(November 05, 2022) Brian Bell shares about King David’s handling of despair while ‘on the run’…
Since his days as a shepherd the wilderness of Judea was a place known to David because he had spent much time there with his father’s flocks.
If you are familiar with the life of David before and after he became king of Israel, you will remember he also spent time in the wilderness ‘on the run.’
For David this was a literal experience as he first sought to stay away from the murderous intentions of jealous King Saul, and later in his life and reign when he ran from the rebellion of his wayward son Absalom.
Here I share a few encouraging thoughts from Psalm 3NLT, which I believe give us a look into David’s heart experience as he was on the run from Absalom.
David’s despair Verses 1-2 tell of David’s concerns – ‘I have so many enemies…so many are against me… so many are saying…’
Recalling David’s attitude as he faced Goliath – running towards the enemy – we may find despair a strange place for him to be and yet it is echoed in these words, particularly the use of the word ‘many.’
Despair is a very real emotion for us in our human experience, even for God’s children. It is not a place any of us plan to be, it is not where we would wish to be, and certainly not a place in which we would choose to stay.
I believe despair it is not a lack of faith on our part but rather a reflection of how our natural weaknesses may be exploited by the circumstances of life or the enemy of souls so that we may be brought to a place where we feel overwhelmed.
(November 05, 2022) Richard Winter highlights that there is no excuse for concealing wrong actions!
On the spur of the moment one day, my good friend Ray and I decided to ditch school and play golf. It was an easy decision; the golf course was behind a pine forest right that was itself behind our high school and we wouldn’t be seen from the school.
So Ray and I rode our bikes through the pines, retrieved some old clubs and balls from the golf shed, and took off our school blazers and ties that identified our school – and away we went.
We had only played five holes when conscious struck us, and we decided we’d better go to school. So, ties and jackets back on, we cycled down the hill and joined others who were going into the next class, hoping that no one had missed us.
What we didn’t know was we were seen ditching school by a passing driver who went to our school office and reported us! Suddenly an announcement came through: ‘The two boys seen riding through the pine forest this morning – come to the office.’
Well, Ray and I stood up and off we marched. But not bravely, we were really scared and everyone was watching us. What could we say, as we were ushered into the principal’s office – we were completely rumbled.
‘Excuses’ don’t excuse! There it got scarier. The principal kept doing whatever he was doing, writing apparently. Occasionally he would look up, glare and start writing again. Minutes went by and soon we were perspiring!
(October 31, 2022) America’s Mercy Health releases good info each month as part of their concern for everyone in showing the compassion of Jesus, such as the following…
Healthy living? People often de-prioritise their mental health, and it can have serious consequences.
Mental health is just as important as physical health, and really the two go hand in hand. Finding ways to prioritise your mental health is part of a healthy lifestyle.
Why is good mental health important? The term ‘mental health’ is often linked to specific disorders such as depression. However, mental health covers so much more…
Stress, anxiety, anger and frustration are emotions everyone experiences and are directly tied to their mental well-being. Also, stress and depression have been shown to tax the immune system.
(October 29, 2022) Hope Flinchbaugh, reflecting on Nehemiah’s commission from God, shares challenges in respect of ‘A Leader’s Response to Opposition’(Part 2).
Like all leaders, Nehemiah faced opposition – but he did not cower!
As he and his friends (men and women) are making mortar, finding usable stones, they were reproached by their enemies, non-Jewish local governors…
Nehemiah 2:19 tells us of their challenge – ‘But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshamthe Arab heard of it, they laughed at us and despised us, and said, “What is this thing that you are doing? Will you rebel against the king?”
Verse 20 tells of Nehemiah’s bold response – ‘So I answered them, and said to them, “The God of heaven Himself will prosper us; therefore we His servants will arise and build, but you have no heritage or right or memorial in Jerusalem.”’
Expect opposition When you begin to build where no one’s built before or you rebuild what was torn down by an enemy, you can expect some opposition. Somebody somewhere is going to say to your face or behind your back, ‘I am very displeased that you have come here to seek the welfare of these people.’
The discouraging thing about Romania was not the breadlines. It was the utter lack of hope!
Even after communism fell, the leftover lifestyle was colourless – work, work, work. Ovidiu Rusu (right), because he had read widely, dreamed of greater things and despaired of a life assigned by socialism of being just a part of the machine to support the state.
‘When I was a child, I was not aware of how bad communism was. But as I became a teenager and then a young man, it was a struggle not seeing a future. There were no opportunities. All the doors were closed,’ Ovidiu says on a Virginia Beach Potter’s House podcast. ‘I told my friends, “If the end of the year catches me here, I’m going to kill myself. I don’t want to live this life.”’
