Posts Tagged ‘guidry’

Stick with the God who Sticks with you: Don’t Throw it Away

Posted in Bible Study, Leukemia, Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

 “And now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed”

Joshua 23:14

HUPOMONE

Definition:
-steadfastness, constancy, endurance
-in the NT the characteristic of a man who is not swerved from his deliberate purpose and his loyalty to faith and piety by even the greatest trials and sufferings
-patiently, and steadfastly
-a patient, steadfast waiting for
-a patient enduring, sustaining, perseverance

First off, I am not dying, well at least my demise is not imminent.  Though if this blog is your main form of connection to me you may have wondered….

Allana and I have talked for some time about starting a parallel men’s ministry called Hupomone Men.  I have been praying about this for awhile.  I think as Christians that line has become something of an avoidance mechanism.  I know that it has been for me.  True Beauty held its first conference this weekend and I announced the imminent creation of Hupomone.  So time to keep praying but take a step forward.

I have been in what has been perhaps the biggest struggle of my life over the last few years.  For five years my life has been one crisis after another.  First, after 7 miscarriages Allana and I were pregnant again.  For 3 months we prayed through our acceptance of an almost certain loss.  For 3 months God brought us into a new realm of trust (trust that would serve us well in the coming year).  For 3 months we rejoiced in God’s faithfulness to a promise made to Allana several years ago.  It was a promise that we thought we had misunderstood.  It was a promise that we thought we had to reinterpret. It was a promise that was birthed on December 16 2012 (Nisa Faith). Then we had 19 days of unfettered rejoicing, the promise come to life.  What a gift those 19 days were.  What a gift the whole journey was.  It was a gift of discipleship preparing us for the places that God would walk with us; for two years of emotional and physical agony as Allana battled Leukemia.  Two years of tremendous ministry in the face of adversity.  For three years we operated in the valley of the shadow of death.  It fostered great reliance on God for great and mighty things that literally meant the difference between life and death.

Read the end of Exodus and the book of Joshua.  This is where the Israelite people were when Joshua spoke the words above.  They had been through the crisis, their very existence threatened.  I am finding that “the crisis” forces an intense faith and closeness with God as well as a multitude of amazing ministry opportunities.  Even as God flooded my heart over the last decade with the need to “fan the flame of the gift of God” within me; through these times He has repeated the echoing refrain of Hupomone.  Perhaps the need is so great because we are not a society who values this.  We are the throw-away society.  If it is uncomfortable or inconvenient throw it away, churches, jobs, marriages, babies.  We are the disposable people.  We are all to often men of the disposable.  This is the very antithesis of our Lord and his desire for us. Perhaps the need is so great because I am a man of the disposable but by embracing the Holy Spirit in my life and fanning the flame that he has placed there I am just beginning to understand what it means to be a Hupomone Man with a Hupomone God.

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, Hebrews 12:1

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Not as Easy at it Sounds

Posted in Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Tablet heart

Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart.

Proverbs 3:3

I recently read this verse during my morning devotions.  It was only about 5 minutes later that I snapped at one of my daughters for something silly (probably for interrupting my morning devotions….).  The importance of Binding kindness and truth around your neck became readily apparent.  Have you ever bound something around your neck?  How about something heavy.  Kindness and truth are not lightweights.  They have an heavy impact on everything we do.  How about writing them on the tablet of your heart?  The picture here is not the easy process that I am using now (typing quietly into my laptop, with the delete button just a fingers width away).  It is not even pen or pencil on paper.  The picture here is a clay or stone tablet (sorry not an Ipad or Android) inscribed by a stylus or sharp instrument.  Once written it could only be removed with considerable effort.  The deeper the inscription, the more permanent the message.

The picture is not complete without consideration of the physical impacts.  I do not think that the writer wanted to shortchange the difficulty or even outright pain of righteous living.  It is neither comfortable nor enjoyable for things to be cut into our hearts.  Consider our modern culture.  TV shows, movies, books; they all extol the virtues of the free heart.  Our clothing is loose and light, even high quality body armor is extolled for its lightness and the fact that it does not inhibit the movements of the wearer.  We do not want to be restricted.  Here is a truth from this passage:  Kindness and truth are restrictive.  They set limits on our behavior both internally and externally.  Our human nature chafes at these limitations.  We want to redefine them in a way that maintains our perceived freedoms.  Kindness becomes a touchy feely thing we do from time to time when the circumstances are right.  Truth becomes a function of what is working well for us for the moment crossed with what is currently most inoffensive to all of those around us.  They cease to be bound around our necks nor etched forever on the tablets of our hearts.  Instead we wear kindness like a fancy necklace and truth is penciled in, with an eraser close by.

Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart…. not as easy as it sounds.

 

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What’s up with the Guidry’s

Posted in Life and Ministry, True Beauty, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 25, 2016| Leave a Comment »

This Update appears permanently on the “What’s up with the Guidry’s Page”

May 2016 Update

So what have the Guidry’s been up to??

This has been a year of returning to ministry!  God has blessed Allana with a relatively smooth recovery.  We are learning to work with a new “normal”.  She does get frustrated that she cannot do many of the things that she used to do, or at least at the pace and in the volume that she was used to pre-Leukemia.  Summer of 2015 Allana and Sami helped run a summer program for the children of Five Points at Calvary United Methodist church along with Pastor Elizabeth Rand.  Pastor Rand has become a wonderful partner in ministry.  We ran two more ministry sessions at Calvary for children in the YMCA daycare hosted there.  The first was a Christmas play.  It was such a blessing to watch most of children participating go from absolutely unaware of the truth of Christmas to experts on the story of the birth of the Savior of the world.  It was 10 weeks of scripture, fellowship, music and just loving on the children.  The second session was a pantomime survey of the teachings of Jesus.  Originally set in 6 vignettes of His life we doubled the number of children participating in the weekly program.  Even though many of them did not take part in the actual performance it was wonderful to expand their knowledge of Jesus Christ and repeat time after time the Gospel message right through the resurrection.  Sadly this will be our last program at Calvary United Methodist.  The church will be closing in June.  Pray for us as we pursue new partnerships to continue instilling the Gospel in the hearts and minds of the children of Toledo.

Allana’s Facebook ministry for women, True Beauty has continued to grow.  It now consists of 3 groups and 60 women.  Late in 2015 Allana led the women through a 90 day spiritual, emotional and physical challenge/devotional series.  Allana was blessed with several opportunities for face to face meetings with some of the ladies.  A new addition is a group that focuses on the greater Toledo area.  The True Beauty website launched in April and in July True Beauty is holding their first Women’s Conference, Never Alone.  It will be at the Toledo Campus of Compelled Church in Holland Ohio on McCord Rd.  We are very excited about all that God is doing in the lives of True Beauty women.

Cherry Street Mission Ministries continues to be the main focus of Sam’s time.  He moved from part-time to full-time in the summer of 2015.  His work on events has given him the opportunity to engage with people from all walks of life and all Christian faith traditions.  It has been an exciting time as Cherry Street is in a time of rapid change and development.  Keep Sam, the leadership, the staff and the guests of Cherry Street in prayer as God leads them into a new tradition of growth and discipleship.

The children are all growing like weeds.  Sami if finishing up her freshman year in high school and is the tallest in the family.  She is looking forward to a summer mission trip and to Senior High Camp.  Robert returns from Korea in August much to the relief of his fiancé and will be stationed at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.  Chayla is our quiet one.  She is a rabid reader and enjoys time online with her horse-loving friends.  We are looking forward to being grand parents for a second time as my oldest John and his wife Julie are expecting their second child in October.

Goals for this year are to incorporate and attain non-profit status for Fan Into Flame Ministries.  Under the Fan Into Flame umbrella True Beauty, a men’s ministry (potentially called Hupomone Men) and our work with children.  The common thread in all of these is that we seek to have those we serve fulfill 2 Timothy 1:6 in their lives.

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The Morning Munch: Fan Into Flame, Fire Building

Posted in Bible Study, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 14, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Yes FM Morning Munch

January 6th

Audio File 

Fan Into Flame, Fire Building

 

It is the sixth day of January, the year is no longer quite new.  If the statistics mean anything New Year’s resolutions are already beginning to fall by the wayside.  Yesterday we talked about Paul’s New Year’s resolution for Timothy.  “Fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline”   I believe two things about this statement: 1. Paul was bringing Timothy back to the moment of his conversion, to the moment when he first felt that overwhelming presence of the Holy Spirit in his life 2. The frustrations and struggles of this new church’s leader reflected a larger struggle within the church itself.  This is the same church that Jesus himself would address through the Apostle John in Revelation

 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. (Revelation 2:4-5)

