What Man Intended for Evil…

Two months ago I was praying and considering whether or not I should return to Central America this December. Everything is on the table, and I’ve been considering what my ministry is and what the Lord is calling me to, because I have no idea what the Lord has for me in the years to come.

The Lord made two things clear though – 1. I should return to Central America at least in December, and 2. I should return to Africa in January.

That’s all I have to run off of at the moment. Sometimes I think it would be nice to know, but I trust God.

A week or two before the trip, I got a call from one of our translators in Central America – a man God saved out of a murderous lifestyle in the gangs. I was walking up to my workplace and almost considered ignoring the call because I’d be seeing him soon enough, but I took it anyway.

I picked up – he sounded shaken. Through the conversation I quickly learned that men from one of the gangs near his village had raped his daughter and that she was now pregnant. He continued, telling me that his family was shaken up – his wife and daughter were losing faith, and he was at least a little tempted to pick up his old ways and get revenge.

“Pray for me Paul. I know what I once was and I don’t want to go back.”

At a loss for words, I struggled through the conversation. After I hung up, my next phone calls and texts were to tell members of the team who loved him to be praying, and plans were set in motion to visit him and his family in his village.

This man, this former gang member used to murder people to make a living. Now he’s praying and begging God not to let him take any revenge, but to help him forgive. There is no doubt in my mind that he is a new creation. He used to bring death everywhere he went, now he goes into gang territories and preaches the gospel of life even at great risk to himself.

Obviously, Satan hates this and would do anything to stop it, and our friend and his family have already paid a terrible cost for living in the place God has called them to live. Pray for them.

Meeting with Death’s Messenger

Two weeks later when we arrived in our friend’s village, our entire group was marching toward his humble house when I saw them – six men standing out in front of his house to greet us. Our friend ran up to me and said, “Paul, they’re from the gangs. Don’t be afraid, they’re here to hear the gospel!”

At their center stood the leader – “Juan”. His ball cap and tattoos covered his entire head, surrounding his care-lined face. He looked tired and worn out; I’ve seldom seen a man look so weary. Yet we knew he was a murderer – a cold-blooded killer.

Men from the team went behind our friend’s house to meet with Juan and his men – to preach the gospel to them while the rest of us set about putting together a Christmas program for the children and people of the village. Several of the women spent the entire time ministering to our friend’s wife and daughter.

Around the same time that the program started, Juan and his crew came out from the meeting and watched the gospel vividly presented through a drama, and the preaching of the Gospel from the Bible.

As we dispersed afterwards, I was with several of the young men from the team speaking to Juan – most of whom grew up in Christian households, like some bizarre contrast between light and darkness. Yet we are all the same as Juan – we all face the same plight.

Juan acted on the thoughts we only had, and God graciously kept us from carrying them out or from growing up in the same violent environment. Juan has the same problem we have – our sins have separated us from a holy God and without salvation, we are destined for the place of our own choosing – the wrath of God and eternal separation from Him.

Yet that day we offered him the hope that yes, Christ died so that he too could have life. Yes, even Juan’s horrific crimes against God can be forgiven, and even better still, like our friend the translator, he who once brought death could become a messenger of life.

We gave Juan a Bible and prayed over him, and tears shone in his eyes as he reverently held the scriptures. Before we prayed, he asked us to pray for his son – that he would grow up differently than he did.

Our friend the translator said that after we left, Juan and his men were standing around the open Bible in reverent awe. We have not heard from him in the short weeks since that day, but I pray that the Lord saves him.

God called us to go preach the gospel to the lost, simply to invite them to the banquet of God’s grace and mercy freely offered through Christ’s death on the cross to ALL, with no concern as to their former lives. Matthew 22:10 says that the servants of the king “went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

Christ is able to transform all kinds of people, both the “good” and the bad, realizing this, that only God is truly good, and He has provided a Way for us to be like Him through Jesus His Son.

Please pray for Juan and his men.

The Frowning Hand of Providence

Providentially, I just read the story of Joseph. His brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt, he was thrown into prison because he’d been falsely accused of rape, and he spent years forgotten as he waited for release.

But because Joseph was stuck in prison, he was right where he needed to be when Pharaoh wanted his dream interpreted, an act of providence that saved the lives of countless people in the end.

Everything that happened to Joseph--everything man intended for evil, God used for good.

