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All Followers of Jesus are Teachers

Many of us can talk about one teacher that changed our life. For me, it was a High School teacher that lived out the Great Commission in his job by sharing the truths of Jesus in his class. It changed my life as I saw a picture of someone carrying out the Great Commission in a secular environment. Teaching is life-changing.

Over the past six months, my entire view of teaching has been transformed. While my only teaching experience has come amid COVID, I can say without a doubt that teaching is difficult but it is also life-changing. There is a weight that all teachers feel, as one thinks about the future impact that the students before them could have. Despite not feeling particularly gifted in school teaching, I am encouraged by Jesus’ call to make disciples or to make students of Jesus.

“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples [students of Jesus] of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” ”
Matthew 28:18-20

As followers of Jesus, whether a professional educator or not, we are all teachers and we are all students. The Great Commission is primarily spoken of in the context of missions and ministry, I believe that it also carries the message to be a student of Jesus and a teacher for Jesus. It doesn’t matter your profession or your giftings, as a follower of Jesus, this is our mission.

Before one can be a teacher of any area, they must first be a student. In the same way, one must be a disciple or student of Jesus before they can teach others about Jesus. As students, we are spending time in His word and His presence. We desire to learn from Jesus our teacher.

The Great Commission is a call for all disciples or students of Jesus to make students of Jesus of all nations. Jesus is our teacher. He taught his students/disciples during His ministry and He was preparing them for when they would carry forth His ministry and teach others. We are all carrying forth His ministry of discipleship and teaching.

Jesus cared about teaching the truth and teaching it in a way His listeners would understand. He didn’t just teach to pass along more information. Many of His listeners had lots of knowledge but they had not truly meditated on it. Rather, Jesus sought for his listeners to discover. He did so by asking really good questions that prompted His listeners to reflect. Someone doesn’t become a follower of Jesus just by head knowledge. Someone becomes a follower of Jesus through discovery and through the work of the Holy Spirit in opening one’s eyes to their need for a savior. It is through the life-changing work of teaching that God is using followers of Jesus to transform the lives of others for eternity.

All Followers of Jesus are Teachers.

– James Shank, GEM Missionary

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Gospel Threads

Weave It Wednesday is here! We’re so excited to share ideas and resources for you to weave the gospel into every aspect of your classroom instruction.

Our desire over the course of a school year is to show our students a beautiful picture of Jesus formed through constant Gospel Woven Instruction. This happens most effectively and naturally by breaking the gospel into parts, or threads, and weaving a particular thread of the gospel into a class lesson. These threads are each part of God’s story of redemption: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration.

Creation

Key themes: Origin and Identity

God’s story begins with him miraculously bringing everything into existence, including the first humans, Adam and Eve, who were created as image-bearers to reflect his character. This defines them and gives them their worth and value. They enjoy a unique relationship with God and were made to worship him, obey him, and love him.

All things find their worth and value in Creator God, and yet all of us have looked to someone or something other than God to define us. We all have a fundamental belief about our origin and identity—who or what made us who we are, and what defines us.

Fall

Key themes: Brokeness and Blame

Adam and Eve rebel against God, choosing to believe lies about themselves and their Creator. This rebellion, called sin, brings about relational brokeness, hiding, shame, blame, separation from God, sickness and death.

The world we live in is not as it should be. Brokeness is all around us. Everyone has a fundamental belief about why things are broken and tend to place blame on others. However, God’s Story shows us that our own sin is the primary thing that wreaks havoc on our lives and reveals our deep need for redemption through a Savior.

Redemption

Key themes: Rescue and Deliverance

God enters a covenant relationship with his chosen people, Israel, and throughout their history, rescues and redeems them in countless ways. His final act of redemption comes when he becomes a man in the person of Jesus Christ, who through his life, death, and resurrection, brings redemption from sin and reconciliation to the Father.

All of us look to created things to save us, rescue us, give us significance, and make us right with God. Money, possessions, acceptance, approval, relationships and achievements all seem to offer some hope for repairing the brokeness in our lives, but the gospel tells us that Jesus is our only hope. He is the only one who can rescue us from our brokeness and restore our relationship with God.

