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THE MIDNIGHT PULSE

By Helen Chen Leave a Comment

Photo: Carl Dwyer/Stock.xchng

6:30 a.m. You’re packed in with two hundred people who love the music as much as you do, dancing to the same beat. DJ Marcos Cruz is blasting through the speakers that surround the dance floor. Bass thunders through the whole place. You love not only the songs the DJ is playing but also the way he mixes them together. Ingenious, subtle, and smooth. It’s only natural that you want to dance. You become a little annoyed as the dance floor fills and the concept of personal space ceases to exist. It’s dark, and you’re pushed up against the strangers behind you. A girl trying to get to the bathroom crushes your foot with her high heel and doesn’t notice. You get nervous that someone is going to accidentally singe your arm with their cigarette like last week, or burn a hole in your sweater like last month. After all, it is early morning, the most crowded time, when the most intense music is played.

People are partying like there’s no tomorrow—but, actually, it is already tomorrow. The sun is starting to come up outside. You yell a comment about the music to one of your friends, but you can’t hear his response. You look around you. One of your friends pours her smuggled bottle of whiskey into her drink to save money. A couple of your friends split an ecstasy pill in half to share. Another two go outside to snort coke again. Others take amphetamines to keep going.

By this time of the night, the drugs have taken their full effect, and you are the only sober one there. People who were previously standing still are now dancing. They begin to stutter, stumble, sweat. Some have become friendlier, more open and honest. Others withdraw into their own worlds, eyes glazed over or half-closed. You debate whether or not to talk to your friend Ignacio who is next to you, since you know from experience that he probably won’t remember half of the conversation.

Although you worry about your friends’ health at times, it’s not hard to look past all the substance abuse to the people. They are, after all, your friends. They’re wonderful people, and you love and accept them the way they are. You continue to enjoy the night without and in spite of the drugs, soaking up the music and ambience, enjoying friends, and dancing. The music feels like a sweet taste of heaven. There’s no place you would rather be, not only because you love it, but also because you know that this is the world God has called you to be a part of: the nightclubs in Southern Spain.

I want to see the nightclubs in my city transformed for the glory of God. When people ask, “Why nightclubs?” I say, “Why not nightclubs?” Clubbers, people who go to nightclubs regularly, make up their own subculture, defined by their musical tastes and lifestyles. Just as Jesus hung out in gathering places, talking with all sorts of people, even tax-collectors and prostitutes, I believe he would hang out in a nightclub today.

I’m a deliberate clubber on a long-term mission. Music and dancing are great, but in the end, it’s all about the people. I want to show the people around me the kind of love that Jesus lived and taught. But people don’t go clubbing to make friends; they just go to have a good time. So it has been a long, slow, and often disappointing, process. It’s easy to strike up random conversations with different people every weekend but difficult to find a consistent group of Spaniards that I can get to know well. I had to reach out to many people before finding the friends that I have now.

God has been gracious in hastening the process. It has taken me only one year to find these friends, and the landlord of my apartment turned out to be an ex-DJ. Once, I got a phone call from one of my favorite DJs two days after a party, telling me that he couldn’t stop thinking about a few comments I had made about the Christian community I am a part of and that he wanted to partner with us to reach the poor. God is consistently answering prayers.

Still, there are no quick results. Relationships take time, and I want to make life-long friendships. Time is an investment that we give to other people. In Spain, the way to gain people’s trust is through spending a lot of time with them. I’m not shy in a nightclub, but I spent at least 25 hours with some of my current friends before they spoke their first sentence to me. In the world of clubbing, you bond through dancing and appreciating the music together. It’s a universal, yet unspoken, language.

A more immediate way to meet people and build relationships is through DJing. The world of DJs is an exclusive subculture within a subculture, and as with clubbing in general, music is a means, not the end. DJing is a way to relate to people who have their own language and jargon. I want to be a positive influence and blessing to the people in clubs, and I wouldn’t have been able to connect with the DJs that I know, were it not for this shared medium. DJs are also, in a sense, worship leaders who affect the spiritual realm. They determine the ambience, influence the crowds. They control the ebbs and flows, the highs and lulls. People look to DJs to guide them through the night, and famous DJs are literally idols. As a DJ, I can use my gift to worship God. I believe the spiritual realm is radically affected when the DJ is a Christian. I don’t intend to change people by playing “Christian” music; I intend to change the unseen through who I am, a follower of Jesus.