Wicked men raped our friend’s daughter, and that is something she will have to live with for the rest of her life, but our friend told us that since the trip, God has used this as an opportunity for her to know Christ in a more real way. Furthermore, God turned the situation into a chance for us to minister the gospel to a small crowd in our friend’s village, including several gang members who heard the gospel in many different ways. Perhaps God will use this to save their souls as well.

God works out everything for good for those who love Him, and one day, He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. It is from this hope that we operate – we base all our confidence on the fact that this life is not all we have. Our reward – our home is not here but in heaven, where the former things, no matter how great or terrible, will never be remembered again. All of this life will fade except the Lord – yes, even this horror.

Please take some time right now to pray for our friend, his wife, and most importantly, his daughter. Pray that they find comfort and healing in the Lord, pray that they are able to forgive the wicked men who did this, and pray that God will continue to use this for good in their lives.

The Power of Unforgiveness

When any of us refuse to forgive, remember this:

You could be living in riches and feasting in the mansions of God's grace in kindness toward us but you have chosen to live as a vagrant on the streets of unforgiveness.

Worse yet, you have voluntarily locked yourself into the dungeon of bitterness, and though you hold the key of forgiveness with the power to unlock every door inside, you refuse to suffer your own escape.

You have drank poison in hopes of killing your enemy, ignoring the fact that you have secretly become what you hate.

You have forgotten your own forgiveness, and renounced your inheritance – the inheritance of mercy purchased for us by Christ on the cross. Repent and let it go! Gently lower your burden into the hands pierced for you and pursue peace, that it may find you. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Love stands at the door and He knocks. Will you answer His call?

Transformations

Our Lord Jesus is the master of transformations. He turned Zacchaeus from swindler to philanthropist, Peter from impulsive coward to pillar of the church, Paul from murderous zealot to passionate follower, and on and on the list goes.

Jesus is still transforming lives to this day in the same ways. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). I once was an angry, bitter man who loved nothing but computer games and his own interests, but now Christ is transforming me into a compassionate man who ministers to orphans and desires the salvation for the lost.

I’m not there yet. There’s still so much lacking in me, yet since I am in Christ, I am a new creation. This promise doesn’t just extend to me; I’m not anyone special, but my God can do anything.

If you read this, know that God can use you for the same things, and His transforming power only begins to work when you trust Jesus for salvation. He will not stop until you are perfect – until you resemble His Son.

These are just a few stories of the Lord’s transforming power that I have seen over the past six months.

The First Convert

Several years ago we visited a village where the Muslim chief welcomed us and the gospel message. He gladly heard us and made provisions for us to have a structure where we could exposit the scriptures for them.

Yet even after several years, nobody in the village had come to Christ, and only two people – a man named Solomon and the chief himself – seemed interested at all in the gospel. There were a few exciting moments where people seemed to make professions of faith, but the passion and fire quickly died away.

Finally, last year, Solomon came to faith, renouncing his Islamic roots during the month of Ramadan. Imagine suddenly deciding you weren’t going to celebrate Christmas ever again on Christmas Eve. All of his friends, some of his family, and his neighbors all continued the month-long celebration, but he abstained for the first time, because his allegiance is now to Christ alone.

Fast forward to January: we visited the village and found that Solomon’s seventeen year old son had also come to faith and was making some incredible statements. When we asked him how he came to faith, he said, “When I saw the futility of Islam and the gods of Africa and compared them to the new faith of my father, I knew I had to come to Christ.”

It is unbelievably important for a father to live out his faith in such a radical way that his children know that Jesus is real by his example. Solomon’s witness and faithfulness, even over a short few months, has already won his son over to Christ.

Although it was encouraging to see that Solomon was being faithful, the chief of the village was nowhere to be found. We learned that he was sick and receiving care in a city about an hour and a half away – a city we just so happened to be visiting.

From Victims to Missionaries

The nearby city where the chief was staying is home to a massive orphanage with over four-hundred children who have had one or both parents murdered for their faith in Christ. We have the amazing opportunity to show the love of Christ to these kids, ranging from age 6 to 18, and the opportunity to disciple them as Jesus commanded in Matthew 28, “Teaching them to obey all I have commanded you.”

The best way to train someone up is to bring them along with you and share your very life with them. As the apostle Paul said, “We were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.” These youth and kids are so dear to us that we go to Africa to share our very lives; so for several days, we stayed at this orphanage and brought several young men with us to minister wherever we went.

