This morning's teaching from "My Utmost..."

I was totally blessed by the reading this morning from a writing of Oswald Chambers, pointing out our need to be aware and focused on the reality of Christ, not just the motions that we form in making our walk with Him more tradition than truth. How exciting is a life that sees God's hand at every turn, a life that is always waiting to see Jesus at each and every turn, in each and every situation. I hope you are blessed by this reading if you haven't been already :-)

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"A Christian worker’s greatest need is a readiness to face Jesus Christ at any and every turn. This is not easy, no matter what our experience has been. This battle is not against sin, difficulties, or circumstances, but against being so absorbed in our service to Jesus Christ that we are not ready to face Jesus Himself at every turn. The greatest need is not facing our beliefs or doctrines, or even facing the question of whether or not we are of any use to Him, but the need is to face Him.

Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical situations. The only way a servant can remain true to God is to be ready for the Lord’s surprise visits. This readiness will not be brought about by service, but through intense spiritual reality, expecting Jesus Christ at every turn. This sense of expectation will give our life the attitude of childlike wonder He wants it to have. If we are going to be ready for Jesus Christ, we have to stop being religious. In other words, we must stop using religion as if it were some kind of a lofty lifestyle-we must be spiritually real.

If you are avoiding the call of the religious thinking of today’s world, and instead are "looking unto Jesus" ( Hebrews 12:2 ), setting your heart on what He wants, and thinking His thoughts, you will be considered impractical and a daydreamer. But when He suddenly appears in the work of the heat of the day, you will be the only one who is ready. You should trust no one, and even ignore the finest saint on earth if he blocks your sight of Jesus Christ."

Long past due update

I rarely get on the internet lately due to the fact that I've been living in a studio behind Ricky and Michel Andrade's house in La Mesa, California, to whom I am extremely grateful for their love and hospitality in letting me stay here for as long as I have (I owe them bigtime!). It's been over 2 months now since I packed everything in my little Accord and drove down here from Seattle, it seems like I've been here forever now....weird. It's been good, although pretty difficult at times, to kind of start fresh with something, especially since when I first got down here the only person I knew was my girlfriend. God's good and faithful (not that He never is) and has been growing me in many ways I didn't know I needed to grow in, or in ways I hadn't planned on needing to :-) It's funny how we think we put ourselves in situations only to find that God had much greater reasons than any we could have mustered up.

Well, I just got approved to rent a small yet very nice studio in La Mesa and am set to move in on Thursday, April 1st. Getting a place to live is alot more difficult than I thought and it was definitely a test of faith and patience in knowing God would work out everything I needed, and I'm very thankful for all that He's done.

I'm still praying and seeing what God has for me in England, whether or not I will go this summer is still to be determined, but even so, it's been a blessing to be able to keep in such good touch with Ben V since he moved back to the states from Siegen, Germany, I'm praying that things would continue to move along and that Ben would continue to be encouraged by all the  people who are expressing interest and asking about the church, there is still much to be worked out for everyone who is planning on going but we are comforted by the fact that God is in such awesome control over the whole thing, after all, it's all His anyway!

Hopefully I'll be able to get on the internet more often and keep things updated on here :-) Thanks everyone for your prayers and I hope to start getting in contact with more of you who I haven't heard from in awhile.

Hosea 6:2, 3: "After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth."