It’s 5 am in the mountains and it is the quiet that has me up.  Not for the quiet itself, but for the fact that it is in quiet that I most clearly hear the voice of God. When I first came to Christ it was in silence, and so it has been that the quiet is not only a source of strength, but a place of hearing. As is the case this morning.

Yesterday I learned that we have some significant challenges in our unrestricted income and expenses. Because some things have gone significantly over budget this month, we will need to nearly double what we have to raise in the remaining few months of our fiscal year, which ends in June. Things may be a bit lean for the remainder of the fiscal year! While this is a challenge, this is not what has me up at 5 am. For I know that this is the Lord’s work, and I am not ashamed to lay the burden at His Able Feet.

What I am reminded of by the Lord this morning is the idea of contentment. I know that sounds a bit odd for what I just told you. But you see, this is what the Apostle Paul was talking about in Philippians 4:11 when he said, “I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content.” He was talking about having a lot, or a little, and being OK with that. He had learned that he could do all things through Jesus. He had learned to rest and be content. You see, contentment is learned through difficulties. While that may not be a popular notion, it is the truth.

My teacher separated by time is Charles H. Spurgeon. I read his devotional pretty much every day. Guess what his topic is this morning? Yep, contentment. And he reminds me that contentment is learned. For Paul it took beatings, jail, and great difficulties with with all kinds of stuff, including funding, until the lesson hit home and his heart rested in the fullness of Christ’s joy. I laughed when he reminded me that weeds grow easily. No worries. Do nothing and they will come. But the good stuff takes diligence on our part to nurture and grow. And that diligence is hard work. He said, “The precious things of the earth must be cultivated.”

I will have a conversation with a printer today on the book Green by the ArchBishop Harry Goodhew. I can’t wait to get it into your hands. This is the topic, “Growing deep in a Spiritually Shallow World.” Exploring these precious things that need to be cultivated in our lives.

Whatever comes today, most of all, let us be content dear brothers and sisters. Content to walk in His way. Content to take His yoke upon us, for His burden is light.

Amen.

EE headquaters received the following letter a few days ago and couldn’t help but share it. It is a wonderful and encouraging perspective. May it bless and encourage you as it has for us:

Dear EE family,

We pray together at the EE offices, every morning at 9:00. We pray for the day, for our fieldworkers and for the leadership clinics that are going to take place during the week/week-end. We confess that we will not be able to do our jobs if we are not blessed or actively led by God on a daily basis.

This morning one member of the group read from Romans 1:14: “I am a debtor…” says Paul … “I am bound to both Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish.” Those who are bound by the message of the Gospel, are well aware that this message is larger than just one person.

All around the table there was agreement when she confessed: “I am a debtor – I owe the Gospel to the children of this region!” We all confirmed: “We are debtors – we owe the Gospel.”

May your congregations’ new year’s resolutions be – “We are debtors!”

Old aunt Anna was a godly lady. She is a picture of a praying woman, a woman who knows God. She is elderly, has spent most of her life faithfully serving the Lord and she even stays in the church, often fasting and praying day and night. You and I will probably not find a better example of a spiritual woman of God.

However, the other side of Anna is less known. The Scripture records that she “spoke of Him to all …” She is just as adept and willing to share her faith with others. What an evangelist although we may not think of her as one.

As Anna spent time in prayer and fasting, I believe she touched the heart of God, the shepherd-heart of God. The heart of the Shepherd that leaves the fold to seek the lost sheep. Anna touched the heart of God that is broken with sadness because mankind is lost in sinfulness, in bondage to the chains of idolatry, oppression and materialism.  Anna’s own heart became broken too as she cried and prayed for those around her who needed deliverance.  Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision once echoed similar sentiments, “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.”

I once invited a sister to participate in one of our EE trainings so that she can be trained to share her faith.  However, she declined, stating that her ministry was in prayer and that she did not have the ministry of evangelism.  Perhaps she and others like her need to learn about Anna and about others who ministered to the Lord.

Peter the leader of the apostles took time to share his faith with Cornelius and with the crippled man at the temple gate. Philip shared his faith with an Ethiopian eunuch and Paul shared with the Philippian jailor, King Agrippa, Lydia and many others.  Even the Lord Jesus took time to share with Zacchaeus, Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman and many others.

How dare we say that our ministry is only in prayer and not in evangelism? Where may I ask is your prayer leading you, if not to the heart of God. One cannot touch the heart of God if one will not allow his heart to be broken with the things that break God’s heart.

My friend, you need to do both.  You need to pray and then you need to go and share. Then only will I know for sure that you, like Anna, have touched the heart of God.

• Dr. John R.W. Stott

The Gospel is without parallel in its power.  As the late Dr. Stott notes elegantly above, the story of Christ alone, empowered by the Holy Spirit, has the ability to utterly transform hearts, minds, and lives.

