Blessed Are Those Who Hunger And Thirst For Righteousness, For They Will Be Filled:

            God has designed us to crave; to hunger and thirst daily for a filling of two kinds of food.  He invites us to eat and to drink of Jesus so that we can become full.  Just as we depend on Jesus for our spiritual nourishment, we also need to depend on Jesus for the spiritual nourishment of our lives.  We must feed on him daily.  Only then will we have the fresh bread from heaven that we need to give to both the spiritually and naturally hungry.  The poor in Africa have a concept of this hunger that we will never understand as Westerners- we are too full.  They understand what it means to truly want and to truly be satisfied.  We cannot live on yesterday’s manna or old revelation.  We will grow stale like the bread we eat if we try to.  A lot of times as Westerners we tend to live off of stale bread, crumbs, and garbage and are so poor and pitiable.  Pride keeps us from affirming that the poor could have something we need.  Attending a conference is not enough. We must daily eat and drink from the Word.  Fill our hunger and thirst with the Word- Jesus is the Word- the Bread of Life. We must eat and drink until we are dripping Jesus everywhere we go.

Blessed Are The Meek- For They Will Inherit The Earth

This beatitude is one that challenged me the most thus far.  I am struggling with how to summarize it because I so have not yet fully grasped this idea of meekness.  The point is not I ever, but the point is God always.  He alone is worthy of the glory.  There is no arriving to this point of totally dying to our selves, but it is a continual process of being reduced down to the simplicity of love.  Just following God in everything and realizing that I am nothing.  I need to learn to depend on Him for all my strength and my entire portion everyday.  When we seek first the riches of heaven, God entrusts us with those on earth- that is what it means to inherit the earth.  I always hear to whom much is given, much is required- this chapter really made me realize the truth in that.  The people that Heidi talked about in this book had nothing yet gave everything.  How much more could I give? Even in ministry selfish ambition is a struggle.  We seem to be able to turn everything, even the good things into gods in our lives.  God cannot use selfish ambition or vain conceit, but wants to rip it out of us.  I am praying that God would humble me everyday for the rest of my life.  I am his.  If we are low, He will lift us up.  If we humble ourselves, He will exalt us.  If we walk as He walked, wear what He wore, and love as He loves, we too will inherit the earth.        

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn- For They Will Be Comforted

            Ministry is simply is us loving like Jesus.  It is the Beatitudes manifest through your life.  Missions are when you have the love of God so that He can demonstrate His very life and nature through you.  Missions are intended to be the Sermon on the Mount played out on Earth.  The Beatitudes are God’s recipe for revival and for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.  What does God mean by blessed are those who mourn?  As missionaries we are called to comfort those who mourn- to love the broken until they understand God’s love (a love that never dies) through us.  Ministry is as simple as that- just loving the person in front of us.  Stopping for the one and being the very fragrance of Jesus to a lost and dying world.  Often we want the kingdom to look like the multitudes to make our church grow and make us look good.  But the kingdom really looks like one smiling child at a time until nations are full of people who are passionate lovers of God.  There is suffering all over the world.  We can use our suffering to become more like Jesus, or we can let bitterness fester inside our hearts.  The mystery of God’s mercy is that somehow He allows us to understand the pain of others so that we become more like Jesus in our compassion.  He can even use suffering because He knows how to turn everything around for good- if only we let him.  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”  2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit- Theirs Is The Kingdom Of Heaven

 I have started a new book by Heidi Baker called Compelled by Love.  Heidi and her husband do mission work in Mozambique and she writes many books.  This particular book is about the beatitudes and it is rocking my world.  I have been so challenged by the first chapter when Heidi shares all that the poor and especially the children have shown her about living poor in spirit.  Living poor in spirit has nothing to do with your financial state though the poor really do understand this concept naturally.  Being poor in spirit is a matter of receiving just live.  The poor live simple lives in community of interdependence and really give the world a picture of what the church of Acts looked like.  But most importantly living poor in Spirit is a posturing of the heart where one is wholly given, fully yielded, completely desperate, and totally dependent on God alone.  I want live like this- no back up plan- just diving into whatever God calls me into with complete faith.  Being poor in spirit is a choice- a decision- we all have to make to go lower still, fully dependent on the One who is always dependable.  

