Psalms

We’re starting off the year going through Psalms in church.  Today, as I was listening to some music on YouTube, I came across this song.

 

Psalm Chapter 1 (So I Sit Alone)

 

 



This one really stands out to me.  Back in October of 2006, I heard of an Evangelism “Crash Course” on the radio (KLove), so I went to it on 10/14/06.  This class was based on the Way Of The Master that Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron teach, explaining how to evangelize using the Law to show our need for a Savior.  I always knew that as a Christian, we should be sharing our faith, but I really didn’t know how to do so.  This class explained how to do it in a simple, Biblical way.  I have attended and even taught many of these classes since then. 

This class was life changing for me, and I started going out on a regular basis to share my faith with others.  At first, there was a pretty good sized group of people going out there doing this.  But slowly, over the years, the numbers got smaller and eventually it was just me.  By then, my daughter, McKayla was old enough to join me, and she’d been asking to go for years prior to this, so she started coming with me.  Occasionally, we’d see someone else out there doing the same thing, and it was encouraging when we did, it just wasn’t often. 

But as the quote in the picture shows, I would still follow Christ, alone or not.  I knew this was something that I had to do. 

Then I met Chris and Nick, who introduced me to Rachel, and all of her amazing songs.  And now we have a group of people evangelizing and street preaching again.  Matt, who I’d met before, David, who I met online, Leigh, Aaron, Jamin, and my youngest daughter is getting old enough to come out now, too. 

I had been praying for a long time for more people to get involved, per Luke 10:2, and to be able to teach this in my church on a regular basis.  God has provided, in His timing, and we now have monthly classes available and more workers in the harvest field. 

 Long ago, when my mother was alive, she had told me that she felt God had some sort of special purpose for my life.  I was really nothing more than a false convert at that time, so I really didn’t think much of it.  I figured every mother probably felt that way about her children.  But years later, my sister told me that our mom had told her the same thing about me.  And my younger sister was a Christian long before I really was. 

Although my mother is no longer on this earth, maybe this is what she was thinking of.  Or maybe God has even more in store, I don’t know.  I just know that I want to follow after Him, to trust in Him with my whole life and eternity.  I praise God for all the blessings He’s given me, and want to live my life in obedience to Him, whether I walk alone or He blesses me with a group of like minded believers. 

We follow Him not to try to earn our way, and not because we think we deserve it, but out of gratitude that He would save us when we were found guilty, condemned and without hope of saving ourselves.  The God we serve is an awesome God!

Soli Deo Gloria

 

 

 

 

Prayer

It is amazing how God works.  I actually had an opportunity to pray at work with my coworkers in a meeting today.  Unfortunately, it often takes some bad news to open up a door like this.  One of my coworkers recently had a lump removed that turned out to be cancer from melanoma that had gotten into the lymph nodes.  She’ll be getting treatments for this and just wanted to let everyone know what was going on, so we had a quick unit meeting. 

 

After explaining the situation, and expressing her faith and trust in God through all of this, another coworker said that it might be a little different, but asked if we could pray for her.  Our manager agreed and they asked me to do so.  It’s not often in these days of attacks on the Christian faith that an opportunity like this would come up in the workplace. 

 

I thank God for this opportunity and pray that He would be with my coworker, encouraging, strengthening and helping her deal with whatever comes in this experience and that He would heal her in a miraculous way.  I also pray for my other coworkers, as well as myself, that God would draw us closer to Him.  It is so easy to get distracted with all of the day to day activities in this world and neglect to put Him first, as per the first of the Ten Commandments. 

 

Please keep my coworker and her family in your prayers.

 

Soli Deo Gloria

 

Saturday 12/16/17

Matt, Chris, Aaron and I met together for prayer and fellowship before heading out to Mill Ave for evangelism. It turned out to be a crazy night. It started out kind of dead, not a lot of people around as the weather gets cooler in AZ, but it did get busier as the night went on. We talked with a few people, handed out some tracts and did some Open Air preaching.

