Please Pray for Joey's Sister - Stephanie!

hello everyone, below is an email that i received from my sister Erica in regards to my sister Stephanie. Can you please get anyone and everyone to please be praying for my sister. THANK YOU!!!

Stephanie with Joey

I'm not sure if you got all the texts i sent regarding Steph. She had the surgery and they got all the stones but one . The dr said that he dropped one and looked for it for an hour and couldn't find it. last night at 8 pm she had a cat scan for them to see where it went. They will find out the results this morning sometime. If they find it then they will have to go in and get it. She had a really hard time last night. Threw up 3 times and can't keep pain meds in her. They tried 7 times to take her blood and couldn't find a vein to do it. She has the shivers and she is exhausted and needs to rest! Please have people praying for her. I know that she was fearful going into the surgery and hearing this new was not the best when she got out. God has amazing plans for Steph .. i don't know what is to come out of this.

Pointing to Jesus

One of the most important things that we can do as a believer of Jesus Christ is point others to Jesus. As I began to read through the Gospel of John tonight, and I began to read over the life of John the Baptist, I saw something that is very clear in chapter 1 of John. John the Baptist pointed others to Jesus. In fact, I would say that the very calling that God had on John's life was to point to Jesus. In the following verses, the First thing we note is what John was called to do:

John 1:6-8 There was a ​man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This man came for a ​witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might ​believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that ​Light.

Secondly, we note that John knew who he was and who he was not:

John 1:19-23 "Now this is ​the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 ​He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” 21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you ​​the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” 22 Then they said to him, “Who are you, that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?” 23 He said: ​“I am ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Make straight the way of the Lord,” ’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”

John did not seek to take any glory away from Jesus. He made it very clear to them that he was not the Christ, he was not Elijah, and he was not the Prophet. He then went on to tell them who he was. I love this. John didn't try to be who he wasn't. He was who God made him to be and he was fine with that. He wanted to walk in the calling that the Lord had for him. What about you? Are you trying to be someone else? Just be stoked with who Jesus made you to be and walk in the steps He has called YOU to walk in.

The third thing that I want to point out, is John gets people's eyes upon Jesus:

John 1:29 "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! ​The Lamb of God ​who takes away the sin of the world! "

I picture John physically pointing to Jesus and by doing this he would have directed everyone's eyes, interest, thoughts, and minds upon Jesus.

The fourth thing that I believe is very important to note is that John testified that Jesus was God:

John 1:32-34 "And John bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. 33 I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, ​this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I have seen and testified that this is the ​Son of God.”

Not only was it a bold declaration, but it was his personal testimony that he believed that Jesus was the Son of God - meaning - He is God!

And the last thing that I want to point out to you is actually out of chapter 3:

John 3:27-30 "John answered and said, ​“A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. 28 You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ​​‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ​​‘I have been sent before Him.’ 29 ​​He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but ​​the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. 30 ​He must increase, but I must decrease."

This was John's joy and it was fulfilled. To see Jesus increase and him decrease. The very purpose of John's life was to point others to Jesus and that is exactly what He had done. What a life! What a high calling that was!

I want to end this little devotion by sharing with you a verse that is very powerful:

Ephesians 2:10 "For we are ​His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Do you know the good works which God has prepared for you? Are you walking in them? Are you being faithful to the call of God on your life? If you do not know what it is. Begin to humble yourself before the Lord, surrender your will to Him, and present yourself to Him. Make this your prayer. "Here I am Lord! Speak Lord! Your servant is listening!" Then begin to get into God's Word and His Word will be a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path!

God Bless you!

Update on the German Lessons

Hello Everyone! I just wanted to give all of you a little update about how my German classes are going. It is currently Tuesday night at 11:55pm and I just finished with my German hausaufgaben (homework). Like I wrote previously, die erste tag war verrückt (the first day was crazy!) But the following two days went really good. This is the deal. On Mondays and Tuesdays I have one teacher and on Wednesdays and Thursdays I have another teacher. It is kind of a bummer, because I really enjoy the second teacher a lot more. She seems to be a lot easier to understand and she is a lot more organized. And if you know me, I like that! One of the other blessings (we shall see) is that this second teacher realized how much I am paying for the class. So during the break, she talked with me about it (all in German) and asked if I alone had to pay that much for the class. I told her, "Ja." She knows who I am and why I am here. She knows that I have my wife who doesn't work and that we have three kids at home. So to make this story shorter, she went and talked with (I believe) the director about my situation. After talking to him, she let me know that I can try to get the classes for a lot less money. Which would be awesome! I need it! So today, I turned in all of the paperwork needed for this and we shall see what happens. Pray that I would be able to get these classes at the lower cost. This money is going to add up, so this would be a blessing.
So yesterday and today, was not too bad. I had the first teacher, and just like the first day, things were a little bit crazy. She was a little more organized, which was nice, but then at times she would go so schnell (fast) that there was no way I could keep up. And then at times she would radically change what we were working on, start talking about our hausaufgaben (homework) and then switch back to the lessen we were working on. At times, it is a bit crazy! I am looking forward to tomorrow with this other teacher!
Please pray for me to have wisdom and understanding with the German language. You know it is a hard language to learn when the German people in the church tell me, it is a hard language for them to understand at times. hahaha

