Week 4

Good Day,

This continues to be a an experience that I am sure will have repercussions throughout the rest of my life. God has opened my eyes to many things: views on life, sin, evangelism, etc. Here is a brief, but more specific synopsis of the items that God has been bringing to my attention during my time here.

1) The Spirit that Jesus talks about in John 14 is alive and well in my own life. I have been able to view its guidance in my own life much more effectively in the past and therefore I have been able to visibly give God more glory.
2) A better definition of what worshiping and glorifying God looks like has been given to me. Time spent in the word and visibly worshiping God, singing songs etc., are not the only ways to glorify God with my life. That in fact my "work in this world is my greatest form of worship" (possibly quoted from John Piper). This has brought me to the conclusion that living out a life in ministry is NOT the only option for properly devoting my life to God.
3) Evangelism is a life style and does not always entail directly delivering the gospel to everyone you come in contact with. Not to say that delivering the gospel is not essential, but evangelism is more relational than I previously made it out to be. Simply and in part it is showing love for one another. John 13:35 "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
4) My pride is a monster that continuously steals glory from God. If I have anger toward it even in that I sin against God by not accepting God's grace and making it all about me. I need to be consistently looking towards God's glory and comparing myself to him. In that my hope is to be overwhelmed by his glory as Isaiah was in Isaiah 6 and be humbled.
5) I suck at loving those whose personality I do not appreciate. They are God's creation and are a portion of the body. 1 Corinthians 12:21The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!"
My desire is to initiate towards these people regardless of the desires of my sinful nature.

Things with the team and program continue to go well. There is one member of our team who has become sort of excluded from the group. This is most likely due to the fact that he is not rooming with anyone on our team and is an introvert. Pray that we would be intentional around him and desire a relationship with him. He is a solid an of God who has a large amount of bible knowledge which adds greatly to out bible studies.

I had a sweet interaction with one of my coworkers from Starbucks. She was raised Catholic, she was disillusioned with Christ during that time, and knew that I was a Christian so she started asking questions. I believe that she has a real desire to know the truth about Christ. We are having a BBQ this Friday where we were encouraged to invite friends from work and I invited her. Pray that John 13:35 would be made visible to her if she comes. Pray that she will come. Pray for me to have wisdom on whether or not to have her invite her boyfriend.

I could write so much more but my time has expired. Thanks for praying.

-Jon