the serpent's trap

we all know the story of eve's temptation in the garden of eden: how satan twisted God's Word and got eve to doubt what God had said, how eve misquoted God's command, etc.  but here's something that we possibly don't often think about: what was he tempting her with?  paul writes in 1 Tim. 2 that eve was deceived and so fell into transgression, whereas adam was not deceived and chose sin willingly.  that implies that there was not a full consciousness of sin in eve's poor decision, and certainly not a desire for it.  it follows that satan could not have been tempting her with something evil or sinful, as she had no sin yet.  so what was the temptation?

satan's temptation to eve was contained in the phrase "in the day you eat of it, you will be like God".  now i think we often read that and think that satan was tempting eve to "be her own god", to cast of the shackles of the Lord's rule and rebel.  i used to assume that was the meaning.  but that doesn't fit with the idea that eve was deceived.  the deception implies that what she was doing she thought was a positive thing!  the temptation was for eve to be like God - in the sense of being god-like, or we might say "godly".  surely it is a good thing to be like God!  i believe eve's desire was not to rebel and be her own lord, but to be become more like God. 

but here is the problem, here is the serpent's subtle trap: he says, "you can be like God, and all you have to do is eat the fruit".  but the fact is, eve was already like God!  she was created in his likeness and image!  the trap was to trick eve into believing there was something else she had to do to be like God, when God Himself had already made her like Him!

satan's ways have not changed.  today he still tempts us with the same deception, one which exploits our good desires (only present by God's Spirit in us) to be more like Him.  satan slithers up and says, "yeah, you can be godly, more holy, and all you have to do is add this fruit or that fruit"  "you just need to bear this fruit in the ministry or have the fruit of doing that work, THEN you will be holy, godly, like Jesus".  the deception in this is that Jesus has already made us like Himself by the blood shed for us on His cross!  we are already made anew in His image by His grace.  we have been made the holiness and righteousness of God in Him!  but satan would have us (mind you all the while with good intentions) mistrust God's completed work by making us think we need to add something to it for it to be complete.  don't let the serpent speak his lie into your heart today.  simply be still and know that Jesus has already made you holy, godly by His great grace.  as paul wrote to the corinthians, "lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."  (2 Cor. 11:3)  so enjoy the simplicity of Christ and the beauty of His completed work!

new creations in Christ Jesus!

hey, just wanted to post pictures from the baptism we had last week.  its so awesome to see people expressing through baptism the truth that our old man is dead and we are living anew in Christ!

l to r: ben, kristina, marina, dasha, sergei, nina, alyona, tom

(and no, tom and i did not plan to wear matching shirts! )

- please pray for marina and dasha who are going off to university at the end of this month.  they are young believers who have been filled with the Spirit and are taking in the pure milk of God's Word.  pray they stay rooted and grounded in Jesus' love and make a priority of being in fellowship in their new cities (its a blessing that in both the cities where they are going, kharkov and kiev respectively, there are calvary chapels)
- pray for nina and her husband sergei (who got saved a couple days after nina!) - their son is under serious oppresion from the enemy (drug addiction, hallucinations, etc.)  pray for him to be set free.  pray also for nina and sergei as they are trying to decide where to fellowship.  after learning that they gave their lives to the Lord, an aquaintance of theirs is very forcibly trying to convince them to go to another church that has some serious false teaching.  pray for the Holy Spirit to guide their decision and not be pressured by man, but led by Him.
- pray for alyona's dad.  he was once on fire for the Lord and led a Bible study at their old church, but he is now on a drinking binge and was just taken to a state detox clinic.  pray for his restoration and God's peace in the family (who are all believers) during this time.
- pray for kristina - she is actually an orphan from the internat we go to.  she started coming earlier in the summer and actually prayed to receive the Lord at our service Jul. 15 (thanks for the bday present, Lord! )  the orphans are a very tough group and its very hard to not be influenced by the ungodliness there, but kristina desires to live for Jesus.  pray for her to be filled with His power and especially for battles with anger and help quitting smoking.


thanks for praying!

a true daughter in the faith...

true daughters in the faith nastya (l) and natasha (r)

the Lord allows us to be part of the lives of so many people, to speak into their lives, to pray for them, encourage them, to study the Word together, etc.  but every once in a while Jesus brings along someone who can only be descibed the way that Paul described Timothy: "a true son in the faith".  in our case the Lord has blessed us with "true daughters in the faith"  our "firstborn" as it were is nastya from dnepro.  the Lord allowed us to have such a close relationship and be a part of her life in a special way.  she is a true daughter in the faith (i'm so proud of you in Jesus, styushka! )  then last year the Lord blessed us with another "daughter in the faith" - natasha.  just last week she moved to the states to go to college and we miss her tons!  this entry will be her story.  (sorry styushka, i'll have to do yours some other time. )

we actually had the incredible privledge of being "in the delivery room" as the Holy Spirit birthed natasha anew.  last year, July 9th, my wife and i went out to buy sunflower seeds after sunday service (yeah, its an addiction for many in ukraine).  the store we normally go to was closed and so we walked further.  we had a mission group from america that was preparing to come and we needed translators.  as we walked i saw a girl from my english class sitting at a bus stop.  we went to approach her about maybe helping with translation.  she was sitting with her friend who had just returned from a year in the states as an exchange student, natasha.  we quickly got to talking about the Lord.  in fact, as soon as natasha heard i was a pastor she asked me flat out "what does it mean to be saved!?"  wow, quite the invitation!   so after talking for a while i asked if she wanted to be saved today.  she almost shouted "YES!"  she chose to pray in her own words (in english acutally, since that was what she had been speaking mostly for the last year).  it was one of the most sincere and whole-hearted prayers to receive Jesus i've ever been blessed to hear.  afterwards she was LITERALLY jumping up and down!  i'm so thankful for her host family who are Christians and who all that year sowed the love of God into her heart. 

