Help Take the Gospel to the Nations

The following is from Real Truth Matter's website, updating you on the magazine (and all the countries it has been downloaded in!) and asking you to prayerfully consider making a $10/month recurring donation to help take the Gospel and proclaim the name of Jesus to more people in even more countries. Please read, be encouraged, and prayerfully give. 

Thank you for your prayers for the magazine- God is moving! I am so humbled and thankful to be a part of His redemptive work around the nations. God is so good! 

It is exciting to see what God's been doing with the new RTM Magazine. Thus far the iPad app has been downloaded in the U.S. and around the world in countries such as Sweden, Brazil, Germany, Singapore, Canada, the Philippines, South Korea, the UK, Indonesia, and even the closed country of China. 

Even though we've invested a lot of work into the creation of the magazine, it doesn't feel like work. We are simply watching God bring to pass what He has called into being. 

We are moving forward with the second issue, and we want to make it available to as many people as possible. To do so, we'd like to lay out before you a vision on how that can be accomplished. 

As of right now, the app is only available for iPads; and even there it is limited. The magazine is not available in the Apple Newsstand, and the app has to be re-downloaded with every single issue as the current app will not automatically update. 

We can publish the magazine digitally where it will be available on all smart phones and tablets. It will not be limited to just the iPad. Additionally, it will be accessible through the Apple Newsstand where it can be viewed as digital magazines were intended to be seen. The cost to do this will be $500 a month, which includes all fees required for Adobe and Apple to be digital publishers. 

We believe this is how God is leading us in publishing the magazine. It is not a nicety but a way to get teaching, testimonies, and the Gospel in the hands of as many people as possible as easily as possible. 

In seeking God for His provision for the magazine, we sense His leading in asking others from the body to be a part of the magazine with us. If the Lord leads just 50 people to donate $10 a month toward the magazine, the need will be met by our Father through the body. We are asking that if the Lord so leads that you would set up a recurring donation of $10 a month in order to make this resource accessible to more people. 

We are all partners in the spreading of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, and this is one way in which you can see that partnership fulfilled. We do not make our specific needs known when it comes to our day to day operations, but it is often easier to get involved when you can see how your support is being used specifically. 

You can set up a recurring donation through our website, and together we can see God take something as simple as a digital magazine and spread the name of Jesus Christ around the world.

A Dream Come True - RTM Magazine

Today is a very exciting day for Real Truth Matters and for me personally as we just launched the new RealTruth Matters Magazine.

One of my long-time dreams of designing my own magazine has been fulfilled and my heart feels like it could explode in tiny little particles of joy and gratitude. I am so excited for this magazine and the opportunity to take God’s Word to the nations in a completely different avenue than I ever imagined. God is so good and may He receive all the glory! 

For the past several months, the Real Truth Matters team has been working on a brand new interactive web magazine that launched yesterday. RTM Magazine has a little something for everyone: a Christian living section, a pastors section, a missions section, and much more. This magazine is designed to equip, encourage, challenge and motivate Christ-followers around the world to a greater pursuit of Jesus Christ, who is the Gospel. 

As you open the first issue of the magazine you will journey on the mission field of Eastern Kentucky and Eastern Europe, read about God’s commitment to you, and discover the real definition of meekness. You will also meet a family with a heart for displaced children and a couple driven away from God and right into His arms.

Below is the promotional video for the magazine. Please watch and then share it on your Facebook and Twitter as a way to inform others of this exciting new publication.

Real Truth Matters Magazine from Real Truth Matters on Vimeo.

We are eager to share this new resource with you and hear your feedback. However, we need more than feedback, we need your help. We are asking you to send us 10 names and email addresses of people who would benefit from this exciting new magazine. 

In addition to the email addresses, we ask that you join us in prayer asking God to use this publication to spread His fame and glory among the masses.

Thank you for helping us spread the word about this new resource and the Gospel of Christ! Together we can join God in wrapping His arms around the nations. 

To access the magazine made ideally for the iPad, but also available for viewing online, visit: www.realtruthmatters.com/magazine.

Board of Gratefulness

This is my office:

These shelves have a little more love on them now.

I basically love it. 

My favorite thing is the Board of Gratefulness.

When people come into my office I ask them to write something they are thankful for on a Post-It Note and put it on the bulletin board. 

This is a way to cultivate a heart and attitude of gratefulness and point our hearts to the Lord who does exceedingly abundantly above all we ask, think or imagine [Ephesians 3:20].

We've been working on filling the board since I started work at Real Truth Matters in May [you can read about my third anniversary at RTM here] and it filled up yesterday!

Because we're going to keep doing this, one of my True Beauty girls and I picked out a cute little composition book to put all the Post-Its in. Now we can have a record of all the things we are thankful for. 

I think this would be a great idea for a school room or for your home to cultivate an attitude of gratefulness in your children and even yourself. It's a great exercise! 

This was from my 4-year-old nephew. Precious.

I think it will be so fun to look over this in a year [or more] and see what we were thankful for.  

"Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever!  Let them thank the LORD for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man!" -Psalm 107:1, 8

Three Month Anniversary- My Story

Six months ago I was convinced I would be working in Laos with ELIC (English Learning Institute China) in January after my December graduation.

Five months ago God starting changing my heart.

Four months ago He showed me where He wanted me.

Three months ago I started working for Real Truth Matters.

Today I have my dream job.

______________________________________________________

When I began working for RTM, the nonprofit media ministry out of my church, I knew it was exactly where God wanted me. But I never knew it would turn into my dream job.

I mean, it's a well known fact for students that you don't land your dream job immediately after college, much less while you're still in school. That's just not how it works. You have to start out as the low man on the totem pole and sweat, toil and claw your way to the top and hopefully land your dream job before you turn 35. That's how it's done.

Unless God does something else.


As I read through Scripture it seems to me that God doesn't typically act in accordance with the people's preconceived notions but rather He is in the business of blowing people's expectations out of the water and displaying His glorious excellence by opening doors no one can shut and shutting doors no one can open. And, like the unchangeable God He is, He did the same thing for me.

From the very moment I heard about ELIC back in September I wanted to go to Laos and teach university students English speaking/listening/writing classes. Because Laos is a country closed to the Gospel, the classes would be intertwined with the Good News and opportunities for one-on-one time with students to share the Gospel.

I was sold. I began the application process which led to an intensive interview process and I knew God wanted me to follow this process until He closed the door.

However, I thought the closed door would come because ELIC rejected me or said I wasn't a good fit for their organization or the school in Laos.

That didn't happen. In fact, they told me they wanted me to go and that I was a perfect fit.

Yet something in my Spirit was telling me it wasn't right.

"But God," I reasoned, "I could go on this awesome one-year adventure to Laos, love on the university students there, share the Gospel, obey the great commission, get out of my comfort zone and seek to make Your name famous. It would be so good!"

In an almost audible voice I heard this in the depths of my Spirit:

"You're right, you could go and declare My name, you could be on an adventure, be stretched out of your comfort zone, meet new people, experience a different part of the world I created, and be used by Me and it would be good, but it wouldn't be the best."

Then in a whirlwind of prayers, Scripture and more grace than I could ever comprehend, the Lord showed me what was best.

Enter Real Truth Matters.



Never in a million years did I think I would end up at RTM. I wanted to go to the nations, not sit in a little office in Paducah, Kentucky and do whatever they do at RTM (I really had no idea what all they did... I just knew I would never do it. God is so funny), so I just prayed that God would make whatever He wanted clear.

Talking with Bro. Michael
during a mission trip to
Eastern Kentucky.

Then one day the director of RTM, my pastor and friend second dad, Michael Durham, shared his heart with me about his dream of one day having an interactive web magazine and when he spoke those words it was like the Holy Spirit did a little dance in my soul. It was so obvious that this is not just what God wanted me to do, but what He made me for.

I'm a senior at Murray State University with a double major in journalism and youth and nonprofit leadership. I've always wanted to have my own magazine, a Christian sports magazine, and although this wasn't a sports magazine, I knew this was it. This is what God had equipped me for.



Today marks my three month anniversary with the ministry God is divinely using to make His name famous among the nations and I am so grateful for my "job" that has never felt like a job.

I get to talk about God all the time, write stories of how God has saved people and continues to work in their life, design a magazine infused with the Gospel, work with three brothers following hard after the Lord and have staff meetings completely saturated in God's Word.

God. is. awesome. and I am so grateful He never skimps but always gives His children His absolute best. If you need more evidence, just look to the bloody but beautiful cross where He gave His Best to hang with the weight of our sin upon His shoulders.



The first issue of the bi-monthly Real Truth Matters Magazine is awaiting approval from Apple and will hopefully be released on iPads and online in the next couple of weeks. I am so excited to share it with you!

I'm also excited to follow God wherever He leads this ministry and watch Him display His majesty through the declaration and proclamation of His Word to the nations.

"Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory, for the sake of Your steadfast love and Your faithfulness. Why should the nations say, 'Where is their God?' Our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases." -Psalm 115:1-3

Take Aways: 

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." - Isaiah 55:8-9 

  

"But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.”" - 1 Corinthians 2:9 

"Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass." - Isaiah 37:26

"The Lord of hosts has sworn: 'As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.'" - Isaiah 14:24

It is my upmost desire that God uses this magazine and RTM to show you His glory. To set aflame the hearts of believers around the world, encourage the fainthearted, lift up the downtrodden, strengthen the weak and give comfort to the broken. To equip His church, reach the furtherest points of the world, establish His Kingdom on earth, declare truth in a world of lies and magnify the Lord as the supreme Treasure among all treasures.


Praying for the refreshing of the hearts of saints,

Monday Morning Munch No. 5 - He Died My Death

The purpose of MMM is to be a little breakfast of encouragement before the week starts, and today I want to share one of the most humbling but encouraging things I've read in a long time.

