Jared Brown

Sometimes we make mistakes and they can linger over us.  Not fun I know.  I have actually been faced with that in my own life a few times and even recently.  Sometimes we do not think in the moment this will affect someone or hurt someone, and it may not, but I know a lot of times it does.  I have also talked to a few people I know who have the same thing going on in their own life, where they regret a decision they made and feel it was a mistake.  I know that this is very easy to step in and feel guilty and ashamed and condemned.  I do feel that the Holy Spirit convicts us in his guiding and directing of our lives as well as in refining us as a believer in Christ, but also the devil can use these feelings against us to make us feel defeated and useless.  Yes me make mistakes!  We all do and people are watching and sometimes they see our mistakes and sometimes they don’t, but either way we learn from them.

I am reminded of 2 passages here:

“Therefore let us not pass judgement on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.  I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.  For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love.  By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.  So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil.  For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.  Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.  So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.”

-Romans 14:13-19

People are always watching and the things we do may not be bad to those around you but the moment it causes a brother or sister to stumble then it is wrong.  I know this is true for my own life that I have made mistakes that at the time I didn’t think was a that big of a deal, but when a brother stumbles because of it, it should be a big deal.  Always be above reproach.  I have been reminded of this for all aspects of my life, but along with this passage I am reminded of the passage in John 8 where the woman is caught in adultery and the pharisees bring her before Jesus to catch him making a mistake or breaking the law in order to bring charges up against him.  These men throw her at the feet of Jesus and say she was caught in sin the law says she is to be stoned, and Jesus responds with………..Grace and Forgiveness and a statement that echoes in my mind, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”  Sin is at our core, it is our nature and we will make mistakes, but grace covers this before God.  Yes, there are consequences here on earth for some of the decisions we make and they hurt, but we have a God who is gracious and forgives us and wipes us clean.  What a story of redemption for us! Live in this knowledge and in this freedom!  Realize your mistake, take the consequences as they come as bad as they do hurt, and then take a step and start moving forward.

As I wrote earlier, let us be careful of our actions because we do not want to be a stumbling block to anyone else or cause another to sin.  I am guilty of this as we all are, but we are told “I do not condemn you, go and sin no more.“, thank you Jesus for love and for redemption in our messed up view and depraved minds.  I love that we have a God who yes will judge us, but will, for those of us with Christ covering of our sins, says welcome your sin has been forgiven.  Praise be to God for unconditional love and for choosing to save me from myself.

I leave you with this……

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.  For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly….–but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ dies for us.  Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.”

Romans 5:1-9

Praise be to God for our freedom from sin and that he is continually molding and shaping us.

John Stott wrote:

“The highest of missionary motives is neither obedience to the great commission(important as that is), nor the love for sinners who are alienated and perishing (as strong as that incentive is, especially when we contemplate the wrath of God), but rather ZEAL – burning and passionate ZEAL – for the glory of Jesus Christ.”

The goal of the gospel for us, as followers of Christ, is simply to make the name of Christ known and to make him look glorious no matter the circumstance in our lives.  I wouldn’t say this is easy, trust me, I have been through my share of hard times and marks of suffering but what else do we need but Christ and the power of the gospel to lead and guide us through these times.  My friends overseas who live in constant suffering and poverty make God look so glorious and I am thankful for their story to encourage my journey.

Do you, believer, view the gospel as urgent?  So urgent that you would say the same thing Paul does in Romans 9:1-3 “I am speaking the truth in Christ – I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit – that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.  For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

Do we feel this way about our fellow human race?  Paul is saying he would be willing to be cut off from God, from salvation, so that they might have Christ’s saving grace.  He knows this will not happen or do any good because only through Christ can God’s wrath be satisfied, but he is in that much turmoil for people.

Are we?

I once read …

“Poverty doesn’t just consist of being hungry for bread, but rather it is a tremendous hunger for human dignity.” -Mother Teresa

“Poverty is not a lack of stuff, but a lack of hope.”

I have had a packed schedule, since returning from Kenya, interviewing college students who could be potentially working with me this summer as I travel with Student Life doing summer camps.  So as some may know I haven’t written in a few days, and in the past few days I have had time to think through my trip and read a few things on poverty.  I’ve been reading a few things by Mother Teresa in her “On Poverty & the Poor”.  For example:

“The world today is hungry not only for bread but hungry for love, hungry to be wanted, to be loved.  They are hungry to feel the presence of Christ.”

“It is much harder and, perhaps, more challenging to turn our attention and concern toward the poor who live right next door to us.”

“…a person who is shut out, feels unwanted by society, unloved and terrified – how much more difficult is it to remove that hunger?”

“This is what we must often so in our works: [...] satisfy the needs of the body, so we can then bring Christ to the poor.”

“Jesus gives me the opportunity to feed Him by feeding those who are hungry, t clothe Him by clothing those who are naked, to heal Him by caring for those who are sick, and to offer Him shelter by housing those who are homeless and unwanted.”

There are opportunities all around us, and I know that the “sexy” thing to do is to take care of people around the world and YES this is right and good, but it is also right and good to take care o our neighbors here.  The spiritual poverty looks very similar in Kenya as it does here in the United States.  As I once heard a pastor say, why do we feel like we have to choose?  the simple answer is we don’t!!  Serve here and there!  Live here and Go there, or Live there and Come here!  We cannot keep turning a blind eye to one though.  I find myself becoming so complacent in doing my part, meaning I give to compassion and pray for those in need and find myself moved to take care of those in need here and in the world yet go home after work, maybe go see a movie, or just go feed my desire to be entertained.  I am not saying I feel or you should feel like I am earning something by doing all this, but for those of us who claim a relationship with Christ then our actions should be to take care of Him by taking of the least of them.

