Privilege vs. Sacrifice?? (video 4:10s)
privilege and sacrifice from marc lewis on Vimeo.
I was asked to share briefly about privilege and sacrifice to help students as they consider missions.
This short video is the fruit of thinking on the different aspects of sacrifice and privilege and how they are different yet go together for every believer.
When I refer to the privilege that Jesus had as our redeemer it has less to do with us and more to do with his divine joy in doing the will of the father.
The small crying in the background is coming from my 3 year old daughter Sophie Mei. I made this in our little hotel room during our Thai Summer Project in Chaing Mai, Thailand right at bedtime in order to send this out to my friend.
Flower of Death (tsp video)
Flower of Death from marc lewis on Vimeo.
enslaving idols
In his book Counterfeit Gods, Tim Keller strives to help us see the dangers of idols and the superior love, sacrifice, and worth of Jesus. After reading through the introduction and first chapter, I am seeing once again the sneaky power of "incomplete joy(s) of this world" that we try to build our lives on. Living in Thailand makes it very easy to think of idols as merely handcrafted statues that receive the worship of billions of people. However, there are deeper roots in idolatry that every soul on earth must recognize and sever. These idols receive God-status in our hearts in the form of money, sex, power, fame, status, family, ministry and many others. These things alone are neutral and even good gifts from God, it is when we love them more than God that they receive misplaced worship and begin to enslave us.
Introduction to Counterfeit Gods from Redeemer City to City on Vimeo.
Gladly overwhelmed by the Gospel
The Thai, Northeastern, Lao Isan of Thailand are listed in the 100 LARGEST(mass numbers of people) unreached people groups over on the Joshua Project website. I read about this on the Joshua Project site last week from a Twitter update and have been trying to process it. We know that we need to be about sharing the gospel here in this area among the people, that has never been a question. However, this type of information verifies the challenges that we face and calls us towards dependence on the gospel and awesomeness of God as the Holy Spirit leads us.
This type of information could make one feel helpless and overwhelmed. Helplessness was my first feeling when I read about this, which soon turned into a faith-filled acknowledgment that Jesus has other sheep that he too must bring in and will do so through his gospel. I was looking over the Joshua Project statistics last week at a coffee shop and was not living in line with truth for a few brief seconds, I was feeling a little hopeless and then Git, a Christian Thai woman walked by with her kids! May the gospel go forth!
This information also calls us away from depending on good methods, good strategies, and ironically even revealing statistics as we use them. We trust in the Name of the Lord our God! Man, what great things to think about during the Christmas season! The Gospel and the mission of the Church!
I am overwhelmed by the Gospel today! It's also my bride's birthday and the day we received our little Sophie Mei from China. Watching this reminds me in some aspects of how God has adopted us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus!
