the organization we will be traveling
I hope that everyone who is reading this has had a chance to listen to the album The Story, based on the book of the same name. If you haven't you are really missing out. Each song on the album is based on a different Bible character and tells their story through song. Seriously, listen to it.
So, I was listening to Mary's song this morning while driving and a few small words really stuck out to me. Btw, Francesca Battistelli sings this song and it's one of, if not, the best on the album. The words she sings are, "Holy is He, blessed am I". Immediately you want to say, "yeah, so what? She was definitely blessed". I agree, but what we need to think about is that sheknew she was blessed.
Mary could have looked at the situation with disdain, similar to the way Moses did when he was first called. One can also make the argument that of the people with big responsibility in the Bible, no one had a bigger burden than what Mary had. I'm sure the angel told her, "no more McDonald's for you Mary, this baby's going to be perfect!" Mary never focused on that. She said I am blessed by God. The first challenge for us is when God says, "go" or "do this", that we don't look at the situation with disdain; we look at the situation and say, "Wow, the God of the universe chose me. I am blessed." Thank God that He chose you to be apart of His plan, because the Bible says that sometimes there are those who are not chosen.
In Luke 1:38, Mary says one other thing that I love in response to her news. She says, "I am the Lord's servant." Do we really believe that about ourselves? That's what we are whether we want to be or not. Someone who does not believe in God is still a servant of God they just don't know it, or choose to ignore it. What we as Christians need to do is embrace that title. If we can truly grasp that concept and embrace it then a lot of the selfishness we see in ourselves, in Christians and in our churches today will fall by the wayside. If we truly believe we are God's servants than we stop everything we are doing when God calls us. A servant doesn't say to the master, "yeah, later" or sigh and mope around while he/she does it. A servant says, "yes sir, right away."
Praise God that while we were still sinners God chose us, and that goes for His work too.
Oh, how perfect we are for each other... 3 years to the date tomorrow! Thank goodness our family members sent us a card or we would have missed it completely! I know most married women joke and complain about their husbands forgetting their anniversaries, but I can't join in because I'm just as bad! Literally, we opened the card and were confused... "OH YEAH! that's tomorrow!" and then we just laughed and looked at each other- "You forgot too, right? Thank God!" And Brandon is thinking "whew!" haha
Sometimes things get tough, sometimes we annoy each other, but what a joy to be reminded (sometimes in the strangest ways) that God put us together on purpose. Maybe it's because we've known each other half of our lives. Maybe it's because we were young when we got married. Maybe it's because God knew what he was doing...I'm gonna go with that one. :)
We are a team.. forgetfulness and all! Love speaks to each person differently, and as long as you and your honey are speaking to each other in the right language, you'll never feel unloved! Take the time to be a team! It won't always be perfect, but when it's not, it just doesn't matter as much :)
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TOMORROW, BRANDON!
(and thanks for the Olive Garden and the reminder, Elena! haha)
We love you all!
Sally
Mr. and Mrs. Brandon Lewis ~ May 16, 2009
About to see Jon do this at his own wedding!
My little loves...
Me and my girls!
Are they not the CUTEST things in the world???
Had to end with some pictures from the happy day! Thank you all for being a part of our lives then, now and in the future! We are blessed with the best family and friends and thank God for you every day! XOXO
Ok, tonight I'm going to offend someone! Yay! Truly, I hope to avoid that completely, but if you are offended by anything in this I do hope it is a holy offense (meaning something that makes you uncomfortable and eventually changes the way we look at life, in Christ). I want to talk about two enemies in our churches. I want to talk about two enemies in our homes and in our everyday lives. I am talking about the enemies of convenience and comfortability.
To start off I will tell you where this is coming from. Sally and I were speaking with someone over the weekend about our call to full time missions. I really do not remember who it was, as we saw a lot of people over the weekend, but as we were talking, the person said something to the effect of, "That is so great and its at a good point in your life. I mean, you guys don't have kids yet and you are still young." Mind you, this person meant well, and I don't even know if it came out right, but what they said really stuck with me. We are a people of Christian convenience, Sally and I included. What the person said above was a very sweet thought of, "wow God called you while it was still convenient for you guys." Wrong. No he didn't! Yes, it was convenient for us in our sense of the word, but God doesn't call us in convenience. God doesn't even have convenience in accordance with his will, because with God's will the time it was set to happen is always the time its going to happen. Convenience is man-made. God calls us when God is ready. God called us at the only time God was ever going to call us to respond to a lifetime of missions, I believe, since we accepted that call and of course He has complete foreknowledge and knew exactly when we would finally surrender. Therefore, His plan has always been and will always be at the perfect time and place in our lives no matter what our outlook is on the situation.
