DETOX: Day 1 (Daniel 2)

Thursday April 30: Daniel 2

Read Daniel 2

“With the all-powerful God nothing is impossible.” This was Daniel’s reply to King Nebuchadnezzar in verses 27-30. Wisdom and power belong to our God (v.20), but He freely gives to us because of His mercy (v.18). Before you go too much further today, ask God to enable you to make Him known and intercede for the lost in this city.

Deeper Study: Compare Daniel 2 with Genesis 41 the story of Joseph and Pharaoh

My Reflections:
In ch 2, I am reminded of God's sovereignty as He works out His plans through the faithfulness of His people. Daniel was brought into Babylon as a slave with no rights and because of the goodness of God and his faithfulness, by the end of ch. 2 he finds himself standing in front of the king that is bowing at his feet. Wow! I am encouraged by this text as I share Christ in Uptown. There are a lot of people that don't care anything about Christ in this city. It seems like it is impossible for them to come to faith in Christ. But God is calling us to be faithful. I pray that these people who refuse to even consider Christ, will be bowing at the feet of Christ in the near future. I believe it can happen for the glory of God. Nothing is impossible!

Invitation: WANNA DETOX?

I want to invite you to join Vintage Church for a 10-day fast. Here are some of the details that you can find online at www.vintagenola.org:

Detox Overview

The Daniel Fast is a spiritual discipline designed to better connect us with God. As Vintage Church, we’ll take 10 days within the two weeks of the DETOX series to deepen our relationship with God and center ourselves around what God is going to do in our church and in our lives. We are praying that many people will come to faith in Christ during the DETOX series as we invite and share with our friends who are searching for God.

Who is doing this: The entire Vintage Church staff and leadership will be participating in the fast and we are asking for our Vintage family and friends to join us as we seek God during this exciting season.

When are you doing this:
Thursday, April 30th, 7pm: Begin the “10-Day Daniel Fast”.
Saturday May 9th, 7pm: Break the Fast!

We have plenty of resources online like recipes, websites, books, etc.

Visit www.vintagenola.org. The entire website has been DETOXED.

I will preach two sermons from the book of Daniel. The first sermon on Fasting was this past weekend and is already available online @ www.vintagenola.org/podcast/

In conjunction with the fast, we’ll be reading a chapter in the book of Daniel per day for the duration of the fast. The book of Daniel has 12 chapters so we will read one chapter of Daniel to prepare and conclude this fast. This will be a challenging process, but we look forward to seeing what God does in our church and experiencing him with intensity during the 10 days of the fast. Thanks @mattthebrick for writing these for us.

Here is our first devotional out of the book of Daniel:

Introduction
The book of Daniel is divided into two sections: the first half of the book provides a historical account and the second half is prophetic. The theme throughout is God’s sovereignty and power over all nations and powers. Yahweh is the one true God. All other gods are merely idols.

Wednesday April 29: Daniel 1
Daniel detached from the pleasures of his status in Babylon in order to maintain his identity as one of God’s children. Prayerfully consider other activities, objects or “royal food” of the world that God would have you abstain from in order to focus more clearly on Him over the next 10 days. May God grant to you favor, compassion, understanding and wisdom (v. 9, 17 & 20) as a result for your undeterred loyalty to Him.

I will post the devotional each day and share some of my thoughts. It's gonna be a great 10 days! Expect great things!

Reflections from Myanmar

Well, it has been over a week since I got back from Myanmar. I am not sure if it was because I had a really challenging week or if the flight was really that bad...but I have really struggled getting over this jet-lag. We traveled over 39hrs and flew over 27hrs. Nasty!

This Myanmar Trip reflection is going to be short and sweet. Because of the lack of internet I was unable to keep posting blogs each day. However, I have over 10pgs of journal notes. Instead of posting all of these I have decided to just share a short summary.

This was my first opportunity to return to a mission location that I had already visited. Both trips were incredible and had their own unique elements. Since my first trip in the fall of 2005, I have wanted to go back to Myanmar. As I entered the country, I remembered my heart breaking for this people group and how much I fell in love with their culture on the first trip. This second trip was no different. It was awesome learning about the various traditions, especially those centered around Buddhism. The people were extremely kind and loving. Even more so then most of my Christian friends. On this trip, I loved the basketball (coaching & playing), the food, the massages, the hotel...but most importantly I love the people.

Our typical day looked like this:
Early Breakfast 8
Coaching Clinic from 9-12
Lunch 12-1
Coaching Clinic from 1-3
Basketball Games 4-6
Shower and Rest 6-7
Dinner 7-9
Devotion Time 9
Bedtime 10

I was excited to see so much progress on the bball court in comparison from my last trip. Their basketball skills had improved and they gave us a run for our money in the games. Well maybe not, we still crushed them by over 40.

One of the greatest aspects of this trip was the fact that Sean and Rob came with me. I have really grown to love these guys. Sean is a high school basketball coach and Rob is a student at Tulane University. Both of them are members at our church. I had a blast getting to know these guys better over basketball, wierd food, massages, and long flights. It was excellent! I know that God is going to do great things in each of their lives through the lessons that were learned on this trip.
Throughout the week God opened up doors for us to share the Good News one on one and around the dinner table. I believe that we were faithful to the mission and many seeds were planted. Most of our opportunities came when the coaches and players asked us about our faith. We were given an opportunity to be in Myanmar because of the government and basketball. The basketball federation would love to grow in their basketball ability and compete with other nations, possibly improving in order to compete in the Southeast Asia Games. One of our guides shared with me that it is not illegal to be a Christian in Myanmar, but the government restricts all proselytizing. I was amazed at how God used the game of basketball as a tool for us to build relationships with the people. Here are a few friends that I will be praying for until I am able to return again: Swan, Sue, Lance, Victor, Zarni, Arthur, Diana, Nigel, Kenneth, Jessie, Austin, Omah, Kg Sett, Japanzee, Sun Dai, Swie.