So those who were once victimized by religious persecution are now boldly going with us to share before the leaders of villages. The Holy Spirit of God can turn any victim into a mighty warrior who backs down before nothing. Make no mistake; these young men will be used for amazing things in the Kingdom of God. Pray for them!
 

Visiting a Chief

On one of these days, we were determined to track down and visit the chief using the contact information we were given. Our local contacts managed to call someone he was staying with, and we received directions. Taking two young men with us from the orphanage, we passed through a labyrinth of tight streets and marketplaces until we finally arrived at our destination – a quiet part of the city that would have looked right at home in a post-apocalyptic film.

I briefly wondered if we’d made a terrible mistake as the man led us through this desolate place, but soon, we arrived at a covered entryway where the chief awaited us. As fast as his feeble legs could carry him, he raced out to us, greeting us warmly and expressing his disbelief that we’d actually traveled all this way to visit him.

He welcomed us and we exchanged pleasantries, eventually opening up the scriptures with him and sharing the gospel with him. The young men with us shared their testimonies and what Jesus meant to them and the chief and those sitting with us all listened intently.

Then we told him the situation in his village – not many were coming to the church, and many had turned back to offering sacrifices to the gods of Africa. And as we spoke, the chief interrupted us, “This must not be! I will go back and tell the people to stop sacrificing to the gods and to begin attending church!”

“Wow,” I thought. Then we asked, “What about you? Are you going back and celebrating Ramadan? Are you once again sacrificing to the gods of Africa?”

The chief responded clearly, “Only Jesus can save me. Mohammad cannot save me, the gods of Africa have no power – I follow Jesus.”

God is saving even Muslim chiefs steeped in idolatry. If that is what He is doing now, imagine what He will continue to do in our lives. Pray for this man, that he will walk boldly in his confession and that many in his village will come to Christ.

Stories of the Redeemed

Here are some of the young men the Lord has put in my life at the orphanage, whom I have the privilege of encouraging and being encouraged by:

Ibriham
He has one more year left of schooling before he seeks to get a degree in music. His village was attacked and his family managed to escape right before a massacre, but his father returned to help others escape and never returned. They found his body by the riverside. Ibriham said, “When my father was murdered, I thought I would never stop crying,” but when he came to the orphanage, God comforted him so that he was able to write a song about how Jesus had dried up all his tears. He has a passion for missions work, and seeks to be a missionary when he finishes school. He is extremely strong in his faith, and it’s a privilege to serve the Lord alongside him.

Isaac
This is my 12 year old buddy who has a passion for photography and drawing, and he is quite the artist. He follows us wherever we go, and although he doesn’t say much, I pray the Lord is using our example to minister to him. His father was a pastor who was murdered by extremists, and he has a sister at the orphanage I finally had the privilege of meeting. Please pray for him, that God would open his eyes and that he would fully commit himself to the Lord.

And by the way, all of these young men have a terrific sense of humor. Fellowship with them is about as warm as you can get, and I rejoice that I know each of them.

In the United States, if we live as Christians, at most we will be inconvenienced. Yet around the world, our brothers and sisters are imprisoned, raped, and murdered just because they choose to love Jesus more than any false way. Pray that God will give us the strength to live up to the example our persecuted family has set!
 
Fired at his job – Literally
This past April, I had the privilege of being reunited with my friend Edwin once again in Central America. Shot by his boss in anger and forced to return to his home-town, he met Jesus on the back porch of our church building last February. He was baptized last July and has been faithfully serving the Lord, even inviting others to come to the church, I recently wrote a blog about his story here: http://adexios.blogspot.com/2014/05/edwins-story-1-year-later.html

Please pray for him and the many others whose stories I have not even begun to cover here.
 

The Power of the Gospel

So you have seen the stories here. Now I will tell you what the Lord has put on my heart- the power of the gospel. I once preached in such a way to encourage believers using the scriptures, but something was missing— I was not proclaiming the gospel in every message.

Think about it, if the gospel has the power to turn a chief away from Islam and make him suddenly care about the spiritual state of his people, if the gospel has the power to dry up our tears, make us renounce our former ways, and endure imprisonments and beatings because of what our Lord Jesus Christ did for us, then imagine what effect it can have on the life of a believer!

I believe that the weakness we see in ourselves and in the local church is because we do not prioritize the preaching of the gospel. The apostle Paul once wrote that he was eager to preach the gospel to the church in Rome. Paul was ecstatic to preach the gospel to believers and to non-believers, that there would be a harvest – a harvest, I believe, of righteous living and of power.

