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| Esther Wrote: Dear belove in christ, merry christmas.I greet you with christian love that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.My name is Mrs.Esther U.Osagie a mother of three children{Nosa 19yrs,Kingsley 16yrs,and Efe 14yrs}.I became a believer in the yaer 1995.My husband name is Osagie he died in an inter-tribal clash in ABUDU village in 1993. Don Wrote: Hello Esther, We are putting your WRAP up with the hopes that the Lord Jesus will speak to the hearts of His children and impress them to meet your needs. For anyone who might be so inclined, the following might be helpful. I did check to see what it would cost to send 10 pounds of Bibles to Nigeria from where we live. It cost a little over forty dollars for air mail (a week to 10 days to deliver) and a little over thirty dollars to go by ship (4 to 6 weeks to deliver). Also, Esther is seeking large print, King James Version study Bibles...which is a good choice. The references and footnotes in the Scofield Bible or the Thompson Chain Bible make them a good choice. If anyone has experience in shipping church related materials to other countries, and knows of a less expensive means, please let us know. All we ask is that you seek the mind of the Lord and be obedient to His Spirit. We know that if we all do this, that God will bless and our efforts will be fruitful. Maranatha, Don TO OUR VISITING FOREIGN MISSIONARIES: For Esther and the many like her who have the call of Christ on their lives but are unable to acquire a good study Bible--which, too me, is a NEED--let me point out that the Bible study aids on our site are excellent. I know the joy of having your first "very own" Bible in hand--as I'm sure that many of our visitors do; however, if you are able to read this, then you are also able to use the study Bibles and dictionaries on our site. (I'm aware that this is probably not the case for the inmates in your prisons.) If you are using our home page with the treasure chest full of Bible Study Aids, click on that and take time to learn how to use them. They are not that difficult, and they will take you through the Bible with "space-age" speed. However, if you have problems, E-mail me. If you are using our home page that has "CLICK HERE TO VISIT SOME OF OUR FAVORITE SITES," then click there and choose the BLUE LETTER BIBLE and the BIBLE GATEWAY on the page that comes up. I'm sure that you understand that the most expensive Bible in the world, of itself, is useless. It can only be understood as it is illuminated by the Holy Spirit.
So, whatever method you use to study the Bible, please do so consciously relying upon the Holy Spirit to be your Teacher. Also, it is helpful to be aware that much of our "religious understanding" may not have any Scriptural foundation and can actually be a hindrance--if we are studying the Bible trying to make it line up with what we have heard/been taught. My personal approach to the Bible, and life, emulates that of King David: "Search me, Oh Lord, and see if there be any evil way in me," and I add to that, "...be it something that I've conjured up or something that's been passed on to me by others, no matter how well-meaning they may have been." FOR THE CHURCH: Church, let's not forget to pray for one another. This is the Lord's will for us and it opens doors that otherwise may never be opened. Join with us--NO! JOIN WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT, and pray for Esther and all in the world who are willing to stand up wherever they are and make a difference for/with Christ. Maranatha, Don |
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YOU WROTE:
"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for men."(Col.3: 23) "JESUS IS COMING SOON" Brothers/Sisters & Family, (Peace to you) DON WROTE: Church, please hold the believers in Pakistan and all Muslim oriented nations in your prayers; and as you do, do not forget to thank Him that when we in the U.S. take our family to church, getting them all home in one piece is not on our mind. |
| Razia Wrote: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for men."(Col.3: 23) "JESUS IS COMING SOON" Brother Don & Family, (Peace to you) Don Wrote: Dear Razia, We are praying with you for the people of your land. As to our coming to Pakistan, at present, the Lord is not leading that way. However, He is leading us to pray that He will raise up people from your midst and prepare them to teach and lead the new converts into His ways. If we were to come to your land, this would be the message that we would bring to you: that is, you do not need some great man of faith to come minister to you for THERE ARE NO GREAT MEN of faith in the Lord's eyes. (The most effective way to serve your people would be for someone that is already there to become a very good Bible teacher. Since the local people already know your language and culture, they could be most effective.) True, God can use men of faith in great ways; but remember, Christ is the author and finisher of our faith and the faith that he places in us is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Contrary to what many teach, our faith does not grow as a muscle because we use it. The Bible teaches that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God--and Who is the Word of God but Christ Jesus Himself. We can grow in faith, but we cannot make our faith grow. For everyone who will be obedient to God in what He wants done, the Holy Spirit will give us the faith we need for the task. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit is given to those who obey Him. So, if one wants more faith, he only needs to be obedient to God's will as it is revealed. The fallacy of holding up certain leaders in the church as though they were something special is not only unscriptural, being a form of idol worship, but it is damaging to the faith of the church, as well, for the newer converts find themselves intimidated by the leaders--always looking to them to do the Lord's works rather than entering into the Lord's harvest for themselves. In the New Testament the early disciples were continually being confronted with people trying to idolize them because of what God was doing. For example, in the fourteenth chapter of Acts, Paul and Barnabas were ministering when the Lord healed a cripple man's feet. The people, who were ignorant of God and His ways, tried to worship them, saying that Paul and Barnabas were gods. The following is the disciples response to the people: "Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out, And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein" (Acts 14:15). Reactions such as this were the response of all of the early disciples when met with similar circumstances. If is unfortunate that the church speaks of Peter and John and Paul and the rest of the first disciples with awe, for the disciples knew that of themselves, they were nothing special. True, God used them in awesome