An email to a pastor friend in Uganda

Daniel,

 

  ...I need to write more blog posts, but am going through the manuscript again to see if it can be more tailored to the Protestants. I wrote to the Adventists the first time, like they are repeating the history of the Jews. But, I see the Protestants repeating the history of the northern kingdom of Israel, so the issues are similar but the audience is more distant to the original spirit of the Reformation. I know that the prosperity gospel is spreading widely around the world, as is the pentecostal movement. The world is getting desperate for some evidence that God hears them. But, nothing can satisfy the human heart except the evidence of the promises of God’s word and “the Spirit of His Son” (Gal. 4:6). Yet, Satan has made this world so chaotic that it is extremely difficult to get through the thick wall of his “fire and smoke and brimstone” (Rev. 9:18).

 

   Battling the fire, smoke, and brimstone is as difficult and challenging as a salmon to swim up a long river, with its rapids and water falls and fishermen and hungry bears. But, many salmon do make it home again, to the very spot where they grew up as little ones. They are badly beaten by rocks and bear claws, and chunks of their backs are missing by fish hooks. But though mutilated, they are home to complete the mission God put into their hearts to accomplish--birth another generation who will endure the same thing they did. Over and over again this is repeated. Year after year it has played out before our eyes to encourage us on to get to Jesus in the bosom of God.

 

  We need to have hearts open to Jesus. That is what the holy men and women and children of the Bible had. Some had a lot of openness, some less than others. But Jesus took all that they gave Him and He developed it like a person working the stock market to grow his investment. We are Jesus’ investment. We only come to Him to start with because He called us to repentance by His poured out Spirit. The “mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20) died in childbirth for our second birth. In His multiplied sorrows He named us Benoni “son of My sorrows” (Gen. 35:18), but His Father renamed us Benjamin “son of My right hand”. Our response is the gain that He makes on His invested capital, and little or much of our response is acceptable. Yet, He groans and travails together with His Father until the redemption of His purchased possession. Then They will have unlimited communion with the special race that was made especially in Their image.

 

  There is an abundance of scripture that testifies of Jesus, both in the Old and New Testaments, as well as in nature and in the experiences of life. If we can teach the people by examples and by encouragement to look in those huge resources for the limitless parallels to the gospel story, we will have a Mount Stanley full of Jesus and His Spirit, and a depth of knowing Him and a fullness of loving Him as deep and voluminous as Lake Victoria. Our peace will be “as a river, and [our] righteousness as the waves of the sea.” (Isa. 48:18).

 

  Brother, be bold and confident to compare the earthly things to the spiritual and heavenly things. Be expectant, listening, and open to whatever lessons will come of it. This is the resource from which Jesus pulled for most of His teachings. And so effective was this for revealing the glory of God that He found no privacy from the people who were dying to hear more, not even in a far country and in someone’s anonymous home. “And from thence He arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but He could not be hid.” (Mark 7:24). Yet, their great need never failed to awaken His greater sympathy. He was never too exhausted or hungry. And today He lives for nothing more than to make intercession for us.

 

  And “ye shall be named the [Priest] of the LORD: men shall call you the [Minister] of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast [yourself].” (Isa. 61:6).

David