Refocusing

What a week, once again. We had a South-African guy called Etienne Pieterse teaching us on Fear of the Lord and Lordship. Learning about the fear of the Lord was very intresting cos I'd never actually understood what it meant. I'm not sure if I still fully understand what it is but I'm working on it, with God ofcourse. One thing I got was that the fear of the Lord is the opposite of the fear of men, and if you're afraid of one, you're not afraid of the other. So which one I fear and respect more, God or men? His teaching on Lordship was very good as well and resulted in about 8 people getting baptised. It was really cool when he said that dying to self isn't something you do once and then you're done with temptation. And I don't know if it was Etienne or Ronnie who said that dying to self is not suicide; Jesus didn't hang himself on the cross, but he let others do it, he didn't resist. So that's what we are to do, to lay our lives, our desires and temptations, hopes and dreams and fears and failures, lay them all at the cross time after time after time and let God kill them, let them die. And after we've dies to ourselves it's not like our minds are suddenly out of Satan's reach and free from temptation. We still disobey God, but the key is to always return to the cross and be honest, take the focus out of ourselves and focus on Jesus and what he's done for us.

Etienne also taught a lot about worship. His main point was that worship should not depend on our emotions and circumstance. God is holy, almighty and worthy to be praised no matter how I feel at the moment. Worship and praise should flow out of understanding of who God is, not out of our emotions. That's what it means to worship in spirit and in truth; we worship in spirit because the spirit of God is in us and worships with us, and we worship in the truth of who God is. Worship and praise is not about music. In fact music has very little to do with it. Music can be a way to worship, but often we use it as a way to bring our emotions to a level where we feel comfortable to worship. That's why we find it hard to worship if the worship band sucks, we put too much emphasis on how the worship sounds and looks like, instead of focusing on what it actually is about. If we truly worshipped in spirit and truth we wouldn't mind the music. Then again, I'm not saying that it's wrong to get emotional during worship. Of course not, but it shouldn't be the thing that drives us to worship. We worship because God deserves our attention, He deserves our praise, even when we don't feel like it.

On tuesday night we watched a video of a man called Steve Thompson preaching. That night changed my life. It was the perfect timing to hear this teaching, as last week we'd started discussing sin and righteousness. What Steve Thompson basically talked about, was that once we become christian the God Almighty moves into us. We have God inside of us. We are completely righteous and completely holy and we are as close to God as we can get. The current christian mindset is that we still need to do stuff to get closer to God. If I sin, I fall away from God and then need to read the bible more or fast or worship more to get close to Him again. We think that by our deeds we can and need to reach a certain level of holiness before God can use us. We are still striving to be perfect enough for God, to be the person God wants us to be. No matter people don't like christians, we demand so much more from each other than non christians do. We hold each other to such a high standard that it's impossible not to get discouraged. Have we forgotten that Jesus already did all that was needed? He made us right with God and now He lives in us, and there is nothing that I can do to make His work more complete. God is in me and all of His power is in me as well. I am not lacking any spiritual gift, it's only a question of learning to use them. I just need to accept and receive what Jesus did on the cross and stop worrying about how I can make myself better and just start taking part in what God has planned for me and the whole world.

After we finished some of us stayed behind to talk about the teaching. I just sat there and listened. The others started to talk about how this teaching would change they way we approach miracles and healing. And I started to feel something stirring in my spirit, I wanted to try it out, I wanted to see a miracle. I had the living God alive in me, and so did everyone else in that room, so why couldn't He perform miracles through us. And this desire to pray for my acne started burning in me, and for 20 minutes I just sat there wondering whether or not I would dare to try it. And the others we're starting to leave already till I finally opened my mouth. And Ronnie agreed that we should try it. Then others joined, and so about 10 of us prayed for my skin.

At first nothing really seemed to happen, except for the way that we prayed, with a completely new sense of authority. Then I started to feel my hands go numb with the prickling feeling that comes first when you're limbs are 'falling asleep'. And the feeling spread throughout my entire body till I felt like every vain in my body was on fire. And it was amazing. To feel the power of God flow through me like that, I felt like I could do anything. But He didn't heal my skin. We prayed and we rebuked and we declared and we prayed some more, but nothing happened. So we agreed to stop and to trust that God would heal it in His time. But I didn't even care. I was so drunk on the Holy Spirit that I had to stay behind to sober up for a while. I sat down on a sofa in our dark lecture room and started to giggle by myself. And it turned into laugher till I was laughing so hard that I had tears coming out of my eyes. It took me a while to calm down again, and then I just worshipped for a bit and went to bed.

My skin wasn't healed the next morning like we'd prayed for. It still isn't any better. But I don't care. My God is Almighty and He heals me when He pleases and I have given away my right to complain when He doesn't do what I want Him to do. He's promised to heal my skin and I trust that. I don't know when, but I pray that it's soon.

