As of today I have raised $11,819.50! That’s 69% of my $16,961!!! Praise God! Thanks to everyone who has or plans to donate money or prayers! I can assure you that every little bit helps! It has been overwhelming at the amount of support I have received up to this point and it is definitely helping to encourage me in this season of my life. I leave for training in June and I leave the United States in August, but I believe God still has work to be done here in the meantime. God has big plans if we’re willing to seek Him and listen when He speaks. Written below is something that I feel God laid on my heart today, and I decided I would share it with you!
What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy-full of greed and self-indulgence! You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too.
What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs-beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with the people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Matthew 23:25-28 NLT
I saw a house for sale that looked beautiful. It was two stories tall and had a large yard and out of curiosity I went online to the real estate company’s website and looked at the price. I noticed another home in that same neighborhood was listed at $350,000. But then I noticed that this house was only listed for $70,000. I was so confused. It was a beautiful house, but it was only worth 1/5 of the other home. I got very curious so I looked at the photos online, and that’s when I read there had been a kitchen fire inside the house and just about everything had been destroyed either from the fire itself or from smoke damage. It belonged to an older widowed woman who was being placed into a nursing home. After her husband died she had let the insurance go, and so the home was uninsured and now she was just trying to get rid of it. It was a beautiful home with no exterior damage, but the inside was completely gutted. As a result the home is only worth about 20% of its potential value. I believe this is the story of so many in the Christian community. On the outside we are beautiful. No blemishes. No flaws. The world sees perfection. But on the inside, we’re destroyed. The fire, that is life, has come through and destroyed us and left us empty and in need of a complete remodel. Whether it’s the fire of addiction, the fire of a broken and abusive relationship, the fire of greed, or the fire of lust and adultery, we’re all in need of a good carpenter to come into our lives and rebuild us from the inside out. We can never reach our full value if the beauty of the interior never catches up to the exterior. Ezekiel 36:26 says I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Allow God to remove from you the damaged and ruined parts of your spirit, and allow Him to replace it with His grace, and beauty. There is no reason to hide from God what he already sees.
