One desire

One desire

Only You can be our one desire
Only You can set this heart on fire
It’s through You our lives can truly shine
So my Lord... make Your desires mine

Be our Passion
Be our fire
May the greatness of Your Name be our one desire

Be our way
Be our truth
May Your goodness in our lives be a living proof

Be our hope
Be our life
Make this bride of Yours a pure and spotless wife

Take our sin
Take our shame
Take them precious Lord for the glory of Your Name

Only You can be our one desire
Only You can set this heart on fire
It’s through You our lives can truly shine
So my Lord... make Your desires mine

Take my life
Take my dreams
Do with them my Lord whatever You may deem

Take my heart
Take these hands
I offer them to You, I place them in Your hands

Because only You can be our one desire
And only You can set this heart on fire
And it’s for You alone we want to shine
So my Lord... make Your desires mine

timothy mark mcdonald

Questions

Ephesians 4:1

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called…

Asking the right questions can be tough.

For the past couple of days I have been at a director’s conference for NieuCommunities in Malaga, Spain. It has been great to catch up with my friends and co-laborers from the other sites around the world (US, Canada & South Africa) but it has also been challenging. We have spent hours thinking through and processing how we are living out our community values and rhythms, how we are going to move with more force into mission, and how we are going to continue to innovate… big questions. But, one of the big centering questions that we landed on today has been both personally convicting and instigating.

Are we living out who we say we are… how? Or spoken personally… Am I living a life worthy of this great calling to which I have been called?

After we were done our discussions I was struck by what a great exercise this was for me. It is the difference between walking the walk and walking THE walk… the worthy walk… the steps of Christ. Often it can get so easy to get caught up in running from conversation to discussion to meeting to training to mentoring to parenting to leading… we forget to live let alone live on purpose. There is so much power in simply stopping for a moment (even once a week) and asking ourselves if we are actually living out who we say we are. If we are trying to change the world in which we live (which I believe we are) how is who I say Christ is in me changing hearts, minds and lives around me? Do we claim to be lovers of God, of people… how then have we done today with our children? Our spouses? Our co-workers? Our neighbors? Our enemies?

Asking the right questions can be tough… but ask we must!

How then do we fight?

Matthew 4:3

And the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God..."

So how then do we fight the good fight for faith in a faithless age? In a soaked age?

It gives me great peace to know that we follow a Man (and God) that was tempted in all the ways we have been... but without getting soaked to the bone. And It seems, as we read, we must fight as our Lord fought while He walked in our shoes by fighting it on the inside (in our hearts and minds) and on the outside (with our lives and words).

For me... I have found that fighting on the inside is an act of clinging to God’s Words, His great and precious promises. I cling (sometimes unsuccessfully) to what I know about God and His provision when what I know does not make sense with what I am currently seeing OR what people around me are telling me to think and feel. Basically I preach to myself. That sounds pretty unpopular today I know. But Jesus Himself did this as He faced these same challenges and He tells us that as His followers we should expect to live the same way He did… to be treated the same way he was treated BECAUSE we are following behind Him in His very footsteps. He faced the temptations… we will face the temptations. He faced the world… we will face the world. It is a part of what it means to be human.

As the fight moves from inside to the outside I find myself speaking the truth about who God is and living out the realities of His (oftentimes counter) Kingdom. The life He created us to live filled with love, humility and compassion. It can feel foreign to my own skin sometimes... but I fight to hold to what I know about God when what I know does not make sense with what I am currently experiencing OR what people around me are telling me to do and how to live. This is very unpopular today. But what I have learned is that these temptations are not primarily about getting me to "mess up"... no, they are an assault on who I REALLY am... just as satan's temptation was an assault on who Jesus REALLY was. It is like our enemy is asking, "If you really are children of God..."

But I am!

And as a child of God... as a servant of the King... I must live as a representative of the new Kingdom. I must fight against lording it over others and the systems that destroy the hearts and lives of my fellow humans. I must fight against the idolatrous self-absorbed kingdoms of me and my comfort-at-all-costs. I must fight against the consumerist plague of profit-at-all-costs...

And I must fight to win!

Inside and outside!

Make it so Lord.

Soaked

Matthew 18:7

Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin!

Yesterday I received an email from a friend and co-laborer in India. He has been planning and preparing for an equipping and encouraging event that will be taking place in the mountains for rural pastors in India. The event will take place in February (please be praying for us as we prepare to go and teach God’s word to these faithful followers in the hard places). As he has been planning the event he has had some difficulties in finding available coordinators. In his words, “…cooperation was very poor in Andipatti. They are soaked with the World.”

I was struck by his words.

When you live in a place where rain can come upon you at any moment – prepared or unprepared – you understand the meaning of the word soaked. Saturated. Immersed. Permeated. Absorbed. Soaked.

In India there are few Christians (compared to the West). In the south the numbers are greater, around 3%. As you spend time with those believers (particularly these remote village pastors) you cannot help but be struck by how much more difficult it is to follow Christ there. Almost every village pastor I met was very skinny and quite poor. Most serving their small fellowships scattered over a few villages by themselves with little or no formal education… just the Word of God. They face a lot of opposition. Their fight seems strong compared to so many I see in the West. But still… some are soaked.

Soaked by a world-like desire for authority and power.

Soaked by a world-like desire for importance and fame.

But mostly, soaked by the desire for money and security

…sound familiar?

Our Lord faced this in the wilderness.

His followers have faced it throughout all of history.

We face it in the West… and my friend faces it in the East.

So how then do we fight the good fight for faith in a faithless age?

Happy Hogmanay

Colossians 3:12-14

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

We are wishing all our friends a great New Year and a Happy Hogmanay!

Father, lead us as Your chosen people into this New Year. Give us the strength to live as holy dearly loved children... clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Help us Lord to bear with one another AND forgive each other as we should... as You have forgiven us. And over all this Lord we pray for love that might bind us together as one holy family. Amen.