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This month I am taking the children of Shiloh Baptist through Romans 6 – 8 while our Pastor does the same with their parents. I always come home and listen to his message to see how he taught the Scriptures to the adults. I do this for confirmation on my lesson, and also to see what verses he emphasized and how.

Last week as he took the parents through the final verses in Romans 7 he used the illustration of the new movie, Man of Steel… He pointed out how as great as Superman was… the one thing that could weaken him was kryptonite.

He shared how as Spirit-filled born again believers, we are indeed new creatures in Christ, and we are given by God the grace to stand, but sin can still weaken us.

Our Pastor shared how Superman knew that kryptonite weakened him… so therefore he did not go out looking for it. However… try as he might to avoid it… the kryptonite would find him. He would come in contact with it and have to deal with it, have to fight it, he would have to flee.

In Romans 7 God uses Paul to point out to us the struggle we will face as justified, but non-glorified believers…

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

Romans 7:18-24

Now as I listened to my Pastor’s comparison of sin and kryptonite, my mind went to a song that used to be one of my favorites in my pre-Christ days…

As believers we have to be very careful in this flesh. We have to remain awake and alert and astute to truth… because sin can still deceive us. Especially if that sin was or is an addiction.

In this song I think of a Christian who thinks, that because they are a Christian, and have the Spirit of God in them, and the power of His might, and they are free from sin’s power over them… they think… I can handle this. Whether it be relationships with those still caught in that addiction or the actual addiction itself.

As the song says they think, “I‘ll keep you by my side with my superhuman might, Kryptonite”

You see the kryptonite will deceive us… the kryptonite will tell us that no one will ever find out… it will keep our secret… no one will ever know… it’s just a little…

The kryptonite will say that you are too weak to be without it, yet you are strong enough to control how much of it you partake in…

But it lies.

It deceives.

If we have been to that dark side of the moon, that place of darkness and running and hiding from the Light… we can even allow this krytponite to convince us that because our flesh still craves it, we must not even really be saved… and God must hate us… and would never forgive us… and we are in a place of silent desperation and internal turmoil.

We can even sit back and look at the world and wonder how on earth we can fight this when the whole world seems to be floating to this dark side of the moon… some struggles can be in our face almost constantly… only one mouse click away.

Inside we feel the struggle… we worry if anyone finds out about this kryptonite will they still call us “superman”?  Will they still see us the same… or will we be belittled before them? Will they still call us a Spirit-filled born again believer… will they still love us… will they hold our hand through the this… or will they condemn us?

Even worse will God condemn us? Will He forsake us? Will He deny us?

Can I really trust Him with this secret…

Can I trust them with this kryptonite?

Will they think I am crazy and completely shun me and leave me alone… or will they be there to hold our hand?

Precious one, there is only one way to find out. Step away from the kyptonite that kills and let it go… and put your hand in the hands of God and know that…

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1

And know that any true born again believer understands this struggle, for they recognize their own… there are indeed those who will be some Jesus with skin on… and will hold your hand as you learn to use your superhuman might in Christ to forsake the kryptonite… instead of keeping it by your side.

To quote my Pastor again, “Paul is our example. The only sin Paul hated was his own… we are to preach the gospel“

This kryptonite might not even be a personal struggle of your own… but the struggle you experience while living through the struggles of another… a wayward child, an abusive spouse, even a child with internal struggles or disabilities that you fear will cause them to be shunned if anyone knows… so you hide it… and try to deal with it in your own superhuman might…

You don’t have to.

Our Cross Guard Kids at Shiloh just finished up Unit 10 of the Gospel Project. We begin Unit 11 in the morning… I began this post the morning that we were to teach on 1 Samuel 5… 

Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it to the house of Dagon and set it by Dagon. When the Ashdodites arose early the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and set him in his place again. But when they arose early the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. And the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off on the threshold; only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.

Therefore neither the priests of Dagon nor all who enter Dagon’s house tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.

Now the hand of the Lord was heavy on the Ashdodites, and He ravaged them and smote them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territories. When the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, “The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for His hand is severe on us and on Dagon our god.”

So they sent and gathered all the lords of the Philistines to them and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?” 

(1 Samuel 5:2-8)

“What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?” I have always found this passage of Scripture quite fascinating. As the Philistines watched the ark of God visibly lay flat their god… it never once even occurred to them to choose to worship the God of Israel and denounce the impotent god, Dagon. Instead they chose to get the ark as far away from the as possible.

