5.04.2006
Every Knee
Dear friends,
Well, I have come to realize (probably later than most of you have) that I am not so good at keeping up with this blog. I have good intentions to update it more often, but it will probably be something that I write on either as I have time or as big things come up (like I said, you all probably already figured that out, and I am finally coming to terms with reality :).
Today's post is really more personal than ministry related (I'll tie it back in at the end), but I just wanted to share with you something that the Lord really impressed on my heart this morning. It starts with a little background (if background bores you, just skip down three or four paragraphs)...
For those of you who know me pretty well, you'll know that I really like old furniture. That works well for me here, because folks here really like new furniture. You would not believe some of the pieces of furniture that people throw out to be sold at 'junk' stores (and that they replace it with new furniture made of particle board). So I have a lot of old furniture in my apartment that I bought for cheap at the 'junk' furniture market (I mean like $3US for a table). It's kind of a hobby for me to go over there every so often and just see what they have. The people there know me at this point and it has really helped my language to be able to talk to them. I know that probably sounds like a weird idea of fun to most people...
When I first arrived in this city, I found three 'bar stools' that I really liked at the market for $2 each. I thought that if I ever got an apartment with a breakfast bar, they would be really cool to have. Well, over two years later, still no breakfast bar--and funny story about the stools too: After I had had them for about a year, some students were at my house one night and asked me about the stools. I said, 'Oh yes, those are bar stools. Don't you like them?' And they just continued to giggle. Finally, one of them told me that my 'bar stools' were actually the chairs that teachers used to make elementary school students sit in when they were being punished.
Although my current apartment doesn't have a breakfast bar, it does have a bay window. So when I moved in, having nowhere else to put the 'dunce' stools, I just sat them in the window. I thought about getting a table so I would actually use them, but just never found anything I liked. Then one day last month, I was over at the furniture market and found this really short table ($3.75) and had the idea that I could take it to the carpenter and have him make it taller for the 'dunce' stools.
>>That is another story in itself... it is really cool getting to live here because there are a lot of different ministries to different kinds of people. Our ministry focuses on students, but there is also a ministry that focuses on working with deaf people: the carpenters. My first time visiting their workshop was when I took my little table over there, but it was quite amazing to see that 1. No one in there spoke a word out loud and 2. They were doing a fantastic job of building furniture. You could see the joy in their faces because someone had cared enough about them, some of the lowest members of society here, to share the LOVE of Christ with them AND teach them skills that actually make them useful in a society that mostly says that they are useless.<<
Fast forward a month... the table came back, the carpenters did an excellent job, and the bay window is now my favorite place in my apartment to sit in the mornings to spend some time in the Word and have a cup of coffee. I'm usually doing that around the time that a lot of people are leaving for work (sometime between 6:30-7:30AM) and the sun is also rising at that time--in general, its just a great little place to start the day.
And that's where I was this morning when I read Philippians chapter 2. To be fair, I also read Philippians 2 yesterday to the students during our May holiday trip. It was kind of funny because I had been reading up to Philippians chapter 1 in my quiet time, and I could quote the verse that I wanted to share with the students but could not remember for the life of me where it was at. So after 15 minutes of skimming the New Testament and with the help of a friend, I finally found it in Philippians 2. It was meaningful and relevant then, but somehow as I was sitting at my little table in the window reading it this morning, it hit me in a new way. Let me type out what I read for you:
"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:5-11
Wow! What a power packed paragraph of scripture. Two things really hit me while I was reading it this morning, although I know that there is much more depth and richness in it than I have explored at this point.
1. Jesus made himself nothing. How often do I really seek to do that? I have to confess that it's not very often. Pride, selfishness, sin in general often precludes any ideas about making myself nothing. And for sure, the students that I work with are not told to make themselves nothing. They are told that they are all they've got. That there's nothing else besides what they do for themselves. That they just need to believe in themselves. Servanthood is looked down on so much that I recently read that people in the capital who have jobs as house helpers will lie to their friends and family about their occupation. So this is something that people here especially need modeled to them, and I haven't been doing such a great job. Please pray that the Lord would make me more like Christ in modeling being a servant.
