I-DTS Week 10: The Cross

On Monday April 9, 2012 Bonny Jo Musgrave took the plunge of Baptism as a re-dedication to walk in relationship with Jesus Christ her Savior. What an awesome event to have at the tail end of a week mostly spent hearing about The Cross of Christ during lectures and not to mention it being Easter weekend, which signifies the power of Jesus being raised from the dead, conquering the grave and now having the keys for Bonny Jo Musgrave to be saved from sin & death! It was a great pleasure to be apart of the baptism! This awesome young girl with a powerful testimony of God's grace is being walked out of death and in to life eternal, joy eternal; by the hand of God Himself :)

Week 10 will be a week I hold dear to my heart! We were blessed to hear from Dalton Thomas! Later this year Dalton and his family will leave all they have known as young missionaries who have served so diligently in the pioneering work of the Tauranga House of Prayer here in New Zealand to serve on a new field. A field in which many will soon follow to lay down the comforts of the West and to lay down their life desires to see the Gospel go forth with power within the Middle East. My prayer over the last few years has been, "God, raise up Americans who will go to the Middle East with the Gospel of Jesus Christ instead of guns and bombs". A concept that is deeply foreign to a bitter and hostile generation of Americans who unfortunately see no value in the Gospel of Christ or the redemption of Islamic Nations! Dalton and his family go out of the joy set before them, that is Christ exalted and Christ eternal.

Here are a few quotes from the week:

We should approach the great commission through the lens of Big God & little people. The great commission is not an issue of the church completing what He started, it is an issue of God's passion to finish what He started.

2 different characteristics of God will bread 2 different types of missionaries! Is your God a little, weak, insecure God that needs your help in defending Him? Or, is your God the God who spoke all creation in to existence; is your God a strong, mighty, supreme, sovereign God who cannot be defeated

Statistics are not meant to our primary motivation to go to the unreached people groups. Jesus' worth should be the primary fuel for our missions mandate.

Salvation means nothing if the whole world is not already under condemnation! Jesus shed His blood to save us from the wrath of God.

While the Western Church is imploding, the rest of the global Church is exploding! Western mission sending is minimal not because the mission is finished but because a large portion of the Western Church has become dumb in their attitude towards the great commission.

The real question isn't am I called?! The real question is "Is Jesus Worth It?

The western mindset is very individualistic! If the Church operates under this mindset than what we have is an importance on the individual salvation but not an importance of the building of a community family that transcends the ethnic, cultural systems and values that are flowing with individualistic foundations currently in the West. In God we find family, not institution.

We don't relate to one another based on our behavior! We relate to one another based on our eternal adoption to God as Father.

The chief end of everything in existence is that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

God's highest vision for your life is that you would be set apart and blameless before Him in love.

Good works have nothing to do with securing our salvation. How does a dead man contribute to his resurrection?! You don't get in to the family by doing good works. Obedience to moral laws do not secure your position in Christ. Christ in you the hope of your glory secures your position in Christ.

There is far to much that was said to give an actual representation of the declaration of the Gospel that was heard in lectures this past week. Dalton also shared on Urgency of the Hour.

Thank you Dalton for your amazing heart for God and His Gospel.

I-DTS: Less Then 2 Weeks.

In less then 2 weeks this team of 4 Leaders & 5 Students will find themselves in a Filipino Provenance called Mindanao. The Team will spend 1 month in the Mindanao region! After 1 month the team will split in to 2 teams; 1 team will head to Cebu, Philippines and the 2nd team will go to Olongapo, Philippines. Please continue lift our team [s] up in prayer. They need $7,000.00. Please pray and consider financially supporting their 8 week outreach to the Philippines.

While in the Philippines our staff and students will be involved in evangelism, preaching/teaching, prayer & worship. They will work in orphanages, schools, churches, streets, etc. Please pray that God would anoint their time there to see the power and the freedom of the Gospel of Christ at work. Pray that God will do abundantly more than any of them could ask, think or dream!