ASSESSING OUR LOVE FOR GOD

Liberia: The Republic of Liberia is on the West coast of Africa (see red arrow on map below). English is the official language. The capital city is called Monrovia where the TLI teaching will be taking place. The population of the country is just under 5 million people. When I travel there in December it will be the dry season with hot winds blowing in from the Sahara desert. The colony of Liberia was founded in 1825 by the American Colonization Society to support the migration of free American slaves back to Africa. Land was leased by Jehudi Ashmun from the local tribal leader King Peter and in return, the natives received three barrels of rum, five casks of powder, five umbrellas, ten pairs of shoes, ten iron posts, and 500 bars of tobacco, as well as other items. [more next week].

 "One of the best ways whereby we can decide immediately as to whether we love God or not is our reaction to adversity." This was written by Martyn Lloyd-Jones as part of his commentary on Romans 8.28-29, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, ..." Here love for God means an understanding of who God is in all His Goodness and Mercy and Love, His Holiness, and His Sovereign power over all circumstances. This understanding is developed through reading about God in His Word and seeing His character and attributes revealed in His dealings with His creation, and then often meditating on who God is.
Here love for God means an understanding of God's purposes. God's purposes for His creation and for His saints is also described in the Bible and also in these verses, "for those who are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers." God's purpose is to make us holy as He is holy and conformed to Jesus Christ His Son. God's purpose for His saints is joy and peace. Where the world seeks circumstantial happiness God seeks godly character and relationship.
Here love means a willing choice to trust in God in all circumstances and to abandon ourselves unto Him, forsaking our own agenda, our own purposes and goals, for the sake of God's Glory and His purpose in us and for us. In this abandoned trust in God we come to experience His Love for us, His Goodness, His protection, His provision, His fellowship, His reality in our lives.

Our reaction to adversity immediately reveals our understanding of the character of God, our understanding of the purposes of God for us, and our willingness to abandon all for the Glory of God and the accomplishment of His purposes. With this quality of love at work in the saint, all things will work together for our good and God's Glory.
Over the last couple of years I have come to know that love for God is the strongest compelling for worship, obedience and service, and that love for God is the result of knowing the character of God, the purposes of God, and trusting God in all circumstances no matter what the cost, and experiencing God as Father and Jesus as Savior and Lord. There is no higher life.

IDENTITY AND POWER

Liberia: Here is a link to the reports from the August trip to Liberia which began our three year commitment to these Pastors and church workers. Please read these short reports and it will give you an idea of the opportunities before us and the pictures will help you to understand the teaching conditions. I must confess that as I reread these reports this morning I once again wept in praise of God's grace and truth at work in human hearts in Africa. <http://trainingleadersinternational.org/trips/207/liberia-august-2017>

Over the last couple of weeks we have heard about white nationalist and white supremacy demonstrations and counter demonstrations, some accompanied with violence and the tearing down of confederate monuments. As I think about these marches for white rights and the larger protests against this racism I have to come to my conclusion and a biblical response.

White supremacy march in Virginia

Richard Spencer, leader of the alt-right movement, says, "Race is real, race matters, and race is the foundation of identity". For most people in this world their identity is taken from their work, their education, their accomplishments, their religion, sexual preference and as we are hearing about more and more their gender. But I think the the primary marker of identity today for most people is still race. Even nations of the world today often have specific identities such as race (tribal groups) or religion which they seek to defend against any outside influences. For the past couple of centuries Canada and the USA have been dominated by the white race and its religions, forms of government and chosen lifestyles. The fear of the western white man is that he is now loosing his white majority, white rights, and white power and therefore his identity. As one spokesman has said, "We must secure the existence of our people and the future for white children". White supremacy goes beyond saving identity and believes that the white man is superior to all other racial groups. The great fear is white genocide. "The white genocide conspiracy theory claims, that mass immigration, racial integration, miscegenation, low fertility rates, and abortion are being promoted in predominantly white countries to deliberately turn them minority-white and hence cause white people to become extinct through forced assimilation." So my conclusion is that the issues at stake are identity and power.
Now as believers in the midst of all this violence and confusion we must be clear that our identity and our power is not in being white and belonging to a white nation, as beneficial as that has been in the past. Our identity, and our power and authority is IN CHRIST. That is not only a truth for the future but for today's present realities. Yes it is more than likely that the white race will become a minority people in the West over time in spite of Trump's last stand, but we are to shine as followers of Christ and not defend our whiteness or what we consider our rights. We are to stand for equality and justice and mercy and love which actually means that we will be hated by both whites and upcoming minority groups. The reason why white nationalist and white supremacist groups target Christians is because they believe that orthodox Christianity leads to white genocide in its stand for equality, justice, mercy and love. There is also a great hatred for Jews who are seen as conspirators to exterminate the white race by promoting white genocide to take control of the world and its resources.
So my fellow Christians, I would encourage you today to view these clashes over white supremacy and superiority from a heavenly perspective where you are seated in Christ Jesus. Strive to see and live out your identity in Christ, and know and stand in your authority in Christ until that day when God's authority fully rules all the earth in His heavenly kingdom.