I didn’t know that the Black Hebrew Israelites were KJOnly. Did you know that King James was black? Yes, the King of England, that is what they believe! And if you’re a white person, you’re going to hell, there is no hope for you, whatsoever. Quite the racist group, and they usually won’t even talk to me. There is no reasoning with them, either. So, this guy, carrying a fifth of vodka on the street was telling Matt how his HCSB was “changed” and “wrong”, and how all the tribes of Israel can be traced to specific races today. He usually stood a few inches from his face and yelled very loudly. Still, he was more friendly than most of these guys that I’ve come across.
 

A couple of guys almost got into a fight in front of us while Aaron was preaching. The first I was aware of was when one man smashed the other guys soda container and started yelling at him. Apparently, they knew each other a little bit, but were having some sort of disagreement that got out of hand. I managed to get between them and calmed the aggressor down. I was also able to leave a tract with him as he went about his night.

Aaron took a homeless guy to get a burger and went over some verses, having a little Bible study in the restaurant with him for a while. The guy had a lot of questions and seemed to really want to understand what the Bible says. He stopped by and asked more questions to the rest of us later on.

Chris bought a meal for another homeless guy, and we talked with him for a little while in the restaurant. He had a Roman Catholic background and seems to have moved on to some sort of new age idolatry now. We didn’t have a real productive discussion with him, but perhaps God will use this as a starting point to get him turned around and on the right track.

  Please pray that God would work in all of those that we talked with or gave tracts to, and any that heard the Open Air preaching, that He would convict them of their sins, show them their need of a Savior and turn to Him for salvation.
May we glorify God in all that we do.

Soli Deo Gloria

Saturday 12/09/17

Nick, Chris, McKayla and I met Matt, David, Marcus and Brandt in Tempe for evangelism. 

Sometimes you can just feel the darkness out on Mill Ave when witnessing.  This was one of those nights. 

It’s not really something you can explain, but more like something you can just feel.  I was trying to explain this to McKayla, and she said, “You feel it, too?”

When you feel the spiritual warfare around you, it’s important to stay strong, pray and trust in God.  His Words will not return void, but will accomplish the purpose He has sent them out for.  It makes me wonder who we might reach that the enemy does not want reached. 

There was a group of drunk men, one of whom really seemed interested to hear and discuss spiritual things, while his friends wandered around attempting to be a distraction to him and to us.  Then another guy, a self-proclaimed drug dealer joined in to mock us. 

Meanwhile, we did distribute a few tracts to those walking by. 

A guy stopped to drop off some clothes for homeless people, telling David that they might be more helped by those than just us preaching to them.  David started to explain what we were doing and the importance of eternal salvation, but the guy said that he knew what we were doing.  He seemed kind of neutral towards us, it was just a little weird. 

I talked with another guy, who seemed a bit crazy.  McKayla walked away, because the guy had barked at her earlier.  No, that’s not an idiom, he actually, literally barked at her, “Arf!” 

He calmed down a little bit while I was speaking with him, but then ran off with another friend and was messing with other people along the way.  Still, he took a tract with him.  Pray that he reads it when he is sober and repents of his sins, trusting in Christ alone for his salvation. 

Soli Deo Gloria

Saturday 12-02-17

So, this past Saturday night in Tempe was nice.  The Arts Festival is going on during the day and at night they close it down.  But the tents remain in the streets for the next day’s activities, so, there is no traffic or exhaust, less noise, and a lot of security walking around when we go out to evangelize.

I brought the Einstein illusion, and met Aaron, David, Nick, Rachel and Matt on Mill Ave to reach out to the lost.  We had some good conversations, did a little bit of Open Air preaching, and distributed a lot of tracts. 

Nick filmed a quick demonstration and advertisement for the upcoming evangelism class this weekend, and Rachel posted it online.  You can check it out here: 

Link

Much thanks to both of them for that! 

Hopefully, we’ll reach more people and generate more interest to get equipped to carry out the Great Commission and reach out to the lost. 

