Dear friends - hello,
We are learning more and more how the African church here functions. Really good to understand. A word the Lord gave me earlier in the week was from Psalm 18:43 "You have delivered me from the strivings of the people". We have realised in what we are seeing how far the Lord has brought us in learning about His Grace and His love that it is not in what we can do, or how much we pray that matters to Him, but our heart toward Him and our resting and trusting in Him. We can pray all we like, we can do all the godly things, serve people, look good on the outside but our hearts can so much be so far from him it is not funny. We can be the evangelist, the prophet, the pastor, the whatever, but unless we have that relationship with the Lord, we have absolutely nothing. We can bring people to the Lord, get commitments from people that bring in numbers to Christ, but will that fruit last as their hearts have not even understood the heart of God toward them. We are seeing so much how much the spiritual fear of the demonic world actually pushes people to Christ rather than the understanding of His love for people. There is so much that we are thinking about and the Lord is wanting us to teach on and hence why he is pushing us to spend time at the moment in the dreams he is giving to write sermons so believe he must have a use for them in the future.
Another topic that I am processing is "Fear or Faith". I have been given some words that have brought a fear of going into the future and what might happen, but I am learning to discern more and more about what is of God and what is of man. God is one who speaks faith into things, not fear - he brings peace not doubt and so I know the Lord is giving us so much to preach on when returning to New Zealand. So I want to encourage you that if somebody speaks something over your life that doesn't bring faith then put it to the side. It may happen what was spoken, but with God there is always a hope and a future and something to step into, not away from, he doesn't give a sense of 'foreboding' and I actually think that is something here over this nation. They have only had trouble for a long time and hence fear what may be ahead, very uncertain times here. We were blessed the other day when we went out to the village and a lady came and spoke truth and faith into us that it pushed us out of holding back and realised something we had picked up along the way but it was broken when she spoke faith into us and so we speak faith into you - STEP UP AND STEP IN PEOPLE BY FAITH INTO WHAT THE LORD HAS PUT ON YOUR HEARTS!!! Not holding back but by taking it by force as it says in Matt 11:12 "And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by force"
On a practical detail level -
This past week has seen me at a womens bible study. Very interesting and I hope to join them again this coming week. Jim & I were invited out to join a medical team that go out to the bush and teach them basic health but also share the gospel which became our turn to minister and see the tangible presence of God released which they commented on as they had not seen it happen out there before, so that was cool, hopefully we will join them again this coming week but we will see. We were invited last night to a church service which was classed as a 'prophetic deliverance service' which Jim and I received a prophetic word which was great confirming our call to preach to the nations and what the Lord has ahead which confirmed other words people had given us. And mainly the Lord is putting words into our heart to preach so we are feeling the push to sit down and write some sermons. We still have our colds which we want to see a breakthrough in but I think it is just the way the Lord is telling us to rest and write. So on that note, need to go and do this. Love to all!
Jim & Sarah from Bulawayo Zimbabwe.
We are learning more and more how the African church here functions. Really good to understand. A word the Lord gave me earlier in the week was from Psalm 18:43 "You have delivered me from the strivings of the people". We have realised in what we are seeing how far the Lord has brought us in learning about His Grace and His love that it is not in what we can do, or how much we pray that matters to Him, but our heart toward Him and our resting and trusting in Him. We can pray all we like, we can do all the godly things, serve people, look good on the outside but our hearts can so much be so far from him it is not funny. We can be the evangelist, the prophet, the pastor, the whatever, but unless we have that relationship with the Lord, we have absolutely nothing. We can bring people to the Lord, get commitments from people that bring in numbers to Christ, but will that fruit last as their hearts have not even understood the heart of God toward them. We are seeing so much how much the spiritual fear of the demonic world actually pushes people to Christ rather than the understanding of His love for people. There is so much that we are thinking about and the Lord is wanting us to teach on and hence why he is pushing us to spend time at the moment in the dreams he is giving to write sermons so believe he must have a use for them in the future.
Another topic that I am processing is "Fear or Faith". I have been given some words that have brought a fear of going into the future and what might happen, but I am learning to discern more and more about what is of God and what is of man. God is one who speaks faith into things, not fear - he brings peace not doubt and so I know the Lord is giving us so much to preach on when returning to New Zealand. So I want to encourage you that if somebody speaks something over your life that doesn't bring faith then put it to the side. It may happen what was spoken, but with God there is always a hope and a future and something to step into, not away from, he doesn't give a sense of 'foreboding' and I actually think that is something here over this nation. They have only had trouble for a long time and hence fear what may be ahead, very uncertain times here. We were blessed the other day when we went out to the village and a lady came and spoke truth and faith into us that it pushed us out of holding back and realised something we had picked up along the way but it was broken when she spoke faith into us and so we speak faith into you - STEP UP AND STEP IN PEOPLE BY FAITH INTO WHAT THE LORD HAS PUT ON YOUR HEARTS!!! Not holding back but by taking it by force as it says in Matt 11:12 "And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by force"
On a practical detail level -
This past week has seen me at a womens bible study. Very interesting and I hope to join them again this coming week. Jim & I were invited out to join a medical team that go out to the bush and teach them basic health but also share the gospel which became our turn to minister and see the tangible presence of God released which they commented on as they had not seen it happen out there before, so that was cool, hopefully we will join them again this coming week but we will see. We were invited last night to a church service which was classed as a 'prophetic deliverance service' which Jim and I received a prophetic word which was great confirming our call to preach to the nations and what the Lord has ahead which confirmed other words people had given us. And mainly the Lord is putting words into our heart to preach so we are feeling the push to sit down and write some sermons. We still have our colds which we want to see a breakthrough in but I think it is just the way the Lord is telling us to rest and write. So on that note, need to go and do this. Love to all!
Jim & Sarah from Bulawayo Zimbabwe.