Nightclub ministry can be summed up in one sentence: get yourself out there and stay there, no matter what. It’s necessary to be consistent in getting out there, even on the nights you’d rather go to bed. But trying too hard isn’t a good idea either, because it makes going out with your friends a burden. Clubbing and DJing are intense and time-consuming, and to prevent burn-out I have to take breaks. When your passion is your ministry, the very thing you love can also drive you crazy. But it’s so richly rewarding and deeply satisfying. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

[bctt tweet=”When your passion is your ministry, the very thing you love can also drive you crazy.”]

In a city where many foreigners come and go as tourists or students who don’t get to know or respect the culture, the locals here are genuinely touched when someone takes the time to understand them and wants to stay. A guy once told me, “I appreciate that you’ve stayed around long enough to really understand our culture, because most foreigners don’t.” Since many traditional Southern Spaniards have never departed from a 60-mile radius of their hometown, they haven’t had much contact with people of other colors, cultures, and countries, and the little they see or hear in movies and the media is often negative. Plus, Spaniards are naturally proud of their own culture and closed to outsiders. All this makes it difficult to integrate yourself into the culture.

Take my clubbing friends. Here is a group of intimate friends who grew up in the same neighborhood and have known each other for 15 years. Then I come along, an outsider, and they don’t know what to make of me. In general, I’m not exactly welcomed with open arms. I often find myself in a circle of people talking to each other as if I wasn’t there. They’re not trying to be exclusive or pretentious. They just don’t know what to do with a foreign newcomer. It’s not like we come around very often. There’s no reason for them to feel that they need my friendship, and it’s hard for them to understand why I would want to be friends with them, especially when I don’t do drugs. I want to be friends with the people I meet in clubs because I care about them like Jesus does, but from their perspective this must be a bit perplexing.

During those awkward nights when no one talks to me, I persevere in the uncomfortable because I know that my presence speaks words. I’m often ignored, but I am never unnoticed. When people see me sticking around weekend after weekend, I become a familiar face, and that’s when they start smiling when they see me, when they start to open up to me, when conversations go beyond the typical, “Where’re you from?” and “Are you studying here?” This is the point where real relationships begin.

I’m a Christian, and I’m a clubber. A part of me comes out and flourishes in a nightclub, where I feel the freest to be the person God created me to be. When you love the music and dancing as much as everyone else, it shows. I’m not out there just to have fun, but I do have fun because it’s what I love. When “going out” is also your work, it’s a challenge to know how to balance ministry and leisure. It is nearly impossible for me to separate the two, but maybe it isn’t necessary. I cannot separate being a Christian and being a clubber. I am both.

But the truth is, no one there knows I’m a Christian—at least not yet. That’s partly because it hasn’t come up, partly because it’s not time, and partly because of the erroneous ideas in Spain of what a Christian is. Here, the concept of Christianity revolves around ornate crucifixes and statues of Mary, superstitions, and a multitude of confusing or irrelevant traditions and rules. I want the people who know me well to one day find out what I really believe as a Christian, correcting these misconceptions. At this time, though, overtly sharing my faith could be inappropriate and even detrimental to my goal of revealing God’s love. So, I work undercover, praying for the friends God has given me, trying to be Jesus to them, and waiting for opportunities to arise.

In the beginning, I expected that God would bring me another Christian to go clubbing with on a consistent basis. One year later, that still hasn’t happened, but there are advantages to going out alone. Being an individual, female, and Asian makes it easier to get into the places I want to reach—and easier for people to approach me and incorporate me into their groups. I’ve prayed and thought a lot about taking teams into the clubs here, since it sounds like the thing that I “should be” doing. But to be realistic, it would be nearly impossible for a group of foreigners to assimilate into a circle of Spaniards. Instead, I’ve been tremendously blessed by my community here, who pray for me when I am out. They are “the team.” We cannot all enter the club scene, nor is it necessary. God hears every single prayer, and this is the most important thing.

