What a Week!

Wow! What a great week last week was for the H2O Summer of Service! Let me give you a run down of how GREAT it was!

Monday: I was able to participate in an exciting meeting about Element '07. This is going to be an awesome Disciple Now Weekend in September. You guys remember Element '06 in Charlie Gielow's back yard? Well, Element '07 is growing, growing, growing. We will have a full weekend of discipleship worship and concerts right in our own backyard at Occoneechee State Park. Go ahead a mark your calendars for Sept 21-23. You will NOT want to miss this weekend. Check out www.elementva.com for a few more details and keep your eyes pealed for a sign-up sheet to come soon!

Tuesday: A great time of one-on-one discipleship, and then a blast with 2 hours of soccer at Bluestone Middle school. 4 on 4 soccer on a shortened field and a final score of 12-8. It was hot. It was tiring. But, it was fun. Join us again this week at 4:00 at Bluestone Middle for some more soccer action!

Wednesday: As always, The Deep End (Wednesday Night Bible Study). We had 15 students here as we are continuing to study Characteristics the World Needs to See in Christians. This week we studied Well-Placed Shame. Hopefully I will have a recap up soon so you can see what you missed. This Wednesday in The Deep End: Relevance and being a Controversial Christian.

Thursday: An early morning and a great time of service at Lynchburg Daily Bread. What a blessing to be able to serve the homeless and low-income individuals that depend on this Christ centered ministry for their source of food every day. We will be going back, and I want YOU to go!

Friday Morning: Two of us wer able to bless 48 homes in an hour by returning their trash cans from the road. I know, it sounds like a weird ministry, but it WORKS! We've already had one report of someone commenting on how surprised and pleased they were that someone took the time to help them out. If two people can have that much impact in one hour, imagine the impact we will have in blessing this community later this summer when we head out again for this new ministry...any even more people come to help out!!!

Friday Night: The Overflow Band lead in a great time of worship at Camp Kerr Lake for Girl's Weekend. How cool to see a group of H2O students using their talents for the Lord and leading a group of people in worship. I wish I could be there this Friday to see it again during Boy's Week. I'll be praying for ya'll!

Saturday: Mchowlah Adonai (the girls dance team) also had the opportunity to lead in worship for Girl's Week. Again, how awesome to know that a group of H2O students were using their talents for the blessing of others and the blessing and honoring of God!

Sunday: A great morning of worship and a BLAST at Flood Zone. 22 of ya'll came out for fellowship, games and the word. I had a lot of fun Sunday night, and I'm sure you guys did too! Next Sunday we will be talking about the blessings of immediate obedience and patience. It's a good story, so be there for it!

God is definitely honoring and blessing our decision to stay close to home with our ministries during our H2O Summer of Service. I challenge all of you to get involved as much as possible during our upcoming ministries. Check out the announcements post on the blog to see what we're doing next! There are some other possible ministries that may be coming along in a couple of weeks. If you have any ideas, let me know!

Thank You!

Thanks to everybody who chipped in with this week's H2O Summer of Service project. The Parent's night out was GREAT and there is no way it would have gone as well, or the kids would have had as much fun if you guys hadn't been there to play with them and help them out. You guys are awesome!!!

I look forward to seeing you all at the rest of our H2O SOS projects!

Would You Rather: Belief vs. Trust

Flood Zone Recap
June 3, 2007

Would you rather:

Eat peanut M&M's or plain M&M's?
Chew used gum under a park bench, or eat a piece of bread out of a trash can?
Swim with sharks or alligators?
Shave your head or dye your hair pink?
Eat a nose booger or an eye booger?
Trust Satan or Trust God?

The quick "church" response is obviously trust God, but do our actions really bare that out? Do we really trust God more than we trust Satan? Are we more willing to run after what God's spirit it telling us to do or what Satan is tempting us to do, in the little things AND the big things?

Let's look at some thing we know about God and about Satan:

God: hears our prayers, provides for our needs, knows our thoughts, thinks about us regularly, cares for us, directs our paths, has a purpose for us, forgives our sins, protects us, created us, is perfect, is all knowing, is all powerful, is ever present, cannot lie. In a nutshell, God is TRUSTWORTHY!

Satan: deceives us, wants to destroy us, wants to steal our joy, wants to kill our witness, tempts us, lies to us, tricks us, hates God. In a nutshell, Satan is NOT TRUSTWORTHY!

So, with all that we say that we believe about God, why don't we trust him more? And with all we say that we believe about Satan, why do we still trust him?

Because so often, belief does not translate into trust. Why? Because Satan is real good at getting us to doubt what we believe about God.

In Genesis 3:1-7 is a story that is familiar to most of us. It is the starting point of the struggle against sin that we fight every day. It is the fall of man into sin. It is the first time that man trusted Satan instead of trusting God. So, how did Satan get man to trust him? By getting man to doubt God. But, what did Satan get Adam and Eve to doubt about God? How does he convince us to doubt God and trust him?

1. Satan attacks our belief about God's goodness. (v1) Satan basically says, "What, God isn't going to provide for your hunger? Look at all these trees, and you can't eat the fruit from them?" While this was a lie, it still starts to bring up this thought: "yeah. Why can't I eat this fruit. If the other fruit is good for me, the why can't I eat this? Is God really a good God if he won't let me eat this tasty looking fruit?"

2. Satan attacks our belief about God's Truth. (v4-5) Satan convinced Eve that God has not been completely honest. That God is holding something back. That God wants to keep them from being all they can be. While we know this isn't true, and we say that we believe God has our best intrests in mind, still we run after what Satan says will make us great in the eyes of man.

See, Satan hasn't changed the core of his tricks. He's still tricking us the same way he tricked Adam and Eve. He's still encouraging us to doubt what we say we believe about God. In that way, he keeps us from living out the trust that we know we need to have in God.

What about you? What belief about God is Satan attacking in your life? How are are you going to fight back? Ephesians 6:16 encourages us to weild the sheild of faith to knock down the arrows of deception that are flying our way.

Trust God fully this week. Don't just say that you believe in Him and what he says he is, but trust it, with your life. Your trust of God will be evident in the way that you live our your beliefs.

Trust God fully and see if he doesn't prove himself GOOD & TRUE!