A Week in Job

So last week we went through Job with Morille Blanchette. He spent the majority of the week on outlining the book, so I guess you could say we laid the foundation for our own personal study. Now I can at least make sense of what's happening in the book of Job! But I'll give you a couple things that I learned...

• Satan. Satan is subject to God's permission - he's on a leash, so to speak (Job 1:6-12). Satan is obviously powerful, but his power has been broken by the cross (Hebrews 2:14). However, satan will use any means to discourage you. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."
• "Suffering shows us how fragile we are, keads us to examine ouselves, strenghtens our relationship with God, drives us to pray, makes us more compassionate, and plants the flag of truth in our rebel soul." -Timothy Keller
• Jesus is well familiar with our sufferings (Isaiah 53). He knows what we are going through. He walks beside us and asks us to cast our burdens on him (Psalm 55:22, 1 Peter 5:7)
• One difference between Jesus and Job: Job often defends himself...Jesus did not (Isaiah 53:7)
• Unbelievers shut out the voice of God because they do not want to confront their sin... how much are you like them - do you shut out that still, small voice?
• God is enough. He will sustain you through anything and everything. Do you trust that God is enough for you? God is always in control.
• No purpose of God can be hindered or thwarted - God is always in control - even wjen I go through a hard time, it's mot that his plan has been thwarted. Trust God, who obviously knows more than the whole human race put together over the past couple thousand years! (Job 38-41)
• Forgiveness: an act of God removing the effect and punishment for sin.
• The wrath of God will never be kindled against us as believers - all because of Christ! How different this is from the old testament! 

And those are just some of the things that I've learned as we traveled through the book of Job! God is good, and one verse that He really brought to mind this past week is Matthew 6:33 - "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Now the reason this verse came to mind, is because of the things that I've learned. Over the past 6 months or thereabouts, there have been things that came up and I know I needed to grow in them. So for months I tried to grow in those things... and to no avail - if anything, I started backtracking. But over the past couple weeks, I've really been seeking God, and guess what - ALL those things that I was striving to grow into on my own, well when I surrendered to God... He did wonders in me! In these past two weeks alone, he has grown me in those ways that I've wanted to grow into for months! This has been a great lesson to seek God first, in everything!

As for the church situation... Well this past Sunday, we all went to the french baptist church. And I discovered that they translate through a little headset that you wear - so I think this is God's way of answering my prayers, it looks like I will be able to go to the french church after all! 

In a couple of weeks, my ministry/worship team will be going into Quebec City to do some musical outreach and testimonies! Matt told me he'd like me to pick up the guitar and play guitar - even though piano is my strong point. So not only am I playing guitar... but we are doing FRENCH songs!!! This will be a little bit stretching... but I'm definitely looking forward to this challenge!

This week, we are going through 1&2 Timothy. So far it's been great, and I can't wait to see what else God is going to teach us!

April

Hello From Quebec!

Hi all, I am writing to you all the way from out east in Quebec! School is going so good. This past week we went through James, and it has been a huge blessing to me and my walk with the Lord! Here are some of the points that stuck out to me most:

• Wisdom: the God given knowledge of doing what's right or wrong.
• The real issue isn't knowledge - or lack of it! The problem lies in applying that knowledge, or another word for it would be wisdom. Solomon asked God to give him knowledge, and God most definitely did(2 Chronicles 1-9). Why did Solomon fall? Not because he wasn't smart enough - not because he didn't know better. He fell because he had wisdom, but failed to apply it. Solomon knew it was wrong to have so many wives, but he didn't apply that knowledge to himself.
• Why would God give you more wisdom if you're not putting the little you do have into practice?
• To be patient in your trials and sufferings... Patience is the level of endurance one can take before negativity. How patient are you?
• Restlessness and impatience rob us of our joy and peace. CHOOSE to be patient. God won't zap you with a spout of patience.. maybe he'll give you trials so you can learn to be patient! Or maybe he will give you trials to show how impatient you truly are.
• Mercy: not getting what you do deserve
• Grace: getting what you don't deserve
• Our words have more power than we realize. One word can change everything. Here's an example: if you want to test this, go into an airport and start yelling "BOMB"! 
• Faith is acting on belief. Faith is an action. There is no faith without belief. Faith with no action is better classified as belief(James 1:6-8, 2:14-26)
• The best way to understand prayer, is just to pray! 
• Godly motivation is eternal value! Motivation for work, or for anything you do. Why do you go to work? To get a paycheck? That's wrong motives! What we do is part of God's eternal plan, and we always need to have Christ at the center of our lives - even at the center of our motivation!
• Something totally off-topic, I'm reading a book called Christ for Real by Chris W. Price, and in it he says, "The day I married Hilary I was not making a statment about the good or bad in the other women of the world that I was not marrying. I was acknowledging that she would now hold a place in my life that would be beyond any other human relationship that I might have. Similarly, in our relationship with Jesus Christ, our surrender to him means that He's given a place of priority that is shared by no one else." This really caught my attention because I know how serious saying "I do" is, and how important it is to keep true to your promise... and it's the same thing in our walk with the Lord! 

These are only some of the things that I have been learning lately! It's such a blessing to be able to be here and study the words of the bible. This next week we are going through Job... I'm so excited to see how God speaks to me through his word this week!

Besides classes, everything else is going great! I've adjusted really well and started making some really good friends. It's really funny, because one of my roommates lives only an hour away from where I live! It's a small world!

I'm on an outreach team, and my team does music. So every Tuesday we get together and practice music and play songs together - it's such a sweet time of worshiping together. Some Sundays we will go to different churches and lead worship and share a testimony. This week I am sharing my testimony in one of the only english speaking churches around! In a couple of weeks, we will be heading off to Quebec City for a weekend of leading worship and such things.

One thing you could pray for - as I just mentioned, there aren't very many english speaking churches around! As far as I know right now, the only english speaking churches that are available for me to go to on Sunday mornings are a Catholic church, and an Anglican church. The baptist church is in french... so pray that I will have wisdom and discernment as I don't know what to do with this situation at this point!

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing...blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will recieve the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him."

April