February 18- Ramblings

Sarah said something a few weeks ago that's been on my mind a lot lately. She just off handedly mentioned that I would be lucky to go back to Potter's Field instead of back to the real world (just meaning that working at PFR would be awesome because you're constantly surrounded by a lot of amazing God-loving men and women). And being in Costa Rica, I get a lot of comments (from home and even here) just saying wow you're really suffering for the gospel there. Both are true, but that's not the way that I want to live my life. For some reason, God has me in Costa Rica. Costa Rica wasn't even an option for field placement when I started the program in July, but here I am. And if God leads me back to Potter's Field, I don't want to become complacent and not be willing to do things that I am doing here in Costa Rica. Does that make any sense? They said over and over at Potter's Field that your mission's field is where ever you are. Am I living my life accordingly? Pastor Phil said this morning that when you are out specifically for serving God that the spiritual warfare is on a whole different level. I'm not going to try and exaggerate the conditions in Villarreal, but I can definetly tell that. There's not a day that I don't have to wake up and start the day with laying my pride, my self-consciousness, my plans, my everything at the feet of Jesus, surrendering it all, and asking for HIS strength.

I heard a quote from Spurgeon I think that was something like, "Your light should shine in such a way that a person can't know you for a week without knowing the entire gospel." Here, I can't just go up to people and go all Ray Comfort on them or anything, but that's not needed necessarily. Communication sure does help (duh) but do my actions point to Jesus? Is my Christianity defined by my Christian t-shirt or by my love for others? Paul says "To live is CHRIST"- not to be Christ-like, have Christ's help, to serve Christ, but "CHRIST."  J. Oswald Sanders says that Pauls life and Christ's "had merged the one into the other in an indissoluble union of thought and feeling and action. Christ had constituted Himself into Paul's very life."

I don't know about you, but I want that.

Ephesians 4:1-3 "I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."