Restoration

Key Themes: Hope and Transformation

After the resurrection, Jesus ascends into heaven and sends his Holy Spirit to live in his followers, giving them new desires and the power they need to walk in his ways to become more like him. Jesus began his reign as the King of his people while on Earth, and he will one day return to make all things new —establishing his full reign and ushering in his kingdom where God’s people will worship him perfectly for all of eternity!

There’s a deep longing within each of us for change… for things to be made right and good. For some, this means finding a job or spouse, world peace, a perfect world without poverty, disease, or evil. What we’re all craving is a mending of the brokeness. We want restoration, and the restoration that Jesus brings starts right now in the life of the believer, making us free to live in his ways even in the midst of a broken world as we eagerly await Christ’s return and the future hope his kingdom in all its fullness!

Huge shoutout to Saturate for their incredible resources that really helped GEM create our foundation of gospel-woven instruction!

Which gospel thread do you think is the easiest to weave into a lesson plan? What about the most difficult? We want to hear from you in the comments!

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The Better Choice

One of my favorite short stories in the Bible is when Jesus and His disciples are going from town to town and they arrive at the house of Mary and Martha. Martha, in her hospitable way, opens the door to Jesus and invites Him and His friends in. But soon, worries of tidying up for her guests, preparing food, and  other obligations of hosting a crowd get in the way of her actually spending time with Jesus. It’s Mary, her sister, we see that sits at Jesus’s feet listening and soaking up the words of a man she doesn’t realize will one day be her Savior. Only when Martha cries out for Mary to help her, do we get the chance to hear Jesus’ perspective of the situation. “Mary has chosen what is better,” He says.

How easily I can relate to Martha but how earnestly I desire to be Mary. Thanks to Martha’s hospitality, Jesus came into her home. But that was only the beginning of a deep, loving relationship that Jesus desired to have with these women that from birth both bore His image. Mary might have understood it but Martha had it all backwards. Before spending time with Jesus, she wanted to plan, prepare, fix, etc. But in doing so, she was easily worried and upset. Mary chose what was better. Instead of worrying about things that in a few hours would have no eternal significance, Mary went straight to a Man she would later call Lord, and sat at His feet as she listened to His heart. We don’t know if Mary was worried like Martha was when Jesus stepped in the house and began to teach. She was probably tempted to rush around like Martha, but after sitting at His feet and hearing His first few words, it seems like even if Mary had been preoccupied with other things, the words of Jesus drew her in enough to forget them and rest at His feet.

How often do we let the cares of today and tomorrow take away from our time with the Lord today? How often does our time in God’s Word and in prayer – listening to His heart and really getting to know His character – come second to our daily worries and obligations? In the past few years of working in ministry, I have noticed that it can tend to happen even more frequently in this area of work than anywhere else – the constant need to be serving, evangelizing, spending time with people, hosting, teaching, etc. These are all great things, but before I even have a chance to realize it, my time is so focused on doing that I barely have time for what my heart truly needs, to sit at the feet of my Savior and listen to His heart. If I’m going to truly live out the Great Commission, I have to stay plugged into my Source and daily choose what is better.

Like Paul says in Philippians 3:10, I want to know Christ. I want to be in awe of His beauty. I want His Word to penetrate to the depths of my heart. I want to say no to the secondary things and yes to the one and only thing that my heart truly needs. No, it won’t be easy and yes, it requires a daily sacrifice of time. But it stops becoming a sacrifice when we realize that knowing Christ is exactly what we were made for and gives our souls the rest that we can’t find in anything else. So I invite you just as I invite myself, let’s know Jesus. Let’s really seek Him out in His Word and in prayer because our souls will quickly find out that Jesus has been right all along – it will always be the better choice.

-Maggie Addison, GEM Missionary

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Make Us Worshippers

Why is our enjoyment of something beautiful magnified when the experience of that beauty is shared? Why do we gasp at stunning views, point out rainbows, and hold our breath as the sun slips below the horizon?