We revolve around convenience and it's brother comfortability. If its easy for me to do and doesn't take much sacrifice for me or my family, then I am all about it. Take up my time, though, and we gotta problem. That is evident in our churches today as we plan our church calendar around when people will actually show up. Things like football games, school functions, dinner parties, piano lessons, gotta brush my teeth at this time every night, (and on and on ....) take up our time during the week and then we let God have whatever is left, if there is anything. I'm here to tell you that this is not the original plan that Christ came to tell us about. When I think of Christ I think of reckless abandon. RECKLESS ABANDON!!! A love for our Savior and a love for our God that says, "I'll give you EVERYTHING!" Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." Hear that? We don't get Saturday off. "Daily", he says.
The key phrase in that statement by Christ is 'he must deny himself'. What does it mean to deny oneself? I think of it as putting ourselves last. So God comes first, then others, then ourselves. That is a very simplified list of denial. Now the tough part is that the second group in line still comes after God. Yes, that means your family too. Jesus tells us to love Him so much that it is like we hate our family members. He doesn't say hate them, but that the love we have for Him has to be so great that it pales in comparison with those we love on earth. Therefore, sometimes we even have to deny our families things for the sake of doing God's work. You say, "Brandon, surely God wouldn't put me in that position." Wrong. Ask Abraham.
I whined today at church because of how hot it was in the sanctuary. Yep, people are dying from dehydration due to lack of good water. Freaking, WATER!!!, and I'm whining because it was 78 in the sanctuary. We sure live in a comfortable society. So does God call us to live comfortable lives and coast on through? Nah. Jesus sends us out as sheep among wolves. Comforting, right? He says not to worry about man because all they can do is kill you. Whew, that's all? These are not comforting statements unless we are recklessly abandoned to Christ. Christ did not call us to be comfortable. He just said to follow.
Let's step out as a church and get uncomfortable. Let's talk to people about our faith (God knows I need help with that). We struggle to talk to people about Jesus. I know this because I struggle a lot with it. Man, I can invite them to functions and dinners at church, but talk to them about the Savior of mankind and I clam up. Guess what, Jesus never said invite people to church. I'm not saying that we shouldn't (please don't hear me saying that). I'm saying that WE were meant to share the Gospel with others. We think, well that's my pastor's job. Wrong. It's ours. If we are going to believe what the Bible tells us and follow our God then we are going to be uncomfortable and inconvenienced. It will be like wearing wool underwear at jury duty.
Man, sleeping in feels good! After visiting David and Joni's yard sale, we actually ate mexican for lunch for CINCO DE MAYO! purely by accident.. but fun none the less :)
One of our new favorite spots in Macon is the Indian Mounds! It's such a beautiful place, and has really helped give us a 'venue' to walk and exercise while enjoying nature and not going in circles.
Here's a picture of one of the overlooks from the Great Temple Mound. Hope everyone had a wonderful Saturday!
Did you know, that a blind chameleon still takes on the color of its environment even though it can't see anything? The first thing I think of is, "what a waste of those cool eyes!" However, as I was thinking about this fact I started to contemplate on how God calls us to be in the world, but not of it. What's that you say? How, do I get blind lizard to God's calling us not to be of the world? Stay with me.
John 17:13-19: "I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified."
First thing to note is that this is that top shelf RLS. I am talking about that Red Letter Stuff (sigh....if you still don't get it, Jesus is speaking here so yeah.... letters... red). Jesus is praying for his disciples. He prays to his Father "not that you take them out of the world..." and therefore implies that he could do just that. However, what would have been accomplished by that? Well for starters, I can tell you that you could kiss the book of Acts goodbye. So what does Jesus want? He says, "I have sent them into the world"; but just because he is sending us in the world, does not mean that we are to be of the world.
