I wish there was some way I could take you and every person on our newsletter list to physically see what God is doing through one of our “Timothy’s”! It reminds me of what happened at Antioch as God was moving through the Early Church. It began with God opening their hearts to see that He was working in Gentiles as well as Jews (Acts 11:19-21). “And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord” (11:21). Then the Holy Spirit spoke to them as they worshiped and fasted; “Set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (13:2). But their response is just as important as their hearing Him speak. “So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus” (13:4). There was no hesitation on their part.
Our “Timothy” is unstoppable because of his obedience! Having planted the seeds of God’s Plan for His church in VN, he lifted his eyes to the ripe harvest fields of Cambodia, with plans for Laos. It was clear about a year ago that the Holy Spirit had set this man apart for this special work. Now he is acting in obedience! What will he do in ten years? This is following Paul’s model. Do you have eyes to see God’s plan? Have you heard the call of the Holy Spirit? If so, have you acted in obedience to His call? If not, what is standing between you and the Holy Spirit?
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Many of you may know that the South Eastern Coast of the USA has been hit by Hurricane Matthew. Because of this storm, we have been out of electric power since last Saturday afternoon, but after 50 hours, the power has just been restored to our home. This has made it very difficult to answer emails and post blogs. We have gone from place to place looking for power and Wi-Fi connections. But there is good news. We have another power supply that has never been interrupted as long as we stay plugged in. It supplies all we need and much more no matter how much we draw from the source, no matter the weather conditions, day or night, and through all four seasons. Yes, I am referring to the HOLY SPIRIT! Let me give you an example: Tim and I were meeting this morning at a place that had electric power and a cup of coffee. After a short time of discussing what the Lord is doing, a couple overheard our conversation and turned to us saying how much they appreciated our work in other lands. After sharing who we are, we discovered that they had attended a service where Tim presented our missionary work some time ago. In addition, they have been praying for a long time for an unreached people group off the east coast of India. The Sentinelese are a tribe of about 250 – 500 people who live on North Sentinel Island, between India and Thailand. They are one of the Andamanese indigenous peoples and one of the most uncontacted peoples of the Andaman Islands. We don’t know much more than that, because every time the Sentinelese receive a visitor, they greet him with a hail of arrows. What would God do if you and I joined Jeff and Kim in prayer that God turn on the power of the Holy Spirit and open a door to reach these people? Let us see what He will do through prayer. Hundreds of years after David’s moral failure with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11 & 12), Paul says that God “raised up David to be their [Israel’s] king of whom He testified and said, “I have found in David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will” (Acts 13:22; Ps. 89:20). There is an unstained beauty in God choosing a servant that will represent Him and point through his life to Christ, the center of God’s universe.
This is why God has chosen YOU! God wants YOU to be “a man after My own heart, who will do all My will”! THE DANGER IS ONE UNGUARDED MOMENT! We can never predict when that moment might come because we cannot know our own hearts like God can. There is only one way to protect ourselves from times when we could do THE UNTHINKABLE and that is through an ever increasing closer walk with the Lord. NEVER become satisfied with where you are in your intimacy with Him! John 6:35-71 reveals that even “disciples” who have walked with the Lord and enjoyed His company can “turn back and no longer walk with HIM” (6:66). STOP - REPENT - MAKE A FRESH COMMITMENT TO AN INTIMATE WALK WITH CHRIST NO MATTER WHAT THE COST! “Unquestionably obedience is a high virtue, a soldier quality. To obey belongs, preeminently to the soldier. It is his first and last lesson, and he must learn how to practice it all the time, without question, uncomplainingly. Obedience, moreover, is faith in action, and is the outflow as it is the very test of love.” (The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds on Prayer, Prince Press, 2000, page 52).
“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (John 14:21). Most of us who follow Jesus and profess a faith in Him and commitment to walk in truth can be very judgmental of others who allow themselves to be overcome by some sin. We are quick to quote verses that expose the errors of others. Those same Scriptures should be as quickly applied to ourselves with all their authority and conviction as we wish on others. James makes the point by saying, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like” (James 1:22–24). James uses the analogy of the mirror to refer to God’s Word. As I read it with the teaching and understanding of the Holy Spirit, it exposes my own heart and reveals things that are inconsistent with it, urging me to submit my will to its authority. The beauty of this analogy is that James ends this section with, “But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty [see Galatians 5:1], and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing” (James 1:25). The mirror should reinforce what needs adjusting so my life comes into alignment with the Word of God because it has authority over my life! Through this process, my life speaks to others without saying a word. I will never forget the helpless feeling the year I took trigonometry. Functions of cos, sin, tan and the hypotenuse were so hard for me to grasp. If only someone would come alongside to help me understand these functions, I was sure it would all come clear and I would pass the course. Math, science, brain surgery or any other subject are not the hardest to understand. In fact, there is one subject that is impossible for any human to understand unless he is taught by one teacher. Paul says, “No one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:11b). The verse just before this says, “These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.” With this being so, I want to know, I want the Spirit to reveal truth and wisdom about everything. No wonder Jesus speaks of the Spirit and the “Helper” four times just in John’s Gospel (14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7). Not only that, Jesus says of the Spirit that “He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (14:26). This is in addition to the fact that He will be with us forever (14:16), Jesus provides the most comprehensive guarantee that this teacher who is God will be with me all through life. I want to learn from Him in any and every circumstance! Why do we not constantly appeal to Him to teach us? Why does the church ignore His presence by attempting over and over to run the church by human means? This is the height of grievance to the Spirit (Ephesians 4:30) who has been given to guide us into all the truth (John 16:13)? As ministers of the gospel, “we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.” (1 Corinthians 2:13). Seek this personal teacher to be your Helper and the power within to please God and bear Him fruit. Considering the mass confusion that reigns in most cultures and the propagation of error, even in the church, there must be some way of knowing Truth and its source. There is a danger in seeking “truth” through “spiritual guides” to find a path toward the source of truth. The problem with this idea is the guide ends up making you think answers are within yourself and you eventually equate yourself to God. Such distortions rob us of the great benefits of knowing the Truth.
