Month: July 2009

Considering it?

Considering a short-term mission trip, but just praying and praying and praying while you wait for a voice from heaven telling you that you should go?  You may be waiting for a voice you’re never going to hear.  But don’t think you have to wait for it.  God isn’t going to get angry with you for stepping out in faith in obedience to the Great Commission.

You don’t wait to “hear” from Him before you plan a vacation.  If you were unemployed, you wouldn’t wait to “hear” from Him before you accepted the offer of your dream job.  So don’t require Him to give you a special word of confirmation that you should go on mission with Him when you’re presented with the opportunity.  You already know He wants His people to share the gospel with all nations.  If He who opens a door no one can close, and closes a door no one can open, is opening, rather than closing, a door for you to give a week or a month of your time to proclaim Him to people who don’t already have what He gave you, then just do it.  If it turns out to be in opposition to His plan for your life, He will let you know somehow.

Making the Most of Our Time

Tonight’s home fellowship study was on 1 Peter 4:1-11, looking at how “the end of all things is near” and how we should be living our lives, what we should be striving for, and where the eyes of our heart should be until He comes.  You can listen to the audio recording of the study here.

M-aude când Îl chem

That title of this post is a line from one of the Romanian songs we’ll worship with at tonight’s home fellowship, Lord-willing.  It means, “He hears me when I call Him.” We’ll be singing it only because it’s true.  You see, Lili leads our worship times with the guitar.  And as you probably know, if a guitarist’s finger is injured badly, as hers was in a freak accident on Monday evening, that person will not be able to play the instrument.  The fingers of the left hand have to apply significant pressure on the strings, or a chord cannot be played.

It looked yesterday like it would be at least days before she was healed enough to play.  We had our prayer circle pray, asking God to heal her finger so that we could have instrumental accompaniment for our worship at tonight’s and Sunday’s services.  And indeed, He did hear us all when we called on Him.  Lili and I were just marveling as we looked at the wound, or actually the lack of a bad wound, on her finger this afternoon.  “See? It’s healing so much faster than it should,” she said.

We just did a practice together of tonight’s three songs, and she was able to play the guitar for them, and to do so without the hindrance of pain.  Glory to God for this healing, and for how it will result in our ability to praise Him together in song tonight.  Thanks to all of you who prayed for this.  God still does miracles.  Do not make the mistake of pretending such things only happened in biblical times, and thus water down the faith of His people by your words.

Permeated by the Word

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly….”
–Colossians 3:16a

We can’t overdo our study of the word of God.  Never will there be a Christian who knows it too well for his own good.  Never will it be said of any of us, “If he just spent less time in the Bible and more time (doing whatever else), his life would go much better.”
 If we want success in life and ministry, we must let the Lord’s word dwell in us richly.  Meditate on that sentence, piece by piece, for a moment:
 “Let” — that means we have to allow it to happen.  God’s word is living and powerful, but we must submit to it, choosing to consume it and digest it, to be fully benefited by it.  We must be willing to put lesser things aside if we want to be truly affected by the Bible.
“the word of Christ” — not mere empty, pointless words like we might hear spewing forth from our own mouths; these words of the Bible are from Christ, our loving, all-knowing, all-wise Savior and Lord.
 “dwell in you” — that means it isn’t supposed to be just an external influence on your character, thoughts, emotions, and deeds.  It is to live inside of you, penetrating and permeating your heart and mind and entire being, and bringing forth God’s vibrant life through you in all you are and all you do.
 “richly” — The word is to dwell in us not scarcely, but in abundance.
 Brothers and sisters, I ask you, how well permeated by the word of God are you?  How many times per day does it enter your thoughts?  How many decisions do you make day-to-day that are influenced by Scriptures the Spirit brings to mind?  How often do you meet someone and see him or her through eyes spiritually enlightened by the Scriptures?
 This summer, be careful not to be satisfied with just a little bit of the word of God.  Let it dwell within you, and let it do so richly.  Be permeated by the word.

Make the most of your time

“For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” –Matthew 24:27

Today I was studying, for tomorrow’s home fellowship teaching, in the food court of our local shopping mall (it’s nice to live in one of the few cities of Romania that has one of those). I was inside, but there is an outside terrace area right out from the food court which is quite popular, because at those outdoor tables, smoking is allowed, and most young adults in Romania are taken with that particular vice.
Anyway, a storm was coming. The sky grew dark and it became so windy that the picnic umbrellas that are over each outdoor table were shaking violently. I watched in something of surprised amusement as no one was coming inside, even though an impending thunderstorm was obviously about to hit. There was thunder and lightning in the distance, but no one was leaving their place to come in out of the storm.
Then, suddenly, a bolt of lighting split the sky right above us with a boom of thunder that made even the people indoors jump a little. And instantly, 50 people at the tables outside jumped up, grabbed their trays and purses and other things and ran frantically for the door.
This is one of those “motion sensor” automatic doors. And for a moment, it malfunctioned, failing to open for them as they looked at those of us inside with panicked expressions. Finally, it did open and they fought for place among each other as they came in as fast as they could.
The Bible warns us that there is coming a day when Christ will come to the earth all of a sudden, being visible in the sky from east to west, and taking the world by storm. And though we will not know the day or hour, we can definitely see in our world the storm clouds gathering and the winds of the end times blowing. Are you aware, or are you going on about your life, living it for yourself instead of for the one who will judge you when He arrives? Those who do not already belong to Christ, upon His coming will find the doorway to safety closed for eternity, and those inside will see their anguished looks as they cry out for entry into a Kingdom of peace and light that they could have freely entered had they not refused the One who paid the ultimate price to secure for them a place in it.
But even the Body of Christ is too often filled with people who figure there will be plenty of time to live lives pleasing to our Savior later, as if His delay in coming to us will last forever.
That was the topic we looked at Sunday in church from Luke 12, and as God would have it, our Thursday study through 1 Peter is arriving tomorrow at a passage that covers the same topic. Be ready. Serve the Lord. You already spent enough time living for this world. Now live for the next.

Here’s Sunday’s message on Luke 12 – Get Ready.  “Get Ready for Christ’s return, and stay ready until He comes.”

Lord-willing, the upcoming Thursday message will also be posted here after tomorrow night.

A ministry blessing

Here’s a blessing in ministry—we get to take two of the young men we’ve been discipling in our church on a mission trip to Deva, Romania in two weeks, so that they can also share their testimonies and the gospel message with those who haven’t heard.  Please pray for the fruitfulness of this campaign, and stay tuned to this blog for updates on it.

The new Bunnell Blogsite

This is my new location in the blogosphere.  Older posts, if you’re interested, are for the time being still available at our old “Missionary’s Day” weblog at http://missions.blogdrive.com, however, there will be no new posting there, as this blogsite will now replace that one.