The language is different but the message is the same.  That intimate, powerful burning relationship that you had with the Holy Spirit at the beginning of your walk with God, rekindle that flame.  And why do we want to rekindle that flame, because it is the flame of a Spirit of Power, a Spirit of Love a Spirit of Self-discipline.  It is the Spirit that dwells in those who have been adopted as sons and daughters of the Living God.  It is the Spirit that came upon the Judges of Israel fulfilling the promises of God.  Othniel, Sampson and Gideon all defended Israel by its power against overwhelming odds.  Gideon is one of my favorite stories in Judges.  Here is a man that was hiding in a pit when God spoke to him but when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him he (somewhat reluctantly) kindled that spark into a flame that would save his people and do it in such a way that God’s hand in it could be seen by all.  As wonderful and amazing as all of those stories are, the really thrilling thing for us as brothers and sisters in Christ is that it is no longer a matter of the Spirit coming upon us, God has given us this wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit entering into us as a an ever present source of power, love and self-discipline.

Paul, always the systematic writer, doesn’t just leave us hanging with this call to rekindle God’s gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Join me as over the next few days we take a look at Paul’s Guide to Spiritual Fire Building in difficult times.

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The Morning Munch: Fan Into Flame

Posted in Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , , , on January 12, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Yes FM Morning Munch

Audio file Link

January 5th

 

Make it New!

Day 1

 

Of course we all know as we go into the New Year there are those pesky New Year’s resolutions.  All the things that we are going to change…all those things that we are going make new in our lives.  Results of an University of Scranton study done a few years ago indicate that only 8% of New Year’s resolutions are brought to a successful conclusion (yeah I know what else do they have to do in Scranton…).

Paul the Apostle knew a young man who was struggling to succeed in his New Year’s resolution to faithfully serve God as the shepherd of a new church plant in the tough, tough city of Ephesus.  In fact Timothy just a couple of years earlier  wanted to quit and rejoin Paul but in response to this request Paul says “As I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines” (1 Timothy 1:3).  What follows is the first of what we call the Pastoral Epistles as Paul lays out some tenets for his young protégé in effective ministry.

Fast forward a couple of years and we see that Timothy is still struggling.  Moreover Paul knows that his mentoring days are coming to a close.  An unstable emperor will soon send Paul home to be with the Savior he loves above all else.  It is with this in mind that Paul opens up this second letter with a New Year’s Resolution that would carry Timothy into his old age and even to martyrdom.

“3 I thank God, whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my forefathers did, as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day, 4 longing to see you, even as I recall your tears, so that I may be filled with joy. 5 For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well. 6 For this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.”

The New International Version says:  6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

From the burning bush to the pillar of fire to the flames of Elijah Water Soaked sacrifice to the flames of Acts 2, fire has represented God’s active presence in the lives of men for thousands of years.  Paul reminds Timothy that the gift of God’s active presence in his life is the key fulfilling his commitment to serve God in Ephesus.  This active presence is the Holy Spirit and it is a gift made to each and every person who comes into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, accepting Him as Lord and Savior of their lives.  Fan this gift into flame, kindle it afresh and see what God will do in your life in 2015.

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The Christian Experience: Managing Change

Posted in Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 18, 2014| 1 Comment »

1 Chronicles 28:20
Then David said to his son Solomon, “Be strong and courageous, and act ; do not fear nor be dismayed, for the LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you until all the work for the service of the house of the LORD is finished.

 

God is moving in the lives of the Guidry Family!  Allana is regaining her strength.  God’s healing touch has been so apparent in this process.  Even as the little things come and go attempting to distract us from His Call on our lives the Holy Spirit speaks in so many ways.  We are on the brink of big changes.  Being the A type personality that I am, I would much prefer to plan out and know exactly what those changes will entail but I have found that this is not God’s plan for my life.

Solomon was also facing big changes.  David was nearing the end of his life.  One might think that Solomon was super excited about becoming king…maybe you should go back and read about the events that occurred throughout his childhood.  On top of the great responsibility (and danger) that came with being King of Israel, his father was publicly saddling him with the monumental task of building the Temple, complete with design plans direct from God.  God was moving in Solomon’s life.  David knew the waves that are created when God moves and so he gives this fatherly advice to his son, “Be strong and courageous, and act; do not fear nor be dismayed, for the LORD God, my God is with you.  He will not fail you nor forsake you until all the work for the service of the house of the LORD is finished.”

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit.  Just as the word of the Lord to David gave Solomon the blueprint, the guide to building His temple, Scripture provides us the guide for the work that He has given us.  “Be strong and courageous”, why do we need this advice?  Because though we have the guide the details and the work in progress.  The storms of life, the shortages of supplies, the delays, as Solomon performed his service of the house of the Lord I am sure that he experienced all of these. “for the LORD God, my God is with you.  He will not fail you nor forsake you…”  This is the assurance of success.  This is the assurance that ” I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 1:6)

Pray for us.

