This was the paper i turned in reflecting on the first 5 weeks of the "Perspectives" class I'm taking.

Check it out if you'd like

www.perspectives.org

There are SO many different things I could write here! The first and foremost thing I took from week 1 was the importance of glorifying God. Too many times we take the Bible as being about us, and what God can do for us, and what we can do to glorify Him. But I don’t know if I could have answered this question correctly prior to week 1. God Gets most pleasure out of us when we glorify Him – Scripturally this is unarguably true, and we can glorify him by glorifying his name, and making all aware of His name and His love. That is what God wants more than anything.
Another discovery, which now seems ridiculously obvious, is the importance that God’s name be preached to all the nations as a necessity, and not necessarily as something we should do. Countless numbers of scripture verses have been brought to our attention supporting this. Not only SHOULD we do this as the body of Christ, but we MUST do this. Basically, according to scripture, the awakening for me was the cause-effect relationship of this. Matthew 24:14 Unarguable supports this when it says, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” This WILL happen for the end to come. Amazing. God is going to accomplish His purposes…so we should do all in our power to be a part of them. No matter how hard people try NOT to help God or evil tries to stop Him, He cannot be stopped.
The speakers were unbelievable as well. It is SO tough to soak in all the information every speaker says every week, but I can honestly say every week I walk out of class with some sort of theme I take out of every speaker that sticks with me. During week one, I became convinced that we are really on Earth to do one thing – Glorify God. I then also became convinced the best way to do this is to witness…and I am using this word with (2) definitions. First, to proclaim our allegiance to Christ in public and in the way we live, as the disciples did. Next, to tell all we can about the importance and glory that comes along with believing in Christ. In a later week I discovered this as only half the battle in evangelization…it is also important to help those we share with in learning how to follow God, which is what happens after we commit our lives to Him.
In Week 2, Dr Robertson gave his “Cat and Dog Theology” Lesson…and I have to admit, I was immediately skeptical by the name; however, I was immediately impressed once he got into his main points, and I began to really get excited about the entirety of the class as a direct result of this. The main point I took from this was to focus on what JFK used to say about our country – not what it(HE) can do for us, but what we can do for it(GOD). What does God want from me? What does God get from me? Why does God love me? What can I do for Him? These were among the questions I began asking myself immediately…and I immediately saw a shift in my direction in prayer and my approach toward missions. And as an add-on to that…when we truly accept grace, when I realize that Christ is truly in me, I don’t just say “I get God,” it also becomes, “God gets me.”
The 3rd week had Stan Yoder come to class and speak about living here in Kansas City – preaching to middle easterners, which struck me at home being as my father is Palestinian and I was raised Muslim for 17 years. His speech just immediately grasped my attention as the importance of living our life for Christ. People watch us whether we know it or not, and the best witness we can give is our lives. Not what we say, but what we do. His story of living in the Muslim parts of town and the people that would come into his house, ask questions, etc. was amazing. One slip up could change all of this so it was amazing to hear him say all this.
The next week was my favorite week. Don McCurry spoke on the “Broken Family of Abraham,” which was the title of one of his books. He had lived in Middle East for over 30 years in his life which is just astounding, being as I’m only 25. I took 1 Tim 2:3-4 as the most important part of his talk – “God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” God wants ALL people to know Him! If that doesn’t get us excited to do missions and I don’t know what does. Don’t we all want what God wants? Here it is – let’s do something for God! Let’s give him what He wants! Forget the fact that we absolutely owe Him our lives…but if we truly believe in Him then we want to please Him!
The fifth week saw Russ Munion give his portrayal of the first (3) missionaries. The thing that strut me right away about the first one, William Carey, is that he was in India for SEVEN years before he had his first convert. I know very few people, if any, have that kind of patience. Did he go about his missions in the right way? No, not at all. Of course not. Why? Because nobody had ever done it before! His courage and faith had to be UNIMAGINABLE to do what he did – to TRULY take a leap…and take his wife, his kids, in the the belly of the beast. God praise Him for his work, and praise God for allowing people to love him THAT much. I pray I can have a fraction of his faith and patience in the Lord. These three men among others laid blueprints for us to follow, and allow us to learn from their mistakes, be inspired by their leaps of faith, and learn from their successes as well.
LOVE the class –wake up every Tuesday morning not being able to wait for the night!