EXPLOITS

When a Christian becomes obedient to the call of selfless service to the Lord, you should be ready to be surprised with the things that you are able to do. Daniel 11:32 said, “…they that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits.” Knowing God means you know what pleases Him and you are on-the-go in doing His will. And as promised, He will strengthen you to do things for Him that you’ve not imagined you will be able to do in your whole life.

When the Star Youth Ministries (the evangelism arm of Living Waters Asia) celebrated its 1st anniversary last April 16, 2007, the theme was “Gearing towards greater exploits for God”. That’s exactly what SYM members are doing right now. All of these are due to the Holy Spirit’s empowering.

One thing that we are always amazed with is the fact that although none of us came out from any Bible seminary, we are able to conduct Way of the Master seminars in churches all around the Philippines. In every seminar we conduct there are pastors who have been in this vocation for a very long time, who listen intently to what we present. To make things more exciting, they would show their agreement with everything we say. We’ve had pastors tell us that the WOTM seminars we’ve conducted made them realize how much they’ve totally neglected a big part of the Gospel message, and that is man is sinful and that is why he really needs to repent of all his sinful ways. There were several pastors who’ve even asked us to assist them in their churches' evangelism programs. These, despite us not having any formal Bible school training.

SYM members have seen me several times doing open-air preaching. I remember that there were already several instances where I challenged them to also try it. I would tell them that the adrenaline rush they would experience during open-air preaching sessions is totally different from what they get when doing one-on-one. I even added that the satisfaction they will have will be very difficult to contain. But they would always tell me, “Sir, I still have to pray for more empowering from God to do that.” In the past months, I have seen them during our street evangelism sessions where I only require them to do one-on-ones, witnessing to open-air preaching size crowds. When I pointed this out to them, they have realized that they indeed could do it. Next thing you know, they’re now preaching in the open-air. Paul, a member of the second batch of SYM members, once took the microphone in an open-air band concert during the half-time break and preached with all gusto. There’s a chance that more than a hundred people heard his message as the sound system for the concert was really loud. Later, Paul told me that, being a youth political personality in their place, he was invited to lead the prayer for the start of the opening of a barrio basketball tournament. He said that he plans to preach first before making the prayer.

Another SYM member, Lester, one of the original members of the group, did something tantamount to going against the enemy head-on. He preached inside a store that sells graven images with the owner around. Later, he told me that the owner does not believe in the existence of Hell. It made us realize that he is not in that business to help people evade Hell by encouraging them to be more prayerful to the different saints he sells. Everything is purely for profit.

In the last 4 or 5 months, I have been preaching inside the compound of the biggest Catholic church in our place, and in almost all of the times I preach there, I made it a point to touch man’s offense of the 2nd Commandment (Thou shall not make for yourselves any graven images). I’ve experienced being cut by one of the officials of that religious order because I was preaching to young people they were about to bring to a Catholic retreat. The guy did not realize that by the time he squeezed himself in the crowd to cut my talk, I was really already done. All along, I thought that I’ve done already the “ultimate thing” when it comes to evangelism with this. Not until one very special Thursday.

While I was witnessing to some students inside the Catholic church compound during our weekly E-blitz (short for evangelism blitz), the SYM members with me started to disappear. When all of us got back to our office, I asked where they were. They told me that while they, with the leadership of Arvin (another of the original SYM members), were looking for people to witness to, they suddenly got the urge to go directly inside the church where a lot of people where praying, and there, distribute tracts. I was shocked that they were able to do that. They, themselves, couldn’t believe what they’ve just done. All they know was that a force pushed them inside to do what has to be done. Humbled with the courage that these young people have just shown, I told them, “Next week, you will do that again and I will join you.” That’s exactly what we did the following week with teenage girls we just recently have won for Christ joining us.

These unimaginable exploits have only made us recognize the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. On our own, we know that there’s no way we could do those things. We always remind ourselves that what we are and what we have accomplished are all due to God’s power released in our lives. Yes, we get afraid still a lot of times. But when we are reminded of the promise enveloped in the Great Commission, “…and lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world…” courage starts to spring out.

