God Is Moving

I love writing articles where I get to express how God is moving.  He is always at work, and He faithfully uses His people.  And, what I’ve discovered, is that He usually uses more than one person.  I think that’s a great picture of the Kingdom of God.  When that happens not only does He get the glory, but more of His children receive a blessing and more of them get to see a bigger picture of their Father’s Kingdom.

As most of you know, there are currently two major functions within Matrix Ministries:
1) we take people on short-term mission trips to come along side orphan caregivers and 3rd world churches.
2) under a dba called Fences For Orphans, we build fences for homeowners here at home in the DFW area.  We charge a competitive market price, but we use volunteers.  That lets us donate 80% of the profits to help orphans and 3rd world churches.  Homeowner have the option to designate the donation to orphan care or church projects.  This creates a great win-win-win scenario for the Kingdom.

During this past Fall season we were able to raise a little over $7,000.00 designated to help 3rd world churches.  Last week, we sent that to The Brook Ministries in Costa Rica.  The Brook is one of our ministry a partners with many 3rd world church connections.  The $7,000.00 was offered as a ‘match’ designated to help put a roof on a new church building for Pastor Oscar and his fellowship (fyi – the roof project will cost $20,000.00).  The Brook then offered the $7,000.00 to their ministry partners, and guess what happened? The match was accepted and even exceeded by $3,000.00.  That’s right, the $7,000.00 became $17,000.00.  Praise God for His faithfulness as He works through His children!

The Brook is now ‘reverse-challenging’ MM to raise a ‘matching’$3,000.00 in response, which we intend to offer to our partners shortly.  This ‘matching’ approach is a great multiplication factor for the Kingdom and all involved.  The investment for the homeowners and volunteers doubles right from the start; Additional financial partners have the opportunity to get involved, and their investments double as well;  and, the blessing to come alongside our brothers in 3rd world church ministries doubles.  This is God’s economy.  I call Him the Great Multiplier.  If you look through scripture you will see this principle repeated over and over again, and He invites all His children to participate in His economy of Kingdom investing.

This ‘reverse-matching’ reminds me of a praise game I have witnessed and participated in at several Christian youth conferences over the years.  One side of the auditorium starts chanting, “We love Jesus, yes we do.  We love Jesus, how about you.”  The other side responds even louder,  “We love Jesus, yes we do.  We love Jesus, how about you.”  This continues until people can’t shout any louder, their voices have given out, or everyone is just worn out.  I always loved it because it’s an example of God’s desire that His children spur each other on to good works and in the process God is praised and glorified.  This is our first reverse-challenge, and I’m excited to see what God will do through His people.  Stay tuned.

What I love most, as great as all this ‘matching’ and fundraising is to witness and be part of, is the eternal impact it enables for individuals who respond to the resulting church ministries; the eternal investment stored up for all who invest; and the glory our Lord receives as the world watches (and they are watching). Jesus said in John 15:8 – “This is to My Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit (the multiplication factor) showing yourselves to be My disciples”.

I love God’s economy.

Ray