In January, we continued our examination of what the ministry’s spiritual focus ought to be. To review briefly, we noted how this has been boiled down into three salient points:

To Glorify God,
To Strengthen His Church,
To Extend His Kingdom.

We discussed how the first tenet really centers on the deeper meaning of having every priority in each area of our lives being dominated by the drive to know and love the Lord Jesus first of all. “For me to live is Christ.” Period. This is how He is truly glorified in our lives.

Let’s now investigate how this fundamental mindset manifests itself in our labors. We will begin with the second tenet, “Strengthening His Church”.

Even a casual reading through the New Testament reveals that God places a very high priority on the development of His family, which we call “the Church”. The majority of the texts are designed to teach, encourage, prepare, convict, and refine His people. God does not call us to Himself and then leave us alone. At our salvation we were adopted into His family, and He therefore devotes Himself to training the believer as a parent trains a child.

Although volumes could be and have been written on this subject, I would like to briefly touch on two summary areas of spiritual growth that seem to be of greatest significance to Him.

The first is faith. Put simply, “faith” can be described as “personal trust in a person”. It’s not just mentally agreeing to some facts, and it is not a fleeting, presumptive emotion. “Faith” invokes a picture of one’s complete abandonment to, and reliance upon, the object of the faith (which, for the Church, is the Lord Jesus). The book of Hebrews tells us, “without faith it is impossible to please God”. Obviously, then, it is of great importance to God that we increase in our capacity to walk by faith in Him alone.

The second issue that comes to my mind is “holiness”. God is a Holy God, and He intensely desires that His people be made increasingly like Himself. This can only be accomplished when one’s heart is surrendered to Him, sensitive to His leading, and empowered by the Holy Spirit. There can be no true holiness apart from this, for the Scriptures teach us that even the supposed “good” or “pious” things we do (apart from Him) are filthy in God’s sight.

Coming back to the main thrust of this article though, the principal question is how we, as fellow laborers with God, can cooperate in His work of strengthening the faith and holiness of His people.?

The answer is very simple: we point them to Jesus Christ. Is it not true that Jesus Christ is the source of all holiness? Are we not convicted and changed by beholding Him? And does not a deepening walk with Him challenge and strengthen our faith? By looking at Jesus, do we not at the same time look away from ourselves, our associations, and our activities?

I say again, the ultimate way to work with God in this process is simply to point them to the Lord Jesus Christ. To do this, God has given us two very essential elements: the Word of God, and prayer.

Eagle’s Nest is, at it’s core, a “Bible Training” organization. From beginning to end, the Scriptures are God’s written revelation to us, and contain everything we need for life and for godliness. The Bible alone possesses the answers to all of our questions and doubts. It, in essence, shows us the Lord. Therefore, our first priority is to facilitate a clear, accurate teaching of the Word, through the various means that are provided for us, for “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God”.

Prayer, of course, takes on many forms. Fundamentally though, it is conscious fellowship with God. Furthermore, it is in this state of fellowship with Him through which God is free to communicate Himself to His people. He reveals His character (urging us to holiness), and He reveals His will (calling us to faith).

And so, as it has been said, “prayer and the Word are fuel for the fire of faith”. Therefore it is our privilege and duty, not just as a ministry but as all believers in Christ, to consistently devote ourselves to these fundamental elements of spiritual growth. As their influence is permitted to grow in us, not only are we strengthened in our own faith and holiness, but we are also in a position to be used by God to strengthen others. This is God’s top priority for His people - that they become more and more like Him.

May He increasingly make it ours, too.

In His Service,
Stephen Tecklenberg,
President

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Ministry Reports

The winter months are typically slow as we focus our energies on preparing for the programs that are forthcoming the rest of the year. And this list seems to continually increase.

However, one special note of interest concerns our web site. We are pleased to report that literally hundreds of people have visited the site over the past few months. Therefore, we are endeavoring to make more and more ministry items available to be viewed or downloaded on-line. We encourage you to continue returning to the site, as on average we update it at least once a week. You never know what will be there tomorrow!

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Who Are We? Introducing Our Directors...

With this issue, we would like to present to you Mr. Steve McCurdy, who has been a faithful, hard-working member of Eagle’s Nest right from it’s beginning.

Steve was born in Liverpool, New York, in 1951. Although he regularly attended church with his family while growing up, it wasn’t until the summer of 1983 that he gave his life to the Lord while attending a youth retreat weekend at a Christian camp in Maryland.

God has used Steve’s unique talents and background in many capacities since his conversion. He has served as a deacon in his church, and as a discussion leader in a local Bible Study Fellowship chapter. Having graduated from college with a degree in environmental science and landscape architecture, he has been able to serve on his church’s building committee and assisting in it’s land development approval processes.

In 1995, he was asked to participate in the planning trip for the January 1996 Mission To Moscow with the crew that would later be Eagle’s Nest Ministries. After praying about it, he instead asked to be a part of the main trip itself, on which he served as one of the leaders while teaching on God’s special design in botany, as well as Christian principles of finance and business. Then, in 1998 Steve was asked to be on the founding board of this ministry, and he now is doing an outstanding job serving as the chairman of our finance committee.

Steve, his wife Karen, and their three home-schooled children have attended Fellowship Chapel in Jarrettsville, MD since 1988. He currently works as a project manager at a land-development - consulting engineering firm.

We are very grateful for Steve’s commitment to this ministry. We consider it a privilege to have him on the board, and look forward to many years of continued service with him.