Posts tagged God

¹⁰ For You, God, tested us; You refined us as silver is refined.

¹¹ You lured us into a trap; You placed burdens on our backs.

¹² You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but You brought us out to abundance.

- Psalm 66:10–12 (HCSB)

This verse really just jumped out at me as I was reading it this week. It makes me think about how sometimes in life (like right now for me) God lets us go through times of intense suffering, or stress, or hardship, but he promises to pull us out at the end of it. I guess for me right now things seem a little turbulent due to our upcoming child. Not knowing what is going to happen, worrying about the financial aspect of providing for a baby on such a tight budget, not exactly sure where or how God is going to provide. This passage provide me a little comfort, being able to connect with what the psalmist wrote several thousand years ago.

16 This is what the Lord says:

Stand by the roadways and look. Ask about the ancient paths: Which is the way to what is good? Then take it and find rest for yourselves. 

But they protested, “We won’t!”

17 I appointed watchmen over you and said: Listen for the sound of the ram’s horn. 

But they protested, “We won’t listen!”

18 Therefore listen, you nations and you witnesses, learn what the charge is against them.

19 Listen, earth! I am about to bring disaster on these people, the fruit of their own plotting, for they have paid no attention to My word. They have rejected My instruction.

- Jeremiah 6:16-19 HCSB

When studying for today’s Bible study, I came across this passage and had to read it several times. While this specific prophesy was written to a specific people at a specific time, I couldn’t help but wonder if it applied to me as well. I mean, not directly, that would violate proper hermeneutics, but perhaps the big idea that God has nothing but absolute contempt for the proud and willful who claim to know what is best for themselves, despite claiming allegiance to God.

Clearly this can only properly be applied to people who have been come into direct contact with God, that would be us believers. It should not be directly applied to the lost, those who have never encountered God, though it clearly has implications for those who have heard the gospel, yet refused to listen or respond. But, what really shakes me is that if I am not careful, I could be setting myself up in direct confrontation with God by simply choosing not to listen. This just seems like a really bad idea.

God, please help me to hear your truth and be obedient to you and your direction. Show me how to humbly obey you and follow the ancient path to what is good instead of the path that seems right to me. Allow me to show love to all, and be a right example of your grace and mercy thought the power of Jesus Christ. I pray this in your all-powerful name. Amen.

(Source: biblia.com)

I am not sure if you have noticed or not, but recently I have made a sincere attempt to begin posting more stuff here at tumblr. I kinda dislike the idea of using a blog post to talk about posting to a blog, but I am pretty excited about this and want to share with you what I am calling my Social Media Campaign. Why am I campaigning? Well, actually that is what excites me.

God has been doing some really neat things through my work with Christian Challenge at Mesa Community College and through the worship activities I have been a part of. Some of these things are big and some of them not too big. I currently make an attempt to send out a monthly prayer letter to my supporters. This letter contains a summary of all the big things that I am doing throughout the month. While it offers a really good overview of what is going, I really want to give people an opportunity to join with me on a more regular basis. So, I have decided to use Social Media (specifically tumblr for now) as a way to share what is going on in the ministry every week. 

Essentially this boils down to a post a day on 7 different topics areas: 

1. Ecclesia Sundays: thoughts about church and it’s importance.
2. Big Dreams Monday: posts like this one which talk about dreams, goals and future plans
3. Evangelism Tuesdays: a recap of the previous week’s evangelism encounters and prayer requests for the following days EV efforts
4. Bible Study Wednesdays: a short thought from the passage for our weekly Wednesday bible study
5. Worship Thoughts Thursday: a video, song or idea as Thursday I lead worship at ASU Challenge
6. Personal Thoughts Fridays: just personal thoughts of a more spiritual nature
7. Odds ‘N Ends Saturdays: answering questions, responding, or other random posts.

I am not sure if I will continue posting everyday, but I do think the posts on these days will be in these general categories. My hope is that I will be able to engage people in the work that God is doing and that people will choose to join in the adventure with me. 

