Use the gospel to capture each city for the Lord’s kingdom! We need to believe that we can! Then we need to “DO IT”! Turn your church into an army that is on the offensive and gaining territory every day. Every christian should take up their sword and wield it with love. Drive it into the battle and take no prisoners. “The gates of hell” are no match for it! Every christian should witness every day!

Most People get too involved with everyday life and their families, hobbies, careers, materialism, politics, entertainment, relationships, consumerism and petty squabbles at work and with relatives, with family, etc. and they completely forget why Jesus puts each of us here on Earth:
To follow HIM and to become FISHERS of men and women.

Jesus gathered a band of ordinary yet extraordinary men and women to follow Him. Fishermen, a Zealot, a Tax collector, a Prostitute, etc.

With these men and women through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, the entire world was forever changed by the preaching of the Gospel and Jesus’ passionate sacrifice for all of us on the Cross.

Jesus called these men and women like he calls us to be missionaries and to forever change our world with the preaching of the Gospel from then 2000 years ago right up to today in 2007 A.D.

Jesus Himself was the first missionary! He did not sit by passively and let those who happened to be interested in His teaching come to Him. He went out where the sick, the sorrowing, and the sad were, and expounded His message of joy, healing, and salvation.

Even at a tender age, He went to the Temple and “taught” the doctors and lawyers who were entrenched in the old traditions. He found His way to the seaside and intruded upon the life of the commonest of laborers, saying, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Wherever He went He challenged, uprooted, and changed men. And at length they nailed Him to a cross because He had upset their selfish, secure, smug way of life. Not only was Jesus a missionary, but He pledged His followers to be missionaries, too!

The toughest question in life is whether to follow the cares and the things of this world, the treasures and fortunes of this temporary world…, or to follow the call of Jesus made so simply 2000 years ago…………..

“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Luke 7:36-50 which reads as follows:

“And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to meat.
And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,
And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him; for she is a sinner.

And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on.
There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty.
And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?
Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged.

And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.

Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet.
My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.

Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven: for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.
And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.
And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also?

And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.”

ST. LUKE 7:36-50

This passage shows that with sinners Jesus was very gentle. Christ treats the prostitute in Luke 7:36-50 with love and gentleness. He looks deep into her heart and soul and sees her emptiness but also her faith in Him and her love for Him.

Remember the woman caught in the act of adultery? He said to her, “Where are those accusers of yours?”

“No one, Lord,” she told Him.

Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more” (see John 8:10–11).

Does this mean Jesus approved of the way she lived? Far from it—God is very clear about how He wants us to live. Jesus knew the real problem was that her sin needed to be resolved.

It was the same thing with the Samaritan woman at the well, who was known for her immorality. Yet as Jesus spoke to her that day in Samaria, He did not condemn her for her lifestyle as much as He appealed to her inner spiritual thirst.

The bottom line is that people are empty, and they need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Expend your energy there. Expend your energy in proclaiming the gospel. The heart of the matter is that people are lost. They need Christ. And we need to take that message to them.

Blessings and Shalom.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”

HEBREWS 11:1

Faith in God for most of us, followers of Christ, at times can be a very difficult if not, seemingly impossible thing. The darkness of doubts at times for some is almost suffocating and too painful to endure.

Recently, it has come to light that Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun and the beloved symbol of saintly devotion to the poor, spent her last 50 years secretly and intensely struggling with doubts about her faith in God.

A recent book publishing Mother Teresa’s letters over the last 66 years of her 87 year long life show an extreme and prolonged crisis of faith.

At one time in 1961, she wrote: “I have come to love the darkness for I believe now that it is part of a very, very small part of Jesus’ darkness and pain on earth.”

The nun coped with what she termed her “spiritual dryness” by likening it to Christ’s suffering and pain on the cross.

Mother Teresa was a 36-year old convent school teacher riding on a train in India on Sept. 10, 1946, when she said Christ spoke to her directly, telling her to become a missionary in the slums of Calcutta, India to help the poorest of the poor. She said “Come be My light” is what she heard.

Despite her long decades of suffering the painful darkness of doubts about her faith in God, she never abandoned her work.

She remained until her death in 1996 with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta which she set up in the late 1940’s to help India’s poor.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”

we made two audio podcasts available this week, hers and Gabriel Lawrence’s message entitled Matthew 25:14-30