Walking on eggshells lifestyle Life in Brasov under communism, according to Ovidiu, was characterised by:
Fear of authority. ‘Anybody with any measure of authority wants you to feel that they are the boss. Authority is there to harm and humiliate you. You live walking on eggshells.’
Poverty and boring food. ‘You have just five options to eat and you cycle through them. I remember being tired of beans and rice. You have one pair of shoes, one pair of pants, one coat. You sew it to fix it.’
You as an individual don’t count.
Thinking is squelched. ‘Because people who think for themselves are dangerous.’
Even the fall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in December 1989 did not immediately usher in a change of life. Though freedoms were introduced, life continued to appear pretty dull and opportunity-less.
The legacy of communism was atheism. His parents had never attended the Eastern Orthodox church much, but a lot of other Romanians did as a passive resistance to communism. Ovidiu didn’t believe in God because that’s what they had taught in school.
Thinking that if life were to change, he would need to do something himself, Ovidiu decided to flee the country with some of his young adult friends. Their plan was to make their way to France and join the French Foreign Legion. They had heard that the pay was good, and you could apply for citizenship in France.
Crying out to God But they got caught and gaoled.
‘I was very, very distraught,’ he says. He kept trying to escape Romania, but nothing worked. That’s when he decided on suicide to escape Romania. During the last two weeks of 1992 he stayed in his room, pacing and smoking. He avoided his friends and his girlfriend. He was stewing.
Though he didn’t believe in God, he cried out to Him. ‘If you exist you have to do something,’ he said.
On December 31, his mom sent him to the bread lines at 4am. You had to get up early to get the special bread that is customary for New Year’s Eve. ‘It wasn’t a line, it was a mob, and I’m right in the middle of it,’ he remembers. ‘I was standing there frustrated, angry, desperate, no hope.’
He noticed a young guy working his way through the crowd. ‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ he pushed gently through, coming straight over to Ovidiu, whom he addressed. ‘I know you from the neighbourhood,’ the young man said. He began witnessing to him about Jesus.
‘I had cried out to God three days earlier, and the first time I step out of my house, God sent this guy to talk to me,’ Ovidiu marvels.
What hit him was the young man assured him that God would take care of his future. ‘That was my struggle,’ Ovidiu says. ‘That was what I was fighting with inside. I could not get his words outside of my head. God was working in me.’
(Above: The church in Brasov)
Ovidiu went to church that very night. The Christians were praying, thanking God, in a circle. Ovidiu accepted Jesus into his heart.
Growing in the faith ‘The factor in my salvation was the feeling of desperation, the lack of hope for a future. I was feeling trapped. Living in a communist country, you know this is the place I was born, this is the place I will die. I wanted to do more. I wanted to be part of something’ he added.
At the time, there was a revival among young people sparked by missionaries from Germany and elsewhere. ‘I was 23, and I was one of the older people getting saved,’ Ovidiu says. He attended a church led by Richard Brooks, who preached hope and faith, an enticing novelty for Romanians.
‘I was just amazed at the preaching,’ Ovidiu says. ‘I was open. Pastor Brooks was the right man at the right time. He was a man of faith. He was an exciting man, he was happy. He had an attitude that everything is possible. That’s exactly what we needed because we grew up in communism in which nothing is possible and all the doors were closed.’
Ovidiu grew in his faith and knowledge of the Bible. Today, he is a pastor in Brasov.
(Left) Street outreaching with Pastor Ovidiu
If you want to know more about a personal relationship with God, go here
GodReports.com, founded by Mark Ellis in 2009, is devoted to promoting Christian missions by sharing stories and testimonies from missionaries and mission organisations.Reporter, Pastor Michael Ashcraft is also a financial professional in California. _________________________________________________________
(October 27, 2022) Dr Robert McQuillan responds to a concerned friend…
Dear Dr Robert
You’ve helped me before and I want to share something with you that has me confused. I really love the church I’ve been attending for the last few months… the preaching is great, the teaching is soundly Bible-based, and the pastor really cares! Nothing is wacky! But recently I’ve felt somewhat uneasy. Nothing wrong with the church, but I don’t feel to become a member, or to be involved in any ministerial way that would commit me. I started thinking what’s wrong? Then last week while enjoying the service, I heard that ‘inner voice’ whisper one word… ‘Transition.’ Transition? Would you please help me here. Harold
Hi again Harold
Yes, I believe I can. I’ve come to know you and suggest you take a step back and see the bigger picture. I believe what’s happening to you gels with what has happened to some certain others in their Christian experience, even myself. Let me paint the picture as I see it.
