Tag Archives: Jesus

2. Advent Preparation

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2 Advent PreperationBack home in Germany we celebrate the 4 Sundays before Christmas, called Advent, by burning a candle for each Sunday on the Advent wreath and by preparing our hearts for Christmas and the good news that came with it. Each of the candle symbolizes something different and we will write about the meanings for the next 4 weeks.

The second candle on the Advent wreath is also called the Bethlehem Candle or the Candle of Preparation. The time before Jesus was born was a preparation time for His family. They had to get ready to go to Bethlehem while being pregnant. If you think about the preparation it takes to go on a journey today, imagine that 2000 years ago without cars, busses planes etc. Traveling was a hard thing in that time so you had to be prepared for everything since you couldn’t just pick up things you forgot easily.

What about us and our journey with God? Advent is a time of preparation for our personal journey with him. Getting ready for Christmas doesn’t just mean to get all the gifts, bake all the cookies and clean the house. No preparation also means preparing our hearts. How do we do that? We do it by spending time with Him. It could be by meditating on scriptures from the bible, praying, spending time in silence in His presence or any other things that you do to spend time with Him. When our heart, mind, soul and spirit focus is on Him Christmas will be a different celebration. All the things we normally do at that time become secondary and the true reason why we celebrate Christmas is becoming the number one.

We want to encourage you this week to get ready for Christmas by preparing during your times with him.  Start reading the bible stories that lead up to Christmas. If you have the chance share the special things you got out of those times with a friend or maybe also people that don’t know Jesus yet.

Hey our friend

Wow this week was a whirlwind. I Markus was speaking at a Christian business man meeting which was a great time. Thank you God! Then we had a game night and a brunch at our house as well we celebrated early Christmas with our YWAM Bay area Family. It was a week of Christmas celebration and speaking. It also always opens the door for great conversations about our love for Jesus. Use this time to do that!!

Also we want to say thank you to all who support us in our work here through Prayer and finances! You are a huge blessing to us! May god bless you richly!

We have a request for you! To do the work we are doing we depend 100% on support. Over the last few months we lost about $287 in monthly support through changes of circumstances in people’s lives. So at this point we need about $1410 more in monthly support to be fully funded and about $8.950 more to reach our full budget for this year. We want to ask for your help in sharing with people you know that have a heart for missions and would be interested in joining our support team monthly or with a year end donation. Of course if you are not a part of it you are welcome to join as well! When you click on this link you find out more how to do that. All donations are tax deductible. Thank you for all your help in this area.

Spend every day this week some time with Him to prepare for Christmas.

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

Love your neighbor Part 4 Small things change big things

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Love your neighbor Part 4Often we think big things make all the difference. The big gift, the big house, the big car, the big church etc. But in reality a lot of little ones make an even greater difference.

A few years ago we had a thanksgiving meal and invited a neighbor. He wasn’t able to make it so we send him off with some food to go and wrote him an encouraging card which we put in his mailbox. A day later he thanked us and we thought he talked about the food, but it was the card that he was so thankful for. Something so easy.

Another time a neighbor went through a hard time so I called and by that showed that we cared. The person was so encouraged and so thankful that we kept hearing that for a long time.

Once we hang up a sheet of paper at our door which said: Take what you need. On the bottom we had words like forgiveness, hope, joy, healing, inspiration which you could rip of and take home. We later found out that some of our neighbors took them and hang them up at their fridge to be inspired daily.

All of those examples are easy and small things, but they make a huge difference. To go further in a relationship, this is a great way to show that you care. What about if you start doing that with your neighbors? Think about how it can change your immediate neighbors and neighborhood! You can become a hope bringer to people that might be hopeless and a true friend.

How to start?

  1. Brainstorm and pray what little things you could do for your neighbors!
  2. When you figured it out, do them!! Faith without works is dead!

Hey our friend

Hopefully summer is still in full swing for you and we hope you have a chance for a few days off to enjoy it. Jen and I are on our way back from PA. We had a wonderful time which ended with speaking at a church in Lancaster about how to love your neighbor. We were also able to attend the wedding of Cousin Dave and his now wife Rebekah. What a wonderful day.

When we are back in San Francisco we have quite a few things going on. Please pray for a quick time to get over jetlag.

Thank you for all your Prayers.

