Winter 2009 Newsletter
"Do you love others as much as you think you do?"
So, I started out my tour with pretty normal expectations. The tour before that I had read a book about showing Christ-like love that really challenged me and changed me deeply, I just wasn't aware of how deep until a couple of months ago. We were at our first stop of the tour, in Georgia, staying at a hotel. The Sunday morning after we had arrived, I went downstairs in the hotel to eat breakfast. When I got down there, I was the only one there. I could really feel God telling me to talk to the people who came down to breakfast that morning. Well, not long later, a woman came down to breakfast. She and I were pretty much the only ones there. We got to talking, small talk, and eventually it led up to me telling her about our ministry and what we do and I learned that she was a Mormon. I was a little stunned. Up until then we had been talking about all sorts of Christian stuff, and I would never have guessed she was a Mormon, but she was. I wondered what to say to her. For a second, I thought about going into preach mode and telling her all about how her beliefs were wrong, but I thought back to that book. So instead of preaching or starting an argument, I just sat and kept talking, and showed her love. She talked about how most Christians had pushed her and her fellow Mormons away. And how there had always been a sort of sense of division between them. My heart was so heavy to hear that Christians, people carrying the name of Jesus Christ, the savior of the world, would treat people like that.
The bible says that it’s God’s mercy that brings people to repentance, not division, separation and condemnation. If anyone needs to see the love of God in action, it’s people from other religions that God brings across our path. If a woman who’s not a Christian can show love like she talked about, why can't we as Christians who are supposed to be about nothing but love show that kind of love that the world is so longing for? Why aren't Christians acting the way we should be? One of the most famous parts of the bible is the love chapter; 1 Corinthians 13 and in verse 3 it says, "If I gave everything to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn't love others, I would be of no value whatsoever." This is one of my favorite verses in the bible though it seems to be a bit overlooked. It is often brought up and preached and taught in sermons and teachings and bible studies, but people leave their churches and classes and bible studies and still don’t live that message. We've spent so much time as Christians separating ourselves from the world in the way that we aren't supposed to. We have created an "us vs. them" mentality. What we need to be doing isn’t going out and preaching a turn or burn message and definitely not shutting ourselves off from the world in an effort to be holy and set apart, we need to be going out and showing the love of Christ. Once I heard someone say-"People won't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Are you showing people how much you care or just how much you know?
Please keep me in your prayers as I continue to travel and fulfill the call God has on my life. That's the best way to support me, and the most important. But, if you want to go that extra mile, you can help me pay my tuition by clicking the link below. God bless, and thank you for your continued support.
All donations are tax deductible.