The word ‘transition’ means the ‘process of changing, or a change from one from or condition to another.’ Now you won’t find the word in scripture – unless you read the Message version of Hebrews 9, that chapter that talks about the Calvary death of Jesus and the new covenant. It actually combines verses 16 and 17 as one, and begins ‘Like a will that takes effect when someone dies, the new covenant was put into action at Jesus’ death. His death marked the transition from the old plan to the new one.’
Scripture tells of God transitioning chosen ones into new positions or locales… Abraham, Moses, Gideon (His being supernaturally called by God, such as in Judges7:9 is very interesting).
October 27, 2022) Elizabeth Kendal requests urgent prayer for the following…
1. CHINA’S SEVERELY PERSECUTED CHURCH [RLPB 667 (19 Oct)] As reported by Bitter Winter (17 Oct), government-controlled religious organisations contribute to the National Party Congress by presenting reports on their activities. Pastor Xu Xiaohong, the Chairman of the Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) Committee, presented a report entitled, ‘Ten years of sharpening a sword and continuing to advance the sinicisation of Christianity.’
Interestingly, Xu admits much work needs to be done to sinicise the Chinese Church so that it will willingly serve the CCP, support all its policies, and unite around the Party with Xi as its ‘core.’ Xu laments that the promotion of sinicisation is ‘hot at the top and cold and the bottom’: i.e. it is embraced by CCP-appointed technocrats/administrators, but not by grassroots teachers, preachers, or believers! As such, the TSPM Committee is working on a new five-year plan for 2023-2027 which Xu hopes will remove people’s doubts and ‘guide religion to adapt to socialist society.’ TSPM’s focus will be educating teachers and preachers, providing sermons to be delivered from pulpits, and establishing a ‘theological ideology of the Chinese Church.’ Five volumes of approved sermons have already been compiled! Xu maintains the Church will be fine so long as she ‘adapts.’
(October 27, 2022) Maureen McQuillan responds to a very earnest, thoughtful friend…
Dear Pastor Maureen
I was really blessed by your Experiences testimony (T’was a Cold Wintry Night, Nere a Sound was Heard), it touched me in many ways. Great to learn how the Lord touched you miraculously through the ministry of those elders so long ago.
That aspect – your mother actually requesting the elders to anoint you and pray for you, quoting James 5:14 – is special to me as it has been on my heart for some time. I mean, the thought that when people are sick, they should call for the elders to pray over them, just as James wrote. I mentioned this to my pastor and he agreed, saying that people don’t and he wished they would. What are your thoughts? Tom.
Hi Tom
I’m glad my testimony blessed you. In that church I mentioned in my testimony, troubled people had no hesitation in calling for the elders to be anointed with oil and prayed for. It was ‘the in-thing to do.’
People took that scripture you mentioned at face value… they called for prayer. ‘Call’ here is a word meaning ‘to invite.’ There’s an inference that anyone sick should make a point to doing this. In fact, most translations say, ‘should call.’ NASB reads ‘must call.’
Traditionally this was the done thing. Elders, or at least the minister, would be invited – that is asked – to visit sick people at home to pray over them. Or, as was the case with me, elders might ask that the sick be brought to the church.
(October 24, 2022) Brian Bell shares about repeating oneself…
Have you ever been told you talk too much?
Many years ago, I was told that I tended to repeat myself – no, not by my wife, Eveline, who says I am ‘the quiet man’!’
On the subject of repeating oneself, did you know that Psalm 107 is a chapter of repetition? As I share the following brief thoughts, I recall being taught that when scripture repeats a matter it is to emphasise a matter of real importance. So, I trust you sense that God is saying important to our hearts here.
Repetition of the Call for Praise (Psalm107: 8,15,21,31) In Psalm 107 the psalmist’s desire is that we would ‘praise the Lord for His goodness and His wonderful works to the children of men.’
(October 22, 2022) Neil Brightbard shares about feeling helpless…
Whenever we consider the sovereignty of God, we acknowledge God’s complete authority, His supreme rulership over everything.
He is sovereign over not only this world but the whole universe! Sovereignty of God means there are no limits to His rule. He is Almighty God! Take our troubled world for example, and everything that happens in it. We can feel helpless and frustrated, but He is never! He is God!
And whereas we can feel at a loss at times, He is never!
Jeremiahdeclared, ‘Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you’ (Jeremiah 32:17).
Paulwrote about Jesus in 1 Timothy 6:15NASB, ‘He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords.’
Still… the sovereignty of God can be a difficult subject to share about for two reasons.
1. God cannot be fully explained to the satisfaction of our curious mind! 2.We cannot ‘see’ God.
Connecting with You! 