A lot of remarkable stuff apart from tuesday night has happened this week as well. God's been powerfully present in our worship sessions again and yesterday we witnessed Him heal one of our students' knee. She'd injured it early that morning and couldn't put any weight on it. After praying for her for several hours, within 10 minutes she went from not being able to put weight on her knee to jumping up and down and dancing around the room and praising God. And yesterday we also baptised 8 people in our school leader's swimming pool. It was the most beautiful baptism I've ever been to, even though it was in the middle of this shaggy looking backyard, in this filthy swimming pool, the sun shining down on us so hard that everybody was soaked from the sweat. But it was beautiful because 8 people became new, with a new focus in their lives. This week has truly been about refocusing. Focusing on God instead of ourselves, setting our minds on heavenly things rather than what's here on earth. Standing in awe and reverence of God rather than in the fear of men. I gave up my rights to the things that I desire the most in this life. They belong to God now. I burned them at the feet of the cross and it is up to God if he wants to resurrect them or not. He is the Lord of my life, and he is no longer a guest in my house, but the owner, and I have become a servant.

Wow. That went pretty deep... Time to light up the conversation! Because our school is once again leaving the base, I won't have internet access for 3 weeks. So I won't be able to wish anyone a merry christmas on the actual day, so I'll just say it now.

MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

And to anyone who's going to GearUp, I wish you the bestest frikkin time everrrr!!! I wish I could be there, and it kills me that I won't see you. I MISS YOU ALL SO MUCH!! Be blessed and praise God for He is good all the time! AMEN!

Revelations

This week has truly been amazing when it comes to learning new things. The whole week we watched Dean Sherman videos on relationships, which were absolutely epic. Who knew video lectures could be so intresting. The funny thing was that half way through the week I realised that I've actually read his book on relationships like 3 years ago. Even funnier was that I remember not liking the book when I read it. The lectures were so much better.

So the topic was relationships, and I learned so much more about relating to other people than just about dating. I realized just how important relationships are as a part of getting to know God more. How essential loving our neighbor is and how everything we do should be weighed according to "is it loving" rather than "is it allowed or forbidden". All this led to a number of conversations about the definition of love and sin. One of the guys on our school had some pretty intresting ideas about the role sin plays in our life once we're christians and how it affects our relationship with God. Basicly what he thinks is that our actions, or sins, don't separate us from God once we're under the protection of Jesus' blood. This goes a lot deeper and I already tried to write it here once but then I realised that the theory isn't quite ready yet so i deleted it. You can ask me about it when I get back. But what my friend thought made a lot of sense and there was just so much freedom in what he came up with that I'm pretty sure he's on the right track.

And through these talks about sin and love and relationships I also got a new revelation of my identity in Christ. To understand that God doesn't leave me when I'm disobedient and that I'm absolutely and completely righteous in His eyes, that there is no condemnation or judgement to me for I am in Jesus Christ. Old stuff, I know, but it just came to me in a totally new way as if I only heard it for the first time. And if and when I truly realise and understand that I am enough as I am, I no longer have the need to judge others because I know that I'm not judged. And when I don't judge or envy others I am free and able to love them, even when they don't deserve it. When I understand God's unconditional love for me I'll be able to pass it on. And loving others is crucial if I want to get forward in my relationship with God. Because whoever says that they love God but don't love their brother is a liar.

And also understanding my identity leaves less room for the Devil to work in me. Cos his favourite way to mess with our heads is to question our identity. That's how he fooled Eve in the Garden; implying that she wasn't wise enough without the fruit. And when Jesus was baptised and God said out loud "this is My beloved Son", straight after the Devil attacked Jesus in the wilderness asking "IF you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread". But if and when I stick to my identity, which is that I am holy and righteous in God's eyes and that nothing can separate me from Him and His grace, I won't turn my back to God so easily. Of course Satan still tries to trick me, but at least it'll be easier to notice.

Yeah, so that was cool. And actually for the first time in my life I really searched through the bible to find answers to the questions that were causing me to lose sleep. And I did find answers and confirmation to my thoughts. Which made me fall in love with that book even more. And the whole week and what I've learned has made me fall in love with God even more. Like the song: "the more I seek You, the more I find You and the more I find You, the more I love You". Next week we have lordship which should be life changing as well. I'm sooo exciteed.

So this is how I'm doing at the moment. I'm kinda missing Finland now that Christmas is getting closer and it's over 35 degrees everyday and humid as you like. Not too christmasy... And I'm also bummed that I don't get to go to GearUp, a youth seminar my mum's organizing on New Year's. I'm sad when I think about all the people who are gonna be there that I won't see :'( Well, there's always next year... Ooo, and also I got my student allowance, 210e a month, which is like 330 dollars. SWEET! I've already spent like 200 on shopping :P They have sales here before Christmas, which seems like a really stupid idea, but I'm not complaining. So many cool shirts for 10 bucks, which is like 7 euros. Cheap as you like. Though I guess I need to slow down with spending, it need to save some for Japan.. And I wouldn't mind having some money left when I go back to Finland... Oh well. At least I'm financially secure at the moment :) Yay God!

the Byron Bay experience

So for the last two weeks I have been without an internet connection, thus I need to tell you about two weeks in one post, which is gonna be exhausting, but I'll try.