The best way to change anything is through prayer, and since night clubs are huge and impersonal, prayer plays an especially key role in nightclub ministry. You don’t have to be there to make a difference; you can pray for entire clubs in general, or for specific individuals, as you would pray for a friend. I pray that God will reveal himself to the people in these places and that they will come to know God. It doesn’t matter what state people are in. I know that God is bigger than any substance they are taking. I’m not condoning drug use, but God can speak through and use anything. I have a friend in Spain who became a Christian after God used his drug use to convict him of his need for God.

Not only is there plenty to pray about, there’s plenty to praise God for in a nightclub. I see beauty in nightclubs. Hearing great music makes me want to worship God as the Creator of all good things. If the created music is so wonderful, how much more wondrous must the Creator be! I worship, acknowledge, and praise God’s name in a place where it is not normally lifted up, and I dream of seeing others also celebrating God in nightclubs. The many good things there are from God: music, dancing, friendship. My prayer is that people will recognize that.

In fact, if God hadn’t specifically called me to this scene, I wouldn’t be going clubbing on a nearly weekly basis either. This ministry is not for everyone. Clubbing for one night actually takes up to three days. In order to pull an all-nighter dancing and without drugs, I have to keep Fridays work-free and stay off my feet as much as possible. I even have a special stool I use for DJ practice so that I don’t have to stand unnecessarily. And then there is a subsequent day of recovery.

Party’s Over

It’s 9 a.m. The party ran over the official closing time by two hours because the DJ was that good. You stayed out that late to be with your friends. Your friends all go crash at someone’s house. You decide to go home. You’re so tired that you feel sick. You’ve not only pulled an all-nighter like in college, but also danced a marathon. When you get home, you down a couple of bananas and go straight to bed.

You force yourself to get up at 5 p.m. after 7 hours of sleep, still feeling off and zoned out. I hate the day after clubbing, you mumble to yourself. Even though you swap your days and nights nearly every weekend, you still can’t get used to it. It’s like having jetlag once a week.

You want to see your Christian friends who prayed for you all night, but you’re too tired to compose sentences, so the day—your Sabbath—is spent in a solitary state of vegetative recovery on the sofa. It’s only on the following day that you are able to talk about the party with one of your friends. By then, it’s already the end of the weekend. Tomorrow is Monday, time to get back to teaching English.

Behind the (Club) Scene

Nightclub ministry sounds “great, awesome, and cool,” but it’s also hard work and brutal at times. I find the actual clubbing to be relatively easy simply because I love it so much. The hardest part is the day after, when it has taken a toll on you physically, and spiritual warfare hits the hardest.

I used to be afraid that people would condemn me for what I do, and this is where many of my spiritual battles took place. I would have thoughts like, “What I am doing is all so wrong. I’m not supposed to be going into nightclubs—and never alone, not as a girl, and most definitely not as a girl alone.” Nowadays, instead I have doubts like: “What do I think I’m doing? I can’t make a difference in a huge nightclub; I am only one person. All of these hours are a waste. What if all this comes to nothing one day? I should be doing something more worthwhile, something more ‘Christian.’ What I’m doing is less valid than what other Christians do. Maybe it is invalid, period.”

This onslaught of thoughts also comes at other times during the week, often conveniently right before something important or when I practice DJing. Starting out, I discovered that the more I prayed in a club, the worse the warfare the day after. It got to the point that I stopped praying when I went out, because I couldn’t take the attacks anymore. Now my whole community prays for me, and things are a lot better; I don’t experience so much direct attack. But the reality remains the same: nightclub ministry can be brutal—both physically and spiritually.

It’s only by the grace of God that I’m doing what I am. If you knew my personal life, you’d know what a mess my life has been and how broken I’ve been at times. I struggle with anxiety and depression. I’ve had a history of mental illness and have been on medication for 10 years. And I’ve paid for clubbing with chronic insomnia.

