Thank you for your support, prayers, and
encouragement!
On Wednesday, the 10th of April, we move from the POC dormitory to a tiny
village called Bulal, about 50 km. from here. There we will live among
the local people, improving our Tok Pisin communication skills. This
particular village has no telephones, no electric power service, no
regular mail service, no ice cream, and no restaurants. It does, however,
have many real people to talk with. We will have ample opportunity both
for language practice and for showing the love of Jesus Christ to people.
This is one of those "uttermost ends of the earth," and does
not resemble the "American Dream," but we are excited to go and
live in the grace of God in the places He has called us to. We will get
some paper mail about midway through the five weeks (hand forwarded to us
from our Ukarumpa address, below). We may even find a way to send and
receive some email once or twice during the five weeks, but there is no
guarantee of that. (If not, our email will be waiting for us when we
return from the village.)
Please pray for us for:
> Boldness in proclaiming and living the Gospel (Acts 4:29-30; Rom
1:16; Rev 7:9)
> Words from God to speak (Eph 6:19; 1 Cor 2:13)
> Protection (Psalm 91; Psalm 23)
> Provision (Philippians 4:19; Psalm 23:1)
> Health (Psalm 103; 1 Peter 2:24)
> Peace (Philippians 4:6-7; Galatians 5:22-23)
We appreciate you, and thank you for helping us to go where God has
called us with your prayers and support. We love you and pray for you.
(Ephesians 1:15-23, 3:14-21)
12 Keys to
effective prayer for believers in Jesus Christ
#11 Dedicate yourself to God's service.
Therefore I
urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual
service. Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good,
well-pleasing, and perfect will of God. -- Romans 12:1-2
Or don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of
God? Don't be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor
adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor
covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortioners, will inherit
the Kingdom of God. Such were some of you, but you were washed. But you
were sanctified. But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus,
and in the Spirit of our God. "All things are lawful for me,"
but not all things are expedient. "All things are lawful for
me," but I will not be brought under the power of anything.
"Foods for the belly, and the belly for foods," but God will
bring to nothing both it and them. But the body is not for sexual
immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. Now God raised
up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his power. Don't you know that
your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of
Christ, and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! Or don't
you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body? For,
"The two," says he, "will become one flesh." But he
who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Flee sexual immorality!
"Every sin that a man does is outside the body," but he who
commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or don't you know
that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which
you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a
price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are
God's. -- 1 Corinthians 6:9-20
You were bought with a price. Don't become bondservants of men. --
1 Corinthians 7:23
But there also arose false prophets among the people, as among you also
there will be false teachers, who will secretly bring in destructive
heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on
themselves swift destruction. Many will follow their immoral ways, and as
a result, the way of the truth will be maligned. In covetousness they
will exploit you with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old
doesn't linger, and their destruction will not slumber. For if God didn't
spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and
committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved to judgment; and
didn't spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a
preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the
ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes,
condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who
would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was very distressed
by the lustful life of the wicked (for that righteous man dwelling among
them, was tormented in his righteous soul from day to day with seeing and
hearing lawless deeds): the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of
temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of
judgment; but chiefly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of
defilement, and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they are not
afraid to speak evil of dignitaries; whereas angels, though greater in
might and power, don't bring a railing judgment against them before the
Lord. -- 2 Peter 2:1-11
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a
curse for us. For it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a
tree," that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles
through Christ Jesus; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit
through faith. -- Galatians 3:13
Therefore, prepare your minds for action, be sober and set your hope
fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus
Christ--as children of obedience, not conforming yourselves
according to your former lusts as in your ignorance, but just as he
who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all of your
behavior; because it is written, "You shall be holy; for I am
holy." If you call on him as Father, who without respect of
persons judges according to each man's work, pass the time of your living
as strangers here in reverent fear: knowing that you were redeemed,
not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from the useless way of
life handed down from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb
without spot, the blood of Christ; who was foreknown indeed before
the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of times for
your sake, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the
dead, and gave him glory; so that your faith and hope might be in God.
Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth
through the Spirit in sincere brotherly affection, love one another from
the heart fervently: having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and remains
forever. -- 1 Peter 1:13-23
They sang a new song, saying,
"You are worthy to take the book,
And to open its seals:
For you were killed,
And bought us for God
with your blood,
Out of every tribe, language, people, and nation,
And made them kings and priests to our God,
And they reign on earth." -- Revelation 5:9-10
He came out, and went, as
his custom was, to the Mount of Olives. His disciples also followed him.
When he was at the place, he said to them,
"Pray
that you don't enter into
temptation."
He was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw, and he knelt down and
prayed, saying,
"Father,
if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my
will, but yours, be
done."
An angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him. Being in agony
he prayed more earnestly. His sweat became like great drops of blood
falling down on the ground.
When he rose up from his prayer, he came to the disciples, and found them
sleeping because of grief, and said to them,
"Why
do you sleep? Rise and pray that you may not enter into
temptation."
-- Luke 22:39-46
Jesus chose what His Father's will over His own, driven by love for
you, love for the Father, and integrity, knowing full well what was about
to happen to Him. Jesus Christ knew that this immediate intense agony was
necessary to redeem us, and He knew the glory that would result for all
of us and for Him. It wasn't easy, but He did it.
Therefore let us also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud
of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily
entangles us, and let us run with patience the race that is set
before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who
for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame,
and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider
him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that
you don't grow weary, fainting in your souls. You have not yet
resisted to blood, striving against sin; and you have forgotten the
exhortation which reasons with you as with children,
"My son, don't take lightly the chastening of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are reproved by him;
For whom the Lord loves, he chastens,
And scourges every son whom he receives."
It is for discipline that
you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there
whom his father doesn't discipline? But if you are without discipline, of
which all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not
children. Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and
we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the
Father of spirits, and live? For they indeed, for a few days, punished us
as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers
of his holiness. All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous
but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who have been exercised thereby. Therefore, lift up the hands
that hang down and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your
feet, so that which is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.
Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no
man will see the Lord, looking carefully lest there be any man who falls
short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up
trouble you, and thereby the many be defiled; lest there be any sexually
immoral person, or profane person, as Esau, who sold his birthright for
one meal. -- Hebrews 12:1-16
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may
abound? May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it
any longer? Or don't you know that all we who were baptized into Christ
Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him
through baptism to death, that just like Christ was raised from the dead
through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of
life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death,
we will also be part of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man
was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so
that we would no longer be in bondage to sin. For he who has died has
been freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will
also live with him; knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies
no more. Death no more has dominion over him! For the death that he died,
he died to sin one time; but the life that he lives, he lives to God.
Thus also consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in
Christ Jesus our Lord.
Therefore don't let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey
it in its lusts. Neither present your members to sin as instruments of
unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead,
and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin will not
have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace. What
then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? May it
never be! Don't you know that to whom you present yourselves as servants
to obedience, his servants you are whom you obey; whether of sin to
death, or of obedience to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that,
whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart
to that form of teaching whereunto you were delivered. Being made free
from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness.
I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you
presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon
wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness
for sanctification. For when you were servants of sin, you were free in
regard to righteousness. What fruit then did you have at that time in the
things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is
death. But now, being made free from sin, and having become servants of
God, you have your fruit of sanctification, and the result of eternal
life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus our Lord. -- Romans 6