What is sad… is that it is not much different today.

The question now, “What shall we do with this man, Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God?”

Many can see the mighty act of Jesus Christ in the hearts of people. They can see the evidence of changed lives, they can see the evidence of answered prayers, and they can see the evidence of His Word ringing true as they suffer under the consequences of disobedience to Him…

Yet just like the Philistines instead of choosing to submit to His Lordship, they instead want to get as far away from Him as possible.

Before we criticize them to much, let us remember how the ark of God ended up in the Philistine camp to begin with…

The people of Israel were using the ark of God as a good luck charm… they were getting beat in the battle… and instead of going to God and humbling themselves and asking Him what they were doing wrong… well they just thought they would go in grab the ark and botta-bing-botta-boom victory wold happen.

God doesn’t play that way. He didn’t with Israel and He doesn’t with us.

If we are not careful we will fall into the same trap…

Our God is not a good luck charm. He is GOD.

If you notice my blog has a new tab at the top… Yesu Asobola. If you go to that tab you will find the ministry  info and website that will tell you all about the visions and goals of this ministry. Right now I want to share with you why my family has chosen to partner with Yesu Asobola.

A couple of months ago our homeschool co-op was having registration for our 2013-2014 school year… and in walked this lively woman with a beautiful array of eight children  to register at our co-op from all different nationalities and backgrounds. I love diversity and open minds and open hearts and from the moment I saw this woman I knew I would like her…

As I showed her around the co-op and we talked about her children she shared with me that there were even more! She has two children by birth and she and her husband have adopted nine. Then she shared with me how one of her daughters, who had just recently graduated high school, yes high school people, high school. This daughter graduated high school with intentions of attending college to become a human rights lawyer… she went on a mission trip to Uganda… and  through God’s beautiful weaving of relationships she and two other young girls founded Yesu Asobola. Three girls with a heart for God and a willingness to dream big and submit to His will were given a dream to start an orphanage and help the women and children in this village and God has moved on their behalf.

For where two or three have gathered together in My name, 

I am there in their midst.

Matthew 18:20

I fell in love with this ministry because it embodies everything I have taught my own girls and those in my past college classes and now those in my children’s classes… God wants to do amazing things through us, if we are willing to listen and obey.There is not an age limit,  geographical limit, or financial limit to our God.

I adore this mother for embracing her daughters dream with willing support instead of telling her how crazy she was and how she needed to go to college first and get her degree. I adore this mother for embracing her daughters dream and saying, Uganda? Really? Uganda? Amazing! I am so excited for you! This will be a beautiful journey of faith! (I don’t know if she really said those exact words, I just imagine that she would have). When most mothers would have said, Absolutely NOT! Over my dead body!

I believe God brings all people into our life for a reason… the people you meet are there to help you learn more about yourself and more about God… I believe He brought this family into my family’s life for a purpose and I intend to find out what that purpose is… so we are joining the dream and the journey.

This is why Yesu Asobola…

I encourage you to check it out.

I encourage you also as mothers and fathers of the children who are the body of Christ, would you be willing to let your children dream outside the box of college degree… and allow them the freedom to be as the wind?

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it,

but do not know where it comes from and where it is going;

so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.

John 3:8

Here is Kristianna’s latest blog post update on the progress of Yesu Asobola:

We set out to raise $2,000-, that would almost bring us to the amount needed to drill a well for Onyerai village.

I’ll be honest, when we started I didn’t think it could be done and I was a bit hopeless.  In the first 6 days, we had absolutely no donations.

Well, God taught me two things these last couple weeks:

1. Trust Him.

2. When you trust Him all heaven breaks loose and the blessings fall.

In the last 8 days we raised $4,275.

With our donor agreeing to match up to $2,000 it brought our total up to$6,275.

Do you know what that means?! 

That means, along with money previously raised, Onyerai village is going to have a well!

God is so good, friends!

We have seen Him continually bless us through unexpected gifts, and have seen the body of Christ stand up for Onyerai village.  God is doing something big through us.

We are so overjoyed at your love and so thankful to every.single.person. who has donated, prayed or hosted an event for us in the last couple of weeks.

So, what’s next?

Next, we are hoping to raise $7-10,000 for a van to drive to and from the village, and provide transport to the hospital- or to school if needed.

~Kristianna

“Faith sees the invisible, believes the unbelievable, and receives the impossible.”