Ok, thanks for that Brandon! There's nothing like hearing an 'easier said than done' message to really get my engine going! So how do we do this? Simple, become sanctified. Duh! Sanctified here is the greek word hagiazo which means set apart for sacred use or make holy. So we are to be made holy. Ok, how do we do that? That answer, my friends, is two-fold. Both parts are in the scripture above. The first step comes from the end of the scripture and is the most important message in all scripture. JESUS! That is the first part of becoming sanctified. It says, "For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified." Jesus offered His life so that we might be set apart. The second part of becoming sanctified is by the truth, God's Holy Word. Psalm 1:2 and 119:11 along with Joshua 1:8 speak of the importance of staying in the Word. The Word is life. Deuteronomy 8:3 says, "...man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." I don't know about you, but I normally try to eat every day. Don't you? You think God used that analogy on purpose? Let me sleep on it, YES! Be in the Word of God constantly. After we have part one we never lose it! Praise God!! However, we need to stay in God's word, the truth, to continually set ourselves apart from the world.
So now you see the connection between the lizard and God's call, right? No? Fine. Moving forward.
The blind chameleon is a picture of what it means to be a product of your environment. Even though the animal can't see a thing, the outside world, somehow, soaks in and turns him a brown poopy color. (On a side note the little red line popped up under poopy. Really, spell check? You don't recognize the word poopy?) God does not want blind chameleon's out of us. He wants us to be what the world soaks in, not the other way around. That means WE are to be the examples. WE are to be sticking out like sore thumbs. That's scary isn't it. We all want to blend in like a chameleon. Don't get me wrong, we are not supposed to go around with our noses in the air correcting what everyone is doing. We are to be a light. We are to be LOVE. Jesus, earlier in John 13, says, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." Pretty cool, huh? But he goes on to say, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." That's the message, if we are to be in Christ then we are to be love to one another thereby making us holy and set apart. Here is the downside, though. In being like Christ we are going to be persecuted for this holiness. We are not always going to be accepted. We are going to be looked down upon or be told that we are close minded. Hallelujah, because Jesus also says, "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." All this is to say, be in the world and live among the people of this world shining a light to the lost, but don't be a blind chameleon.
Ok, I read the coolest thing in one of our books today and I thought I'd share it with everyone! As most of you know, we have some 'textbook' reading we have to do in order to prepare for our classes with AMT in Zambia. Every book we've read has been better than the next, and I honestly can't wait until our next shipment arrives!
The book I wanted to share with you tonight is called, Such a Great Salvation by Mike Petzer. It's only about 130 pages, and while he get's a little wordy sometimes, there are golden little nuggets of insight in each chapter!
The chapter in reference is titled 'Without Spot or Blemish, Blameless?' and the synopsis of the chapter is that once we accept Christ in our lives, that we are forever changed into sinless beings. But that begs the question as we clearly still have sin and temptation in our lives. While there are MANY different discussions and blog posts out of this one idea, what I want to share with you tonight is the illustration he used to help make his point. He talks about an issue we have with our self perception, even after we are saved from our sins and made spotless. We often use the excuse that 'everyone messes up' and eveyone has sin in their lives; but this doesn't mean we should not strive to be spotless, how God made us, especially after Jesus cleansed us! And here is his illustration:
"Imagine you walk out your front door and you are faced with a giant mud puddle in your way. If you are wearing dirty coveralls you will think nothing of just walking right through the puddle. Your response is 'I am already in such a mess, why bother to stop some extra dirt?' This is the attitude of all who do not see themselves as clean. They have very little resistance to sin because they see themselves as unclean already. But imagine you walk out of your front door and you are wearing the most expensive, top of the line, tailor made, white suit with appropriately expensive shiny shoes. Even the smallest spot of mud will make you look a mess, you reason, and so you take great care navigating the edge of the mud; you give the mud pool the widest berth you possibly can. This is the attitude of the one that sees himself as totally clean." - pg 125, Such a Great Salvation, Mike Petzer
I love this. When we accept Christ's sacrifice to atone for our sin, we accept that His work was perfect, and that it is finished. If that is true, then we are totally cleansed when we accept the redemption He provides. 1 John 1:9 says that when we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive them and also cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Who hasn't heard that 'God doesn't just forgive, He also forgets'? That means we have a totally blank slate. A completely, spot free, beautiful, expensive (one that cost Him His Son) white suit -or dress- that all we had to do was accept.
