Pray for Persecuted Christians in 2013

Please pray for our brothers and sisters who suffer for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is a list (below) of the top 50 countries as of 2013 that persecute our Christian brethren, and comes from a You Tube video from Mark (ProclaimHisWord) - see Mark's video embedded at the bottom of this post....

Please leave a comment if you will join with us in praying for your persecuted brothers & sisters in these countries, and for those who are doing the persecuting, that they may come to Jesus Christ.

2013Top 50 Countries Persecuting Christians

May the power of Almighty God and the love of Jesus Christ be magnified in the lives of these suffering believers who live out their faith through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
 

Hebrews 13:3 
Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.

Ephesians 6:18
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

1 Peter 4:12-16 
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.

2 Timothy 3:12 
Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

Romans 8:35-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Thanks for the video, Mark!

For Nash

This is a screen shot from Google Maps of the Hess Gas Station on Walsingham, in Largo, Florida, about a mile from the hotel we stayed at during our trip down there for Emily's wedding. On Monday, April 15th, around 8 PM, I was filling up our rental car when a 40-something year old man approached me, asking for money. From my work on the streets, I've been approached countless times for money, but my general rule is that I rarely just give money away. Instead, I offer to buy them a meal or some food. That is what I offered to this man, whose name is Nash.

 

 

Nash was from out of town, from New York I think, visiting a friend, and hoping to get work as a truck driver. It takes a lot of discernment when dealing with people on the street, and I don't claim to have much more insight than anyone else. But I do want to bless others as a Christian man, and I want to share the truth of Jesus Christ with as many people as I can; I did both with Nash on this night. I loaded him up with what that this gas station could offer: a couple of hot dogs, a large bag of chips, some breakfast rolls for the next day, and I can't remember what else. And as Nash was getting his food, I gave him the bread of life, the straightforward gospel of Jesus Christ, the promised Savior, who alone can deliver from sin, death, and Hell, and who offers eternal life as a gift to all who will repent and trust in Him. And with his food he also got a "One Second After You Die" gospel booklet to take along.

 

Brothers. all we have is a gift from God, and we have to let it go to bless this dying world around us. I cannot give to every guy sitting on the off-ramp with a cardboard sign, but there are times that I can, and this encounter with Nash was a divine appointment. Please pray for his eternal soul, and let's pray for each other, that we would be channels of God's love and care, to faithfully declare the Risen, Living Savior, and to be rich in good works to those around us.

 

Thank you, Father: you have blessed me with eternal blessings. What a privilege it is to show Christ's love and to declare his saving power. I hope to see Nash in Heaven some day. 

 



Florida Wedding

We had a great trip down to Clearwater, Florida last week, for the wedding of our daughter Emily to Todd Briles. They were staying up in Clearwater, but we found a nice hotel 6 miles south in Indian Rocks Beach, just west of Largo. Thanks be to God for answering the prayers of myself and Mary...I can close my eyes and be back in time, kneeling beside our old couch in the house up in Hancock, Michigan, where many prayers were offered up, asking God to provide a godly young man to be prepared for a husband to Emily. That would have started back in 1995, when Emily was 6 years old. May God richly bless their marriage and family.

Todd & Emily Briles  4/12/13

We took a lot of tracts with us, Spanish & English, along with "God of Wonders" DVD's, and some of Mark Cahill's "One Heartbeat" books to give away during our travels and our stay in Florida. The Lord gave us many opportunities to speak with both believers and with those who do not know Him. We planted some seed and watered some others. One of the housekeeping staff, Maria, was a case of watering. While speaking to her of the things of Jesus Christ, she told us that her daughter was a Christian and had been speaking to her of the same things. We thank God for the chance to add to this witness, and we left her with a "Mr. Good Guy" tract in Spanish and a "God of Wonders."

Me and Mary at the Beach about 2 blocks from our hotel

If you're ever down in the Clearwater area, a great place to witness is at the bus stops for the bust that travels from Clearwater to St. Pete. It's called the Trolley, and people are always sitting at these stops, waiting to catch the bus. If I get a chance to get down there again, I may just catch the Trolley and take it up and down the coast, looking for gospel conversations and witnessing encounters.

The picture above is of our last evening at Indian Rocks Beach.

And below is what we were looking at. As we sat gazing at this splendor, we agreed with the Psalmist...

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard." (Psalm 19:1-3)

And as beautiful as this was to us, we know that this is merely a faint shadow of the glory we will experience when we step into the Lord's presence; that those in Jesus Christ who have gone to the Throne before us are right now experiencing! What a great God we serve....I pray that all of us who know the King of Kings will serve him in this life, until he comes. Amen.

 

St. Paddy's Day Parade 2013

The Des Moines St. Patricks Day parade for us is our outside evangelism kick-off and first big event of the year to celebrate the changing season as it gets warmer and the snow starts to melt.  We evangelists get excited around this time because it's the first day we can really do any witnessing outside and take our teams who have been training throughout the winter.  So Tony, Nick, and myself of Saving Faith Outreach, along with others took over 4,000 St. Paddy's Million Dollar Bill tracts (similar to this one) to share the gospel with the people of Des Moines. 

Did I say that it was getting warmer?  When we got out there to the downtown area it was far from warm.  It was 32 degrees warm.  The wind was wipping around so bad it felt like you were in a tunnel.  I think people were feeling sorry for me because not one tract was refused.  The atmosphere at this St. Paddy's Day was much more family oriented than the blasphemous, drunken, abomination that we were used to in previous years where I had tracts ripped up in my face, stuff thrown at me, and yelled at by people who were antagonistic towards the gospel.  Today people were very happy to receive them and stopped to have many conversations with them. 

Overall it was a great day.  All our tracts were gone and had some memorable conversations.  It was a great start to a hopefully great year.  Consider coming out with us on our next event.  The next one scheduled is the Drake Relays.

Charged!

If you want to get charged-up for living for the Lord Jesus Christ, check out this Mark Cahill video on the website Vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/53297015

This is Part 1 of 2 videos from November 2012, and I've been challenged and blessed by them, during some downtime I've had this week thanks to the nasty flu virus someone gave me. You know the verse in scripture,

"In every thing give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

(1 Thessalonians 5:18)

I'm not happy about the flu, especially since I then passed it on to Mary. But in my illness, I have a ton of things to be thankful for: a dear wife to minister to me, my comfortable home with climate control, clean water, medicines & supplements, a job I can go back to, and on and on. I think of Adoniram Judson, who suffered the loss of two wives and several children to bring the gospel to the people of Burma in the early 19th century, enduring Dengue fever and malaria in primitive conditions, even in prison, and I don't even dare to complain!

In my relatively comfortable illness (compared to that), the Lord used this down time to push me further out of my comfort zone on how to live my life for the glory and purpose of God and Jesus Christ. So in this illness I can and do give thanks to God for this chance to grow as His child, and to get charged up about boldly reaching others for Jesus Christ.

Hope you do, too. Maranatha!