-Corrie Ten Boom

And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 18:2-4

Unless you are converted and become like children… as I am preparing to speak at a ladies retreat and working on my power point and searching confirming Scriptures the Lord led me into a word search on the word “unless” while there I read the above Scripture… and I thought what exactly does it mean to “become like children“?

To become like children we must first be born…

Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3

As I continued to ponder what it means to “become like children” I read this article about babies being carried. In this article it shared the importance of a child being carried close to its parents and not always being put away in a “container” to be laid down horizontally. The article shared the importance of the baby being held vertically in close contact with its parents.

Lying horizontally is not only a poor option for your baby’s spine, hips, and cranium, it can also be a major contributing factor inner ear infections in infants.

When infants are held upright, however, they are allowed to practice compensatory movements, enhancing muscular strength and allowing for more control over their fine motor skills. When the mother walks, stops, or turns an infant’s body naturally works against the pull of gravity to maintain his position.

This baby is moving with his mother like a perfect dance partner.

The more time that babies spend vertical, the more time that they are alert and calm. Even newborns that spend most of their time sleeping, stop crying and perk up when picked up and placed on our shoulder. Interestingly, how alert a newborn is relates to where he is. Upright in an infant seat, he is less alert than when upright in arms… Vertical positioning as optimal in infants makes perfect sense. Think of how much time our infants spend horizontal- flat on their back in a crib or a buggy. Might this affect their alertness? There’s a good chance… Researchers found that infants too young to sit independently learn more when placed in a vertical position.”

As I thought on this horizontal verse vertical and Jesus’s word to us  “unless you are converted and become like children” I thought of the cross… the cross is a symbol that is both vertical and horizontal… the vertical representing our relationship with God and the horizontal representing our relation with mankind, however the greatest height of it is in its vertical.

If we like the babies talked about the article above live our lives in the horizontal, focused only on what we can see from their, we too will find ourselves suffering from a weak spine, weak hips, weak cranium, and messed up inner ears… but when we, born into the family of God, are picked up and held vertically up close and tight in Him, and as we turn our face towards His face…

When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You,
“Your face, O Lord, I shall seek.”

Psalm 27:8

We lean into our Father God and look Him in the face of His Word, and we begin to walk when He walks, stop when He stops, move when He moves. We grow as we are in the process of learning what it means to live in this world as a born again child of God, as we become conformed into the image of Christ Himself…

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18

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For those whom He foreknew, He alsopredestined to become conformed to the image of His Son

Romans 8:29

How glad I am that God does keep me put away in a “container” out of his way as He takes care of His own business… for he wants me all up in His business.

As I pondered this further… what it means when Jesus says “unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” I wonder how many in our current culture have no clue what He means… because they have no desire to be any where around children.

How can you know what He means as an adult if you keep yourself away from children? If Jesus said “unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” wouldn’t you think that as an adult one of the most important things you could do would be to spend some time with children so that you might have a clue what He is talking about?

Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven… 

How many adults are not willing to humble themselves as a child even far enough to care for a child or invest in the life of a child even for one hour, a week,  or even a couple of times a year.

Even before I was a children’s ministry director I was puzzled by this. Why in every church in America is the hardest postions to fill that in the children’s wing. Why do people decide that serving children is really not an important commitment and they only have to show up if they feel like it.Why is it that in our culture, even in those churches with thousands of members, many can’t get enough volunteers for more than a one day VBS? Why is it that a person can say that if they don’t have kids in the ministry they shouldn’t have to serve in it…

The last time I checked every single one of us was once a child.

At some point and time every single one of us had to have someone else feed us, clothe us, change our diapers, teach us, hold us, clean up after us… and guess what as grown adults who does all this for us still?

Yes, that’s right… GOD.

God provided us with our food, our clothing, and yes he cleans up our crap and goes behind our mess and picks up after us… if He didn’t forgive us and cleanse us, we would all be in a world of hurt.

He teaches us and guides us and He holds us when we are scared.

He kisses our boo-boos and tells us that everything will be all right.

He monitors our fights with others and teaches us to say “sorry”

He answers our thousands of questions, our millions of “are we there yet”, “how much longer”, “can I have’s”

How would we feel if God felt about and acted toward us the way many feel and act toward children today…

Its easy to forget isn’t it?