ways and because they were the first disciples, their position was honored in special ways; but all the good that was accomplished in their ministries was of the Lord, not of themselves; and they would be the first to tell you so. In fact, if it had not been for the giving of the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room, they would have been powerless and there would be no Church. The goal of your own ministry should be that everyone become Bible scholars so that they can share the Word every day of the week. Ideally, there should be disciples in all stages of spiritual growth in a congregation; and it should be understood and expected of those who are on the sincere milk of the Word that they should go on into the meat of the Word. There should never be a shortage of those who understand the Word of God and are able to minister it to others. To "idolize" some teacher/minister as though he were something special and no one else could attain his or her greatness tends to abort the growth process of a fellowship of believers. This has been a great error in the Churches in the U.S. and because of it, the rank and file of the Church denominations in America have experience arrested spiritual growth and few are soul winners. The New Testament is full of Scripture explaining that the Spirit of Christ dwells within the believer. Consequently, what any growing church needs is not charismatic leaders to put on a pedestal, but men and women who will have faith in Christ Jesus and be careful not to quench or to grieve the Holy Spirit. It is true that the believers are admonished to honor those who fill the positions of leadership in the church in love and to reverence their position--but the position is special, not the people who fill it. If they do a good job of filling it, then they are obedient and for that obedience we are to be thankful. But who knows which babe-in-Christ will one day also fill that position and do so just as successfully and graciously. It is as you say in the heading of your E mails: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for men" (Col.3: 23). If every believer will do this and admonish others to do the same, then all of the needs of the body and the ministry will be met; and no one will fall short in any good work. We would love to meet you personally and fellowship with your congregations, but that pleasure may be reserved for the life to come. In the meantime, we can prayer one for another that God will bless us and use us and touch all that we do; for if He does not, then we have accomplished nothing. But because He has promised to use us and to bless our obedience and faithfulness, we can know that our labors in the Lord are not in vain . While I am writing you, let me address one more subject: i.e., martyrdom and the Church of the Lord Jesus. If the Lord Jesus is coming soon, as I believe that He will, then there must be many martyrs in the Church, for that is prophesied. (As we have already mentioned in other WRAPs, that martyrdom is already with us and in great numbers in certain parts of the world.) However, there is a great difference between the believer who becomes a martyr for Christ because of his or her faith and the homicide/suicide bombers of the Muslim faith. For beginners, let me say that the born-again Christian loves life and values it highly; and not just his own life, but the life of everyone that God has "made in His image." In addition, the Christian believes that each life should be a good life, filled with all of the good things that God has made for man to enjoy. Jesus put it this way: "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). Born-again believers have compassion for those whose lot in life are less fortunate than theirs and are willing to share what they have with those in poverty, for this was the heart of the Lord Jesus and this is the fruit of those belonging to Him. Also, it is expected of the leaders in Christian nations that they reflect the golden rule given by Jesus: i.e., Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It is not in the Christian's thought processes to kill himself for someone or some belief--and it is especially not in his heart to murder or maim another person. True, as Jesus said, the greatest love that a man can have is to lay down his life for another; but He was referring to someone who was willing to put his/her life at risk to save the life of another. The reason that this reflects the greatest love possible for Christians is the fact that Christians value life so dearly. The Muslim outlook on life is just the opposite. One needs only to look at the evening's news on TV to understand that they put little value on life, including their own. They expect abject poverty and cruelty for this has been their lot for centuries and it is perpetuated by their leaders who, by the way, seem to always have plenty for themselves. Someone has put it like this: a major difference between Christians and Muslims is that the Muslims raise their sons (and daughters) to believe that they should kill themselves for Allah (their version of God) while Christians raise their children to believe that God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son, born of a virgin, to die the awful death of the cross so that we might live. (Suicide always comes about because one feels that all hope is gone. HOW SAD TO LIVE A LIFE WITH NO HOPE! Christ is our eternal Hope; so, we who are born again believers will promote life because we have this Hope.) So what is the main difference between a Christian Martyr and a Muslim suicide/homicide bomber? A Christian may become a martyr (i.e., die for his faith) while trying to bring the Good News that "Jesus saves" to the lost so that they might have eternal life in the life to come and a more abundant life down here. But he does not choose to die! If he does die it will be because people filled with hate will kill him. (Jesus died such a death on the Cross and His response was, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.") On the other hand, Muslims are taught by those with the rule over them that it is glorious to kill oneself and to destroy and/or main the lives of as many as possible in the doing. Perhaps the difference between the two can best be understood if we look at the purpose/goal of the two. The goal of the Christian Martyrs who were killed because of their service to Jesus and to mankind was to bring peace into the hearts of their fellow human beings. The goal of the Muslim homicide/suicide bomber is to bring terror! WHY AM I BRINGING UP THE SUBJECT OF MARTYRS AND HOMICIDE/SUICIDE BOMBERS? Well, it's possible that some of you reading this WRAP may become a Christian martyr or some of you may be contemplating killing yourself and others as you have been taught by some authority figures in your life. For those of you who may become a martyr because of your love for people, consider the following that happened to the Martyr Stephen.