2. At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. Some will do this willingly. But everyone will do it. EVERYONE. Every human being, every angel, every demon, ALL CREATED BEINGS. There are over a billion people in the country I live in. That is a lot of knees bowing and tongues confessing. But that will just be the beginning. AND, right now, for this tiny spec in eternity, maybe even just today, or just this hour for some people, they have the opportunity to choose to bow their knee to Christ and confess that He is Lord willingly. And that hit me as I sat at my little table in the window, watching all the people ride out on their bikes to work. They will all bow their knee. They will all confess that Jesus is Lord. Propaganda will not matter then. Tradition will not matter on that day. Pride will be crushed, and Jesus will be exalted. I don't know about you, but this motivates me to think outside the box a little. My ministry focus here is students, and that has not changed. But what about people that I come in contact with outside of students? What about guards and shopkeepers, and the people at the junk furniture market? Maybe somebody else here has a ministry already set up for these people. But maybe not. And how long does it really even take to share the Gospel withe somebody? When you get right down to it, it takes as little as about ten or fifteen minutes. So pray for me that I will have the courage to do just that with more people that I come in contact with. Not because its my job, or because its part of our ministry focus, but because the God of the universe cared enough about me to let me hear the Gospel and that out of the immeasurable love that He has shown me, overflows a love for those around me. And I'll pray the same thing for you. Maybe there are people around you who you pass by every day, maybe speak to for a moment, but have never really thought about sharing the gospel with. Their knee will bow one day, maybe one day soon. Their tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. Will it be willingly? Will they know Christ on that day?
Thanks for taking a few moments to read about my morning and what God has been teaching me. I hope that in some way, He can use what I have learned in your life too. And thank you for praying for me. Never doubt that He uses your prayers and support for me and the ministry here in mighty ways.
Until the next post :)
Brian
Well, I have come to realize (probably later than most of you have) that I am not so good at keeping up with this blog. I have good intentions to update it more often, but it will probably be something that I write on either as I have time or as big things come up (like I said, you all probably already figured that out, and I am finally coming to terms with reality :).
Today's post is really more personal than ministry related (I'll tie it back in at the end), but I just wanted to share with you something that the Lord really impressed on my heart this morning. It starts with a little background (if background bores you, just skip down three or four paragraphs)...
For those of you who know me pretty well, you'll know that I really like old furniture. That works well for me here, because folks here really like new furniture. You would not believe some of the pieces of furniture that people throw out to be sold at 'junk' stores (and that they replace it with new furniture made of particle board). So I have a lot of old furniture in my apartment that I bought for cheap at the 'junk' furniture market (I mean like $3US for a table). It's kind of a hobby for me to go over there every so often and just see what they have. The people there know me at this point and it has really helped my language to be able to talk to them. I know that probably sounds like a weird idea of fun to most people...
When I first arrived in this city, I found three 'bar stools' that I really liked at the market for $2 each. I thought that if I ever got an apartment with a breakfast bar, they would be really cool to have. Well, over two years later, still no breakfast bar--and funny story about the stools too: After I had had them for about a year, some students were at my house one night and asked me about the stools. I said, 'Oh yes, those are bar stools. Don't you like them?' And they just continued to giggle. Finally, one of them told me that my 'bar stools' were actually the chairs that teachers used to make elementary school students sit in when they were being punished.
Although my current apartment doesn't have a breakfast bar, it does have a bay window. So when I moved in, having nowhere else to put the 'dunce' stools, I just sat them in the window. I thought about getting a table so I would actually use them, but just never found anything I liked. Then one day last month, I was over at the furniture market and found this really short table ($3.75) and had the idea that I could take it to the carpenter and have him make it taller for the 'dunce' stools.
