This past month of September was very nice. I was able to present my ministry to a church. The photo below is the inside of the church at which I spoke.
I was given about ten minutes so I introduced myself and Overland Missions, and then briefly spoke on the awesome gift that each of us are chosen to serve God. God could have chosen angels or countries to be the leaders that spearheaded the Gospel into new places, but instead He comforts us by joining Himself with us to spearhead the Gospel into new places. Being commanded to go unto the nations to make disciples (not the nations commanded to do it) is a huge responsibility! God knows we humans are crazy enough to step out in such faith, because deep down we understand that knowing Jesus personally is completely worth it. (1 Cor 4:10).
Reaching out to tell others the Gospel from within the uttermost places of a country can be a daunting task whether you are in another country or teaching from inside your own house in your own country; but you cannot let fear of that tremendous privilege stop you from spreading the Gospel. Remember your security – that security is knowing you are a child of God and that is locked and guarded by God Himself having paid such a high price for your salvation. You belong with Him as should each human. This is what we want to let them know, that they are desired by God to be His children. So you can stand in confidence even if the odds are against you from being able to teach others his truth all the time. Jesus didn’t promise us an easy life, plus we can easily become distracted from loving each other and from telling others that they are loved by God. So don’t let the devil tell you that you did not do enough, that you have failed to maybe bring some people to Christ. And when others so bluntly refuse Christ, how hard this is on us. It is alright to cry out to God and ask Him why and to ask Him to continue to influence that person or persons to really see the Truth of who He is, because He understands completely how difficult it is to reach a heart. He reached out to the Israelites over and over again, trying to make them turn to Him and to make Israel the light for all of the other nations, but they kept refusing Him. They constantly looked away and worshipped other gods and indulged in various deeds of wickedness. (Nehemiah 9) (Hebrews 4:15). In all of this, God knows and can relate to us how it feels. The Pharisees refused to believe Jesus also. I am certain Jesus wanted them to believe, but they were a stiff-necked people. Dust off your shoes and move forward.
When I was in Zambia, as my group was searching for a hut so we could minister to people, we finally encountered one. The hut was tucked within some trees and I am not sure if the others felt it, but as soon as I walked onto the property of the hut I felt a dark presence. Everything just felt “off.” Saying, “odi-odi” or “knock-knock,” there was no response. We thought perhaps no one is home, but as we gazed around at the hut and surrounding storage rooms, we discovered that they were covered in strands of meat. Personally, I was absolutely horrified; but then from one of the buildings, a heavy-set lady came lumbering out. We could see a fresh cow carcass on the ground from within the building of which she emerged. One distinct thing about her was that she had this huge scar on her chest. How she got it we didn’t discover, but this lady had lots of charms on her, simply various strings tied to different parts of her body, around her wrists, neck, and things like that. They were probably there to keep her healthy or demons away. It was common to run into people who were tormented by demons. Overall, she was not very responsive to the Gospel. We encouraged her and told her about how much greater it is to trust in God, but she refused to acknowledge that as a possibility. She did not want to give up the witchcraft. This was hard on us to fathom, so we had to come a point where we had to dust off our shoes and move onto the next hut. All I can do now is continue to pray for her and hope that a day will come that she will find that those charms are not working and that she will cry out to God for salvation. My prayer is that she will remember the time some “makua” or “white people” visited her hut and told her about this Jesus guy... the Son of God who died for her and she will realize that God is the greatest God, the only God who really loves her.
I think back to Luke 15 about the story of the Prodigal Son... the parable where the son runs off with his father’s inheritance and then wildly spends it on rubbish. Suddenly there is a famine and he has no money; thus, he cannot buy any food. He goes back home to his dad and asks to be made a hired servant, but the father makes it very clear that he is his son not a servant. The son believed he wasn’t worthy of his father’s unconditional love and demanded to be made less than a child of his father. Something that we as Americans can easily glance over is the famine that is mentioned in this passage, because in our present time, we have never experienced one. I don’t think that boy would have returned home if it wasn’t for the famine. The boy didn’t think he was worthy of his father’s unconditional love and mercy because he had been irresponsible, so the famine and his hunger was a perfect excuse for the boy to take advantage of hard times. Surely his father would take him back as a servant because he did remember that even the servants ate well in his father’s household. The famine served as that little push that caused the boy to return home. So often people will keep their eyes away from God, but then there is some pressure applied. That little bit of pressure that hurts just enough forces them to turn back to their true Father. That pressure turns them to God and makes them remember where they came from. They look back to the rock from which they came from. (Isaiah 50:1) (Deut. 32:18). Perhaps, some bit of pressure will drive the Zambian lady back to her true home and she will find that she has been His daughter all along.
You may know someone who hasn’t come to the Lord yet and as hard as that is, don’t despair God is not done with His love for them. You also, keep expressing that divine love to them. You are able to because God’s Spirit lives inside of you, and you can’t help but express the fruit of the Spirit. I will emphasize that “fruit” is singular. It is not the fruits of the Spirit, but it is one single fruit. It is a love-joy-peace-patience-kindness-gentleness-goodness-faithfulness-self-control fruit. (Gal 5:22-23). When you live in the Spirit this is that which you express. When you understand your place in God’s heart, you immediately experience all of those traits. It is not one or the other, but all. You are either God’s child or not. There is no living in-between the flesh and the Spirit. God loved us so much to send Jesus for the remission of our sins, so that now we can give that same love to others. Our salvation is sealed by the Holy Spirit so we can have peace. God has ordained a life for us... a life that is with Him. God didn’t make us to be slaves, but He made us to be His children. Now walk in the image of God!
Do you know you are made in the Image of God? Do you know you are fearfully and wonderfully made? Do you know your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Is that not amazing? The God of the universe has chosen to make you so awesome! It is easy to remember and know that spiritually we reflect Jesus in that He has made us righteous as Himself, but how often do we forget that physically we reflect the image of God also? I can only be humbled by what my God has done for humanity.
Speaking at the church was probably the big highlight of my month. I am still meeting with folks and working on raising the monthly support. If you are reading this and you want to learn how you can get involved in reaching the unreached with the Gospel, whether it is financial or prayer or any other method, please contact me. You can reach me at 407-493-5041 call or text, or Solomon@overlandmissions.com, or you can message me via Facebook.
Thank you all for your support. You guys are part of a team that is reaching out to the forgotten places of the earth, but God hasn’t forgotten them, nor will we!