The last thing that I want to share with you is really cool!!!!

In my class I have people from all over the world represented. I have the nations in my class! Men and Women from Turkey, India, Iraq, Poland, Korea, Prague, Russia, Syria, and Vietnam. There are many Muslims in my class! Basically, many nonbelievers! They all know that I am a pastor and that I love to study the Bible. That is what I shared about myself on the first day of the class in German. So please pray that the Lord would use me to be a light for Him in the class. Please pray that I would increase in my knowledge in German to eventually share the Lord with them. These people I am basically going to see everyday for the next year! So please keep them and me in your prayers. I am excited to see what the Lord is going to do. I know that the Lord has me there for a reason! PRAY PRAY PRAY!
God Belss You!

A little Devo!

Tonight, we were getting everything ready for dinner. I had just finished putting everything on the girls plates and was just about to get them something to drink. Now, I know my girls. So I knew exactly what I was going to get them to drink. Before I could even get to the kuhlschrank (refrigerator), Katie said, "Daddy, I want milk." And I told her, "Katie, I am your dad and I know exactly what you want." I knew that she would want milk even before she had asked for it. I was already working on getting her milk. And it was milk that she received. On the other hand, there is Aliyah. After getting Katie her milk, I then started to work on getting Aliyah's drink and then she told me, "Daddy, I want some milk too!" My response to her was, "Aliyah, I know what you want, but I know what you need." You see Aliyah is allergic to milk and so she cannot have it. And because I love my daughter, I am not going to give her what she wants, it will only harm her, I am going to give her what she needs, for this will bless her.
Directly after saying these statements to my daughters, the Lord immediately ministered to my heart and I told Rebecca, "that is exactly how it is with us." You see we have a loving Heavenly Father that knows us. In fact, if you doubt this, read and meditate upon Psalm 139 and there you will see how our Heavenly Father knows us so well! He knows exactly what we want even before we even ask for it! And yet He still tells us to ASK. In Katie's situation, that is exactly what she did. She asked for it! And because of this, she received it. But think about this. It was already on my heart to give her the very thing that she would eventually ask for. I was already in the process of wanting to give it to her. All she had to do was ask. I love my daughter. I want to bless her. I want to give her the very desire of her heart. And so too, our Heavenly Father loves us. He wants to bless us. And when the desires of our heart are according to His will, He longs to give us these desires.
But did you notice the slight difference with Aliyah? You see, Aliyah asked for milk. But instead she received orange juice. You see I love Aliyah just as much as I love Katie. Katie asked for milk and she received it. Aliyah asked for milk and she received orange juice. Why? The answer is, because I love my daughter. I know what is best for her. I know that if I give her the milk that she is asking for, it will only harm her, so because I love her, I gave her orange juice instead. So too, we have a Heavenly Father thats knows what is best for us. Sometimes we come to Him and tell Him what we desire, but because He loves us, He doesn't give us that, but gives us what is BEST for us.
Here are a few verses for you to read over and be blessed with in regards to this little devotion.

James 4:2 "...Yet you do not have because you do not ask."

Matthew 7:7-11 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For ​f​everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 ​Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If you then, ​​being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"

1 John 5:14-15 "Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that ​if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him."

The Kids on Resurrection Sunday

the girls and their little bro - they love him so much!

our little Noah Daniel - 2 months old now!

our precious Aliyah - found her first chocolate of the day

Katie - our big girl - she is so cute!

