Facing the Sun

This morning was an incredibly foggy morning in our town. My family and I woke up earlier than usual because it was going to be a busy day and our oldest needed some pj's to wear to school for pj day. So, she and I loaded up a little before 7:00 and headed to the store. We could barely see anything!

It was extremely thick, and when we crossed the dam on our way home visibility may have been 15 yards. My daughter, who is 6, was fascinated and curious. We talked a lot about how neat the fog was but how there was a serious downside to it: you can't see through it.

As we headed to her school, the fog wasn't relenting but the sun was starting to rise. It was beautiful through the fog to watch it elevate into the sky. Then, something amazing happened to us. After reaching an intersection in our neighborhood, we turned right and headed towards the sunrise. The moment we turned and headed directly toward the sunset, the fog was lifted in front of us. It wasn't gradual, it was instantaneous. After reaching another intersection, I looked to my left and to my right and saw fog again. The visibility was a little better but the fog was definitely still there.

The more this scene played through my mind today the more I realized this is a picture of what it looks like for us to fix our eyes on Jesus. When we're walking around in a state of independence, it's like driving through the dense fog and not really knowing what is all around you. You're just trying to make it through safely.

But when you have turned toward Jesus and set your focus on Him, walking in a state of dependence on Him, you can experience His rest as He guides you down the road of life and you enjoy all that He shows you.

The moment my eyes shifted direction off of where the sun was, there was fog. The moment we turned to go in a different direction, away from the sun, we experienced what it was like to be in the fog. The only break we experienced from the confusion, blindness, and hazard that the fog brought with it was when we were headed towards to sun: fixed on it.

Support/Update Letter

Dear Friends and Family,

It has been a wonderful year for LIFe Ministries and for us as a family. God has continued to grow LIFe Ministries and unite our family as we journey along this adventure of faith, learning dependence on Christ along the way. Our goal for LIFe Ministries is to proclaim the beautiful news that true fullness in life is found only in Jesus, and that our relationship with Him brings freedom, peace, joy, and love.

We are particularly thrilled about God's expansion of LIFe Ministries among college students. This past fall, Matt spoke and wrote the curriculum for a college retreat held in Southeast Texas. Recently, we received this message from Curtis, a college student who attended this event:

“God has really been working on me all semester with what your talk was about during the retreat about our identity and comfort in Christ alone. It seems to be a theme for me...thanks for allowing God to use you in my life, you certainly started and introduced a lesson to me that God has continually been teaching me about ever since.”

In addition to weekend retreats, we are also engaging numerous students and adults in weekly discipleship. This has been the most vibrant and encouraging area for LIFe Ministries because we get to see Christ revealing Himself to others and transforming their lives on a regular basis.

Currently, we are in the process of re-designing our website and much of our promotional material in order to reflect our expansion among college students (C-LIFe) and parenting (P-LIFe). We hope these new resources will be valuable for churches in 2010.

God has increased our supporter base this year and strengthened our partnerships with churches. LIFe Ministries will continue to be a grace-based ministry, operating financially as God provides through individuals, like-minded organizations, and churches. Raising support for this ministry and our salaries has been a humbling and incredible experience for us. Whether you have given financially or supported LIFe through prayer, we thank you and we thank God for how He has moved you to partner with us. Your partnership with us is absolutely critical.

2010 will be the fourth year of LIFe Ministries, and it continues to function like a local missions organization. We serve, minister, and share the gospel of Life in Christ, while God uses supporters who share our heart for this ministry to provide the largest part of our financial provision. While we do not have enough regular financial supporters to cover the budget, God continues to bring in support when it is needed. Most often, God's provision for our needs comes from one of you and for that we are deeply grateful. We know that in the current economic climate, it is a significant act of trust to partner with us financially.

Please continue praying for us and LIFe Ministries. This is critical work in a culture longing to find significance, purpose, and meaning in life. Also, please pray about becoming a monthly, quarterly, or annual financial supporter of LIFe Ministries if you are not already. If you know of anyone who may be interested in hearing more about this ministry, please contact us. If you wish to contribute financially to LIFe Ministries for 2009, you will need to postmark your check by December 31, 2009, for tax purposes.

It is an honor to partner with you in this ministry. We are praying for you and praying for transformation in our world. Thank you for being a partner in LIFe.