I don’t see myself as a missionary. I’m a Christian who happens to be living in Southern Spain. In Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle writes:

In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there’s no danger that we will confuse God’s work with our own, or God’s glory with our own.

The vision that God has given me is enormous, and I feel small and inadequate. I’ve been told that the opposite of fear is faith, but if that’s the definition, then I have no faith. I’m scared. The spiritual influences in a nightclub are fierce, and the stakes are high. Following where Jesus leads will cost me everything.

I’m DJing because God has called me to. It’s not something I would have ever dreamed of or dared to do. It’s expensive, takes a great deal of time and practice, and worst of all, I’m terrified of performing in public. There have been days when I tried to hide in bed or run from God, telling Him I couldn’t go on with this clubbing stuff. Other days I get so freaked out by the thought of DJing publicly that I don’t practice at all. I balk. How I wish sometimes to be able to stand back as a spectator and support another Christian DJ!

It’s not like I know what I’m doing. In this ministry, I have no one else’s example to follow, except the example of Jesus Himself. I have this long-range vision of seeing the nightclubs in my city transformed, but I have no idea how to get there. I don’t walk by faith, I stumble. Every night out is like a box of chocolates: I never know what I’m going to get. I just get out there and then God somehow works.

I still don’t pray and read the Bible enough. I don’t do all the things that I should. But I don’t have to be a “good Christian” before God can use me. God uses me in spite of the way I am. I’m being supported from the U.S. to live out my life here, not to be a super-Christian. When I boarded the plane to Spain, nothing changed. Being a missionary doesn’t make you a super-Christian. If anything, living in a different country brings out all of your weaknesses and humbles you.

When I lived in Southern Spain five years ago, I used to get a lot of comments about my race. People on the street would shout at me, “la china” (the Chinese girl). Once, I walked out of the house and a 5-year-old boy said to my face, “You’re stupid because you’re Chinese.” Another night, a teenage guy imitated kung-fu and blocked me from walking down the street. I had to maneuver around all his laughing friends to get past them. I wanted to put a brown bag over my head, and I came to hate the way God created me.

Since then, God has dealt with those issues. I don’t have a problem walking down the street anymore, because I’m no longer ashamed of who I am. The problem didn’t originate with the Spaniards. It originated with my own shame. And I now see that their behavior is not racism. It is just ignorance.

I unintentionally shatter stereotypes everywhere I go. Spaniards think I’m Japanese, but I’m Chinese. Actually, I’m not Chinese but Taiwanese, and yet my nationality is American. I’m not a tourist; I actually live here. I’m Asian, but I’m an English teacher. And I speak Spanish. I look young and innocent, but I’m a clubber. People think I must do drugs; I don’t, yet my friends do. I’m small and petite and not afraid to go into a big nightclub alone. And yes, I’m a girl, and I DJ.

The issue of my appearance will never go away. I can’t hide it, so the question is what to do about it. And so I hash it out with God: God, what do you want to do with me? Why do you want to use me in this situation? How are you going to use me, as opposed to, say, a male or a blond, blue-eyed American?

It’s no coincidence that God created me this way. Psalm 139 says so: For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. God didn’t make a mistake in making me Asian and female and then calling me to go clubbing in Spain. In the underground nightclubs where I go, it’s as local as local gets; there simply are no other foreigners. I stick out like a sore thumb, and God uses that. No one forgets my face. If they don’t remember my name, they can always refer to me by my race. They like to guess where I’m from. People come up to me because they’re so curious about me, and that is how some friendships begin.

Up Close and Too Personal

I feel comfortable in a club full of Spaniards, but as with any ministry, sometimes I get stretched way beyond my comfort zone. Two months ago, the group of guys I go out with finished clubbing early at 5:30 a.m. Sunday morning, when there were no taxis. I had no way to get home. There was a 15-minute discussion about “what to do with her.” The whole conversation took place in front of me in the third person “she”; I wasn’t included in the discussion. Stranded and helpless, I had no choice but to sleep over at a stranger’s house, where there was already not enough space for me. One of the guys drove home drunk so that I’d have a place to sleep. It was terribly awkward, and I wanted to disappear.

