Climbing up the mountain with God…

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
² My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber;
⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord watches over you—
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
⁶ the sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

⁷ The Lord will keep you from all harm—
    he will watch over your life;
⁸ the Lord will watch over your coming and going
    both now and forevermore. – Psalm 121

Over the past two weeks and with one more week to go; we have been looking at the gospel of Mark at Redefine, our Sunday evening Bible Study. The title of the Bible Study Series has been ‘Climbing Mt. Mark’

It’s all based around the first 9 chapter of Mark being about Jesus’ ministry leading up to his transfiguration on the mountain; and then the last 7 chapter after coming down from the mountain leading to his sacrifice on Golgotha; or Calvary.

Last night we looked at Jesus’ transfiguration; you can read the passage here.

As always it was a great night, with fun games, times of prayer, our Bible Study, some worship and good food and fellowship. We also had a special guest visitor. Our chairman of trustees Paul Hadley came and told us about a time that he had to rescue some climbers from a very high mountain in the Andes, whilst he and his family were working as missionaries in Bolivia. It happened up a high peak called Mt. Tunari (for a more detailed story of the event than I will give here, check out Paul’s blog post); which is about 5,023 m (16,480 ft) high.

Paul’s talk was epic and inspirational. It really demonstrated God’s faithfulness to His people. Paul mentioned the above psalm as one that God spoke to Him during His night-time ordeal to rescue the two trapped climbers. God kept on assuring Paul that He was with Him on the mountainside. Paul also said how He could see God’s hand in everything that happened during that day to not only keep him safe, but also keep the rest of the rescue team safe, and bring the lost climbers back home safely.

In the Bible we often see a lot of people called by God who meet their Creator on mountain tops; Moses, Elijah, Abraham are just some examples. Each time in the Bible, they don’t stay on the mountain-top; but come down it with renewed purpose, vision and direction. They  are on a mission for God.

That mission always involves saving people.

Jesus too came down the mount of transfiguration with a mission. His mission was to go to the cross and be the perfect sacrifice to pay for the sins of the world.

His mission was to bring salvation to the whole world.

God, in Christ, calls all believers to also get involved in this mission. A mission where we do spend time on the mountain-tops with God; but a mission where we do not stay there, but rather we go down the mountainside into the valley where the lost, the lonely, the least are.  Where the dying, the desperate, the downcast are and bring them the good news about Jesus.

That’s what our mission here at Llandudno Youth for Christ is; our goal is to relevantly bring the good news of Jesus to the young people of Llandudno and beyond. As part of this mission, we are looking for more people to get on board with us in this great mission. People to pray with us. People to help in our different events. People to help us financially with all the work we do.

Do you think you are one of those people?

Is God calling you down the mountain to join us in the mission of reaching the least, the last, the lost with the good news?

If you feel God’s prompting, please don’t hesitate to contact us.