"Be hard on sin but easy on forgiveness. I think that's what the cross proves about our God. He's hanging there because I put Him there. God is making a statement about what He thinks about my sin as Jesus writhes in agony trying to get enough leverage to just breathe. He's there on the cross because God is saying something about my sin, "I hate it. I'm hard on sin. You want to know how hard I am on sin? Watch Me as I deal with My Son on Calvary." And without mercy, without grace, without pity, without compassion, He brutally killed His Son and made Him to suffer my hell. God is hard on sin so He can be easy to come to me one day and say, "Forgiven.""

-Michael Durham  

"He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

-2 Corinthians 5:2

If that doesn't wrap you up in a warm blanket of love, humility and awe, I don't know what will.

Jesus became our sin. We were supposed to have His death, but because of love He suffered in our place so that full atonement could be received by us and full glory could be given to Him.

Man of Sorrows! What a Name:

Man of Sorrows! what a name

For the Son of God, Who came 

Ruined sinners to reclaim. 

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Bearing shame and scoffing rude, 

In my place condemned He stood; 

Sealed my pardon with His blood. 

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Guilty, vile, and helpless we; 

Spotless Lamb of God was He; 

Full atonement can it be? 

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Lifted up was He to die; 

"It is finished!" was His cry; 

Now in heaven exalted high. 

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

When He comes, our glorious King, 

All His ransomed home to bring, 

Then anew His song we'll sing: 

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

I pray you are able to see with what pure, redeeming, relentless love God has loved you. He offers redemption and steadfast love to all [Psalm 130:7-8]. And, while He was hard on your sins, He is easy on forgiveness [which in no way makes it acceptable to sin, Romans 6:15]. If you haven't died to yourself and this world, do it today. If you have, be encouraged by the Gospel and preach it to yourself daily as you continue to die to your identity in this world.

Ouch

Convicting [v, kun-vikt-ing]: evidence that impresses upon someone the feeling of guilt, defeat, or unreached standards.

(My definition)

Last night we had a really intense church service where videos were shown from the original Experiencing God series by Henry Blackaby. Maybe I was the only one who experienced some heavy duty convicting in the throw-back-to-the-eighties videos, but God was active in stomping down Sophie. I wanted to share some of the quotes I jotted down from Dr. Blackaby. (The ones that really convicted me are in blue)

• God doesn't give me a program of activity, He gives me Himself.
• God always asks us to do things we cannot do so that He comes and does it through us so both you and the people around you experience Him.
• Once you have a word from God, what you do next indicates what you believe about God.
• Let God make you the person He has on His mind. He does this through the Word.
• If I can figure it out, it's probably not God's will. His ways aren't my ways.
• No where in Scripture does God give a servant the right to dream dreams for God to do.
• I don't set long range plans or goals for fear I will reach them and never know what God really wanted. (This hit me like a thousand daggers aimed at my soul and hands tightly clutching my planner.)
• I put my heart before the One who has the long range plans.
• God is our equipment. He gave us the equipment to complete the task.
• The call is not to do something, the call is to a relationship.
• How you love God will determine your actions.
• We are impatient and say, "Don't just stand there, do something." God says, "Don't do something, just stand there."
• Waiting on God is not inactivity, it is the most active thing you can do.
• If we are in God's hands we can do anything God can do.

These are from my pastor:

• Wherever your focus is, there you will be. If you focus on your sins you will never get over them.
• As faith in God produces joy and peace, faith in self will always produce anxiousness and fear because you're putting your trust in someone who is not capable to solve the problems.

It's convicting me all over again just writing these out. 

Praying for desperate dependence on the Author of life and not myself,

Excellence vs. Perfection

This morning I had discussion with my pastor (Michael Durham) about the differences between excellence and perfection. Afterward, I wrote down what I could remember of what he said, and now I want to share it with you.

• Perfectionists aren't always perfectionists in every area of their life. They can actually be lazy in some areas because, if they don't think they can do that one thing (he gave the example of cleaning their room or office) perfectly, they won't even try so they don't have to face failure.
• They spend an inordinate amount of time on a few select things or tasks trying to do them perfectly. Their other tasks and obligations suffer as a result, because either A. They do enough to get them done because they ran out of time, or, B. they don't do them at all.
• Perfectionists often live under tremendous self-imposed pressures in trying to reach perfection.
• That pressure and those self-imposed expectations often result in being critical of others.
• People need to learn the balance between excellence and perfection. If you did excellent, well, satisfactory, in every area rather than spent all that time striving to make one thing perfect, you'd be more productive, less stressed, and less critical.

What I learned:

• Perfectionism hinders productivity.
• I don't want to do anything unless I'm sure to succeed. I don't want to face failure in anything.
• Sports/shooting made me like that to an extent, at the least it shaped me and my thinking. Perfection is attainable in shooting, you can shoot a perfect score. I was always happy with how I did (for the most part) but never satisfied because the score may have been perfect but the performance wasn't. There was always room for improvement.
• Life isn't a shooting match.
• I put a ton of pressure on myself to be perfect, creating stress and miserable effects.
• I place very high standards of expectation upon myself which transcends onto expecting the same of other people which results in being critical of them asking myself why they don't have those same expectations.
• It's all pride.

It was really convicting and showed me a lot of myself, my sin, and my desperate need for God. 

Let's hear it for God's grace.