Reaching the Nations ... at KSU

More than 1,600 international students from over 140 different countries.

That's over 72% of the countries in the world being represented on ONE college campus.

Kennesaw State University.

God has called every single Christian on the face of the planet to make disciples of all nations. What are you doing right now to be obedient to that command?

No doubt many of us are called to actually go across the seas to take the name of Jesus where it has not been named before. Others will be senders of those who go. All others will be living in disobedience.

If you're anywhere near the North Atlanta area, God has given us an unbelievable opportunity to reach the nations in our own neighborhood. This is no substitution for going if that's what He's calling you to do now, but for those whom He is keeping stateside for a season or for a lifetime, here is an awesome opportunity to be used of Christ to impact the whole world for His glory, right where you are.

Please go to this site, and PRAY and dream about if and how God would have you serve alongside or as a part of Campus Church to proclaim Jesus to the nations He's brought to us.

We all know "Be still, and know that I am God," but what does the rest of the verse say? What is the reason for our being still before our Maker? So that we can see and understand that it is by His power that "[He] will be exalted among the nations, [He] will be exalted in the earth" (Psalm 46:10).

For His name and renown,

Ben

Trip Lee's Overview of Philippians

It's amazing how well he catches the content of this letter in such a short amount of time!

Like he says, it's only scratching the surface. Come join us on Sunday nights in June and get plugged in to a Campus Church small group so we can all "read it, live it, learn it like the back of our hands" together!

Christ is all,

Ben

New Series at Campus Church!

This Sunday, May 30th, we'll be starting a new series at Campus Church - "To Live is Christ: A Study in Philippians." It will be the first series that the Lord has had me preach at CC. Please pray that He would anoint me with the power of His Holy Spirit and that He would speak through me so as to please Him, and not those who hear. Please pray that He reveals Himself to people's hearts - that He would increase and that I would decrease. Pray that, as Jesus is lifted up, that He would draw all men to Himself. He will do it, but not apart from believing prayer.

"All of God's works are done through believing prayer ... God will not do apart from prayer what He has promised to do in answer to prayer" -Armin Gesswein

Let's pray and watch Him act!

For the glory of Christ,

Ben

Engage in Good Deeds!

It seems that a huge problem in evangelicalism today (beginning with my own heart) is the appearance of doctrinal understanding without the accompaniment of works of love. We rightfully cling desperately to the doctrine of "justification by faith [alone] apart from works" (Rom. 3:28), but in reacting to those who believe works play a role in salvation, we place far too little importance on them.

Paul understands this tension and warns a young pastor he left in charge of a church in Crete named Titus. Paul tells Titus that Jesus "gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds" (Titus 2:14).

Do we get that? Jesus came to redeem us from our rebellious independence. We lived without regard for His Word and with absolutely no power to obey it even if we read it. He set us free, breathing the purifying life of His Spirit into us, and as a result, a defining characteristic of our lives should be that we are eagerly desiring to engage in acts of love and sacrifice!

Paul continues to instruct Titus concerning works:

"Remind [people of all ages within the church] ... to be ready for every good deed" (3:1).

"God saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit" (3:5).

"Concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believe God will be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good a profitable for all men" (3:8).

A couple of quick observations:

1) We have to be ready for them. God has prepared good works for each of us to walk in before we were ever born. Lets pray that God would make us ready by opening our eyes to see the works He's prepared for us.

2) These works have no role in our salvation. We were saved because God is merciful. We continue in that salvation in the same way, walking "by the washing of water with the Word" and by the power of His Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:26; Gal. 3:2-3; 5:16).

3) The knowledge of that salvation, that God has justified us as a free gift of His grace, frees us and enables us to engage in good deeds. So we engage in good works, not out of guilty obligation, but out of hearts that are free to pursue Jesus with joy and are empowered by His Holy Spirit to obey Him in loving and serving others!

4) It requires care. Paul instructs Titus to warn his people to be careful to engage in good deeds, because the only thing that the devil would love more than keeping us distracted from the need to engage in good works is making us feel like they will happen naturally and that no attention to them is necessary.

Works do not make us righteous; that is clear. They are the overflow of the Holy Spirit inside of us. If He lives in us, He will will point out works that He's prepared for us to walk in and empower us to do them. As such, good works are a thermometer of our spiritual condition. They function like fruit - telling us if we are, in fact, children of God, and if so, how healthy we are. Jesus can't help but engage in good deeds. If He's living inside of us, what should our lives look like?