My fear is what Mother Teresa says:

“You in the west have the spiritually poorest of the poor much more than you have the physically poor.”

Why?

“One day there springs up the desire for money and for all that money can provide – the superfluous, luxury in eating, luxury in dressing, trifles.  Needs increase because one thing calls for another.”

We become self entitled and so we begin to want and want and stop caring about the needs of others.  I do not think that there is this idea of well I an do my part by giving a little here and there but not of my time, and this is what I am dealing with in my own life.

I will agree that most of what I am writing is for those who believe in Christ, but for those that may be reading this who do not believe in Jesus then I would first say, I pray and hope you come to know him and have a personal relationship with him, and then second, why would you think that by feeding your own wants and desires you will be happy all the time.  Cause if you are honest with yourself you aren’t happy unless you have the next new or best thing.  You will constantly want to feed your desire of stuff while your fellow man is lacking clean water, food to eat, clothes to keep them warm, and shelter over their head.  You too must act and help.  Being idle is leaving them to die and to feel unloved.  They are some ones mom, dad, child, sister, brother or loved one.

I love in Mother Teresa’s book where she says, “We have no right to judge the rich.  For our part, what we desire is not a class struggle but a class encounter, in which the rich save the poor and the poor save the rich.”

May we help each other, serve each other, love each other, and truly care about our brothers and sisters.

"And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.' Matthew 25:40

As my friend Daniel reminded me, the women of the Masaai and also the people Kenya as a whole are so generous.  It is a very humbling experience to see those that do not have as much as me give more than I give.  It is a moment of realization of the gospel and how we are to live grace in all we do.  The lady’s we spent time in the masaai land gave us beaded necklaces that they could of sold and made money, but instead they wanted us to have them.  I am so grateful for their love and generosity and I pray God pours his grace out of me and that I would give and give out of the overflow that God has given me.  May we be responsible with the gifts God has given us and not hoard our stuff!  Please join me in looking at our own lives and our possessions and decide are they more important than the need around the world and in our own country.  Do we want God to look glorious in our lives?

More images from The beautiful country of Kenya:

These pictures show just a little of what we got to do with the people of the Masaai in Kenya. They work hard, but at the same time as you can see they are happy and we enjoyed our time with them.  I would love to be back on that little plot of land sitting and talking with these people as they express their over joy in the works of the church and compassion.  I have seen with my own eyes the potential of the church even when people are broken and fallen.  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is more than enough to overcome poverty in all forms, and I thank my God for the grace he has given me that I in return get to give to others.

Incredible!!!  It’s the only way to describe what this day was like.  Real quick, imagine you have been longing for some thing for a long time, maybe a car or TV or whatever.  Ok, you got it?  Now you just got it absolutely free and every year you will get the free upgrade to this item.  That is the closest I can express in words of this INCREDIBLE I mean.

We went to visit the Masaai.  Myself and 3 others in my specific group got to go with a little girl named Inan to visit her mom and see her home.  We had about 3 hours to go do what she does, be where she lives, she what she sees, smell what she smells, and anything thing else under the sun she goes through.  We had the chance to walk to the place where they gather water and the girls with me were able to do her chorus and carry the water back.  I watched my friends struggle to carry the water back as the had this water strapped to their heads as the made the trek back to her home.  I felt so bad because I was not allowed to carry or help because the men in Masaai do not do that work, it is for the ladies.  We then went off to chop fire wood, and as we arrived the women very quickly put their machetes to use.  I was able to get on board this time and cut some wood for them.  It was so amazing to watch these mothers chop and chop and chop as they gathered a small part of their income.  You see gathering fire wood for other people allow them a way to earn some money as well as gathering a rock that is used for chalk and other items.  These women are heros.

The real Hero of the day for me was Inan’s mom, Eunice:

This mother is so great.  On a number of occasions she would have the translator come to us to translate how much she loved us and that we were such a blessing to her.  What we could not express enough to her was that she was so much more of a blessing to us.  As we told her we would hold her in our hearts and memories she began to cry.  She turned away from us and as I called her name she turned back to me to reveal huge tears rolling down her cheeks and at that moment I found myself doing everything in my power to hold my own tears back.  She is the hero! She is the blessing!  I will never forget her.

Sorry these are short but it is late and time for bed.  Here are a few more pictures of our day.

Inan, Eunice's daughter.

Their Home

Naomi

It has been a long day, and I am so full of thoughts racing through my brain as I have spent time seeing children full of hope and joy despite where they live and the circumstances they are living in.  It is so beautiful to see the children’s faces with huge smiles and warm welcoming greetings.  Today we went in to Kibera Slum, which is the largest slum in Africa, and went to a little 9 year old girls house.  As I sat and watched this little girl cry as see spoke of the opportunity to got to school I found myself as a grown man holding back massive tears.  See has hope!  The poverty of lacking hope is gone and Cheron and her family are seeing a future.  I am so grateful for this opportunity and privilege to love on these children and to encourage the adults as they daily make a difference in this community.  I will write more later but it is time to head to bed.  Have a very very early morning.  Hope you enjoy the a few of the pictures.  Tutaonana kesho!