6.13.09 p.m.-
update- just learned that there are now 6 instead of 8 going to dearborn. one man fell off a ladder and will be out of work a number of weeks, another was in a headon collision.
please pray -
-for at these two men as they recover that they will be filled with the joy of the Lord
-that God will put a prayer burden on us
-that we may be taught of the Lord as we go through training
-that the Holy Spirit would lead as to who we talk with and how we interact with each one
-Lord, draw to dearborn those You have prepared!!!
God bless you and thank you for your prayer.
george saieg, a converted muslim who is now a pastor in california has been given a vision to evangelize muslims. he and some others are coming to dearborn, michigan for the arab festival, a giant 3-day block party yet family-oriented (it's over father's day) type of thing that celebrates the muslim culture. it is said to attract over 300,000 muslims from the united states and canada for the largest yearly gathering of muslims in the united states at this time.
8 men (including joe domico, frederick gogel, matt mcclosky,charles neusch, jesse padua, stephen paine,and gustavo solis), headed up by denny barger, who has a ministry to arab christians called dreamsalive, will be going out to join pastor saieg and his group.
i understand that there is a witness for Christ there by some churches and organizations. our group, as i understand it, will not have a booth but will be out in the crowds evangelizing. again, as i understand it at this time, we will be sharing the gospel and handing out Jesus dvd's. EXCITING!
tomorrow, 6.12, we will be fasting in preparation. sunday night, 6.14, the 8 of us hope to meet at a church service in thorofare, new jersey. our flight is scheduled to leave philadelphia tuesday afternoon, 6.16. the first several days there will be training and prayer in preparation for the festival which takes place friday 6.19, i believe, from about 5 to 11 pm, then saturday and sunday from noon to 11 pm. we plan to fly back monday a.m. 6.22.09. our prayer is that as God may bring this to mind you would be led to pray with us for this mission.
PRAYER NEEDS:
1. give me/us Your VISION of the crying spiritual need , the tremendous spiritual opportunity surrounding me/us each moment of each day. joel 3.14 'multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision' john 4.35-8 'do you not say, 'there are yet four months and then comes the harvest'? behold, I say to you LIFT UP YOUR EYES AND LOOK on the fields, that they are white for harvest. already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. for in this case the saying is true, 'one sows and another reaps'. I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.'
2. help me/us constantly REST in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross for me/us. ephesians 2.4-6 'but God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, MADE us alive together with Christ..and RAISED us up with Him and SEATED us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus'.
3. fill my/our heart with the LOVE of Jesus! matthew 9.36 'seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and thrown down like sheep without a shepherd.
4. grant me/us an OPEN DOOR to share the love of Jesus! I corinthians 16.9 'for a wide door for effective service has opened to me and there are many adversaries'. colossians 4.2-3 'DEVOTE yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving, praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ..'
5. grant me/us BOLDNESS of speech ephesians 6.19 'and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel'
6. grant me/us CLARITY of understanding in proclaiming and defending the gospel colossians 4.4 '..that i may make it clear in the way i ought to speak.
7. enable me/us to STAND in the victory Christ has won II corinthians 2.14-16 'but thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. for we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. and who is adequate for these things?'
8. OPEN HEARTS to believe You, Lord! acts 16.14 'a woman named lydia..was listening and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul'.
9. may each JESUS DVD i/we hand out be seen by and sown in many more hearts than just the one who receives it II thessalonians 3.1 ..pray for us that the word of the Lord will run and be glorified'.
10. may many HUNGER AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS matthew 5.6 'blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satified'.
11. give us TEAM UNITY psalm 133.1 'behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity'. philippians 1.27 'only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether i come and see you or remain absent, i may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel..'
12. guide our LOGISTICS and ORGANIZATION I corinthians 14.40 'but all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner'.
13. give me/us grace to have a GOOD AUDIENCE AT THE MOSQUE lk. 2.52 'and Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man'.
14. give me/us good relations with LAW ENFORCEMENT acts 19.36-7 '..you ought to keep calm and to do nothing rash. for you have brought these men here who are neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of our goddess'.
15. grant me/us SAFETY psalm 91 'he that dwelleth in the secret place of the tabernacle of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. i will say of the Lord, 'He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Him will i trust'. surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with His feathers and under His wings shalt thou trust. His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flieth by day, nor of the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor of the destruction that wasteth at noonday. a thousand shall fall at thy side and 10,000 at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee. only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation there shall no evil befall thee. neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. for He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. they shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou strike thy foot against a stone. thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder. the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under foot. because he has set his love upon Me therefore will i deliver him. i will set him on high because he has known My name. he shall call upon Me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. with long life will I satisfy him and show him My salvation.'
