It is well with my soul ... :)

listen to this:



"... it in the quiet crucibles of your personable private sufferings that your noblest dreams are born and God's greatest gifts are given in compensation of what you have been through. "

- Wintley Phips

Loving People to Christ

more from: The Jesus I Never Knew

"According to this parable, Jesus knew that the world he left behind would included the poor, the hungry, the prisoners, the sick. The decrepit state of the world did not surprise him. He made plans to cope with it: a long-range plan and a short-range plan. The long-range plan involves his return, in power and great glory, to straighten out planet earth. The short-range plan means turning it to the ones who will ultimately usher in the liberation of the cosmos. He ascended so that we would take his place." p. 233

The parable this passage is talking about is taken from Matthew 25, the last parable before Jesus's ascension. What I love so much about this passage is how he speaks about we as Christians, His name bearers have a part in completing his work after his ascension. I was at a really great wedding on this past Saturday and the officiating pastor said something that touched a place really deep in my walk with Jesus. He said we are first and foremost called to be a Christians and His image-bearers in our life that need continuous refinement and work before He will use us to do great things for Him. As I kept searching my heart, I was asking myself, what needed refinement and work and what hindered me from bearing His name in a way that is pleasing to Him? All the questions stemmed back from my desire to bring people to know Christ. But how has been the question that is always so humbling to me because from experience it requires such a patient process of self-denial. I have been convicted to realize it is by learning how to love the people first and love them more than the idea of telling them the gospel that lives can be changed. The story of Zachias is one of my favorite portrayals of how Jesus extended love to bring sinners to Himself. He noticed Zachias on a tree and knowing about his unlikeable acts of inflicting pain in people by profitting illegal money off of them, Jesus called him down from the tree and made Himself available to show him he was accepted by Him despite his perpetuating acts of injustice and sins. I see such great importance in showing Christ's love to the lost as to show Himself and to love people to Christ. The Great Commission in the end of the book of Matthew that we are to make disciple from all nations. By working through us to love the lost to Him is one of the remarkable reasons according to Jesus I Never Knew is why He ascended to heaven.

Bethany Dillon

Bethany Dillon

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What I Miss ...

The past 5 weeks of being away in Sherbrooke has been really surreal; experiencing things in a way that's never experienced before, it was breath taking. Being obliged to speak in French all day, haha.. good times and interesting at the same time! ahaha... In a way still feel like I wanna keep breathing everything in. I really miss the mountains and hills of the small city (& describing the scenery en français in my final project), being able to walk to downtown from the mid-town campus in less than an hour and kinda visualize familiar GO-TO places because sherbrooke is just tiny enough. Everything from groceries to drugstore to bars :P to movies (I lied, one of them ;) ) is so accessible by foot compared to our GTA and being able to see the sunset every night because of where the campus is located. and not to mention, the people I've had the chance to meet and spend 5 weeks day in and day out with, just makes me nostalgic again just by talking about it..haha. feel like I wanna recapture and relive some of the moments! how ideal! hahaha.. I definitely miss it!!!

But coming back home, as I've started processing about my experience there and about people I've been honoured to meet and befriend, God had been revealing something new to me. Something that's worth losing words for! He knows that I've discovered a deeper kind of love for Him and this world that has yet to know His redeeming love. There's this unceasing holy discontent in me called forth to reach out to the lost, the ones who seem to be living in complete luxury but are far from being filled in the soul. Yes, a burning passion to love them, to reach out! Being in the midst of crazy lifestyles, there definitely were times that He totally came through for me so that I could be sane. It's really not a hard thing to lose focus during the course of a lifetime without His protection. When you choose Christ over any other side s according to what this world values and deems reasonable it's even harder. Cuz the devil is also at work against those are for His pleasure and His kingdom.

My yearning from this trip (besides of course To Keep Up the French, hopefully! haha :) ), is to keep falling in love with this great God and be humbly led to please Him!

This new song from Bethany Dillon's new album (Everyone to know)
triggered me to want to share this post with you all!

can be found on itunes/ http://www.bethanydillon.com/

Recent reflection from a recent journey

Behold, I have engraved your name on the palms of my hands.

Isaiah 49:16

From "Tested by Fire" - John Piper

"Suffering in the path of Christian obedience, with joy - because the steadfast love of the Lord is better than life (Psalm 63:3) - is the clearest display of the worth of God in our lives. Therefore, faith-filled suffering is essential in this world for the most intense, authentic worship. When we are most satisfied with God in suffering, he will be most glorified in us in worship. Our problem is not styles of music. Our problem is styles of life. When we embrace more affliction for the worth of Christ, there will be more fruit in the worship of Christ."

From "The Jesus I Never Knew" - Philip Yancey


What amazes me about this book is not it's deep theological abstractions, even though its merits are rightfully in place, but it's the personal relationship I am able to observe between him and God as he writes through continuously discovering things about Jesus he didn't know before; characterized by doubts and frustrations expressed through event's of his own life or of others. Reading this book, (having one more chapter to go only), makes me think about my life and question myself if I courageously grip onto my existing relationship with God, facing Him upfront, dialogging with Him and re-discovering who He is, even in my greatest hardships in life, like Yancey himself, Job and Tolsoy, Luther, Lewis... or do I just spiritually shrink back in my own, narrow little mind --> self-pity? Here we see Jesus making his relationship with His Father Centre from life to the point of death, even as 'His time has come.'

Humility
It makes my heart ache and frustrates me when thinking about humility because of my recent realization of its true superiority that's so hard to live out, but senses that comes from my deep desire to know it intimately and to learn to live it out transparently. Much of this conviction and realization comes from understanding Jesus in this book. Much of what defines Jesus is true humility who lived it out perfectly --> His boldness and determined acts of install his kingdom in flipping upside down the jewish religious system of the Sanhedrins and his vulnerability on the cross (not saving Himself from being crucified) that created a place of forgiveness and that had given a clearer view on what His kingdom is truly like. Ironically, it was the one of the 2 murderers crucified with Him that saw clearly of what it was like and what the whole Jesus coming down to earth was all about, therefore, were one of the very few that responded the most properly to Jesus's purpose on earth.

ch 10
pg 203

" Thieves crucified on either side of Jesus showed two possibles responses. One mocked Jesus's powerlessness: A Messiah who can't even save himself? The other recognized a different kind of power. Taking the risk of faith,he asked Jesus to"remember me when you come into your kingdom.: No one else, except in mockery, had addressed Jesus as a king. The dying thief saw more clearly than anyone else the nature of Jesus's kingdom."

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Rivals with Hollywood

There's a new nationwide Christian movie that came out, called: The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry and during an interview with one of the actors Kirk Cameron (who's also starring in Hollywood Film Fireproof, who came to know Christ himself was asked if all the Hollywood's critiques against the Chrisitian Genre Films bother Him. "It used to bother me a lot more than it does now," he said. "I really don't care because I've come to a conviction in my own heart." [ABC News] What was astounding to me was hearing him also say in his interview that this conviction has led him to realize and believe that there's only a few people that he wants to please.

{more on the movie coming soon...}
That was powerful.
From all this, I see that true Humility is driven by a conviction from God and it drives us to place of willingness to work with what God is doing in people's lives. Not lagging behind, not jumping ahead, but humbly walking beside His Majesty and completely tuning in to what He is doing.
"I think that that's the most wonderful thing about doing the things that I like to do," he said. "Be a part of something God is doing to change the lives of other people." [Hollywood Actor - Kirk Cameron]