What God presents to us is that Truth is a PERSON, and in knowing Him we find Truth. Jesus is that person and He said of Himself, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6). No other human being, no other religious leader in all human history ever made or could make such a claim. It is unique to Jesus, who is God, yet He became man. As God clothed in human flesh, He could make this claim and has proved to be Truth. His ascension to heaven, after crucifixion, burial and resurrection, meant that He is not here as he was in bodily form. We cannot go to Him physically and ask Him to tell us about the Truth. BUT, He has not left us without free and complete access to Him and the Truth. Our access to the Truth is through the Holy Spirit. Jesus said of Him, “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). This should make us want Him to speak freely to us so we know what Truth really is. Truth from the Spirit is the only answer to confusion and chaos in the world and in our churches. But it will only be received as we REPENT AND RETURN to personally letting Him take charge and speak to us, followed by our obedience. ARE YOU WILLING? The last few generations have been sold an empty promise that relativism is the answer to the world’s problems; personal ones too. This type of thinking has led to chaos all the way from governments and institutions, right down to churches and personal lives. Relativism provides no anchor for the searching soul and no answer to questions of meaning, morality and destiny.
Since the audience of this blog is largely Christians, I want to suggest that one of the major reasons why the church today is weak and ineffective is because of the slow ‘dripping effect’ of relativism. Over many years, it has dulled our alertness to truth. We have tried to counter the ‘disinterest’ in church in the last three generations by adopting programs and gimmicks in the hopes they would make the church more attractive. Some will say that it has worked, but it hasn’t! Not only is the church in decline in America, it is for the most part succumbing to influences and trends that are acceptable to a culture that has embraced relative ideas and rejected the truth. How can this trend be stopped? Jesus spoke truth, not only to a world that was lost and had no anchor in truth (John 18:38), He also spoke truth to the religious leaders who thought they had the truth (9:40-41), but in fact rejected truth and the person who is the truth (14:6). This is a very precarious place to be in. If we wear a cloak that makes people think we know and live the truth, but in heart and practice deny that the truth has any authority over us, we sin twice. First we sin with pretending and second we sin by “peddling” a pseudo faith in the Word of God. This is pretending we accept its authority, but in practice we deny it. This is a very dangerous place! Tomorrow I will seek to point the Christian and the church back to the truth and how it can be known by its authority and power. It is rare that we get to see the Spirit working in power in our day. Jesus promised, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). “Words of this stem all have the basic sense of ability or capability. dýnamai means “to be able” in a general sense[1].” Stop and consider what the Holy Spirit has been “able to do” for two thousand years. It is true that we are not seeing His work as much as they did in the Early Church, but that is not because he has left or is any less capable than He was at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is God and He is the same today as yesterday, and will be tomorrow! It is we who have limited Him by our unbelief, disobedience and man-centered ways. Yet, the Spirit is at work in ways that few here in the west have seen or heard. Let me give you one testimony of what He is doing in Africa. “I am very grateful to God for the meeting at Lifeway. My eyes were opened to many revelations from the infallible word of God. Thanks brother for the commitment to make disciples of all nations (ethnos – people groups). This time AFRICA will be overtaken with the Holy Spirit {Boom}!” The Holy Spirit is at work in small ways all over the globe. If we put these individual occurrences together, we would be overwhelmed by His work today. Because He is able, what should we do?
[1] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (186). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans. “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit” (Psalm 51:12). This is the earnest cry of a man who knew intimacy with God, like few others, and he wanted it back. “In answer to his plea, God did restore to David the joy of his salvation and washed him whiter than snow. The old intimacy with God was regained, but was it now ‘music’ in a minor key?” (J. Oswald Sanders, Enjoying Intimacy with God, page 47). Minor or major, it was music!
It is entirely possible that intimacy with the Lord can be restored in spite of past failures. One of the most important factors in this restoration process is understanding that the Lord wants our communion with Him more than we do. The proof of this is that Jesus said to Peter before his awful denial of Jesus; “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32). This and other references confirm that Jesus is interceding for us so that we might always be in close intimacy with Him (John 17:24; Hebrews 7:25). Even to a church like Laodicea that had failed so terribly, Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20). This is confirmation that Jesus is keenly interested in our being close to Him and enjoying open communication and fellowship. How is your conversations with Jesus going? When was your last meal at His table? |
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