Tuesday, October 26, 2010

"PLEASE PRAY "GOD'S WILL BE DONE"

I thank God for each and every day that He has allowed me to serve here in Honduras. Today marks Two Years, Four Months, and Fourteen Days since Jesus, Jennifer, and I first arrived. Of all the many wonderful blessings God has given me in my life (first of all Jesus Christ), the ones I feel are the greatest are my children, my parents, and my family. I have been a single parent for most of the last twenty seven years. Divorce can be such a terrible thing, but thank God for giving me custody of all of my children and allowing me to raise them and be in their lives. The past seven weeks have been difficult for me, as it is the first time I have been away from my youngest, Jesus and Jennifer, for an extended period of time. Some of you may know that we were in the U.S. for Jesus to receive his U.S. citizenship in Sept.. Jesus wanted to stay awhile longer to get his Driver’s License. (You have to be eighteen to get one in Honduras.) Not that I would let him drive here (especially since all we have is a 200cc motorcycle), but I know how important a license seems when you’re sixteen. It didn’t seem right for him to stay and not let Jennifer stay for some extra time with Grandma and friends. So, for the last seven weeks I have been apart from the two most important people in my life.
I stay busy here. As always, time flies by so quickly I can hardly believe it’s been seven weeks without the children, or twenty eight plus months in Honduras. But it has. I continue to work with families that I met before, and constantly seek to find other’s that God will use me to minister to. Every day my prayer is that God will use me to go where He would have me go, do what He will do through me, and say all that He will use me to say.

There are two things that have been very heavy on my heart lately:
God calls us to die to ourselves, so that The Holy Spirit can come and live within us/through us. We spend our days being in/of this world. We tend to give God the time that’s left after we tend to all the worldly things that consume our lives. How many of us ever truly give up ourselves, and completely give ourselves to God to use as He sees fit?

The second is that during Jesus’ life on earth, yes He performed miracles. He healed and helped many people in many ways. But they were very few in relation to all the people that were on earth at that time. Jesus’ priority was not people’s physical bodies nor their physical needs, it was their souls. We tend to focus on what we need to sustain our physical bodies here on earth. But it is man’s soul that needs to be saved, not the physical body.
This week I ran across an article on a Blog that put into words some of what I have been thinking about lately. The Blog is at:
http://refineus.org/category/faith/transformation/
I have copied and pasted the article below.
Incremental Change vs. Transformational Change
I have had some conversations with people lately that have left me sad and frustrated. Sad because I see a pattern in their life that reminds me of my own. Frustrated because I know a better life is possible and a more fulfilling life awaits them, but they have to choose it. Many of the people that I have talked to recently stand at a crossroads, and they have a choice to make: incremental change or transformational change. Here is what I have noticed: consistently we choose incremental change, God offers transformational change…but transformational change comes at a price we are often not willing to pay.
Incremental change is the change the church has promised you most of your life. Incremental change is change you are in control of. Incremental change is you working harder to stop the things you keep messing up. Incremental change, at its core has you at the center trying to be better today than you were yesterday. Incremental change tells you if you try hard enough, you can: cuss less, drink less, click on pornography less, eat less, lose your temper less, spend less, lust less, lie less, cheat less. Incremental change is motivated by guilt and shame and feelings of incompetence and failure. Incremental change convinces you that if you can endure the pain of trying harder to cover up your sin and get better, then no one needs to know because “You can overcome this.” Incremental change doesn’t allow you to feel and experience grace and forgiveness because you are constantly trying to make up for the sin in your life. Incremental change carries a small price tag up front, but it robs you for the rest of your life of the peace and joy and victory God longs to provide.
There is another option. God offers transformational change. Transformational change is about surrender and vulnerability and transparency, humility and dependency. Transformational change at its core longs to destroy you and if you are willing to pay the price, it will totally destroy every part of you. Transformational change is messy and bloody and it hurts deep and it will cost you everything. It is pulling all of your junk out and laying it on the table for all to see and not caring what they think about you. Transformational change is committed to not just dealing with the symptoms of your issues, but peeling back painful layer after painful layer of your past, your dysfunction, your sin until the core problem is exposed. Transformational change is recognizing that on your best day you are a failure and a sinner and your only hope is grace. Transformational change is knowing you can never try hard enough to overcome your desire to drink, cuss, lust, eat, lie, cheat. What you can do is surrender to the God of resurrection power. Allow Him to not only destroy you, but bring you back to life.
We have created incremental change because we don’t like the pain of transformational change. Maybe you stand at a crossroads today…and you have struggled and hidden and wrestled with the same junk over and over and over again. God offers to transform you. God offers to give you a new life. It will come at a price, a very high price. But the life that you will have on the other side of confession and repentance and pain and forgiveness will be the life you have been pretending to have all of the years you have tried to change a little at a time.
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My ministry in Honduras has been to serve God in whatever way He will use me. Much of that has been to try to show God’s love by helping people in ways that make life a little easier or more comfortable for the body. I don’t think anyone that has been to Honduras would deny that there is overwhelming need and opportunity for that. So many ministries do good works to get their foot in the door so they can witness to unbelievers. Honduras is a great opportunity for that. So many Hondurans truly want to know about God. They are so open and receptive to His Word. I love that God called me to serve here. I pray that He will continue to use me in Honduras or wherever else in the world that He would send me for all the rest of my time on earth.

Please pray for us. The last couple of months have been the toughest we have been through financially. It is too the point where I have to begin to question whether or not I can continue to serve here in Honduras. Jesus and Jennifer are back in the U.S. for now, so that has helped a little. But I cannot see being apart from them for an extended period of time. Please prayerfully consider helping us continue to serve here in Honduras. Please do not think that you could not send enough to help. Any amount would be a great blessing.
Donations can be sent to:
Roy Morton Mission’s Fund
c/o Holly Springs Baptist Church
P.O. Box 366
Holly Springs, N.C. 27540

Or Online through "PayPal"
My account there is rmortonjr@iwon.com

Thank You and please keep us in your prayers.

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