Post Scatter Debrief

Well, the uncharted waters have been charted successfully. What a week it was! It was beautiful to look around at each stop (back yard bible clubs, the Dream Center, and the Boys and Girls club) and see people sharing the gospel left and right. It was amazing to hear stories each night of how God had provided opportunities to spread the good news He has given us. I can honestly say that this trip (even though we didn't go anywhere) provided more opportunities to share the gospel than any other trip I had been on.

My big prayer before the trip was that the gospel would be ready on the lips of every team member; God answered that prayer abundantly. I think almost every person who went on the trip got to share the gospel with their life and words.

A lot of seed was scattered, but it is up to God to cause the growth. May we pray toward this end.

For the glory of God

Seth

Uncharted Waters

This next week our church (The Bible Church of Little Rock) is embarking into uncharted waters for us; a missions trip to Little Rock. This is going to be amazing! It will feel like a missions trip because we will be staying in church member's homes across Little Rock, not our own homes, but we will get to minister to people in our own city! I like the way our Worship Pastor said it, "it's like we are throwing a gospel grenade into Little Rock and living with the shrapnel."

A short term missions trip is awesome! It takes you out of your normal routine and life and thrusts you into a week or two or three or however long of focused gospel work. In trips of summers past, as we have gone to places like New Mexico, West Virginia, Iowa, Mexico, Ukraine, and others, we usually come back enthralled with God and what we have seen Him do with the gospel, and wanting more. Yet as time elapses after the trip that once enthralled heart becomes once again distracted and interested in the normal routine of life (which if we are to be honest is usually filled with stuff that won't satisfy and doesn't matter).

The goal with this trip is to kind of jump-start ongoing personal gospel ministry by bringing the organization and focus of a short term missions trip to the city in which we live. The hope and prayer is that God will allow the gospel to go forth in a powerful way and that real lasting relationships will be formed. Please join us in prayer toward this end.

For the glory of God

Seth

A Focus for School

In 1 Corinthians 8:1 Paul says, "Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies." Now here he is talking specifically about the knowledge that it is ok to eat things sacrificed to idols (a big controversy in the Church at Corinth), but as I thought about that statement, something very obvious and helpful hit me.

Multiple times in the gospels Jesus says that the greatest two commandments are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. This should be the goal of everything I do, but it never hit me that it applies in a huge way to knowledge and learning.

On the 1st of August I will (Lord willing) be heading up to Louisville to begin a new chapter of my life at Boyce College. I will be doing a LOT of learning! I will be learning from my professors and fellow students both inside and outside the classroom. Yes I am going to school to be trained to be a Worship Pastor, but in a much deeper way I hope to be learning how to love God and people better.

The better I can become at music, (hopefully, and by God's grace) the less distracting the music will be and the more it will aid others to see God and the gospel through song. The better I become at Bible study the closer I can get to saying what God would have someone hear instead of saying what I want to say. The more God humbles me, the more equipped I will be to put others interests ahead of my own.

By the transforming power and grace of God, I want to go to school to be better equipped to love others the way Christ loves them; in a selfless way that leads them to glorify and enjoy God, not me. May the knowledge I receive at school transform into love not arrogance.

Please pray for me in this regard!

For the glory of God

Seth

"You are not your own..."

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.

In this passage God, through Paul, is specifically addressing using your body for sexual immorality. Understanding that your body no longer belongs to you can be one of the greatest helps in fighting sexual sin, and really any sin! Think about it! The passage above states that you have been bought with a price; what was that price? It was the cross!

It can be so easy for Christ's death to become something we get used to, but we need to fight against this with everything in us; I need to fight against it with everything in me. Jesus came from the glories of heaven to this earth and after living a spotless life died the death of a criminal. So much worse however, was the fact that Jesus bore the wrath of God for the sins of everyone who would believe in Him! Think about it! The God who's wrath we kindled by our sin, took that wrath on Himself so that we would only know His grace! That is the price He paid!

Christian, you do not belong to yourself! Your time isn't yours, your eyes aren't yours, your mouth isn't yours, where you go isn't yours, how you spend your free time isn't yours. You have been bought by the highest price! So use your time, body, and everything else in the only way that makes sense in light of that sacrifice; use them to glorify the one who has loved you more than you will ever know!

For His glory

Seth

You Reap What You Sow

At times in my life as a Christian I am painfully reminded of a vicious truth; what I sow, I reap. Now this can be applied in a whole slew of ways, but I am specifically talking about it in relation to prayer and the reading of/meditation on scripture. When these things are mostly absent from my life for a few days, the effects are obvious, and a painful reminder of how much I desperately need that concentrated time of communion with God.

This past Saturday and Sunday I was absent from that alone time with God, and I was seeing the effects of it today. I found that I was more irritable, lazy, and selfish than usual (or more realistically I just saw more of what is in my heart spill out). As I saw this I was reminded once again that if I sow to the flesh I will reap the fruits of the flesh. This provided me with an opportunity to repent. Also, it gave me a wonderful opportunity to stand in awe of the endless grace God has poured out on me. I am so unfaithful, yet I know that not even I can separate myself from His love. Hallelujah for the cross!

Holy Spirit, please continue to grow me in discipline. Take away my worldly value system so that I see Christ as more valuable than anything else. May the time I get to spend in communion with my heavenly Father be precious in my sight, and may I fight my flesh which is ceaselessly trying to convince me that there are better ways of spending my time. Help me to sow toward you so that I reap the fruits you will produce in me. Jesus, thank you for your measureless sacrifice on my behalf. Thank you for interceding for me! Father, please forgive me for my sin against you. Thank you that nothing can separate me from your love!

For your glory and in Jesus' name

Seth

Identity

What do you want people to see you as? In what do you find your identity? Is it an ability God has given you; a talent? How about the friends you hang out with? Maybe it is your possessions; what you have or how much you have? What we want to be identified with or regarded as says a lot about us, and scripture is not silent about the topic. If you are a Christian, have you ever considered what God says about how people should regard you?

1 Corinthians 4:1 says, "Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God."

According to this passage, people should regard me in two ways:

1. As a servant (or slave) of Christ.

A servant belongs to and is completely submitted to the will of his master.

2. As a steward of the mysteries of God (or the truth about God revealed in scripture).

Convicting? I know it is for me! How many people see you in light of these two things? Do you strive to find your identity in your slavery to Christ and the stewardship of His truth?

May the Holy Spirit help you and me to re-wire how we want others to regard us. May our identity be Christ and truth.

For the glory of God

Seth

Recently...

Recently...I have started way too many posts off with "recently," but the truth is that a lot of what I write about has happened recently. Maybe I should use a synonym...

In all seriousness though, recently God has been convicting and humbling me through this truth. (It's a shocker!) All glory belongs to God! Now this has been drilled into me from when I was little, but the other night as I went through 1 Corinthians 3, I read this; "I (Paul) planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth."

Those two verses hit me hard. It is so easy for me to look at the different opportunities God has given me to plant or water and think that I am going to say something awesome or clever or articulate some sort of truth that will cause someone to grow. I needed to be reminded that I can plant and water all I want, but those things are nothing if God doesn't cause the growth. I needed to be reminded that all glory belongs to Him because He is the one who causes the growth. I needed to be reminded of my complete and utter dependence on the all powerful God of the universe.

I hope that the realization of this truth will drive me and you to our knees in prayer. I need to fervently pray that God would help me know the best way to plant and water and that He would cause the growth.

The planter and the waterer are nothing; the God who causes the growth is everything. Who gets the glory?

For the glory of the One who deserves it,

Seth