Devotions (Page 3)

“We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand through him, and we boast in the hope of God’s glory. 3 But not only that! We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, 4 endurance produces character, and character produces hope. 5 This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”…

Praise does not put us back into God’s presence, it brings God’s presence to us. Praise is a magnet to the presence of God. Where there is praise, there you will find His presence. There were days in my walk with the Lord where I realized that the presence of God was powerful! I knew that when I was in the presence of the Lord my worries seemed smaller, my addictions seemed to disappear, my anxieties were no more. The…

Dear LifeSpring Family, Lately, I have been grappling with the truth in Philippians 2:4–6 (ESV): “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,” It just blows my mind that our Lord Jesus Christ, though He was in the form of…

On Sunday, Adib delivered a message on the scriptures in Matthew 20:20-34. He highlighted and contrasted the request from the mother of Zebedee’s sons and a request from two blind men. Jesus responded to them differently after asking them both the same questions of “what is it you want?” and “what do you want me to do for you?” The request from the mother of Zebedee’s sons was to “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit…

I’d like to thank Adib for coming and speaking this past Sunday, as well as Shawn who shared about the Jesus Network and its work. Some of you may remember Adib from his visit last November. Adib was born in Afghanistan, and became Christian in 2005 where he joined an underground church. The church was discovered in 2008, and Adib was forced to flee to India because of the danger he was in. It was there that Adib joined and…

I had the privilege of listening to Andrew’s message this week and I am convinced that God is doing something in our church family’s heart and assignment. Andrew shared how Proximity Changes Everything. He shared how he could see the changes in Wildfire and he shared how over the years, proximity changed him. Listening to Andrew brought tears to my eyes because I could fully relate to how people have so greatly impacted my own personal life. I have had…

I watched a movie called Migration this week and really enjoyed it. The movie follows the Mallards, a family of ducks that go on their first migration to Jamaica, led by their dad and husband Mack, who’s paranoid about the dangers of the outside world and prefers everyone staying home. This leads to a chaotic adventure filled with meeting new (and sometimes scary) animals and people, lots of detours and side quests, and humourous lessons about facing your fears, solving…

We just had our 2nd WF(Wildfire) retreat this past August. If I were to describe the WF retreat to you, I would say it was like a mini family gathering. It was very similar to the Family Weekend, except that we had to cook our own food, clean up after ourselves, and we didn’t have to walk or drive to our accommodations after each session. We worshiped together, we learned together, we ate together, we prayed together and we played…

During the Family Weekend, our speaker shared from John 4, where Jesus speaks to a Samaritan woman. She was a woman that Jesus, in all cultural and societal norms, should not have been speaking with or associating with. When Jesus asks the woman to get him water, he was not treating her as a slave. In fact, by putting himself in a position of need of her, Jesus was lowering himself and elevating this woman, giving her a place of…

Dear LifeSpring Family, A couple of years ago, I enrolled in a course conducted by Soul Care on the importance of taking care of our soul, spirit and inner person. The world knows this all too well with her emphasis on work life balance. As Dorothy and I prepare to go on sabbatical in a few weeks, I received the reminder (below) from the Soul Care team about rest and how it can be a “weapon” in my life.  1. Schedule…

Often when we think of surrender – outside of church language, aka Christianese – we might think of a battle scene, right? SURRENDERRRR or ELSE!!!! We might envision someone holding up a white flag to signal the end of a devastating struggle. The definition of surrender, according to Google, is really not that positive either: So… to summarize… whether we’re speaking in Sports language, Legal-ese, or Insurance-ish the translation of surrendering seems to be that you lose. You lose the…

You know the best way to end off the summer? Catching a cough. I know what you’re thinking, and I also thought the same thing. After a summer full of visiting family, a math course, two retreats, and a lot of preparation for the upcoming school year, I planned to finish up my projects and enjoy two somewhat relaxing last weeks of summer before school kicked off in September. Catching my siblings’ cough (yes, it was 100% from them) was…