ANNIVERSARY
This month Amy and I are celebrating 27 years of marriage! Over the course of those 27 years the Lord has blessed us soooo much and we are thankful! God has taken us on quite an amazing journey as we have tried to follow Him every step of the way. We met on the first day of 8th grade in 1990...... 6 years later we were married..... and now we've got kids that are getting married!
TWO WEDDINGS
The Lord has blessed us with two new daughters! In January Javen married Autumn and in August Cullen married Emma! We are so excited to have them both as a part of our Tuttle-Tribe! Javen and Autumn are living and working in Dubuque while Cullen and Emma are living and working in Chicago. We are so encouraged by both couples as they are serving the Lord and thriving right where He has put them. It will be fun to watch how the Lord uses each of these new Tuttle families :)
MINISTRY
The last few months have been very busy as ministry has taken us all over the country. We have been attempting great things for our great God while trying to encourage His people in the areas of discipleship, church planting and missions. It has been quite a whirlwind of travel and preaching and evangelism everywhere we've been. As 2023 comes to an end we can see "light at the end of the tunnel" but we still have a few commitments in and around the midwest before we get to go back to Peru for the first five months of the coming year. We can't wait to visit the village churches along the banks of the Huallaga river in the San Martin region of the Peruvian jungle!
A PASSION FOR THE GOSPEL!
Perhaps the Bible’s clearest verse on evangelism is 1Peter 3:15. Here the apostle tells us to “be prepared to give an answer”. How can we prepare ourselves? Of course, we need to study and know what we believe and why we believe it. But even more importantly, we need to “sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts”. How can we do this? Well, by being passionate about Jesus.
Too many of us simply lack passion for the gospel. If you have sanctified Christ as Lord in your heart, your passion and your reverence for Him will communicate much more than your eloquence ever could. Someone has said, “That which captures the heart controls the tongue.” Think of the sports fan, proudly wearing his team’s jersey, walking up to the home team’s stadium. He’s elated to be where he is,and he’s not afraid to share with anyone and everyone who will listen about the unsearchable riches of his team. He doesn't care what others think because, in his heart, he has set apart his team as something special…even sacred.
The more astonished we are at God’s glory, the more we will boldly speak about Him. We need to pray,“Lord, please let the fire in my heart melt the lead in my boots.” You might not be eloquent or fluent or an impressive communicator, but you can be genuine and passionate. Just as Matthew 12:34 says, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Someone has said, “The gospel is not just taught; it’s also caught.”
My mission is to help other Christians “catch the gospel”, to catch fire with a passion for heaven’s greatest gift. I’m always amazed when Christians talk fervently to almost anyone about movies, sports, or the stock market, but when it comes to sharing the gospel, they are practically mute!
David Platt’s words should cause us to reflect: “A soft-drink company in Atlanta has done a better job of getting brown sugar water into every nation on earth than the church of Jesus Christ has done in getting the gospel to them.”
I’ve heard many a brother say, “evangelism is not my gift.” Well, Is your gift movies? Is your gift the Los Angeles Lakers? Evangelism doesn't have to be your gift in order to speak about Christ passionately! Set apart Christ as Lord in your heart, and out of that abundance and fullness and glory,your mouth will begin to speak. Evangelism is a heart issue! Jesus said: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” Mt 6:21. Do you treasure Jesus? Do you treasure the message of the cross?
Evangelism quote for the day by Henry MartÃn: “The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, the nearer we get to him the more intensely missionary we become.”
Micah for the Tuttle's
