To the Likeness of Christ, Not to be Liked

To be liked by people, it is quite appealing, to get a pat on the back, or job well done. Often this is motivating enough for doing anything in this life.
It feels good to be liked and cared for, by those that you love and even those that you hardly know.
 A big drive in my life has been to please men so that they can praise me for my hard work or my good attitude, while forgetting about my heavenly fathers approval. I care more about looking good, and neglecting the one that is only good, God.
Traveling around Taiwan is always eye opening, I get to see a different type of culture, and a different kind of language to experience and lots of awesome food. I don’t really feel like a foreigner anymore I have been here so many times but none the less I am a foreigner here, no matter how much I know about Taiwan and feel apart of it.
In Taiwan I have noticed that most Taiwanese when you talk to them are very nice and always seem very interested in you and what you have to say. Now I know maybe someone who is Taiwanese could disagree but the way that I saw them treat Americans was like this.
They were always interested about God. They always wanted to know what I believed and wanted to know about God, but never willing to go deeper then to just know about him.  They were always asking questions but never really listening to the answers, always looking at Jesus as someone who was good but not LORD.
This was always frustrating  to me, sometimes I had just wished that they would be really rude to me and tell me they didn’t want to here what I had to say. Maybe some of this is due to being an American, but either way they are missing Jesus.
The desire to be approved by men will rule your life and when we focus on being liked by men we will miss Jesus, we will miss God.
This mind set is not only in Taiwan but it is also in America and around the world.
Often we don’t always realize that we seek the approval of men, it can be very deceiving. Here are some ways that we can tell if we wants mans approval over Gods.
Caring to much about are cloths and keeping up with the right styles, making sure we look good and that people will notice that we look good. Having the right education so that people will think that we are smart. Having enough money so that we can feel secure, but also that people will see that we are secure. So much of what we do is so that everyone around us can like and notice us. Its really scary when you start to think about it. I think what this really boils down to is, we love ourselves and we want other to love us. We are so selfish, so much of our lives is just thinking about us and what we want, and when we are focused on ourselves and people liking us we will find out that it is very empty and we will find ourselves friendless and even unlike able.

Look at what Jesus did, he may have been like by some people but his ministry was not based on people liking him. His ministry was based on loving us, and to love is much harder then to like or be liked.
To like something is easy, its just one click away, a simple thumbs up, its an attraction to someone with the ability to be reserved. But to love something or someone is unreserved it means to give ones self to them, love requires everything. Jesus gave everything up for us because he loves us. If Jesus’ ministry was based on people liking him, then he probably would have never been hated by the phrases and probably wouldn’t have been crucified. We would have no salvation, and Jesus would have gone down in history as a good man and not LORD. It was his love for us that brought salvation into the world and it was his love for us that got him killed. We are called to be in the likeness of Jesus and to be like him, which means that we die and we love those around us. We know longer care if people like us but we care about loving people. Love dies, love is not always like able and hurts at times, but love will be the one thing that will last forever. I think that our lives will be a lot more stress free when we learn to please God over men, to love over like, when we stop checking our Facebook to make sure people like are new selfie or new post. I want to live my life without people always having to like what I do. My life is for God not people and to be approved by Him, but this does not give me an excuse to do whatever I want, but a call to love.
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another .” John 13:34-35  

Keep fighting the fight, don’t loose heart for Jesus is Lord and we have been made into his likeness his image through the power of the cross.
Keep me in your prayers always praying that I would know Him and know his power, and to speak boldly for His name sake.

David -

Lets have real friends!!!

I thought it might be fun to continue to write this blog although I am no longer living in Taiwan. But Taiwan is still on my heart and prayers and I’m actually there right now.
I must confess I have a hard time writing about what I’m doing on this blog, I mainly just like to write what God is teaching me, so sorry if its not to much about what I am doing, but then again what I am learning is doing. Right? 
The first thing I want to say is that God is so good and amazing. He is so merciful and kind, I couldn’t be more grateful for what he is doing in my life.
Lamentations 3:22-23
  "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassion fail not.23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."
Being back in Taiwan has already been awesome, God is already been revealing to me so many new things. When I got on my second flight to go over to Taiwan God lead me to Psalms 115.
This Chapter talks about how the world has made false gods, ones with hands and mouths but they are useless to them and those who trust in them are just like them.
 In Taiwan many people worship idols and trust that if they worship them and pray to them, they will be blessed and have peace. But in there worshiping they find no peace and no rest, for their gods can do nothing for them.
It’s so sad to watch this and its so sad to watch them waste their lives on serving a dead god, a god that will never give them what they are seeking.
Before we put them off as not relate-able, think twice. Are we not the same??
We seek pleasures of the world that will not satisfy us. We want jobs that will make us financially secure. We want friends that will not betray us and fathers that will never disappoint us. Are these not false gods?? Are these not with hand and mouths but cannot move or speak?? And has not man created them??
We have made a world that is built on dead ideas, dead gods, we are trying to up hold them and say that they are living and if we follow them we will be blessed.
The ways of the world are dead and those who seek to find comfort and peace in it, will only find death.
BUT GOD, who is rich in mercy and in love has given himself to us, and provided away to have life, to have peace and those who trust in Him will not be put to shame.
"The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you." Psalm 9:9-10

