This past Sunday, our friends Viri and Oscar renewed their marriage vows during the service.
It’s been 5 years since their wedding! And there is now a third person in the family – their son Josué. 🙂
Shari and I had the priviledge to lead a time of worship (along with the rest of the music team), and we had the same songs that we led five years ago. As I shared on Sunday – this was our normal Sunday service, but not so normal! Normal because even at their wedding, Oscar and Viri wanted to sing worship songs, and hear God’s Word preached, and so as they renewed their vows we did it again at our normal worship service.
They exchanged rings – again – a ring or two may possibly have gone missing over those five years, so this was important. Some of the same symbols were presented, typical of a Mexican wedding. The Gospel was preached. And Oscar and Viri threw a party for everyone afterwards!
But essentially it was a time to celebrate God’s faithfulness in their lives, and to talk again about the importance of the covenant of marriage.
And a good time was had by all!
Please continue to pray for these and so many other families in our church. The days are evil, but God is great.
So last month a relative (we’re still not sure which one, but that’s another story!) asked us a question for a school assignment:
How are you following God’s will in Mexico?
That’s a good question. Of course, we still have a long way to go – we often fail. But what exactly are we aiming for?
So this is how I answered:
The Lord Jesus left us with these instructions:
“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20
The Lord asks His Church to reach out to other nations, sharing the good news of “repentance and forgiveness of sins . . . in His name” (Luke 24:47) from the Bible (Luke 24:44-48). So we invite everyone to come to Jesus for forgiveness, baptizing those who put their trust in Him (Acts 2:41) (we just saw nine people baptized earlier this month!) and going on to teach them Jesus’ commands – that is, helping them learn to be His disciples/followers/imitators.
We do this in many different ways, but that’s basically how we’re following God’s will in Mexico.
How would you answer? How are you following God’s will in _________________?
I’m departing from my usual “10 years ago” posts to bring you this special presentation from 18 years ago today.
But first, a little background on this video. Nathanael was one week short of his second birthday. We were still living in Calgary (we would move to Mexico in 6 months). We had put elastics on the kitchen cupboards to keep little hands from getting into things (not that any of our angelic children would ever get into trouble!), and Nathanael discovered that these made excellent string instruments.
So, in a nod to his future ukulele career, he began to play this new kitchen string instrument and sing the song that was on his mind – Cristo Me Ama (Jesus Loves Me). I joined in, but I think he had chosen a key that was a little high for both of us. This amusement kept his attention for an unusual amount of time, until he finally realized that there was some delicious pasta cooking on the stove.
Earlier this week Shari and I were at a meeting with the leaders of the church and their wives. One of the challenges, probably in any church, is that we see needs of people in the congregation, and we see how the Word of God can meet those needs, and yet often people – I should say we – don’t take the time to learn from God’s Word.
Maybe this is a habit of skipping the Sunday service. Maybe it’s not prioritizing a Bible study that would do us good. Maybe it’s a lack of regular Bible reading.
And of course there’s a variety of reasons that this happens. Sometimes it’s just a lack of understanding of the importance of hearing from the Lord. Sometimes it’s family pressure, or financial pressure, or a lack of organization. We all have our reasons.
I shared with everyone something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately – oddly enough, a medical case study published in the medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine in 2019.
So, there was a boy of 14 who went to the doctor complaining that he was tired. The doctor did some tests and found that his vitamin B12 (cobalamin) levels were low. So he was given injections. Knowing that he was a “fussy eater”, the doctor also gave him some diet advice. And things seemed better.
But then he found that his vision was getting worse. After another couple of years, at the age of 17, he went to another specialist. More tests were done, and it was found that he still had issues with vitamin B12. After more tests, it was discovered that it wasn’t just B12, but several other micronutrients as well.
He was prescribed some supplements, but he was now legally blind. His vision may never return.
So what happened? Well, since he had been a boy, he had been very picky about his food. He ended up living on processed meats, white bread, chips and french fries.
As you can see, this didn’t cause major problems at first, and he was content with his food (a great relief for Dad and Mom no doubt). A small and common problem turned up – fatigue – which was easily solved with some vitamin injections. But then something else turned up – genetic? disease? And then another problem. And gradually the problems became very serious.