Celebrating Joey's Birthday

Yesterday, April 20th, we had the opportunity to celebrate my birthday with some friends here in Germany. I know that this is kind of weird to be writing a story about myself, but I just want to share with you the things that are going on here in Germany.
So we were blessed to be able to get together with Edmund and Martha, Hermann and AnnaLena, Jürgen and Beate, and then later with our baby sitters, Carol and Vicky. Carol and Vicky watched the three kids so that we could go out to dinner with a few friends.
We went to a nice Italian Restaurant in a village near by called Haiger. The name of the restaurant is Bacco. Well, I have to say, I was pretty stoked as I looked on the menu and what did I see for an appetizer. Escargot - SNAILS! To be honest, I love these! I grew up eating them! So I had to get them.We spent around 3 hours at the restaurant just haning out, eating, fellowshipping, etc. Afterwards, we came back to our house for some cake and coffee. It was truly a blessing to have this time of fellowship.
I did really miss my family and friends back home during this time, but the Lord really blessed the time with our brothers and sisters in the Lord here in Germany!
One of the fun parts about the night is that Rebecca and I were able to "roll" in a Mercedes Benz! A brother here in the fellowship switched cars with us so that he can begin to look and our car and see what will need to be fixed on it. So we were able to "roll" in the Mercedes Benz! It was pretty fun!

Rebecca being dropped off in the Mercedes Benz

That's how I roll - Mercedes!

Joey, Rebecca, Martha, Edmund, AnnaLena, Herman, Beate, and Jürgen (taking photo)

German Lessons BEGIN!

So today, April 21st, I (Joey) went to my first of many German classes. To be honest, I am both excited and nervous about all of this. I am nervous because, well, I just am. I guess I don't really have a reason to be nervous. And I am excited, because the more Deutsch I learn, the more I will be able to communicate and minister to the people that the Lord has called us to serve. I am also excited, to bring whatever I learn home and be able to teach what I can to my lovely wife so that she too can learn the language.
So this is how it began. My class started today at 9am and I was told to order Schritte 2 (the book you see just below). I was kind of confused why I wasn't told to order Schritte 1 - but whatever. We shall see what happens.
So once the class got underway and we started to share who we were and where we were from, I thought, "Alright, this is going to be pretty cool." So this is what I said:

Hallo, meine name ist Joey Roper. Ich komme aus America, aus California. Ich wohne in Herborn-Seelbach. Ich habe drei kinder. Zwei töchter und eine sohn.

hopefully all of the spelling is correct!
Translation:
Hello, my name is Joey Roper. I come from America, from California. I live in Herborn-Seelbach. I have three kids. Two daughters and one son.

After that, things began to get very interesting. To make a long story short. As the teacher continued to talk in only German, (which I was okay with) and I began to see that this was not only a class full of English speakers wanting to learn German, and the biggest of them all, I should have started my class back in February with the first book: Schritte 1 - (which you see below). Well, then, I began to feel overwhelmed.

The class was a total of 3 hours and 15 minutes and I probably understood about 40% of what the teacher said. I guess that is pretty good. But I know that I am completely lost and that I am going to have to play catch up. I really felt sorry for the lady that was sitting next to me. She was from Kenya and she has only been here in Germany for 1 week and doesn't know really anything in German. I know that she understood pretty much nothing of what the teacher was talking about!
So I know that this is both good and bad. Bad, because somehow I am going to have to play catch up. And good, because the more German that I hear and the more I am surrounded by it, the more that I will learn. I know that it is only day one, but I wish I would have started back in February. I am kind of bummed when I signed up for this class, that the guy on the phone didn't tell me that these were consecutive classses. He made it sound like you could start anytime you wanted.
Well, I am sure that I will share more and more on this topic. But I do ask all of you to please pray for me with these classes as I will need it desperately!!!
Danke für das Ablesen! - Thank you for reading
Gott Segne Euch - God Bless You

Night of Worship

Last night, April 18th, we had a night of worship at our church. To be honest, the day was a stressful day, and so it was so good to be able to sit at the feet of Jesus and just worship Him. Pastor Edmund had to go to a wedding, and so he asked me to run the evening. There were four things that stood out to me on this evening. 1) we were able to gather together as a church and just worship our Lord and King! To hear the people pray and pour their hearts out to the Lord was such a blessing! 2) I was able to bring Katie with me to this night. She was a very good girl and I was proud of her!
3) We were blessed to have Andrea Kölsch lead us in worship. She is one of the worship leaders at CC Siegen and she is a blessing to many churches here in Germany. She leads a ministry whereby her and others go to some of the churches that do not have any worship leader at all and blesses them with worship. Many of these churches that they help out just have worship via CD. We were blessed to have her and one of her friends lead us in Worship!!!
4) We looked at Psalm 145! This is one of my favorite Psalms. Here it is. May the Lord minister to you as you read through it!