HOPE

Future Mission Trips: This morning I applied and was accepted as a team member for a trip to Liberia in December and a return trip to the Philippines in May 2018. I have had a desire to visit Liberia and Sierra Leone since I read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe a number of years ago. Last night I spoke with a TLI colleague who returned from Liberia on Sunday and he said that this group of 100 Pastors are very enthusiastic and with their leader want to begin a movement of biblical reform in the whole country. They are committed to learn and to teach others. I am excited to be part of this new Training Leaders International project. My living conditions will be poor, no hot water and poor A/C at our hotel, intermittent hydro, heat, mosquitoes, and basic subsistence meals without fruit or vegetables, but what a privileged opportunity to effect a whole country with expository, biblical teaching. Liberia is ripe with cults, occult, focus on healing and delivery ministries and the false teaching of the prosperity gospel. Please, please pray for these upcoming trips. I want to be part of God's impact on these two countries and you can make the difference with your prayers. I mean that, and I hope you believe that also and will pray for Liberia and the Philippines.

 "Abandon all hope ye who enter here". These are the words at the entrance to hell in Dante's Divine Comedy. The loss of hope in this life leads to deep despair and even suicide. Hope is essential to living. Many in this world live with false hope and grip this false hope tightly, maybe even realizing that this hope is indeed built on a lie but not daring to admit it lest they have no hope at all.
One such false hope is that we can earn our way to heaven. The lie is that we earn acceptance from God by keeping certain rules, doing certain actions, satisfying certain religious practices. Millions of dollars are spent on the hope of financial gain  and happiness through winning the lottery or making a fast million. I thank God for the great hope, the true hope, the proved hope that I have as a believer in Jesus who died for my sins, justified me because of my faith in him, and gave me hope for eternal life through His resurrection. Hope is a grace from God and our hope is not cross-your-fingers wishful thinking but assured by God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

 "We rejoice in hope of the glory of God". As I suffer through various trials, wrestle with decisions, face daily temptations, walk in the midst of materialism and wordliness, pray for a confused church, cope with old age, struggle with relationships, hope keeps me encouraged, positive, praising, and singing. Each day I stretch my neck as if looking over a fence on tip toes toward my sure hope, the promised glory of God. My hope is not so much a desire to escape the struggle of this world, but deliverance from the sin that continues to nag at my saved spirit and seeks to pollute and take back my transformed mind. My hope is to live in a holy world, with holy people, and worship a holy God and to live in complete transformed righteousness. It will happen. What I want is for God to have all of me with complete willingness on my part, for He bought me and deserves to  be fully and forever praised for Who He is.






 

READ A MISSIONS BOOK

I last wrote a blog on June 22nd. Since then I have been busy with many things but the pace has finally slowed down enough for me to get back to the laptop this afternoon.

This month I was privileged to read Ascent to the Tribes by Isobel Kuhn, a missionary with her husband John serving with the China Inland Mission. In 1950 all missionaries were expelled from China by the communists and since China was CIM's only field what was it to do? CIM missionaries began to work in other Asian countries under a new name CIM-OMF, the Overseas Missionary Fellowship of the China Inland Mission. Today the mission is called OMF International.
John and Isobel began to work in Northern Thailand among the Lisu, mountain tribes. In this book Isobel charts the work and advance of the gospel among the Lisu, the white and blue Miao, the Yao, the Laku and the Akha people. Let me share with you some insightful quotes from this book.

LISU FROM THAILAND

 "When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good; a thoroughly bad man thinks he is alright!...Good people know about good and evil: bad people don't know about either". [C. S. Lewis] A sinful heart is a deceitful heart and when God abandons a person to their sin, as described in Romans 1, the conviction of sin and the knowledge of evil can disappear, which leaves a man but a half-step from the painful darkness of hell. Many of these tribal people were in this state and remained so even when the gospel of Christ was preached to them.
"The whole difference between faith and fear is that of the difference of putting our 'buts' before or after God. God commands but there are difficulties. That is paralysis. There are difficulties but God commands. That is power." [G. Campbell Morgan] There were many struggles and difficulties and trials for the missionaries to the mountain tribes but God was sufficient.
These mountain tribes feared demons and would worship them and make offering to the demons for protection from disasters, healing from sickness, and other things, offering their precious chickens and pigs which they could not afford to offer. In order to trick these tribal people one demon revealed himself with the name Jesus and told the tribes that he would protect and heal them if they worshiped his name but that they could keep on sinning and did not have to change their ways. We find similar claims being made today by those who claim to know Jesus but live as they please with no regard to holiness. We are to test every spirit to make sure it is from God.
Father Wood and old arthritic man who became a sound believer and persevered even when many who joined him at first in the faith turned away said, "'The Christian life is rather tasteless isn't it?' he said to me one day, as he sat in his crippled condition, unable to move outside and join in the general life. 'A fellow gives up smoking (opium) and drinking and the heathen festivals and - well, there isn't much fun in being a Christian, is there?'... Father Wood knew and acknowledged the peace of heart which fellowship with the Savior had brought him; that was why he continued as a Christian, but he had no comradeship. ...It was a real test for Father Wood. Before we judge him as a weak Christian, let us think how we would respond if suddenly deprived of all the contingent blessings that God heaps upon us."

I want to encourage each of you to read some books on missions and missionary biographies and learn how God has worked and is working in the world today through his sent people.