 Another thing I have been thinking about is how this digital age and social media age has been killing our relationship. I thought that phones and Facebook should improve our communication skills and the ability to stay connected with all of our friends would be a good thing. Maybe it is?? But one thing God has been showing me is that a lot of this social media makes us trade real relationships for fake ones. We create a new kind of friend, friends that we don’t really know but know about. We make false image of what a friend looks like and does, but in reality they are nothing like it. In trying to know everyone we know no one.
I believe that the root problem to all of this is, we have turned from a real relationship with God to a fake one.
 Let me explain.
From the beginning of time we can see that God made man to have a relationship with Him, but we rejected him, we chose sin over a relationship with him.
We lost the connection we once had. What was once no problem to know God, had became merely impossible. We would need a mediator to know God one that would break down the wall of sin, allowing us back into the relationship that we were once able to have. This of course is Jesus, but often I think that we forget this point. Jesus is the one that made it all possible to know God, He is the one that intercedes on our behalf for us, He paves the way to God nothing else. Not church, not good books, not sound doctrine, not even prayer, but JESUS Himself.
 Often we replace Jesus for something else, creating a false god creating a false relationship about Him. You can know all about God but that will do you no good, even the demons know who God is and know what he has done. You can do things in His name and for Him but that will not save you. Jesus is the one who saves and if we know Him we will know the Father and if we know Father we can love our brother and have real relationships with them.  PRAISE JESUS for what He has done, He has won and He is LORD.
Keep me in your prayers as we are on our second week of teaching in Taiwan and only have one more week after that. Pray that we would have energy and creativity and that God's kingdom would go forth.

David—

"When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see Him there who made an end of all my sins." -Charitie Bancroft

Where do you look when things get hard? Satan has a hundred schemes he'll throw your way. He'll try to get you to focus on people or things that make you happy. And once you build your security on things of this world, he'll laugh while your boat sinks under the waves. Maybe sin looks tempting when life is dark. You turn to old habits that bring a fleeting happiness, but then it disappears like cotton candy and you find yourself lower than you ever were.

I'll tell you my struggle. I like to be right. So when life is dark, Satan whispers, "You're not right." Then I frantically search my life cause I need so desperately to be sure I'm right. I ask God, "What can I change? How can I be perfect before you?" And doesn't it sort of seem like a righteous thing to do? Oh, but its a pit. A pit of endless cycles of thought and misery. I can't fix myself! Isn't that why Jesus came in the first place? How do I forget that!

But, there's one answer to all of these. Turn your eyes to Christ. Think of Peter walking on the water. Jesus told him he could and he started out so well, but then Matthew 14:30 says, "when he saw the wind, he was afraid." It's pretty interesting to me that it says he saw the wind. The wind isn't normally something you can really set your eyes on, but I think the main point is that he wasn't looking at Jesus.

We are fighting a battle, and the victory is only won in keeping your eyes on Christ. "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith," says Hebrews 12:2. He saved me when there was no hope in myself. Why would He make me fix myself now? He's the beginning and the ending, and (thank you Jesus!)

He's the middle, holding it all together.

"To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!" -Psalm 123:1


-Please continue to pray for us to have courage and endurance. Pray we would look to Christ and abide in the Spirit.

-Pray that God would send forth His righteousness and truth in Nantou, Taiwan.

Holding on. (With both hands)

Ever find yourself day dreaming about the other side of the fence?

 Imagining how much better life might be if you were never a Christian? Just think you could do whatever you wanted to do, no need for self-control or morals. This may be tempting and as I even write this I feel the pull towards it. The desire to be a part of the world is so great, it’s always tugging on us, it always trying to steal our attention. Why is this?

   There is a power that lies in the darkness, a fallen angel who only lives to own your soul, for he knows that his time is short. This is the ruler of the world, and let me define the world as system. The world's system is ruled by the enemy, but the world, the earth is the LORD’S and all that is in it. 

Psalms 24:1 “The earth is the Lord 's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” 

 There are two systems, God’s and Satan’s, God’s system is good and right and it goes against Satan’s system. Satan’s System is anti-God, its evil and goes against anything that is right. These systems are called kingdoms and they are both warring against each other and we, my friends, are on one of these sides. 