Praying for greater surrender to His indwelling life,

Ben

TAKEOVER!

Last week, we posted a link to a blog post asking "what if the church of God came together to give generously to the students of KSU?" What if picking up their tab for them at Waffle House and Starbucks led to the opportunity to pray for them and share the gospel with them? What if we could reach hundreds of students with the love of Christ and it created a buzz around campus, not about Campus Church, but about their God?

Praise God it happened!

This past Sunday night, God brought one of the smallest crowds we've had in a while at Campus Church to show to everyone that what He was about to do was of Him, and not of us. That small group of students and some other loving adults gave the largest offering we've seen at Campus Church with the knowledge that every dime was going to bless the students and the staff at Starbucks and Waffle House the very next night!

Last night, hundreds of students came out for free food and coffee, and God gave us the opportunity to pray for them and share the gospel with them. Our desire was that they would see a God who loves them in our giving to them without expecting anything in return. Many seeds were planted as we told the students there that God wants a relationship with them now and that we didn't want them to miss out on the joy of knowing Jesus. We told them that entering into a relationship with Jesus does not promise prosperity, but that He promises to be with them and to hold them up in the midst of what they're going through. We're praying that God uses last night, a very small spark, to start a huge movement of His Spirit on the campus of KSU - one that is grounded in the Word of God and centered on the cross of our Lord Jesus.

It was an AWESOME night that I am praying sets the standard for how we do ministry at CC ... to lavish love on others for the sake of telling them about the matchless joy we have in knowing Jesus! That is the first part of the Campus Church vision: to REACH, DISCIPLE, and LAUNCH!

Would you just us in praying that God would water and grow the seeds that were planted last night? Would you also take 5 minutes and pray over the requests (see below) that the students gave us? We want to see God move in their lives and draw them to Himself, and He will do it as we join in the privilege of asking Him to do so!

Let's live to make Him known!

Ben

Caris Loving

For those of you who have never met Caris Loving Stubblefield, here she is. If this doesn't make you smile/make your day, you officially have problems. We're all so thankful for this precious new gift from the Lord!

Cool Opportunity to Love on KSU Students

Y'all check this out and join us in praying for the Spirit of God to move in the hearts of students all over KSU!

We'd love for anyone who feels like God is leading them to do so to join us in giving to the students and ministering to them this coming Monday night!

Hope in the Midst of Suffering

Are you going through suffering? Do you ever wonder why you are experiencing the pain or persecution that you have been trying to endure?

Paul sheds an interesting light on this in Romans 8 when he tells his recipients that the whole creation has been subjected to futility in the hope of future redemption (8:18-21). He literally says that the entire creation is enslaved to corruption that has entered the world by sin. It's important to note that, even though believers have been set free from the penalty of sin and have received the promise of the Holy Spirit, even they are subjected to the suffering along with the rest of the world (8:23). The result is that we groan now, in this life, because the suffering produces in us a desperate longing and hope for the glory that is to be revealed to us when we are finally redeemed and glorified with Christ (8:17-18; 23-24).

In addition to producing in us a longing for our true and better home with Christ Jesus, suffering gives us opportunity to magnify the goodness and the grace of God as we exalt Him in the midst of what we're going through. God uses our trials to test us and to grow us into maturity in Christ. It's for this reason that Peter gives us the following instructions:

1 Peter 4:12-16
12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you;
13 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.
14 If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.
15 Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler;
16 but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name.

So God ordains persecution and pain in our lives to test us and to give us an opportunity to glorify Him.

How can you glorify Him in the midst of your suffering?

When you exalt Him as good and as sufficient to satisfy your heart in the midst of what you're going through. When He can strip everything else away and leave you with Christ alone and you still have joy because exalting Him is the aim of your life. Suffering provides a platform for us to say with Paul that our expectation and hope is that "Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Phil. 1:20-21).

So how does this help us in the midst of suffering?

It is meant to encourage and strengthen your faith. These truths are to stir you up by way of reminder of the things that you already know so that you might read them and believe them so that you might have victory over our adversary who would have you believe that God is unjust, uncaring, or has somehow lost control. This is what the devil does. Paul sends Timothy to encourage and strengthen the faith of the Thessalonians concerning his and their sufferings for fear that the tempter might have led them to believe that God had not ordained their sufferings and that they had no hope (1 Thess. 3:2-5).

