"Raised from the Dust" for what Purpose?

“Two little lines I heard one day,
Traveling along life’s busy way;
Bringing conviction to my heart,
And from my mind would not depart;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, yes only one,
Soon will its fleeting hours be done;
Then, in ‘that day’ my Lord to meet,
And stand before His Judgement seat;
Only one life,’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, the still small voice,
Gently pleads for a better choice
Bidding me selfish aims to leave,
And to God’s holy will to cleave;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, a few brief years,
Each with its burdens, hopes, and fears;
Each with its clays I must fulfill,
living for self or in His will;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

When this bright world would tempt me sore,
When Satan would a victory score;
When self would seek to have its way,
Then help me Lord with joy to say;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Give me Father, a purpose deep,
In joy or sorrow Thy word to keep;
Faithful and true what e’er the strife,
Pleasing Thee in my daily life;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Oh let my love with fervor burn,
And from the world now let me turn;
Living for Thee, and Thee alone,
Bringing Thee pleasure on Thy throne;
Only one life, “twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, yes only one,
Now let me say,”Thy will be done”;
And when at last I’ll hear the call,
I know I’ll say “twas worth it all”;
Only one life,’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last. ”

— extra stanza —

Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
And when I am dying, how happy I’ll be,
If the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee.

My Tea Website will support Compassion and Pastor's Discipleship Network

Just spreading the word that I have finally got my "Compassionate ChariTea" website up and running. All proceeds from tea sales will go to relieve poverty, equip pastors and disciple the nations. Thanks for checking it out. Blessings,

Pastor's Discipleship Network - Equipping Shepherds for God's Glory

Pastor's Discipleship Network (PDN) began as a dream in the heart of Richmond Wandera - a Compassion Leadership Development Program graduate. Richmond was 'raised from the dust' to lead this work, to encourage men and women who have a heart to disciple and pastor their people, but who have little or no theological training, little or no discipleship or mentoring, and few other resources at hand.

Now, resources such as study Bibles, Commentaries and other print resources, equipping conferences, and even bicycles are being made available to our brothers in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi.

Next week, from July 14th to the 16th, 2011, the Rooted in the Word pastor's confernce takes place in Kampala, Uganda. There is still much need for sponsorship of pastors in order to get them to the conference from their homes. Could you help with that? Just a little makes it possible for a man like Michael - a rural, untrained pastor - get some solid training and encouragment to equip him for the ministry God has called him to. Here his story here:


Can you sponsor a pastor for this conference? Can you donate a study Bible or other resource? Check out the PDN website and this short video for more information. In His service, for His glory.

This is my day - Mother's Day

Years ago, the Lord blessed me with an amazing daughter ! We have enjoyed, cherished, treasured and savoured her growing-up years, and now revel in the joys of seeing her as an adult - perhaps one day there will be grandchildren! God surely does shower us with good gifts - Sheila is one of His best☺.

But my mother's heart was not used up - since it flows from the never ending Source of the love of our Father God, and I longed and prayed for more 'children' - the ones I was not able to have myself, but nevertheless had room for in my heart - Psalm 113 was a gift to me from my Father with regard to this.

For mother's day, I have written a poem that speaks of the mother's heart that God has given me for several Compassion children - some sponsored, some as correspondence kids, but all, children of my heart, of my prayers, and in faith I'm believing they'll be found in Jesus Christ and with me for all eternity. So this is for Sheila , for a number of young adults the Lord has brought into our lives to bless us, and for Eduardo in Honduras, Hayat in Ethiopia, and my Ugandan family: Sarah, Praise, Evan, Timothy, Derrick (and Sheila's Unith). What an unspeakable joy and blessing to bring children into our family through Compassion - really, through the Heart of Compassion - Jesus Christ our Lord!


Mother's Heart

Though grown, I'm still a child inside -
God's child; But now in me resides
A mother's heart, from Father wrought,
Forged with His love, by Spirit taught.

He gave me one, by nature born;
My heart, left wanting more, was torn
'Twixt joy, contentment, longing fashioned
A mother's heart, by Father's compassion

Through faithful years He'd lead and guide
His love the never-ending Tide.
Praise to His Name, right from the start
He'd planned to fill this mother's heart.

Praise Him, O servants, raised from dust
From east to west His glory must
Rise over heavens; He sits enthroned -
Yet stoops to mother's heart at home!

So cherished! the one has multiplied -
Mother's heart now joyful cries:
The LORD has brought them from the nations,
Knit in Christ, the generations.