It’s a pity that a lot of Christians have not experienced doing exploits for God. As a result, they haven’t experienced the ultimate adrenaline rush that dwarfs even the rush you get from a roller coaster ride or a parachute glide in the skies. If they only know what they are missing. All it takes is an obedient heart and a willingness to have our lives be the workplace of the Holy Spirit.

Wanted: Surrendered Christians

When it comes to religious freedom, history has probably not seen a time as free as ours where faith-beliefs can just be discussed anytime and anywhere. Yes, there are still nations like Muslim countries where Christianity is banned, but we still can’t make a sweeping declaration that the Gospel has no way of penetrating the most ardent anti-Christianity social system. The internet has enabled us to bring the Good News to places which before, were virtually impossible to reach. But despite all the freedom that we have which we can use in heeding the call of The Great Commission, it seems that fewer and fewer Christians are really willing to involve themselves in evangelism. As to why this is the case, I submit three probable answers that were based on my personal observation of Christians around me.

First and foremost is the Gospel message that most in this generation have heard. I can’t see how a plain “Jesus loves you” message, without emphasis on the background of why Jesus demonstrated His love toward us (so that sinners like us can avoid our deserved punishment in Hell), can result to someone who cries at the thought of others plunging to Hell. Without a deep understanding of man’s sinfulness, a person will not look at the indulgence of others in sin as their ticket to eternal damnation. Add to that the fact that man is by nature, selfish, including most Christians, which makes him say, “Well, I found the way to get to heaven. I hope others will somehow find it also even with no assistance from me”. With these two ingredients together (little understanding of the nature of sin and man’s selfishness), what you will end up with is someone who has little or no concern at all for lost souls.

The second culprit is freedom itself. Here, we have a case where the blessings of liberty have been abused to the marrow. Christians of today are so busy with many things which result to either, a lack of time for evangelism involvement, or, them tainting their testimonies, which disqualifies them to preach the life-changing Gospel. The limit-less opportunities to amass wealth in our generation have taken so much of man’s time and energy. The reality is, most of us have placed our focus on materialism. Some Christians who are focused on gaining material wealth, in an effort to relieve themselves of some of the guilt for not witnessing to others, would give a small fraction of their wealth to ministries and mission programs and then declare, “This is God’s will for my life… to financially support ministries.” They fail to recognize that soul-winning is the duty of each and every Christian, regardless of whether you significantly support ministries financially or not.

Last of all, the reason why we have lesser Christians involved in evangelism is because very few Christian parents encourage their children to give their lives for this kind of work. Why? It’s either because, probably, they are not involved in soul-winning themselves, or, because they want their children to focus themselves in striving to have a more economically comfortable life in the future. They would tell their children to get involved in a few church ministries that will not be in conflict with their studies or their basketball games. “If your grades go down or if your basketball game average decreases, then that’s it with your church involvement”. How sad it is that instead of pushing children to get involved in ministries, parents tell their children that they don’t want them to be pastors or Christian workers in the future because they don’t want them to suffer the lack of money in Christian ministries. This results to children getting turned-off when it comes to service to the Lord. They do not realize that they are already telling their children that fame, wealth and power should be given more importance than those that have eternal value, like souls won for Christ.

Money or without money, fame or without fame, power or without power, all of us who have experienced the saving grace of God must involve ourselves in The Great Commission.

A few days ago, on our way home from a WOTM seminar we conducted, I started asking the Star Youth Ministries members about whether they think God is calling them to full-time Christian ministry in the future. I told them that because we are clearly in the end times, I believe that if God will raise up Christian soldiers for evangelism, He will choose those who have already had their feet wet when it comes to Christian work. Being members of Star Youth Ministries for more than a year now doing street evangelism and seminars that challenge the Body of Christ to be more involved in soul-winning, I strongly believe that God would want them to enlist in His army. Some of them tried to reason their way out of the call but to no avail simply because they can’t deny it. The call was so loud. All along the discussion of this topic, the male SYM members were the ones involved. The only female in the group at that time, Andrea Amor Franco (we call her AA for short), sat silently on her seat, listening to every bit of our discussion. When we did a stopover to have a quick dinner, AA walked with me to the restaurant and told me, “Sir, I really want to go to the mountains after I graduate from college and reach the children there for Christ.” What she told me made me so proud of her. Here was a young and beautiful girl with so much promise ahead of her should she decide to work in the secular world, telling me of her desire to surrender her life for the purpose of someday reaching children for Christ in one of the rural mountains of the Philippines. How I wish more of the people who call themselves “Christians” in our time will be as surrendered to Christ as AA.