A Song of God’s Majesty and Love

1 I will ​extol You, my God, O King; And I will bless Your name forever and ever.
2 Every day I will bless You,
And I will praise Your name forever and ever.
3 ​b​Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
And ​c​His greatness is ​2​unsearchable.
4 ​d​One generation shall praise Your works to another,
And shall declare Your mighty acts.
5 ​3​I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty,
And ​4​on Your wondrous works.
6 Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts,
And I will declare Your greatness.
7 They shall ​5​utter the memory of Your great goodness,
And shall sing of Your righteousness.
8 ​e​The Lord is gracious and full of compassion,
Slow to anger and great in mercy.
9 ​f​The Lord is good to all,
And His tender mercies are over all His works.
10 ​g​All Your works shall praise You, O Lord,
And Your saints shall bless You.
11 They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom,
And talk of Your power,
12 To make known to the sons of men His mighty acts,
And the glorious majesty of His kingdom.
13 ​h​Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
And Your dominion endures throughout all ​6​generations.
14 The Lord upholds all who fall,
And ​i​raises up all who are bowed down.
15 ​j​The eyes of all look expectantly to You,
And ​k​You give them their food in due season.
16 You open Your hand
​l​And satisfy the desire of every living thing.
17 The Lord is righteous in all His ways,
Gracious in all His works.
18 ​m​The Lord is near to all who call upon Him,
To all who call upon Him ​n​in truth.
19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
He also will hear their cry and save them.
20 ​o​The Lord preserves all who love Him,
But all the wicked He will destroy.
21 My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord,
And all flesh shall bless His holy name
Forever and ever.

Trip to Weilburg with Friends

On Friday, April 10th, after our Karfreitag (Good Friday) service, we had the opportunity to get together with some friends of the church who invited us to go to the Kubacher Kristallhöhle. It is the deepest cave in all of Germany where they discovered crystal. It is basically a crystal cave. Sorry that I didn't take any pictures of the cave, but it was pretty sweet. The girls were pretty excited and scared to go into a real cave. Another cool fact about the location of this cave is the village that it is located in. It is located in the village of Kubach, which is a 1,009 year old village. That was pretty amazing!

Afterwards, we were able to go to another city called Weilburg. The pictures that you see here are from this city. It was a great day of fellowship! We want to thank Daniel and Sylvia Kruse for inviting us to come along with them for the day! We had a blast!

He is My King - Do You Know Him?

Please pause the music player at the bottom of the blog before you watch this video! Be blessed with it!

Men's Ministry @ CCH

Yesterday, April 9th, I had the opportunity to teach at our Men's ministry. What a blessing it was! Before I started to study for this teaching, I asked Matthias (men's ministry leader) how much time I would have to teach. He let me know that I could teach for an hour or an hour and a half. Guess what I did? That's right - an hour and a half! I first, I didn't think that I would do that, but that is what ended up happening.

The title of the message was,
"How Can I have a Continual Growth in this life of Faith?"

As I was studying for this teaching, the Lord laid three points on my heart. 1) Love Jesus 2) Love Your Wife 3) Love Your Kids. We had a great time discussing these three points. I believe that each of us were radically challenged in all three of these areas.

You see, as men of God, I believe it is our desire to have a continuous growth in our walks with the Lord. We can have this desire, but one thing is for certain, it is going to take time and effort. In fact, as we look into God's Word, it is very clear that it is going to be a daily decision for each of us if we are going to grow in our relationship with the Lord or not. In the study, we had one man that has only been walking with the Lord for one year and another that has been walking with the Lord for 42 years. The rest of us fit in between these years. And yet, the Lord challenged us, "Are we growing in our love for the Him? Are we growing in the Word? Are we memorizing more Scripture? Are we making a greater impact in the lives of others?"
We can talk about loving Jesus, but are we doing it? That is the real question. Before we moved into the 2nd and 3rd points, it was very clear to us that if we are not living out point #1 then we will not be able to do point #2 & #3 correctly. If you are interested into listening to this study, it will be on our blog on the right hand side in the next couple of days.

If you are a man of God, I would encourage you to listen to it, not because I taught it, but because we need to hear these things!

The Joy Set Before Him

Tonight, April 8th, I was able to teach once again on "The Person of Jesus Christ" series once again. This will be my last study of this series. In fact, there are only two left, so please do pray for Martin and Pastor Edmund as they will be doing the last two studies of this series.
Tonight my topic was "The Joy Set Before Him." This is a perfect topic to study right before our Karfreitag (Good Friday) study on Friday morning coming up.

In Hebrews 12:2, it says, "looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

As we look into the life of Jesus and we consider His last days, we definitely see something in Scripture. As you look through Gospel of Luke, you will see a common theme. It starts in Luke 9:51, which says, "Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem," From this point, you see how Jesus is making His way to Jerusalem. Check it out. Here are the other verses in Luke. (Luke 13:22, 17:11, 19:11, 19:28) But why? What is it that Jesus wanted to accomplish in Jerusalem? Did He want to go there to correct the religious leaders of the day? Did He go there to answer all of the questions that they would have for Him? Do He go there to just merely cleanse the temple? No doubt you know that answer to these questions. The answer is NO! As we continue to look into Scripture we see that Jesus went to Jerusalem to go to the CROSS for each and every one of us!
As you read in the Gospel of Matthew, in chapter 26, Jesus tells His disciples to "Rise, let us be going. See, My betrayers is at hand." (Matt. 26:46) I want to suggest that as you look into these Scriptures and many others that you can see that Jesus marched to the cross! He didn't run from it! He didn't hide from it! He marched to it!
The question that we must ask is... WHY?
- Because there would be no other way!
- Because there would be nothing that we could do on our own to get to heaven!
- Because our sins had to be judged!
- Because we were His joy (Heb.12:2)
- Because He loved us (Romans 5:8, John 3:16-17, 2 Cor. 5:21, 2 Peter 3:9, 1 John 4:9-10, 1 John 3:16, 1 Timothy 1:15)

My family, friends, relatives, and whoever is reading this. I want to share with you this Good News. The greatest news in the world! This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners... Every single one of us is guilty. No matter how nice we are. No matter how many good deeds we have done. We are guilty. We have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And for this we deserve to be judged. And yet because of the Love, Grace, and Mercy of God, He sent His only begotten Son into the world to save us from our sins. He (God the Father) made Him (Jesus-God the Son) who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we would become the righteousness (have a right standing before God) of God in Him (Jesus). Today, do you Recognize that you are a sinner? Do you Realize that Jesus died on the cross for your sins? Then you need to Repent (to make a change for the better) from your sins and Receive Jesus!
This is the greatest news in the world! He died so that we can live with Him in eternity! Romans 10:9-10 says, "that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
Why wait any longer, receive this free gift of eternal life (Romans 6:23). Give all of who you are to Jesus! Trust me, you will never regret it!

Rebecca and Her Friends

Rebecca, Lorena, Jenny, Noah, and Aliyah in Cochem, Germany

Here is just one picture of Rebecca and her friends on a day trip to Cochem, Germany. We will be posting up more pics and stories on the blog soon of their time here with us. We are so glad that there are able to come and hang with us here in Germany! We look forward to them joining us again after they travel around Europe during this week!

He is Risen Indeed!

Luke 24:1-7 "Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. 2 But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. 3 Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. 5 Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? 6 He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, 7 saying, 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.'"

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important detail in our Christian faith. If Jesus just died on the cross and did not rise again, that would cause him to be just like any other"spiritual leader" that lived and died. This is what separates Him from anyone else. He not only died in our place, but He rose again conquering sin and death for us. For anyone who may doubt the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, here is a list of recorded appearances of Jesus after His Resurrection:
- To Mary Magdelene (Mark 16:9)
- To several other women (Matthew 28:1-10)
- To Simon Peter (Luke 24:34)
- To Cleopas and another person (Luke 24:13-35)
- To ten of the eleven apostles (Thomas was not there) and others who were present (Luke 24:33-40)
- To all eleven of the apostles (John 20:26-27)
- To some of the disciples (John 21:1-23)
- To the eleven apostles (Matthew 28:16-20)
- To his half-brother James (1st Corinthians 15:7)
- To the apostles (Luke 24:50-52)
- To more than 500 witnesses at the same time (1st Corinthians 15:6)
- At the Ascension (Acts 1:3-12)
- To the apostle Paul (Acts 9:1-9)
- To Stephen (Acts 7:55)
- To Paul (Acts 22:17-18) & (Acts 23:11)
- To John (Revelation 1:12-18)