Grace and Peace,


Matt and Dani
LIFe Ministries
www.liveinfreedom.org
254.913.5012

Mindy - A Story of Life-Change from Weekly Discipleship:

“I've been a Christian for 27 years.  My faith has always been very strong, and my beliefs have always tended toward legalism.  That's how I was raised, and it sort of worked well with my Type A personality.  When you're legalistic and you "achieve", you can feel good about yourself...momentarily.  But all the moments in between were miserable.  I have loved God... truly, truly loved Him, for as long as I can remember. I have been desperate to please Him and to please people.  I've been desperate to be accepted by Him and by people.  I have worked and served and given and done and tried until I was exhausted, frustrated, and discouraged.  Because I wasn't ever quite good enough to accept myself...so surely God couldn't be pleased with me and what could others possibly find in me that was worthy?  After all those years, I did not understand my identity in Christ.  I mean, I could teach about our identity in Christ to a group of girls or a Sunday school class...I'm pretty sure I actually have, but I didn't get it and I didn't even realize that I didn't get it!  I was 32 with both feet firmly planted on the Performance Treadmill, running full speed ahead and getting nowhere.  And I was convinced that's what Christianity was.  The "Freedom" and "Grace" messages I had been exposed to came from people that looked nothing like Jesus to me, so I instantly dismissed them as false doctrine to the point I think I was even a little put off by the terms themselves!  If Freedom and Grace meant giving yourself permission to live a self-centered and sinful lifestyle, I wasn't interested. 

It was last year after a three-hour conversation over coffee with Dani that I first heard about "Be Transformed."  I was burnt-out, tired, frustrated, and Dani shared with me that she and Matt were going to be taking a group through this awesome Bible study that changed their lives.  My husband and I ended up going through the study, and God used that time, that study, Matt and Dani, to answer so many of the questions I had been asking for so many years.  For the first time in my life, I understand who I am.  I get it!  And for the first time, I heard someone speak of grace and freedom without just stopping there and saying...now we can do whatever we want and it doesn't matter.  They added the missing piece of the puzzle...because of grace and freedom, Christ is able to live His life through us as we REST and trust in His adequacy to do so.  I have been through more Bible studies than I can count and have even led more than I can count, but I have never been transformed by one like this before.  I am changed, and am so grateful that God heard my questions and purposed Matt and Dani into my family's life in order to answer them.  Wow...what an amazing God.”

Upcoming Events:

-January 8-10 Winter Retreat at Camp Tejas for Grace Bible Church in Killeen, TX
-January 15-17 DiscipleNow at First United Methodist Church in Temple, TX
-February 12-14 Winter Retreat at Faith Bible Church in Boerne, TX
-February 20-21 DiscipleNow at Trinity Baptist Church in Harker Heights, TX
-March 26-28 DiscipleNow at First Baptist Church in Laredo, TX

If you feel led to support Living In Freedom Ministries, please visit www.liveinfreedom.org and click on "Our Support." Or just click here.

Living In Freedom Ministries is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

This Is Who I Am by Shane & Shane

This past Tuesday, Shane & Shane released their latest album - Everything Is Different. It's incredible! Probably my favorite track is called "This Is Who I Am." I've posted the lyrics to the song below and will post the actual song when I can find it online.

It's REALLY good!

----------------------------

I am a new creation,
the old is passed away
and I’m made new
I’m made new.

And I have been adopted,
the door is opened up
for me to know you
be like you

This is who I am
I’ve been born again
the Cross is my defense, my hope secured
now my life is in Your Hand
on Your every word I stand
Lord I’m finding who I am in all you are

When my heart condemns me
tells me I am guilty
Your greater
Your greater

Jesus you have searched me,
and even in your finding
You have loved
and You love me

This is who I am
I’ve been born again
the Cross is my defense, my hope secured
now my life is in Your Hand
on Your every word I stand
Lord I’m finding who I am in all you are

For He mad Him who knew no sin
To be sent
On our behalf was crucified
Oh that we could be the righteousness
Of our creator

I am a new creation,
the old is passed away
and I’m made new
I’m made new.

This is who I am
I’ve been born again
the Cross is my defense, my hope secured
now my life is in Your Hand
on Your every word I stand
Lord I’m finding who I am in all you are

This is who I am
I’ve been born again
the Cross is my defense, my hope secured
now my life is in Your Hand
on Your every word I stand
Lord I’m finding who I am in all you are

What to do when...

Sloth, again I thank you for the comment and questions. I love the dialogue we have going on and enjoy knowing your thoughts. I can understand how the things I teach can appear as you have said, that I "make it sound like Jesus puts on a Matt suit or a Scott suit and we become puppets."

The key element in this is that puppets don't have a choice. They can't say to the puppet master that he/she isn't allowed to move their mouths or make them appear alive.

What Jesus does in those who believe is much more than putting on a suit or becoming a puppet master. He simply becomes our life so that the life we live in the flesh we live by faith in Christ, for we died with Christ and have been resurrected in Him as well (Galatians 2:20).

While we have the choice, we are nothing apart from Him so to choose to live independently of the One who is Life would be choose nothing. It may appear to others that we're doing something and we may even think to ourselves that we are choosing something but if it's not Christ, it's not life, and it's just nothing. There will be no experienced peace, true hope, deep understanding, or honest fulfillment apart from Christ.

The Christian life isn't passive. There is a moral choice of the will that we make. The choice is in every moment - dependence on the active, living, loving, powerful Creator-God who has united Himself with all who believe and made us partakers of His nature (2 Peter 1:4) or independence from Him.