If you were following me yesterday on twitter (@jeffmashaw) you might have seen these posts:

Tucson can make me feel very schizophrenic sometimes. ;)

Here are the linked photos:

This is just so pretty to me, and one of the things I miss the most about Tucson is Mt. Lemon covered in clouds and snow.

And then there’s this:

I hate Tucson traffic and its lack of a reasonable freeway system that connects the east side to I-10.

But then I look and see a sunset and fall in love all over again:

Argh, Tucson!!! Anyway, it was a really nice time in Tucson. My dad and I are building a cajon. I will be writing more about that later this week, but I had a really great time getting together with my parents. I feel like a little time going back where I was raised can really rejuvenate me. It is tiring, but especially after the 4 hours of driving round trip I feel closer to God. I am really thankful and blessed to have such an awesome family, and such a powerful God who displays his glory in the heavens for all to see.

Just like Romans 1:20 says:

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Today is Sunday. What are you doing today? If you are like most college students, then probably recovering from your hang-over, doing laundry and finally sitting down to homework. However, if you call yourself a follower of Jesus, I would strongly encourage you to consider going to church today. If you don’t have a church you go to, then I would strongly implore you to connect yourself to a local body. 

Scripture tells us that the Church is the body of Jesus Christ, and that it’s members are the all the saints and believers through-out the world, through-out the generations. The Universal Church is one body spanning the centuries and the globe. However, this universal body is made up of local manifestations, or churches. It is in this local group of believers that we get to live out the commandments of Jesus. In fact, if you carefully read the New Testament, you will see that almost all of the letters and the directives in those letters were not to individuals, but to churches. So when Paul is writing that “your body is the temple of the living God,” that is directed to an entire church body. While there may be some truth in the personal application of that, it is the body as a whole which is the true temple of the living God. God’s present in each of us as individuals, but He truly manifests Himself in the corporate gathering of the saints.

So I tell you that if you are not connected to a local body of Christ, serving and growing together with other believers, you are not only missing out on the promises and joys of the gathering, your are stunting your own spiritual growth and connection to God.

(Source: plus.google.com)

I feel like sharing a little bit about what it is that I do with my life, as many of you may not know. I am a missionary. Everyone who answers the call to follow Jesus Christ is to be a missionary to the people who are around them. Well I am a missionary on the college campus. I get the opportunity to serve God by hanging out with college students and sharing Jesus Christ with them. I feel as though I am not very good at it yet, though I know it is what I am supposed to be doing because God called me to do it. I have a desire to help college students see the light of day.

As I chat with young people on the college campuses, I get a real sense of true lostness. In the Christian world, we speak of Lostness as a code-word for not-saved people, or sinners, but when you talk to students you actually can feel how truly lost they are. As I just posted, dictionary.com defines “lost” as:

having gone astray or missed the way; bewildered as to place, direction, etc.

I really can see this bewilderment in most of the young people that I talk to. They seem confused and simply have no idea how to find what they are looking for. This is what encourages me in my work. I am not lost. I have been found. I have direction, purpose and a location, and I get to share this with students. It is my hope that as I continue in my work, I will see some lost students be found. It is my hope that God will use me to help find some of these people. That is a little bit about what I do.

Here’s the thing that I have realized about confession : it takes time to do it properly. God showed me today that just because I say “I’m sorry,” after I screw up I’m not necessarily out of the water. God’s standard is higher than that. Because at the heart of all my sins I am damaging my relationship with Him, I must spend the time necessary to rebuild.

Lately I have felt like I’ve hit a brick wall when it comes to trying to accomplish all the things that I know I need to be doing. So tonight I prayed a prayer of frustration and asked God what the problem was. He told me it was sin. So I said, “Holy Spirit, tell me what my sin is.” And, He did. He revealed to me a few things which I had been holding on to and so I confessed them. I felt an immediate difference and then divine reassurance that I was right where I needed to be. God promised success in the area of my struggle and even blessing.

