Church puts faith in action

This past Sunday I was privileged to speak at church. I gave a brief sermon on “Putting our Faith into Action”. I believe that action, by in large, is what is missing in many of today’s Evangelical Churches.
When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, He replied that loving God with all our heart and mind and strength was the greatest but He didn’t stop there. He went on to say that the 2nd greatest commandment was like it, loving our neighbor as ourselves (Matt.22:36-40). Has it ever crossed your mind that He was only asked for 1 commandment? However He offered 2. Why? I think it is because you can’t separate the 2. In other words, if we truly do love God with all our heart mind and strength, a natural outcome of that will be loving our neighbor as ourselves. If we don’t love our neighbor as ourselves, then the obvious conclusion is that we don’t love God with all our heart mind and strength.
The same principal can be applied to the Faith vs. Works question. It shouldn’t really be Faith VERSUS. Works at all. It should be Faith + Works. There is a difference. Ephesians says that we are saved by grace through faith.
Salvation cannot be earned, it is a gift that can only be accepted. However, if we truly have faith, then we must also have works. Works in this sense is not a negative (trying to earn our salvation) sort of a thing. Rather we should think of it as fruit. If we are saved (truly love God – greatest commandment) then the natural outcome is that we will have good works in our lives (love our neighbor as ourselves). If there is little to no good works (fruit) in our lives, then we must question if we have taken care of the greatest commandment, in other words, our salvation. I know these are strong words, but I simply can’t escape the simple teaching of Jesus in this matter.
Works or fruit, is the proof that we do love God with all our heart and mind and strength, and that we do have faith in our lives, saving faith. If the proof isn’t there………………it is time to start asking some hard questions.
So after explaining this to the congregation, I proceeded to tell them that it would be hypocritical of me to talk about fruit, or good works and then for us all to go home and carry on with our week. No, now was the time for action.
I challenged everyone to come together and clear out the sanctuary and convert it into a kitchen, a sandwich making kitchen. They did so and we made about 150 sandwiches (the ingredients had been bought the day before without the congregation knowing about it). We then ventured out into the 40C weather and passed out ham sandwiches and a cold bottle of water in the name of Jesus. If you know the neighborhood near our church, it is a place of great need. It was a joy to see our church body serving in this way and blessing many needy people in the name of Jesus. I hope when they went home afterward, they rested in the knowledge that they had given Jesus something to eat, and had given Him a glass of water. I hope they were blessed as I was, I hope they know Jesus was blessed as well.
My prayer is that they would see the benefit of serving in this way, leaving the church and leaving our comfort zone to seek out needy people and serve them, and by extension, serving Jesus. I pray that they might have “caught the vision” and will seek out those types of opportunities in their own lives on a regular basis. I pray that as you read this, you too will seek out ways to serve Jesus by blessing someone who is in need, someone who needs the loving touch of Jesus in their lives. You will be blessed, they will be blessed, and Jesus will be blessed. Best of all, if you make this a pattern in your life, when you stand before our Lord on judgement day, you will hear Him say, “for I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. Come and take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world”.

“A Church that lives within it’s four walls, isn’t a Church” – An African Pastor

“Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don't act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.” James 1:22- The Message

Blessed to serve Jesus in this needy place,

The Elliotts

Mourning with those who mourn

We received news this morning that little 2 year old Jimena (one of the victims of the daycare fire that occured at the beginning of this month here in our city) has passed away.
Sheri and Marcela (a Mexican friend) have gone to the memorial service this afternoon. Please pray for them as they search for how to comfort Jimena'a mother and father. Pray that God's love would be so evident in Sheri and Marcela. You may remember from a previous blog entry that Marcela has also experienced this kind of pain. Her youngest child passed away almost a year ago now in the same hospital. She knows what Jimena'a mom is going through.
Pray that God would bring something wonderful out of such tragedy. Only He can do such a miracle.
Matthew 5:4 says "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Please pray for comfort for Jimena's parents.
It isn't easy to be here in times like this, but this is when the church needs to stand up and be the church.
Thank you for enabling us to be His hands and feet in a place and time like this.

