meBible App Review

With this post, I am excited to tell you about a really cool Bible app available as a free download for the iPad. The meBible Ultimate Research Bible app will totally change how you interact with scripture, and it even has some really great features that make you excited in new ways about digging into the Bible.  Here are just a few reasons why I think you will enjoy checking it out...

1. It has a terrific interface that allows you to "split" the screen, with the Bible on the top pane and your notes and/or Internet browser on the bottom pane. This makes it really easy and fun to find things like pictures and resources online and link them directly to a text that you may be studying.

2. There are loads of features that you can add once you have downloaded the app...things like commentaries, a Greek/Hebrew lexicon, Topical Bibles, and fun themes. Each of these items makes meBible more personalized and makes it feel more like "you."

3. And my favorite reason that meBible is so cool is because it was developed by my very own husband! Many hours of coding and thinking and praying have gone into putting this app in a category all its own. (And I'm not just saying that! If I wasn't married to the meBible creator, I still would count it as my favorite Bible app!) :-)

But don't just take my word for it, check out a recent review on iTunes:

"I'd give this 10 STARS if I could!  I just opened this Bible app for the first time & already love it. Firstly, because it's completely FREE.  Secondly, I love all the options - highlighting, adding my own notes, bookmarking. Thirdly & most important to me, are all the free foreign language translations.  Overall, I will use this app every day for hours & I'm very pleased with it. It looks great, the setup is user friendly, & I'm sure I'll get plenty of use out of the additional tools once I figure them out."

You can go to iTunes and download it for yourself and give it a spin:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mebible-ultimate-research/id476441818?mt=8 

You can also check meBible's website for loads of great information:  http://mebible.info/ 

meBible connects the ancient truths of scripture with the modern amenities of the Internet right at our fingertips. Try it, I bet you'll like it!

Compassion Visit

During my March visit to Haiti, a definite highlight was the trip we were able to take into the mountains to the town of St. Raphael to visit with Olgentz and his family. Our youth group has been sponsoring Olgentz through Compassion International for the past year and a half, and it was a wonderful, over-the-top, surreal experience to get to meet in person this dear young man who has been a fixture in our youth group on Sunday nights by way of a picture on the wall.

Outside the Compassion Project

We first arrived at the Compassion project--the faith-based school Olgentz attends thanks to the Compassion funds. We got treated like royalty as we were the first Compassion sponsors to EVER visit this site! The staff came and was introduced to us, a feast of fried plantain, chicken, cake, salads, casseroles, and ice cold drinks was served to us, and we got a tour of the project site.

Left to right: our translator Bernard, Olgentz, me, Pastor Randall B., the Pastor who oversees this project, Lori G..

Walking the footpath to Olgentz's home

After a brief visit there, we all piled into the back of a truck and headed to Olgentz's home. Nearly a month later, I am still overwhelmed by the incredible hospitality that we received there. Olgentz's mother welcomed us into their home where we all squeezed around a table and were presented with ANOTHER feast with more ice cold drinks. They blessed us time and again for the ways that we have helped to provide for Olgentz. Such a humbling experience, and I find that words continue to fail me when it comes to telling about that experience.

Showing the family some pictures from our town.

Some lessons from my time with this most precious family?

Hospitality matters. Your house's condition does not. Relationships matter.

Loving people matters. "Stuff" is not important.

Jesus is quintessential to life.

Those are all very simple sentences and concepts, aren't they? You know what I'm finding, though? They are much more difficult to put into practice than they are to type out!

Part of our Compassion support has provided a pig for the family, and we were thrilled to see babies!

With Olgentz and his family in their sugar cane field.

As we left the sugar cane field and headed back to the truck to prepare to leave, I glanced back over my shoulder and saw the most beautiful sight: Olgentz's mother was standing there by herself, with her hands raised toward the sky, her eyes closed, and her mouth moving in prayer. In the midst of poverty and lack, she did not forget "from whom all blessings flow."  I want to be more like her...

