A YOUNG BOY'S FAITH

For the past several years Ruth and I have been planting churches in Kenya, East Africa on the Ugandan border.  We have four healthy, growing churches and are in the process of purchasing the land for the fifth.  Since the land plus a building runs less than $4000.00 US were are able to finance them without much help.

We have been praying for others to come along side and we see evidence of that happening lately.

The following story gives us a lot of encouragement.

A youth pastor from a church near us went to Tanzania about 10 years ago on a mission trip and has shared his pictures and story with his family over the years.  A couple of weeks ago his four year old son came to him and told him, "Dad, I want to start a church in Africa."  His Dad told the boy to get a jar and start putting money into the jar to save for a church thinking that probably would put an end to his dream. But, the boy has been praying every night for his church in Africa and has been quite emphatic about this church.

The father decided to make a video and put it on You-tube. 

Someone sent the boy $100.00. 

A week or so ago the church had a conference and they had a special speaker fly in.  The youth pastor had to go to the airport and pick him up and the young boy wanted to ride along.  On the way home the young boy told the guest speaker of his dream to build a church in Africa.

During the conference the guest speaker asked the boy if he would address the audience with his vision.  The guest speaker told the boy that the Lord had spoken to him after the boy told his story in the car and told him to give him $1000.00 toward this church.

They had a table in the auditorium with a flag of Africa on it.  By the end of the meeting there was $3500.00 in cash on that table.

Since then another $500.00 has come in for his church.

The youth pastor had no idea of how to implement this dream until someone told him about Ruth and I and our African project.  Hopefully, we will soon have an African church that is the fulfillment of a four year old boy’s dream.

The father wants this church planting project to be a testimony to show people what God can do through the faith of a four year old boy.

I love to tel the story

I can still remember singing this song as a youngster in Sunday school.  "I love to tell the story, of Jesus and His love."  I think that we sang that song every Sunday. The only catch was that I didn't have a story to tell, but now, Praise God I, have a story to tell and I never get tired of telling the following one.  I posted this story sometime back but I love it more each time I tell it.
Back in the 1700's in France a young teenager by the name of Blaise Pascal fell in love with Jesus and gave his live to the creator of the Universe.

He was a genius in many fields including mathematics and science.  When you study mathematics in college you run across his name and his discoveries over and over.  He is credited with being the discoverer of hydraulics plus other scientific principals.
I run across people who think that only the nominally intelligent folks embrace Christianity but the geniuses are too smart for that faith stuff. Well, here is an example of a genius who is still revered after a couple hundred years and was a real Christian.

One day one of Pascal's colleagues had a discussion with Mr. Pascal.  Pascal opened the discussion with this question, "What do you think will happen to you after you die?"  The man answered, "Since I am an atheist and don't believe in any kind of God, I believe that I will cease to exist."  Pascal's next question was, "What do you think will happen to me when I die?"  The man answered, "You too will cease to exist."

The man then asked Pascal this question. "What do you think will happen to you when you die?"  Pascal's answer was, "Since I am a Christian, I believe that I will spend eternity with Jesus in what the Bible calls Heaven."  His next question was obvious, "What do you think will happen to me when I die?" Pascal answers, "By your own admission, you don't believe in God so you will spend eternity suffering the torments of what the Bible calls Hell."

Pascal now sums up the discussion by saying. " Here is how I see end result of this discussion.  You believe that after we die, we will cease to exist.  I believe that after we die, you will spend eternity in Hell while I will be spending eternity in Heaven.  As I see it, you can't win, and I can't lose."

Praise the Lord, if we are trusting in Jesus for our future, we can lose.

It behooves  everyone to get their future settled before it is too late.  Are you one of the ones who can't win?

He is praying for US

About a year ago Ruth and I were sitting in a church while visiting our kids listening to a preacher who was trying to impress someone with his wisdom while expounding on John chapter 17.

He said that Jesus never prayed for the lost of the world, he only prayed for his own, meaning his disciples and his followers.  He was using this text to justify his next statement which said that in his church, “We only pray for our own people, we don’t pray for those outside our church.”

After asking a few questions I found out that his church supports no missionaries and places little effort in reaching those outside of his church.

I have been wrestling with that arrogant statement ever since hearing it.  I am wondering if he echoes the maintenance philosophy of most of our modern day evangellyfish churches whose main focus is to preserve their little “Bless me club.”

If you read Jesus’ prayer in John 17 you will discover that indeed Jesus didn’t say to pray for the lost.  Instead, he told his disciples, we are included in that audience, to pray for the church.  As Jesus looks at the lost, harassed, and helpless multitudes, his concern isn’t that these lost people remain in their hopeless state.  Instead, his concern was that his followers and ultimately his church WOULD NOT GO to the lost world.

Listen to the words of Jesus in John 17:18 as Jesus petitions his father, “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.”

Ironically, that pastor was right in believing that Jesus isn’t concerned so much about praying for the lost but his biggest concern is that his church WOULD NOT GO to the lost.  In effect, Jesus had that church in mind as he prayed that prayer in John 17.

Needless to say I was not impressed by the man or his doctrine and I don’t believe that the Lord was either.