One From The Road

Wow! What an exciting couple of weeks it's been. I give glory to God for allowing me the privilege of serving Him. I know that many of you have been expecting an update from this weekend. I apologize for it taking so long. This is the first time I have been able to get on here since we left yesterday morning. For those of you who don't know, we are on the road for the next two weeks. We will be in Fl, Ga, and SC., meeting with churches and individuals to share what God has called our ministry to do for His glory.
Saturday night at the prison was amazing! We had well over 40 in attendance, all coming voluntarily. God used the service to call a young 28 year old man to be saved! It was a blessing just to be a part of it. After the invitation, he even felt compelled to share a few words with those who were there. I was in awe of the boldness that he had. When God does a work, it shows! I ask you to pray for our new brother in Christ. Lift up this man as he begins a new life in our Savior.
On Sunday morning, Craig and I held a service in Burlington, NC. We were allowed to sing and preach at an ASA girls softball tournament. Although, it was hot, and many could have headed out for lunch, we had well over 200 attend, including parents and grandparents. Praise God, we saw at least 5 come to know Jesus!! I believe that there were several more whom God spoke to, so please pray that they will, in the near future, accept Him as Lord of their life.
Although I am not in the ministry to focus on numbers, I know that all of heaven rejoices when just one comes into the family of God. How excited should we be then, when six are saved in such a short amount of time.
I want to thank each of you for your prayer and support. Without you, we would not be able to go and preach the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. We love you and are praying for you as well.

Washing Feet

How awesome is God? To be honest with you, I don't think I could fully describe the answer that the question deserves. He is indeed indescribable! I'm getting excited about another opportunity that God has given me to preach at the prison tonight. After the amazing service that we had Wednesday night, I have been spending most of the morning wondering what God has in store for those who come together tonight. I want to ask you once again to pray for the service. There will be many in attendance tonight who do not know Jesus Christ as their Savior. Please pray that there would be an abundance of freedom for the gospel to be proclaimed. Pray that God would use this unworthy vessel to "preach the word." How dependant I am upon Him. I praise Him for the calling that He has laid upon me. The message that He has put on my heart comes from John 13. It is one of my favorite chapters in the entire Bible! God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, kneels before those disciples who have been with Him for so long. They have seen Him perform miracles beyond comprehension and explanation. They have heard Him preach and witnessed His sinless life. Yet, He gets on those perfect knees before them and washes their feet! What wondrous love! The most profound part of the entire event is not that He put His holy hands upon the dirty feet of men, but that He put His holy hands upon the feet of the one who would betray Him, Judas Iscariot. Jesus is so loving that He was willing to clean the feet which would, in only a matter of moments, be used to bring His accusers to capture Him. How much more then, should we be willing to serve in humility before our own enemies? If God in the flesh was willing to humble Himself (Php. 2:7), what should we be willing to do? God is calling those who have called upon His name to reach out into a world full of those who would betray and persecute us, so that we might "show" them the love of Christ which lives within us. I have had to take inventory of my own life because of the power of this passage. What am I holding back from God? Who, or what group am I unwilling to go to as His servant? Am I willing to wash the feet of those who despise me? Please pray for those prisoner's tonight. Pray that they will see the love that Christ as for them, and that they will accept that love and the salvation that comes through it.

Prison Update

First, I want to praise God for giving me the opportunity to preach tonight at the prison. I am thankful that He counted me worthy to stand as His representative. I would also like to thank those of you who prayed, not only for me, but for those men who attended as well. God hears the prayers of His people! Though the numbers were few, roughly 15-20, it was still a wonderful service. God moved and many came to the altar, repenting and submitting themselves to His will. Though no one was saved, I am thankful that God allowed more seeds to be planted. I am praying that Saturday night will be a time of reaping the harvest. I challenged those who attended tonight to encourage at least one inmate, whom they believed needed to be saved, to come. There are so many inmates at the prison who do not know Jesus. Please pray with me, that many will come to the service Saturday night, hear the gospel, and accept Jesus as Lord. I pray that each of you reading this will be strengthened and encouraged by the power of God today. I pray that He will use you to accomplish something great for Him. May our eyes be open to the opportunities He sets before us. May our hands be willing to extend towards one who needs the love of Christ. Amen.

