Would have had this up sooner, but computers confuse me 🙂
Buried beneath the St. Patrick’s Day symbols of shamrocks and leprechauns lies the story of a man determined to share the message of salvation with the people who made him a slave….
Patrick grew up the son of a church Bishop in Britain during the early 5th century. He was kidnapped and enslaved and spent 6 years of his early life in Ireland. He did miraculously escape back to His home country only to have God call him back to Ireland in a dream. At this time, Christ was not known in Ireland. Like so many remote villages that God is using Gospel For Asia supported missionaries to reach now. Patrick went willingly this second time to share the message of the gospel to those who were his enemies. (It is said that he used 3 leaf clovers to illustrate the trinity, but I’m not sure if it’s true).
Against persecution and the intense paganism that plagued Ireland, Patrick served God by reaching people with the message of the gospel. He eventually died for his faith. By his death in 461, it was estimated that Patrick had founded 300 churches, hundreds of thousands had heard of true freedom from sin through Christ’s gift of salvation, and over one hundred thousand had come to know Christ as their savior. His followers re-evangelized Europe as God called missionaries from the once Godless island. Patrick is one of the few figures in recorded history directly responsible for the completely non-violent religious conversion of an entire nation.
I love this story of true love for your enemies and a passion to reach the lost! Wear green and pray for all of those risking their lives for the cause of Christ.
Please be in prayer for all of the people God is calling to reach those who have never heard the gospel before. Pray for the families of those who have been imprisoned or martyred for their faith. Pray that God would call more to the field! Pray that those who are called would continue to lives worthy of their calling.
Over the past few years I have developed a love for the traditional Christmas song, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” We sang it at church last Sunday, as it’s very fitting for the first week of advent.
For 400 hundred years prior to Christ’s birth, God had been silent. The nation of Israel was in exile and they were desperately waiting for the prophecies about their Messiah coming to save them to come to fruition.
The words of this well known song portray a very different spirit than we tend to think about during this merry Christmas season:
“O come, O come, Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.”
To the Israelites, this is what the time leading up to Christ’s birth was about—waiting for the Messiah to ransom them.
How fitting for us today to think about our lives prior to Christ. Without Him, we too are burdened with sin, captive to this world’s pains, and in need of someone to ransom us. Praise the Lord we have Jesus Christ, who came on Christmas Day—the Son of God, God incarnate. He humbled Himself and became one of us lowly human beings, only to die a horrible form of death with all of our sins upon Him and forsaken by the Father. Yet willingly He did it—for us. Praise God! We can sing this song knowing the end! We have been ransomed!
Yet 2 billion people on the other side of this planet are still waiting for Emmanuel to come. In fact they don’t even know there is an Emmanuel. They have no prophecies to give them hope, for they have yet to hear about their Creator and their Savior.
It is for their fate without Christ that I serve with Gospel for Asia. Many need to hear about Emmanuel—”God with us”—who is Jesus Christ! My heart yearns to let them hear the Christmas story. My heart aches for them to finally be ransomed.
Rejoice with me this Christmas that Emmanuel has come, and that we know Him! Please also pray with me for those who have yet to hear.
“Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to you, O, Israel!”
This time of year is a joyous time of remembering how God brought salvation to this earth. It is such a privilege we live in a country where we can know and hear about Jesus, Christmas, and salvation so freely. And that through a foundation of Christian beliefs grace and mercy are still rooted in our culture. But for 3 billion in the world that have never heard of Jesus and His grace, their gods and beliefs have made for a life and view completely different than ours. They worship gods and goddesses in hope of salvation, but even if the salvation offered was true, millions upon millions still live in despair of ever achieving it. Their beliefs are that not all people are equal, and many are deserving of treatment less than cows, dogs and rats. In their mind many are predestined to a wretched life with no hope for mercy or grace, deserving of a life of punishment.
In knowledge of the great hope and joy that comes to our fellow Asian believers, I am overjoyed that Gospel For Asia is supporting Asian Christian brothers and sisters. There is now hope for salvation, healing of families, healing of people physically and spiritually, and filling thousands with joy in finally knowing the most high God, a God of love, that offers love, grace, and mercy.
While I was out support raising, I was SO curious to find out what I would be doing when I got back to Gospel for Asia. Right up to when I applied for my apartment, I had no idea what I would be doing. However, I couldn’t have asked for a better place to be placed. God is good! I’m am working in the media department. I helped out there a little bit when I was in the School of Discipleship.
At the moment, I am learning how to use a Mac, work in After Effects and Final Cut Express. Other than using a Mac, I’d say I love my job! Although I will miss the Volunteer department , I am soooo excited to see how God uses me in this area of the ministry, and I get to do what I love each and every day!
I’m so blessed because this job is an opportunity I had been waiting and praying for for a long time, and now God’s placed me in the exact place I wanted to be!
GOD IS GOOD! AND GOD IS FAITHFUL TO PROVIDE!! 🙂
Sunday, on 10/10/10, I got to be part of the coolest event that day! Michele J. and Shelly, two GFA staff writers, and I represented Gospel for Asia at a birthday party in Fort Worth. But this birthday party was a “Living GFA Christmas Catalog!” This young couple with four kids decided that they would instead invite families to their house to purchase Christmas catalog items. They were so fun and creative, they made signs from blown up pictures of last year’s catalog for each of the animals in the petting zoo. Also, tables were set with stacks of Bibles or blankets with signs and information about sponsoring a missionary or Bridge of Hope child.
I got to video record the interviews we had with parents and kids. These parents just wanted their kids to not be absorbed with material possessions and realize there are people completely different from us that need help and they haven’t heard about Jesus. I recognized in these parents what I’ve seen elsewhere, a growing desire to have something real, a real faith, and to be away from the materialism and stuff. A growing knowledge that in the US many live a decent Christian or moral life but not in a way where they actually need God; self-sufficient yet knowing we do need God. It was good seeing these families depart from the cultural norm and hoping to see God work.
A couple days ago the Lord taught me something really cool. As a part of the GFA home team we are on a rotation to clean bathrooms. (Glamorous right?) So, today as I was cleaning the bathroom and checking things off of the list, I was praying through some struggles. The end my prayer was just “I want to be more and more like Jesus. I want to be more and more like Him.” So I was almost finished with my job and was polishing the wooden door, when Keith, one of the core staff members at GFA stopped to say thank you. He thanked me for doing the job all the way and making sure that everything got done right. I’m thinking, “Everything done right? If only you knew.”
He said that what I was doing indirectly made him look good since he is in charge of building and grounds upkeep. When K.P. looks at things he would say  “Wow, Keith’s doing a good job.”
“What? Excuse me, I’m the one doing this work. Why should he get the credit?”
It made me think, what if we all did things just to give our Father the credit? He’s the boss. If we did things just so that he’d get the praise, life would be so much better. It wouldn’t be a competition to do more because no one would know that you did it in the first place. It’d just be something that God did.
So, what if we did things all the way all the time? Not just on the outside where people can see it, like this door; but sweeping next to the garbage can and dusting the corners? What if we made sure Christ got the credit for that too?
What is there in your life that you are doing half way? Is it trying to make money – or is it your Bible study? Which one is it that Christ is getting credit for? What would you change if you knew everything you were doing in life went into His account and not yours? If everything you did showed up on Jesus’ background check, would you want to hire him?
So that’s what Christ taught me as I was cleaning the bathroom – that I need to be doing things for Him because everything I do is going on His account.
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