This is why Christ’s final command (“Go into all the world and make disciples…”) continues to be our first concern.  Digging wells, feeding the hungry, caring for the sick and elderly are all good and necessary works, but without the power or “dynamite” of the Gospel, they are but temporary fixes.  The presence and influence of Christians throughout every sphere of society should be encouraged and even defended, but how will they hear unless someone tells them about the One Who is Greatest of all?

In short:  all men and women must die sooner or later and deserve to hear a simple, straight-forward explanation of the Good News that Christ died for sinners and that there is hope in His name.  That is what we do.

As Evangelism Explosion International celebrates 50 years of ministry, we are grateful to God first and foremost.  Without His blessing and equipping, our best efforts are in vain.  All honor and praise for any good that has been accomplished are attributed to His beneficence and grace.

We are also grateful to you, our faithful supporters. Without your prayer and financial support, we would not be able to do what we do.  We echo the sentiments of the apostle Paul, that we “thank God upon every remembrance of you, for your fellowship in the Gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:3-6, NKJ).”

Thank you for making it possible for millions of earth’s denizens to not just hear the Gospel but also be trained to effectively share it with others.

Now that we’ve gotten started, we are excited about what God will do in the next 50!  We hope you will be a part.  Click here to learn more about EE’s 50^th Anniversary Celebration or to RSVP.

Blair Linne has beautifully crafted this quote in a genre of poetry called Spoken Word, which has gained considerable popularity recently with viral video by Jefferson Bethke, “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus“. Blair’s complete performance below comes from the introductory track from her husband and respected Christian rapper, Shai Linne’s newest album entitled “The Attributes of God.”

In His anger, Jonah calls upon God to take his own life as he feels that the people would have lost respect for him as a prophet.

God however reminds Jonah of His own sovereignty and questions Jonah if he indeed has any right to be angry when God spares the people of the city of Nineveh.

Jonah merely sulks and ventures out of the city and locates a spot overlooking the city where he settles down at a shelter he has made. He waits to see what God will do to the city. (Jonah ignores the fact that God has said earlier that He will spare the city! I guess this is not very different from people who sulk at situations they are unhappy about in the hope that the situation will be reversed when people see that they’re not happy.) Is it God’s responsibility to make us happy?

God then provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort. Jonah was glad for the shade provided by the vine.

However, the following day, God provided a worm which chewed the vine so that it withered and can no longer provide any shelter for Jonah. Additionally when the sun came up, God provided a scorching east wind and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so much so that he grew faint.

Again, because of his selfish arrogance, Jonah wanted to die. He seems to think that the issues were about himself, his preaching, his ministry, his comfort, his discomfort. Aren’t we all like this sometimes? Even when we share our faith, we think the issue is about us; how well we share, whom we share with, how many we manage to convert, how hard we worked, how much we sacrificed? We often forget that the issue is about others, others who need to be saved, others who are perishing, others who need the gospel, others who need the power of God in their lives.

God then intervenes and asks Jonah whether he has a right to be angry since he did not tend or make the vine grow. Furthermore, since Nineveh had more than 120,000 people who are ignorant, should not God be concerned about that great city?

My friend, it’s not about you and me.

It’s not about you and me being involved in evangelism. It’s not even about you and me sacrificing to save people. Just like the issues have never been about the life guards at the beach, what they wear, how they look, how hard they work. It’s only about the people they are responsible for, the lives they need to save.

I pray we keep our focus. Malaysia has more than 24 million people who are ignorant of the good news of Jesus Christ and should not God be concerned about this great nation? The United States has more than 160 million people who are ignorant of the good news of Jesus Christ and should not God be concerned about this great nation? Yes, and what might you be unhappy about?

The actual situation in the US or any other nation is best known to church leaders within that nation so let’s pray for wisdom for them to guide their own flocks in how best to respond at each initiative of the persecutors.

6 Spheres of Influence

In his book, Lord of All, Developing a Christian World-and-Life View, Dr. D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe cite the work of Dutch theologian, Hermann Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) and Dutch Prime Minister and theologian, Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), where they summised that God’s sovereignty extended to different spheres of existence or spheres of life. These six different spheres of life that every Christian should be vitally interested in and should be working to Christianize are:

1. World
2. Humanity
3. Nation
4. School
5. Church
6. Family

Every Christian church should be endeavouring to do what it can to strengthen each of these great spheres.

7 Mountains of Influence

More recently, Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade and Loren Cunningham, founder of Youth With a Mission, discovered over lunch, that God had simultaneously given each of them a message to give to the other: “The culture is shaped by seven mind-molders or mountains in society. If we can influence each of these areas for Christ, we will win the culture of our nation.”

