Missions Conference

We had the wonderful privilege of being with our home church for their annual missions conference last weekend. It has been several months since we've visited Pinewood PCA in north Florida and so the fellowship was sweet. We also had the tremendous privilege of hearing RL Pratt speak on loving God and loving our neighbor, based on Deuteronomy and Matthew passages. It was an incredible weekend of encouragement and challenging teaching. And, we also got to share what God is doing in Thailand, which is always fun for us and hopefully encouraging for those who are listening. We had to switch off for a couple of the meetings to look after Adele who came down with a bronchitis infection. We also had Paul's neice watch her for a couple events. Paul and I together were able to speak at a small group Sunday night. We both came away agreeing that we loved the intimacy of small groups and the interaction was encouraging. So, if we're ever at your church and you want us to visit small groups, we're up for it!!! =)

Below are some notes of the first night of the conference. I hope you will be challenged as we have been.
Friday night Dr. Pratt spoke on Matthew 22:34-40 "And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. this is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depedn all the Law and the Prophets."
...some thoughts, his, not mine!
~When something you're involved in isn't fun anymore, we ask "Why are we doing this?"
~Loving the world today isn't easy.
~we think: "These people are nothing but trouble...they're threatening everything I hold dear, etc"
~When it gets difficult that's when we start to question "why are we doing this?"
~Why should we love them? When it's easy, we don't think about it.
Why? The answer...
The Mission of the Church...
It was a high priority to Jesus that we love our neighbors as our ourselves.
~He (Jesus) told them that they're whole religion hangs on this (loving the world)
A love of God brings a shift in our lives. My life belongs to God, not my own. How much are we to be controlled by it? with all our heart, soul, mind and strength- the inner person to emphasize how deply we are to adopt the agenda of our God to our lives. NOTHING should be precious to us. The MOST precious driving loyalty I should have is the agenda of my KING. If it's the King's agenda then we're to love it with all we've got. The top priority for a follower of Jesus is that they have loyalty to the King.

But, Jesus didn't stop talking after the first commandment because he saw the two commandments so closely related He couldn't NOT say it. This IS IMPORTANT...He knew they could Love God and hate people. The second commandment is not a long finish but right next to the first, a photo finish (in racing terms). "way up on the agenda of God is the human race."

Pratt went on to say that we (as mostly Presbyterians at the conference) don't care. God gets moved to the center and we don't care about people. If we exalt God by depreciating people we're wrong because God's agenda doesn't include this thinking- He wants us to have love for our neighbor. You CANNOT love God unless you're loving your neighbor. If you don't care about the world around you then we don't care about God's glory. Often we tend to think that if people have importance and value that it detracts from God's importance but this isn't true. People ARE the most important creature made.
The greatest affirmation of God's importance of people is the incarnation of Jesus!!!!
Some questions for reflection...
Are people this important to me? Do I value people that much? Jesus didn't come to this earth for worthless pieces of trash. He cared- now we must care. Our whole religion hangs on it.