Wednesday, January 30, 2008

A NEW HEART - with a New Vision

Yesterday we had our first doctor's appointment and we were able to confirm that there is indeed a little alien in our midst! :) As if all the puking, nausea, and tiredness had not already confirmed it... There's nothing like seeing that little shrimp on the screen, and hearing the heart beat for the first time. Sarah said it sounded like a night-club in there (we'll have to educate him/her in healthy music listening habits early on). This little beating heart, reminds us of how we need to daily nurture this New Heart of Faith that God has placed within us.

Ezekiel 36:26-29
A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall heed My ordinances and do them.
And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and you shall be My people, and I will be your God.
I will also save you from all your uncleannesses, and I will call forth the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine on you.


And a New Vision - We are meditating daily on the imporatance of continuing in the new vision from God! Our old hearts have "hardening of the Categories" but our new heart if pumping with the vision and burning from God! We can easily think of ourselves in very hard ways, and think we are useless, and unloved, but God is thinking so much greater. Let's allow Him to stir His New Vision within our New Heart!

Jediah

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

faith that works by love

Hello to all you faithful readers, and friends around the globe. We miss you, and are thinking of you today. I am thankful to God for you... as I share my heart with you.

Faith that works by love...
It's amazing how much sense our faith makes as we continue with God by faith! It's so amazing often that we are tempted out of excitement to throw it all on a young inquirer without any thought to his person, and if he can bare what will be said. I had just such an experience today and it broke my heart when I realized the situation. I frankly apologized and tried to recover what was important, and minister to this precious one where he was at. I thought I did a terrible job, but as we approached our point of departure, he spoke. "There is something that I really appreciate about Christianity.' he said 'The openness that you have with others. I think you can call it the love of Jesus, or openness and we don't have that in other religions and cultures. I also saw that in my mother who was a christian."
I was touched, and I responded, "I think you saw what I wanted most to tell you but could not communicate with arguments, It's the love of Jesus that changed my life."

Think of who God has placed in your path, they are most definately there to be loved. The gentleness of the Holy Spirit will give the gift of faith bound-up in love. We can see that faith is motivated by love!

Please pray for my dear friend and me, His name is Tomo. He walked from Switzerland to Istanbul this past year, and he may be staying with us for a bit before continuing on his journey. I am praying he will find something with us and perhaps begin a different kind of journey.
It's great to write after such a long time. I plan to write often.
God's power is in Prayer!
Jediah