For many years the prayers ascended
That each might know Him, love, repent
And live for Jesus Christ alone -
Bountiful crop from seeds well-sown.

When the race's run, and fought the fight
And Son dispels the darkest night,
That child once near or far away
Meets mother's heart upon that Day!

Praise Him! You children from the 'heap'
Of ash are lifted, no more weep!
Praise Him! My children, our King is crowned,
And mother's heart in Christ is found!

How Can I Give?

I admit, this week has been a happy week for me so far.  Joyous and unexpected things have been happening, and the Lord is just so at work in every aspect.  So perhaps my my answer to this great question will be affected in a way that makes it sounds simpler than it is, but really, the answer is simple. 

God is sovereign.

Really, that's it.  It is so easy to look at the poor and hurting and oppressed, and to pass by like the Levite, with pretty excuses.  Of course, sometimes the excuses seem legitimate, even to ourselves, as we look at our funds and our abilities, and shake our heads once again.

For several weeks, I had felt it in my heart.  I knew I was supposed to do it.  I kept looking at my bank account and rejecting the Lord's leading, because to me it didn't seem possible.  Yet He is sovereign.  Finally I listened.  I didn't have 41 dollars always coming in each month.  Still He nudged me, and reminded me of His sovereignty, and His ability to provide above and beyond what we ask or imagine.

"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, Amen."  - Eph. 3:20-21

And so I sponsored Unith.  She lives in Uganda, and she just turned 19 last week.  For several days I questioned the wisdom in the decision, but had to keep coming back to the promises of the Lord.  He is sovereign.

Honestly, it's been incredible.  First He provided 2 flute cover orders to pay for the first month.  Then He provided two piano students, starting next month.  Now He has provided my first paying doula client.  I was shocked, until I realized I shouldn't be.  God is sovereign.

I don't share this story to guilt anyone into doing anything, I just want to remind you of this all-important, often-forgotten TRUTH!

God bless,
Sheila

Spending and Being Spent

In my last post, I mentioned the idea of a "wartime mentality" (that was used to great effect in John Piper's "Don't Waste Your Life" and "Desiring God"). I want to explore that idea a bit more for my own benefit - so that I can be thinking and acting in a right - godly - way about money: how I think about it and how I manage it. Since, as a Christian, and stranger in this world, I find myself in the midst of warfare - the Kingdom of Heaven being taken by force - it seems reasonable to my mind, that a wartime mentality should be part and parcel of who I am, the choices I make, the measures I take, to free up the resources God has given me for the futherance of His Kingdom.

When this thinking comes to bear on our finances, many - even in the Church - squirm. Jesus had much to say on the subject: don't worry about it, don't store it up in barns, you can't love it and God at the same time, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and more.

For me, this thinking is (too) slowly transforming my own mindset on all kinds of personal fiscal policies: how much clothing do I need, and does it always need to be new?, can we spend less on groceries, eat better and be healthier, and actually enjoy our food more? (the answer has been a resounding Yes!), can I make do with the old (insert household item) until it actually dies, and even more, do without when it does? do possessions or new things make me happy? (No!), could we get by just fine with a home that is more than half smaller (and therefore less expensive to buy, upkeep, maintain) that what we have now? (I believe, Yes!), do I need any luxuries beyond hearth and home, food and clothing? and a host of other angles, aspects and questions! Here's the thing: Am I storing up treasures on earth, or in heaven? Does my fiscal behaviour honour Jesus, or fly in the face of His clear teaching in Scripture? Is the Church in the west today sitting on the sidelines of the war (not to mention her 'household gods'), enjoying the spoils of economic success when she should be in the thick of the battle, not caring if her coat is tattered and soiled so long as the battle is won?!

Again, I leave you with Dr. John Piper's musings on the subject, from pgs. 199-200 of "Desiring God":

The mention of "war" is not merely rhetorical. What is specifically called for today is a "wartime lifestyle." I used the phrase "simple necessities of life" earlier in this chapter because Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:8, "If we have food and clothing, with these we will be content." But this idea of simplicity can be very misleading. I mean it to refer to a style of life that is unencumbered with nonessentials - and the criterion for "essential" should not be primitive "simplicity", but wartime effectiveness.