Finished Finding Calcutta Finally!:)

A lot of time in ministry it is easy to get caught up in numbers.  Mother Teresa’s ministry strived to not get caught in this strive, but were all about person by person.  The world is too big to get caught up in numbers. “Welfare is for a purpose- an admirable one- whereas Christian love is for a person.” A lot of times ministry is like a teaspoon out of the ocean and you just have to do what God calls you to do without getting discouraged or overwhelmed by the plentiful harvest.  Her mindset was the opposite of Darwinism and would go and help the ones everybody else looked over as a hopeless cause.  “God did not create poverty; it is created by you and I because we do not share.”  A lot of times she was criticized for not “teaching a man to fish” but she just gave people fish, but I really think she was just doing what God called her to do with the greatest love from Christ that anointed her work with a very bright light.  We just have to take hold of the little things in front of us.  “One, one, one…” Sometimes starting out with passion to change the world can be a quick route of discouragement. 

            Mother’s identity was in Christ and she did not get distracted one bit by criticisms and complements a like.  She called her work “little nothingness.”  She counted everything as rubbish as Paul does in Philippians 3!  Being discouraged is a sign of pride because it means that we are trying to do something on our own.  In Christ there is no discouragement.  God works in his own ways and we just have to trust in him for everything.  Be encouraged by the small things in life and ministry.  “Just a drop in the ocean, but if that drop were not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less.”  I could quote Mother all day- she was so wise!   

            On thing in thing in this book that really challenged me was how Mother and the missionaries would try to bring Christ to the people and the people to Christ- in every little way possible.  In maybe just a smile or their actions or prayer.  They would clean and pick up trash as they went and just leave the fragrance of Christ behind.  I just learned about the “tragedy of the commons” and I really want to strive to do little things that nobody else or would even notice, but anything that would shine Christ brighter in this world!   

            I could never possibly blog all of the things I have gotten out of Finding Calcutta on this paper, but I do have a main thing I have pulled out of it is that my view of Catholicism has changed.  I honestly formerly believed there were no true Christians in that denominations, but now I see differently.  “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” Colossian 3:11 I have always though of the body of Christ simply in terms of spiritual gifts, but now I see it could also be the different denominations of the church.  Trough them, we can see the wholeness and beauty of the body of Christ as each has their own strengths.  Denominations in my opinion are a heartbreaking thing to God that is simply humanities attempt at finding a balance in Spirit and truth.  Then a lot of times especially Westerns flee from the Spirit of God that simply does not make sense, but will cling to the truths of Christ.  In these truths we start to form opinions and doctrines that we then debate each other on then a denominations is born.  But also getting caught up in the Spirit with emotions and healing and manifestations of the Spirit can be dangerous too.  We all need to unite and help other find the truth and just run after God- we need each other.  None of us are the head- Christ is the head of the church.  

Learning how to be a missionary in high school- My Calcutta

One of the many, many great things that Poplin pointed out that the missionaries in Calcutta strived to do and did well was not to complain.  She pointed out how when somebody would complain about one little thing a spirit of rife with anger, frustration, and discouragement would spread throughout the entire group like a disease and affect all the good work they were trying to do for Christ.  They actually had a rule that they were not to speak during their day’s work unless it is necessary to get their work done instead they would pray without ceasing.  This reminds me of James 1 when James tells us to be slow to speak.  I was just talking to my breakfast club girls about the not complaining challenge, and I didn’t realize how much it could affect not just high school, but also future mission fields also.  We must learn to set our minds on things that are above not on things that are on earth!  “Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” Philippians 2:14 How much more would we shine if we simply replaced complaining with thanksgiving and prayer? We are ambassadors of Christ and I think I often times represent Christ poorly by living and talking as if I was of this world and not called to a higher standard.  I heard a story of a missionary who came across a group of ambassadors who were really rude and prideful and acted like they ruled the country they were in.  He realized that his view of their countries as a whole went down because of who they had representing them.  I want to represent Christ like a true child of the living, imperishable, undefiled, and unfading promise!  I am a chosen child of God just simply a sojourner in this world and I want to live in the light of my identity- in the light of eternity.  The power to do this can only come from Christ!  One thing I have really been challenged by is what I am complaining about and how out of focus I really am when I am complaining.  I always keep up with the persecuted church through Voice of the Martyrs and Prison Alert and yet I complain about the school getting mad at me for my skirt being to short? Haha Life is too brief to get caught up in the things of the world!  I want to learn to respect the people in authority of me more and more because not only has God put those people in my life to conform me to be more like him, but also how much more could I shine in this generation?  Even it does not make sense and I think I know better I must submit- if Jesus who knew all things and knew not sin and could submit and respect leadership so can I at least strive to. 1 Peter 2:13-25

