The Damned Cowards!

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur.  This is the second death, (Revelation 21:8, emphasis mine).

The first few times that I read Revelation 21:8, it just didn’t sink in.  Take a good look at who leads the list of people that are destined for hell: cowards!  When it finally dawned on me that cowards are going to hell (along with murderers, idolaters, liars, and the rest of the nasty crew), I wondered why.  After all, aren’t they already scared?

Then the Lord reminded me that courage is not about not having fear.  Courage is facing down the fear and triumphing over it.  Courage is not allowing fear to stop you when you know what you should do.

Courage is something I see every day in the missionaries and pastors of Europe.  While the rest of the world treats them as irrelevant, these brave men and women—and whole families, even!—take their faith to the nations.  Many of them have sold all their possessions to enter into the mission field.  Some have suffered hardships that have cost them dearly: health, marriages, and family death.

The cowardly are the ones who go to church, but don’t obey when God calls them to ministry.  In their amazing book, Experiencing God, Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King wrote that God invites you to join Him in work that He’s already doing, and that God’s invitation leads to a crisis of belief.  Joining God in His work requires major adjustments in your life.  But the thing that was hardest for me when I was working my way through Experiencing God was the chapter titled “Joining God Requires Obedience,” and especially the section titled “The Cost of Obedience.”

I was fine with obedience costing me, personally, but when I got to the subsection titled “Cost to my Family for me to do God’s Will,” it stopped me cold.  This was 1997, and I was a housewife and stay-at-home mom.  My family was more important to me than anything else on earth.  How could I ask my family to suffer and sacrifice for my answer to God’s call on my life?  Of course, at the time, I didn’t know what God’s call on my life was.  And if I hadn’t counted the cost—including the cost to my family—I might never have known.  God might have deemed me unsuitable for service if I had chosen my family over serving Him.

Baby Steps

God took me along in baby steps.  I didn’t jump into missionary service right then.  Later in the book, it asks the question: What work is God inviting you to join Him in?  When I prayed about that question, I remembered that I had been asked by another mother to help put together a children’s church program.  The church had been through a very bitter split just before I moved there, and the children’s program was a casualty.  So Sunday mornings consisted of great music, great teaching and preaching, but absolutely nothing for the children.  While the adults enjoyed the sermon, the children all around me colored pictures, ate candy, and went out to the bathroom with a frequency that far exceeded the needs of even the tiniest bladder.  So I called this woman and we met to pray and plan for putting together a children’s church program.  We had so much fun, both with each other and with our own children, that really the hardest part of all had been making that initial phone call.  That phone call had taken courage.

One day as I was showering I had an idea for a children’s program.  I was living in New England at the time, and there the kids had a week off from school, usually in February, and it was called Winter Break.  Many times, winter break put a strain on working parents, who then had to scramble to find someone to watch the kids while they work.  If they didn’t find someone, they simply had to take time off work for that week.  My idea was a one day Winter Carnival at which the kids could play games, win prizes, and learn about Jesus in a fun atmosphere.  My immediate reaction was “What a fantastic idea!” and on the heels of that thought was resistance because it was going to be a huge task to put it together in just a month’s time.

Having recently been through Experiencing God, I knew that an idea that great for sharing the Gospel together with my feeling of resistance meant that this was really God’s idea.  So I called the pastor and told him the idea.  He loved it, and told the elders about the idea.  They also loved it.  Before I knew it, people were calling and volunteering time, volunteering resources, and volunteering to help.  In the end, I had only a small part to do in planning, most of the set up, implementation, and clean up was done by others.  I had so many volunteers and so many resources that in the end, I couldn’t take any credit for any of it.  The biggest thing I did was call the pastor with the idea that God had given me.  And all that the phone call took was courage.

I knew at the time that children’s church was a temporary call, but I had no idea that God had a much bigger call on my life.  Two years after Experiencing God, and having Him change my life through service in children’s church, I got the big call.  But even the big call happened in small steps for me.  That story is too long to place here, but it is recounted in detail in my book, Laughing in My Dreams.