So our MAD school went to a town called Byron Bay, which is a small beach town that's very popular amongst backpackers. During our time there it was also a scene for this massive event called Schoolies. Schoolies are basically highschool graduates who head to various beach locations after graduation to party hard. For the first week of our stay we were doing Red Frogs which is basically a christian voluntary organisation that takes care of Schoolies by walking them back to their hotel rooms, baking them pancakes and cleaning up their hotels. And through all that we try to communicate God's love for them and also to talk to them about Jesus, or in other words evangelize. I was really excited to just get there and talk to people and see what God was gonna do through me, but once we got there and started doing our thing the reality wasn't quite what I expected. Our team didn't really function that well and there was a lot of confusion and I often found myself totally lost in all of the logistical mess. It was also way harder than I had imagined to just go for it and start talking about God, even when the kids were drunk out of their minds and actually really open to conversation. I don't know if it was just spiritual attacks, sleeping on a carpet floor without a matress, or eating nothing but bread all the time that got to me, but a lot of the time with the schoolies I felt helpless and lost. During that week I only had one good conversation where I actually got to share the gospel with someone. So by the end of the week I felt like an absolute failure and just so dissapointed in myself, questioning God's faithfulness and my ability to hear His voice. But fortunately a week earlier I had started to journal and write down what I felt that God was saying to me and through that God really revealed Himself to me and I learned so much about His character and the way He sees me. In spite of all my self-doubt he was saying that He wasn't mad or even dissapointed, that I couldn't know the consequences of my actions and words or see the whole scale of things that had happened in the spiritual world that week by just me being there, and that He doesn't appreciate me any less even though I didn't bring anyone to Christ. It was my first mission trip ever and I guess I expected too much of myself and God made me realize that everything's a journey and I can't expect myself to be amazing right away. Maybe I'm not called to be a street evangelist. Maybe I am called to tell people about Christ through my songs or just my life. He has great plans for me and I just need to be susceptible to them and stop trying so hard to be something I think I should be. So all in all the schoolies week was a good experience and it definitely brought me closer to God, and stepping into other outreaches it's good to have a little perspective on my purpose and my part in building His Kingdom.

The second week was way more relaxed, though we were short on money for food and had way worse breakfast than during the first week. Not having milk for coffe really tested my nerves and during the whole 2 weeks I actually ended up spending about 50 bucks on coffee alone. It's ridiculous, I know, but what can I say... Anyway. We spent almost every afternoon on the beach and because of the modesty rules that us girls had I now have a ridiculous shorts tan on my thighs. The beach in Byron was amazing and I swam in the Pacific ocean for the first time. I also tried surfing, which didn't go so well. I mainly just lied on the board and floated on the waves, I didn't even try to stand up. It was a lot of fun though. There were still Schoolies around during the second week and we baked them pancakes a couple of times in the evenings even though we weren't red frogs anymore. I felt better about the whole evangelism thing though I still didn't manage to get into any good conversations. All of us were starting to get really tired. Most of us hadn't had a proper sleep since we came, and everybody was starting to get really sick of eating sandwiches every day. On tuesday we'd also climbed a mountain, 8,8 km altogether up and down, and some of us had caught a cold. The whole climb was a very ridiculous thing. It took about 2 hours to climb up and when we finaly reached the summit it was so foggy we couldn't even see the view. It started to rain and after having lunch we descended in the rain. I was one of the people who got sick and am actually still pretty ill as I'm writing this, and it's sunday now. But I'm still very proud of myself for doing it. Just going down took about an hour and while doing it I kept wondering where I'd ever get the strength to up in the first place. On saturday morning some of us went to the Byron Bay lighthouse to see the sunrise. That took strength as well but I am so happy I went. It was so amazing to see the sun rise from the ocean, all red and huge. It was the perfect ending to the Byron Bay experience.

Coming back to Brisbane was amazing. That's all I can say. This base feels so much more like home now. I'm so thankful for my bed, our room, our bathroom, our kitchen, our slow internet connection. I can't wait to start lectures again, to get back to the routine. Right now I'm ill and I'm just gonna relax and enjoy the weekend. Soon I gotta start thinking about christmas... It does not feel like december in this 35 degree weather and sunshine. People are listening to christmas songs and decorating places and it just feels weird. But the truth is that it's gonna be christmas in less than 3 weeks... If you wanna send me a card or a present for christmas my address is 671 Samford Road Mitchelton 4053 QLD Australia. Also any kind of financial support is more than welcome!

So this is how I'm doing at the moment. Hopefully it wasn't too confusing, a lot has happened and I'm not the best storyteller in the world. I probably forgot many things but that's ok. Peace out.