Dear One,

Do you have it on your heart to change your community, to bring Christ into the midst of your friends and family? Joe Jones and I just spent four days with a wonderful woman of God who is seeking to bring her whole community to Christ through house church ministry. If that is your heart’s desire, we will come to you at Lightbearers expense to help train you to plant and grow a house church. Yes, Joe and one of us will come to minister to you and train you to develop a ministry that will impact everyone around you. Help is available!

Reply to this email and we will respond to you quickly. We will especially help our international friends as well.

We are planning a house church gathering for all just outside of Nashville TN the weekend of August 11-13. You are more than welcome to come!

SERVICE AND SACRIFICE

24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. Matt 16:24 NKJV

The ethics of service state this emphatically – that no great good can be accomplished for which some one is not willing to pay a price. To reap, you must sow. To be given to, you must give. Jesus said, to whom much is given, much is required. A great preacher once said, self sacrifice is the passion of great men. Self sacrifice is the offering of oneself to be consumed for the good of others. Paul said, I die daily.

At every level of Christian growth, there is a test that releases you to go further. Failing the test disqualifies one from promotion. Mercy allows us to retake the test, as we seek to grow. But mercy has an end. Paul said he disciplined his body, and brought it into subjection, lest he should be disqualified from the race.

As I was praying about two dear believers recently, the Lord showed me that they had passed the test regarding choosing between the spirit of the world and the Spirit of God. He said He was pleased with them! He said their next test would be regarding choosing between their self and the Spirit of God. As they choose the Lord over themselves, they will become free of themselves, and rise up in God. Hallelujah!

The power of words is so great. What you say YES to, and what you say NO to, defines who you are. We can declare, like Paul, that we were crucified with Christ, nevertheless, we live. Yet it is not the old me, the old self, who lives, but Christ who lives in me, in us. We can declare that the life we now live, we live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us, and gave Himself for us, for me. We die to self by the declaration of the newness of life that we walk in, in Christ. The power of our words is so great because we are choosing life over death, God over ourselves.

Denying ones self, dying to it, frees the spirit to grow up in God. Peace reigns where carnal ambitions once festered. Joy triumphs over the dreary depression of the world. Love prevails over worry, fear and selfish concern. When we finally figure out that life is all about Him, not us…then He imparts to us that more abundant life that comes from following Him.

Remember, dear ones, we must be about our Father’s business…