Today has been full of laundry, packing, cleaning, catching up with family, and so on to get ready to leave for Africa. I’ll be leaving Casa Shalom (our ministry this month) tomorrow and headed to another house in Bucharest to meet up with the rest of my July squad and then leaving on the 30th for Johannesburg!
A lot has been crammed into this day because I have to downsize my things. I have to carry just two backpacks to Africa- a day pack and my internal framed backpack. Though I “need” a lot more for Africa than I’ve “needed” for every country so far, I really need to trust God. I have to trust that 7 T-shirts, 3 skirts, and a 2 pairs of pants are more than enough clothing. I have to realize that God will provide everything I need. Its hard not to cram everything I can into my 2 bags but I know that I’ll be happier if I don’t. I know God will provide in areas where I can’t provide for myself and I’ll be happy when I don’t have as much to carry when I’m traveling for over 27 hours in the back of some African truck…But thats not the point of this blog.
The point of this blog is because as I was packing today I received an email that seemed odd to me. It was an email questioning me about my beliefs, salvation, and things of that nature. The more I thought about it the more I realilzed that it wasn’t odd. Though I have been very open on my blog I’ve never sat down and stated my funadmental beliefs. So, even though I can’t answer eveything, Here are the things I find most people like to know:
God=Love
I believe that God is so perfect I could never deserve His love or attention on my own. But God is good and God loves me(and you!) so He sent His son to be the perfect sacrifice so that we could not only be in His presence but also have a realtionship with Him.
I believe the only way to God is through Jesus. Theres no way I could ever be holy enough to be in God’s presence without Him.
Since I chose for Jesus to be my Lord and Saviour of my life, I have received the gift of salvation and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
I believe that God’s Holy Spirit lives inside of me and works through me daily(even when I don’t know).
I believe its never my place to tell someone whether they are going to heaven or hell. If someone asks me if they are going to hell, I would simply reply, “do you want to?? because if not I believe everyone can accept Jesus and not only be with God when they die but also have Him live in them through His Holy Spirit here on earth”. The bible says certain kinds of people go to hell. If people are wanting to know what certain kind of person is, they can check it out.
I only have two jobs while I’m here on earth:
1. Love God
2.Love people
I think that telling certain people they are going to hell is not loving them at all, but instead breading fear. I know that perfect love drives our fear(1John4), so I would rather introduce them to perfect love through God’s Holy Spirit working in me, than to introduce them to more fear.
I feel that God hasn’t called me to be a judge that tells people what they are doing wrong (especially when I don’t have it all right). Instead God has called me to love them where they are with the love of Christ. As we love people they want to know how we could possibly love them or why we would take the time to love them, then I like to remind them its because God first loved. Once people see God’s love–the ball in their court. They can either chose to walk in that love or turn away. No matter what their choice is, my job is to always have the same response- continue to love.
I know that God is the only judge so I will let Him do His job while I stick to the freedom in mine:)
I believe that our normal lives aren’t normal. I think that as Christians our normal should look compltely different that the world’s view. I think that because we do have God’s Holy Spirit in us, our normal should be miraculous. I beleive as Christians we can do so much more than we actually do. We have been made a new creation and we have spiritual gifts. We should we walking in those.
I believe that when Jesus prayed “on earth as it is in heaven” He was serious. I think the only reason people don’t see heavenly things happening on earth is because they haven’t sought after it.
..The latest thing God has been teaching me about is the word secular. I am still learning and there will be another blog about this but so often we debate on secular things. We have overly cautious or legalistic Christians who believe we should run from secular things and then other Christians who ‘live in the world but not of the world’ by enjoying secular music, tv, ect.
Secular means apart from spirituality and religion. But, Religion is what we do. So what should we say if we fill our lives with secular things? Doesn’t that mean we are filling our lives with nothing? and what if it is something? Couldn’t that be worse that we are filling our lives with things apart from God? An absence of light can only be darkness.
I’m starting to see a lot of us think we are filling our lives with nothing when in reality its darkness, but more on this later.
I hope I am leaving everyone with some answers of where I stand and also some questions that we should all ask ourselves..
through HIS love,
Rachel:)
p.s. I am also hoping to get a blog up about where I am financial in my fundraising but if I don’t have time before I leave for Africa– I am still needing $2,000 before I am fully funded. I know God will provide so if you pray about this for me (which I would looove), please just lift up a prayer of thanksgiving for what He is going to do. He has proven to me in so many ways that He wants me to be here and that He is more than able to make sure that happens:) If you feel He is calling you to be a part of His financial blessing to me, you can donate on the left hand side of my homepage:) Thank you all for your support, prayers, and encouragement:)