God is no respecter of persons. He was with Stephen in a special way at this time, and you can expect Him to be with you as well. For those of you contemplating killing yourself and others because of what your religion/society has taught you, let me ask you: is what you believe RIGHT because you were taught it by your family and religious leaders? If so, then everyone who has been taught some religious belief by his/her parents is also right--WHICH MAKES EVERYONE WRONG who takes such an approach, for they all teach that there can be only one RIGHT. But proving RIGHT or WRONG is not my purpose. My concern is that you look way down deep inside yourself--past all of the chanting and confusion and hatred that has been put upon you--and ask yourself, do I really want to hurt another and kill my self! For you see, I'm convinced that if you will look deep enough, you will find a God-given goodness that tells you to love your neighbor, not to murder him. And if you do find that God has placed such a goodness in your heart, then these Scripture are for you.
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MAUREEN WROTE: Question: DON WROTE: Hello Maureen, Thanks for WRAPPING with us. I can understand your fascination with prophecy, for what an awesome God our Creator is--knowing the end from the beginning. This is hard for us to fathom, but not hard to believe if we'll just consider all the trees, and bees, and everything that we see--and the infinite things that we can't see. Thinking along these lines brings to mind Larrie Crosby, my good friend and the drummer of the rock group I used to play with when I was much younger. [To see a memorial site of our old group that was put up in memory of my younger brother Bob, click on the MEMORIES button on our site.] One night, Larrie and I were laying on the beach with our beer in hand, looking at the ocean, the sky and its moon, and contemplating upon the magnificence of God. "He has to be big," I would say, "Just think about it. The space that He occupies, no matter how big it is, He can always double it; for who is there to tell Him He can't? He's got to be boundless!" Not to be outdone, Larrie would say, "That's true, alright; but that's not all. To me, no matter how small something is, God can always cut it in half." (By the way, Larrie is still making music; and I'm still expecting God to use him an a beautiful way.) I'm not recommending drinking and talking to God, this all took place before I surrendered my life to Him. I guess I'm saying all this to make a couple of points: that is, not only is our infinite God awesome in being and magnificent in creation, but He is also wondrous in mercy, saving even the vilest sinner that will come to Him--myself being a perfect example. But enough rambling, let me get back now to your WRAP. As I was saying, I understand your fascination with prophecy; for not only is it an interesting topic, but it is very timely, as well--so much of it being fulfilled right before our eyes. Nevertheless, as I read the Scriptures, I don't think that we're to let the prophetic Word absorb our minds and lives. To me, prophecy should be put in its proper place. We should let it open our eyes to the times and alert us to what is yet to come; but more importantly, we should let it stir up in us a zeal to do all that we can to answer the Great Commission of going into all the world with the "Good News" that "Jesus Saves." And let me qualify what I mean when I say "go into all the world." As I read the Scriptures, we "go into all the world" by beginning where we are. Think about it! If we are unfruitful in our own backyard, what difference can we expect to make if we go overseas? Each of us has a "circle of influence": i.e., our family, friends, and acquaintances. If we buy into the mentality of most of today's churches, then we will be looking to the hired workers in our church to evangelize those who are near and dear to us. Statistics tell us this isn't happening; and with the present mindset in most churches, our friends and loved ones have a better chance of winning the lottery than they do of being reached for Christ! It is up to you and I to make the difference in their lives; in fact, that is what each of us are called to do. So, to answer your question: I do not know of any specific denomination that studies prophecy more than any other. In fact, you will probably find that prophecy from the pulpit will vary with each individual pastor more so than with the differing denominations. However, let me suggest that you might get more from your church attendance if you look for a warm fellowship that cares for people--and not just in word, but in deed, for I'm sure that this is the kind of Christian that you want to be. I might also suggest that you find a pastor that is concerned that you become all that you can be in Christ Jesus. You can determine this by examining the fruit of the church in consideration. Do the members have Bible studies in their homes? Do the Sunday School classes have missionaries that they have "adopted" and support? In short, are they reaching out to the lost and needy? These guidelines are good to keep in mind as you look for a church, but most importantly, you need to seek the mind of the Lord in the matter and be led by His Spirit to the church that He chooses. If you do this, I'm sure that you will see that the church He leads you to will meet the guidelines just mentioned. Prophecy has a work to do; and it sounds to me like it has already done its work in you. You are expecting Jesus to return at any moment and understand that the fearful things on every hand have been prophesied. This should bring you peace and, as I've said, should quicken your spirit to want to reach out to those who do not know your Savior. I hope this answers your question and I hope that you will answer the Lord's call to help Him "seek and save the lost." True, we live in exciting times, but they can be even more exciting if we will let Jesus guide our steps as we walk through them. |
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