No post today because of an emergency.
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything be prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God...will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7).
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You have heard the saying that is used by parents and others; “you have ‘selective hearing.’” I want to introduce you to another saying that I hope will stick in your memory. It’s ‘selective obedience.’ Many take scissors to their Bibles and try to reshape the Scriptures so it fits their life style or mindset. Look at an example of obedience in the following Scriptures.
Before Paul ever met the believers in Rome, he knew about their obedience; “For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil” (Romans 16:19). In the second letter Paul sent to Corinth, he says that Titus’ “affection for you is even greater as he remembers the obedience of you all” (2 Corinthians 7:15). We are more interested in your obedience to the Word of God than anything else! That means you must know the Word of God. The end goal of this ministry is that you become passionate about the Bible and obey it. If you obey the Word of God, everything else will follow in its proper order, place and amount, including reaching the unreached. True obedience to Jesus is based on love for Him. He said three times in John 14:15-24 (15, 23-24) “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word.” It literally means ‘you will continue in the state of obedience.’ This challenges our mindset on ‘selective obedience.’ The measure of your obedience to the Lord is your measure of your love for Him! Jesus said to some who listened to His sermon, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46). Why? Because our love for Him is very small. Knowing my own heart and how the Spirit has convicted me many times, there are some, if not most of you who have selective love for the Lord, and that means selective obedience. It’s time to get that right! “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me”” (Isaiah 6:8).
What happened to the simple openness of hearts to let God use us when and where He will. It seems that the simplicity of being yielded to God has become so complicated by adding human requirements and denominational restrictions. When Jesus called the disciples in Luke 5, “they left everything and followed Him” (5:11, see also 18:28). Jesus will clearly directly help us in working out the details of life, marriage and family. What He is looking for is the simple surrender of the heart. I am no longer in control! Your “Here I am! Is simply where you are, in your circumstances before God. You do not need to change anything to offer yourself to God. It is simply letting go of your grip on life and letting God direct it where He wants to use you. Your “Send me” is not dictating to God where you think He should send or use you. God’s will is perfect anyway. You can’t improve on His plan. This question has bothered me for a long time. As I review some of the statistics of what the Church is doing in our day to reach those who have never heard the gospel or even have the opportunity to hear it, I am appalled.
I didn’t realize that my preparation for the message tomorrow was answering this question. We don’t know the heart of God as we should. How can we know His heart? When Philip asked Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father…Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long and you still do not know Me, Philip?” (John 14:8-9). Did you catch the point Jesus is making to Philip? We may be associated with Jesus for a long time and still have not learned the heart of the Father. Time alone with God and His Word; seeking to understand His heart is so critical. It will take away every bit of apathy and replace it with a passion for what concerns God. He has never been passive about the condition of mankind, those He created. It began back in the Garden of Eden when “the Lord God waked in the garden in the cool of the day and…called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:8-9). He was concerned that the relationship had been broken. Doctor Luke expresses these same feelings in the Lord Jesus; “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). The heart of God in Christ is still seeking the lost. Are we apathetic about the heart of God for mankind? Have we forgotten that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth?” (1 Timothy 2:4). I would be so bold as to say that the measure of your concern for the lost is directly proportionate to how much time you spend alone with Him, listening to His heart. There are very few I know of who take Jesus’ instruction seriously and practice Matthew 5:44; “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Those who have obeyed this instruction witness God taking their obedience and using it to powerfully change the hearts of enemies so they become lovers of God.
Think for a moment of the Apostle Paul. If anyone had a basis to hate his enemies, Paul did. “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one” (2 Corinthians 11:24). This treatment brought anyone just short of death, and this happened five times to Paul! Later as he pulls back the curtain of his soul, he writes about the Jews and calls them his “kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:3). They were the ones inflicting the pain on Paul. Jesus foretold of this persecution in Matthew 23:34; “and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town.” What was Paul’s attitude after all the horrendous treatment he suffered from his own people? “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.” (Romans 10:1). Is this our heart as we hear and see persecution around the globe or right next door? The power of the Spirit of reconciliation poured out of Paul’s life everywhere he went. Are you an ambassador of reconciliation even to your enemies? It is not you they hate and mock; it’s the Christ that shines through your life. So be like Christ, we must appeal to them to be reconciled to God through the power of Christ’s death for them. Mark 16:20 has been referred to often in these blogs; “And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs” (Mark 16:20). This is the assurance we should have as we carry our mission work in any form.