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

It is well with my soul

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it is well with my soulLast year when we were on our way to Germany to go to the funeral of my grandpa we had to go on a 6 hour drive to LA. On that drive we listened to worship music and the song it is well with my soul just kept coming back on. It really encouraged me and brought me hope during that time. When I looked into the story of the song I was amazed. It was written by a Chicago lawyer after he went through many tragedies. First he lost his son, then he lost most of his wealth in the big Chicago fire and then he sent his wife and daughters to Europe for a vacation on which trip the ship collided and all 4 of his daughters died. On his way over to meet with his grieving wife he wrote this song:

1. When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
when sorrows like sea billows roll;
whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say:

Chorus:
It is well, it is well, with my soul. It is well, with my soul!
It is well, with my soul! It is well, it is well, with my soul!

2. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
let this blest assurance control, that Christ has regarded
my helpless estate, and hath shed His own blood for my soul.

3. My sin, o, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

4. For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live: if Jordan above me shall roll,
no pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

5. But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
the sky, not the grave, is our goal; O trump of the angel!
O voice of the Lord! Blessèd hope, blessèd rest of my soul!

6. And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
the clouds be rolled back as a scroll. The trump shall resound,
and the Lord shall descend, even so, it is well with my soul.

His life was hit by one tragedy after the other, but in all of that he kept his focus on God. I’m sure he didn’t understand why things happened the way they happened, but he choose to keep believing that his Father in Heaven is good and does not want any bad for him. Ask yourself those questions:

  1. Do you truly believe that God is good even in times of challenge?
  2. If not, what do you think makes you believe it is not true?
  3. Spend time praying and ask God how you can see this truth again in your life!

Hey our friend

We hope you had a wonderful week. My brother and his wife left to go back to Germany. We had a wonderful time with them and look forward to see them again!! I was also meeting with a friend who uses the ministry concept to bring hope to his community. We also shared with one of my old students from Switzerland on how to impact his area with the ministry concept. God is starting to bring in more people who have a heart for their neighbors and community and want to use the concept there. Keep praying that all those starts will be fruitful.

Thank you for your Prayer and financial support. You are such a huge blessing to us. We are still in need of $1440 more monthly support to be fully funded. If you or someone you know would like to join our team in that way click on this link to see how!

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

What is the Devil really after? Part 2

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What is the Devil really after? Part 2

Last week I explained with some stories of the bible what the devil is really after. Today I want to look at how it looks like in the modern world.

But let’s start by looking back 200 years. The world was industrialized and instead of families working together on the farm the father goes to work in the factory. Many times he gets home exhausted from the day at work and doesn’t want to really invest into his relationships. That starts breaking down respect in the children for their fathers. They don’t see them most of the time and when they see them they are exhausted and don’t want to spend time with them. But for a child it is important to get affirmation from their father to grow up with a good self-esteem. But how do they get it if Dad has a hard time to be fully there. Now that generation grows up and tries to prove every day that they are good enough. But some do it in a way that it will take them even further away from true relationship. Some People in San Francisco actually live at work and just go home for sleeping. How do you want to have relationship if you never have time? So again the enemy throws a lie into the life of the people that value comes out of what we produce. Look at today’s society, every 2nd marriage ends up in a divorce. Why? It is because the enemy is in the business of trying to destroy relationship. Today we are the most connected in the whole history of mankind, but many people don’t even know anymore to have face to face relationship. It’s easier to put something on Facebook then actually sharing with someone face to face. We start believing that we have so many relationships, but how many of those are real? How many of those people would come to your house if you need some help?

broadwayOne last one: Pornography. When you look at that 14 Billion industry, it tells you something about our society. Sex was created for marriage because of relationship and intimacy we share there. It was created as the closest intimacy we can find. But with more and more people addicted to porn it takes them away from that deep intimate relationship. It gives them something counterfeit and at the end people are feeling worse than before. I read a statistic that 93% of boys and 62% of girls are exposed to porn before they are 18! Many young people are addicted to this lie and it makes them grow up in a way to not understand what true relationship means (if you know people that are trapped in it and want to be free, this website has some great resources and help http://xxxchurch.com/ )

So when we look at sin, we see: the issue with sin is actually not sin in itself, the issue with sin is that it cracks down in relationship and starts to separate and isolate us from our Father and also from other people. We get this feeling of guilt in us and then we are afraid of God and what he will do to us when we tell him what we did. When we are isolated we are an easy target for even more of his lies and eventually for his destruction. The enemy knows that.  He destroyed his relationship with God the day he wanted to become God, and pride took him over. But instead of fixing his relationship by repenting, he chooses to take as many down with him as he can.

