SOM Week 6: Such an Awesome God

God bless you! He is a such an awesome God and loves you more than you know!

I am writing this very last SOM update from La Mirada. This past week I’ve been in the process of getting back in the swing of things here at home but have not forgotten to write this last update for week six in Mexico.

We finished our time in Rosarito with three final days of classroom instruction and one more outreach. On one of those final days of class we were scheduled to have a guest teacher, and to my surprise, the guest teacher turned out to be Pastor Hassan! (For those who don’t know, he’s a missionary sent from CC La Mirada.)

Pastor Hassan was able to spend four days at the school, teaching on his last full day with us, and wow, I was hanging on to every word he shared for the duration of our three hour class. God was speaking straight from him to me on the topic of faithfulness. Of all he shared, here are three of the points that impacted me most:

  • Excuses keep people from being faithful.
  • Faithfulness is characterized by finishing well.
  • Imagine if we could say in the church, “We can trust anyone here to get the job done, and to do it right. They’re all faithful!”

God used this final teaching at the school to hammer home the message He wanted me to come back with: At all costs, be faithful. So shout out to you Pastor Hassan for that teaching, and shout out to God, who is the truly faithful One!

After the three final days of classroom teaching in Rosarito, we packed our bags and headed south to Ensenada for a weekend of debrief. It was a powerful weekend of Bible study from John 13-17 (the last words of Jesus to the disciples before heading to the cross), a very sweet time of community in our last days together, and a time to discuss with the leaders our heart’s desires and next steps in our lives.

What a beautiful view to soak in as we studied the Bible. It was like being on the shores of the Sea of Galilee with Jesus, or on the Mediterranean Sea with Paul, knowing that at that time every coastline of that Sea was part of the Roman empire, and part of the “ends of the earth” that Paul so desperately desired to take the gospel to.
One heart, one mind, one purpose – that’s real community, that’s family.
God chooses the foolish things of the world. We are a weird group. Thank you Jesus!

Needless to say, God’s blessings were poured out on us that weekend, as well as the whole six weeks. But really, since the beginning of time God has been pouring out His blessings on mankind, the object of his desire. His special creation, made in His image and likeness. God loves me. And I love Him. I hope you have that same relationship with this awesome God who gives you the very breath in your lungs, it’s the sweetest thing you’ll ever know.

*PLEASE KEEP READING – MOST IMPORTANT THING ON PAGE IS YET TO BE READ!*

If you don’t have a relationship with God, I plead with you to hear me out on this. To have a relationship with God you must believe that God, the true God of the Bible, the trinity God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit – all equal, all eternal, existing in three persons in perfect relationship, having no beginning and no end, having all power, having all knowledge, existing outside of time and space and matter itself, three yet One single God) – this very God, the glorious God of the Bible, because of His unconditional and unfathomable LOVE which is so deep and wide and high it’s past understanding, sent God the Son, Jesus, to the earth to be born as a human, and to live among us, perfect, without sin, to live the life we never could, to die the death we deserve, and to raise back to life again.

Are you prefect? Am I perfect? No, in my heart of hearts I know how full of sin I am and it scares me! Yet perfection is God’s requirement to have a relationship with Him. Anything less than perfection = separation from God. Harsh? Far from it. It’s beautiful. I don’t want to believe in a God that allows sin and imperfection in His presence. There is no beauty like perfection. God is pure and perfect, and He only accepts pure and perfect.

Please listen, the eternal God the Son, named Jesus, offers salvation through His death on the cross. The sacrifice of His precious, pure, and perfect blood is the only thing that can remove our sins and bring us to God. Only God Himself could bring us back to Himself, and this is how He chose to do it so that He could display His great love for us.

The good things you do can’t save you. The “I’m a good person” or “At least I’m better than others” doesn’t work because God’s standard is perfection. Any excuse of not knowing about God won’t save you. Do you want true peace? Do you want true joy? Do you want God Himself? And to be truly loved by Him? Jesus is the only way to God, to eternal life. Apart from Jesus is eternal separation from God; a reality that is far more terrifying than it sounds. Believe in Jesus. Be washed and cleaned by His perfect and innocent blood shed for you. Come into relationship with the only God you will find after searching the whole world over that loves you, cares for you, died for you, desires a relationship with you, rose from the dead to defeat death’s power and Himself be living proof of the promise of eternal life that awaits those who put their faith in Him. He is the only God that showed us by example what true love looks like.

There is no greater love than that one would lay down their life for his or her friends.
Do you know someone who would do that for you?

God has done that for you. In response, He wants you to turn away from all your sin and turn to Him, to believe in Jesus. He wants to call you a friend. He wants to call you His chosen. I’m chosen by Him. Don’t you want to be chosen by God? He’s waiting for you.

The message I just shared is called the gospel – the good news. It’s the message God is calling me to share with people for the rest of my life. It’s the message God is calling all Christians to share for the rest of their lives. It is our purpose for being on this earth. Why wouldn’t God just take us straight up to heaven after we get saved? Because there’s a message to share with others. There are people who need God’s love. And God has given the responsibility to share that message to a special group of people that is very near and dear to His heart. And it is given this one very special group of people only – the Church. If Jesus’ Church doesn’t share the gospel, no one else will. It’s our duty, it’s our privilege.

So now that I’m getting back into the swing of things here at home the plan is to serve faithfully at church (and in all aspects of life), and to be faithful to share that message that I am called to share. God has a calling on my life to be a missionary, but as for right now I’m still in the preparation period. I am living by Matthew 6:33, which instructs me not to worry about tomorrow, but to seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and God will take care of the rest. He is such an awesome God.

God bless you for reading this far! I love you all dearly, and have been impacted by all of your support and the way that each of you have individually touched my life. Thank you. This school was life-changing.

With much love,
Spencer

Praying for a man at the last outreach for the school.
Last day of class for the school.
Calvary School of Missions 2020 Staff and Students!
The people you see right here are going to go on to become true world changers.
People’s souls will be touched, eternities forever changed,
God honored and sought after where He never was before,
true love, true hope, true peace, true joy known where it has been missing…
all because they have hearts that are open, willing, obedient.
God is going to use these among the nations!
There is no greater joy than to live one’s life for such a purpose.