A couple of people were attracted to the Einstein illusion, and I was able to take them through the fun “genius” questions at the top of the board as an icebreaker, and then get into the more serious questions of the Good Person Test after that. 

One woman actually got all of the “genius” questions correct.  I don’t think that’s ever happened before, because they are designed to show that your mind can fool you into answering incorrectly. 

But, when going through the Good Person Test, she did not do so well.  This follows what the Bible says, in that there are none found good, not even one (Romans 3:10-12, Psalm 14:1-3, Ecclesiastes 7:20).  So often, we compare ourselves to others around us, normally the worst that we can find, and then call ourselves good in comparison.  But God will not judge us compared to other people.  When we bow before Him on the day of judgment to give account for our life, we will stand alone, compared only to His holy standard, which is revealed to us in outline form with the Ten Commandments. 

How do you think you would do?  Have you kept them?  Do you even know them?  It’s interesting that most people claim that they’ve kept them, but when pressed, cannot even name half of them (see Exodus 20:1-17).

Now, keep in mind that no one is saved by keeping the Law (Romans 3:20, Galatians 2:16).  That was never the intent (Galatians 3:24, Romans 7:7). 

The Ten Commandments simply show how we’ve failed to uphold God’s holy standard, and our NEED for a Savior ( 1 Timothy 1:9-11, John 14:6, Acts 4:12).  These are the greatest tool in evangelism, yet so often overlooked. 

So, we use the Law as it was intended, to show our own sinfulness and the need of a Savior, then explain the Gospel, that we must each repent, turning away from our sins, and trust in Jesus Christ alone for our salvation.  He is the only way.

Soli Deo Gloria

Saturday 11/25/17

ASU vs U of A game was on Saturday, so it was crowded on Mill Ave.  Traffic was a mess with road closures and accidents, but a lot of us met out there to evangelize.  My wife and youngest daughter came out, and we met up with Nick, Chris, Eddie, Leigh who brought his sister Danica, Matt and David.  We handed out a lot of tracts, had a few one to one conversations, and a little Open Air preaching. 

It’s been a long time since we’ve had so many people evangelizing that we had to split up into different locations, praise God.  This has been an answer to my prayer of Luke 10:2, asking for more workers in the harvest field. 

Next week is the Tempe Art Festival during the day.  At night all the tents are closed down, but still in the streets, so there is no traffic driving around, which makes it nice.  The week after that (Dec 9^th), I’ll be having another evangelism class at church before heading out, so I’m hoping to bring out even more workers. 

We talked with a few people, I took a guy named Brian through the Good Person Test (GPT), and explained the Gospel.  It seemed to make sense to him, pray that the Lord would work in his heart, convicting him of his sins and drawing him near for salvation.  I’ll try to have more details on specific encounters next week, but this night was pretty busy. 

Soli Deo Gloria

Saturday 11/18/18

I had a monthly evangelism class tonight, unfortunately no new people made it.  Dan and my two youngest daughters were there, so we went through True & False Conversions anyway, and I headed out to Mill Ave afterwards by myself.

I met Nick, Chris, and Rachel out there. We got into a few conversations with people and handed out a lot of tracts. A guy named Ryan stopped and talked to us for a little while he had recently gotten out of prison and his birthday was tomorrow so I gave him a tract with some cash in it and he gave me a hug.
We talked to him for a while and it looks like he's going to go to Thanksgiving dinner with Nick and some of his friends.

Another couple stopped to talk to Nick and while he was talking to the guy, we had a conversation with his girlfriend. Kayla didn't like the way we presented the gospel. She was much more humanist in her views and felt like people should just be nice to other people just for the sake of being nice.

Another couple was talking to Chris near the Einstein illusion and the guy was very against the gospel but his girlfriend seem to be a believer.

We handed out a lot of tracts and talked to a few people so it was a pretty productive night.
Pray for the lost and pray also for more workers in the harvest field.

Soli Deo Gloria