The point is that as I showed myself to be faithful in smaller things, God gave me bigger things.  The biggest obstacle to overcome was my own resistance.  That’s not to say that there wasn’t resistance and obstacles from other quarters.  There was.  But once I made my mind up, it was easy to overcome those things.

When I moved back to Italy as a missionary, I had a strong call of God upon my life, and my own determination to follow that call.  People on both continents told me that I am a very brave woman to have moved to Italy alone.  At first I thought that they just didn’t know how scared I am at times.  But then I realized that courage is not the absence of fear.  Courage is going ahead despite the fear.  And you know what I learned?  Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  What I learned in facing down fear is that fear flees when faced with determined action.

As many of my readers know, the End Times is on my mind a lot lately.  In reading Revelation 21:8 again, I realized that there will be a lot of people who take the Mark of the Beast, knowing that the Bible says not to.  In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Antichrist made that mark the number 666, just to snub his nose at God.  I have heard that several non-believers are reluctant to take a microchip into their hand because they recognize that it sounds like what Christians say will happen.  Those people who take the Mark knowing that they shouldn’t, will do so because they don’t want to be beheaded.  They are cowards.  They will end up in the Lake of Fire because they chose temporal comfort over eternal security.  And really, the only reason why they would do that is because they just don’t love God.

Don’t be cowardly!  Stand up for your beliefs.  We will overcome by the Blood of the Lamb and by the Word of our Testimony.  And never forget: God is good!  He will give you the strength and the joy to go through whatever you must go through.  Yes, joy!  The joy of the Lord is your strength.

Putting Unemployed Angels to Work

One really nice thing about not having a television is that I have gotten out of the habit of zoning-out in front of the idiot box at the end of the day.  And let’s be honest, there are a lot of things on television that are not faith-building.  In fact, there are far more unchristian and even antichristian programs than there are Christian programs.  Ask yourself this: if I wouldn’t let my children or grandchildren watch this, then why am I watching it?

Instead of television, what I do is spend time with friends, read a book, or watch sermons on You Tube.  Instead of only hearing 1 Bible-based message a week, I hear as many as 10.  The Bible says: “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God,” (Romans 10:17, NKJV).  So if I have a lot of faith, that is why—I’m hearing the Word of God daily.  And do you know what?  That gives me more of an appetite for the Word of God, which gives me more faith.  It’s a righteous cycle.  Hallelujah!

This morning I was praying for Europe, my mission field.  My fellow missionaries understand the burden I feel for Europe because each of us feels that for our respective mission fields.  It’s not a burden in the way that most people think of burdens.  Rather, it’s a deep longing and desire to pray and to keep bringing Europe’s people before the throne of God.

So as I was praying this morning, the Holy Spirit reminded me of something I heard in a sermon recently.  The sermon was about calling on angelic help.  “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” (Hebrews 1:14, emphasis mine).  There are billions of angels.  A third of the angels rebelled, including a cherub named Lucifer, and became fallen angels, also called demons.  Matthew 18:10 makes it clear that each child has a guardian angel.  So if there are over 7 billion people currently alive on planet earth (check out: World Population Clock), then that means that there are billions of angels.  In addition to the guardian angel that each of us has, there are messenger angels (like Gabriel), warrior angels (like Michael), and worship angels (like the ones around God’s throne).  And the angels have ranks: angels, archangels, princes, thrones, etc.

So, given that there are literally billions of angels, outnumbering the demons by 2 to 1, then there are a whole lot of angels ready to help us.  But they’re mostly idle because we haven’t asked God to send angels to help us.

Note: Never go directly to the angels, themselves.  They take their orders from God.  If you ask an angel to help you, you will unknowingly be inviting a demon to interfere in your life.  Whereas God must be invited to act on your behalf, demons will push their way into the slightest opening that they are given.  If you’re curious about the purpose and position of angels, read the first chapter of Hebrews.

Often I am saddened by the spiritual state of Europe.  Operation World says that Europe is “by far the most secular and least religious continent,” (pg. 79).  On top of that, there are not anywhere near enough missionaries to bring the Gospel to every part of Europe.  My organization, European Faith Missions, in partnership with GoMissions, is working to remedy that situation by offering an online bulletin board for matching missionaries with serving opportunities in Europe.  But Europe has failed to capture the imagination of most Christians.