The Effects of Showing Someone His Sinfulness

2 Corinthians 7:10 says that Godly sorrow works repentance to salvation. Here’s the question --- How many of you who have used a modern Gospel message that says that “Jesus will give you love, joy peace, fulfillment and lasting happiness” have seen genuine Godly sorrow from people you have witnessed to as you forcibly led them to say the sinner’s prayer?

I just can’t see how a “happy” message like that can induce such a needed type of sorrow that leads a person to truly repent of all his sins. Unless one sees how he has offended the One that gave him life, a person will not see the need to change. Here in the Philippines, we often hear of news of movie stars that supposedly have been born-again. Any true Christian who has a burning desire for the lost to be saved would be filled with joy with such news. Later though, they start questioning if the movie star really had a true conversion simply because the things that he was doing before are the same things he is still doing after he supposedly became a “Christian”.

True repentance that results to one being saved produces a distinct change in how a person lives his/her life. Sad to say, a lot of so-called “Christians” inside our churches today do not reflect the change we expect of a true convert. But ask them where they will spend eternity when they die, they are so confident that they’re going to heaven simply because they once said a prayer asking Jesus to come into their lives. As if one such prayer can seal the deal! Zacchaeus in Luke chapter 19 never said such a prayer. He just declared to Jesus his repentance by saying how he will show his decision to turn away from his sins and then Jesus said, “Today, salvation has come into this home.” Paul said in Acts 20:21 that his message was “repentance towards God and faith on Jesus Christ”. The message is still the same. We are sinners and therefore, the need to repent is essential before we can come to Jesus for the salvation that only He can give. It all starts with a realization of our sinfulness, and the Ten Commandments is a perfect tool towards achieving this.

I’ve shared this same message several times to my 5-year old son. And in almost all of these times, I’ve used the Law to convict him of his sinfulness. And each time, I never really saw change in him probably due to the fact that his young mind could not yet really fathom how his childish disobedience can offend God. But a few weeks back, after an incident where he decided to disrespect me and his mom just because of some cartoons he was watching in the television, the breakthrough I was hoping for came. I scolded him for that first and then told him that God is not pleased with children disrespecting their parents. I then asked my son if he thinks he had disrespected us, his parents, during that hour, resulting to him offending God (5th Commandment). He said “yes”. I then asked him, “If you’ve disobeyed God today, where do you think God should send you when you die, which is something that could happen anytime, even today?” It took him time to answer. I could see the struggle he was experiencing. When he was able to say “hell”, tears fell from his eyes. I then told him that I love him so much that’s why I do not want him to go to hell. I followed by saying that God does not want him to go to hell either that’s why He sacrificed himself at Calvary for him. I then told him that all he needed to do is to be truly sorry for all the times he was disobedient, first to God, and second, to us, and then ask Jesus to help him so that he will not go to hell. He then prayed on his own, without me telling him what to say. He was really in tears while he was doing all of these. The big difference between my past use of the Law in witnessing to my son with this incident was the time lapsed from the instance that my son offended one of God’s Commandments and the actual witnessing encounter. His disobedience of God was still fresh in his mind in this instance, whereas in the other times I witnessed to him, I talked about sins like lying and disrespect of parents in general.

From then on, I saw a distinct change in my son. One time, during one very hot afternoon, I asked him to take a bath because he was all sweaty and smelly already from all the play he did outside. I sensed that he wanted to continue playing. And then I said, “Son. Remember that in obeying daddy, you obey God, and that makes Him happy.” He then stood up, and I heard him ask our helper to remove his clothes because he will take a bath. There are still times that my son would show some disobedience. But every time we remind him about the need to make God happy, it was easier for him to try to obey.

A true convert who has repented realizes that its all about making God happy. He knows that although most of the time, obeying God will not be the most comfortable thing to do, he still obeys God because he knows that in the process, he would make his Creator very happy