China on the Horizon

The Day has finally arrived and I will be heading off to China with a team of ten other people on Sept. 23rd at 4am. Much preparation has gone into this trip and I know God is going to move in more insane ways then I can even imagine. We are going to be gone for ten weeks, nine of which will be spent in mainland China, the other week will be in Hong Kong for our debrief. It is becoming more and more evident this team has been divinely assembled by God for this season and has been anointed to do the Lord’s will and work in China.

We are going to be doing many different kinds of ministries and I know we are going to see many Chinese come to Jesus. Sadly though, I will not be able to update my blog while I am in China, but you can be sure I will have many stories upon my return to Kona. I would like to ask all of you who read this keep me and the team in your prayers as we are definitely going to need it. China is still a closed nation and Christians are still persecuted in some areas. Please pray for safety, team unity, and the moving of the Holy Spirit; thank you so much for all of your prayers, they do mean so much! If you would like to contact me you can email me securely at cbergus@fastmail.fm

As sweet as Honey

Many times we hear comparisons of God’s love that I think are absolutely ridiculous, to be completely honest. God gave his only son, Jesus, to come and die for all of our sins. Do you realize that those who haven't even be conceived yet have already been forgiven for the sins that they will commit once they are brought into this world? As Christians we seem to think that people who are 'non-believers' are so far away from us and how could they ever get to our level, they are such 'sinners'. While Jesus died for their sins and your own sins at the exact same time, people who aren't saved yet have already been forgiven and the only thing separating us from them is that we have believed with our hearts and spoken with our mouths that Jesus Christ is Lord. Even sinners are moved by the Holy Spirit, conviction is only brought through the Holy Spirit and conviction is how you are lead to Jesus.

We don't even know what the full love of God is like though we get a small picture of it from scripture. Thankfully scripture is written and God is always new, every aspect of God's love couldn't be captured in one book if you tried. The even crazier thing is we are called to love each other and love our neighbors like Christ loves the church. He became man, from God and displayed His love for us in dying on a cross to set us free from the punishment of sin. How do we start to even love each other like this? I think the best display of this is looking at the gospels and at 1 Corinthians 13. Jesus displayed His love for all on this earth in many different mediums and 1 Cor. 13 gives us the next best set of guidelines to follow on how to love others.

Jesus tells us in the gospels that the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves, which is done in many different ways. I want to take a look at John 13: 34-35, Jesus gives a new command to his disciples. He tells them that people will recognize the disciples by the way they love each other, not by the miracles they do or by the way they act or even the attitude they have; but by how they love each other. If we started to display our love for one another like Jesus displayed his love for the church, Christians wouldn't have such a bad reputation all over the world. We need to let our actions do the talking and not our words -1 John 3:18. I challenge you to read the books and passages I have included in this blog and meditate on them and ask God and yourself how you can better love others. I will be writing a blog next week about what I am going to be doing for the next three months and will be including ways you can partner with me in prayer for the China team as we go forth in God.

As always, I want to be able to pray for you specifically, so please contact me with any need. I look forward to hearing from you.