To Live is Christ, and to Die is Gain!

Philippians 1:21 NLT "For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better."
Do you love Christ that much that you could say these same words?  Here's a story we heard at home group last night, and it's true!

A man living in China was thrown into prison for his faith in Christ. His cell was completely dark, with only stone floors and walls, and just big enough for one person to lay down in. He remained in this cell in complete darkness and isolation for a long unknown time. Sometimes the guards would throw in a plate of food, and this is why he did not starve to death completely. Finally the day came and the man was released out of his cell. He had been in darkness for so long that he was practically blind when he came out into the light However, his face was shining, and it was astonishing to the other Christians that knew him. They asked him "How did you survive all those years in isolation and darkness?" His answer was amazing to me "What do you mean how did I survive? That time was like a honeymoon with only Christ and I, and to have so much time alone with him, I would do it again gladly."

Now ask yourself this question. Would you react the same way? Do you love Christ that much that you would say the same thing? How precious is Christ for you? The Bible tells us that a Christian is someone who burns in their heart with love and devotion to Christ, no matter what. Do you feel this way about Christ, as your highest treasure? 
Now ask yourself this question. Would you react the same way? Do you love Christ that much that you would say the same thing? How precious is Christ for you? The Bible tells us that a Christian is someone who burns in their heart with love and devotion to Christ, no matter what. Do you feel this way about Christ, as your highest treasure? Now ask yourself this question. Would you react the same way? Do you love Christ that much that you would say the same thing? How precious is Christ for you? The Bible tells us that a Christian is someone who burns in their heart with love and devotion to Christ, no matter what. Do you feel this way about Christ, as your highest treasure? 



This real story was very impacting for me, and I hope it gives you encouragement today as well.

Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Who goes to Heaven?

Another title I thought of for this post was "Is your faith real or fake?"  Well anyways, this morning I read in Matthew 25 about the kingdom of God.  There are several parables that Jesus tells, but this one is especially interesting to me this morning.  Maybe because I have been thinking a lot lately about how I can be more effective for the kingdom of God now, before it comes on the earth and it's too late for me to do any more.
14 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 


This parable makes me think of one thing prominently:  The Lord gives resources to people, and those who are good and faithful servants and use it well, will be rewarded, but those who do not, will be punished.  So what does this mean for professing Christians who do little with their faith, rarely share the gospel (if ever), and keep everything to themselves?  This is unfortunately too common a condition in Christianity today, especially western Christianity. 

Following this parable is another, even more striking and clear in meaning regarding who will enter the kingdom of heaven: 
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

And also Matthew 27:7 "“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."
Jesus tells us that many people will profess to believe in Him, but their life reflected the fact that their heart was never actually changed, and that they were never saved.  All the religion in the world will not save you from the "eternal punishment" Jesus speaks of here.  Simply professing you believe in God will not save you. The Bible says in James 2:19 "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!"

To be saved, you need to be born again, something that only comes from God.  
John 3:3 "Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”"
When you are born again you get a new heart and with it, new desires Ezekiel 36:26 "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."  and Matthew 22:37 "And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."

You may believe you are saved today, and that all is well with your soul and that you will be in heaven when you die...but are you willing to lay back and live in ignorant bliss until the day of your judgment comes to wait and find out if it was true or not?  The Bible also tells us to make sure we have real faith James 2:14 "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?"  The answer is no.  If your works do not reflect the changed and reborn heart of a true Christian, then it's probable that you were never saved at all and that you now stand in the path of the wrath of God.

True believers will have the fruit of the Holy Spirit in their lives.  Galatians 5:22-23 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."  

My suggestion to you is to pray to God and search your heart and the scriptures, and check your faith to know if it is real or not.  You may want to start reading in Romans, Ephesians and Galatians.


May God bless you to know him as you search for him!

Spring Ministry Updates

There are several ministries my husband and I are involved in here in Ukraine.  Here's the major ones:

1. English Ministry

2. Mercy Ministry

3. Evangelism ministry

ENGLISH MINISTRY

We have several aspects of English ministry for Almaz: English Clubs, private English lessons for the staff, and kids English ministry.

