Keeping on Track

When you want to go hiking in the wilderness and don’t want to get lost, you take a map and a compass. This helps you keep going in the right direction. Without a map and a compass, it’s easy to get lost. The map gives you the big picture and a compass will tell you what direction you are heading.

In this life we live, it’s easy to get off track. We are in a wilderness (the world) that unless we have the map and the compass, we will easily get off the correct path. The map is God’s Word (the Bible) and the compass is Christ.

As a map gives you the big picture, God’s Word gives you what you’ll need to live a fulfilled live in Christ. Just as a compass helps you keep track of your direction because it always points North, Christ is our point to determine our direction in our lives. Just as north never changes (it’s fixed), Christ never changes. He is the “Great I Am.”

Without staying in God’s Word, and keeping out eyes on Christ, this world will make it easy to get off track. Christ-followers who aren’t using the map and stop looking at the compass find themselves off the correct path. They have no clue that they are lost in the woods until they look at the map and see the compass and discover that aren’t even close. They use the map and the compass to find the right direction. This is great when they are back on the correct path but they loss time in their journey.

We should always make time to look at the map and keep our eyes on the compass to keep us going the right direction. God has given us His Word for instruction. Christ has given us Himself so we will always know the right direction to go. Don’t let the beauty of this world distract you from the true beauty of God.

Make time to read God’s Word and always keep your eyes on Christ. You will never go the wrong way as long as you have the map and the compass.

The Need

God is working on us to move to Montana to share the good news of Christ. We are looking to move in the spring of 2008. We are moving to Bozeman, MT that is part of the Treasure State Baptist Association of the Montana Southern Baptist Convention. The need is great for churches that preach Christ only to heaven. In a world that is increasingly spiritual but lost in their sins, the true way to heaven must be shared. Here are some statistics for the ministry area the Treasure State Baptist Association is working:

Over 240,000 people live in eleven counties covering nearly 40,000 square miles in the Association. There are only 28 churches/missions that have reached less than 1% of our population with the gospel.

The need is great in Montana as is the need great throughout the world. The methods of reaching people with the gospel change but not the message. Jesus is the only way to heaven and eternal life. Think about what you can be doing to reach your family, friends, co-workers, and your community with the gospel.

“Then He [Jesus] said to His disciples, ‘“The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”’
Matthew 9: 37 – 38 (NASV)

Seeing Through God’s Eyes

Just before Teresa and I went to Bozeman, MT, I started asking God to allow me to see through His eyes; to see the needs of the people in this city. God allowed me to see through His eyes toward the end of our week of activities and praying. There is a 9 mile section of Bozeman that will have 1500 houses built in the next couple of years. We drove through this stretch of road coming back from whitewater rafting. God showed me the areas that could be connection points (what I call possible places to meet people and introduce them to Christ). Seeing people through the eyes of our Savior will give you the right perspective.

We walk through our day most of the time just doing what we need to do. We seldom look at the people around us. We have Living Water and are surrounded by people who need this Water. They are dieing without it. We need to start seeing people like God see them. People who are in need of true life and not the counterfeit one they have now.

Ask God to allow you to see your family members, co-workers, friends, and neighbors through His eyes. You will see people for who they really are. You start seeing the happy go lucky co-worker who “plays the field” as who he/she really is, a lonely person looking for true love. You start seeing the rude neighbor who no one likes, as a person who just wants someone to talk with them and listen to them. Jesus saw through the facade, and if we ask He will give us the ability to do so as well.

We need to get over ourselves and get out of the comfort zone and start looking at the real world. We live in a world full of people looking for something to fill the void in their hearts (i.e. traditions, spiritualism, church, sex, drugs, etc.) instead of Who truly can fulfill them; Jesus Christ. It’s about a relationship with Christ and not attending church.

If we had a canteen of water and found a person dieing of thrust and didn’t share our water with them and they die, we will be guilty of murder. Well, we are surrounded by people dieing and are in need of the true Living Water. We have the Living Water living in us. If we don’t share Him with our family members, co-workers, friends, and neighbors, wouldn’t we be guilty of far worse than murder? People are dieing in their sin in this world, and we are called to go and share with them the Living Water. Ask God to allow you to see through His eyes, so you can share the Living Water with them.

Thanks for reading and until next time grow where you are planted.