I unwittingly walked in on their 72-hour weekend lifestyle. They were all drunk, some of them doing more cocaine. They were nearly on top of each other on the small sofa. Neither awake nor asleep, they mumbled to each other in slurred fragments. One by one, each left to fall asleep in different parts of the house. It was like one big slumber party. Except this wasn’t one where you neatly pulled out your toothbrush and pajamas and got ready for bed. Here, you could fall asleep wherever you were, even sitting up.

At last, it was just my good friend Manolo and me in the living room. He graciously gave me the couch and slept in the armchair. Unable to fall asleep, I laid awake all night listening to him breathing and snoring. I thought to myself, “This is really intimate, a little too intimate.” But I admired how comfortable his friends were around each other. Things that mattered to me didn’t matter to them.

They had obviously woken up to one another a lot. None of them got off the couch to shower or brush their teeth that weekend. I, on the other hand, wanted to get out of there as soon as the sun came up, before anyone could see how awful I looked by then. They had let me in on a raw, intimate part of their lives, a part that few, if any, foreigners would ever see. It was a critical junction. Not only was I uninvited, I was sober, which could either divide us or bring us closer together. I wasn’t sure which way it would go. To my pleasant surprise, Manolo called three days later to ask me two things for the first time: 1) whether I wanted his friend to buy presale clubbing tickets for me (which meant that they were starting to see me as part of their clubbing group), and 2) whether I would hang out them before going clubbing (which meant that they saw me as more than someone to go clubbing with). It may sound superficial, but this seemingly insignificant gesture was significant progress to me. This is what answered prayer in nightclub ministry looks like. I thanked God that we were becoming closer friends. Without hesitation, I told Manolo, “Of course, I’ll be there!” I grinned to myself in excited anticipation. It was the beginning of yet another weekend.

THE MIDNIGHT PULSE - New Identity Magazine

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Filed Under: Careers & Callings, Live Tagged With: international, Issue 1, missions

