Flood Relief
We have started administering the flood relief finances that we recieved from AOGWR. We came up with a four stage plan, releasing certain aspects of relief and assistance on a weekly basis to the 100 selected fanilies in the Fairview area. The relief goods are being released over a four week period in an edeavour to ensure that target families are assisted in the best possible way.
The assistance is termed a “Re-establishment Package”, where the aim is to give 100 families the various items needed to actaully conduct life. Families will recieve pots, pans, gas cookers, various household items, various containers, food preparation items, things to wash clothes, school uniforms, bags, stationary and shoes. Twice during the next month families will recieve a 50kg sack of rice, plus weekly food allowances.
A secondary goal with the flood assistance is too purchase as many of the items as possible from the sourrounding area and so inject finances into the local economy.
Pastor James Troup has so far been the one administering the relief and has done a great job.
The POWER of Prayer
One of the constitutional enforcements of the Gospel is prayer. Without prayer, the Gospel can neither be preached effectively, promulgated faithfully, experienced in the heart, nor be practiced in the life. And for the very simple reason that by leaving prayer out of the catalogue of religious duties, we leave God out, and His work cannot progress without Him. Praying men are essential to Almighty God in all His plans and purposes. God’s secrets, councils and cause have never been committed to prayerless men. As praying men are a help to God, so prayerless men are a hindrance to Him.
The work of Ministry and the work of Missions has so many varied methods that it employs to accomplish it’s work – how many of those methods are backed by really solid prayer..?
It often seems so easy to do so much, but often the “much” has very little if any eternal value.
WE MUST BE PEOPLE OF DEEP, EFFECTIVE PRAYER.
Water Sports…Baseco style…
Well, our water might not be the cleanest in the world, actually in the Lonely Planet Guide, they say that “if you were to swim or dive in in the Pasig River you would see some horrible sights in the 15 seconds it took your body to dissolve after you entered the water”…not sure if it is quite as bad as that, but it’s not the best either…but for our locals it’s a source of fish, washing water, a continual, communal, free flushing toilet and of course it’s a place of fun for the kids..!!
Check out these photos…
The need for Spirituality…
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The need to be Spiritual…
The most basic, if not the most needed aspect of a Christians life, is that person being spiritual. Salvation is spiritual, everything about God is spiritual, everything about His Word is spiritual, worship, prayer, hearing His voice is spiritual, being led by the Spirit is spiritual. The whole concept of Christianity is centered around a new birth, a birthing of and by a new Spirit inside the heart of man. This new Spirit produces newness of life, that has the potential to change every single aspect of that persons life. Change and transformation on the inside that effects everything on the outside as well.
If we look at the most basic of Christian disciplines, reading the bible, it quickly becomes very obvious, that we need to be spiritual…
In John 6:63 we read “The Words that I speak to you are Spirit”…not just ink and paper, but they are spirit. John 4:24 tells us that “God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit”. 1 Cor’ 2 gives us the whole picture – there is no other way to know or come into contact with a God who is spirit, unless we do so by that same Spirit. So in order to read, know and understand spiritual words we must be people of the Spirit. The very nature of the bible is spirit, so my approach to reading it must be via the Spirit. The Spirit I am referring to is the Spirit present in every believer at the time of regeneration (Rom 8:9).
The Spirit of God is available to everyone, but not every one has the Spirit.
We can read the bible without Gods Spirit (many people do), but it will become a book of facts and history, and the person who reads God Word in this manner will never really understand the message of the bible. But once he receives the Spirit of God, once he is regenerated, the bible becomes alive to him. This is a great first step in understanding the bible, but he will not understand everything he reads, there will still be mysteries for him, but there should now be a desire to read, a hunger to learn, a thirst that helps him to pick up the bible daily. There should come an understanding of the importance of the bible, even if there is still mystery in it’s content. John 3:6 “That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit”, 1 Cor 2:10 “The Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God”, verse 12 “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know…”. The regenerated man is the only type of man who can understand the bible, the Spirit of God gives him this ability, because God desires that men “know”.
John 6:63 shows us 2 realms of man, the spirit and the natural (fleshly) man. One is helpful in reading and understanding the bible and the things of God, one is of no use at. Job 11:7 asks a question of man “Can you search out the deep things of God”…the obvious answer is no, not without the Spirit of God, “The Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God”.
