Friday, December 30, 2011

Our Goal for 2012




With the New Year upon us, many have jotted down on paper or on the tablets of their hearts New Years resolutions. Some goals will be in the area of diet, finances, or education. Whatever you determine to accomplish in the year 2012, let your first priority be to pleasing to God.


The question you and I must ask is, “What does God want me to do with my time and resources in the New Year?” In regard to Asia International Mission, I am asking God to show us where He is working so we can join Him. My prayer is that I will be “swift to hear and ready to obey” His every command. May God give you a blessed year as together, we live our lives to be pleasing to the One who has given all to us; a bond servant of Christ. 




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Multiply Your Impact

Whether you're interested in more discipleship, more evangelism, more clean water for the thirsty, or more care for orphans, we can help you maximize the resources that God has entrusted to you. With AIM, your opportunity for giving will multiply the impact; and you can do more for the Kingdom than you ever dreamed possible. If you have more and want to do more with everything you've been given, we can help.

If you would like to close out this year with a special gift just click Here, or send a check to:
AIM
PO Box 1597
Stillwater, OK 75076
To be receipted for tax purposes the donation must be postmarked no later than December 31, 2011.
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Prayer Requests

Pray for the churches of India and for many curious non-believers to attend in order to hear the gospel for (likely) the first time and for their hearts to be open to the life-changing message.
Pray for the spiritual growth of new believers and seekers who are facing indirect opposition from their own community.
Pray that the Word sown in the hearts of the little children will bear much fruit.

 


Asia International Mission is an IRS approved 501(c)(3) non-profit ministry. 
All gifts are tax-deductible and 100% of donations are used as designated

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Following Christ with Our Minds


A failure of Christian thinking is a failure of discipleship, for we are called to love God with our minds.

The biblical narrative serves as a framework for the principles that allow the formation of an authentically Christian worldview. Many Christians rush to develop what they will call a “Christian worldview” by arranging isolated Christian truths, doctrines, and convictions in order to create formulas for Christian thinking. No doubt, this is a better approach than is found among so many believers who have very little concern for Christian thinking at all, but it’s not enough.

Christian thinking that culminates in a God-centered worldview requires that we see all truth as interconnected. Ultimately, the systematic wholeness of truth can be traced to the fact that God is himself the author of all truth. Christianity is not a set of doctrines in the sense that a mechanic operates with a set of tools. Instead, Christianity is a comprehensive worldview and way of life that grows out of Christian reflection on the Bible, and the unfolding plan of God revealed in the unity of the Scriptures.

A God-centered worldview brings every issue, question, and cultural concern into submission to all that the Bible reveals, and frames all understanding within the ultimate purpose of bringing greater glory to God. This task of bringing every thought captive to Christ requires more than periodic Christian thinking, and is to be understood as the task of the Church, and not merely the concern of individual believers. The recovery of the Christian mind and the development of a comprehensive Christian worldview will require the deepest theological reflection, the most consecrated application of scholarship, the most sensitive commitment to compassion, and the courage to face all questions without fear.

Christianity brings the world a distinctive understanding of time, history, and the meaning of life. The Christian worldview contributes an understanding of the universe and all it contains that points us far beyond mere materialism and frees us from the intellectual imprisonment of naturalism. Christians understand that the world—including the material world—is dignified by the very fact that God has created it. At the same time, we understand that we are to be stewards of this creation and are not to worship what God has made.

We understand that every single human being is made in the image of God, and that God is the Lord of life at every stage of human development. We honor the sanctity of human life because we worship the Creator. From the Bible, we draw the essential insight that God takes delight in the ethnic and racial diversity of his human creatures, and so must we.

The Christian worldview contributes a distinctive understanding of beauty, truth, and goodness, understanding these to be boundless, and that in the final analysis, are one and the same. Thus, the Christian worldview disallows the fragmentation that would sever the beautiful from the true or the good.

In the context of cultural conflict, the development of an authentic Christian worldview should enable the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ to maintain a responsible and courageous footing in any culture at any period of time. The stewardship of this responsibility is not only an intellectual challenge, but it determines, to a considerable degree, whether or not Christians live and act before the world in a way that brings glory to God and credibility to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Failure at this task represents an abdication of Christian responsibility that dishonors Christ, weakens the church, and compromises Christian witness.

A failure of Christian thinking is a failure of discipleship, for we are called to love God with our minds. We cannot follow Christ faithfully without first thinking as Christians. Furthermore, believers are not to be isolated thinkers who bear this responsibility alone. We are called to be faithful together, as we learn intellectual discipleship within the church.

By God’s grace, we are allowed to love God with our minds in order that we may serve him with our lives. Christian faithfulness requires the conscious development of a worldview that begins and ends with God at its center. We are only able to think as Christians because we belong to Christ, and the Christian worldview is, in the end, nothing more than seeking to think as Christ would have us to think, in order to be who Christ would call us to be.

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 Have you prayed? Seek the Lord with prayer and fasting. Spend time in worship and listening prayer and in the Word – God will reveal His heart’s purposes to you and direct your paths.


Prayer Requests   
* Pray that the free world will not remain unaware or lulled into complacency by comfort, but will rise up in  
   effective and compassionate solidarity with the persecuted members of the Body. 
* Pray to the Lord of the harvest, that He might send more laborers onto His harvest fields. 
* Pray for a harvest of salvation in every land, that the lost millions will hear the name of Jesus and believe in  Him.

 


 
Asia International Mission is an IRS approved 501(c)(3) non-profit ministry. 
All gifts are tax-deductible and 100% of donations are used as designated