Ralph Winter illustrates this idea of a wartime lifestyle:
'The Queen Mary, lying in repose in the harbor at Long Beach, California, is a fascinating museum of the past. Used both as a luxury liner in peacetime and a troop transport during the Second World War, it's present status as a museum the length of three football fields affords a stunning contrast between the lifestyles appropriate in peace and war. On one side of a partition you see the dining room reconstructed to depict the peacetime table setting that was appropriate to the wealthy patrons of high culture for whom a dazzling array of knives and forks and spoons held no mysteries. On the other side of the partition the evidences of wartime austerities are in sharp contrast. One metal tray with indentations replaces fifteen plates and saucers. Bunks, not just double but eight tiers high, explain why the peace-time complement of 3000 gave way to 15,000 on board in wartime. How repugnant to the peacetime masters this transformation must have been! To do it took a national emergency, of course. The survival of a nation depended on it. The essence of the Great Commission today is that the survival of many millions of people depends on its fulfillment. [emphasis mine]

There is a war going on. All talk of a Christian's right to live luxuriantly "as a child of the King" in this atmosphere sounds hollow - especially since the King Himself is stripped for battle [emphasis mine]. It is more helpful to think of a wartime lifestyle than a merely simple lifestyle. Simplicity can be very inwardly directed and may benefit no one else. A wartime lifestyle implies that there is a great and worthy cause for which to spend and be spent (2 Corinthians 12:15).

2 Cor. 12:15 - Paul, writing to the Church in Corinth: "I would gladly spend and be spent for your souls." Now that is 'coin' well spent.

The Wind in our Kites

photo credit

So here I am, trying to blog, and I admit my blogging style is slightly less polished and well-prepared as my Mum's. Some of that is probably due to the fact that I seriously spend 9-12 hours 5 days a week studying, and lately half of that study time has been intense and (supposedly) polished writing. I'm sick of it. So that's why this is not so spiffy.

I just want to write down some thoughts and prayers, in hopes that perhaps some of you out there share them. I want to encourage you, as best I can, to be listening to the Lord, and working with what He gives you.

As Christians in the Western World, we have a very uncomfortable task in front of us. Most of us have too much stuff, too much money, too much busy-ness and panic. Honestly I believe our hectic schedules and love of stuff (even if it's not boats and cars, but maybe stuff as in 'me time' and chocolate cake) is our worst enemy. This morning at church some people were talking about the opposition that comes from the devil when the work of the Lord is happening in the church. God's biggest enemy doesn't like it when people are turning to Jesus. Except here's the problem: Look around you! Where is the opposition? Where is the persecution? My friends, kites need blustery winds to push them higher in the sky. Is there uncomfortable wind in the kite of your faith to keep it humble?

I have no idea if this makes any sense to you, but I trust that to those who the Lord wants to speak to about this urgency in our culture, you will get it. Brothers, sisters, this is urgent! People need Jesus! There needs to be a resurgence of real, committed prayer and growth! There needs to be real humility and a willingness to stand up for truth and against evil, wherever it may be, and whatever the consequence.

I challenge you to today to be living the Life Christ called us to.

"The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." 2 Pet. 3:9

Tell me... what are you doing today to reward the Lord's patience? Where is the church? Where is your prayer? Your humility? Your exuberance? ... and to bring it home, where is mine?

In Christ,
A fellow traveler,
Sheila

Why My Money Matters - or Living with a Wartime Mentality

For years, this topic of financial stewardship and the Christian have been rumbling around in my heart and mind: sometimes heating up and bubbling to the surface with little explosions into my practical world, at other times, cooled down by my own weakness, fueled by the temptations to succumb to the baubles of the world in which we live. My bookshelf is stocked with "Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger", "Living More Simply", "Living More with Less", "Escaping Materialism" and the like. They've all been read - at least once - and all marked up, underlined and podered, prayed and even agonized over.

It wasn't for nothing that Jesus said you can't serve both God and Money, or that He told the rich young ruler to sell all his possessions and give to the poor, or that he warned his disciples about the difficulty of a rich man entering the Kingdom of Heaven - He knew, He knows, what has the power to hold our hearts and captivate us, and the corollary power of letting it go!

My money matters because it has the power to enslave me, when in reality, I am already spoken for - I belong to Christ - no longer my own life, but His in mine, and all I have is His, even my very life. Money matters because I need to know that Jesus is my first love, and that nothing money can buy is better than Him.

John Piper, in his excellent book, "Don't Waste Your Life" (and also in "Desiring God"), uses the phrase "wartime life-style" or "wartime mind-set". Piper says that it reminds him "that there is a war going on in the world between Christ and Satan, truth and falsehood, belief and unbelief. It tells me that there are weapons to be funded and used, but that these weapons are not swords or guns or bombs but the Gospel and prayer and self-sacrificing love
(2 Corinthians 10:3-5). And it tells me that the stakes of this conflict are higher than any other war in history; they are eternal and infinite: heaven or hell, eternal joy or eternal torment (Matthew 25:46)".

