Somali Christian

    “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6: 14-15)

      Azzam (Not his real name) is the son of a Somali Warlord and has served his father as a pirate. Some time ago Jesus appeared to him in a dream and on another occasion spoke to him and he saw a vision of a bloody cross on his bed. He took his mother to see the cross but she only told him that he must leave home immediately because his father would kill him. He fled to another village and was taken in by friends. A few days later a package was delivered to the house he was staying at. The deliveryman said that it was from his father. He opened the package to find the remains of his mother and a photo of his two brothers threateningly holding knives over her. The next day he took his mother’s remains and buried her at sea so that they would not be dug up and fed to the dogs by his father.

    Azzam became a Christian and started a house church in a village even father away. The first group of followers saw six of the new converts taken out of their houses and executed for being Christians. But Azzam remained their leader and they continued to grow into a group of twelve. Azzam knew that they needed Bibles and that there were people in Kenya, south of Somalia, who could provide used ones. The only problem was how to get them into the country. He came up with a plan. He would hide under the body of a dead person in a coffin being transported by truck to Kenya and then return the same way under another corpse with Bibles also.

    No Muslim would open a coffin to see what was in it although it was a long trip and sometimes two corpses would be in the coffin when it reached its destination. Assam was successful on his trip and when he met again with his house church with a Bible for each member, this is what he said: “The Bibles are well-worn. Our Kenyan brothers and sisters have read them for years. You should have seen their joy as they gave them to me. They send them with their love.” (Killing Christians by Tom Doyle, p10)

     There is more to Azzam’s story! At a later date he confronted his brothers who had murdered his mother on the street of their hometown. He told them that he had come to forgive them! He said: “ You need to know that I love you and have prayed for both of you ever since I saw your picture with my mother. Jesus filled my heart  with compassion for you. You need Him—just like I did. He can forgive murderers. His love is greater than anything you’ve done.” (ibid, p12)

    Imagine the surprise when he brought his two brothers to the next house church meeting and presented them as two new believers!

    Azzam is still living and telling people about Jesus in Somalia. It is a dangerous place still, but he knows that is what God has called him to do. He says,

   “The Horn of Africa is an evil place. Satan has a stronghold on families, government, education, and of course, Islam. The devil fights at every turn, but God has the upper hand in the way He uses any harm thrown at us by demonic powers. Patience is a spiritual fruit I have learned with difficulty but value deeply…..Through trials, God has taught me patience. Trials line up to test us. Just as we are finished with one, another is waiting for us. Remember us here in Somalia in your prayers. We send our love in Christ. (Ibid, pp15-16)

  “Therefore you must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please Him who enlisted him as a soldier. (2 Timothy 2:3-4)

PRAY:

1.     Lord please strengthen the persecuted Christians in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, China, North Korea, and Africa.

2.     Lord, help me to be faithful to tell others about You, even if I am rejected or made fun of. You are the only one I need to please.
3.Lord lead me this day to know you better, and to be more obedient to the things You are teaching me by Your Spirit and through Your Holy Scriptures.

Jeremiah, God's prophet

   “Then the word of the LORD came to me saying” ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.’ Then said I: ‘Ah Lord God! Behold I cannot speak, for I am a youth.’ But the LORD said to me: ‘Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’ For you shall go to all to whom I send you, And whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, For I am with you to deliver you.’ Says the LORD. (Jeremiah 1:1-8)

    Jeremiah was a prophet of God to the people of Judah for 40 years. He was obedient to the difficult mission that our Lord gave him; to preach to a people who would not listen to him. God gave him 52 chapters to write in the book of Jeremiah  and also 5 more in the book of Lamentations. His name, in Hebrew, means Yahweh Appoints or Sends and he was sent to preach to a nation under the judgment of God.

   He has been called the weeping prophet because what he prophesied for the nation of Judah was total destruction and captivity for a nation that had turned away from God and refused to repent and return to their Maker and Lord. The words he preaches in chapter 31 are especially moving and powerful, words that have the same need to be preached today:

    “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for me with all you heart.” (Jeremiah 29:11-13)

      “’Behold, the days are coming says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them,’ says the LORD.  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people……For I will  forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

   

     If you are a born again believer these words apply to you just as they did to the righteous remnant of Judah, thousands of years ago! Put your trust in Him and not your own wisdom or intelligence. He is our Creator, our Savior, our Master, and our King. Let’s now look at what God then tells Jeremiah and us through His prophet in the next verses.