16. grant Holy Spirit led, local ministry/individual FOLLOW UPS on each person whose heart You will be touching there and beyond matthew 28.19-20 'MAKE DISCIPLES..baptizing them..teaching them to observe all that I commanded you..'
17. give Your Church around the world over to Your command to GO OUT AND INVITE AND COMPEL , by the love of Christ and the proclamation of His gospel, muslims to come to Your feast matthew 22.8-9 ' then He said to his slaves, 'the wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. GO therefore to the main highways and as many as you find there, INVITE to the wedding feast'. luke 14.23 'and the master said to the slave, 'GO OUT into the highways and along the hedges and COMPEL them to come in, that my house may be filled'.
18. bring in ABUNDANT spiritual FRUIT through me/us to Your glory amos 9.13-4 'behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows seed; when the mountains will drip sweet wine and all the hills will be dissolved..I will restore the captivity of My people israel'. romans 2.28-9 'he is not a jew who is one outwardly..but he is a jew who is one inwardly..of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter..'
in anticipation of dearborn i have been meditating a bit on spiritual warfare, as shown in ephesians 6.10-20, over the last few weeks.
the key verses for me are 10,11. 10 says 'be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might'. unless i am constantly looking to and depending on the Lord i am going to get blindsided. i can do nothing apart from Him.
11,expanding on this idea, says 'put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil'. strong's concordance says that 'put on' literally means 'sink into'. that was a help to me because, while i could form a mental picture of a bunch of armor with different name tags on each piece, i could never make much sense of the whole picture from a spiritual point of view. what did it all really mean? but i can relate to 'sink into'. it speaks to me of support and rest and, in a different way, identification with -if you will - oneness with something.
what are the pieces of armor?
1. TRUTH or reality..Jesus is the truth
2.RIGHTEOUSNESS..some commentators say the perfect, unchanging righteousness of Christ, others seem to make somewhat a case in my mind for our own righteousness for how can our heart be protected from attack when we are living in known sin? i came down on weighing the former idea heavy but not totally discounting the latter idea of righteousness. we all know however that for anything good we do... ALL the credit ultimately belongs to the Lord.
3. THE GOSPEL..the good news that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead to confirm that He has the power to not only forgive our sins but give us the gift of eternal life.
4. FAITH or trust in Him.
5. SALVATION or His deliverance from sin and death.
6. WORD OF GOD there are two words for 'word'. one has to do with the ideas that words explain (logos) and the other (rama) has to do with the actual utterance of the words. here the second word for 'word' is used so it pictures us speaking or uttering what God has spoken in the Bible.
7. PRAYER is not pictured as a piece of armor, but appears to be inseparable from it.
so if that's true and if what i reported above about the word 'put on' is true then this seems to say that i am to rest in, draw support from or identify with TRUTH, RIGHTEOUSNESS, THE GOSPEL, FAITH, SALVATION, THE BIBLE, PRAYER. when i look at these 7 words they all speak to me of Christ. objectively He is truth, righteousness, the good news, salvation, the living word which the written word reveals. subjectively He is the only focus of my faith and prayer. i am to rest in what He accomplished on the cross for me, draw support from the multitude of His promises and unchanging nature, identify myself completely with His righteous cause...i am to 'sink into' Him and lose my life to gain His.
in plain english then i need to be in Christ, to know Him as my Lord and Savior and walk with Him and talk to Him through each day and be ready to see Him in heaven at a moment's notice...i need to be girded with His reality!
i need to constantly remember and never forget who i am apart from His work on the cross..unbelievably wicked and yet (!) see that He, unbelievably, has covered my many treacherous and wicked ways with His perfect righteousness so that God may account me righteous being wicked!!! my heart is protected by His righteousness. as i work out my salvation He draws me to imitate His righteousness.
wherever i am i need to continually proclaim the gospel that is working to reconcile wicked men to a holy God.
i need to completely give up trying to deliver myself and take care of myself and entrust all that to Him.
i need to be filled with and overflow with the utterance of God's word wherever i am.
i need to pray without ceasing knowing that without His help i am doomed to fail at every turn. may God lead us all to continually rest in His completed work, walk with Him in His righteousness and stand with Him in victory against all that opposes Him!
well thanks for listening to me blather for a few minutes here and thanks in advance for any prayer God inspires you to breathe for this mission. eternity will show all.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment