DaveEnglund.Name/DBlog

Pictures from the Ukraine

These are pictures from my recent mission trip to the Ukraine.

A team of ten Americans went over to serve our Ukrainian brothers and sisters by helping them with their Teen and Kids summer camps. We also got to fellowship with believers from churches in Kaniv and Bobritsa. Additionally, we were blessed with several opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with people on the street in these towns as well as in the village of Letvenets. And, God gave us a wonderful evangelism experience with Ukrainian believers in Kyiv the night before our departure to return to the States.

It was a wonderful experience and life-changing. First, it brought home to me the reality of God at work in hearts throughout the world. Before the trip this was something I accepted intellectually, but now I have seen it up close and personal. How awesome is our God!

Secondly, it was amazing to experience the Spirit of God working to so quickly knit our hearts together with our fellow believers in the Ukraine. Also, to literally feel the mantle of grace God brought to us for this task. I was surprised by the affections God birthed in my heart for this country and its people within only hours of our arrival there. In once sense I always had a feeling of being at home, even though I knew the literal home I grew up in was thousands of miles away.

There is much more I could say, but I will post those thoughts and observations once I finish my post-mission letter to my supporters. For now, please enjoy the pictures.

Slava Bogu!

Charles Simeon on the cross-centered life

I am currently reading through John Piper's "The Roots of Endurance," and I was struck by these words of Charles Simeon.

"By constantly meditating on the goodness of God and on our great deliverance from that punishment which our sins have deserved, we are brought to feel our vileness and utter unworthiness; and while we continue in this spirit of self-degradation, everything else will go on easily. We shall find ourselves advancing in our course; we shall feel the presence of God; we shall experience His love; we shall live in the enjoyment of His favor and the hope of His glory." -"The Roots of Endurance," p. 111.

Lest you think I am advocating a self-preoccupation let me cite another quote about Simeon...

Hopkins said of Simeon:

"Self-humiliation for Simeon consisted not of belittling the gifts that God had given him or pretending that he was a man of no account, or exaggerating the sins of which he was very conscious. He went about it by consciously bringing himself into the presence of God, dwelling thoughtfully on his majesty and glory, magnifying the mercy of his forgiveness and the wonder of his love. These were the things that humbled him - not so much his own sinfulness but God's incredible love" Ibid., p. 112.

Of course, this flies in the face of today's self-esteem emphasis. But, I have found that before I began living this way myself I was so very, very self-centered. And, of course, that realization only came after I began to practice the discipline of viewing God's grace against my own utter unworthiness and wrath-deserving sinfulness. Even more strange, I have began to loose my self-preoccupation and am becoming more and more preoccupied with the glory of God's grace - with God himself.

I ask God, "Change my heart to choose differrently." Shall I then claim the new choosing was of me? (1 Corinthians 4:7)

"grace offered by the Lord...produces...both choice and will; the only will which yields obedience...grace itself has made." - Calvin

Perseverance: "I labored...yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." - "grace which was with him was [the] sole worker" - Calvin.

Perseverance of The Saints -"the life I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God," Galations 2:20b - Our work, His grace!

How is it that he who could have called on angels stayed upon the cross amid mockings of man - it was for love, and the glory of his name!

Jesus, Messiah, is our youth renewer! "from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours." Always young, he makes us young.

All glory to God! "You are...a letter from Christ...written...with the Spirit of the living God...on tablets of human hearts." (2 Cor 3:3)

Surely a man goes about as a shadow! Surely for nothing they are in termoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather! Ps 39:2