As I was preparing some notes on Luke 10:1-24, something came to my attention I had not seen before. “After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where He Himself was about to go” (Luke 10:1). Did you notice that Jesus was very intentional about where He sent the “seventy-two?” He did not allow them to go to a place of their choosing, or just anywhere. The place they were sent to were places where Jesus “was about to go.” In the same way that John the Baptist “Prepared the way of the Lord” (3:4), so we are to go to places where we know the Lord is going to work. He brings the real results (see 1 Corinthians 3:6). What would happen, or should I say, what does happen when we make our own choices of where we spread the gospel and later find there was no fruit from our labors? If we walk in closeness with the Lord in such a way that we know the direction He wants to go, we can be assured He will come behind us and make our work fruitful. This requires being alone with Him; discovering His heart and learning the principles on which he operates through His Word. Seeking His path for us will always be in alignment with His Word. Otherwise, we will use our human understanding to accomplish God’s work. That never bears “much fruit.” Be a fruit-bearer by working where Jesus wants us to go. It is not a popular message in most places that coming to Christ as Savior will include a path of suffering. But that was the message at Saul’s conversion; “For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16). Jesus warned the disciples just before He departed them for His sufferings; “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours” (John 15:20).
Consider what Hebrews say about our example; “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (12:2). I find it interesting when asking believers for things they want me to pray for that most of their requests center around being relieved of suffering and trials instead of asking God to help then grow as a result of what they are going through. James makes this very plain when he says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2–4). We often miss the greatest benefits of suffering because we fail to see what God is doing in and through them. If you are going through some kind of difficulty, trial or suffering, will you honestly ask God to show you what He intends you to learn through them? It is for perfecting of your faith. “During my last week I was able to minister with a long time Arab brother and friend in Christ who pastors a church in Nazareth and does outreach to the Palestinian believers in West Bank. In 2010, I was able to minister with him in West Bank. We are looking forward to translating GPHD into Arabic and take it into those difficult areas since we did not have this tool back in 2010. After spending time with him on Thursday, he invited me to come with them to the Jordan River where they baptized 15 new Arab believers. Incidentally, I was able to bring 4 Chinese young people with me for the baptism. They were well received. Afterwards we all went to a park on the Jordan River for BBQ chicken and pork…. Yes, I said “pork”. Again, their hospitality was overwhelming and it was so neat to see the Arab believers mingling with the Chinese. We will be going back to China in December, but with the persecution and government opposition to Christianity and God, it might be a more effective strategy to train Chinese students and Chinese migrant workers in other parts of the world to return to China and evangelize their own people. Of course, when we go, our teaching and training is now minimal since we have trained others who are actually more effective in their own culture than we are. Hopefully, China will duplicate “Vietnam” where there is a very powerful church planting movement that is indigenous and self-sustaining; in other words, it is reproducible and unstoppable. When we go to China in December, we are going to an area where there are many unreached minority groups. We are hoping to encourage the believers to move out of their comfort zones and cultures to reach into other tribes and languages. In Vietnam this is happening; let us pray that it will happen in China. To God be the Glory!” Tim “Last year Randy and I responded to an invitation to introduce God’s Plan for His Disciples to Chinese students and migrant workers in Israel. We were so encouraged with their hunger and soon realized a follow-up would be needed. While there, we met Debbie, who works for a hospital in Haifa. As a ministry, she teaches English to the Chinese using the Bible. Before departing, she asked if I knew someone who might house and cat sit for her the month of August 2019. I asked if her house could be used to meet and train students; she said she would welcome the opportunity and I could live there free of charge. So, after much prayer, I decided to go. Immediately, I had opportunities to preach and teach a Bible study at the Chinese Church and lead a Bible study through God’s Plan for His Disciples (GPHD) at Technion University. This did not consume all my time the first week so I was able to work on revising GPHD and spend some much needed one on one time with the Lord sitting by the Mediterranean Sea and at the foot of Mount Carmel. During my second week in Haifa, things began to pick up and it has been a great privilege to join our Lord at work spending time with the Chinese in Bible study groups, in the Chinese Church, and in one on one discipleship almost daily. The hunger, devotion, and seriousness to the Word has been a great encouragement and challenge for me. Sunday night, which was my last night of training at Technion University, I wish you could have been there to hear the testimonies of how the Lord has started a great work. Friday night, my last night at the Chinese Church, several came forward to dedicate themselves to taking the Gospel to people groups who have never heard. Praise our great and awesome God!” Tim According to secular and biblical accounts, Paul was about 58 years old when he was martyred. Death was not his choice. For most Western cultures, that is not an old man. We tend to think of another eight or nine years of work after 58 to build retirement funds and live in leisure for another 20 to 30 years.
Not Paul! As we noticed yesterday from Acts 20:24, there was nothing more on his heart and mind than being able to “finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus.” He speaks of his “ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named” (Romans 15:20). Was this unique to Paul only? Think of the many missionaries who have gone to the ends of the earth and given everything to give the life changing message of Jesus to some who have never heard. Not for one moment do I think we should abandon responsibilities of caring for our families, for Paul exhorted Timothy; “if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8). Those are strong words that must be heeded. That is not the core issue I am addressing. Let’s go back to my first thought of retirement as a way of life and leaving behind an inheritance. There is nothing sinful in either, but what if you left behind a godly example for others to follow (especially your family). Would they say of you, ‘he (or she) finished the race, kept the faith, and there is a crown of righteousness laid up for them which the Lord will give?’ Are you running well |
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