So, what are we to do when we various things come up in our lives? The next question you've posed is a great one. "Does depending on Christ mean that we have no responsibility to act?" More specifically, "Suppose I have more bills than I have money. Does depending on Christ mean I sit around doing my usual routine and wait for him to mail me a check, or do I look for avenues to up my income (part time jobs, selling stuff, whatever) and then depend on God to provide through those avenues?"

To best address this question, I want to start with a point that is absolutely critical to this discussion. Is the problem yours or is it Christ's? If it's yours, then you have to figure something out. After all, it's your problem and it needs to be solved. However, if it is Christ's problem, then it's His job to supply the need. It's our right to trust Him.

Don't misunderstand me here. I'm not saying that it means we don't do anything. We trust. This trust is active. We trust that He is good, living, and living through us in this situation. We can respond in a manner like this: "Thank you Jesus for this opportunity to trust you. I don't know what you desire for me through this situation but I trust you to always be enough for me. Whatever way you desire to bring your provision for this need I thank you and trust you to bring it. If that means I need to get another job, thank you. If that means I sit and wait for a check in the mail, thank you. It's not up to me to determine how you provide but I choose to trust you to do so as you alone are my provider."

I know from first-hand experience that He is faithful. I know from first-hand experience that His provision doesn't always come from the same place and it's hardly ever where it might be expected.

Each moment is ours to trust Him in and every difficulty is His to deal with as we trust. We get to cast all our cares on Him so that they are actually His cares and not ours any longer. As we live in this mindset, we live in a constant state of dependence on Him as our sole provider, thanking Him for how He creatively provides for our physical needs, whether it be through a job, several jobs, or other people, or some other avenue.

Regardless of the situation, we can choose to either trust Him and allow Him to handle it or we can start trying to figure out how to best manage the situation and hope that He blesses our efforts. Life is found in one option. Frustration, anxiety, stress, pain, and fear are found in the other.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on all this...and thanks again for reading and inviting me to clarify what I teach!

Everything by Tim Hughes

This has to be one of my all time favorite songs, the lyrics are incredible! I hope you enjoy...



Christ in me, the hope of glory!

Great Question...

In case you've missed it, this question stems from my previous post: "If we are new creatures in Christ, sealed with the Holy Spirit, incapable of being snatched out of His hand, then is it even possible to live apart from Christ; to live in a state of non-dependence on Him?"

It's true, we are "new creatures in Christ" as we read in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "sealed with the Holy Spirit" as we read in Ephesians 1:13, and "incapable of being snatched out of His hand" as we can read in John 10:28-29. While all of this is true and clearly described in the Scriptures, it is also true that we still have a moral choice in regards to our daily lives. This choice doesn't affect our identity, as being alive in Christ, but it does directly affect our daily experience.

After one has become a "new creation" in Christ, to live in a "state of non-dependence on Him" is to live in sin...i.e. not in faith. We are still united with Christ in our spirit, however our soul is engaged in dependence on the flesh (or false life). Living in this state directly affects our quality of life and how we interpret the situations we face as well as how we react to them.

In a sense, it is impossible to "live in a state of independence" since we are in constant union with Christ. However, after we are joined in this union with Him, the journey is only beginning. The rest of our lives is the journey toward deeper dependence and surrender. Each moment brings the choice: to depend on Christ or something/someone else. Christ life, nothing and no one else is.

Sorry it took so long to respond, Sloth. I've had this sitting as a draft for about a month... :)

Look At That Hand...

The past few months have been crazy for me. One thing has been going through my mind regularly since the beginning of August and it all began while I was listening to over 1 Corinthians 12, particularly starting in verse 12 and going through verse 27. This whole passage is about how we are the body of Christ and each member of the body being critical to the whole.

Each person who is a new creation in Christ is one, though there is great diversity in what His life in each one looks like as Christ lives through those who believe in Him...just as a body is one and made up of different parts.

The main thought that has been floating around my mind is how easy it is to look at, let's say a hand, and see all that it's doing. We can see it with our eyes. If you just look at a hand, you can see potential...after all there is so much that a hand can do.

However, a hand removed from it's source of life is inadequate and unable to do anything. Just like Jesus saying that apart from the Father, He can do nothing (John 5:19, 30; John 8:28), He also says of us, "apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5).

Removed from our Source from life (Jesus), we can do nothing. Even though our schedules may be over-loaded and our lives crazy busy, apart from Christ it all amounts to nothing. The end result for us will always lead to exhaustion, a longing for something more, and discontentment. Why? Because we are nothing apart from Christ.

Just as the hand can't operate without blood flowing through it, we can't really live independent of Christ flowing through us! We'll never experience life fully apart from Christ because He is Life and His Life is abundant (John 14:6, John 10:10).

May we live dependent on our Life-Source and focus on Him (Hebrews 12:2) instead of the deeds we see done. Without Him, we're like a hand disconnected from the body, void of blood. There may be potential, but it will never be realized without Christ...the One who is our life (Colossians 3:4).