Can't Help But Get Excited

Okay. So I was going to wait until after tonight to post a blog. I figured that two in one day might be a little much for me (this is all new ya know). But, after preparing this morning for the service tonight at the prison, I'm just too excited to wait. God laid Romans 4:20-25 on my heart to preach tonight. I had read it before a few times, but had never really sat down and studied it. WOW!!! After about 5 minutes I broke. Paul goes back to the faith that Abraham had when God promised him in Genesis 17, "and thou shalt be a father of many nations" v4. What really got my attention was what God said in v5-"for a father of many nations I have made thee." In God's view, this wasn't a promise to be kept, but instead, a promise that had already been fulfilled! How awesome is that? God doesn't make promises like we do-you see, we say something that we hope we'll be able to keep like, "I promise I'll never say that to you again" or "I promise that I won't be late" or "I promise that I'll do better next time". But the truth is that you and I can only really try to keep those promises which we've made. And, honestly, we end up breaking most of the one's that we made sooner or later. God though, treats His promises quite differently. When He says it, it's as good as done-money in the bank! He doesn't have to worry about circumstances or barriers that may be in the way. God never has and never will break a promise that He has made. Now, I don't know about you, but to me, that's some encouraging stuff. Abraham, was 99, Sarah was 90, and no child had yet been born. But "He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith; giving glory to God" Rom. 4:20. Abraham did something that you and I normally don't do: He didn't let the circumstances sway his belief. I take God's promises a lot of the time and treat them as if they will only be kept if certain things happen. I allow the barriers to influence my faith. But Abraham "being fully persuaded that, what he (God) had promised, he (God) was able also to perform" v21. Talk about conviction! I have to start taking God at His Word and not at my doubts. James 1:6-7 says, "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering (same Greek word as "staggered" in Rom. 4:20). For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord." If we are going to ask for something in prayer, we've got to be firm in our belief that God will provide. We can't ask Him to do a great work, only to doubt His ability and willingness to perform that which we have requested. I'm going to put something on my wall in my office that says "he staggered not at the promise of God" to remind me of my need to believe God! I hope that these verses bring you some encouragement as they have me. Please pray for the service tonight. There are so many prisoners there who need to believe that God has made a way for them to be forgiven and redeemed; and that His name is Jesus Christ! I'll have an update later tonight when I get back.

The Firstfruits of many

Welcome to the fruitstand! This is definitely a special occasion. This is the first of what I pray will be many many more posts. There are a couple of reasons why this is a big deal to me. First, because of my current technological capabilities. To be quite honest with you, it's a minor miracle for this to be happening. Though I'm just 25, I never have been geared towards this high-tech movement. Sure, I have a cell phone and a little mp3 player, but I have to ask my 11 month old daughter how to use them. So yeah, this is a big deal. A monumental step for me towards a life of ever increasing dependency on electronic devices in order to communicate to others. By the way, whatever happened to the good ol hand-written letter? People got tired of hand cramps I guess. Secondly, this is a big deal to me because of what I'll be posting about on here. (wow, I've said "post" on here twice already, you know I'm gettin' geeky with it now) This blog is focused on sharing what God is doing through our ministry- Craig Church Ministries. For those of you who don't know, my family partnered with them on June 15th. So, every day or two, I'll be on here letting you guys know what's going on. Hopefully, visiting this blog will be something you look forward to. I have no intentions of boring you to the point of this being some type of sleep-aid that you use. So, since the name of this site is "Fresh Fruit Stand," I'm going to be trying to put some things on here that will encourage you as well. I pray that this will be a source of inspiration for you, as well as a place where you can get a good laugh every now and then. If you like what you're reading send it to someone. If you have some thoughts about what's on here, feel free to comment. Well, evidently you can get hand cramps typing as well, so I'm going to let this be it for now. See you next time at the fruit stand! (wow, that was corny wasn't it?)