I believe we respond to beauty in these ways because we are made to wonder and to worship, and made to do so collectively. When we wonder at something, we are exalting it as beyond our comprehension, acknowledging that we cannot fully grasp it. Looking more closely at the word ‘wonder’, the definition according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is as follows: “rapt attention or astonishment at something awesomely mysterious or new to one’s experience.” Sharing the experience of wonder in the company of others magnifies our delight and enjoyment of beheld glory because it is confirmed in a joint response. Wonder leads to worship. 

Throughout the Psalms, we see David, a man after God’s own heart, beckoning the people, beckoning the reader, to join with him in wonder and worship of the Most High God. “Oh magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together.” -Psalm 34:3  and “Let all the earth fear the Lord;

Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”- Psalm 33:8-9 

When Jesus spoke to the woman at the well in Samaria he said, “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” -John 4:23-24.

God seeks worshipers, He desires for us to wonder, to marvel at who He is. This is His grand design! In worship, we take our eyes off of the world of our experience and center our souls around the truest reality, around the One who is worthy of all praise. In worship, we, for once, take the focus off ourselves and we remember: “…For God is in heaven, and you on earth; Therefore let your words be few.” -Ecclesiastes 5:2

Wonder and worship go hand in hand. “In short, wonder is captured in one word—worship. When we have learned what worship is, we have experienced what wonder is. Worship is a personal thing before it goes public. It is an individual thing before it is part of a community. It is a disciplined thing before it is natural.” -Ravi Zacharias

We are made to wonder, made to worship. The prayer that has been weighing on me is that God would make me ‘one who worships’. That He would craft in me such a posture of worship that if all else in life fell away, worship would remain; worship would be my occupation and saturate my identity. May God open our eyes to see Him as He is, that our hearts may be captivated by His glory and we would ever and always worship Him alone. 

Like Moses returning from Mount Sinai, may our faces be radiant, markedly different to sight because of the time spent gazing fixedly at the glory of God. May we bask in and reflect the light of His countenance to the world. Like David, may we call out for fellow-worshipers and may our petition be “Come, wonder with me.”

– Mallory Knight, GEM Sponsorship Coordinator

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Changes

Challenges change us. This year has displayed that to the world. 2020 has brought great uncertainty and many changes. Every person’s life on earth is vastly different than it was before the global pandemic. 

I remember exactly where I was, about 10 months ago, when I first heard about an epidemic in China over the radio. Driving an ambulance to Virginia Beach, Virginia, I would have never imagined that in a few weeks we would be in quarantine, and in a few months I would be moving to Mexico. 

When I was an undergraduate student, I met a GEM representative in passing through a career fair. I knew I wanted to teach, and I had spent enough time in Mexico to know that this was where God was calling me. 

After I graduated I began working as an EMT, but I knew that God had called me to education. At the right time, God reminded me of GEM and I connected with them over the summer. 

Making the decision to serve with GEM was challenging for me. Just as I was planning to leave, I had concerns about my health, concerns about traveling and living abroad, and was offered a high-paying job. Even the day of my departure, flight trouble delayed me by several more days. Despite these concerns, it was clear to me that God wanted me to serve with GEM. I initially thought that everything telling me not to go could be ‘a sign’. I realized instead as I later reflected, that they were a test. 

As I arrived in Puerto to work with the middle school as a science teacher, I moved into a spare bedroom with a family that is heavily involved with the school. They welcomed me into their house and family. They have been teaching me about life in Mexico, teaching me Spanish, and have also been discipling me. 

In meeting all of the teachers and school staff, I was quickly included in the community of this impactful school. We began the school year combatting typical issues with online education, but despite these challenges we have been able to continue flourishing as a school. 

In the science classes I am privileged with teaching, we have been learning about the awe-inspiring creation and how it functions. We have studied the beautiful design of biology and the incomprehensible complexity of our planet. Outside of school, I have become involved with a local church and have been spending a lot of time at beaches.

In only three months, the relationships I have made have changed my life forever. God has been teaching me, inspiring me, and reminding me of his unchanging goodness and faithfulness. Even when the world is shaken, our lives are changed, and our faith is challenged, we can rest in knowing that our God is always good and our God is faithful. Living a life inspired by this reminder serves as a witness to the world around us. 

The inclusion and incredible hospitality I have been shown by everyone at this school, this ministry, and especially with this family have displayed to me the prayer that Christ exhorted in  John 17 over all believers. 

“I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me”. John 17: 20-21


– Tanner Whetzel, GEM Volunteer

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An Invitation In

It is a sanctifying and humbling thing to step back and recognize the love that we have received so freely. How often do we think of the depth of the Father’s love for us and the ripple effect that it has on our lives? How often do I overlook it in my day to day walk- the answer is far too often.

Andrew Murray writes in his book The True Vine about the parable that Jesus shares in John 15. He explains that the picture that Jesus was trying to paint was one in which God is the Husbandman or Caretaker of the Vine, Jesus is the Vine, and we are the branches. He goes on to share about how Jesus fills us, sustains us, and is our life source as we surrender all to Him and rely on Him for those things. Writing about John 15:13, he says, “ Christ does indeed long to have us know that the secret root and strength of all He is and does for us as the Vine is love.” 

What a powerful truth. 

Jesus’s sole motivation was not to appease God by dying on the cross.

He was not forced to against His will.

He did not do it so that we would owe Him something. 

He died for us because He was motivated by the love of His Father for us, moving Him to a love in which He is our sole advocate. A sacrificial love that leads to action.

I have been studying Exodus recently and reading about the vision in which Moses receives instructions from God about the Tabernacle. While reading about the design, I was struck by a couple of things:

God was separated from His people for the sake of His holiness, but in the same way they were transient and living in tents, so was He. His tabernacle was portable and was built so that the people could visibly see His presence traveling with them as they wandered in the wilderness. He did that out of love.

The tabernacle was built in a way that the majority of activities took place in the courts. That was where fellowship took place between all people who were not priests. This was the body. As David states in Psalm 84:10 “A single day in your courts is better than a thousand anywhere else! I would rather be a gatekeeper in the house of my God than live the good life in the homes of the wicked.”

The Israelites longed to be in the courts because that was where they could meet with God. How much more full of joy and hope should we feel knowing that we are able to be directly in His presence with a love full of deep intimacy! God longs for us & made a way directly into His presence out of love. A sacrificial love. Hebrews 10: 19-20 says, “And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place.”

As I pray for my students and their families to know this deep love, I am also praying over my life that I do not take it lightly. That I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever in the fullness of His love.

– Hannah Shank, GEM Missionary

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From Frustration to Empathy

Thank you God for the gentle breeze just when I’m starting to sweat.

Thank you God for the rhythmic loom above where I’m working. Though it is loud, it gives me a rhythm to work to and it tells me that the women upstairs have the work they so desperately need.

Thank you God for the crowded coffee shop, even if I have to sit outside and not in the coolness of the air conditioner inside. It means that they have customers and my friends who work here are happy to have them.

Thank you God for the sun that wakes me in the morning, even if it annoys me on the weekend.

Thank you God for the students who ask me a million questions, that text me at 1 am to tell me they liked the video I posted, or that they finished their homework, or that they have an urgent question that isn’t quite so urgent as they made it out to be.

Thank you God for when I am trying to work and am distracted by the happy squeals of the neighbor kids playing.

Thank you God for allowing me to have the luxury of getting annoyed when someone cleans up after me at home and puts things in the “wrong” place.

Thank you God for all the blessings you give me that I forget are blessings. For all the little things I get annoyed by but then a few hours later realize are so beautiful and wonderful to you and are the things you are using for your will.

I feel like so often we forget that God is working things out for our good, always. I know I’m personally guilty of getting really upset about things I shouldn’t even be bothered by. I’ve found myself frustrated to the point of tears or shouting more than once this past month. I’m learning though that God is using those things to teach me. He doesn’t want me to be annoyed; He doesn’t allow these things to happen purely to test my patience. He wants to see if I will use them as a chance to grow and to make myself a better person each and every day. I used to
think that God let frustrating things happen to teach us to be patient and how to wait.

Now however I’m starting to see that God wants to make us more empathetic towards each other. He wants me to be working with my students and realize that they’re having problems for specific reasons and for me to be able to identify their individual problems and be able to help them. He allows me to have days where I have no internet and I get nothing done and I’m so frustrated and tired and upset so that when one of my students sends me a message that says “Hi miss! I’m so so sorry that I no do my homework of last week! Our internet was not functional
and so I have to do it this week! I am so sorry!” I would be able to say that it is okay because I totally understand her problem. He allows me to have frustration, confusion and headache so I will be more sympathetic to others. When a coworker tells me about something breaking or not
working, I will be ready to offer help. When someone is sick, I’ll be happy to jump in to cover for them because they would and have done it for me.

I believe that God allows things to happen and allows us to experience things to teach us something important that He wants us to learn. God wants my heart to break for other people and for me to be able to know how I wish people had responded for me when something happens so that I will be a better friend and a better person to them. God allows my heart to be broken so that I will be quick to try and mend the hearts of others. So that I will be empathetic to the struggles of those around me and so that I will realize my own mistakes and struggles to help me help others.

Ephesians 5 tells us: “Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children. And walk in love, as the Messiah also loved us and gave Himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.” Lately I’ve been asking myself if I’m imitating God or if I’m acting in my own selfish nature, I’m ashamed to say most of the time it is my own nature that is winning out. But in recognizing it I’m able to know how to better imitate Christ and to walk with Him better. So I encourage all of us to take a moment to stop and ask ourselves, who are we imitating?

-Heather Wrench, GEM Missionary

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He Dwells With Us

Recently, I have been rereading the book of John. As I study it, I continue being drawn back to John 1. Verse 14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth”. This is a well-known verse, but I have found myself here over and over again over the last week or two stuck in this beautiful truth.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” That is astounding to me. God became flesh in the person of Christ, but He does not stop there. He also dwelt among us. This word “dwelt” is translated from the Greek word skenoo which means to pitch one’s tent or tabernacle. If you look back at the Old Testament, we see the tabernacle where the presence of God used to dwell in the midst of His people. When Jesus came, He dwelt among His people, making God known (John 1:18). But then, after Jesus ascended into heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to dwell within His people. 

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?…”

1 Corinthians 3:16

At one time, God could only dwell with His people in the tabernacle because of the law. Sin separates us from God, and no one could perfectly fulfill this law. Therefore, God gave His people specific instructions for the tabernacle and the camp so that He could dwell amongst them in His holiness (Exodus 26-29 and Numbers 2:3:39). “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). Jesus came to fulfill the law (Matthew 5:17), and He did so perfectly. In this, God is able to dwell with us through His Spirit, not because of anything we could do on our own, but because of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. 

“…For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

2 Corinthians 6:16

As I continue to meditate on this, I am amazed at how God has so perfectly woven His good and perfect plan throughout the fabric of time. “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekiel 36:26-37). God knew His plan for redemption, and as Jesus came, He made it possible for us to have access to God through Himself. He is not a distant God. He is close to His people. As you go about your day, I hope you remember that even now, in Christ, God dwells with us. 

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…”

-Rachel Hill, GEM’s Director of Mission Advancement

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The Sufficiency of Christ in the Middle of a Global Pandemic

Since the middle of March, we have been doing online schooling with the goal of still providing quality, Gospel-saturated education in the middle of COVID-19.  If you are reading this, you probably know much about our school and the purpose of it. For the past four years, my wife and I have been serving at the Manantial School in different capacities and have seen the incredible impact that the school ministry has had on this community. God has been at work and is still working in our community and the communities of the other schools around the world (3 in Mexico and 1 in Uganda).

When COVID-19 hit in March, we went online. We thought that we would only be doing this for a couple of months. Seven months later and here we are. I have had many feelings of inadequacy and thinking that I am wasting my time posting assignments online. I have had thoughts wondering how God can work with our students without us actually being around them. And then I remembered John 6:63 which says, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.”  For a while, I had forgotten that the work and impact of this ministry was God’s work.  This scripture has reminded me that my flesh does not count for anything at all. There is nothing that I can do that gives life, but the Spirit alone that gives life. In all of my inadequacies, His grace is sufficient to work in and through me.