>>That is another story in itself... it is really cool getting to live here because there are a lot of different ministries to different kinds of people. Our ministry focuses on students, but there is also a ministry that focuses on working with deaf people: the carpenters. My first time visiting their workshop was when I took my little table over there, but it was quite amazing to see that 1. No one in there spoke a word out loud and 2. They were doing a fantastic job of building furniture. You could see the joy in their faces because someone had cared enough about them, some of the lowest members of society here, to share the LOVE of Christ with them AND teach them skills that actually make them useful in a society that mostly says that they are useless.<<
Fast forward a month... the table came back, the carpenters did an excellent job, and the bay window is now my favorite place in my apartment to sit in the mornings to spend some time in the Word and have a cup of coffee. I'm usually doing that around the time that a lot of people are leaving for work (sometime between 6:30-7:30AM) and the sun is also rising at that time--in general, its just a great little place to start the day.
And that's where I was this morning when I read Philippians chapter 2. To be fair, I also read Philippians 2 yesterday to the students during our May holiday trip. It was kind of funny because I had been reading up to Philippians chapter 1 in my quiet time, and I could quote the verse that I wanted to share with the students but could not remember for the life of me where it was at. So after 15 minutes of skimming the New Testament and with the help of a friend, I finally found it in Philippians 2. It was meaningful and relevant then, but somehow as I was sitting at my little table in the window reading it this morning, it hit me in a new way. Let me type out what I read for you:
"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:5-11
Wow! What a power packed paragraph of scripture. Two things really hit me while I was reading it this morning, although I know that there is much more depth and richness in it than I have explored at this point.
1. Jesus made himself nothing. How often do I really seek to do that? I have to confess that it's not very often. Pride, selfishness, sin in general often precludes any ideas about making myself nothing. And for sure, the students that I work with are not told to make themselves nothing. They are told that they are all they've got. That there's nothing else besides what they do for themselves. That they just need to believe in themselves. Servanthood is looked down on so much that I recently read that people in the capital who have jobs as house helpers will lie to their friends and family about their occupation. So this is something that people here especially need modeled to them, and I haven't been doing such a great job. Please pray that the Lord would make me more like Christ in modeling being a servant.
2. At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. Some will do this willingly. But everyone will do it. EVERYONE. Every human being, every angel, every demon, ALL CREATED BEINGS. There are over a billion people in the country I live in. That is a lot of knees bowing and tongues confessing. But that will just be the beginning. AND, right now, for this tiny spec in eternity, maybe even just today, or just this hour for some people, they have the opportunity to choose to bow their knee to Christ and confess that He is Lord willingly. And that hit me as I sat at my little table in the window, watching all the people ride out on their bikes to work. They will all bow their knee. They will all confess that Jesus is Lord. Propaganda will not matter then. Tradition will not matter on that day. Pride will be crushed, and Jesus will be exalted. I don't know about you, but this motivates me to think outside the box a little. My ministry focus here is students, and that has not changed. But what about people that I come in contact with outside of students? What about guards and shopkeepers, and the people at the junk furniture market? Maybe somebody else here has a ministry already set up for these people. But maybe not. And how long does it really even take to share the Gospel withe somebody? When you get right down to it, it takes as little as about ten or fifteen minutes. So pray for me that I will have the courage to do just that with more people that I come in contact with. Not because its my job, or because its part of our ministry focus, but because the God of the universe cared enough about me to let me hear the Gospel and that out of the immeasurable love that He has shown me, overflows a love for those around me. And I'll pray the same thing for you. Maybe there are people around you who you pass by every day, maybe speak to for a moment, but have never really thought about sharing the gospel with. Their knee will bow one day, maybe one day soon. Their tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. Will it be willingly? Will they know Christ on that day?
Thanks for taking a few moments to read about my morning and what God has been teaching me. I hope that in some way, He can use what I have learned in your life too. And thank you for praying for me. Never doubt that He uses your prayers and support for me and the ministry here in mighty ways.
Until the next post :)
Brian
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