I sincerly apologize to everyone for my lack of blogs during this expedition through Eastern Africa, hopefully this blog can sum up how this entire trip has impacted my life. I have come to discover that to have true fellowship with our savior we need to be willing to fellowship with him. What does this mean? First, let me tell you what it is not. It is not having Jesus as someone who you look up to as a role model and choose to classify yourself as a Christian simply because you are a fan of who Jesus was, what he said, or what he did. No, having fellowship with him is a much more intimate and binding expierence than simply being a fan of Jesus. For the first disciples, it meant leaving their profession as fisherman, their families and way of life, to become fishers of men. For us, it means leaving our old self on the cross with Christ, and having Christ live in us, unified with him by the faith we have in him for our salvation (Gal 2:20). This does not mean we just have Jesus in our hearts and go on with our lives just as everyone else does. No, it is putting faith in God and surrendering ourselves to him to follow his word and teachings. If Christ lives in us, then our lives should not look like the rest of the world, if they do, something is terribly wrong. I heard it in this way in a sermon from Francis Chan, ” When you play Simon says and Simon says flap your arms, you dont say, well I am flapping my arms in my heart or have a group of people over to your house and discuss what it would look like if you flap your arms, no you do what Simon says.” So then why do so many Christians claim to love Jesus and have faith in him but they do not do what he says. If you have faith in him, then you will take risks for him. When you risk something for God and put all faith in him and not in the ways of this world but in his Kingdom, that it where fellowship occurs. In Africa, there were moments when my team members or myself had to simply trust in God and nothing else. In those moments is when I feel the presence of God as one of a Fathers and not of some distant being up in the stars. Praying for healing, preaching to pagans or Muslims, or listening to the voice of God all require you to trust in the Lord that he is faithful. You will not expierence his goodness and faithfulness if you are not willing to trust in it. The point of this is to encourage you and myself to take a RISK! We serve an awesome God who IS faithful. When I go home I hope not to weave back into everyday life, but pick up a life that involves trusting in God on a day to day basis, so that I look upon him as a loving Father instead of a distant super natural being who says he loves me, when I can’t even feel his love because I do not trust him. Thank you to everyone who has been praying for me, who supported me and encouraged me so that I might learn these truths God has enstiled in me these last two months.
