Adventure of a Missionary

Have you ever wondered why patience is such an important element of love?   Patience is a beautiful descriptor of love. It describes a heart with room and with flexibility.  In the Bible, the word for patience is sometimes translated as long-suffering, which means it is willing to suffer, willing to bear discomfort, willing to allow time to pass and not demand immediate answers.  Patience is the quality of bearing offenses and injuries without anger or revenge. It is impossible to do in our own willpower. I know this from experience. It must come from God, from that "hesed" love.  Hesed is one of the Hebrew words used in the Bible for God’s love.  "Though the mountains be shaken, and the hills be removed, yet My unfailing love (hesed) for you will not be shaken." ~Isaiah 54:10 "The Lord did not set His love (hashaq) on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves (hes...

 The holiday season is expected to look different for many this year. For some, it will be their first time having a Christmas while going through a break up.  There will be someone grieving the loss of a loved one. There will be someone going through the holiday season without a job. There will be some who will spend Christmas Eve ill in the hospital.  We should try our best to be kind to others, to be extra sensitive to our friends, and to invite those who need a family to be part of our holiday celebrations this year.  I would like to encourage you to be the gift that someone truly needs. Remember that the best gift you can ever give is your presence.

As you look at the greeting to Mary in Luke 1, Gabriel said, “Thou highly favored one.”  If you examine that title from Genesis to Revelation, you will find that it is reserved only to those who had spent a lot of time with God.   It was used of Daniel when Gabriel met him and said, “Daniel, thou greatly beloved of God.”  That greeting had the same sense of being highly favored.  So just from that greeting, you could tell that Mary was a woman who loved God, loved to spend time with God, and loved to pray. That harmonizes epikaizo and the ability to tap into that.  The prayer level was extremely high. Daniel spent so much time with God that God gave him a special title, “Thou greatly beloved.”  To Mary, it was “Highly favored one.” That is the first thing. You notice that the natural world becomes afraid. On all three occasions fear came. In Luke 1, it says that Mary was troubled.  Mary began reasoning to herself. Then the angel had to say, “Fear not, ...

Growing spiritually is a matter of fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit and yielding to Him constantly.  The Holy Spirit is your Trainer and your Coach.  He knows your weaknesses and strengths. He has a personal development plan for you. He has goals for you to achieve. He knows the Father’s will for you. He will draw up your personal prayer life. He will tell you when to go into worship or when to put your petition before the Lord of Heaven. He will lead you to specific passages in the Word in line with your personal spiritual development. You grow strong in spirit by constantly sowing to the spirit realm. What is born of the Spirit is spirit. This is where many Bible students and seminarians preparing for the ministry make this common mistake.  They buy up many books to read, hear many tapes, go for one seminar after another, run after famous men and women of God, subscribe to their magazines, read their Bibles and even memorize whole passages but failed the one most imp...