Sometimes the solution to a problem is just to give up and let go of your right to be right, your right to an inheritance, your right to special attention, your right to a certain seat, or to a certain place, or to a certain privilege, or to a certain position. Just give it up. Let it go. Don't let selfishness keep you from solving the problem and restoring peace. From personal experience, I know that my prayer life tends to be very shallow unless I deliberately, intentionally make the effort to deepen and develop it on a daily basis. Prayer must be central to our lives if we are serious about embracing the magnificent obsession. So..how's your prayer life? Who is watching you and the way you handle your problems and disputes? Often it's someone you don't even know is watching. But you and I can count on the fact that one reason God allows us to have problems is so we can demonstrate to a watching world how His children respond. Abraham had let everything go, including first choice of the land God had promised to give him. He impressed me as someone who wanted to be right with God more than he wanted to insist on his own rights. He wanted to maintain his testimony more than he wanted to accumulate the world's treasures. He wanted peace in his home more than he wanted property and possessions. And, so he had to just let everything go. I learned that you can't outgive God. If I just give up and let go, what He gives me in return makes what I had clenched in my fist seem so small and worthless.
Hebrews 12:1, Luke 3:21-22, 1 Peter 1:6-7, Luke 17:33, 2 Corinthians 9:8
Friday, June 21, 2013
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Embrace Your Sonship In Christ
Today I went to Worship Harvest church along with our Amani Director, Volunteer Coordinator, a lot of the other volunteers, and the team of 12 that has come to us from Colorado. We started the morning off with a lot of worship songs. It is so normal to see people's hands raised up in the air and tears flowing from eyes just because of how much God is moving in the church and the services there. Today we had a speaker named Rachel, who is from Canada but is living in Entebbe, Uganda right now. The series we have been going through is called 'Relationship Beyond Rules' from the book of Galations. Today we were covering Galations 3:26-4:7. Please read these verses before continuing on. The whole service today was covering something that is very near and dear to our hearts here at Amani..."Adoption". This blog is basically just to talk about the amazing points and quotes that I wrote down because of just how amazing this message was for all of us to hear and I hope you all can get the same out of it.
We talked about what it was like to be slaves in the Roman times and there was a process of getting rid of your own sons/adopting that is beyond comprehensible. Back then they were able to sell their children, completely estrange them, or even put them to the death penalty. If the father sold his son, he could buy him back, but only 3 times. So if a father sold his son and then bought him back the third time, he was his forever. This is just the same as buying/adopting a child into their family. Later they then changed this process into having the father take the soon to be adopted son into a room with 7 witnesses. The father would then state that he would like to adopt the child into his family. The child would then say that he agreed to this and wanted to be in the family.
By faith we enter into the lineage of Abraham and become heirs according to the promise! Promise = heirs of the world. No matter what our race, tribe, sex, religious views, etc..once we are In Christ we become One and heirs of the Same promise. Just as slaves in Roman times lived under fear of punishments, making them lowly in status and inferior to everyone else - so we too lived in fear because of the Law which was our slave driver, which ruled us by fear of punishment if we broke the rules. The spirit of adoption is not one of fear! The Spirit itself is witness to the adoption process - becoming irrefutably sealed. The Roman fathers could estrange their own biological sons, selling them and even issuing the death penalty - this would often trigger the adoption process of a new son or slave to carry on the father's lineage/rule. This is just like how God estranged His own son to inherit us as His own sons and daughters. The process of adoption was called "Adrogation". It consisted of the verbal will from the father asking of the child to be His and the child confessing that he wished it so. Redemption of the purchased possession was accomplished by the act of the heir taking possession. We too received our inheritance by the act of taking possession by faith. The Holy Spirit is our guarantee of our inheritance. Adoption is the highest form of love; you can never be estranged by God once you have been adopted into His kingdom. We are all Chosen, God did not create us and adopt us as His children without first choosing us. We have been bought into God's eternal kingdom. We are untouchably Secure! When we are adopted, we lose all rights to our old family. By losing all rights to our old family we then gain ALL rights as a legitimate son/daughter into a new family with our new Father. The old life is wiped out, ALL debts are paid - we are a new person with no past life. The Holy Spirit witnessed our confession of God asking us to be His and us accepting His offer, so our relationship with Him is irrevocable. We are under a protection. God cannot do to us what He did to Jesus for our sake. We are under a permanent sonship!!
We talked about what it was like to be slaves in the Roman times and there was a process of getting rid of your own sons/adopting that is beyond comprehensible. Back then they were able to sell their children, completely estrange them, or even put them to the death penalty. If the father sold his son, he could buy him back, but only 3 times. So if a father sold his son and then bought him back the third time, he was his forever. This is just the same as buying/adopting a child into their family. Later they then changed this process into having the father take the soon to be adopted son into a room with 7 witnesses. The father would then state that he would like to adopt the child into his family. The child would then say that he agreed to this and wanted to be in the family.
By faith we enter into the lineage of Abraham and become heirs according to the promise! Promise = heirs of the world. No matter what our race, tribe, sex, religious views, etc..once we are In Christ we become One and heirs of the Same promise. Just as slaves in Roman times lived under fear of punishments, making them lowly in status and inferior to everyone else - so we too lived in fear because of the Law which was our slave driver, which ruled us by fear of punishment if we broke the rules. The spirit of adoption is not one of fear! The Spirit itself is witness to the adoption process - becoming irrefutably sealed. The Roman fathers could estrange their own biological sons, selling them and even issuing the death penalty - this would often trigger the adoption process of a new son or slave to carry on the father's lineage/rule. This is just like how God estranged His own son to inherit us as His own sons and daughters. The process of adoption was called "Adrogation". It consisted of the verbal will from the father asking of the child to be His and the child confessing that he wished it so. Redemption of the purchased possession was accomplished by the act of the heir taking possession. We too received our inheritance by the act of taking possession by faith. The Holy Spirit is our guarantee of our inheritance. Adoption is the highest form of love; you can never be estranged by God once you have been adopted into His kingdom. We are all Chosen, God did not create us and adopt us as His children without first choosing us. We have been bought into God's eternal kingdom. We are untouchably Secure! When we are adopted, we lose all rights to our old family. By losing all rights to our old family we then gain ALL rights as a legitimate son/daughter into a new family with our new Father. The old life is wiped out, ALL debts are paid - we are a new person with no past life. The Holy Spirit witnessed our confession of God asking us to be His and us accepting His offer, so our relationship with Him is irrevocable. We are under a protection. God cannot do to us what He did to Jesus for our sake. We are under a permanent sonship!!
Sunday, June 2, 2013
It is time for us to leave everything behind, and follow Him!
I have been here for over 2 full weeks now and it honestly couldn't be better. I love it here so much. I feel like I am at home, and half of the time I'm walking around I don't even think about the fact that there is a difference in our skin color. I was sitting at church today when one of the little local girls grabbed my hand and kept looking at it and feeling it. Then during the service, she kept moving her chair closer to me and kept feeling my skin. I honestly don't consider myself any different than everyone here, but I guess even though we were at a church full of American missionaries, I somehow stood out just a little different. The best way for you and me to overcome our 'fear' (as I've heard some call it) of those people so unlike us who surround us in our everyday lives is to keep our focus on the Lord and cultivate an awareness of His presence in our lives. We need to learn to be more aware of Him than of them. Could it be that you have made the choice to leave everything behind, then followed through with the commitment to let everything go in order to pursue knowing God...and now you're wondering, What in the world have I done? God knows where you are. It is time for us to leave everything behind, and follow Him!
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