Anything that is done outside of the Holy Spirit cannot touch anything relating to God.
Now there is a further challenge to being spiritual, (1 Cor 3:1-2) and that is to “GROW UP”. Once we are regenerated, we have received the Spirit and we will begin to understand Gods Word, but we begin with the most basic revelations, not the deep things of the Spirit…we begin with milk, not solid food.
Milk, in it’s natural form, is a pre-digested food for babies. The mother eats, what she eats produces and becomes milk for her child, who then drinks, grows and develops. In this early stage of Spiritual birth, man receives revelation and instruction from other men of God, he struggles to receive it directly from God Himself, he does not understand God, he does not know how to study and read the Word, he does not know how to pray, he must “GROW UP” for these things to happen, he must learn and develop in the things of the Spirit and of God. Even as he “GROWS UP”, he will still benefit from the revelations of others, but they will not be his primary source of revelation. Growing up does not seem to happen naturally in the realm of the Spirit (although it should and definitely can), Paul himself says in verse 2 “I fed you with milk and not with solid food, for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able”. Pauls comment shows us that he expected these particular people to be much more advanced in their spiritual walk than they were (an interesting study, is to look at how long these people might have been Christians, it’s a relatively short time…but Paul expected much more growth than he was seeing…).
Perhaps one of the things lacking here, is the Lordship of the Spirit. A man may receive the Spirit of God, be Born Again, but for varying reasons he does not allow the Spirit to control his life, he does not learn to submit to the Spirit or to walk after the Spirit. He still walks after his own flesh – and what does the flesh profit – NOTHING (Gal’ 5:16-25). So a person might remain a spiritual baby long after he could of GROWN UP. In the realm of God, nothing needs to take a long time, God can do things very quickly if we will let Him, if we will get hungry, thirsty, if we will seek Him, desire after Him – we can all be different people, mature in Christ, different in a weeks time to what I am today.
In any given group of Christians there is enough Spiritual potential to alter the course of the world…because the Kingdom is within us all…GROW UP and let it out.
So the point is this, we must not simply receive the Spirit, we must learn to be truly Spiritual. Develop your spiritual life, read and study the things of the Spirit, apply them to your life and bear fruit for the Kingdom of God.
A flawed Spirituality will lead to a flawed Christianity.
Bless you – Mark
Medical Mission – Temporary Relief for the Poor…
We just had a Medical Mission in our church in Baseco. We had 2 doctors and 1 dentist who worked really hard for most of the day. The doctors saw 330 patients and the dentist pulled out more than 100 teeth from 45 patients…they worked hard, volunteering their time to help the poor. Every patient got medicines and vitamins for their various ailments.
We had a team of our leaders praying for people and sharing Jesus with everyone. It was a big day for all involved. The guy who provided the clinic is a German Missionary named John. He had a team of 14 workers doing various things all day. Here are a few pics…
Medical Missions are a catch 22 situation…you medicate people who will need medicating again. Many of the people who attended the medical mission have minor sickness’s that are not life threatening…but it does allow us another level of connection into the community, allowing us to find some of the more serious disease issues, as well as opening up more opportunities for prayer and potential miracles.
We found another baby who will need a hairlip operation and our second rare case of Kwashior Kor Malnourishment. A very deadly form of malnourishment, where the child looks fat, but is severley malnourished. The fat look is due to the childs internal fluid leaching into the skin due to the child’s internal organs de-hydrating. Predominantly caused by a massive vitamin A deficiency, along with basic lack of food and vitamins.
Missionaries Wanted…must be qualified…aren’t we all…?
Here are some shots of Don Bosco, Temporary Housing – horrible place that is in need of Churches and Church Planters…check out the photo’s…what could you and Jesus do here.