What a beautiful gift. Can you see it? What Love, what Mercy, what Grace. He sees us as spotless, beautiful children. Often times, the problem is how we see ourselves. While God forgets our past mistakes, it's not always as easy for us. We do not see the worth in ourselves, we do not understand the forgiveness and complete restoration of our righteousness. How on earth could we, how on earth could I, ever deserve such a gift? Knowing everything I've done, knowing every thought I've had, knowing every word that has come out of my mouth. How? How can I deserve such a gift? Because I am a child of God, and you are too. Because His ways and His thoughts are higher than mine, and because while I can't understand how God can forget everything I've done and love me unconditionally, Hecan, He does, and He chooses to do so. From the very beginning He has known what we would do, how many times we would forsake Him, yet He still made a way to forgive us - before we ever opened our eyes - He made a way to make it right.
How can we then choose to take this dress, this suit; this spotless, beautiful, garment of Grace and roll around in a puddle of mud? Why would we? We are beautiful spotless children of God. It's time we saw ourselves as He sees us. Maybe then we would value ourselves as he sees value and worth in us. And maybe then we would understand that our actions matter to more than just ourselves, more than just this day, this place. We were bought with a price, and in humble and grateful obedience and praise I want my suit to remain clean, because it matters for all eternity!
For the first time in my life, I know that I am not who the world, or who the sin in my past, tells me I am. I am spotless, and it is my choice to do all I can to overcome any temptation that comes my way. For the sake of the cross, for appreciation of His sacrifice, and for the unfathomable love of my God.
You are clean. You are loved. You are beautiful. See yourself through His eyes, and live as light.
So, merriam-webster defines humility as the quality or state of being humble. DUH! Thanks merriam-webster. Their first definition of humble is not proud or haughty; not arrogant or assertive. However, I really think they got it with definition number two. Definition number two is: reflecting, expressing, or offered in a spirit of deference or submission. Wow! Finally we get to the nitty gritty merriam-webster. (On a side note I guess Merriam was in the new fad of hyphenating last names. You know Merriam couldn't lose her last name because then people wouldn't know who she was because we all know MERRIAM!!!) I digress.
I've been reading a lot about humility over the past few days and I now have a confession to make. Over the last 5-10 years I've always thought of myself as a humble person. There's a contradiction for you. I'm not sure if a true person of humility even has those types of thoughts. I thought that because I couldn't stand people who were conceited that surely I was humble, and in parts of my life maybe I was. The book I just finished reading called A Tale of Three Kings spoke to me just yesterday on what it means to be a true leader. The book is about David and his interactions with Saul and then later Absalom. It talks about how David never demanded respect, or screamed for submission, or even longed to lead. Gulp! That last one really put me in my place. First off, yes I know David had his flaws (thanks for pointing that out). Secondly, yes I know you're not evil for longing to lead, but what David did was he let God lead. David never tried to take the kingdom from Saul. He could have killed him twice and taken the reigns and said here God I got this, but he didn't. He could have sent out an army and stopped his son Absalom from rebelling, but he didn't. He let God keep the reigns. I have a problem with taking the reigns. I take the reigns way too often.
The first problem with taking the reigns is the word taking. I think we can all agree that stealing is wrong, right? God's pretty clear on that. So why do we steal the reigns from him and say, "I can do a better job than whatever you had planned. Just let me lead." That's what I do too often.
The second problem with taking the reigns, especially too often, is that you can take someone else's chance to lead. I'm not the only leader. Heck, I might not be a leader at all, but by making myself one I could be taking the chance for the real leader in the room, the anointed, to really lead.
David let God make him a leader. God broke David down, tore him apart, built him back up, rinsed and repeated. Why do you think that the greatest laments were in Psalms? David was humbled. And when it came David's time he was ready, but the cool thing was David didn't know he was ready. David thought he was going to be the cave dweller all his life. God put him in the place to lead not the other way around. People came to David and they just followed. If you asked them why they probably wouldn't have had a good answer. That's what leadership is. I want to be the guy that when someone is asked why do you follow that guy they go, "uh, I don't know something just tells me I should". That "something" is God. I want to be God's leader not Brandon's.
The thing that stuck out the most to me was David's humility to live and let God. On many occasions David did nothing. Hah, imagine that sermon on Sunday morning. "Beloved, God calls us to do nothing this week", and everyone screams "Hallelujah!" I think God is calling me to do less. I don't mean that I should try to do less, but stop trying in general sometimes. Rely on God to lead. God's saying, "back off kid I got this. You know I've been around a little while. Thanks though." Let God make you a leader and stop trying to make yourself one.
I hope that you will pray for me that I will be a leader in God's way and not in mine. A little lesson in humility. Love you all!