natasha's baptism, august 2006

the following week, she and another girl who we just met (katya) came over to talk about getting baptised.  our good friend daniel carter was visiting from poltava when the girls came over.  we ended up talking about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and as they said they'd pray about getting water baptized katya asked "but can we be baptized in the Spirit right now?"  sweet!  so we prayed for them and the Holy Spirit came upon them.  the Lord gave daniel a detailed vision for each of the girls concerning what giftings He was giving them.  God put on daniel's heart that natasha would be gifted as an evangelist.  we have seen that to be so true!  a couple weeks later she was already out on the streets with us sharing her faith with all kinds of people!

natasha was literally at every Bible study and meeting we had as much as possible.  she started taking detailed notes at every study and just drinking in the Word of God.  soon she got involved with our ministry at the orphanages here.  her experience in drama team was a great help, but what was really a blessing was to ask her to share the gospel with the kids and give the invitation to receive the Lord.  the kids all loved her and could really relate to her, since she lost both her parents before she was a teenager.  but she was able to share how God has become her Father and blessed her with spiritual family as well. 

natasha sharing Jesus at one of the orphanages

over the school year, natasha led both her grandma and her grandpa to Christ (shortly thereafter her grandmother died, but now she is rejoicing in heaven!).  also, probably something like half a dozen or so of natasha's classmates received the Lord through her sharing Christ with them!  though those girls didn't start to all grow right away, there are now 4 of them who have prayed to receive the baptism of the Spirit and are an awesome part of our church (sadly for us, since they all graduated this year, they are all leaving svitlovodsk to study in other cities, but thankfully most of those places have good churches, kiev, kharkov, dnepro, etc.)  some of the girls are going to be baptized the day after tomorrow.  (i will post pics)  what a joy!

natasha would often come over and we'd spend hours just talking about the Word or what God was doing in her life.  we were so blessed just to see her fall in love with Jesus more and more and so thankful that He would allow us to be a part of this.  Natasha also started teaching sunday school for the kids fairly early on and the best part was just to see her really receive the great grace of our Lord and pass that on to the kids.

at natasha's good-bye party:
top: masha, natasha, dasha, nastya, marina
bottom: dasha, lena navarro (and david), my lena, katya
marina and both dasha's are girls that natasha led to the Lord

the sunday before natasha left, we had a good-bye party for her after church and prayed over her.  i don't think there was a dry eye in the place (especially mine! )  we all realized what an integral part of our church family natasha is and how much we'd miss her.  she was really a leader in our church in the truest sense of the word, that she was always willing to serve in whatever way and seeking to bring others closer to Jesus.  we know that the Lord has amazing things planned for her life and the church she is part of next will be getting a gift from the Lord.  natasha, if you read this, i am so proud of you in the Lord.  its been one of the most amazing blessings in our lives to see how God found you and completely changed your life for His glory and used you to bring to many people to Him.  always enjoy His grace, the only rock we stand on, and let the sweetness of our Jesus be the song in your heart daily.  we love you, dotsya! (that'd be ukrainian for daughter, for those of you who were wondering)

salvation stories

Jesus is moving in the hearts of people here!  He is seeking those who will worship in Spirit and truth.  the sunday before last, one of the ladies that comes to our fellowship, alyona, brought her cousin's daughter to church. (yeah, it was bring-an-obscure-relative-to-church day ) who was visiting from st. petersburg, russia.  the girl, katya, was very open to the Lord and afterwards came up to pray to receive Jesus!  we gave katya a kid's Bible and also a regular New Testament to get to know her Savior.  please be praying for her.  she is only 11 years old and her parents are VERY anti-christian.  fortunately, her grandparents (who also live in st. pete's) are open to God, so hopefully they will be able to take katya to a church there.  there are a couple calvary chapels in st. pete's that we want to try to hook them up with.  she's heading back at the end of summer.

alyona with one of her daughters, lada (left) and katya (right)

also, last night alyona brought a couple ladies, nina and natasha (both mid/late 40's i'd guess), to our mid-week Revelation study (way to go, alyona, you're on a roll!).  nina is the landlady of the building alyona rents for her second hand store, and natasha is nina's.... godmother?  obscure relative?  (there's a lot of those in ukraine )  we were in the part of Revelation 12 where it talks about satan being the accuser of the brethren.  the word there is not just someone who is mudslinging, but rather a formal word used of a prosecutor in court.  and its not that he's making up accusations... he's right!  he's bringing the case against us, our sins, before God, the Judge.  and the fact is, we are guilty!  but we went on to the good news that there is also a defense lawyer in the court hall, our Advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous (I Jn. 2:1) who by His wounds, without saying a word, justifies all who trust in Him.  at the end of the study i gave an invitation to receive the Lord and these 2 ladies both prayed to receive Jesus as the one who justifies the ungodly! (Rom. 4:5)  please pray for them to be rooted and grounded in grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and to begin reading their new Bibles.  between the two of them, they've got 3 sons (all roughly my age) who are very far away from the Lord and allowing satan to destroy their lives.  one of them, sasha, from everything nina told me, may even be possessed.  please pray for God to miraculously get a hold on these young men and give them new life.  thanks!

oh, and i couldn't resist putting in a pic of my favorite girlies both in yellow... like little sunflowers!

note: if you have not seen planet earth you MUST watch it!  every time i watch it, my heart just begins to worship at seeing all the beauty, variety and power of God's creation.  amazingly well filmed, edited and scored (and surprisingly rarely does is mention evolutionary propaganda... though it is there)