Gearing Up for the Mardi Gras Mission Trip

Well folks, it's about that time.  We are leaving out for New Orleans in only 5 days.

We are so thankful to everyone who made this trip possible!  And we are so thankful to the Lord for opening all the doors and giving all of the necessary provisions.

I ran across this scripture this past week, and it made me think of our upcoming trip:

Romans 10:13-17 ^{- 13} For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”¹⁴ How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? ¹⁵ And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” ¹⁶ But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” ¹⁷ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

 The point of our trip is to go and share the One on whom these folks can believe!  We go to share the Truth of the Word with these people.  

What kind of folks will we meet down there?

All types.

Atheists, Muslims, Wiccans, Satanists, Catholics, Agnostics, and many, many people that profess to be Christians.

That last group is the one we really go to reach the most.  Not that we don't share Jesus with the others, but the folks that claim to bear the name of Christ and are deceived by the flesh, the world and the devil, are the ones we really prep ourselves for.

We know the type because we used to be the type.  We know the train of thought their minds take, the justifications, the hurts, the strongholds, the controlling power of sin, the deceit.  The deceitfulness is the worst and is the hardest to overcome.  But....
 
Revelation 12:11 - And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.


We will go and share our stories of transformation....how we met personally with the Lord, realized His perfect sacrifice, how we gave our lives in return, how we have been freed from bondage and strongholds, and how we have been changed by His Spirit.  We will go and share how these people too can be changed by this same Lord, and how He desires to be their One and Only God in a world full of self-fulfilling idols.  We will bring light into this very dark place - the light is the Truth of God's Word.  We will come well equipped....overly equipped actually....with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures we've been studying and memorizing for months and weeks.

Just to give you an idea of some of the Scriptures we've been studying, memorizing and flagging in our pocket-sized Bibles:

Romans 12:2 - And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Matthew 15:8 - These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Luke 6:46 - "So why do you keep calling me Lord, Lord when you don't do what I say?"

Matthew 12:34 - Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

Titus 1:16 - Such people claim they know God, but they deny Him by the way they live.

1 John 3:10 - So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil.  Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers does not belong to God.

James 4:4 - Don't you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God?  I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.

1 Peter 1:14-16 - So you must live as God's obedient children.  Don't slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires.  You didn't know any better then.  But now you must be Holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is Holy.  For the Scriptures say, "You must be Holy because I am Holy."

Hebrews 12:14 - Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a Holy life, for those who are not Holy will not see the Lord.

1 John 3:6-10 - Anyone who continues to live in Him will not sin.  But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know Him or understand who He is.  Dear children, don't let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. Those who have been born into God's family do not make a practice of sinning, because God's life is in them. So they can't keep on sinning, because they are children of God.

WOW!!  And those are just a few of the life-changing, stronghold-destroying, deceit-killing Scriptures we'll have ready.  This is powerful Truth from the Word of God.....powerful Truth that can change lives and bring light to their dark hearts.

Now you may be wondering if we go down and scream and yell at folks that we hate them because they're sinners and they're all damned to hell?  No.  We share Jesus, and how His love saves us, restores us, gives us a new hope and a new life.  We plead with folks, hug them, pray with them, even cry with them, and we give them the truth of that 'double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.'

We go to share freedom through Christ.  And when we share our honest experiences, people see that we really care.

Please keep us in your prayers!  We can't wait to update everyone on how the trip went and how the Lord moved powerfully!

His Spirit is still alive and active today, and if we will get ourselves out of the way and yield to Him, we can be an extension of His power that radically changes people.

Loving Radically Through Christ,

Melissa