He is Risen!

Happy Easter to all of you! This morning I was excited because we were celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. At the same time, when I left my house, I felt a bit of sadness. Sadness because everyone around me knows nothing of what we celebrate today.
God blessed in the services at the church where we are training. There were eight visitors all of which were not believers. I had a chance to talk with two young men who came. They had questions about the forgiveness of sin. It was a great opportunity to explain Jesus' death on the cross and then of course his resurrection. I'm always so amazed to see sincere seeker's reaction when we explain the Scriptures to them. The great thing is the day is not over. We will get together tonight and have a big dinner. There will be visitors there also. May God bless our conversations!

Correction

I had a typo that I've since corrected. I wrote the Great Commission does end with converts. I meant to write The Great Commission does not end with converts.

Committment

LeRoy Eims, author of The Lost Art of Disciple Making, gave his opinion on time frames for discipleship. He himself says that the times vary according to people. Here is what he says:
Convert to disciple-2 years
Disciple-worker-2 years
Worker-leader- 3 year
Here is a quote from him. "Let's say Jesus spent 12 hours a day with his men for three years. That's 4380 hours a year, and 13,140 hours in those 3 years. If we are able to spend seven hours per week with a person (four in church and three elsewhere)-and that's a high figure-it would mean that we would spend 365 hours a year with that man. At that rate it would take us 36 years to match the time frame used by Jesus..."
The point is that we need Christian workers who are willing to stick it out. In what are called closed countries the turn around time is very short. In our time here in this country we've known 10 families that have left the country. If it takes 5-7 years to train a leader, it is no wonder there are so many immature believers in this country. There is always a need for what we call short-termers. If you feel called has called you somewhere, be committed if necessary to stay a lifetime. The great commission does not end with converts.

Interesting Day

It seems like every time the Turkish pastor leaves something interesting happens. We had 8 students come in this morning. They were doing a report for the sociology class and wanted to video our services. So I said sure go for it. After the service they wanted to ask us questions. So myself and some of the young people answered their questions. I was very pleased with the way our young people handled themselves and answered questions. They were talking with students from their same university. Some of the questions were: As a Christian can you do all that you want in Turkey? Are their similarities in the Koran and the Bible? Have you been harassed for being a Christian? What do you think about missionary work? In all we talked with them for about an hour and a half. What was really nice is that after they stopped filming they asked more questions. Throughout the entire conversation the young people explained the gospel. God gave us a great opportunity to speak the truth to these students. What is even better is their university class is going to watch the videos. Thank God for this opportunity!

Mother-In-Law

Some people have a hard time getting along with their mother-in-law's. Others have no problem. Being 6,000 miles away from my mother-in-law, I definitely don't have a problem. Here many women live with their mother-in-law. Of course in the matriarchal hierarchy she's the ruler. My wife has made friends with a lady. So she came over to visit with Angie. Along with her came her mother-in-law. According to Angie it was constantly telling her daughter-in-law what to do. The subject turned to Jesus and the Bible. Angie's friend was asking normal questions. The mother-in-law definitely wanting to put an end to these questions spoke up as an authority about the Koran and the Bible. This is where you see a huge different in cultures. Angie, the American, has respect for elders, but if they are wrong she will say something. Which she politely told the woman what the Bible says about itself and Jesus. A Turkish woman on the other hand would not dare say anything against the mother-in-law. Even if she's wrong. So hopefully as Angie builds this friendship, the mother-in-law will not always tag along.

Pilgrim's Progress

I've mentioned before that we studying Pilgrim's Progress with some college students. Some are believers some are not. I was really encouraged by yesterday's study. We had 7 students and they were all talking about what they thought about chapter 3. All I had to do was ask a question and they took care of the rest. The main reason we are doing this study is to help them grow in their faith. We want them to continue God's work in Turkey. One of the things we talked about yesterday was this: Christian was asked by one of his hosts in the Beautiful Palace about his family. He responded that he had told them about the judgment that was coming and that he had to get this burden removed from off his back. So the point we were talking about was witnessing to your family and close friends. Even though it is hard, if we truly love them we'll tell them the truth. One of the students brought up the point that the man that Christian was talking with said you are not responsible for them. He asked are we truly responsible for them? The fact is that Christian had told his family of the coming judgment but they made fun of him. He told them! We are not responsible for what people do with the truth, but we are responsible to tell them. The last point we talked about was what if God would allow us to see the people in Hell, in everlasting suffering, Jesus and the Gospel would be more frequently on our lips. We would think of any possible way to turn a conversation to the Gospel. I hope these thoughts will stay with you this week.

Good day...bit of a sad ending

I had an opportunity to preach at the fellowship we are learning from. The pastor is out of the country. Then this afternoon we began a study of the book Pilgrim's Progress with the college age students. Actually we just talked about the forward. It was all about the things that John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim's Progress, went through during his life. That led us into the topic of persecution and suffering in the Bible. We don't hear many sermons on it, but it is definitely in the Bible. One of the major things we talked about was how many people in our world die everyday. We stressed the eternity of suffering they will go through. With this in mind, we want to live our lives and maximize our time in a way that best glorifies God. After everyone had left, one of the girls came back and said that her dad, who was a Muslim, died when she was three. She asked, "What will happen to him....Is he in Hell?" It wasn't so hard for me to tell her the truth from the Word of God, but it made me sad. I thought, "She lost her dad when she was three. She has now believed in Jesus as her Savior. She'll never see her dad again." This is exactly the reason we preach the Gospel. So many people around the world have never been confronted with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They've never even been made to think about whether or not what they believe is true. I hope that it will be a reminder to this young girl to share Christ with her family and friends. I know it was for me.