      “Thus says the LORD who made it , the LORD who formed it to establish it (the LORD is His name): Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know. (Jeremiah 33:2-3)


    God has pardoned us of our sins if we have repented and accepted Jesus as our Lord. He tell us that “their sin I will remember no more,’ and “Call to Me, and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things.” Call to Him today! Thank Him for taking your sin away and remembering it no more.

"If we are in God's order the thing will go forward ; if we are not in His order, it won't." (Oswald Chambers, Conformed)

PRAY:

1.     Lord, thank you for reminding me that no matter what the difficult task, You are with me to carry me through the fiery trial or problem.

2.     Help me today to spend time with You in prayer and the study of Your Scriptures so that I may be prepared for the day ahead.
3. Lord, be with our nation as we struggle with all the problems we have brought upon ourselves by our disobedience to Your Commandments."

Prayer of Esther

   “Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!” (Esther 4:16, NKJV)

     I’m sure that almost everyone reading this knows the story of Esther. She was a Jewess living in Persia and had been brought up by her uncle Mordecai after her father and mother had died. When King Ahasuerus of Persia had put away his wife because she had disobeyed his command to come before his guests at a party, Esther had been selected by the King to be his new queen.  Uncle Mordecai had angered Haman, one of the important princes of the kingdom, and Haman had talked the king into killing, not only Mordecai, but all the Jews in the kingdom on a predetermined date.

      Mordecai then went to Esther and told her that perhaps she had been selected to be the queen for “such a time as this,’ and she had devised a plan to tell the king about this evil plot that Haman had devised. She was very clever in setting up a banquet for both the king and Haman and when the king was in a good mood she told the king that she was a Jewess and that the evil Haman wanted her and all the Jews killed. He wanted revenge upon Mordecai and the entire Jewish nation so he could get all their wealth.

    The king had Haman and his family hanged on the gallows that Haman had prepared for Mordecai and the Jews throughout the kingdom were given the right to defend themselves against those who came to destroy them. They were ready and scored a great victory over those who tried to kill them. Mordecai was elevated to a position of great power and authority and the Jewish people celebrate this miracle of salvation today in the Feast of Purim.

  

   Each of us has his or her own story. We are not queens or kings but God has placed us in a job, a family, a school, a church, or town. He has placed us there for a reason and He has prepared us, and is still preparing us, for something that is part of His plan.  In the coming days He has called us to be salt and light wherever we live and work. He has prepared us for “such a time as this’ and we need to fulfill the role He has assigned to us. This week let us lift up prayer those in roles of leadership of our churches, communities, cities, states, and nation.

Pray:

1.     Let us be faithful to lift up the leaders of our country prayer daily as they seek to guide our country down the paths it should go both domestically and internationally.

2.     That Your name will be lifted up and glorified by everything we do.

Modern Sodom and Gomorrah

  

    “Then the LORD rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the LORD of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.” (Genesis 19:24-25)

    I suspect that every time we have read or heard a sermon about Sodom and Gomorrah, we have thought about why it is that has never happened again in history. We might be surprised to know that it is entirely possible that it has happened! There are many indications that the city of Pompeii, destroyed by the volcano Vesuvius in AD 80, was every bit as wicked and perverse as Sodom. But, we have an even more recent example of the island of Martinique in the Caribbean Sea in 1902.

   Martinique was a party place for the rich of Europe during the Easter season of 1902 and as many as 12 big ships were docked there to celebrate, not Easter, but Mardi Gras and all the wickedness that came with it. Two Canadian evangelists came also and the port authorities denied them permission to disembark from the boat they came on. All the Christians in the town had been ordered to leave or had left on their own so that they would not be around to interfere with the festivities. The people in the city were given over to drunkenness and gross immorality with open blasphemy and ridicule against anything religious. A pig was sacrificed on Good Friday in the main cathedral by those who had to do more than just curse God and His church.

   Shortly after this incident, the volcano Pellee made a loud noise and started belching smoke. It had erupted twice before in minor eruptions in 1763 and1851. Scientists were dispatched to the volcano and came back telling the people not to worry. The volcano was cooling off. Three days later when the boat carrying the 2 Canadian evangelist set sail and had just cleared the 3-mile mark, God answered in judgment, and the whole side of the mountain blew out! In 60 seconds the entire town was covered with glowing ash and rock and every person in the city but two were killed. Every boat still in the harbor was burned down to the water line. The only two people in the city who survived were in the deepest dungeon of the city jail, and one was a preacher!

