sharing Jesus

GOD HAD HIS BACK EVERY TIME

(July 21, 2024) Michael Ashcraft shares a great testimony…

The year was 1979, and Eric Strutz was earning U.S. $400 an hour. But he left lucre to serve Jesus full-time in visitation ministry.

‘I survived,’ he quipped on a Door Church Tucson conference video on YouTube. ‘Actually I thrived. I went from making $400 an hour to 250 bucks a week!’

Pursuing Ministry, not Money
Now in the sunset of his pastoring career, Eric exemplifies counting the cost for ministry. Time after time, he pursued ministry, not money. And time after time, God came through for him.

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HAVE YOU GOT IT, LAH!?

(June 27, 2024) Richard Winter encourages sharing Jesus’s good news…

It’s amazing to be immersed in a new culture. As a young man I was posted with the RAAF to Malaysia – I was surrounded by new sights and smells that at first seemed to be an assault on all my senses… and the people had better suntans than me!

It became obvious I’d better learn the Malay language very quickly! I was to discover one interesting word that was added to everything said in virtually every sentence – Lah. Just a small word, but one of emphasis: a statement and a question in one-word ie…

‘Want to drink, lah!’ can also be ‘Want to drink, lah?’
‘Want to eat, lah!’ – ‘Want to eat, lah?’
‘Can you see that, lah!’ – ‘Can you see that, lah?’

Many of us are operating in a different culture than that we grew up in and we need to know the cultural differences so we can understand and operate in that new culture. I was to spend a lot of time immersed culturally so that I would know what to do, what to expect, how to fit in!

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SQUEEZED, PUSHED AND PULLED

(August 15, 2023) Richard Winter challenges…

This happened to me in college –

We all had to take two art classes, one painting and the other pottery. I thought I knew how to draw and paint – but not well, and pottery was something I knew nothing about, so I went for it.

We threw a lump of clay on a spinning wheel and squeezed, pushed and pulled that clay until it resembled a pot of some sort.

Jeremiah 18:4 says that God has an illustration of how a potter can make a pot of his choice and, if he doesn’t like it, can squash it down again and make another pot.

This is a life message!
In this world we can be squeezed, pushed and pulled to conform to the image that it wants to make of us. But this is not what God wants for us so He makes a new life for us – we are to be born again by the Spirit and not the flesh.

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GET CLOSE TO GOD — NOW!

(May 31, 2023) The late Dr Andrew Evans’ 1997 Heart to Heart challenge is still very relevant today! [See footnote]

Where are you in relation to God? James 4:8NKJV is a powerful scripture: ‘Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.’

Not even close? If you’re not a Christian, Ephesians 2:1-3 describes you well –

Doomed forever for your sins,
Going along with the crowd,
Obeying Satan,
A heart against God, and
Doing wicked things stemming from evil thoughts.

Strong words from the apostle Paul, yet that’s how you stand in your relation to God! The good news is in verses 4-6. In His mercy God loves you and wants to bring you into His family so that you can be close to Him.

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IT’S A PAGAN WORLD OUT THERE!

July 4, 2022) Richard Winter encourages standing strong for our faith in today’s pagan society…

I like options. But what do you do when the option seems to fly in the face of reality? Can we really ‘have it our way, anyway, and anytime’? If you can, it makes life seem that we’re buying from the like of Burger King – because this is how they sell the Whopper.

Now I like the term Whopper, but I also feel that in a country once termed as Christian, we are being told some whoppers! You know – untruths, inaccurate assessments, actual lies. Examples: Today we have gone from Father God to Mother Earth. In public schools, we cannot celebrate Easter, but we can celebrate Earth Day!

Pluralism and paganism
As a nation we have moved away from our Christian centredness. Although we have many Christians, no longer do people claim America a Christian country! Increasingly, many Americans believe that Jesus is only one option among many.

This is pluralism… and we are expected to accept that –

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