I hope you start seeing the picture. Relationship is the key thing that the enemy is after. Let’s all do 3 things.

  1. Let’s pray for our relationships. If we see something in our own relationships with God or people lets pray for restoration. Also let’s do that if we see something in other people’s relationships.
  2. Let’s fix our relationships. If we did something wrong lets repent if someone else did something wrong to us lets forgive. Let’s start restoring relationships.
  3. Let’s be someone who gives relationship. Let’s build relationship to people that live right around us, or people we know that don’t have any true friends. Let’s invite them into our life and into relationship. We will help them by that and destroy the plans of the enemy to isolate them.

Let’s do this together and take as many people away from Satan’s plan and bring them back to a loving father.

Hey our friend

We hope you had a great week and had a chance to think about the last blog and your relationships. We are writing those blogs to encourage and challenge all of us in the body of Christ to grow in our faith and our relationship with Him as well as our neighbor.

During our last week we had many meetings to move things forward in different areas of the ministry. We are moving into a new season with streamlining the ministry to be even more focused and effective as well as moving towards the new name. We meet with a coworker who is working on our web and presentation stuff for the ministry and things are really starting to come together. Keep praying that God gives us time in the process to get things done.

Please also keep us in your prayers since we are teaching in the DTS School this week on the father heart of God. Pray that God will really encourage and challenge the students as well as connect with His father heart in this time.

Thanks for all your Prayers.

Have a blessed week.

Markus and Jen

What is the Enemy really after Part 1

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What is the Devil really after

Question markMany times I got words of encouragement as well as prophetic words from people about the significance of the ministry we are doing and teach to others. One morning I woke up and started to totally understand why. Let me start this week to go through some situations in the bible to explain.

When God created us, He created us for relationship with Him and other people. When the devil came to Adam and Eve and tempted them with the fruit, what was his intend? He wanted Adam and Eve to be removed from the garden, but way more important, he wanted to put a crack into the relationship between them and also between them and God. Then the next one is Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel cause of jealousy. He was jealous that his brother seemed to have a better relationship with God and instead of working on his, he rather kills his brothers and destroys it. What does Cain say in the moment when God asked him where his brother is, am I my brother’s keeper? Let’s go further to the Tower of Babel. The enemy encourages people to strive for the same as he wanted, to be God. So they build a tower to heaven to show that they are greater than God. They don’t remember that God gave them everything and loves them so much, no but they want to overpower Him and be greater. God stops it and I’m sure he was sad about how he had to do it, he gave each of them a different language, which makes relationship even harder. If you can’t understand each other how can you have a great relationship.

Another example is David. David commits adultery with the wife of one of his soldiers. That day 3 things happen. He breaks the marriage to his wife, as well as the marriage of the soldier. He also brings a crack into the relationship between him and God. David tries now to fix things but his fixing doesn’t work and 2 people have to die, the husband of the woman he slept with and her child that was conceived through that situation. But after the prophet came to him, he repents with all his heart to fix the crack in his relationship with God. I believe that repenting heart was the reason God called him a man after his own heart.

But now let’s go to the new testament. Let’s look at Judas. He was a great friend and disciple of Jesus. He walked with Him during pretty much his whole ministry time on earth. But then the enemy tempted him with money and he accepted and he betrayed Jesus. Of course this created a big crack in their relationship. Later on, in the Apostles ,often the enemy attacks relationship through different theology and that kept going pretty much till today. He uses something that can be good and drives it between us to destroy our relationships. Now these were some examples from different stories in the bible, but I think every story of sin in the bible is going against relationship.

Read the Stories I described on the top and get your own picture of the importance of relationship. With the next Blog I will talk more on how relationships got attacked in the last 200 years and what we can actively do!

Hey our friend

We hope you had a great week. Sadly I (Markus) caught a cold and was sick in bed for a few days. The great thing was that it wasn’t on super busy days! Please pray with us for the work since we are working on a restructuring in one of the areas. Thank you so much for your Prayers.

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen