Hi Team!
We just wanted to take a minute to update you regarding the progress on our monthly and cash budgets. Currently, we have a few people supporting us at $100.00/month and our cash budget is at $1000.00. We have to raise a total of at least $3320.00/month and a cash budget of at least $5000.00. We have a LONG way to go but we are believing that God will provide every dollar to send us to Ohio State! When God calls us to it, He makes a way! If you are interested in becoming part of our team, financially speaking, please click on the "Missions Giving" tab above. It will direct you to our giving page through the Assemblies of God website.
We also wanted to inform you that we are traveling to Dayton this weekend to minister to XA students from all across Ohio at Fall Breakaway! There are 150 students registered! Praise God! Will you join us in praying for students' lives to be touched by the power of the Holy Spirit? We pray that many will be baptized in the Holy Spirit and experience God in new ways. We also pray that God will speak into lives through the keynote speaker and the breakout session speakers. Tom will be teaching a breakout session titled Maximizing Your Devotional Life and Charity will be teaching a breakout titled Discerning God's Will for Your Life: Hearing God's Voice and Being Led by the Spirit. Please pray that God would use us and the other XA leaders to speak life into these young people!
Looking forward to posting an update soon! Blessings!
The Kurz Team
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Entitlement v. Servant
Why? It's a question that I think we all find ourselves asking in various times in our lives. See our society allows us to feel entitled to answers, entitled to quality, and entitled to the "American Dream"...entitled to "why." As Christians, even though we are children of God, we are not entitled to anything. God graciously offers forgiveness, love, mercies, and the list goes on. We never deserve those things; God chooses to give them freely to us. I have heard sermons before on being entitled because we are children of God and I agree to an extent. But God chooses to graciously give when we give our lives to Him. He doesn't have to give because of entitlement, instead He CHOOSES to give.
In my own life, I have felt entitled to answers from God. Reasons why things happen the way that they do or did...As evident in my last post, I felt entitled to a reason for why God put us in the middle of State College in the midst of the turmoil what would erupt a few months after moving. Why did He place us in this community? Wouldn't we have been better off where we were? With family, friends, and ministry we dearly loved? For over a year, I have been asking God these questions without any response. Oh see He would answer me in other areas and He would show me things not related to our move, but He kept silent for over a year on this particular topic. It was a tough year not truly being able to recognize His plan in all of this. To be honest, I did feel entitled to an explanation. We picked up our family and moved 300 miles east, for what? I have sacrificed things as a mom, as a wife, and as a minister.
Last spring, when God began to open our eyes while He opened doors for ministry with XA, I began to see hope and see past the entitlement. I began to see that God was at work all along! He had ordained the moments and He had laid steps for us to walk. It was Him that opened doors for His will! When I began to focus on just hearing God's voice and being attentive to His leading, my entitlement attitude began to fade. Things began to look differently. Don't get me wrong, I still wondered about His reasons for placing us in this community, but I was able to see it from a different angle. I began to understand that it wasn't necessary for me to have the answers that I felt I needed, but it was necessary for me to trust His leading. He has never left us or forsaken us. In whatever He has called us to do, He has always provided.
So this past Sunday, I went to the altar to remind myself and God that I truly live to serve Him. While kneeling in His presence, I clearly heard Him speak to me regarding the reasons I wanted. He said to me, "I sent you to State College and to the University for the people. See the main reason that I sent you there wasn't to earn a degree but to bring them Me. I sent Jesus to bring Me even to those who spit on Him and treated Him with contempt. I sent you there to bring Me even to those who hate what you represent. Your main purpose there is to bring Me."
Wow. It seems so simple: The Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20). I am here to bring Him to the people.
The question then is: am I doing that? Am I living a life of worship (Romans 12:1-2)? Are people seeing the Light of Jesus in the darkness? What am I doing to contribute to their view of Christians?
I think that these questions are for us all to consider as we think about where God has placed us. Are we truly living the Word in our lives? Do we love our neighbors even when they show contempt?
I am writing this entry not only for myself but for each person reading it. We are not entitled to anything; God has blessed us with His Son, Jesus. He has blessed us with His gifts of mercy, grace, love, hope, and...you can fill in the rest. My prayer is that each us would grab hold of the truth that we were created to worship Him by serving Him with our lives. When we recognize that we exist to serve Him, to do His will, our perspective changes from entitlement to servant.
In my own life, I have felt entitled to answers from God. Reasons why things happen the way that they do or did...As evident in my last post, I felt entitled to a reason for why God put us in the middle of State College in the midst of the turmoil what would erupt a few months after moving. Why did He place us in this community? Wouldn't we have been better off where we were? With family, friends, and ministry we dearly loved? For over a year, I have been asking God these questions without any response. Oh see He would answer me in other areas and He would show me things not related to our move, but He kept silent for over a year on this particular topic. It was a tough year not truly being able to recognize His plan in all of this. To be honest, I did feel entitled to an explanation. We picked up our family and moved 300 miles east, for what? I have sacrificed things as a mom, as a wife, and as a minister.
Last spring, when God began to open our eyes while He opened doors for ministry with XA, I began to see hope and see past the entitlement. I began to see that God was at work all along! He had ordained the moments and He had laid steps for us to walk. It was Him that opened doors for His will! When I began to focus on just hearing God's voice and being attentive to His leading, my entitlement attitude began to fade. Things began to look differently. Don't get me wrong, I still wondered about His reasons for placing us in this community, but I was able to see it from a different angle. I began to understand that it wasn't necessary for me to have the answers that I felt I needed, but it was necessary for me to trust His leading. He has never left us or forsaken us. In whatever He has called us to do, He has always provided.
So this past Sunday, I went to the altar to remind myself and God that I truly live to serve Him. While kneeling in His presence, I clearly heard Him speak to me regarding the reasons I wanted. He said to me, "I sent you to State College and to the University for the people. See the main reason that I sent you there wasn't to earn a degree but to bring them Me. I sent Jesus to bring Me even to those who spit on Him and treated Him with contempt. I sent you there to bring Me even to those who hate what you represent. Your main purpose there is to bring Me."
Wow. It seems so simple: The Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20). I am here to bring Him to the people.
The question then is: am I doing that? Am I living a life of worship (Romans 12:1-2)? Are people seeing the Light of Jesus in the darkness? What am I doing to contribute to their view of Christians?
I think that these questions are for us all to consider as we think about where God has placed us. Are we truly living the Word in our lives? Do we love our neighbors even when they show contempt?
I am writing this entry not only for myself but for each person reading it. We are not entitled to anything; God has blessed us with His Son, Jesus. He has blessed us with His gifts of mercy, grace, love, hope, and...you can fill in the rest. My prayer is that each us would grab hold of the truth that we were created to worship Him by serving Him with our lives. When we recognize that we exist to serve Him, to do His will, our perspective changes from entitlement to servant.
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