English clubs have been going pretty steadily since the fall 2012, but with final exams here and summer approaching, we're not sure what will happen with our students in the next few months.  May, because of many holidays, caused us to cancel a few English clubs because there were no students around.  June is almost here now and we've started a new topic: Miracles Jesus performed during his ministry.  Our first week was last Friday, and we're very excited to see how it keeps going after a good first English club on this topic.  Please pray for the hearts of the students to see Christ and how glorious He is!

Private lessons continue to go well since the fall 2012, and I'll be adding another staff member to my teaching schedule soon.  It's a difficult ministry, because I speak so little Russian, but God makes all things possible!  Please pray that the staff will learn quickly and not become discouraged because of difficulties in the English language.

Kids English lessons after the church service is a new ministry my husband and I have been doing for the last 1.5 months.  It's going really well so far in many ways: 

1. The kids are learning English

2. The kids enjoy our lessons and we have more kids now than ever

3. The parents and pastors support the ministry and believe it is useful

Please pray that we will have more servants from the church for this ministry in the future when I am unable to lead the lessons because of our new-born baby.  Also, pray that more non-believing families will be attracted to God and the church because of these free English lessons for their kids.

MERCY MINISTRY

This ministry now is especially focused on people in the city clinics (alcoholics, drug addicts, homeless, mentally ill, poor, elderly etc).  However, the ministry team also makes trips to elderly nursing homes and orphanages about once a month in order to carry out the biblical mission of James 1:27.

The ministry is small, but growing quickly, and many people in the church are becoming more involved with this ministry than ever before.

Primarily functions of this ministry are to bring gifts of food, clothing, medicine, etc and to share the gospel, talk with the people about God and encourage them.  Please pray for more servants in this ministry, since we must often step out of our comfort zone in order to help people in need.

EVANGELISM MINISTRY

This ministry is new and growing.  Currently my husband and a staff member are working together to build the team of street evangelists, and make the plan for how to carry out sharing the gospel publicly in Kiev.  It's not an easy task and many people in the church are not willing to share the gospel publicly.  

Please pray that we'll gather a team of evangelists soon and get started on the many plans we have for sharing the gospel with the public in Kiev.

Also, there will be a team of 5 Americans coming in June to join us in street evangelism, and I'll be the 6th American on this team (although I'm a Kiev dweller now :).  This project will last 1-2 weeks, so please pray for it to prosper and enhance God's kingdom!

That's the majority of what I can say quickly about ministries we're involved in here in Ukraine.  Pray for us that God will lead us and give us strength and courage in all our ministries, and that we will glorify Him with all we do and say.

Thank you and God bless!!

Here's some pictures from our most recent kids English lesson. Picture thanks to one of our friends :)

Reflections from Proverbs 15

In my daily reading of scripture this morning I was reading Proverbs 15 and noticed a few verses with the same theme: reproof.

About 1-2 months ago I tried to lovingly reprove a friend, but as an unfortunate result of my reproof, we are no longer friends.  It was a very sad moment for me to lose a friend, but I realized through reading the scriptures again and again that my reproof was biblical, and that the result of this reproof is only disastrous to the person who rejected it.

Here's some verses generally about reproving that I have meditated on today and thought about over the last 2 months.

Verse 5 "A fool despises his father's instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is prudent"
Verse 10 "There is severe discipline for him who forsakes the way; whoever hates reproof will die" - This one seems especially harsh for me...a clear warning of how important reproof is for our spiritual health and life.
Verse 12 "A scoffer does not like to be reproved; he will not go to the wise" - Some people just don't like to hear that they are doing something less than perfect, this would include myself sometimes, and by God's grace I'm working this out.
Verse 28 "The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things" - This is really interesting, how many times have you said something without thinking that you regretted later, or that caused damage to a relationship with another person?  I know I have done this sometimes, and it has been done to me many times as well.  It's wise counsel that we should be slow to speak and anger, especially when someone is reproving us.
Verse 31 " The ear that listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise" - Did you notice that? "Life-giving reproof" - In the moment, reproof can feel like it sucks the life right out of you, but in the end, it is really giving life to your soul, especially if you take heed and follow wise advice.  I need to tell myself this when my husband or someone else reproves me for something.
Verse 32 "Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listen to reproof gains intelligence." - This simply speaks for itself!  Even though it's so contradictory to what we feel in our hearts, how true it is, that if we accept reproof, even unloving reproof, how much more do we gain from this than lose?