God is moving.  The path He is moving us on is not entirely clear yet but he has been calling us to specifically to Strength and Courage and to the service of His House.  We are so blessed by all of you who have supported us in so many ways.  As God moves His ministry for us forward we look forward to partnering with all of you until “the service of the house of the LORD is finished.”

Blessings,

Sam

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Daniel and the Long Haul

Posted in Bible Study, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2014| 1 Comment »

Lion's Den

 As for every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and conjurers who were in all his realm. And Daniel continued until the first year of Cyrus the king.  Daniel 1:20-21

Daniel is one of the most amazing characters in the Bible for a number of reasons.  Our canon of Scripture places Daniel among the prophets but the Jewish Scriptures do not.  The Jewish Canon places it in a group called The Writings.  While one cannot deny Daniel’s prophetic gift, he did not hold the office of prophet.  Certainly God calls on him repeatedly to speak  to the various leaders of Babylon, but that leads us to another unique thing about Daniel.  Other than the fact that Daniel was a Jew and was taken at a young age from his home in Judah the contents do not speak of or to the Jews.

So what do we know about this enigmatic figure and author of one of the 39 books of our old testament (one of the 24 in the Jewish Canon)? Daniel lived in the sixth century BC.  His family was either of the royal family or the nobility.  Pretty much everything that we know directly of Daniel comes from the book bearing his name.  The authorship of the book is much debated but I do not doubt that Daniel wrote it near the end of his life, probably after he had retired from public service.  I find most other textual criticism to be contrived either for academic reasons (you have to write your dissertation on something) or with the express need to explain away the miraculous.  He grew up during hard times in Judah.  His dedication to God from the very beginning would indicate to me that his parents were godly people living in ungodly times.  They are not mentioned here or elsewhere in Scripture.  If they did survive the siege and capture of Jerusalem Daniel was taken from them at around the age of 13.  This was the typical age at which the Babylonians of this era began training for public servants.  We are able to historically place the siege and capture of Jerusalem right around the year 605 BC.  This enables us to date many aspects of Daniel’s life, particularly when his service to Babylon began and ended.  This is what caught my attention and brought me to look a little deeper at the life of this man of God, this man of  hupomone (perseverance).  Daniel as we said was not a prophet, he was not a priest nor a missionary.  He was a public administrator and in many ways a politician by trade.  Daniel served God in the Babylonian courts and government until the year or year after Cyrus captured Babylon seizing control of that empire.  That event is historically established as occurring in 540 BC.  So Daniel served God in his capacity as an administrator for several versions of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 605 BC until 540 BC, or including training around 65 years!  That is some serious Hupomone!  Throughout that time he maintained his dedication to and love for God, even facing death!  He probably spent the last few years of his life (from 540,41 to 543,44) penning the book under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit which would become of part of the canon of Scripture we hold as the Word of God today!  He was very much an Old Testament Missionary, called to a pagan people to speak the heart of God.  Consider his words to Nebuchadnezzar: ‘Therefore, O king, may my advice be pleasing to you: break away now from your sins by doing righteousness and from your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, in case there may be a prolonging of your prosperity.’  Daniel 4:27 It seems that most often studies of Daniel focus in on either the eschatological aspects of his prophecies or just a few specific events within the book.  The next few weeks will be dedicated to looking at Daniel and the Long Haul.

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Weak Enough to See

Posted in Bible Study, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Ananias-of-Damascus

And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Acts 9:9

This verse comes from a story that many of us may know well.  It is the conversion story of Saul, who would become Paul the Apostle.  Paul was a man who acutely understood the dangers of blind spots, Saul was not.  Saul along with many of the Jewish leaders of his day lived in a big blind spot.  They desperately believed in God and in the coming Messiah but they saw their heritage and tradition as an overwhelming strength and in that feeling of strength they were blind to the truth of the Gospel.  Saul in his strength attended and approved of the stoning of Stephen.  He even watched over the cloaks of them men involved (Acts 7:58-8:1).  Saul in his strength “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” sought the destruction of the early Church.  He is an ominous example of how when we attempt to serve God in the strength of tradition, skill, knowledge or any other personal trait that the greater our “service”, the greater our potential blind spots.

So then this is the question, “How do we avoid operating in Spiritual Blind Spots?”.  Prior to committing our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ we lived in darkness.  It is a way of life for those who are not in a personal relationship with Him.  Jesus came to take us from the darkness that is life without God and bring us in to the light.

