Jesus didn’t come to die for you...

What? Are you serious? I know. It came as a shock to me too. After all these years of society and even the church telling me it was all about me.

David Platt from Radical :

If you ask most people, they would say, "The message of Christianity is that God loves me enough to send his Son, Jesus, to die for me.”

As wonderful as this sentiment sounds, is it biblical? Isn’t it incomplete, based on what we have seen in the Bible? “God loves me” is not the essence of biblical Christianity. Because if “God loves me” is the message of Christianity, then who is the object of Christianity?

God loves me.

Me.

Christianity’s object is me...

The message of biblical Christianity is not “God loves me, period,” as if we were the object of our own faith. The message of biblical Christianity is “God loves me so that I might make him—his ways, his salvation, his glory, and his greatness—known among all nations.” Now God is the object of our faith, and Christianity centers around him. We are not the end of the gospel; God is."

What we need to tell people is it's not about "you." Francis Chan said the story moving throughout history is about God, not us. In the movie of life, we are extras that get the back of our head seen for a fraction of a second.

God did all this, creation through restoration, for His glory. 

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace... to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory." Eph 1:3-7, 12

If you are thinking, "Wow. That sounds like a really selfish God. You mean He did all this so we would praise Him?" Here's how John Piper would answer that:

"For many people, this is not obviously an act of love. They do not feel loved when they are told that God created them for his glory. They feel used. This is understandable given the way love has been almost completely distorted in our world. For most people, to be loved is to be made much of. Almost everything in our Western culture serves this distortion of love. We are taught in a thousand ways that love means increasing someone's self-esteem. Love is helping someone feel good about themselves. Love is giving someone a mirror and helping him like what he sees.

This is not what the Bible means by the love of God. Love is doing what is best for someone. But making self the object of our highest affections is not best for us. It is, in fact, a lethal distraction. We were made to see and savor God-and savoring him, to be supremely satisfied, and thus spread in all the world the worth of his presence. Not to show people the all-satisfying God is not to love them. To make them feel good about themselves when they were made to feel good about seeing God is like taking someone to the Alps and locking them in a room full of mirrors."

If you want to get out of your "room full of mirrors" and get a passion for God, go listen to Louie Giglio's message at the "Finish the Mission" conference. It comes as close as I have ever heard in describing the process I went through last year when God began a work in my heart - and got really BIG in my life. It is around an hour, but I promise you, it is well worth it. Take an evening this week and turn off the t.v. and get a glimpse of how BIG your God is. And join me in "singing with the stars and the whales."

Louie Giglio Video Link

Sneak peek at prayer card photo

Our church was sweet enough to offer to make prayer cards for us to hand out. Britt Dillard who is an incredible man of God and servant took some great pictures of us. Here is our favorite. Much thanks to a loving church family!

P.S. They should be ready by the Global MPACT Celebration if not sooner.

Welcome to Musoma !

So here is the actual project where we will be working. This clip will give you a great idea of what's involved in Bible translation and you get to see several of the people working there.

New Banner for the Blog!

So, I finally got some pictures of us on here. Needless to say it is quite a feat getting eight smiling faces in a picture. I found a couple of neat pieces of software to do "green screen." They are both free. One is the program PAINT.net (not to be confused with the normal Windows Paint program) found here and the other is a Chroma-key plug-in for Paint.net found here. Basic instructions for using it are on this website. I made everyone get in front of a green sleeping bag one at a time, and took their pictures. Then I used the software to remove the green backgrounds. Last step was to combine all the individual pictures with a new background. I think it looks pretty good. And WE ARE ALL SMILING and NO ONE IS BLINKING!

I also used them to make this 4x6 picture to hand out at the Global MPACT Celebration next month:

Hope you enjoy the pictures and the software if you try it. We have been busy in the evenings with our online training course, but I will try to get some more updates on here soon.

Global MPACT Celebration @ FBS

Missionaries from all over the world will be coming to First Baptist Spartanburg next month to share in what God is doing. The celebration is from Oct 8th - 12th. Here is the video we shared about Bible Translation in the worship service this past Sunday...

How will you respond?

"After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb"  Rev 7:9 NASB

A new work of Love

Back when we started this journey, I came across some precious truth from a man called A.W. Tozer. His book The Pursuit of God is a must-read. Here is an excerpt from the first chapter "Following Hard After God."

     When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God Himself. The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the "and" lies our great woe. If we omit the "and," we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing.
     When the Lord divided Canaan among the tribes of Israel Levi received no share of the land. God said to him simply, "I am thy part and thine inheritance," and by those words made him richer than all his brethren, richer than all the kings and rajas who have ever lived in the world. And there is a spiritual principle here, a principle still valid for every priest of the Most High God.”
     The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately and forever.”
     God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is.”

O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

May we all be so consumed by our Love.

But just as it is written, "THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM." For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. 1Cr 2:9-10 NASB

Is anything too hard for God?

While I was going through the Precept Upon Precept study of Covenant, I got a "Days of Praise" email from the Institute for Creation Research (www.icr.org) with the following idea I found interesting:

Sarah "laughed" when God said that she would bear a son in her old age, but God responded: "Is any thing too hard for the LORD?" (Genesis 18:14). Many years later, the angel told the Virgin Mary that she would have a son, and she said: "How shall this be?" (Luke 1:34.) The angel replied: "With God nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:37).

• Covenant began with the impossible
• New covenant began with the impossible

God doesn’t change.

What have you seen him do lately that was impossible??

When God does the impossible, then He leaves no room for praising anything or anyone but Him.


I had lunch with a friend yesterday and I told him the same thing. The only way God gets the glory is if people look at my life and say, "He couldn't have done that on his own. God did it." He is in the business of doing the impossible, like clothing the grass, telling the seas where to stop, and selling a house in a market that is saturated with houses for sale.


It makes me think of the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel. Not only did Elijah call down fire from heaven, but before he did, he soaked the altar in water. Like the fire from heaven wasn't enough proof. He wanted wet wood. And when the fire consumed everything, there was no doubt Who did it.



"Then all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, "The LORD, He is God; the LORD, He is God."  1Kings 18:39



I have been praying since we began the journey that He would get the glory. That is my desire. As I drive through our neighborhood and see signs continuing to pop up "For Sale" I smile. A little more water on the wood...