I am thankful that Christ is still showing up and, like the woman at the well, telling us all the things that we have done wrong. It may seem counterintuitive to those who have never experienced it, but in that wonderfully paradoxical way that God works, it is the most freeing and wonderful place to be.

Every time I read the story of David’s reign as king over the whole nation of Israel found in 2nd Samuel I am amazed at the way that God uses people. In 2 Samuel, Chapter 7, David has been promised to be the father of the one whose throne will last forever, or Christ. Then he goes and has all these remarkable conquests, but in Chapter 11 he commits this egregious sin which haunts him the rest of his reign, essentially. But there is something there in David’s heart which makes God choose to spare Him. In 2 Samuel, 12:13, it says:

So David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’

And Nathan said to David, ‘The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.’

The punishment here should have been death, but instead God chooses to forgive David. This is what I wonder about, “Why?” Why would God spare a man so deserving of death? And why would he do the same for me, who is so much further from holiness than David was. Why, would God send his son for me?

I don’t know if I have a very good answer, but I have decided to serve this God who has chosen to save me from the death I deserve.

(Source: bible.logos.com)

I would first of all like to say thank you to all of you who have been regularly supporting us these past few months. It has been a real blessing to see your faithfulness to God and God’s love for us through you. I also appreciate your prayers and I know that without them, the work I am doing would not be as successful as it has been. I just love being able to spend time on the campus with the students and I cannot wait until I have fully raised all my support so I may begin spending all my time there.  

      This picture is of the clock tower at MCC, under which we set up our table. It is so clear to me that God is working, because students will come right up to our table and engage us in spiritual conversations. This one student, named “Mark” has been coming by for several weeks now and is clearly being slowly changed by God’s power. It seems that he has yet to put his faith in Jesus alone as his Lord and Savior, but by talking to him, we can tell that he is moving in that direction. He has been on a long spiritual journey and it’s so awesome to see it happen!

       Another student came by and he shared with me his story of true demonic oppression. He shared how he had come to Christ, yet the attacks did not stop. It was not until God led him to get rid of a variety of occultic books that he finally experienced freedom. It is awesome to see God work, and I ask you to pray that we will continue to see God save these students from lives of sin and darkness!

Will You Pray with Us?

Requests:

• Please continue to pray that God will move in the lives of students, and that I may continue to have opportunities to share the gospel.
• For God to help me reach out to others to grow my support team.

Answers:

• God has shown me his increasing faithfulness as our support team keeps growing! We are so very thankful!
• I have had several opportunities to share my faith this month and I pray for many more.

Upcoming Events

Table Ministry @ MCC

• Every Wednesday from 10am until 2pm.
• Please pray for good conversations!

Worship @ ASU Tempe

• Every Thursday Night at 7:30pm. 

Click here for a pdf of this newsletter

    The Christian Challenge Phoenix Metro Winter Retreat 2011 was a huge hit! We had 80 people come hang out with us up in Pinetop, AZ for the last weekend in January and everyone had a really amazing time. God showed up and moved in the lives of students, and I got to be a part of leading students to worship. It was a really awesome experience and I know God used it to make a difference in student’s lives.

Will You Pray with Us?

Requests:

1. For God to open doors at Mesa Community College so that we can begin a ministry there this Spring.
2. For God to grow my faith and for me to have no fear as I go about raising my support and meeting with potential ministry partners.

Answers:

1. Everyone made it up and down the mountain safely for the winter retreat!
2. God has been continuing to bless us with support in spite of my inability to focus on raising up supporters

Upcoming Events:
All Area Spring Worship 

  February 24th 7:30pm

ASU Tempe Christian Challenge Building

Thank You!

Your prayers and support make a huge difference to me. I know that without you I would not be able to continue doing the ministry God has called me to, so thank you!