Os Hillman, in his book “Reclaiming the 7 Mountains of Culture” challenges Christians to reclaim the 7 spheres (“mountains”) of influence that the church has steadily lost ground on. These 7 “mountains” are:

1. Arts/Entertainment
2. Business
3. Education
4. Family
5. Government
6. Media
7. Religion.

In Malaysia

Let me share with you about my own nation. For the last 30 years or so, the church has been rather withdrawn when it comes to influencing society and its various “spheres.” God’s sovereignty over these spheres was neither taught from the pulpits nor highlighted to motivate young people in their career choices. With certain exceptions, church leaders did not encourage their congregation members to take active roles in these spheres of influence and their activities centered only on the church and its peripheral ministries. The Christians had slowly but surely surrendered their influence in society.

For example, in my country, Christians have stayed away from the teaching profession in government-funded schools for the last two to three decades. Recruitment and promotional prospects favoured the majority race and many Christians chose careers other than in public school education. These schools form the majority of schools in our nation. Consequently, the Christian influence in education diminished significantly, even though in times past, the mission schools in our nation were the premier schools.

The situation is similar in the other spheres of influence.

When Christian influence diminished, it was easy for the government media to portray the Christians in a bad light and then subsequently to take the actions that trampled on the rights of the Christian community. These actions included restricting the words that Christians can use when referring to God and restricting the distribution of Bibles in Malay, the Muslim-majority language.

World Evangelical Alliance Report

A World Evangelical Alliance report states, “Some of the rights most often compromised where religious freedom is lacking are freedom of speech and press, freedom of association and movement, equality before the law, the right to life, liberty and security of person, freedom from torture and other cruel and inhuman treatment or punishment, and the right to work.”

This report further adds that “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

“No doubt, many people would find it surprising, even unbelievable that at the beginning of the 21st century the largest faith group being persecuted is the Christian faith. It has been estimated that over 200 million Christians in at least 60 countries are denied fundamental human rights solely because of their faith. Moreover, persecution of Christians often serves as an indicator of the status of religious freedom for other minorities since where Christians are persecuted other religions tend also to suffer. Discrimination and persecution have been found to follow a distinct pattern regardless of who is being persecuted.”

Steps to Persecution

The first slippery step is disinformation that often leads to the second step, discrimination, which can finally end in a slide into persecution. At each step, the role of the state and its agencies may be passive or active.”

The slide toward persecution hits bottom when the state and its agencies become active participants in destroying or confiscating property, arresting or incarcerating religious minorities, torturing or executing believers because of their faith tradition. At this point, the offending state not only violates the long-standing universal principle of human behaviour as seen in the Golden Rule, but is in direct violation of international standards as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Charter and elsewhere.

Hope on the Mountain

Let us reclaim these great spheres and mountains of influence so that the message of the Cross can again be proclaimed loud and clear.

“Go, tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is born.”

The Greek word for power is “dunamis” from which we also derive the English word “dynamite.” Yes, the gospel has power in itself. We never need to defend the gospel. We simply preach it and let it loose! Because it is the word of God, it will accomplish that which He has purposed and that is the salvation of all who believe.

The gospel is the power of God for salvation. Mankind is place under bondage because the power of sin. Sin has the power to keep someone in its hold, in its grip. Those under the power of alcohol or drug abuse, gambling or even sexual lusts find it almost impossible to quit their wasteful lifestyle. The victims may even acknowledge that they need to quit living this kind of lifestyle but an unseen power seems to immobilise their feeble will to change, to get out of this kind of destructive living.

The good news is that Christianity is not a religion with some lists of things to do or things to avoid.

The gospel of Jesus Chirst has the power to save. It gives power to the victim to quit his destructive lifestyle, to repent and to live to please God. This power is available to all who put their faith in Christ who Himself has overcome the devil’s wily schemes to tempt and to defeat Him. The gospel is able to save. It has the power to save.

The gospel is the power of God to save everyone who believes.

A person needs to believe; to rely on, to put his dependence upon, to trust in the provision of God for His salvation before he can avail himself of this power. He must be willing to put his faith in God’s provision of eternal life through His One and Only Son before he receives this power. God sent His Son into the world to die on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Some 40 years ago, I surrendered the Lordship of my life to Christ and decided to live to please Him. He then gave me the power to do so. He gave me the power to do what He wants, to serve Him and to glorify Him with my life. Everyday, when I encounter some opportunity to sin, to go astray, I can turn to Christ and receive His power to do the right thing.

When we share our faith, we are not merely converting people from one religion to another. We are giving them the power to be set free from their chains, the power to live to please God and no longer to please their own selfish desires which is the root of all kinds of problems.

This power is awesome. It can change people to do good when no other power is able to. It’s dynamite!