 In this life we have not been given the option of being a pacifist; we either fight for God and for His Kingdom or we fight against Him for Satan’s Kingdom. Both sides require your soul, both sides require everything. But remember Satan does not fight fair, he shoots the wounded and will do whatever it takes to get us to be distracted by the world. James 4:4 “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”   

If you even desire to be friends with the world, with Satan’s kingdom, you will become an enemy of God; and this is why the pull to the world is so strong because Satan knows that if he can get you to just desire the world, which is his ways, he’s got you. WHAT SAY YOU? Will you fight for God or will you fight for Satan? Will you seek God with all of your heart, soul and mind and not looking to the world and to the lusts that are in it?

 One thing to be aware of, if you have decided to fight for God, it is easy to put all your focus on the enemy, but let me remind you that the way we fight against the enemy is, by FOLLOWING GOD. When we are seeking Him, when we are spending time in the word and praying, that's when we are fighting. Remember when you take your eyes off Christ and put your focus on the enemy you lose. Our striving should be to know Him, to know His world and to keep His commandments. These things are not easy to do, but its our duty as men and women of God's kingdom. 

 My biggest struggle lately has been, will I follow God or not? I feel like I have been putting God off for far too long, been saying that I will become a better Christian at a more convenient time. "God I want to follow you, but not yet. I want more ministry and then I will definitely follow you with all of my heart." I want to seek the world for just a little bit, then I will do what's right. I have been living a dangerous, compromised life, seeking the pleasers of the world, fighting for Satan’s kingdom not God’s. I don’t say these things for pity or sympathy, but to make you think. Are you compromised, are you seeking the world’s pleasures over God? Are you putting God off to seeking him till a more convenient time?

“Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”  Isaiah 55:6-7 

Seeking the LORD is not getting any easier, NOW is the time to seek him, now is the time to lay aside the sins and weights that so easily entangle us. Let us grab a hold of God with both of our hands and not let go. 

God is worth fighting for, even though it may seem like we are missing out, and reality is, you are missing out, but that's ok. God is so much better then the world. He has life to give us, but we have to be willing to seek Him out.

 My ending thought is, seek the LORD while he may be found, and we must seek him through his word through the keeping of his commandments and when we do this He will make Himself know to you. 

John 14:21

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. 

   Keep us in your prayers, pray that God would continue to protect us from the enemy and that He would give us boldness to speak as we should.

Blessings to all 

Complete in Thee

Complete in Thee—each want supplied,
And no good thing to me denied;

Since Thou my portion, Lord, wilt be, 

I ask no more, complete in Thee.

-Aaron Robarts Wolfe

No good thing. That is not a small statement and yet it comes straight from Psalm 84: "For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly." No good thing. Just think about those words for a minute. I can't get them out of my mind, mostly because they prove my lack of faith. Not too long ago, I was reading Genesis and I laughed at Abram's lack of faith in chapter 15. God comes to Abram and says, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I  your shield, your exceedingly great reward." And what is Abram's response? "

God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless..?" Wow. He really missed it, didn't he? "I am," says the I Am, and Abram says, "And what else?" hmm. 

Yet here I am, a doubting Abram. 

I wrote a blog this week for The CI Journal. My post was about Faith and the verse I have been meditating on is 2 Timothy 2:13: "If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself." I've found this holds the truth of my only hope. I can't have enough faith or belief or strength to even hold to the Rock, but He cannot fail. 

He cannot deny Himself. That's me! I don't have to try to have enough faith. I am now literally part of Christ and He will be both faithful and heal my faith. He's good. This truth will never fail, because He will never fail. 

Praise our Father! He proved Himself so faithful over this past Christmas season. We had many great times with our students and friends sharing about Jesus' birth. We also finished teaching for the semester and are now teaching a few Bible and English camps around Taiwan and Hong Kong over our 5 week break. Please pray for a restful, refreshing time with friends and family. Pray that God would heal our teammate's back. She has been struggling with nerve pain for the past few months. Most of all, pray we would find our strength and joy in our Father.

Love,
Anna

Peace on Earth and Goodwill to Men

Over the past few weeks, I've shared the Christmas story with many people who have never heard it before. I found this to be pretty eye-opening for the sad state of my heart. My first thoughts, when sharing, concentrated on being understood and I wondered how anyone would believe me when there were so many things about the story that don't really make sense. It felt like I was simply explaining random facts to an old song. Not to say the Christmas story is exactly like a fairy tale, but in a way, it can sound a lot like one when you are sharing about all the angels and such.

Thankfully, I told the story to children. Children love stories and have little problem with fantastic details. In fact, they are usually fascinated with the most unbelievable parts. Isn't it true that most people enjoy fairy tales because they are too wonderful to imagine in real life? It seems like everyone wants to believe in the unbelievable; children are simply more open in their desire. Deep inside we want to believe in something fantastic. Maybe because we were made for faith.

