Holding Babies is Spiritual Warfare

Some friends of our recently were licensed for foster care here in Spokane, with the hope and intention to adopt when possible.

I went and saw them at the hospital last week and was struck by the beauty of the foster parents holding, gazing, feeding and nurturing this newborn child.

It struck me, Satan wants nothing more that this child be abandoned, discarded, left to cry without someone to care and nurture the child. Holding babies is spiritual warfare for believers. In such a simple act there is worship if attention, prayer goes to our maker and creator. The fact that this or any other baby makes it outside the womb is a miracle from above and another stage of spiritual warfare enters as we nurture young infants.

This couple does not know if they will be able to adopt this child. They might have this care in their care, custody, love, care, and protection for months or years and not be able to finalize the adoption...the Lord only knows. Yet, their confidence is not in 'a system' or 'a program', but in the good and perfect plans from the Lord. They are confident the in the Lord, in His purposes, His plans, and His ways. My faith is strengthened, stretched, exhorted as I see them walking in God's will for them.

Over the Thanksgiving time, I told them it is such a joy to have friends who are waging spiritual warfare and entering this hard road of life and ministry, especially with so many unknowns ahead.

Their response  to this encouragement was so biblical and God-centered. "We are confident we are in the will of God when He led us down this road. There is no real risk when you are walking down the road God has for you. We are so grateful He has called us to ministry." Preach it, declare it on the mountaintops. O what a great God we have!!!!

Desiring God Live with Darrin Patrick

Darren Patrick is lead pastor at Journey Church in St. Louis and vice-president of the Acts 29 church planting network. He recently authored the book Church Planter and recently sat down with the crew at Desiring God for an interview.

I watched this for a few reasons, but one because I bought the book and wanted to get a little more background on the context of the HOW and WHY the book was written.

The promo video for the book is excellent and worth the 5 minutes it takes to watch.

Here are a few thoughts, quotes, etc. I walked away with from the interview:

- In Darrin's testimony, God used an assistant high school football coach to bring the message of the Gospel to him when he was a junior in high school, had just gotten kicked off the football team for drinking, kicked out of school for fighting and was sure he had just gotten his girlfriend pregnant.

The below quotes have a full context within the interivew to understand, but they are worth noting.

"You can always take the commands of God back to the character of God"


"I saved you, so now you can obey me" (not the other way around)


"You cannot make God smile bigger at you than He already is because of what Jesus has done"


"There is a difference between surface idols and source idols" You'll have to listen to the interview for him to unpack this.

Disaster is 'when the story and glory of a church becomes bigger than the story and glory of God'.

"A BAN is not a boy, not a man, prolongs adolescence and many do this because they don't have dads."

What is the posture God wants to use us in??? Weakness II COR. 12.

'When people look around at you and aren't impressed with you but with Jesus, that is a great thing.'

The Grace of God in our Circumstances:

Below is a link to a article I found worthy of thought and prayer.

May the grace of God compel us to go reach the nations!

The Grace of God in our Circumstances: Why you weren't Born as an Impoverished Child in an Unreached Nation:

The Unreached People Groups

A few weeks ago, one of the men I have gotten to know over the years preached at our Sunday gathering of believers.


He and his wife have given their lives in taking the Good News of the Gospel to bibleless people groups. This family has given their life work in partnership with Wycliffe Bible Translators to reach people who have never been able to read the Word of God in their own language.

His message is HERE if interested, it is titled Proclaiming Christ where Christ is Unknown.

Some good friends, Troy and Stevi, live in Austin TX and a apart of The Austin Stone Community Church.

This church has made a huge concerted effort toward reaching the unreached and have a great website helping spread that message, called the 100 People Network.

They also hosted the Together for Adoption National Conference a few months back.

A week or so ago, I saw this video below of a couple who is preparing to go, though they don't know where as of yet. 

This video is very well done and is a great to watch, PRAY, and consider.

#35 and #36 of 100 from The Austin Stone on Vimeo.

HT: (Spirit of Adoption)

Adoption is the Gospel

Below is a great Adoption video I found via the Orphan Sunday website.

The aspect of this video I love the most...

Adoption isn't about 147 million orphans...

Adoption isn't about Poverty...

Adoption is the GOSPEL.

Orphan Sunday 2010 from Matthew Wilson on Vimeo.

"They learn from what I am excited about..."

"It’s worth asking ourselves regularly: Is it clear to others that nothing excites me more than the gospel of Jesus Christ and him crucified?"  Here is a blog post to read and consider.


D.A. Carson:
If I have learned anything in 35 or 40 years of teaching, it is that students don’t learn everything I teach them. What they learn is what I am excited about, the kinds of things I emphasize again and again and again and again. That had better be the gospel.


HT: CJ Mahaney via Justin Taylor



The sermon at church ran along the same lines as this article, but this blog post is worth taking note of.

Here are the questions I am asking myself in response to reading this article:

- I need to be regularly asking my wife and others around me: Based on what you see in my life, my time, my money, my attention, what would you say I am the most passionate about?

- Do I put hope, confidence and assurance in some technique or parenting style instead of the Hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Greed, Gideon, and Goodness of God

For the longest time I have thought that God was going to use me to give millions and millions of dollars away to the work of His service for the advance of His name...I don't think so anymore.

I have always been thinking about, trying to be creative toward, finding the next big business that would explode, the money would just start flowing like a waterfall (into my wallet that is, not out), and I would then have millions and millions of dollars at my disposal to give to the Lord's work as He so leads. Give ridiculous amounts anonymously, rescue children from horrific situations, plant churches, give financially to start care facilities, etc.

These are all incredibly important things that I believe are very close to the heart of God. YET, the Lord knows where I am susceptible to succumb to temptation. Here are some things the Lord has been revealing to me:

1. I can say 'I want to honor the Lord' and worship the false god of greed in the same sentence'

2. God is so gracious to keep 'good things' from me because He knows how quick I am to get comfortable, trust in bank accounts, clients, myself...so that my trust remains in Him and not in the things of this world.
What if the Lord 'blessed' me with $2.5 million and it was all used for good causes, but at the same time it caused me to trust in myself, and hardened by the deceitfulness of sin? What a tragedy that would be. Thank you Lord for keeping me dependent upon You.

3. If I had to much $$$ (prosperity, security in worldly possessions, etc) I would WHORE after them. (Scary imagery, but biblical).

4. I am easily snared, trapped, deceived, snookered, by the love of money.

Father, thank you for your gracious hand of love and patience. Thank you for keeping vast riches from me, though I tell myself I would use it to proclaim Your name. You know my frailty, my temptations, my weaknesses. Thank you for Christ Jesus who was vastly rich and became forsakenly poor so I, Dustin Conrad Greenup, could know the riches of knowing Christ Jesus.

I truly do thank the Lord that there are Christ-Followers who love Jesus and whom God has allowed to make millions and millions of dollars. I pray that God would bless them and cause HIS face to shine upon them and that their resources would be used to magnify Him to the ends of the earth and to proclaim that He is God and not stuff.

About a month ago our growth group (community group, small group, etc.) was studying Judges chapters 6 through 10 and it was some incredibly challenging passages regarding the life of Gideon.

  God was so good, gracious and patient with Gideon and consistently took him through faith building situations in which he could not trust in himself, but in the God who would provide for him.


   8:27 And Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his city, in Ophrah. And all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family.