"If you were to call each of the witnesses cited in the New Testament to be cross-examined for 15 minutes, and you went around the clock without a break, it would take you from breakfast on Monday until dinner on Friday to hear them all. Would nearly 129 straight hours of eyewitness testimony make you more likely to believe that Jesus came back to life? Why or Why not?" LEE STROBEL

The Character of Jesus

On Wednesday, March 25th, I had the opportunity to teach once again with our current series that we have going on Wednesday Nights. We are looking at "The Person of Jesus Christ" and with this specific study, I was given the topic "The Character of Jesus." To be honest, there are so many characteristics in the life of Jesus that are so important for us Christians to look at, consider, and ask that the Lord would work these things in our lives. Let me give you a couple of examples:

• Humble – Philippians 2:3-8
• Compassionate – Matthew 9:35-36, 14:14, 15:32, 20:29-34, Mark 1:40-42, Luke 7:11-15, John 8:3-11
• Grace & Truth – John 1:14, 17
• Perfect – Hebrews 4:15, 2 Corinthians 5:21
• Fearless – Matthew 23
• Heart for the Lost – 2 Peter 3:9, Luke 4:18, 5:32 19:10, 1 Timothy 1:15, Matthew 18:11
• Many others - the New Testament

But there were two that I believe that the Lord laid specifically on my heart to teach on. It wasn't that I was thinking, "This is what the people really need to hear." No, it was more, "This is what I need to hear from Him." The two that I am talking about is Servant hood and Prayer.

#1 Servanthood

As we look at the life of Jesus, we constantly see that He was a servant to the people. In fact, in Matthew 20:25-28, we see that it says... “But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave-- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."
Jesus' disciples were constantly arguing who would be the greatest and who would be #1. And yet, time and time again He would have to teach them what true greatness was. He would says things like, "If you want to be great, then you will be last, you will be the slave of all." This was a complete opposite of what they would see in their daily lives, even by the religious leaders of the day. And yet, as they would look into the life of Jesus, this is exactly what He did. He served them. He served the people.
And as we look into the famous passage of Scripture in John 13, we see that Jesus takes off His garments and puts on the garments of a slave and begins to wash the feet of the disciples. He, being their Master and Teacher was giving them an example of what they were to do to one another. Jesus set the example of a servant. His life reminds me of the following verses in Philippians 2...
Philippians 2:3-5 “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,”

So convicting... and yet... so Jesus!

#2 Life of Prayer

As we look into the life of Jesus, this is definitely something that we see Jesus doing. He lived a life of prayer. It didn't matter what time of the day it was, it didn't matter where He was, He would pray.

Luke 5:16 “So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.”
Mark 6:46 “And when He had sent them away, He departed to the mountain to pray.”

I know that I personally lack in this area so much. And no doubt this is an area that you too probably lack in. Just getting alone with the Father and praying. When was the last time you did this? Jesus made it a point in the midst of the busyness to go get alone with the Father. Man, if He did it, how much more do you and I need to?

1 Peter 2:21 says, "For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:"
What an example that Jesus gave us in these two areas of servant hood and prayer. May these two areas in our life increase. May we become more like our Savior and be a servant and a man/woman of prayer.

Hi From the Girls

Our Little Stud!

CC Herborn Leadership Day

On Saturday, March 28th, we had our first ever Leadership Day! It was originally our desire to do a Leadership Retreat, but it was not the Lord's will yet for that. We will just take it one step at a time. So we set this Saturday aside to get together with the leaders of the ministries and their spouses to not only have some sweet fellowship with them, but to also equip them for the ministry. Throughout the day we had three sessions taught by Pastor Edmund (which were amazing), we went on a walk (which for us was absolutely awesome), spent time in worship, prayer, food and fellowship, and so much more. As we considered the day, we definitely saw how the Lord used this day to do a work in the lives of the leaders at our church, and we look forward to what the Lord will continue to do in future meetings and Leadership Days.
One of the other cool things about the day, was the location where we had this event. It was at the Wycliffe Retreat Center. From what I was told, this specific Center is the main one out of all of Europe where people are at translating the Bible into thousands of different languages. In fact, Rebecca and I had the opportunity to talk with one lady that has been involved with Wycliffe for years and she shared with us some of her experiences. What a blessing it was just to sit and listen to her! Here are some pics of the day...

Equipping the Saints

Rebecca enjoying fellowship with the wives

Joey and Michael hanging out before the day starts

Martha taking down some notes

Fellow Medenbachers!

during our walk

Once again, we thank the Lord for this day and we look forward to what He will continue to do through each of these servants of the Lord!