Holy Love

A trend in the church today is to highlight the love of God and ministries center around that message of the love, grace, and mercy that God offers. This is a refreshing thing for people to attempt to see through the lens of God - seeing people the way that God sees them. It is very true that God loves people, that He loves the lost, the drugdealer, the prostitute, the sinner. I believe that it would be accepted to say that the anthem verse of Christianity today is John 3:16, and the banner that the church today is carrying is the message that 'God is love.'

But one potential flaw with this seemingly singular focus is that we are using selective vision when looking through the lens of God, and missing the complete picture. It may be good to take a step back and have a look at the way we see God. For a healthy perspective of God can lead us into deeper truth and life with Him, but if flawed, or incomplete, can draw us away into worshiping and touting a god of our own making. A.W. Tozer said that "the most important thing is what one thinks about when one thinks about God."

Obviously the best source for a right perspective is His Word. A theme that seems to rise above all others is that of the Holiness of God. Holiness is defined as being set apart. The Bible reveals that God is perfectly set apart from us, that He is not man, but an Almighty, Holy Creator. God's Holiness is directly connected with every aspect of His character: His Righteousness, His Justice, His Wrath, and His Love.

Even when looking through the Bible, it can be easy to see things one dimensionally. Take for example the story of Noah. It can be easy to focus so much on the sparing of mankind and the rainbow as symbol of God's goodness and promises, that we can almost skip by the humbling truth that God was so disgusted by the sin of mankind that He "determined to make an end of all flesh." (Genesis 6:13)

First and foremost, God is Holy. And He loves us with a Holy Love. The most complete picture of that is the cross where the Holiness of God demanded punishment for our sins, and in His love He gave His only Son (John 3:16) to take our place on the cross. There Jesus received the full wrath of the Holy Father, so that we may be made right with God through faith and repentance. When the Holiness of God is more understood, it makes the love of God so much more powerful, penetrating, and humbling.

How then should we share the Gospel (Good News)? As said by many evangelists, there is no Good News without bad news. While it may be common and easy to just speak on God's love and His desire for relationship, it takes boldness to get into the gritty truths that at the moment, without the atonement of Christ's work on the cross on your behalf, you are considered by God to be an enemy of Him. And you are under His coming wrath, because of your sin, which is a vile offense to the Holy God. As Jonathan Edwards said, you are like a spider held over the fire. Just as that spider faces sure destruction if he is not rescued, a sinner faces sure and certain judgment and punishment if he is not redeemed. But the Good News is this: "God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God." (Romans 5:8,9)

That is love - Holy Love.

Weekly Schedule

Here are some updates on what I am involved with here at the Lighthouse so you can get a better taste of what it is that I'm doing here. These are the structured times that I am scheduled for and then there are also other times such as ministering in the community and building relationships, weekend programs, etc.

The Children's Group I am helping with (the leaders are Melina from Brazil and Jo from New Zealand) started on February 14^th, and I am starting to build relationships with those children and continuing to work on my Portuguese through those times. That group meets each Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 2-4:30, as they have school in the morning. (Schools here run throughout the day, but because of a low number of teachers, the students go for half days, at least that is my understanding of it) The group is for 6-8 year olds and we have around ten children that come. The group time is split into three periods, which has included a variety of activities such as Bible stories, singing, puppet shows, arts and crafts, geography lessons, games, and free play at the playground.

Please pray for that group that I will have energy as I usually feel drained after those times and that God will empower me to be able to pour myself with that group and see each child the way God does. Please pray that relationships of trust will be built with the children, and pray especially for one boy, Joao Victor, who hasn't come the last three times and is often seen roaming around the streets here.

On Wednesday mornings, I help out with a school group that comes to the Lighthouse. It is called an 'Escola Integrada' or integrated school. Their slogan is 'Belo Horizonte is a classroom' and their education philosophy is to allow the children to learn through experience and it is very activity and experience based. The school comes with a younger group Wednesday morning and an older group in the afternoon. Each large group is split into three groups when they arrive, and I help out with Maarten, Eleanor, and Andreia's group. This time also is split into three periods, and in the two times we have met we have had icebreaker activities, name tag designing, games, free play, and Bible study time. Each group has a teacher/monitor with them and ours is Bruno, who is probably in his late twenties-early thirties. It is exciting to have the school groups at the Lighthouse where we are able to show the gospel through our words and our actions, and it is a great time of building relationships with the kids and the teachers/monitors as well to further cement the Kingdom's presence here in Cafezal.

