Thoughts & Excerpts from today's My Utmost for His Highest reading by Oswald Chambers

My sister gifted me with a copy of this little devotional booklet when I was a senior in high school(1992). I have red through it many times since then and it never ceases to amaze me the depth of insight God gave this godly man and how He continues to use these words to work in my life. I just wanted to share a little of what challenged me this morning.

"It is not a question of being saved from hell, but of being saved in order to manifest the life of the Son of God in our mortal flesh, and it is the disagreeable things which make us exhibit whether or not we are manifesting His life...You must keep yourself fit to let the life of the Son of God be manifested, and you cannot keep yourself fit if you give way to self-pity. Our circumstances are the means of manifesting how wonderfully perfect and extraordinarily pure the Son of God is...Keep your soul fit to manifest the life of the Son of Gd. Never live on memories; let the word of God be always living and active in you."

O Lord, it is so easy to give way to self pity, especially when we feel we are entitled to something we did not receive or something happens that we feel we did not deserve. Help us to always live in You and Your Word and not in experiences which can change so dramatically from one day to the next. O Lord, I thank you that even when everything might be changing around us, You and Your Word will NEVER change.

Bits from the Baja E-mail Update: May 12, 2010

“It was ‘T’ that was pulling us and encouraging us to come to church,” explained a mother of one of our youth group members who began attending around the beginning of the year. They had invited us over for carne asada (steak) tacos about a week ago. She went on to explain to Pattie how much their daughter loved coming to youth group and how she never wanted to miss. She continued with sharing how most of their family enjoyed attending church when they could, however, asked us to pray for their son who is 10 years old does not like it and tries to make excuses not to go. Please pray for this family. While they are living as a family, the man and woman are not legally married and struggling in their relationship. Please pray that ‘B’ and ‘C’ would come to know the Lord in a personal way and then seek to obey Him in their relationship and as a family. From a human perspective, it is a very messy and complicated situation but isn’t it wonderful how our God delights in taking messes and making them beautiful for His glory?!

We are also thrilled to mention that we had six people desire to follow in obedience and be baptized last month (photos above). The mother, uncle and grandmother of one of our youth were part of the group as well as two of our youth. Both Josué and Arturo are part of our youth leadership team as well. We cannot even begin to describe the emotions we feel as we continue to see many of the youth growing and maturing in their faith. We will miss them dearly while away for our home assignment.

In a few hours Phil’s sister, Karen, will start her journey from Alaska arriving here tomorrow afternoon. She has graciously offered to come and help us out as we prepare for our upcoming home assignment. The days seem to be flying by and June 16th seems way too soon. We appreciate your prayers as we determine what to pack to take with us, what to leave behind, etc. We look forward to reconnecting with so many of you first hand while we will be back in the states. Please also continue to pray for our kids as the reality and emotions of leaving behind home continue to surface more and more as the date draws closer. Pray that we would have the wisdom and sensitivity they need right now as they process through this transition.

Delighting with you in the One who renews and restores!
Phil and Pattie