Because, after all, your body doesn’t need regular huge amounts of micronutrients. That’s why they’re called “micro”. You just need a wee bit of this and that over time. And so it can take a long time to notice that there’s a problem.
The same can be true of our spiritual lives. And I think there are two common causes:
A neglect of the gatherings of the saints, a neglect of personal time with the Lord
A bland “diet”
Someone can eat all the time and still be malnourished – as was the case with this teen. If you go to your local church service, and the songs tell you that God loves you (a great truth!) but not much else. If you listen to sermons and learn that you should love others (a great truth!), and not much else. You read the Bible and gain a few facts, and that’s all. Your prayer life is limited to “God bless so-and-so” and “help so-and-so feel better”.
And soon, during the worship music time, you realize you’re always just thinking about the same few things (booooooring). And you’re listening to the same things in the sermons. And when hard times come – or when good times come! – you lack the spiritual treasures that you could be drawing from God’s Word in your heart (Psalm 119:11; Luke 6:45). You can’t handle the hard times, or truly rejoice in the good!
Sometimes these are the reasons we’re shallow, bored, and ill-equipped.
And yet God has given us so many treasures – spinach, beef, strawberries, walnuts … I mean, prayer, 66 books in the Bible, thousands of years of songs from the community of believers, a local church with all kinds of different people, various teachers – we have such treasure!
But are we enjoying the feast before us?
We miss a service. We don’t spend time with other believers for a while. We forget to pray. We hear the same few dozen worship songs. And everything goes on as it did before. The sky doesn’t fall. We don’t feel like we’re further away from God. Maybe we even feel more content. For a while.
But eventually we come to understand a little of what we’re missing. We feel a little weak in the battle. We don’t understand when we do read the Bible. We can’t see the real challenges before us, or the real blessings given to us. And a week of panic Bible study or a counselling session with the pastor may not be a lasting solution.
So I should ask – today – this week – am I getting my micronutrients?
I have a love/hate relationship with sermon applications. You know, that part of the sermon when the preacher finally tells us what we’re supposed to do as a result of the Scriptural text of today.
Not all texts have a direct application in the text, of course. And even if they do, we all want something more specific that “love your neighbour”.
Sometimes it is indeed helpful to suggest something we could do “this week”. But the problem is that the text may have as many specific applications as there are people listening. The Holy Spirit speaks to people in their own circumstances through His Word. I would suggest it’s often better to clearly explain what the passage is saying – and let Him do the rest.
(Another problem is that applications are often opinions and ideas – and the preacher had better be careful that he’s not presenting a helpful idea as a new law!)
That being said, this doesn’t mean that the preacher shouldn’t connect the text with today’s world. That’s quite another matter, and it’s something that’s urgently needed. Again, this will depend somewhat on the people listening and their context. But surely God’s Word should be shining light on the classroom, changing the way we view politics, transforming how we do business, affecting the way we respond to authorities over us, readjusting our priorities, thinking about health – the list goes on and on.
It’s a challenging thing to do, but it’s up to all of us to take God’s Word and let it shine on today’s world.
This takes a lot of listening, to hear where people are at, and what they’re struggling with. It may take some listening to the world at large – what’s happening in the community, country and world? How does God want us to respond?
How is this happening here? I started talking about sermons, but it’s actually happening in many conversations in general. It’s happening at our institute classes, as we continue especially working with leaders and struggling together to equip our congregations for their ministry (Ephesians 4:11-16). Learning how to worship. Bible studies on certain topics.
I was reminded recently as I sent out a report to some people that pray for us that we’re in some pretty challenging studies right now! I’m preparing a study on a vision in Zechariah (which has been a great blessing to me, I might add), as well as a study on the doctrine of divine healing, and the gift of prophecy! I didn’t realize until I wrote it all down how intense all this is. 🙂 But these are things that affect us today.
It seems to me that the church is often starving for more than the vague platitudes that we already know. And God’s Word is so full of riches. How can we do better at mining them?
