I wanted to share with everyone what God has been teaching me through his word. I am in the process of quickly reading through the Epistles, one book a day. I read Phillipians two days ago. I was touched by the apostle Paul's attitude toward his situation in light of what God was doing. The background of Phillipians is Paul is in jail. He is no longer able to have a ministry through traveling with people. Instead he is under house arrest in Rome with a Roman soldier guarding him. In this situation comes a letter which he writes to the people in Phillipi that talks about rejoicing and focusing on the good. One verse that stood out to me was Phil. 4:8. Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if ther is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me-- practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
As many of you know I am beginning a transition down to Dinuba and teaching. In that transition I often find myself focusing on the negative such as having to teach an AP Economics class or money issues or the "who will be coming out for football?" question. In all of that I begin to think negatively and question my reasoning for going down to Immanuel. Would it not just be easier to go somewhere else?
Anyhow, Phillipians and specifically the attitude of Paul in Phillipians really shattered my fear in this area. Here is a man who cannot be as an effective minister as he probably desires, cannot see the people he is ministering too, has to take hand outs to live, is no longer able to preach the gospel except to the guy who is chained to him.
His reaction to the situation is to send a letter to those helping him and encourage them to continue to rejoice. Paul sees the positives of God moving in all these things. The gospel is still preached. God is still honored in his body. He is still able to press on to the real goal -- Christ Jesus. He is confident that the Lord will deliver him. He is able to rejoice and ask others to rejoice with him. This is the complete opposite of my attitude.
Through this, God is really changed my heart from one that focuses on the negative challenges of the ministry of God to one that focuses on God who is at work in the situation. These are the things that are true, lovely, honorable, just, worthy of praise etc. So I have decided to make a list of reasons why God is taking me to Immanuel.
1. To continue to develop adolescents to be ministers of the gospel in a lost and dying world
2. To provide life and direction to a football program
3. To be involved in the lives of my brothers and sisters in laws, niece and nephews
4. To be mentored by older believers
5 To be in fellowship with people who are in mine and Virginia's life stage
6. To teach Bible in class
7 To be able to disciple individuals who I do not know yet
8. To be able to help bring young men into manhood
9. To see how God has brought into my life people who I have mentored in the past (C.J. Zulim Rameriz)
10. To be apart of people that I will be mentoring in the future (Yockey?!)
11. To know Christ Jesus as the goal and center of my life
My Reasons for coming down to Immanuel are great. There are many good and lovely things on this list. The Lord continues to take me in a place where I know and experience him and am able to share that with others.
1 comment:
This is my first time into the blogspot, and I am amazed how easy it is. I am still so old fashioned, but I would really like to learn how to set up such a site. I really enjoyed reading your posting about what God is teaching you. As you transition into this next phase of your life, I couldn't hope to give you better advise than what I read here. Paul had a vision and a burden that governed his whole life as a minister of the gospel, but many times the outward environment was not what he would have chosen, yet at the conclusion of his life he could testify strongly, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." (Acts 26:19)
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