Canada Intro

I'm headed to Canada and want to let you know what I'm up to while I'm there and how you can pray if you are so inclined.

I'm working with Fuge camps on an MFuge International team in Kingston, Ontario. Ontario is one of Canada's ten provinces (kind of like a state in the USA). Kingston is between Toronto and Montreal and sits on Lake Ontario.

*Random fact: Dan Aykroyd, Bryan Adams, and Avril Lavigne are from the Kingston area.

I will be leading a group of 15-20 students and 3 or 4 adults in ministry and missions in Kingston. Sometimes it will be like doing Habitat for Humanity work, and other times it will be like working on a lawn mowing crew.

The Bible study theme is The Underground. It is a look in the gospels at Jesus as Immanuel—God with us. We will look at times that Jesus met with the abandoned, poor, sick, and oppressed. Ultimately, we will find that God meets with us in our helplessness. Also, we will find that the adoption, new life, etc. that we receive from God in Jesus results in our love and concern for the helpless.

One day, we look at the ways that Jesus reacts to and treats in turn the Jewish leaders and the sick and diseased. In The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer captures the idea we will be learning about.

"Now someone who in spite of his past sins honestly wants to become reconciled to God may cautiously inquire, 'If I come to God, how will He act toward me? What kind of disposition has He? What will I find Him to be like?'

The answer is that He will be found to be exactly like Jesus. 'He that hath seen me,” said Jesus, 'hath seen the Father.' Christ walked with men on earth that He might show them what God is like and make known the true nature of God to a race that had wrong ideas about Him. This was only one of the things He did while here in the flesh, but this He did with beautiful perfection.

From Him we learn how God acts toward people. The hypocritical, the basically insincere, will find Him cold and aloof, as they once found Jesus; but the penitent will find Him merciful; the self-condemned will find Him generous and kind. To the frightened He is friendly, to the poor in spirit He is forgiving, to the ignorant, considerate; to the weak, gentle; to the stranger, hospitable.

By our own attitudes we may determine our reception by Him. Though the kindness of God is an infinite, overflowing fountain of cordiality, God will not force His attention upon us. If we would be welcomed as the Prodigal was, we must come as the Prodigal came; and when we so come, even though the Pharisees and the legalists sulk without, there will be a feast of welcome within, and music and dancing as the Father takes His child again to His heart (157-158)."

• Pray that the students and the Canadians we meet would find this God who rejoices over and welcomes the down-trodden.
• 
  
• Pray that I would meet him again.
• 
  
• Pray that we would love the down-trodden (Matt. 25:37-40).