Behold! I make all things NEW!

Lately I’ve been so encouraged by just dwelling on the fact that Jesus is coming back. Last night at College and Career we read through Revelation 21, and It reminded me that for all who are saved through faith is Jesus Christ, we have this redemption. By God’s grace we may even partake in some of this redemption while we are here on earth!

I saw this outline by Ed Hindson, and I know it’s academic, but I was just overwhelmed by how much the Holy Spirit has confirmed the Lord’s coming. There are nine different Greek words used to describe His coming!

1. Hoerchomenos. “The coming one,” as in Hebrews 10:37, “For yet a little while,

and he that shall come will come.”

2. Erchomai. The act of coming. Used often of Christ’s return. Cf. Matthew

24:30;John 14:3; 2 Thessalonians 1:10; Jude 14; Revelation 1:7; 22:20.

3. Katabaino. To “come down” or descend, as in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, “For the

Lordhimself shall descend from heaven with a shout.”

4. Heko. Result of one’s coming, to have “arrived,” as in Revelation 3:3, “I will

come as a thief.”

5. Parousia.Denotes arrival and presence (of a ruler), as in 1 Thessalonians 2:19,

“For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not you in the presence ofour Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?”

6. Apokalupsis. Meaning to “unveil” or “uncover.” Rendered” appearing”

(1Peter 1:7) or “coming” (1 Corinthians 1:7) or “revelation”(Revelation 1:1). Involves the unveiling of His divine glory.

7. Phaneroo.To “appear” (John 21:1) or be “manifest” (1 John 3:5). Asin

1John 3:2, “It is not yet made manifest what we shall be. but we know that,if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even ashe is.”

8. Epiphaino.To “appear” in full light or visibility. Denotes the”brightness” of

Hiscoming (2 Thessalonians 2:8) and the glory of “that day… unto all themthat love his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8).

9. Horao.To “see with the eyes,” or to “appear” visibly, as inHebrews 9:28, “and

unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time.” …..

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.” [Revelation 21]

I just think that in the fog of life, we have been given this picture for a reason. It can be exhausting and so wearisome to look at the future, and to try to see through what can look like such a fog. But we KNOW that these words are true, and that in Christ our future is sure. And that is what I am just resting in right now. Whether God gives me blessings on this earth or not, the surety of life with Him is more then enough.

Blog Fail.

York outreach!

So we just finished our outreach week! I stayed in York this semester... how did that happen? How did miss travel the world stay put? hmmm I guess I really do love England!

We had a really good week! The spiritual warfare was intense, we spent a lot of time fighting exhaustion, but God sure did bless our outreaches!

We did a lot of practical ministry around the school, like working in the coffee shop, and covering sunday school classes for all the students that left. We also gave the church a really really DEEP clean. And by deep clean, I mean using butter knives to get the dust out from beneath the floorboards! It was surprisingly a huge blessing. It reminded me how much joy the Lord takes in our practical service to Him. I felt like what I was doing was so pleasing to Him, even if no one even noticed when they got back :)

We had some really great nights of street evangelism! The Lord led us to certain bus stops by sending random rainstorms, and He helped us understand homeless people who could barely talk!

One of the funnest outreaches we did was put on a married couples dinner for the married couples in the church. It was such a blessing to be able to bless all the married couples. They had a lot of fun together, and the food was really good :)

I’m about halfway through my semester at York, actually, more then halfway! My blog seems to have been greatly forgotten about, poor thing! Really though, I haven’t forgotten about it, I just haven’t known what to say.

This semester has been probably one of the most difficult seasons that I have gone through with the Lord. But I have gone through it WITH the Lord. I came here with a lot of expectations for what God was going to do, and soon realized that nothing was turning out as I expected. I’ve heard Chuck Smith tell me never to have expectations in just about every other chuck track, but somehow, I still had them. When I got here, things drastically did not go as I expected. It was there that the trials began… what do we do what God doesn’t do what we thought he said he would do? I found myself asking myself these questions, wondering why God wasn’t pulled through for me. Theologically, I knew that God had to do what He said, but that isn’t what I saw.

The problem wasn’t that God wasn’t doing what He said, the problem was in me. I had set my eyes on something that I wanted, and I took promises that God had given me and I applied it to that very thing I wanted, doing exactly what the enemy wanted. See, when Satan see’s God working in our lives, when he see’s God guiding us, if he can’t discourage us or cause us to quite following God, he will hand us a false reality. When Eve at the fruit that God had forbidden, it wasn’t because she wanted to sin against God, It was because she was deceived. She was convinced that God hadn’t really said she couldn’t eat it, and that it would be best if she did. She walked right into a false reality. This is exactly the trap I found myself in.

One of the biggest questions any Bible College student has on their hearts is, “what is God’s will for my life?” We talk about it all the time, and we pray for it everyday. For me, Knowing and doing God’s will became top priority. To be honest, it even turned into an Idol. Suddenly I became more infatuated with doing God’s will then with the cross.

See, I started judging God’s faithfulness by something that He was going to do instead of basing it off of what He has already done. He already sent his son to die on the cross for my sins, what more does he need to prove to us? What more do I need to be able to rest fully in His faithfulness? The scary thing about all of this is that no one saw this. I had no idea, my friends didn’t see it, my pastor’s didn’t see it. But God saw it. And God did not let me take hold of that fruit. I tried and tried and tried be he never let my hand take hold of it.

I never realized how easy it can be for ministry, or having vision, to become an idol to us. We walk around judging each others righteousness by how much vision they have, but even Paul the apostle didn’t always know where he was going or what he was doing. He just did what was in front of him.

In Acts 16:6-10 says:

“And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. ⁷And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. ⁸So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. ⁹And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” ¹⁰And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them”.

Paul had been called to preach in Asia prior to this. At some point God decided to call him to go elsewhere, so when Paul kept trying to go to Asia the doors kept shutting. As Paul is found in this struggle, The Lord gives him a vision of the Macedonian man. So Paul immediately went! He did not sit there in a frustrated state, he just got up and went not questioning God about why it had been such a confusing journey. Then we he got to Macedonia, there were no men to preach to! But he didn’t get caught up in the confusion, he kept going!

When God gives us vision, we often sit still and don’t move until that exact thing happens to fall into out laps. But this is not how we are to walk! We need to keep moving, no matter how confusion the struggle is! We need to know that God may not have the vision play out as we expected.

And remember, in the end, Paul DID get to Rome…

So as for me, right now I don’t understand what God is doing, and I do not understand what He has done, but I know that where I am is good. I know that God is good and that He only does good. There really isn’t much more that I need to understand. For too long I’ve been caught up in getting to a certain point, so much so that I forgot to be light right now. I forgot that THIS is the day that the Lord has made. I forgot that today I am a saved soul with good news to share with the people that I’m going to see today. Tomorrow I will know where I am supposed to be tomorrow.

As of Today, I am loving serving here in York. The experience has been SO different then at the campus in Hungary. In Hungary I was so poured into, and here I’ve had much more chances to pour out into others. I’m working in the Coffee Shop in York. The ministry is just amazing! God has brought us so many regular costumers that we get to share with everyday by just serving them with Love.

I’m also spending some Sundays helping out with various things at Church on the Way in Bradford. I really love that church, I have been so blessed to have a place that feels like home. Even though my ministry has been pretty inconsistent, The Lord has given me some amazing opportunities and answered a lot of prayers.

As for this summer, I still have no clue, but God does J