Noah the Movie!

Just watched the newly released Noah and the Last Days from Living Waters.

Excellent! Check it out & share it with everyone you can. Another tool in our evangelism toolbox to reach precious lost souls in these last days. 

 

 

 

A note from Paul:

Ray and Living Waters often instruct people when presenting the gospel that they must do 2 things to be saved:

1) repent of their sins and...

2) believe the gospel.

They define repentance as "confessing & forsaking" your sin, a reference to Proverbs 28:13, and perhaps to 1 John 1:9.

This is not my definition, so let me clarify.

 

Repentance is biblical, but let's be careful not to redefine it. Paul preached "...repentance toward God, faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21). When confronted with the truth of God's word, and the reproving work of the Holy Spirit regarding sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16:8), a person must change his mind, which is alienated against God, and line up his mind with God's mind. It is a turning to God in your thinking, and I believe it goes hand-in-hand with exercising saving faith towards Jesus Christ.

 

In other words, it is not a 2-step process. I don't believe a person can believe on Jesus Christ the Bible way without repentance - why would he? A person who has believed on Jesus Christ the Bible way - that "look of faith" the Brethren speak of, looking to the finished work of Jesus Christ on Calvary (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) has repented toward God, for he would not look to Christ otherwise.

 

Bottom line: salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ alone, apart from any works (Romans 4:2-5; Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5). I don't see people in the Bible confessing a laundry list of sins in preparation to be saved, but I do see sinners turning to God and trusting Jesus Christ as Savior (John 3:16; Acts 16:31; Galatians 3:26).

 

 

 

Getting Ready....

Hey brothers: hope you are getting ready for the warmer weather, to reach out to our lost world with the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course we don't let cold weather slow us down, and there are people to meet in the malls, convenience stores, and the Wal-Marts, and we can chat with them about the eternal truths of God. If we love God and we love them, we will try to reach out to them. We don't have to have perfect, memorized presentations or lots of charisma...it's not our ability, but our avail-ability that God wants, and God can use our mistakes and fumbles in our efforts to be light & salt in this dark world.

So along those thoughts, I wanted to show you my new preaching platform. It's a little taller than my toolbox platform, and about twice as wide, so you can move around a little bit (and try not to fall off).  I have a bunch of new tracts ready to go, so if the Lord allows and we can proclaim Christ in the outdoors this year, I'm going to give this platform a try.

Mission Good Friday will be here in about a month, so maybe I can use it to share the biblical account of Jesus' death, burial & resurrection, under the blue sky, because I get the day off as a company holiday! I put this on the Calendar page...come join us if you can! In any case, don't wait for "perfect weather" to live for the Lord and share Him with everyone you can, until He comes to take us outta here, or we go to be with Him.

God Bless You, John Short

Just want to say, God bless you, John Short.

Jesus told us to go into all the world, and you went.

He told us to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth, and you went to North Korea to share the gospel with your fellow man who so desperately needs it.
You took gospel tracts to one of the most-feared nations on earth, when most of us will not even take them to the local mall!
Thank you, John.
May your efforts inspire many of us to follow in your steps.

From Voice of the Martyrs website:

"After being detained for two weeks for attempting to distribute gospel tracts in North Korea, John Short, 75, was released by North Korean authorities on March 2. The Australian missionary, who resides in Hong Kong with his wife, had traveled to Pyongyang as part of a regular tour group on Feb. 15. The following day, he was questioned about the gospel tracts and subsequently detained. Upon his release, he was flown to Beijing, where he was met by officials from the Australian embassy. He is expected to return to his home in Hong Kong."

St. Patrick's Day Outreach 2014

Tony and I had a good time at the St. Patrick's Day parade this year.  Since it was on a Monday we had to take off of work to share with the lost in downtown Des Moines. 

We got there super early and went inside and outside talking with people and passing out tracts.  When 11 am rolled around the crowd was decending upon downtown and people were lining the streets and skywalk bridges.  It was a crazy scene as usual.  The people were really interesting this year with all the costumes but it never lost the family atmosphere.  The people were really friendly and fun.  The perfect event to bring the family to and do some witnessing.  By the way...that is NOT me on the right.   

The one-on-one conversations were really good from my end.  The first one I had was with a young man from Jinja, Uganda named Raymond.  It was really cool to talk with someone from a place I went to on a missions trip.  He has been searching and you could tell that the gospel was hitting him from a constant tear in his eye the entire time I talked with him.  I have to remember to bring some things dealing with science and the bible because he was not sure that they can be in agreement.  I had a hard time conveying that and looking for my Evidence New Testament from Living Waters which I had left in my backpack in the car and I normally carry with me.  But I had some paper and wrote down the Answers In Genesis website.  In find that a lot of times if I don't have an answer that there is a website that will.  AIG has been a very useful tool over the years. 

After Tony had left I stuck around after everyone was going home.  I was able to talk to a group of teens.  One kid said he was a Christian but turned to Satanism (which in reality don't worship Satan, but themselves) and assured him that he never was a Christian in the first place using 1 John.  But I focused on one young man who said he was a Christian with the same epistle. 

The season opener went very well.  I gave out 400 St. Paddy's million dollar bills from Tract Planet and some great conversations.  I really like these Tract Planet tracts because of the QR code on the back that takes you to this website. If you would like to join us please give us a buzz. 

New from Mark Cahill

Couple of newer teaching videos from our brother in Jesus Christ, Mark Cahill. Good encouragement to all soul winners and concerned, caring Christians. Second video based on "Pray for BOB."

 

In Mark's message, "Pray for BOB", this is not a person's name, but an acronym...

• B stands for BURDEN: Pray to God for a burden about the lost around you. Do you care about lost people ? Get your head up out of your phone, and look around you: every person has an eternal soul, and will be alive forever either in the presence of God with unspeakable joy, or separated from the love of God in a real place of torment called Hell. Do you care? Do you care enough to do something about that?
• O stands for OPPORTUNITY; God gives each of us 24 hours in a day. Pray that during your 24 hours, God will give you opportunities to share the gospel with lost people. In your neighborhood, at the gas station, at work, etc. And by the way, there are lots of good ways to open doors of opportunity with people: for example, gospel tracts, or just striking up a conversation about normal, everyday things with someone, then swinging the conversation to a spiritual focus with a goal of sharing the gospel.
• B stands for BOLD: now that you've got a burden for the lost, and you've cried out to God for opportunity, go out there an live a Bold life for Jesus Christ, and let the chips fall where they may. Through the leading and power of the Holy Spirit, tell as many people about Jesus Christ as you can, until he comes to catch us away, or you go to be with him!