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New Identity | Exploring Faith
We're happy to announce that the Fall/Winter 2020 We're happy to announce that the Fall/Winter 2020 Issue is out today! There are some great articles inside that we hope you'll love! Enjoy! 🤗 #linkinbio⁠
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#newissue #newidentitymag #liveidentified #magazine #kindness #anxiety #waiting #worththewait #mcu #eatableheroes #marvel #godswill
Prayer isn’t about making the things we selfishl Prayer isn’t about making the things we selfishly want happen; it’s about making us want what God wants.⁠
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✍🏽: @sarahjoysly in "Prayer - The Alignment of Our Souls With God"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by @maryannkariuki from Pexels⁠
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it th “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” – Haldir⁠
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In Lothlorien, Haldir is encouraging a downcast Fellowship with a glimpse of the larger story in which they find themselves. His words reflect the apostle Paul’s encouragement to the church, that we “do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13). For there is a form of grief from which there is no recovery – one in which there is no resurrection of the dead. If death is the final word, then we must suffer grief without hope, grief that diminishes our love for life because of the crushing weight of the loss we’ve experienced. But Tolkien believed that death was not the end; therefore, we may experience the beautiful juxtaposition in our own lives of deep sorrow mixed with rivers of joy. Instead of crippling us, our grief may actually help to cultivate in our character the virtues of faith, hope, and love that are necessary to continue to carry our heaviest burdens. ⁠
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✍🏽: @slimkeman in "Memorable Middle Earth"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
#faithhopelove #lotr #thefellowshipofthering #thelordoftherings #middleearth
The Bible stresses that despite our differences we The Bible stresses that despite our differences we are called to love each other above our political positions. “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:12-14). You may feel like how politics and religion intersect in the public sphere communicate the exact opposite of this, and you’d be right. Media outlets report drama and conflict. Gracious and loving political opponents are not newsworthy.⁠
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✍🏽: Matthew Hamilton in "Our Identity In Christ Is Always Greater"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by Lum3n from Pexels⁠
#politics #voting #love #loveyourneighbor #loveyourneighbornotmattertheirpolitics
The trees, with their bark, the skin of the forest The trees, with their bark, the skin of the forest, with its scars and wrinkles, lean toward me, and brush me with their limbs. The leaves beg me to examine their veins. “Have you seen this?” Each different, but each spectacular. The infinite busy creatures. The carpet of green, the dome of blue.⁠
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A few moments later, I feel like an amazing creature in a world amazingly made. I feel the astounding power of God, where the smallest thing around me, a leaf, an ant, is more complicated, and alive and amazing than anything humanity has ever thought of.⁠
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Really, there is nothing like it. The author C.S. Lewis noted that the best place to take a non-believing scientist or a real thinker is nature.  Eventually the noise of God in nature is deafening.⁠
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Once you’re in that place, just a few minutes into your walk, your mouth will hardly be able to keep from pouring out praise to God. It becomes so easy. Connecting to God like that, in praise, as a consequence of observing nature, is so freeing and so empowering that you will return to your office balanced and ready, clear headed and encouraged.⁠
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The prayer that most blesses God, most blesses the one who prays it. And there is almost no easier way than from within the sanctuary of nature, which itself raises up its branches to him in prayer with every sunrise.⁠
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✍🏽: Tom Koel in "Muting The Noise of the World - Deconstructing The Prayer Hike for City Dwellers"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
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#prayerhike #prayerworks #prayandpraise #prayerwalk #timewithgod #prayerchangesthings #heispraiseworthy #faithjourney
Each person comes to a Bible passage with his own Each person comes to a Bible passage with his own culture, language, and historical understanding. Sometimes we use these to interpret the Bible, but the hard work of bible study requires that you get rid of those things and interpret the passage by allowing it to speak for itself in its own language, cultural context, and historical background. In other words, interpretation is hard work because you are trying to to discover what the passage meant to its (original) audience 2000 years ago (even though we are reading it today). ⁠
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✍🏽: @the_christopherscott in "How Anyone Can Study The Bible"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
#biblestudy #biblestudytools #growingingod #godsword #spendingtimewithgod #biblejournaling #holybible #christianliving #biblescriptures #dailybiblereading
Everything we do should be done for the ultimate e Everything we do should be done for the ultimate enjoyment of God. For instance, our enjoyment of a loving relationship with our spouse is a reflection of our relationship with God, and is therefore something God uses in order for us to better understand his love and how we can love him better.⁠
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This entails that God has given us the Bible as a means to an end. The point of reading the Bible is to come to enjoy God better and more fully. It might seem odd, or even a little sacrilege to think of the Bible as a means to an end. This is because we rightly think of the Bible as holy or sacred. But, it is not God. It is holy and sacred insofar as it is the word of God, given to us so we can better understand who God is. ⁠