As I continued to share with my classes I found the story taking a new shape in my mind. You know, the Christmas story is fairly mind-bending when you see it with new eyes. But its not so unrealistic as to make you turn away, its wonderfully, wall-implodingly, beautiful. Each part of the story is not randomly there, but a piece in the message God was sending to earth. I started thinking: Why all the angels? Why did he send shepherds as His first worshipers? Why bring the kings from afar? Why was He born in a world so desperate for a physical salvation, when His life has little to do with the liberation they expected?

Then I thought about the angels message:Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger...Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." (Luke 2:10-14)This world teaches us that in order to get a message across or to bring about order, we have to be the loudest, the prettiest, or the strongest, and stomp over everyone to be the last standing. Isn't it interesting that peace came in such a humble state? "Peace on earth." Doesn't that seem a little hard to believe at times? That peace has actually already come?

All these thoughts brought me to the stiff realization that my heart was very slow in believing God's message of Christmas. Peace and joy are here. I hope this year you find your Christmas celebrations find out the state of your heart. May you receive the gifts of faith and peace!

(The amazing Nantou team of English Teachers)

Prayer:
-We are so thankful for how God has answered our prayers and brought many people into our lives who want to hear about the Bible.
-Praise God! My schools have been wonderfully receptive of the Gospel this Christmas season and they let me give the children tracts about Christmas. All the kids have been extremely attentive as I shared about Jesus.
-Pray for all those who are hearing the Gospel for the first time.
-Pray for our continued health and unity as a team, as we have many extra activities with our schools this month.
-Pray for the salvation of the Taiwanese people.

Merry Christmas!
Anna

I have a fabulous little brother (who I currently am dearly missing) who is an enthusiastic storyteller. Tim has been telling stories since before he could form words clearly. And as he is now 7, that gives him nearly 6 years of experience. When something happens, or maybe he just hears a good story in a movie or book, he is almost compelled to tell it to everyone around him. I love hearing his stories and, even if I know what happened or heard it from someone else, I want to hear it from him because it will have his own little twists and applications. Seeing life through the eyes of a seven-year-old can be quite enlightening.

This spring, our family had a little encounter with a few kittens. It all started when Hope, nine-years-old at the time, prayed for a cat just before she went to sleep one night. And, this faith-filled child was very specific about the kind of cat she wanted. She prayed for a kitten that Daniel (another brother) would not be allergic to, because he normally has a reaction to animals. Amazingly, through a few abnormal circumstances, Hope woke up to find a kitten had indeed ended up in our living room that morning. We named the kitten Jacob, because later that day we found his sickly brother, who was unfortunately deemed Esau. Well, the story continues because within a few days we ended up finding another kitten and this third one was named Surprise. Eventually, we ended up with only keeping Jacob and it was discovered, to most of us quite shockingly, that Daniel is not allergic to Jacob.

Perhaps none of this should really be such a surprise, after all, Hope prayed very specifically and knew that her Heavenly Father could answer her prayers. I think this is what you call child-like-faith. It assumes a few things that I often forget. One of those things is that God wants to hear what we need. I've been listening to a sermon series by Malcolm Smith on prayer and one of the things he talks about is how, despite God knowing everything, He actually wants to hear it from us. Hope could have thought, "God knows I want a cat and He will give me one if He wants me to have one." But, she didn't. Instead, she told God she wanted one and asked if He would give her one. Its kind of like me wanting to hear a story, that I already know, told by Tim. I love him and I love the way he tells it and the way we connect over that story when he is sharing it, whatever it might be. I think this is like what God feels about us. Just because He already knows what has and will happen, doesn't mean He doesn't want to hear it from us and hear us ask for what we need and, most amazingly to me, He delights in hearing it.

Another part of faith that I learned from Hope was in the way she specified what she wanted. She knew Daniel was allergic to cats, but that didn't stop her from believing that God could give her a cat to which Daniel wasn't allergic. She saw the situation clearly, she needed a specific kind of cat and so that was the one she asked for from her Heavenly Father. Praise the Father! He wants to know the nitty-gritty details and He wants to answer our very specific requests.

Back to Timothy and his stories. You see, the best part of all of this for me, was hearing Tim tell this story to a friend. He went through and gave all the little details of who did what and how all the kittens ended up in our house and, when he got to the part about naming the third kitten, he explained it like this: "We wanted to name the third kitten 'Surprise' because it was so surprising when we found her. You see, the first kitten wasn't a surprise because Hope had asked for that one..."  :)

May you know the Father today! Know Him. Know Him in all your ways. Know Him in the littlest detail. Know Him in the innermost part. He can handle you at your ugliest (Praise Him for that!). He can handle the nastiest lies that you are believing. He wants to hear your desires and needs. Be known by Him and know Him, listening and answering and delighting in you.


You can pray that David and I would know Him this week, for that is our deepest need.

Me and a few of my students on a field trip at the ice cream shop. :)