Spring '10 update

by Val

We are in full swing here at SDSU, aka State. We are studying Hebrews in our our Nav Nights, our large group Bible study on Thursday nights on campus. It's been challenging to delve into a book with such rich and complex meanings. However, I've been so encouraged by the depth of the discussions and applications the students have come up with.

Men's and women's studies have started up again. Monday nights the men get together on campus and have been learning about biblical manhood. Coincidentally enough, my friend Jenelle, a recent grad from State, is leading a study for the female students on biblical feminity. She also had the great idea of having both genders get together next Monday night to disucuss what each gender group has been learning. We offered up our house for that night since we now have more sitting space, thanks to the new couches Lee and Deb Maschhoff donated to us, so I am so excited to hear what the students have been learning.

On Tuesdays God has allowed me to coordinate two women's bible studies and we just finished 2nd Timothy today. As Navigators we put such a high calling on discipleship relationships, so for me it was so beautiful to listen in on Paul as he gave his encouragement to Timothy, a man that Paul was training in a discipleship relationship. My prayer is that all these women in our ministry would experience discipleship in some sense while in college. Both as the person being discipled and as the one doing the discipling.

Speaking of disciplship, God has given me two wonderful ladies this semester that have commited to being in a dicipleship relationship with me, and I give thanks for them to God everyday. I love these women and I hope God can use me in their lives to use the Word for "teaching, rebuking, correcting and training [them] in righteousness so that [these woman] of God may thoroughly equipped for every good work."

The Marvelous Grace of God: Brokeness for His people

[Hosea 2:6,7 "Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths. She will pursue lovers, but not overtake them; and she will seek them, but will not find them. Then she will say, 'I will go back to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now!'"

Lately I have been reading and studying the book of Hosea, and I have been struck by how much of the gospel is presented in this book! I have only gotten through part of the second chapter, yet I have seen the whole of the Gospel shown and exposed in this wonderfully rich and deep book! As you may know, Hosea was a man commanded by God to marry a women who would be a harlot, and who would have children of harlotry. This marriage relationship was to be a visual representation of God and His people; God being the husband, and His people playing the harlot.

In the second chapter, God talks about how He will expose the nakedness of His adulterous wife (Israel), take away all her lovers and idols, and cause her to be thirsty and hungry. Basically, He was going to strip away everything that Israel would run to other than the Lord and would  prevent Israel from going to these other lovers "...I will hedge up her way with thorns...so that she cannot find her paths..." God desired that His people find their satisfaction in Him alone, and to rejoice in His marvelous, perfect provision. He wanted there to be a marriage relationship with His people of mutual delight, but instead His people played the harlot with other nations and strange gods and idols.

Therefore, God took all of that away from His people in order to draw them back to Himself, and to show them that He is all they need or could ever possibly want. And this is what God is faithful to do for us! He desires that He is our Great Desire, and for us to delight ourselves in Him. He is faithful and good to strip away all of those other lovers we seek after who do not love us back, those strange gods whom we willfully and blindly obey who do not communicate to us nor do they provide for us! These things are different to different people, but what is the same is that Christ is the true Bridegroom, who has purchased us with His blood, and who perfectly loves us, provides for us, protects us, and delights in us!

Let us allow Christ to be the One we turn to for our Delight and the satisfaction of our Desires; and let us run to our Husband (Christ) and allow His to strip away all of our false lovers and strange gods who only use us and have mastery without love over us! Praise be to God that now, in Christ, we can call "...Me Ishi [Husband] and will no longer call Me Baali [Master]." (Hosea 2:16)!

Written by: Ryan Buss

The Marvelous Grace of God: Lean Times for His People

Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 16 "You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man live by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord."

 Vs. 16 "In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end."

These are verses that I have been meditating and thinking about for the last couple of months. The Lord directed me to this passage last November when Valerie and I were in the midst of some very tough circumstances in terms of our funding, finances, and the ministry. He wanted to answer my questions about why He was allowing us to be in such need. He wanted to show me what He was doing in the midst of our lives! To me it seemed that I was in a wilderness place, and that all I strove to do somehow failed or never bore any fruit. It was indeed a very humbling season for me, but one that I am, even now, beginning to look back on and see the fruit that is being born out in my life and walk with Jesus. Here are some thoughts about this passage which stood out to me as I have been meditating on it:

"You shall remember..." The Lord greatly desires His people to remember. Everything. Especially how He led, how He provided, how He protected, and how He took a people who were not a people, and made them His people! To remember how the Lord has acted in our lives is to give God the glory for the past and to renew our hope for the future!

"...all the way which the Lord has led you these forty years in the wilderness..." The Lord is the one who led into the wilderness, and who led while in the wilderness. He is the one who took me into a very dry and humbling time, but He is also the one who kept me there and taught me during that time. I can look back during that time and see how the Lord led me, even in the wilderness!

"...that He might humble you, testing you..."The Lord has a plan for why He brings us into places of difficulty and hardship; even if that plan is to humble and test us. But this is also the grace of God because the scriptures say "God opposes the proud, but give grace to the humble." (1 Peter 5:5). He also says this is Isaiah 66:2 "For My hands made all these things, thus all these things came into being. But to this one I will look, to him who is humble, contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My Word."  The Lord looks to the humble and hears their cries, and give them grace. We are such a naturally prideful people, that it is actually a gracious thing to have the Lord humble us, and to help us have a sweeter and more dependent relationship with Him.

"...He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know..." Sometimes the Lord lets us be hungry, that we might be fed by Him. In order to see the miraculous ways of His provision, He will cause us to be needy. What an awesome thing to be fed by the Lord and to have Him meet our needs, for He is perfect, and will perfectly meet all our needs! Nothing satisfies like the Lord does.

"...to do good for you in the end." Moses reminds the people that God led them into the wilderness,  caused them to be hungry, fed them, humbled them, and tested them so that He might do good for them in the end! All of God's works in our lives, both good and bad, helpful and seemingly harmful, are all designed by a good God to do good for us in the end! We may not understand why the Lord does something or allows something to happen to us, but we can, and should, trust that it is good. If the Lords harms it is because we are in need of pruning and refining, if the Lord blesses it is so that He may be glorified by the lips of stubborn and unrepentant people and exalted above all else!

Obviously there is so much more that can be said about these 3 verses, but that is all I will write for now. The reason why I wrote that it is the marvelous grace of God is because it is often in the lean times that we can clearly see His grace toward His people. The more that I see His grace in my life, the more I fall to my knees in adoration and praise of this most marvelous, awesome God, who would give me, a depraved sinner, the gift of faith in Christ! May I become less, and He become greater!

Visual

I had know idea what a visual person I was until my camera decided to break. Since then, as you've noticed I have had no will whatsoever to blog. For some reason when I read my blog and it has no pictures it bores me to tears. I mean, I read other peoples blogs that don't have pictures and I'm fine with it. However, pictures really inspire me to write. In fact, I frequently put pictures in my QT journal, my Bible study notes and my whole prayer log is filled with pictures of people I pray for. Weird I know, but it is how it is. So...much to my surprise and relief my wonderful brothers decided to give me a new camera for Christmas. Secretly I think it's a way to for Gabe to ensure he will have pictures for his newsletters :). So long story short, I hope to keep you updated more frequently with the work God is doing over here at State (aka SDSU).
PS. I didn't take this picture. Found it on-line but I found it pretty inspiring.