Please pray for those times that we would clearly present the gospel through our words and actions and that we would have opportunities to go deeper with the relationships even though we meet only once a week. And please pray for the teachers/monitors that they would experience God through their time at the Lighthouse and relationships would be built with them to encourage them and point them to Christ.

I am also helping with an English class that happens on Monday nights at 7 o'clock here at the Lighthouse. Jo from New Zealand is teaching the class to interested members of the community and I am her assistant. That has been interesting in seeing the desire of the people (many middle aged women) to learn English. It really flies in the face of stereotypes of impoverished people not caring about empowering themselves with education and being lazy. For many in the class probably have very long days for not much pay, and then they come to this class which is very taxing and difficult on their minds. I believe that it shows that poverty can so easily come about because of a lack of opportunities, and that it becomes a vicious cycle of the impoverished then not having opportunities.

Please pray for that class, that Jo would have energy and creativity with the lesson plans and that the class would be a blessing to the residents here and that God would use the relationships through that class to bring His Kingdom here.

Thank you for your prayers! May God bless you and be revealing more and more of His glory in and through your lives.

Community Tension

The atmosphere in Cafezal has been tense the past few days as there was conflict Friday night between police and the residents. Two people were killed, whom the community is claiming were innocent and not connected with the drug traffickers. The community was outraged at this violence and two buses were burned that night (The buses that transport the residents of the slum here into the city areas). A helicopter has been circling the slum ever since then, monitoring the situation. The buses were shut down, which causes a large transportation problem for the residents here as many are unable to find ways to get to work. One lady we talked to said she had no way to get to the hospital for a check up after a recent surgery.

Sunday night, two more buses were burned and now many police have arrived in Cafezal, which is not a good sign as usually the police do not have a presence here. There are a lot of criticisms of the police here in the ways they do things or don't do things. It has been said that this is a large power struggle between the drug lords and the police, but the victims are by and large the citizens of this community.

Please pray for this situation that God's righteousness and justice would flow here and not that of man, and that God's Kingdom would come in this place and that God would use the darkness here for good.

Cafezal, Belo Horizonte, Brasil

I have been in Brazil for 11 days now, and it has been a time filled with many adventures, relationships, and lessons from God.

Adventures: Climbing some mountains, jungle creek walk, door to door evangelism, floorball (floor hockey), night walk in community, house visits, firefighting, peeling and cutting dozens of potatoes, eating cheese and sweet corn ice cream, and helping with a roller skating kids' program.

Relationships: I have made lots of new friends in meeting my brothers and sisters in Christ here. I have five roommates: 4 Brazilian and 1 Swiss, who are involved in the YWAM DTS program here at the base.

Lessons: Two big lessons have stood out so far for me: Having a servant heart and releasing all fears in my life.

The verse Philippians 2:3 stood out the first morning after arriving, “Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others more significant than yourselves.” I have been meditating on that verse throughout the day as I seek to allow Christ to reign more and more in my life. In past ministry involvement, I have been so easily distracted by wanting to be liked and appreciated and noticed for my work, but God has been speaking to me about what He desires in ministry. He desires me to be faithful and ministering with a humble, servant heart, so that when people encounter me, they don't just see me, but they see the Living God within me and through me.

God also impressed on my heart His desire for me to let go of all fears in my life. Friday night February 4^th I wrote: “I was looking down on the city and just taking in that i was looking down on literally a few million people, and it occurred to me that my fears were getting in the way of my faith. I am freaked out by big cities and I have already felt that since being here, when we drove here the first night thru the city, and today on the bus in the main part of the city I was pretty intimidated.
Then I remembered another thing that David (one of the team leaders) had said in the session he led about perfect love casting out fear. And I was just making an inventory of things that cause fear in my life such as big cities, stepping out sometimes for Christ especially with peers, or a mild fear of death or trials.
And I realized that I wasn't letting God into those areas completely because He is love, perfect love, and He casts out all fear. So I was praying over those things and asking Him to cast out the fears that I have and asking Him to make me fearless. Then right after that, a couple bats flew by right in front of my face and were circling around me, literally within inches. and I tensed up and then smiled as it seemed that God was already throwing this at me as starter material so I sat there, slowly relaxing as they circled me and then once I felt pretty much completely calm, they left.”

I am excited to see what else God has in store in these upcoming weeks.