Americans think of Europe as a wealthy place because that’s where rich people go on vacation.  The reality is that there is a much bigger gap between rich and poor here, and there is practically no middle class in most European countries.  Moreover, the third world can be found in every gypsy camp throughout Europe.

I am very aware that the clock is ticking down to the end, and it’s very near.  So, inspired by the Holy Spirit, I prayed for angels to help in the task of spreading the Gospel throughout Europe.  On Judgment Day we won’t be judged for our sins because if we’re Christian, then Jesus has already paid the full price for our sins at the cross.  But we will be judged for our works.  Don’t misunderstand that as meaning anything like salvation by works.  Each of us has been given spiritual gifts and work to do for the Lord.  On Judgment Day we will receive the reward for our work.

No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.  If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light.  It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work.  If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward.  If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.  1 Corinthians 3:11-15, emphasis mine

Salvation determines where we will spend Eternity, our work on earth determines our reward for Eternity (read the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30).  Do you know what our reward is?  God told Abraham: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your Shield, your very Great Reward,” (Genesis 15:1, emphasis mine).  Our reward will be how much facetime we have with God.  Each time I experience the presence of God, it leaves me wanting more.  His presence is our reward, and how much we get to experience of His presence in Eternity will be determined by how faithfully we carried out our work here on earth.  Remember how the people begged Moses to put a veil over his face because he shined too much with the glory after talking with God (Exodus 34:29-35)?  Well, I believe that the same glory that caused the people to avoid Moses will attract the people to us in Eternity.

But it’s not the people that interest me so much, but being in the presence of God.  That’s where I want to spend my time in Eternity.  I want a Great Reward!

If Christians fail to answer the call of God to come to this mission field, I will call the angels to do their work.  And those of us who answered the call will have our Reward.  God is good!  And His presence is the best Reward I could ever get!  He is my very Great Reward!  Hallelujah!

The Poster Child for Communism

The missionaries I came to meet with, Ted and Carol, picked me up at Budapest airport and drove me to their home about an hour and a half away.  They live in a former mining town in Hungary.  Their town’s people were the “poster children” for Communism because the workers were miners.  Miners have big muscles, so they were celebrated in pictures and sculpture shirtlessly embodying the Communist ideal.  The Communist dictators treated them very well because they were the poster children.  So the town’s infrastructure was far better than most of the rest of Hungary.

This is the pretty town square viewed from T & C’s window

When Communism collapsed, there was joy all over Hungary—except for this town.  They had lost their celebrity status and all the perks that come with it: the finest housing, cars, the best food, good schools for their children, etc.  For them freedom meant learning how to scrape their resources together, working at whatever jobs they could find when the mine closed.  Many in this town are nostalgic about the “good old days of Communism.”

Having arrived Saturday night, I had missed the gypsy Bible study (see Six Hours Late).  But I did get to hear Ted preach.  Over breakfast this morning I had mentioned the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-6) in conversation about how God is moving among the Italian Catholics (see Touching the Hem of His Garment).  Ted said, “Guess what scripture I’m preaching about!”  Yup!  John 5:1-6.  His sermon was really good, teaching me something new that I had never considered before.

Jesus had approached the paralytic and no one else.  Why?  Perhaps because everyone else had someone there to help them into the waters when they rippled.  Ted said that it was strange that this man was alone.  Jesus asked him a strange question, one I had always wondered about: “Do you want to be healed?”  Of course He knew the answer, but it gave the man the opportunity to reveal something about his own character.  He complained that there was no one to help him into the water.  And even when he had been healed, he “blamed” Jesus because He had told the man to carry his bed home—in other words, to work on the Sabbath.  And after he saw Jesus again, he ran to the authorities and told them that it was Jesus.  Not one word of gratitude for his miraculous and life-changing healing.  This guy had some definite character issues, which is something I had never really thought about before.