Lane

Searching for how to Help

Today I plan to pick up a church member and head over to the other side of town. Her sister (Reina) lives over there, close to the train tracks. I met her sister in church on Sunday. She doesn't normally attend our church but she does come once in a while.
It turns out she is trying to minister to some desperate people and I would like to see if the Lord is leading us to help in some way. The desperate people I speak of come from all parts of Mexico and beyond. Some as far away as Central America. Why do they come you ask? For a chance to make what they think will be, a better life in the States. Our city Hermosillo, is a stopping point for those who travel by train. They must get off their train here and walk (I am not sure how far) to catch the next one. Most of them travel illegally and will attempt to enter the USA illegally as well. They come hungry (some of them haven't eaten for up to 2 weeks), they come dirty, they come bloody (stowed away on a train is a dangerous form of travel and assaults during ones sleep are apparantly not uncommon), and most of all, they come desperate.
In their transfer, they walk very close to Reina's house and she sees them every day, 6 to 8 or more. Most of them are men although sometimes families with children to come by as well. All of them are in search of a better life that they think will be theirs if they can just cross the border.
How can we help? How can we make a difference? With so many different needs that exist, how do we know if this is one that God is calling us to get involved with? We can offer food, we can offer hope through Jesus. For this reason I am going today.
I am also going with something else in mind. We have a team of youth coming from Canada in a months time and one of my responsibilities is to find a morning ministry for them while they are here. The goal is to find a venue where they can reach out to needy, even desperate people. We also desire that God would reach out to the youth group through these needy people as He has done in my life, and continues to do. That these kids would go home changed people for having reached out and touched hurting and desperate people and in so doing, would have had the privilege of serving and touching none other than Jesus himself- "For what you have done to the least of these, my brothers, you have done to me".


Please pray for guidance, pray for understanding, pray for compassion. Perhaps this particular need isn't one to be met by a youth group from Canada, but by your prayers for guidance and understanding, we will see that. There are lots of needs here, we just need to find the right one for them, the one God wants. He simply wants us and them to be His hands and feet in a hurting place.

"Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion for the world is to look out;
yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good;
and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now."

Saint Teresa of Avila

Update on Daycare Tradgedy

After spending some prayer time I suggested to Sheri that she and Marcela (a friend from the church who Sheri is discipling) go down to the kids hospital to see if they could help in some way, via prayer or whatever (in response to the day care fire last Friday that claimed the lives of over 40 children under the age of 5 years).

Marcela comes over to our house to meet with Sheri every Tuesday afternoon. At this time last year Marcela was sitting in the same hospital watching her little girl pass away. Marcela felt she could offer hope to these grieving families and pass on some of the love that God had shown her since the death of her daughter.

They went down to the hospital to find hundreds of people there. Within 30 seconds of entering the place a man stands up says to Marcela, "Don’t I know you”? Marcela couldn’t place him. As they talked she explained that she was looking to pray with the families. He said, “I am an uncle to one of the little girls who was burned, my 2 year old neice Jimena. Her mother is upstairs, would you like to go talk to her?” (Them passing the door of the waiting room would have never happened without the help of this gentlemen). The three went upstairs and talked for a while with the mom, there were tears and encouragement, Marcela shared her new faith in Christ. Phone numbers were exchanged, hope was left.

Please continue to pray for us as we seek to how best minister to a hurting city. Your prayers make a difference!

Day Care Tradgedy

As many of you have already heard, there was a terrible tradgedy that happened this past Friday in our city of Hermosillo. A day care caught fire and to this point, 43 children (most of whom were between the ages of 0-5yrs) have died. As you can imagine, the city is in mourning.
We (our family as well as most of our young adult group) were headed out of the city at the time of the fire. We were driving through an area not far from where the fire happened and it was caos. Traffic was jammed and ambulances, many many ambulances were trying to pass through. Police were directing traffic and trying to bring it all under control without much success. Once we left the city and arrived at our destination for the young adult weekend retreat, then we found out what had happened.
We ended our retreat early in order to return to the city to attend a city wide church service. Many Christians all across the city joined together to cry out to God to heal the remaining victims who are in hospital, heal the families of the victims, and heal the city as a whole. We received a donation from a church outside of the city as an expression of love from them to those who are hurting. That is just one of the ways that we are going to attempt (administering this gift) to bring Gods love and mercy to those who are desperate for it.
Please pray for us, pray that God would show us exactly how to get involved and how to show compassion in His name. We are called to be Jesus to these people, to a city in need. Thank you for your prayers.