Living in the Land of Excess

Will you indulge me a little post-Haiti-mission-trip-processing?  Thanks! I recently had the privilege of spending 5 days in Haiti, making new friends, seeing the countryside, and visiting a boy our youth group has been sponsoring through Compassion International (there will be a future blog post about that trip). The experience was so much more than I can even begin to put into mere words as it involves my feelings, my thoughts, my spirit...those parts of experiences that seem to be cheapened if you try to put them into black and white sentences and phrases.

As I have begun the process of "re-entry" back into normal life and normal routines, I'm not sure I can handle "normal" any more. One of the realizations I am sure of is that we live in a land of excess. Excess clothing. Excess food. Excess media. Excess opportunities. Excess stuff. Excess. Check out Jesus' words in Luke 12:13-21. He has some pretty specific things to say to people who make "excess" their goal in life:

     A man in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide with me the property our father left us.”  Jesus answered him, “Friend, who gave me the right to judge or to divide the property between you two?” And he went on to say to them all, “Watch out and guard yourselves from every kind of greed; because your true life is not made up of the things you own, no matter how rich you may be.”
     Then Jesus told them this parable: “There was once a rich man who had land which bore good crops.  He began to think to himself, ‘I don't have a place to keep all my crops. What can I do? This is what I will do,’ he told himself; ‘I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, where I will store the grain and all my other goods. Then I will say to myself, Lucky man! You have all the good things you need for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself!’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night you will have to give up your life; then who will get all these things you have kept for yourself?’”   And Jesus concluded, “This is how it is with those who pile up riches for themselves but are not rich in God's sight.”

Life in Haiti

For the past week, I've been contrasting the riches of the US with the riches of Haiti. When you look at material goods, the US comes out on top easily. But when you start looking at those things considered "rich in God's sight" I think Haitian believers have the edge. The brief experience I had in Haiti showed me in numerous ways how believers there depend on the Lord solely day in and day out for their needs. Complete and utter dependence. And you know what? They actually believe that God will take care of them! Not just a head knowledge, either...they truly believe it.

Can I be honest? It's been difficult this past week being bombarded with all that this land of excess has to offer. So much seems like such drivel when compared to what God would have us spend our time and resources on. How can we justify spending thousands on "entertainment" when every 5 seconds somewhere in the world a child dies from hunger? We sing songs to the Lord with lines like "Break my heart for what breaks Yours. Everything I am for Your Kingdom's cause." The reality of that is penetrating my very being in ways that it hasn't before. If my heart breaks for the same things that God's heart breaks for, then my daily life needs to look a lot different. If all of my time and resources are spent for the Lord's Kingdom's cause, then my daily life needs to look a lot different.

Some of you are probably saying, "Yep, it's obvious she's just back from a mission trip. Give it a day or two."  Well, I'm determined that my five days in Haiti are not going to be a "flash in the pan."  I will share this line that I believe God impressed on my heart: "I don't feel that God is calling me to move to Haiti, but I do believe He is calling me to be moved BY Haiti."  May it be so, Lord.

Jesus IS King

When you think of Jesus, how do you envision Him? Do the innumerable "Sunday school pictures" play a slideshow in your mind's eye? Shoulder-length hair. Brown eyes. Robe and sandals. Or some variation of these characteristics. Over the past few years, my thinking has been challenged to consider Jesus as He IS, not as He WAS when He walked this earth.  He IS the risen Savior...right now...at the right hand of God the Father. Right now! Isn't that incredible?

Revelation 19:11-16 has an amazing depiction of what John saw as he got a glimpse into heaven.

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: 

KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

THIS is Jesus, our Savior, our Redeemer, the Chief Cornerstone, Immanuel, the Living Water, the Bread of Life, our King. Honestly? My finite mind cannot conceive all of that. But one thing I know is that Jesus is worthy of my adoration and my whole-hearted devotion.

I have to wonder if we are doing a good job at making sure young people know who Jesus IS. In our families, do we ever "allow" Jesus to grow up beyond the baby in the manger? How would our families, our homes, our churches change if each believer started to truly recognize and worship Jesus as "King of Kings and Lord of Lords"? What does adoring Jesus look like in your life or in your homes?