After church we walked around town a bit, returned home, and prayed together.  Ted and Carol mostly work with gypsies, doing CHE, Community Health Evangelism.  The CHE concept is great.  It involves health, but not only the health of the body, but of the whole person: body, soul (mental/emotional), and spirit.  I love the holistic approach, and it is so desperately needed in the gypsy communities of Europe.  The gypsies are the most receptive of all Europeans when it comes to the Gospel message.  They grab it with both hands.  So we prayed together for them, for their family, and for their ministry.

And I pray daily for the Lord of the Harvest to send more workers for this mission field.  The harvest is ripe, but the workers are few.  If you are interested in missions in Europe, whether with gypsies or not, check out GoMissions.

God is good!  Working with God is great!  He’s the best Boss ever, and the retirement plan is out of this world!

My Plans Plus Hurricane Sandy Equals God’s Plan

Last year when I prayed about and booked travel to the US, God changed and enlarged the scope and purpose of my plans, using the Bastrop Wildfires (http://www.nbcdfw.com/weather/stories/17-Missing-in-Bastrop-Fires-1554-Homes-Destroyed-129616998.html).  He had told me to return to the US for five months, so I thought I would be using that time to fix up and sell my house.  Instead, my house became available just when my brother and his family needed a place to live.  Their house had burned down in the wildfire.  That left me without my plans for those five months.  In thinking about it before flying home, I said, “Lord, what am I going to do for five months without a house?” not really asking Him, just musing, but He answered immediately, saying: “Promote missions in Europe!”  And I saw that it was a fantastic idea.  So I attended conferences and spoke at churches and to church groups about Europe as a mission field.

It was a very fruitful trip, and my brother and sister-in-law helped me fix up the house to sell, so everything worked out even better than I could have hoped for, certainly better than my original plan.

This year God has changed my plans using Hurricane Sandy.  Waaay back in May I prayed about and booked travel back to the US for three months.  My travel date was October 31.  I had less than a week between returning from the Tallinn, Berlin, Moscow trip to get ready.  That left little time for seeing friends before flying back to the US.

One friend in particular that I had wanted to see before going was Francesca, an Italian missionary to Cambodia.  But I returned to Milan only to find out that she was in the hospital, surely dying.  When I went to the hospital the doctors told me that she had already died.  I visited her in the hospital morgue, which I wrote about in my post “Goodbye Dear Friend” (http://europeanfaithmissions.com/2012/10/30/goodbye-dear-friend/).  The celebration of Francesca’s life (what others call funeral) was scheduled for October 31, my departure date.  I felt bad about missing it because I hadn’t gotten to see any of her family at the hospital.  When I learned that my flights were cancelled because of the hurricane, I was grateful to be able to attend after all.  Her son remembered me, and it was good to be able to tell him how much I had loved his mother.

Another friend I had wanted to see was Giulio, whom I had met in London two years ago.  We had set a dinner appointment for my return from Moscow, but illness had incapacitated him, so we had to cancel.  With the change of plans, I was able to have dinner with Giulio (fully recovered) last night.

Finally, there was Enza, a dear friend for many years.  I had felt bad that I hadn’t had time to pay her a visit, even though she only lives a block away.  This morning I visited with her, and we made plans for a visit to her house in the country in February when I return.

I know that a lot of peoples’ travel plans were disrupted by the Hurricane Sandy.  How we react to a change of plans reveals a lot about ourselves, especially our flexibility and our trust in God.  At first I was not pleased about the change of plans, but not because of delayed travel.  I was unhappy at having the United Airlines website telling me that all my flights were on schedule, and then after schlepping my bags all the way out to the airport to find that they were all cancelled.  Of course they knew and could have updated their website accordingly.  United Airlines handled all this very badly in my opinion, and cost me over 3 hours travel time to the airport, and €16 for the bus ride.  But I’ve learned that the quicker that I can remind myself of God’s goodness, and the fact that He is in control, the happier I will be.  So while on hold with United, I did an attitude adjustment.  And that’s when I saw the opportunity in the delay.  If I had allowed myself to remain annoyed with United (and justifiably so!), I might have failed to see the opportunity to see these three dear friends.

Having visited my friends, I feel ready to leave Milan for three months.  And as I prepare for my travels tomorrow, I realize that relationships are important to God.  God is a relational God who delights in loving relationships: our relationships with one another and even more, our relationship with Him.  God is good.