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By reading Scripture we learn more about God, his work in the world, his plan for us, and his expectations for us. This is one of the means God has provided for us to enjoy him more. In fact, St. Augustine of Hippo believed that if a Christian could hypothetically enjoy God perfectly in this life, that they would no longer need to read the Bible. Of course because we will not come to love God perfectly in this life, reading, meditating on, and yes, memorizing scripture, will regularly be a source of knowledge that help us to love God more. However, Augustine wants his readers to remember, that knowledge is not the goal for reading the Bible.⁠
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✍🏽: Jeffery Porter in "How A Roman Bishop Changed The Way I Read The Bible"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
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#biblereading #heartknowledge #
People with unbelieving hearts only seek after wha People with unbelieving hearts only seek after what prospers them. Apart from Jesus, we set in motion lives filled with harm, with no hope and no future. A person can only have hope and a future when life is lived out for Christ. We get light through reading the Bible, prayer, and fellowship with other Christians. This light of life can be obtained through an open line of communication with the one who gives it—Jesus. Apart from him, life can appear meaningless. Our purpose in life is to glorify God with who we are and what we have. –Steven Butwell⁠
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"No one who trusts in you will ever be disgraced, but disgrace comes to those who try to deceive others." –Psalm 25:3 NLT⁠
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✍🏽: Steven Butwell in "The Light Christ"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by @fotografierende from Pexels⁠
#hopeinchrist #hope #faith #godsplan #godisgood #hopeinthelord #bethelight #godislove #livinghop #thegospel #godislove #godisfaithful #christianliving #bethelightinthedarkness
What’s your favorite article in the new issue? F What’s your favorite article in the new issue? Follow the link in our bio to read it online or download it free to your tablet. ⁠
Even as God demonstrated love by sending Jesus to Even as God demonstrated love by sending Jesus to die on the cross to take punishment for our sins, God reminded people of the importance of fearing him. God is not only our savior, comforter, and friend who promises to be with us always (Hebrews 13:5; Matthew 28:20), but also the most powerful being in the universe. There is a place for the right kind of fear—the reverential awe and respect—in our lives.⁠
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✍🏽: Délice Williams in "Fear The Lord?" Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by @emrrekuzu from Pexels⁠
Like the Psalmist, John describes Jesus as God’s Like the Psalmist, John describes Jesus as God’s Word who brings light and life to the darkness. Jesus is God’s Word that comes to us, to those who are dwelling in darkness. In fact, this is exactly what Jesus declares his mission to be in John 12:46: “I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.” This Light and Darkness imagery pervades the gospel of John. People love darkness because they don’t want their actions, thoughts, motives to be exposed by the light. But the truth is that deep down we need (and want) to be seen. We want to be loved despite our dirtiest deeds and foulest feelings. We need to restore the relationship that Adam and Eve once had with God–complete openness, and deep love–but we can’t do it on our own. Only God can (and did through Jesus) bring that relationship back.⁠
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✍🏽: Brandon Hurlbert in "The Light of God's Love"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by Emre Kuzu from Pexels⁠
In John 15:1 Jesus says that God is the gardener a In John 15:1 Jesus says that God is the gardener and he prunes every branch that does not produce fruit. A person stuck in his or her ways of sin is like a prickly shrub growing a lot of branches with no fruit. These branches must be removed so good fruit can grow. In the same way as a bush is unable to prune itself, a person who is living in sin is unable to remove all the unfruitful branches in life. Paul described this condition in chapter seven of Romans when he called himself a wretched man and realized only Jesus can change him.⁠
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Jesus provides the essential elements for growth; he gives us his Word (the Bible) for fertilizer, other believers for sunshine, and the Holy Spirit for water. When our roots begin to receive this new water, sunshine, and fertilizer, new branches begin to grow. This time the branches are not prickly bushes, but beautiful new branches adorned with the fruit of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control,” (Galatians 5:22). Our old acquaintances will marvel at who we have become. When we allow God to be the gardener, he will shape us into his design.⁠
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✍🏽: Delbert Teachout in "God The Gardener"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by Timothy Grindall from Pexels
As new creations, those who have been forgiven by As new creations, those who have been forgiven by and reconciled to Jesus, we now have the task of being reconciled to each other. As Christians, we are not just called to forgive others in our hearts but keep them at an arm’s length away. No, we are called to be of one heart and one mind (Acts 4:32) with our brothers and sisters—we are called to be reconciled.⁠
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✍🏽: Brandon Hurlbert in "Repairing Broken Bridges"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
