Week 7

I is for impossible.

According to the Bible, it is impossible for us to get to heaven on our own. The Bible tells us in Eph. 2:8-9 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Grace is usually defined unmerited favor. It is something that we receive but don’t deserve.

If we tried to save ourselves we would fall way short. Very short. Not even close. How much do we need to do to make up for the laws and commandments we’ve broken? Remember the verse under “A?” “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That right there is why we need forgiveness. How are we to buy that forgiveness? We’re not! That would like trying to bribe the judge. “I know I murdered that person, but I give to my church and I even helped an old lady cross the street.” Will the judge let you go for the good thing? Of course not. He is going to throw the book at you. If the judge is good and just, he must punish crime.

The only way you can go free is to have that penalty paid for you. That is exactly what Jesus did 2000 years ago. He paid the debt in His life’s blood. There was a legal transaction. God’s wrath and punishment was put on Jesus, who knew no sin. In exchange, we receive His righteousness. A legal transaction was made. We can now go free in God’s court room. So if you repent of your sins and put your trust in Jesus, you will be saved. We know that is that He will save us because of what it says in Romans 10:9-10.

You see we can’t save ourselves. That is why we need a Savior. If we claim we are saved by what we do, we are stealing the honor and glory that God rightfully deserves.

Our visit

We went door knocking around Victory Baptist School. We are now having an early service at the school campus and we were getting the word out in the surrounding areas (actually word about the new service and the Word).

When talking with people, if we got anything but a faith answer to the key question “In your personal opinion, what do you understand that it take for a person to go to heaven”, we would share the gospel. We had one good visit. We ran into an officer that had a Catholic background, but his wife went to Fellowship North. His answer to the Key Question was “faith in Jesus Christ”. Surprisingly there was no works added in his response. We had a good dialogue with him in his driveway. He shared with us struggles about an incident where he had to use his gun on duty. Even though he was totally justified, it still bothers him. I could relate to him because I’ve seen that situation in my own family and understand how hard that is. Before we left we prayed with him that God would protect him both physically and mentally.

Another team had great news. They had the privilege of leading a girl to Christ.

Prayer Request

Pray for this officer. Pray that the little girl that was saved will grow in the Lord and that her mother will come to know the Lord also. Another team had a guy that was clearly under conviction. Pray that God will continue convicting him and that he’ll surrender to God’s will.

Week 7

Buddhism

Buddhism was started by a man named Siddhartha Gautama, who later changed his name to Buddha. He was born in India, around where Napal is today. He was born into a Hindu family around 560 BC. When he was young, a seer said that he would be the greatest ruler ever and if he saw four things: sickness, old age, death and a monk that renounced the world, he would discover a way of salvation for everyone. To protect him, his father built a palace to shelter him from all this. The story goes that one day when he was 29 he did see all these things. He saw a man with sores, an old guy, a dead person being carried to his grave, and a begging monk who appeared peaceful and happy. So he left his family and ran away.

He shaved his head, put on a yellow robe and tried to find salvation by self-denial. When starving himself didn’t work, he sat under a tree for 40 days. There he experienced nirvana which means the “blowing out” of the flame of desire and the negation of suffering. It was here that he clamed that he found salvation and then changed his name to Buddha.

They believe that suffering is universal and nirvana will release you from that cycle, because you will be reincarnated until you are released. This suffering is because of our craving and selfish desires. To reach this state a person must overcome ignorance and eliminate these cravings. The way they say to do this is to suppress the cravings by the eightfold path: right viewpoint, right aspiration, right speech, right behavior, right occupation, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation.

Buddha clamed he knew how to get to nirvana, but what is was like when you got there he didn’t know. Buddha claimed to have found the way but Jesus said that He is the way (John 14:6). Buddha said that suffering comes from cravings and all desire was bad. Christianity says that suffering is caused by sin (Romans 8:18-23) and that we can have good desires like the desire to glorify and give glory to God (see Ps. 27:4, Matt 6:33). It all comes down to work, like all the other religions we’ve studied. People do have a “selfish desire”, a desire to save themselves and glorify our own deads. We can't save ourselves it is only God through Jesus Christ that can save and He should get the glory not us.

Our Visit

We had a scheduled visit to a family at the school. We never found that address but ended up close to a customer and friend of mine. This is a lady that has visited the church before and her son actually invited us the first time to victory. We had a great visit with her and invited her to Sunday school and a church. We prayed with her before we left.

Prayer Request

Pray for all our FAITH teams. Pray for a lady that the gospel was presented to and she accepted the gift of salvation. Thank God for moving in her life and allowing one of the team be involved.

Week 7

T is for Turn.

If you were driving down the street and someone asked to turn, what would they be asking you to do? Change directions right? In the Bible the word repent means to turn. To turn from our sins and our self. Our self in believing that we can get to heaven by our own means. The bible says in Luke 13:3 “unless you repent, you will all likewise parish”. We are going to parish because we are sinners and broken God’s laws. Because of that we should, and rightfully so, be punished. (see Week 4 ) We have a penalty for our sins that we can’t pay, but God did a wonderful thing for us. He sent is Son, who was fully man and fully God to pay the price for our sins. Jesus was to be the perfect sacrifice for us. Jesus, who never sinned, hung on the cross so that we would be made righteous. To accept this payment we must repent and put our faith in Jesus.

Just like repentance is turning from sin, we must have faith in Jesus As one of my team members stressed, when you turn from something you are also turning to something else. We need to turn to Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Jesus said in John 14:6 “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father but through me”. It is only through Jesus that our sins are forgiven. People may ask “What about the people that have never heard of Jesus?” It is not that they haven’t heard of Jesus that will send them to Hell; it is the fact that they sinned against God. It is only through Jesus that those sins can be forgiven. In Him (meaning Jesus) we have redemption through His blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. Eph. 1:7.

Our Visit

We visited a couple from Church that hasn’t been there in a while and have never been to Sunday school. I went to school with the wife, but never really got to know her husband. I had a preconceived opinion about the husband. I don’t know why but I’ve always seen him as an intimidating type of person. After getting to know a little about him with this visit, I realize that my opinion was without merit. He turned out to be a really nice, down to earth type of guy. This visit taught me a lot about judging others. I didn’t get a chance to talk about their salvation, but we did invite them to join our Sunday school group. Maybe we’ll get a chance to talk more in the near future.

Prayer Request

Pray for our pastor and the group that is in the Philippines. They are currently in a small village where several professions were made when I was there last year. They are currently conducting a Bible school at night and constructing a building during the day. Check out this video that I took one village over about a mile over. Pray also the their families. This is a long trip and very hard for their loved ones.