If Jesus’s death on the cross has the power to transform a sinner, it also has the power to transform us and to remind us once again of God’s great love and the mighty power He demonstrated when he atoned for our sin and raised up Christ on the third day.

I believe that God will begin an incredible revival in our nation when the gospel is prioritized and preached once again in every message from every pulpit and from the lips of every believer. God is doing incredible things around the world when we preach Christ and His incredible sacrifice, so why not preach the same way here!

Therefore, please pray for me, that God will give me the words to say in preaching the gospel – that I will do it boldly and unashamed, and that He will continue to give me holiness and that He will continue to lead me in His ways.

I love you all in the Lord. Grace and peace to you,
- Paul

If Death is the End...

Life is full of tragedy, seemingly without meaning. One moment you’re basking in glory, and the next, stricken and searching for answers.

I once heard the story of a man who spent his life in preparation for serving the gospel. Leaving his family fortune behind, William Borden graduated from Yale, studied at Princeton theological seminary, and departed for further training in Egypt – a bright, brilliant star.

He died shortly after – a light snuffed out. If death is truly the end, then Bordon’s death was a pointless waste.

It all seemed so senseless to me until I read and understood Micah 3:16-17:

“…those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. ‘On the day when I act,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘they will be my treasured possession.’”

God’s purpose for our lives goes far deeper than ministry; He doesn’t want our ministry, He wants us. We are His treasured possession.

For the follower of Christ, death is not a period; it is a comma. God is not working on us so we can be more effective ministers; He is working on us because He loves us. Our story begins, not ends at death. God didn’t end Borden’s story; he turned the page and started the next chapter, as if to say, “I cannot wait for you to come home, son—today is the day.”

Ephesians 2:6-7 says that “…God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”

God’s purpose for us is to display the riches of His grace to us. This is a task that will take all of eternity, since His grace is infinite. We will spend all of eternity watching as God unloads treasure after treasure from His infinite hoard of grace, mercy, and kindness. This is our story.

Life on this plane isn’t a movie; it doesn’t end with every loose end conveniently tied up, and we’re often left asking “Why” without hope of hearing an answer.

All of our pain, all of the seemingly senseless agony and tragedy of this life, all of our rejections and sufferings, and everything we’ve lost are all unwoven threads of an unfinished tapestry, but the day will come when all of our scars and all of our stories are woven together by the Master Weaver Himself. On that day alone will it finally make sense, but until then, we know that He is the God who walks with us through our pain.

Bordon understood this. One of the last things he wrote in his Bible before he died was this simple phrase, “No regrets.”

Welcome home, son.

Finally, it all makes sense.

Edwin’s Story – 1 Year Later

At times, I feel it necessary to recount all the amazing things the Lord has done over the past year and a half, and how the Lord has used us to share hope with many in need. This is just one of the many incredible things the Lord is doing throughout the world.

Last February, we arrived in Honduras in time for the youth service to begin at the local church plant. David, one of the men who traveled with us had been sharing his heart for discipleship for men, and the passion had rubbed off on me.

As the service began, I took notice of a young man I hadn’t seen before. He wore a serious expression on his face and looked out of place, as if he was new to this church thing and attempting to mimic the actions of those around him to fit in.

From the moment I saw him, I knew that the Lord had called me to minister to him in some way. When we serve the living God, we should not be surprised or afraid when He speaks to us and when His Spirit leads us. It’s only been recently that I realized I’m not crazy and that this is a part of the Christian experience. We serve a Living God who speaks to His people. Deal with it, Paul.

After the service ended, I pulled David over to speak to him. He told me his name was Edwin, and that he didn’t play much soccer or do anything beyond reading and spending time with his family due to a recent injury. Assuming he was a believer because he was in the church service (oops), we began to encourage him on what it meant to be a godly man and to pursue after God whole-heartedly. He hung on our every word and after we prayed for him, requested a Bible, because he wanted to search out the things of God for himself.

As he walked out from the double doors, I noticed him walking with a pronounced limp and figured it was just a soccer injury that kept him from playing.

The next night, he showed us a local Mayan pillar in a nearby field, and I noted his limp even more pronounced than before. When we arrived back at the church, I asked him about his limp. He told me he’d been shot in the ankle. In disbelief, I repeated the Spanish back to him, “Shot… as in… with a pistol?”