Insulated or Isolated?

At the D6 Conference I attended last year, Fred Luter (Pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans) made a statement that has stuck with me ever since. He said, "We can't isolate kids from the culture, but we can insulate them with God's Word." Isn't that a marvelous thought? Kids are going to grow up in the culture around us, and isolating them from everything is nearly impossible. Unless you lock them in their bedroom and board up the windows and don't allow any sort of electronic device to permeate the perimeter...but one day, they'll grow up and have to face the "big bad world", and will they be equipped? That's why I think what Pastor Luter said is brilliant...instead of putting our kids into isolation until Jesus returns, we as parents, grandparents, children's and youth ministers can work diligently at "insulating" the young people in our lives with the word of God.

Let's teach our kids how to handle disappointment and conflict in a biblical and godly manner. Let's teach them the importance of loving God with all that's in us and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Let's teach them the importance of mission and giving. Let's teach them what it means to live a righteous and holy life in love with a righteous and holy God.

Consider Jesus' words in His prayer on the night before He would be crucified:

"I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth."

Jesus definitely was not asking the Father to isolate His disciples...He was asking to insulate them, to keep them from the evil one, to sanctify them (to be set apart)...and this is all wrapped up, could we say "insulated", in the truth...God's word.

So, bottom line? Make sure your kids are well-insulated! Permeate their lives with the word of God (along with your own life!) Teach them what it means to wear the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18). And most importantly, make following Christ a lifestyle that infiltrates every corner of life.

Pass the Faith

Perhaps one of the saddest phrases in the Bible is found in Judges 2:10. "And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD..." This is referring to the people of Israel who had an "on again, off again" type of relationship with the Lord, and it had apparently gotten to the point where one generation had completely died off, and the next generation did not know the Lord. Does that grieve you like it does me?

Those who know me know that I'm impassioned about making sure that the next generation DOES know the Lord, and you know whose responsibility that is? Yep, my generation's. Your generation's. Generational discipleship is how God designed for His commands and His character to be passed along. What a privilege we have to carry the message of God and of His Son to the children of today, so that they in turn will grow up to know the Lord and to pass along His message to the next generation.

You know something I realized? We're all influencing the next generation. The question then is HOW are we influencing? As Christ followers, are we encouraging the young people of today to live a life sold out for Jesus? Or are we teaching them how to succeed at being a mediocre Christian with no sacrifice and no pain? Are we teaching them that Jesus is worth EVERYTHING to follow? Or are we teaching them to hold onto the things of this life as more precious than anything Jesus could offer? Are we making disciples? Tough questions, aren't they?  Here's one more...

When our generation has died, will the next generation know the Lord?

Quiet Down!

"But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." (Luke 5:16)

Take a few seconds and let that sink in...

Isn't that a beautiful thought? This "withdrawing" was a habit of Jesus, something He did often, by Himself. Jesus is our model. So I have to ask myself...do I often withdraw to lonely places and pray? If Jesus found this to be a beneficial discipline in His life, I need to do the same. There's power in the solitude...when it's just you and the Lord. You can hear Him, you can sense His nearness, He helps make sense of all that's going on in your heart and mind and life.

Recently I came across this quote from Jim Elliot that has had me pondering: "I think the devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements: noise, hurry, and crowds. Satan is quite aware of the power of silence." The world around us celebrates noise, hurry, and crowds...be more, do more, fill every spare minute! Jesus models something different. Instead of constant busyness and noise and crowds, what would it look like if you and I made withdrawing to lonely places and praying a part of our regular routine? Wouldn't our time in the crowds be much more effective? Wouldn't we be keener at hearing His voice through the noise? In the hurry, wouldn't we slow down to practice His presence?

What's this got to do with children's ministry or youth ministry or parenting?  EVERYTHING! God commanded adults to love Him, to know His commands, and impress them on our children. (Deuteronomy 6) In order to know God, I have to spend time with Him, I have to get to know Him, I have to learn to recognize His voice. I can't give away what I don't have.