Even though I know this truth in my head, it is difficult to believe it constantly. I still try to work my way of seeing lives changed. I still try to make my online classes more effective and think that if I don’t do it well enough, my students won’t be impacted. However, over the past month, I have seen the sufficiency of Christ become a reality in one of my students. In the middle of my feeling of inadequacy, one of my students talked to me and shared how God has been giving him a desire for His word. He told me that he has been waking up early every morning to read the scriptures and spend time writing down what God has been teaching him. He also told me that he has been sharing what God has been teaching him to others and encouraging others with the Gospel. What an incredible reminder that God is in control. He is still working and is sufficient to do all things regardless of my involvement.  The student’s desire for God and His word had nothing to do with me, but had everything to do with the work of the Spirit in his life. In the middle of our inadequacy, God is sufficient to continue His work in and around us.

-Daniel McDonald, GEM Missionary

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Jesus, Our Example

With all that is happening in the world, all the sin, sickness and chaos ripping through the globe, I’ve actually felt more tempted to shut my brain off and pretend that it all doesn’t exist instead of being called to action… I feel much more comfortable just putting myself on auto-pilot and sticking to my little bubble where I am shielded from all the evil out there.

Maybe I’m not the only one who has been tempted like this. All I want to do is seek my personal comfort and ignore the reality of our broken world. It just so happens that this is exactly what the devil wants. He wants us to coast and shut off, to stop clinging to Christ, stop pursuing him, and to stop feeling urgency for the advancement of the Kingdom. He wants us to become complacent, selfish, and lulled to sleep by the pleasures of this world instead of being set on fire for the things of Jesus.

After talking to a good friend here in Puerto about Jesus’ return, I was woken up to the reality that Jesus’ presence is as real as ever and He is indeed coming back. There is a very real spiritual war going on and the evil one is constantly trying to hinder anyone from coming to Christ. After remembering this I began to ask myself, if I know what happens to those who do not choose Christ, why am I not urgently seeking to share the saving hope of Jesus with them, especially as our world continues to spiral downwards?

We must remind ourselves of the realities of Scripture. Jesus is alive, He wants our whole hearts, and he WILL return to rescue his faithful servants. I think of my own life and how I have been drifting asleep for quite some time. God has just suddenly opened my eyes (in His overwhelming grace) to allow me to realize that my purpose on this Earth is to know Him, to love Him, and to bring others to Him. I don’t want to find myself seeking my own comforts and worldly pleasures, not making disciples and on the path to destruction. Christ has saved us for our eternal good and has entrusted us with a life-changing mission.

I think of Jesus in Philippians 2, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-8). Jesus gave everything for me. He loves me with an unfathomable love. How could I put him second? How can I trade this forgiveness, redemption, and eternal hope for a self-serving, wasted life filled with selfish pleasure? How could I turn a blind eye to the brokenness of this world in order to seek my own comfort?

Of course we are human and fall easily into sin, but Jesus is the one who protects and frees us. The Lord alone is our hope. Jesus calls us to fight the good fight of faith and to help bring this eternal salvation to others. He also lovingly warns us in Matthew 16, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25).

All of this has been extremely convicting for me, but oh is it ever good! I am so grateful the Lord chose to reveal these things to be in order to make me more like Him and to be re-motivated to fulfill His will on Earth.

I encourage you as I look in the mirror, my brothers and sisters, do not allow comfort or complacency to cloud your priorities. Do not let the evil one get a foothold. Cling to the Lord and He will keep you safe. You are loved and made by our amazing Father for a grand purpose. Jesus wants you to arrive at the end to receive your crown of glory, and he wants to use you to bring your friends & enemies there too. We must not fall asleep. Keep the faith, keep fighting, look to our great example and friend, Jesus!

– Natalia Saint Clair, GEM Missionary