            One way the missionaries do not live of this world is how little they own.  Also their ministry ran by a simple life style.  “The lack of toys concerned no one except an occasional volunteer, like me.  I realized more clearly how Americans are accustomed to having so many things that we have trouble coping with out the them… Both children and adults who have many things constantly want more, and then a short while, we are restless and bored again.”  We all have this empty hole in our hearts that is meant for God and God only yet a lot of times especially as Americans we try to fill it with stuff.  We see a picture of this in how we are always trying to upgrade and make renovations in the kitchen and just always striving towards more comfort.  Would we ever spend a long time moving and fixing up a house that when you were done you just have to move back out of?  This is what we do in life so often- we spend our whole lives trying to make our lives more comfortable not realizing that we have to leave so soon.  “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heavens.” 2 Corinthians 5:1 I want to live and die for bigger things!  I like how Mother once put it- “It I not a sin to be rich, but be careful because riches can suffocate you if they are not used in the right way.”  The older I get the more I see wealth as a hindrance and temptation that is always trying to pull humanities focus away from God.   

            The Missionaries of Calcutta first work was always prayer.  This past week I went and taught the third graders at OCS about Christianity and missions in Europe.  I was thinking about what could a third grader at OCS do with this information? So I challenged the kids with my life verse.  “Then he said to his disciples, ‘the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few; therefore pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.” Matthew 9:37-38 We are not only called to go, but also to pray.  I gave each child a sheet of paper with a country and the percentage of Christians in the country and asked them to pray.  My deep hope is that through what I did last week there are little precious children’s prayers for the nations of Europe entering the throne room. 

            Another great point Poplin made was how there seems to not be as many miracles in the West as in developing nations such as India.  She said she was uncomfortable sharing some of the miracles that occurred which was a witness to the power of doubt in the West regarding the supernatural.   I personally believe there are miracles around us everyday that our eyes for some reason cannot see as God a lot of times.  We tend to either ignore or discredit anything that does not fit our current worldview.  All we have to do is ask for God to reveal himself in huge ways and he will! I have been praying to see miracles like the days of Moses right here in OCS and I know that God will be faithful! “O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear.  In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.”  Habakkuk 3:2 Poplin also mentioned a couple of mission fields that are really seeing miracles on top of Calcutta- one being where my sister went this summer and there is a couple of books about that I would love to read! That is Heidi and Roland Baker in Mozambique.  I definitely want to study this when I teach the third graders about Africa.  Heidi is often called the Protestant Mother Teresa for her work with the orphans there.  Their ministry known as Iris ministry is known for the signs and wonders that occur through it.  Another one she mentioned was all that is happening in Argentina.  I have a MK friend (Mrs. Kalmykov’s little sister so I guess I could talk to her too) that grew up in Argentina and her parents are still missionaries there through the IMB.  I know that they are currently in Israel studying Judaism to be able to minister to the Jews in Argentina.  I would really like to interview somebody from this family to see what Poplin is talking about.  This is a contact I plan on using when teaching the third graders about South America along with my experience there in Nicaragua, Brazil, Mexico, and soon Ecuador.