It’s easy to forget how dependent we are upon Him… as you remember this… the next time you walk down the children’s hall of your church try and remember how dependent these children are upon you… even the one’s that are not “yours”.

Maybe it just might be that we get caught up spending too much time in our containers, in that horizontal position, focused only on our own little world, and maybe, just maybe, we need to sit up and get vertical and get face to face with our Father… and maybe just maybe the best way to do that is by getting face to face with a child.

And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 18:2-4

I read an article today. It was written by a grieving mother. A grieving mother who professes to be a Christian. This grieving mother shared the story of her son… her son who struggled with homosexuality.

A son who has now passed from this life into eternity.

I struggle with her response to his death. She shares her story and says “so we pray that God can somehow use our story to help other parents learn to truly love their children. Just because they breathe.”

Although I understand her grief… and her guilt… I struggle with her response and her cry to the Christian community because I believe her perspective is wrong. All wrong.

I read her heart wrenching words here that read “Basically, we told our son that he had to choose between Jesus and his sexuality. We forced him to make a choice between God and being a sexual person. Choosing God, practically, meant living a lifetime condemned to being alone.”

And what I want to say to her is… If your son indeed had Christ, and it appeared that he did, then He was never alone. Choosing God never leaves a person condemned to be alone. It leaves a person forever not alone, never forsaken, never forgotten, never left, never abandoned. 

Struggling with homosexuality is indeed a struggle and it is made worse today by the immorality of our nation and culture. We have empowered the spiritual forces of darkness by our choosing the pleasures of sin and choosing to believe the lies of hell as opposed to the truth of the Word.

I would cry out to this woman to not demean or dismiss the fight that her son fought to try and choose to honor God and His Word over the desires of his flesh. He struggled, but he was fighting the good fight of faith. He faltered, but he appeared that he was still crawling toward grace. Don’t destroy that in his death. I don’t know what demons he fought, but from what she shared about him, he did indeed appear to fight.

She then writes, Now, when I think back on the fear that governed all my reactions during those first six years after Ryan told us he was gay, I cringe as I realize how foolish I was. I was afraid of all the wrong things. And I grieve, not only for my oldest son, whom I will miss every day for the rest of my life, but for the mistakes I made. I grieve for what could have been, had we been walking by faith instead of by fear. Now, whenever Rob and I join our gay friends for an evening, I think about how much I would love to be visiting with Ryan and his partner over dinner. But instead, we visit Ryan’s gravestone.

I would make my plea here again… to live is Christ, to die is gain. Why would we choose to have our child with us for a few earthly years and yet be separated from them for all eternity? Is it not selfish of us to desire their earthly bodies present even though it would mean their soul would burn in hell?

Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (NLT)

Did you notice that the Scripture says, those who practice homosexuality. It doesn’t say those who struggle with homosexual desires, it says those who practice it.

Yes, I agree that she needed not fear and instead walk by faith. She herself needed to trust that God held her son and loved him even more than she did. After all He gave His Son’s life for him.

Would we not better now rejoice that he has shed this wretched flesh and no longer has to suffer under the struggles of the sin it craved? Could it possibly be that he fought the good fight… and his Father said he had finished the race. Could it possibly be that in the mercy and grace of his God, he chose to bring him home, to give him rest for his weary soul.

Could it be that he is free. Completely free of his chains.

I would cry out to this mother and say… Please trust God. Trust His Word.

Perspective matters… oh how it matters.

Even in grief, let us trust the Word and stand on the Word. I too believe that God can remove desires if He so wills, but He does not always will. If He does not it is indeed for greater glory. His greater glory.

Yes, let us love our children, let us love them just because they breathe. Let us love them even before they take a breath and after they have breathed their last. Let us love them through their struggles and uphold them, but let us not forget that we are to put their relationship with Christ before their relationship with us.

I have said this before and I will say it again. I do not know what the future holds for my children, but I would rather spend an eternity with them in heaven than a breath with them here on earth.

To live is Christ, to die is gain. I believe this with all that is within me.

Sin is what leads to death… always.

Christ is life and death for those in Him is life. Sin might attempt to take its wage, but its grave will not be able to hold us for our debt has already been paid. Therefore, we are redeemed. We will be receiving our life refund in full!

Every believer will struggle with sin. Every single one of us. Yet we fight the good fight. We may be crawling on our face through the muck and mire… but we keep crawling to Christ. Then when we can finally cast off this shell of flesh we will never crawl again.