John 12:46 
“I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.

Old habits die hard and Peter speaking to believers sheds light on Spiritual Blind Spots

2 Peter 1:4-9

4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. 5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, 6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.

We can compare this passage to Paul’s exposition on the “Fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5.  These passages and many like them provide a Spiritual litmus test for smoking out blind spots in our walk with God.  However I want to go back to Paul’s story to see how God dealt with this problem in his life.

1.  God knocked Saul off of his high horse.

Acts 9:3

As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; 4 and he fell to the ground

2.  God brought Saul to a place of weakness

       a.  Paul was blinded.  The Spiritual state that he was operating in was manifested physically.

       b.  The man who was accustomed to leading needed to be led into the city

       c.  Paul was unable to eat or drink for three days.

3.  God spoke truth into Saul’s life

       a.  Initially God spoke directly to Saul revealing the blind spot that he was operating under.

       b.  God revealed Saul’s personal inadequacy in a vision of the man who would come to help him.

       c.  God brought a Christian brother to speak healing into Saul’s life, both of the physical and Spiritual blindness.

Fortunately God has provided us with Scripture and in it Paul’s example (as well as the examples of many other men and women of God throughout biblical history).  With the help of the Holy Spirit we can smoke out our blind spots without being knocked off a horse and blinded.

1.  Examine ourselves for areas of personal (denominational, doctrinal or any other genre of) pride that can make us susceptible to blind spots.  Then we need to follow the Micah’s advice in Chapter 6:  8 He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God ?

2.  Do not be afraid to operate from areas of weakness or of being in positions of weakness.

3.  Always be ready for, looking for and expecting the Truth of God to be revealed in your life.  The primary source is of course Scripture.  The more time that you spend in Scripture with your heart and mind open to God’s message the less likely you are to function in a blind spot.  Secondly always walk with solid brother’s and sisters in Christ who will be honest and open with you.  God may or may not reveal them in a vision to you but be ready to listen to the Holy Spirit as He speaks through them.  Filter it all through the truth of Scripture.

Blind Spots are endemic to our human nature but God through the work of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit as recoreded in Scripture has provided us all with the tools to walk in the Light as the Children of God.

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Perseverance in Love

Posted in Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

 And He said to him, ” ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’  “This is the great and foremost commandment.  “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’  “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” 

Matthew 22:37-40

The title of this post might indicate that it is a discussion of our need to continue in love even when those around us make it exceedingly difficult.  There could perhaps be an enumeration of all the ways those both near and distant make it hard for me to love them.  However this is not the case.  We are looking at love as a prime characteristic of perseverance.  It was established in the last post that biblical perseverance is a gift from God, not something that we work at, struggle at and achieve on our own or through our own efforts.  This does not relieve us of the responsibility of opening and exercising this gift, we just need to understand its source.  Remaining under Jesus regardless of our circumstances (good and bad ) is something that Paul understood.  Consider his statement to the Philippians

Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.  Philippians 4:11

He also understood the centrality of  love to the very existence of God’s children expressing it wonderfully in 1 Corinthians 13.  It should be no surprise that we find love at the center of biblical perseverance and that we have perseverance at the heart of biblical love.  The salvation story extending from Adam to Jesus to the first century church and beyond is a wonderful statement of this idea.  It expresses love without regard to circumstances, appearances or reciprocation.

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  Romans 5:8

Paul directly links the nature of God’s love and perseverance in Thessalonians 3:5

5 May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ. (Here Hupomone is translated steadfastness)

The love of God is supremely expressed in the steadfastness of Christ and the course of action that He undertook to be our salvation. ” 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Philippians 2:8

So we have seen that hupomone is not something that we slog through on our own.  It is not “super-moaning” as we hold the course through difficult times.  It is a gift from God.  Biblical perseverance is at its core God allowing to to partake in His divine nature and all that this means.  As such it brings with it all of the fruit of the Spirit so that with Paul we can be “content in whatever circumstances” (Philippians 4:11) we find ourselves.  It is the overwhelming Love of God that is at the heart of the transformation process that conforms to the nature of Christ and separates us from the nature of the world.

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Ministry of Love

Posted in Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 16, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Change is a part of the Christian walk.  Some change is sudden and some change comes slowly.  Last Friday our whole world changed but our hearts did not.  As The Lewis House website is no more I wanted to post this here.  The Lewis House is gone, a sudden death, and our lives have been turned upside down since this was recorded but our heart of ministry continues unchanged, building the Kingdom of God one relationship at a time…

 

 

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