I know myself well enough that I know I am not the best at handling a harsh reproof.  It's mostly emotional for me, I feel like I have failed myself, or God, or something like this.  Other people have other reactions, but this is my unrighteous reaction sometimes, and I need to repent for it every time to gain the wisdom that God is trying to teach me through someone's reproof.  I haven't talked with my friend who I reproved for over 2 months because my friend refuses to make contact with me.  It's very sad, but I have to face the facts and look at the scripture.  God said we are wise and gain life if we listen to reproof, and only bad things come from rejecting it.  Therefore, I pray for my friend, and for my own heart too, that when reproved by someone we will be able to recognize any sin we have in our hearts and destroy it, so that we may gain wisdom and righteousness.

Five Ways Our Home is a Sanctuary of Peace

Before we got married, I read the book for Christian women "The Excellent Wife".  The book covered the basics and more or biblical womanhood and how to apply this to married life as a wife.  
One piece of advice from the author that has stuck with me in my marriage now is...make your home a place of rest, a sanctuary, where your husband and children can come home and find rest no matter what the world has thrown at them during the day.

1. I realized that the peacefulness of my home is a result of some things I can do, but is mostly a result of the peacefulness of my soul. This peace comes from trusting God, and knowing that know matter what we go through God is working all things for our good. We try by God's grace to make our home a place of rest, peace and love, and by that grace, God has given us such a home. I pray we will continue to have peace in our souls by trusting God even once we have kids in the house too. Isaiah 26:3 "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you."

2. Preparing my mind and attitude so that when my husband comes home I am eagerly waiting for him, and cover him with my love.  This is important, and if I'm in the house when he gets home I drop everything to run to the door and greet him with hugs and kisses.  He needs this after long, hard days at work.  No matter how hard my day was, I pray to God for strength to reflect God's love to my husband, especially when we are together. 1 John 4:10-11 "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."

3. I do what I can to help him with necessary things in life like finances.  For me, this means keeping track of our food budget, since I do all the cooking.  It helps him a lot, and if our food budget is in line we don't have to worry that we won't have enough food to eat at the end of the month.

4. I try to maintain the house so it's at least a little clean, and, at minimum, acceptable to look at.  This is harder and harder as time goes on, but I realize that if I get the cleaning done earlier in the day it means more time we can spend together and with God in the evening.

5. I do what I can to serve him as much as possible when we're together.  Some simple things are having dinner ready when he comes home (usually that means I need to cook something in the morning or afternoon before i go to work for a few hours), making him tea or massaging his feet, making sure he has clean shirts to wear the next day, packing lunch for him the night before or morning of, etc...
Service reflects the true heart of Christ...
Mark 10:44-45 "And whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

I hope you are encouraged by this to strive to make your home a place of rest for your family.  Wives and Moms have a huge influence on the peace and love in their family, probably more than they know! :)

God bless!

Do Not Forsake the Lord!

We watched part of the history channel "The Bible" series yesterday and after seeing such an amazing depiction of the exodus from Egypt it still amazes me that Israel forsakes God for idols, and they do it constantly throughout the Bible and history. Yet, I ask myself how easily I can be just like them! God gave the Israelites a strong warning...Do Not Forsake Me, Do Not Go After Idols, Lest I Destroy You! 

Deuteronomy 6:10-15
"And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth."

Nevertheless they lust after idols and forget their covenant with God and today we see their consequences today.  This makes me remember that I should never forget the goodness, holiness and worthiness of God, and that I should honor Him every day of my life, for He has made an exodus in my life too, bringing me out of slavery from sin. 

Here's a picture from the movie, where God brings the waters of the sea down on the Egyptians after the Israeites have passed to safety.  Amazing movie so far, I recommend it.  While it only tells some of the most important stories of the Bible, they are done fairly well and true to scripture.