Monthly Archives: April 2014

Water brings life to dead places

Hey our friend

We hope you had a wonderful week. We had an exciting week here in San Francisco. We had the last official meeting of our church small group at our house and will have a graduation dinner tonight (Monday). Please keep us in your Prayers in this season since we have many breakthroughs happening but also need to make decisions which things to pursue and which ones to let go. Thank you so much!

Water brings life to dead places

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20140420_144119_AndroidThe other day Jen and I were on a road trip. We were driving on Highway 5 which goes inland through a desert area. It gets pretty boring after a while.  But then we started seeing the beautiful green orchards contrasted with the dry desert. It’s amazing to see how the color green is just so refreshing. But that contrast made us also think of a spiritual parallel. If you look at the green areas you notice, that the areas that were watered were growing and alive. But the areas that weren’t were totally dead and dry. When we think about our relationship with God we see the same thing. If we are connected to Him the source of all life we are growing, if not we eventually end up deserted and looking dead. John 7.37-38

But one other thing that really struck us was the fact that if you put water on something that looks dead it can turn into something beautiful and alive. So if you think about people that are around you, maybe even family members, or situations that looked bad, and you feel like giving up on them, remember that just a little bit of living water can bring them back to life. Remember that story in Ezekiel 37.1-10, it gives a great picture of how God can make an army out of dry bones. God is using each one of us to rise up that army by helping to bring people into the Kingdom. Just imagine this: A leader of a biker gang becomes alive by receiving Jesus. Now imagine the impact he can make in his gang. He is already in this environment and he is well established. He has authority in that group that no outsider has and through that he is able to bring the gospel into this environment. Now more people are being saved in there and more people are coming back alive.

I want to challenge all of us to really pray and ask God about the areas in our life that are more looking like a desert and how they can come alive again? Also let us ask the question how can we bring living waters to people around us that are more in a desert?

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

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The Cross and what it brought to us

Hey our friend

How was your Easter week? Catch us up by sending us an email on how you are doing. We had a great week in San Francisco. Some of the nights we had friends and family come for visits, which was awesome. This week YWAM also has a cities conference in Texas. Please pray for the people that are going that GOd gives them an even bigger heart to reach our cities around the Globe.

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The Cross and what it brought to us

With celebrating Easter last weekend it made me think of something that  i have been seeing happening a lot:

Many times I saw people just looking at the act of Jesus dying on the cross but then getting stuck there. It would be comparable to having a full education to be a doctor but then just look at the degree but never use it. Don’t understand me wrong in this. It is really important to look at the cross and to remember what Jesus did for us, but it is as important to look at why He did it. We need to understand that Jesus went on the cross to reconcile us with the father and set us free from sin which holds us away from God. His dying on the cross set us FREE. But his focus was not only the cross since it was only a part of his journey, His purpose was to bring freedom and the good news to each one of us. But even more important with going through all that He is saying that He believes in each one of us more than we do. Look at Peter who denied Him 3 times, Jesus still choose him as a rock to build his church on. We need to start focusing on that reality of freedom that he gave us and the reality of him teaching us how to bring the good news into the world. If we don’t do this we are missing out on the fullness of why Jesus came. We need to believe the fact that He truly set us free and we need to stop disqualifying ourselves for things that He is calling us to do. Jesus said that He did great things but we will do greater things. Jesus taught his disciples all things that are possible with the goal to have them do even greater things than he ever did. And they did, 12 people brought the gospel into the world and reached more people then Jesus during his whole life time. Jesus was talking to each believer when He said that. And I want to say, who gives us the right to disagree with Jesus?

But what did he call us to do? He called us to bring the good news into the world and to make disciples. And this is something each one of us needs to do. It can be at our workplace, at our homes or by reaching our Neighbors (read more about how you can do that with the ministry concept God gave us under this link). Lets do this together, let’s start living and believing that God can use each one of us. Let’s live with the mentality and mindset that we can do all things through Him who gives me strength. Let’s change the world with the hope Jesus brought.

