Indo Here We Come

Greetings! We are kicking off the first blog entry for our journey to Indo. We are sitting at my folks house; we leave in a little over a month and already the Lord is preparing us for this endeavor.
For those of you who haven't visited our blog, let us introduce it. The title of our blog is 'Jehovah Tsidkenu' which means, 'The LORD our RIGHTEOUSNESS' in the Hebrew and is taken from Jeremiah 23:6. This is nothing less than the great and glorious Gospel that was fully revealed to us in Christ. As the saints of old remind us, 'He lived the life we could not live, and died the death we should have died.' In the words of Martin Luther, it was 'The Great Exchange.'
As we venture off to a foreign land and places unknown, we can have a sure and steadfast confidence in the Lord that He is our Rock and the One in whom we trust. The Gospel call, on all of our lives, is a call that bids us to come and die beside Christ that we might truly find life. We often sing it in our Churches (e.g. Marvelous Light, When I Survey, etc.), read about it in our Bibles (e.g. 'Whoever desires to come after me...), and talk often about the deaths of saints; and yet we so often fail to acknowledge it in our lives. Instead we get greedy and want to retain the best of both worlds. Either we'll share in the suffering of Christ, but not His life; or we'll share in His life, but not in His death.
The Gospel demands our lives, and this great love with which we are loved, is a love that is fully exemplified in our becoming more like Jesus. I'm not sure where this ego-centric idea came that God wants us to be ourselves, be unique, or special-- when the Bible clearly states that we are to be conformed into the image of Christ, and this IS love! A love that bids us to die that we might find abundant life.
We pray that our journey is a Gospel-exalting journey. That we might seek to greater depths and levels what this beckoning call is that demands our life. We pray that Christ is the banner that we march under and our coat of arms, faith in Christ. We are not home yet, but the day is coming when we shall all wax cold and be ushered into eternity. May the words of this blog not merely be to update people on our life, but may it be a time of encouragement and sharpening. We don't want this blog to primarily be about us, but the Lamb who is worthy of all glory.
The poem by Robert Murry M'Cheyne sums up greatly the live which is lived declaring 'Jehovah Tsidkenu.' http://www.btinternet.com/~gracegospel/jehovah.htm