He pulled his jeans out of the way to show a clear entry and exit wound. I winced, asking him what happened. He told me that he’d been working for an angry man who shot him just because he couldn’t open a gate in time. As though needing to justify that he didn’t deserve getting shot, Edwin added, “And it turned out he’d given me the wrong set of keys!”

I asked Edwin if he’d called the police and he said, “No, I believe God is calling me to forgive that man, and besides that, he would kill me.”

Solid reasoning there, I thought to myself.

As Edwin continued his story, he told me that just three days before our conversation, he had returned to his home town in Honduras – the town we were now visiting– and had begun to attend our church with his mother. Even though Edwin said he knew that God had placed him there and that God was calling him to forgive, I realized that he was not yet saved.

The call to dinner sounded, and I was getting ready to leave him when one of the other team members suggested that I invite him to join us, which he did gladly. We ate together at the end of the table near one of the elders, continuing our conversation. After dinner we opened the scriptures in the Bible we’d given him the night before. Passage after passage, we began to show him the gospel – Christ and Christ crucified as the only way of salvation. More of the elders arrived, and every passage we showed him, he continued to read long past the verses we’d recommended.

It was clear that he was hungry for the word of God, and that the Spirit of God was working on his heart even there as we answered his questions and took him through passage after passage. Finally, we asked if he was ready to receive Christ and he agreed, but I wanted to be sure, so I warned him that life as a believer also included the promise of persecutions and hardship.

It was here that he stuttered. He told us he wasn’t ready for that yet.

Years ago, I would have prayed for him, told him to read the scriptures, and moved on— but not tonight. The Lord had bigger things in store for him.

Instead, we asked him if we could go through more passages in the scriptures, and he agreed.

Diving back in, we saw the lights continue to come on as the Lord used His scriptures to open his eyes. Finally, we asked him again, “Are you ready to come to faith in Christ? You will face persecution, but He is worthy.”

Nothing would hinder him this time. There, at the end of the table, long after the meal had ended, Edwin met Jesus Christ.

Smiling, he stood up from his seat and announced, “I just met Jesus!” And he worked his way down the table, announcing the good news to everyone at the table. His countenance had completely changed, and joy beamed from his usually serious face.

It took a bullet to the leg, a journey back home, and our unusually early arrival the evening of the youth service, but joy came to his life at last. God will save His own; He works out everything for their good.

One year later, Edwin has been baptized and is not only continuing to grow in the Lord, but he is also bringing another man to the church, and the cycle of hope is continuing. His hunger for the word has not diminished and he desires to carry the gospel to many. His life, though still serious, is now serious about knowing and serving Jesus Christ. I cannot wait to see what the Lord does in his life.



Please pray for Edwin, that God would continue to grow his love and his passion for the gospel.

Grace and peace to you,

- Paul

A New Command - Meditations on Maunday Thursday

“A new command I give you: Love one another.”

These words must have echoed in the apostle’s ears as they sat in the quiet of the upper room. A new command from the Teacher? What would He ask of them? The last time a great prophet gave commandments, the law was born.

But Jesus simply said, “Love one another.”

This was not a new command. Even in the old law, God commanded His people to love their neighbors as themselves, even to the point of loving a foreigner as if he was one of your own, so this concept was not new. But then Jesus added this:

“As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

This is where things get harder. Jesus had just humbled Himself to take on the task of a lowly servant – washing their feet, and He was about to do something far more than that, He was about to love them so much that He would give His life for them.

This means that the command of Christ is that we must serve one another even to the point of death. Our brothers and sisters must be so valuable to us, so lovely in our eyes, that we are willing to die out of our love for them.

This is a high and lofty goal, but it doesn’t work out so easily in real life. We gossip about each other, we say hurtful things, we get insulted and hurt and fight with one another. But Jesus calls us to a higher standard – the competition to lay aside our own ambitions and desires that we may serve people the same way He did.

Imagine if we all humbled ourselves to make our brothers and sisters look better. Imagine if we began thinking of the needs of others as more valuable than our own. Imagine if, when we heard a brother or sister was gossiping about us, we were quick to pray for them and rush to their service. Imagine if we repaid one another’s insults with kindness. What would the church look like then?

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Everyone would know that we were disciples of Jesus if we loved one another like this, and they would be forced to admit that God indeed was among us.

Remember that we will be with one another forever in our Father’s house, so here’s the challenge. Find someone in the church you have had difficulty with in the past. Go serve them, remembering how Christ served you. It will be difficult; your flesh will hate it, but you will be a living example of Jesus Christ, and the power of living like Him is unfathomable.