Have a blessed and challenged week and remember God is with you.

Markus and Jen

Adoption The Ultimate proof of Love

Hey our friend

Ronda visitWe hope you had an opportunity this week to think about easter and the meaning of it. It’s a time of saying Thank you to our amazing father for choosing to save us and adopt us back into his family. It’s the ultimate proof of love. We wish you a blessed Easter time.

We also had one of our wonderful friends come and visit us on her way home. We felt so blessed to see half of the Kimm family 🙂

Adoption The Ultimate proof of Love

I have many friends who got adopted when they were little children.  A couple adopted them because they choose that specific child. It is interesting, that adopted children often see themselves as second class children. I think sometimes the reason is the thinking that they are not good enough because they feel that their birth parents didn’t want them. But the truth is actually quite different. Adoption is actually a picture of true love.

Think about this: When you adopt someone you actually make a choice for that person. You are actually saying I really want this child. Often with birth parents it is not exactly like that. We hear many times about unwanted pregnancies. Another point is that parents that adopt have to go through a really long process to get the child which involves many sacrifices on their side, like time and money. But they are willing to make those because they love that child. These are just 2 points but I’m sure there are many more.

Adoption is also a beautiful picture of what God did for us. He adopted us as His children and He choose us. He made the biggest sacrifice possible this Easter weekend to adopt us back into his house by giving His son. I think this is the ultimate proof of His deep love for each one of us. He adopted us and He always believed and will always believe in us.

Even if not one Person on this planet believes in you, God does!

Remember today that you are amazingly loved.

God bless you

Markus and Jen

How to make decisions Part 3 Choice

Hey our friend

20140402_150321_AndroidWe hope you had a great week. We hold a memorial service for one of our friends from the neighborhood. It was sad but in the same way something to be happy about, because 9 months before he died he gave his life to Jesus. We had 2 of his friends come and share stories about his life to honor him. It is important to honor people, because all of them are children of God. I also believe that it shows people the value that God has for them. Honor doesn’t mean we have to agree with everything they do, but it is a choice to see people the way God made them. We also had a leadership training class with our church on Saturday which was awesome as well. All in all a good week.

How to make decisions Part 3 Choice

So over the last 2 weeks we talked about decisions that are made by listening to God and decisions that are made by circumstances that we cant control. This week I want to conclude the topic with make decisions by choice.

The story that came right away into my mind when I thought about Choices was King Salomon. God literally asked him what he wanted. Salomon had at this moment a choice which literally could give him anything he wanted. But the choice he made was to receive wisdom. He asked for wisdom, because he wanted to lead Gods people well. So his choice wasn’t based on selfish motives, instead it was based on how to serve others.

So we can have similar situations in our life. We have 3 different choices, but we don’t have a clear guidance from God which one to take. Start thinking about the outcome of your decision. First of all ask those questions. Who will benefit from the choice I make? What of the outcomes will serve the Kingdom? How will it affect my life?

As an example if one of your choices is to have a job that keeps you 6 days a week away from your family and the only outcome by you working this job is lots of money, this job might not be the right choice. You might provide for your family things that they don’t really need, but miss out providing things that they need like time with you.

Or it could be a choice between a job that you would really love and you would really make a difference in this world and also gives you time for family, but which would stretch you in your available money, compared to a job that just pays the bills and give you lots of access.

I think those 2 examples illustrate pretty well the point I want to make with this. When you look at a major decision always look at the outcomes it can bring. Always check your motives when you make the decision, and if you prayed about it, they are not just for your own gain, you feel that it would bring Glory to God and you have a peace about it, I would say go for it. Of course sometimes you will see later on that it was maybe the wrong decision, but then again your motives were right. And God looks at the heart.

The most important thing with any decision we make is to bring Gods Kingdom to this earth and bring people closer to Him. If this is what we base our decisions on we live a fruitful life with a purpose.

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen