Day 3 Mission to Minister to the Persecuted Church
Schedule Travel from Chennai, India to Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Time: Depart October 16 at 1:25 am CDT arrive Oct 16 3:40 am CDT (2:10 PM India)
Our Mission Is To Proclaim The Message Of The Gospel and Let It Work
A recent trend in technology is the development of machines to do things for us. There are already machines to help us do things faster or more efficiently, like food processors or calculators. Th dvelopments I’m thinking of are significantly more advanced than that. For example, some cars have the ability to parallel park the car for you. An even bigger leap in technology is self-driving cars. They’re testing prototypes and plan to have them for sale in a few years. I wonder if we will be able to send our cars on errands without us? You know, like going to the drive thru at Starbucks?
There’s an aspect of our task as Christians in doing the work of God that is way ahead of technology. From the eginning of the Church, our role has been to proclaim the Gospel and then let it work in people’s lives. We see an example of this in Paul’s first missionary journey. The second stop in the journey wa at a place called Atnioch in Pisidia. They visited the synagogue and Paul was given an opportunity to speak a word of encouragment. In Acts 13:16-41 Paul spoke. He gave a clear explanation of the Gospel. This is how Luke records the different reactions people had to it.
“And as they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath. And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who as they spoke to them, urged them to continue in the grace of God. The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him.”
From this we can see three different ways the Gospel has the power to change lives.
3 Ways The Gospel Has Power to Change People’s Lives
- It has the power to stiru up intterest.
- It has the power to change lives.
- It has the power to stir up opposition.
We don’t know how people are going to react to the Gospel. In fact, how they react isn’t in any way up to us. It’s easy for us to fall into the tap of thhinking that success in our work for the Lord is dependent upon us. That’s true only as it relates to us faithfully proclaiming the message. True success will only happen as God works through the message of the Gospel. It is the Word of God that is living and has power Hebrews 4:12. faith comes about when people hear the Gospel message Romans 10:17. Rejection and opposition also come from hearing the Gospel.
Today let us look for opportunities to be messengers of the Word and then pray that God uses it to work in people’s lives.
I’d love to hear from you. Please leave questions or coments below.
Prayer requests for me and Caleb:
- Thank the Lord with us for a safe trip to Port Blair in the Andaman Islands.
- Pray for continued good health and adjustment to the time change, 10 1/2 hours ahead of Chicago.
- Pray for God’s healing of Pastor Raja and Sheeba who both have colds. They will be traveling with us and ministering to many peple and need strength and good health.
- Pray for a fruitful time of encouraging ministry as we visit Love Children Hom Orphanage tomorrow.
- Pray for our wives, Margaret and Emily, while we are away, for God’s blessing and protection upon them and all they do.