You must be qualified to work in places like this, even though Jesus said “Go into all the world and make Disciples”, many don’t seem to think that this applies to them, it’s only applicable to those around them…
Some qualifications you will need to work in this place…
- An all consuming passion for Jesus and equal passion for people…
- You must not love your life, you must love the lives of others more than your own…
- You must be prepared to loose your life…maybe literally…
- You must not want earthly security, possesions and wealth…
- You must be prepared to “GO” even if someone won’t recognise you or “SEND” you…Jesus has recognised you and He has sent you already…
- You must be prepared to “GO” even without all of the resources and money in the bank…
- You must be prepared to really live by faith – not by your paycheck or offerings…you can learn this on the job, more than likely this will be the best way you can learn this lesson…
- Jesus must be your source for all things…
- You must listen to God first, well before man…(man does not like this, many people think that they are the voice of God for you)…
- You must run everything man tells you to either do or not do, by Jesus first, not the other way around…this might mean you often “dis-obey” man – so you might be seen as rebellious and un-submissive…
- You must either know how to pray, or be prepared to learn on the job…(on the job, is one of the best ways to learn)…
- You will need to fast, even when you don’t feel like it…
- You will need to understand that money is not the solution for everything, and that your level of faith or success is not always measured by your income…
Many of these qualifications don’t fit well with some of the theologies if “wisdaom” and “prosperity”…but they do fit well with the basic teachings of the gospel and with Jesus last words “TO GO”…
If you look at all of these qualifications and think I can’t do all of those things, don’t worry, because in reality there are no qualifications except to “BE BORN AGAIN”. If you are born again, you will follow Jesus and He will lead you to the lost.
Go back over the pictures, look at them, see the people (not the place) and ask yourself how can me and Jesus help that person…and then come and “DO IT”…
Bless you – Mark
Poverty, the Worlds Challenge…
SMOKEY MOUNTAIN – OLD AND NEW…
We took a couple of Aussies, Michael and Matthew into both the “new and the old” Smokey Mountain. The “old” is more or less closed down. A literal mountain of rubbish, that now has grass growing on it and is surrounded by 4 and 5 storey buildings, which house the residents that came off of the “old” Smokey Mountain. But as you walk through there you see that really all that has been done is the re-shaping of a slum. Before they lived and worked on the dumpsite, but the high rises are cesspits of activity. Some have power and water, some don’t, so they are simply high rise slums, cramming a lot of people into relatively small areas with not alot of natural ventilation (perfect breeding ground for T.B, scabbies and a whole range of contagious diseases), plus of course all of the increased possibilities for a variety of crime to grow, spread and become organised. There are of course positives about the buildings, they are structurally sound and won’t fall over in a typhoon, they shouldn’t leak a lot, so they do provide improved shelter…pro’s and con’s…
But unless you change the economics of people, relocating them can often make very little difference to their general living. Plus relocation does not address any areas of people hearts. Hearts hold values and beliefs, people do what they do, because they believe it to be right, or perhaps because they think that it is the only option that they have, so unless the heart of man is reached, touched and changed – he will be more or less the same, no matter where he is location wise. We are the sum of what we believe, christian or not.
Then we went for a walk through the “new” Smokey…bit of a head spin for westerners. People living in and on a really feral rubbish dump. Kids walking through it all with no clothes, no shoes, playing in it, toileting in it, bathing there, people washing clothes, cooking food, mothers birthing children in the trash that they call home, people living every aspect of life in conditions that we would find hard to imagine. Children who have lived their whole lives there, where this is their concept of normality…and it will be for their children as well.
Conditions such as this should never be allowed to become anyones “normality”, it can never be justified, should never be allowed. There are more places here in Manila that are like this, many more places in the world that are the same or worse. Countries hide them from the tourists, hide them from the officials that visit, but I want the world to see them, I want as many people as possible to come and see them, walk through them, smell them, get involved, get dirty…these places exist because we either do not know they are here, or we choose to ignore them once we do know they are there. Don’t ignore them, don’t think the issues and problems of places are too huge to fix, nothing is impossible for God, and you don’t need to be the solution for everyone in a place like this, but you can be the solution for ONE FAMILY or ONE CHILD, and you should be the solution for whatever you can manage. Jesus said “the poor you have with you always and whenever you want to you can help them…”, Mark 14:7, notice He said “whenever you want too…”, it might not even require that you pray about it (although I would never say NOT TO PRAY, as man always ought to pray), but just obey Jesus and do it whenever you want to.
The world needs to rise to the challenge of World Poverty, each person needs to do something, the world is made up of individuals, you are one of those individuals, we can fix this together, there is enough of everything for everyone. There are plenty of people who are doing stuff to help others, but there needs to be more, come on, let’s rise to the challenge to change our world.
As you look at some of these photo’s, you will naturally look at the horror of them, but look at the people and don’t ask yourself how can I change this picture, but how can I help that one person…you can help someone, you are able, you just need to be willing.
Bless you – Mark
Christianity – a Manifestation of God
Christianity, a Manifestation of God and Divine Intervention…
The bible is a record of Miracles and Divine Intervention, by the hands of a Living God. It is an inspiring history of the supernatural realm overcoming the natural realm as a result of mans crying out to God, or simply God Himself revealing His love and grace by saving man from some potentially disastrous situation and in doing so, revealing Himself to man.
From the earliest records of the bible, bible characters worked miracles. One aspect of the miraculous, was God separating His people to Himself and drawing them away from the dead, lifeless idols and images of the false gods in the land. The children of Israel constantly strayed back to false religions, and God always used incredible miracles to get their attention get them back on the right track with Him. Miracles are a means of restoring fellowship and relationship with God.
When Jesus began His ministry, it was a ministry of Miracles, as the N/T Church was birthed and began in ministry, it was a ministry of Miracles. Every revival in history has been accompanied by various Miracles.
Rarely has the church been rescued by theology or teachers (unless that teacher received something by revelation, which is in itself a miracle…), it’s had it’s path corrected and adjusted by movings of the Spirit, through usually simple men and women of faith, who believed something into being. The encouraging part of this is that many of us are simple people who are just trying to believe Gods Word and walk with Jesus. I am always amazed at how hard it is to just “simply believe”…but there is no doubt in my heart, that this is all it takes to see incredible moves of God, outbreaks of His presence that change the course of history and re-shape the beliefs of man.
The world itself is eagerly waiting for the “manifestations of the Sons of God” – that could be you, or it could come through you. Note that the world is waiting for a “manifestation of God”, not for a new church or a new idea, not a new movement, but for a divine, supernatural manifestation, something that can’t be explained, something that can’t be brought, but something that can change the heart of man, something that can “save him”, from whatever he needs saving from.
The miraculous is so natural for both the saved and the unsaved man, and while the unsaved man can’t understand this, when he sees miracles, they can seem so natural and normal to him…because we are designed for them and there are so many things that can only be fixed by a miracle.
Each of us have areas of our lives, situations around us that we know can only change or be fixed by some form of miracle, and most people are like you, everyone needs a miracle of some kind…just as well God is a Miracle working God. Amen. So pray…seek the God of Miracles.
Bless you – Mark
Christianity – the Miracle
Christianity – the MIRACLE…
God is a Miracle and a Miracle worker, so is Jesus Christ, so are WE…
2 Peter 1:2-4, Col’ 1:27, John 14:12
Therefore, Christianity and Christians must be Living Miracles…
If we remove the Miraculous from Christianity, we are left with nothing but religion. Religion can, and usually does have the form of Christianity, but with no power to save or change anything or anyone…it can only ever be a “shadow”, it has no substance. But in the darkness of a shadow, in a dimly lit light, people will still find a place to hide and an element of comfort, perhaps a sense of peace, all of which is false, as they preform religious rituals that appease the soul and conscience of man, but change nothing.
A false miracle worker, false religion or a church movement that has lost it’s spiritual life and ability, will still draw men because of our desire to know either God or Truth, and because of the universal desire for changes that we don’t seem to be able to accomplish by ourselves.
The only saving grace in religion is this – when a person is “truly seeking the Truth”, no matter where that search begins, the Holy Spirit will guide that person to Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
And once people find Jesus, they find the miracle they have been looking for.
If you have no peace, no certainty, if you are unsure about life or death, if you are not sure what is the Truth of religion, then PRAY. Ask whoever you believe to be god to show you the Truth – God will Himself, draw you to Jesus.
A caution is this – do not think your church or your pastor is “Infallible”, by all means get involved in church life and activities, support your local church, but make Jesus Christ the centre of your being, let the Holy Spirit constantly lead and guide you, as we can seek for the Truth, find the Truth and still slip into error if we ever put our faith and trust in man.
Bless you – Mark