But He has ordained our sufferings and we do have hope! Do not let the devil succeed in tempting you away from believing that God is sovereign and working all things together for your good and His glory (Rom. 8:28). He has a purpose for our suffering! He is working in us perseverance as we run the race of this life with our eyes on Jesus, conforming us to His image along the way and bringing about the hope of glory by revealing His Son in us in the process (Rom. 5:3-5; Col. 1:27c).

So rejoice, my brothers and sisters. The King is coming to make all things new. We go through pain now, but we will have Him for all of eternity. He is more than worth every ounce of suffering. Let's magnify Him and rejoice in His goodness and grace in letting us have the privilege of pointing others to Him!

Happy Birthday Dad and Gavin!

Today we celebrate the birthday buddies - my Dad and our little nephew Gavin! Gavin is 3 today, and Dad is, well ... older.


Gavin loves his Aunt Kayla ... and is very excited in this picture!



I'm so grateful to have this man of God for my dad!

Sharing the Gospel in Power … Like a Nursing Mother

Do you share the gospel? If so, how?

In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul tells them that his gospel "did not come to [them] in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit with full conviction" (1:5).

Upon reading that, it's easy to think that Paul came with a boldness that was primarily characterized by assertive or even abrasive speech. His aim, after all, was to preach the unadulterated gospel and not just what men needed to hear.

This is why he goes on to tell them that he and his friends have "been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so [they] speak, not as pleasing to men, but God who examines [their] hearts" (2:4).

It is essential for us to understand this as we share the gospel – if we are sharing in the power of the Holy Spirit, we will be doing so without catering to what our listeners want to hear.

However, does his "full conviction" concerning the truth of the gospel translate into him lording it over people, impatiently pushing them to understand and obey, and holding them in contempt if they don't? Or does his confidence in the gospel result in a confidence in himself as a minister of it?

No!

Paul says that he and his fellow apostles were gentle among the Thessalonians and cared for them like a nursing mother would care for her own children (2:7).

Stop and really think about that.

Not exactly what we normally picture when we think of someone being "manly," is it? Yet here it is being exalted by God as a model for all who would share the gospel, especially those men who proclaim God's Word to His people.

It is the calling of all children of God. While the immediate context implies that we are to have this attitude toward those we are discipling in the faith, we are not to push and press and become arrogant toward those who don't hold to our gospel or toward those who are immature and, like us, have much need to grow in it. Instead, we are called to show loving affection toward all people, nurturing them and caring for them – imparting to them both the gospel and also our very lives, dying to ourselves and to our schedules to see Christ formed in them (2:8).

It is in meekness, which is really just desperate and humble reliance upon the Spirit of God, that the gospel is shared in power and with full conviction. God has given us the treasure of the gospel in our weakness so that the surpassing greatness of its power would be of God and not from ourselves (2 Cor. 4:7).

It must be our prayer and hope that God would work in us this gentle and nurturing affection for all people so that the gospel may sound forth from us in power and so that God might grant others repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth (2 Tim. 1:25).

Two Loves, One Source

We're giving in to the blog world, not necessarily because we feel like anyone will want to read what we write, but because we both love to write and to document life and all that God teaches us about Himself along the way. We're creating this blog toward the beginning of our marriage in hopes that we'll be able to look back on it to reminisce and praise God for what He's done.

That being said, there is no better way to kick off this blog than for me to write about my two greatest loves: Jesus and Kayla.

I love my wife more than anything. She is the most beautiful person, inside and out, that I've ever known. She is loving and sweet. Discerning and wise. Encouraging and gracious. She is the depiction of a godly woman.

But as wonderful as Kayla is, she will never be able to satisfy my soul. All of the amazing qualities she has are mere reflections of the One her soul loves - Jesus. My ultimate fulfillment and joy are found in Him, not her. He is the desire of my soul and my greatest love. He enables me to enjoy and treasure her, but He does so because of His grace and because He enabled me to love Him first. My pursuit of Him fuels my pursuit of her.

Two amazing, undeserved loves have been given me, and the infinitely greater of the two treasures is also the Source of both. By the strength He supplies, I will passionately pursue them both until my heart can no longer stand the wait to see the King enthroned in all His beauty.