I so appreciate Dr. Piper's disarming humility and honesty in what he says next, because it reminds me that I am not alone, and that others are also being moved by the Holy Spirit to consider the ways we spend our money, and challenging me, challenging all of us, to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2), and to re-direct, in this war-time, funds to the front lines of reaching the unreached for Christ, of caring for the poor, the orphans and widows, for bringing hope to the hopeless, to the Church doing it's work through Compassion, or other streams of God's love - for God's glory! We'll talk in another post about how to go about this, but for now, I leave you with a few more of Piper's words on the subject:

"I need to hear this message [that there is a war of eternal consequences being waged] again and again, because I drift into a peacetime mind-set as certainly as rain falls down and flames go up. I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what the others love. I start to call earth "home." Before you know it, I am calling luxuries "needs" and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin to forget the war. I don't think much about people perishing. Missions and unreached peoples drop out of my mind. I stop dreaming abou the triumphs of grace. I sink into a secular mind-set that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced me again and again toward a wartime mind-set."

Amen, brother Piper!

The Difference is Jesus or, Jesus makes all the Difference

"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. " Colossians 3:17

Everything I do, as a child of God, should be done "in His Name" - that is, everything should be conformable to His character and to His purpose. His character is pure, righteous, loving and kind. His purpose is to glorify the Father - and so my purpose must also be to glorify God, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:31: "...whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."

If I simply give a hungry child food, clothing, shelter, education, health care, even love and comfort, without doing it for the glory of God, in the Name of Jesus Christ, then I am doing it ultimately for either my own glory or the glory of the child. This I simply must not do!

But what does it really mean to glorify God in everything I do? "It does not mean to make Him more glorious. It means to acknowledge His glory, to value it above all things, and to make it known. It implies heartfelt gratitude: 'The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me' (Psalm 50:23)." (John Piper, 'Desiring God' pg. 56).

So our work with Compassion: telling others about the ministry, finding sponsors for children in need, praying for children and workers, sponsoring children (and thereby providing essentials for their lives), networking with others, encouraging and building up workers, children and collegues, and more, is for the glory of God alone! It is with grattitude to Him for the work, for the results, for the process, that we glorify our Lord.

"The Difference is Jesus" is not simply that Jesus is proclaimed to every child, or that children are discipled through every stage of the Compassion ministry - as transforming, wonderful and essential as this is - the difference is that Jesus is glorified, His Name is proclaimed, and all the work done is conformable to His purposes and His character, and as we thank Him for our service to Him for the childrens' sake, He is glorified, and we are fulfilled in our purpose in life: "Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory." (Isaiah 43:6-7)

Praise the LORD!

He raises the poor from the dust - Psalm 113

A few months ago, my heavenly Father very specifically directed me to Psalm 113. At that time, I was not familiar with it, but I was greatly encouraged, especially by the last verse about the barren woman being settled in her home as the happy mother of children. Now, being 49, I was not thinking of having more children - that was not possible for me anyway, but the Lord knows that it has been hard for me that I was able to have only one child (although she is undoubtably the best daughter in the world! :-). He had heard my prayers, and captured every tear.

No, my heavenly Father was telling me something else, and I did not connect this until quite recently. He spoke to me through His wonderful Word, through the living words of Psalm 113, and showed me that I was indeed to become the happy mother of children (through Compassion alone, I already have four sons and one daughter). What's more, He was to show me much about praise for His Name, about His heart for the poor and oppressed, for injustice and the scope of His watchfulness and care. It's all there in Psalm 113!

Verses 1 through 3 declare that the Name of the LORD is to be praised! Indeed, it is to be praised by all the servants of the LORD from every corner of the creation, both now and forever more!

Verses 4 through 9 tell us just a few of the reasons that He is to be praised: He is exalted over all the nations (all the peoples of the earth) and His glory above the heavens! There is no one like Him! He sits enthroned on high, He stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth (He cares and is not absent), He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap - His heart cares deeply about the oppressed of our world, those whose lives have been fraught with injustice. Our father sets the lowly on the seats of princes (He uses the 'foolish' things of this world to shame the 'wise'), and when a barren (or only-child-ed) woman is settled in her home as a happy mother of children, it is the hand of the LORD Who has accomplished it! Praise the LORD indeed! Both now and forevermore!