    But as Paul Harvey used to say: “Now the rest of the story!” There was a traveling preacher, John Hartman, who was supposed to be in Martinique that day as he made his usual rounds to various islands. The Christians in the town had left a message for him at the dock that they were leaving town due to the immoral festivities and that they hoped to be back the next time he returned. Mr. Hartman’s wife had told him that she didn’t want him to go this time even though she had never once before  asked him to stay. He did not go. The boat he would have been on burned and sank with all aboard that day. Later the Christians when they returned to Martinique were sure that he had died and were very sad. But their sadness turned to joy when he was able to reunite with them a few months later and tell them of God’s wonderful intervention on his behalf. (Life’s Ultimate Privilege by DeVern Fromke, pp.81-86)

     God is a loving God but He is also a God of judgment. He has provided a way of salvation for everyone who calls upon His name but He reserves eternal separation from God to all who reject His free gift. He even, on occasion, as shown by what happened on Martinique, acts to speed up the process. Don’t be left out! Be one of the people who have a personal relationship with Jesus and knows that Jesus loves you and wants you to be in heaven with Him for eternity.

  “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scriptures says, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’” (Romans 10:9-11)

Pray:

1.     Lord, thank you that You have saved me by Your death on the cross. Fill me with Your Spirit and allow me to live each and every day to bring glory to You.

2.     Lord, help me to keep my priorities straight. You are my first love! You are my Master and my King! You are Who I need to spend time with every day in prayer and the reading of Your Word.

Lord, thank you for saving me! You have taken me out of the "miry clay and set my feet on solid ground!"

House of prayer

  

“Even them I will bring to My holy mountain, And make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices Will be accepted on My altar; For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” (Isaiah 56:7, NKJV)

     When Jesus cleansed the temple, as told in Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Luke19, He quoted these words of Isaiah and said: “’Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.’ But you have made it a den of thieves.’” (Mark 11:17, NKJV) 

    Based on these words from the bible, what do you thing is the main purpose of God’s church? Is it Sunday preaching, bible study, youth activities, Vacation Bible School, AWANA, choir, or short-term missions. Well, of course, all of those are good things that we should be involved in; but what must be the primary purpose of gathering in God’s meeting place we call a church? Yes, we know because we just read what Jesus said about it! It is prayer! Oswald Chambers, says that “Prayer does not fit us for greater works, prayer is the greater work.” (Utmost for His Highest)

    So this week, let us spend our time praying in our church, and one of the main things we can keep in mind is that this is the primary mission of our church. It is a duty we should embrace with boldness and excitement. As we pray for ourselves and the other members or our body, let us do so with joy and faithfulness because God has given us the privilege of coming “boldly to the throne of grace.” (Hebrews 4:16)

   

Pray:

1.     Lord, we ask for You to give us a spirit of unity as we raise our voices in prayer to you this coming week.

2.     Lord, help us to be faithful daily as we meet together or alone to bring our petitions to You, our Rock, and our Redeemer.

3.     Give us a desire to lift up others in our congregation who are going through trials and difficulties and help us to look for ways to minister to them.

Crazy Love

   

"'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?' Jesus replied, 'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all you soul. and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" (Matthew 22: 36-39)

“In His book Crazy Love, Francis Chan invites us to invite God to help us love Him more.

      If you merely pretend that you enjoy God or love Him, He knows. You can’t fool Him: don’t even try.

    Instead, tell Him how you feel. Tell Him that He isn’t the most important thing in this life to you, and that you are sorry for that. Tell Him that you have become lukewarm, that you have chosen_____________________ over Him time and time again. Tell Him that you want Him to change you, that you long to genuinely enjoy Him. Tell Him how you want to experience true satisfaction and pleasure and joy in your relationship with Him. Tell Him you want to love Him more than anything on this earth. Tell Him you want to treasure the kingdom of heaven so much that you’d willingly sell everything in order to get it. Tell Him what you like about Him, what you appreciate, and what brings you joy.

    Jesus, I need to give myself up. I am not strong enough to love You and walk with you on my own. I can’t do it, and I need You. I need You deeply and desperately. I believe You are worth it, that You are better than anything else I could have in this life or the next. I want You. And when I don’t, I want to want You. Be all in me. Have Your way with me.” (At the Feet of Jesus by Joanna Weaver, p. 32)

 What are you waiting for? Jesus told us, "And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly,  say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in My name He will give you. Until no you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full." (John 16:23-24) 

Pray:

1. God give me an undivided heart.

2. Lord I need You desperately and I believe You are better than anything else I could have in this life or the next.

3. Have your way with me and show me what I have in my life that is hindering my relationship with You.