Russell Moore & David Platt @ the adopting for life conference!

I knew Jim and I would not be able to go to this years Adopting for Life conference in Louisville, KY but OH HOW I WANTED TO GO!   Since we are saving for our adoption we did not have the extra money to go so I just planned on going next year!  However a friend gave me the link to watch online via live stream so I could watch it the same time it was going on down there.  That made my day to find that out so I listened to Russell Moore speak last night which was amazing (He is the guy who wrote "Adopted for life") and then this morning listened to David Platt.

For those of you who do not know who David Platt is, I highly recommend you get to know him!  God is using him mightily for His kingdom.  David is a pastor of a church in Alabama but how I found out about him was from Katie (kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com) who lives in Uganda and had been listening to his sermons online and told us all about him.  He did a series on Radical - What the gospel demands and I just wish I could tell EVERYONE I know to watch this series.  I have only watched part 1 of the 8 part series and already I am changed, challenged, convicted and God is using it greatly in my life and I cannot wait to finish the series.  Their church has cut so much in their budget to help the least of these around the world.  They realize that the churchs goal is not about seeing how big we can get or how awesome or how big of a WOW factor we have in our programs or churches...its about the gospel, its about helping the least of these, the poor, the orphans.  Instead of saving their funds for a "rainy day" they gave all $500,000 of it to help 21 villages become completely taken cared of in India...that is just a bit of what I have heard this church is doing.

After listening to both of the speakers I just knew I had to write a post on all the amazing things I wrote down from their messages.  So below will be some great quotes or things that these men said...take a few minutes and read them and I think you'll agree with me how true these statements are!  I know you'll be tempted to stop reading at this point or half-read the rest of the post but I challenge and ask you to slowly read and take in the following quotes that I wrote down from these two mens messages...its not about the men..its about the message God is speaking to US through these men!  We cannot read the book of James especially James 1:27 and just read it and listen...we have to DO IT! 

Here are some of Russell Moore's...


"Any identity, ministry or initiative that we have must be derived from Jesus Christ.  Jesus says the issue here is not about the power and the greatness of the people involved or about the ministry, it is about Christ."

"If we are going to have Gospel-centered orphan care, we must stop having the perspective that we are rescuing orphans from impoverished situations to bring them into a white, middle class American home. If we have that perspective, we are not bringing Gospel-centered help and care to orphans. We are not the solution to the orphan crisis. The cross is the solution to the orphan crisis and the cross is the solution to our crisis."


"Malaria kills and we must fight malaria. Aids kills and we must fight Aids. But prosperity kills and we must recognize that too. Moving children from suffering to prosperity is not enough and we must recognize that. We must turn ourselves and our attention toward the cross, reminding ourselves that we are the people who are following after the man who is classified as a terrorist, staked to a stake and left to drown in His own blood. We must have the perspective not of being the rescuers of the world, but of being the rescued who love and receive those who have been given to us."


"We must become orphans before we become orphan ministers."


"You and I have to be driven to adoption and orphan care because we believe the Gospel. We are the people who were abandoned and given up on, but who were found and who were found through the cross and the empty tomb. That means a humbling of ourselves as we see ourselves as bought by blood."


"The reason why it is so difficult for us to see why orphan care is so important, the reason why I didn’t want to adopt, is because I wanted first to have children of my own. I wanted my own genetic material. I wanted my own biological pattern. I was haughty, self-exalting and absolutely unaware that God doesn’t owe me fulfilling my life plan for the rest of my life. Instead, His plan for my life is to conform me to the image of Christ."


"Not all of you in this room are called to adopt. Not all of you in this room are called to start an orphan care ministry in your church.  But all of us in this room are called to recognize the face of Jesus in the least of these. And all of us in this room are crucified people ministering to a crucified cosmos in the name of a crucified Messiah who nonetheless lives by the power of God."

AMAZING QUOTES RIGHT...REALLY SPOKE TO MY HEART AND I PRAY IT DOES TO YOURS TOO....HERE ARE DAVID PLATT'S QUOTES I TOOK FROM HIS MESSAGE...


"6.8 billion people in the world. The most liberal estimates say that 1/3 of those are Christians. Even with those estimates that would leave 4.5 billion people in the world without Christ and on their way to an eternal hell.  Along with this great spiritual need comes physical need. 26,000 children will die today of either starvation or a preventable disease.  If these things are true, then we do not have time to play games with our lives or His church. We do not have time to waste our lives and ministries on the American Dream. We have a master that demands radical sacrifice and a mission that demands radical urgency."


"Isn’t it true that God often ordains sorrowful tragedy to set the stage for triumph?"
 


"God provides for His purpose to be accomplished."


"Nothing happens by accident. Everything is by appointment. There is a God who is sovereign over every detail of your life, a God who is always plotting for your good and His glory."


"Platt recounted going to a local foster care office in Birmingham and asking them how many families they would need to care for all the children. They laughed. Platt asked again. They said 150 families. Platt went back to the Church at Brook Hills and preached on orphan care from James 1 (v. 27 in particular). As a result, 160 families signed up to serve as foster care families. As they began to start serving as foster care families, Platt was meeting again with the local foster care officials. One of the women there pulled him aside and asked him what he had told those people that caused them to come and serve through foster care. Platt told her that he did not tell them anything that caused them to come. He said they came because the God who loves people told them to come and reflect His love to people around them. To reflect His love for children to the children around them."


"God has ordained His people to be a reflection of His care for His people."


"We have done nothing to earn or deserve the favor of God. We were wandering with nothing and God has pursued us. God has stooped to save you from harm. God has protected you and provided for you. God alone has the right to redeem us. God alone has the resources to save us. And He, praise God, has the resolve to redeem us. And Jesus has resolved to obey to the point of death. Jesus has taken a cross and taken my sin and your sin and taken it upon Himself to die in our place.  That is the Gospel. That Gospel is how God saves us and that Gospel should be the backdrop in our minds as we carry out physical adoption."
 
I have so many thoughts on this that I would love to share but for now I cannot even figure out how to get them out of my head and heart and put them onto this blog so for now...i pray you read these quotes, i pray God works in your heart mightily for the things and the people of His kingdom!

Love to all,