We are faced with a challenge: to make God the cen We are faced with a challenge: to make God the center and purpose of our lives in a world of demands. God asks us to listen for his voice, and it’s no wonder why he chose to speak to Elijah in a “still, small voice” in 1 Kings 19:12-13. He doesn’t always shout at us because he wants us to choose to listen, to put other things aside so that all of our focus is towards discerning his will in the specifics of our lives. We have his will for us in general, as communicated in the Bible, which is to make disciples of all nations, to glorify the one true God, to serve no other gods, to love our neighbors as ourselves, etc., but sometimes we need to figure out how those general plans fit the specifics of our lives. Hearing God’s voice is part of how we relate to him, but in those moments of uncertainty, quieting ourselves becomes even more important.⁠
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✍🏽: @sarahjoysly in "Listening For A Whisper"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by Jara from Pexels⁠
Imagine if every Christian started praying to God Imagine if every Christian started praying to God and asking for him to bless us with gifts of encouragement for the sake of the world around us. The Church would make an immediate impact on the lives of people.⁠
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✍🏽: @lukegeraty in "The Gift of Encouragement from the Great Encourager"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by Lum3n from Pexels⁠
Everything sad will come untrue because we are not Everything sad will come untrue because we are not doomed to be forever parted with those we love, nor will our souls simply turn to dust and fade with the memory of those we leave behind.⁠
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✍🏽: @slimkeman in "Memorable Middle Earth - Why I'm Always Tolkien In Movie Quotes"  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com⁠ by visiting the link in our bio and tapping on the image.⁠
📷: Photo by Dirk Förster from Flickr
"Remembering God's promises and his faithfulness a "Remembering God's promises and his faithfulness as a community will help us to endure our sorrows for the night, for joy comes in the morning." @slimkeman from his article The Beauty of Community & The Beast of Isolation 🌤 Can you name some of God's promises that keep you encouraged and grounded? We'd love to hear in the comments below - and just maybe it might be the hope someone else is needing right now! 🤗⁠
“Every night I lie in bed, the brightest colors “Every night I lie in bed, the brightest colors fill my head. A million dreams are keepin’ me awake. I think of what the world could be, a vision of the one I see. A million dreams is all it’s gonna take. A million dreams for the world we’re gonna make.” ⁠
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As P.T. Barnum sings these words to Charity in the beautiful montage of their young lives, we are captivated by the hope that they share, the possibilities of their bright future, and the chance of their love overcoming the wall between privilege and poverty that keeps them apart. The Greatest Showman asks us to wrestle with the quest for the holy grail of our modern world: success and happiness. ⁠
What is the good life? If a million of our wildest dreams came true, would we truly be happy?⁠
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In Jesus, we find a man who invites us into his presence with these words: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). He is the only one who can fill “the infinite abyss” of desire in our souls. When you have fully devoted yourself and your dreams to your Creator, you will discover that “everything you ever want” and “everything you ever need” is “right here in front of you” in Christ Jesus.⁠
{Steve Limekman}⁠
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✍🏼: by @slimkeman in “The Greatest Showman”  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com by clicking on the link in our bio ⁠
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📸: from newidentitymagazine
Every day in sub-Saharan Africa, one child in ten Every day in sub-Saharan Africa, one child in ten under the age of five dies of a preventable cause, and nearly every day in America eight in ten adults consume coffee. What do these numbers have to do with each other? A lot, according to the One Cup Project, which is using America’s love for coffee to reduce the number of children dying in Africa by converting coffee profits into life-saving aid.⁠
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The One Cup Project started in 2010, when Christian Kar, the founder of an award-winning Seattle-based coffee company, partnered with the Christian humanitarian aid organization, World Vision.Remarkably, every dollar spent on One Cup Coffee generates a dollar of aid for Africa.⁠
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Buy some coffee, put up a post on your Facebook page, ask your church, local café, or workplace to change their coffee, or run a One Cup Fundraiser. In doing so, you just may help hurting people find healing, hope, and life. Change the world for the better, one cup at a time.⁠
{Thame Fuller}⁠
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✍🏼: @thamefuller in “One Cup Project”  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com by clicking on the link in our bio or click on this link to take you directly to the One Cup website: https://onecup.org/our-story/⁠
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📸: by @AftaPuta from Pexels
When someone accepts Jesus, they leave their old p When someone accepts Jesus, they leave their old priorities behind and make Jesus the center of their life. Jesus calls each of us to share the good news with the world. He came to give living water to a thirsty world, and we have the honor and privilege of sharing his message by the power of the Holy Spirit (John 7:37-39).⁠
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The most important thing you can do is enter each conversation with a posture of prayer. Pray for the person you’re sharing with, that God would open their heart to accept him. Pray that God would give you the words to say. And a loving way to say them.⁠
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Expect God to work in your relationship and use you to share Jesus through your friendship in his own timing. No matter how long you have been a believer, you can share Jesus with the confidence that he is with you and that he will use you for his glory.⁠
{Eric Gulley}⁠
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✍🏼: Eric Gulley in “Sharing Your Faith”  Continue reading at newidentitymagazine.com by clicking on the link in our bio ⁠
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