Tag: word of God

God’s Change Agents

“God works in the lives of his people using two agents, his Holy Spirit and his Word. He controls his Holy Spirit, but we are responsible to appropriate his Word in our lives.”

The apostle Paul described it as follows:

“…work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure….” Philippians 2:12-13

We are to “work out our salvation” which means to bring our salvation by grace through faith to it’s ultimate conclusion, to become more like Christ and less like the devil.

How are we to do that? We are to cooperate with God’s Spirit “who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

And how do we cooperate? Paul says in Philippians 2: 16 “holding fast the word of life.” We read His words recorded in the Bible and we hold fast to them and let the Holy Spirit use them to change us.

As one brother said “As we read our Bible, it is reading us.”

We should approach reading the Bible with awe because it will reveal “us” in ways we never thought possible. Not only sins like unforgiveness, pride, arrogance, perverse morals but also the staggering truths of who we are in Christ and all the marvelous things God has done in us and for us and is going to do in the future for His children.

In closing, I benefited from the following reality check on my relationship with God. I recommend it to you.

If you want to know what your attitude toward God is, check what your attitude to His Word is; that is your attitude toward God.

You do not love God more than you love His Word.

You do not obey God more than you obey His Word.

You do not have room for God in your life than you have room for His Word in your life.

If you want to find out how much God means to you, see how much His Word means to you.

If you want revival and spiritual growth in your life, prayerfully read your Bible, obey it’s truths and let the Holy Spirit do His work in you.

When we are reading our Bible and cooperating with the Holy Spirit, ALL of God’s creative power is working in us…His Word and His Spirit. The same creative agents that created the world.

A staggering thought.

Blessings on your journey with God.

Carl

Persecuted Christians are starving for Bibles

Source: Christian Post (See note at end of article)

What would you do if you had no access to Scripture? Most Americans have multiple Bibles at home, dozens of translations at our fingertips, and devotional apps on every device. Yet for believers living in hostile areas and restricted nations, a single torn page of the New Testament is a treasure worth suffering for.

For many Christians around the world, owning a Bible is illegal. It can cost a believer their freedom or even their life. Yet, in the darkest prison cells and most hostile corners of the world, the Word of God remains the most desired possession. 

During 25+ years serving at The Voice of the Martyrs, I’ve had the honor to meet with persecuted Christians living and serving in the most dangerous and difficult places to follow Christ. Often, they share their inspiring testimonies.

Recently I came across five powerful stories about what having access to Scripture meant to imprisoned Christians.

1. Brother Joe

Brother Joe, a former prisoner in North Africa, received a smuggled portion of the Bible — just Psalms and part of the Gospel of John. For him, those verses were life itself. 

“I would cry over the words,” he said. “Not because I was sad, but because it was like Jesus Himself was sitting in my cell with me.” 

Even as Brother Joe endured torture, he began copying verses by hand to share with other prisoners. The guards tried to stop him, but the Word kept spreading. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, “The word of our God shall stand forever.”

2. Helen Berhane

Helen Berhane, an Eritrean gospel singer who was imprisoned in a metal shipping container for over two years, had no Bible at all — but she had memorized verses before her arrest. 

“The Word became my song, my food, my comfort,” she shared. “I had no book, but I had Him.”

Even today, years later, those memorized verses continue to sustain her.

3. Aaron

Aaron, a front-line worker, told me about a woman jailed for leading Bible studies in China, where the underground church is heavily persecuted. Fellow inmates, recalling verses they had memorized, pieced together entire chapters from memory. When a contraband Bible finally arrived, they tore it apart — not to destroy it, but to share it. 

“In that cell,” Aaron said, “the Bible wasn’t just a book — it was their breath.”

4.  Ali

Perhaps the most startling transformation came in the life of Ali, a former jihadist who encountered the Gospel of Luke in prison. The Bible turned his world upside down.

“I had studied violence all my life,” he said. “Then I met Jesus in a jail cell in the pages of that book. That Bible broke me.” 

Ali found, for the first time, a God who loves His enemies and sent His Son to die for them.

The Bible is more than print on paper — it’s living and active. The Word of God has the power to sustain people’s faith under the most intense persecution. For the millions of Christians in hostile nations, a Bible is not just a comfort. It is what carries them through their torture and suffering.

5. Iranian prisoner

Hormoz Shariat, the founder of Iran Alive Ministries known as “the Billy Graham of Iran,” shared how one Iranian prisoner risked his life to possess a single page of Scripture. That page became a spark. He memorized it and passed it to another inmate, who did the same. 

“They shared one torn page like it was gold,” Shariat said. “It was enough to bring light into total darkness.”

In Iran, where printing or importing Farsi Bibles is illegal, believers face prison or death for sharing God’s Word. And yet, they do it anyway. The hunger for the Bible is so deep that even a fragment — one Psalm, one parable — is worth everything.

Every April, VOM focuses on getting Bibles to persecuted Christians. This year, our ministry has identified 458,000 Christians, by name, who are waiting for a Bible in hostile areas and restricted nations.

Through front-line workers, the ministry is positioned to deliver these Bibles directly into the hands of those who need them most. Imagine being the reason a believer in prison experiences the presence of Christ in their darkest hour!

There are many lessons to learn from others who have suffered for their faith. The stories here are just a small example of the power of God’s Word to bring hope and strength to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Maybe our first lesson is not to take for granted what others are risking everything to hold.

Todd Nettleton is Vice President for Message at The Voice of the Martyrs and host of The Voice of the Martyrs Radio. He is the author of When Faith Is Forbidden: 40 Days on the Frontlines with Persecuted Christians.

READER NOTE: Voice of The Martyrs charges $10 per Bible per their donation page. Asia Harvest charges $3 to print and deliver a Bible per their donation page. Asia Harvest and the underground church in China estimate that for every Bible given to a believer in China, at least one other individual comes to Christ. Not a bad $3 investment in the Kingdom of God!

Asia Harvest’s ministry is limited to Asia. They print Bibles in 163 different Asian languages. Our family has supported this effort for about three years.

Voice of the Martyrs ministry is worldwide evidently.

May you do your part to spread His Word in this dark world.

Blessings to all,

Carl

The Degenerating Influence of Ritualism.

The tendency of all ecclesiastical ritualism is to produce

 a spirit of superstition to the subversion of faith,
 
of mere formality to the guidance of the Holy Spirit

and resting in our own good works

to the rejection of the finished work of Christ. 

The Word of God is practically set aside,

the Holy Spirit grieved,

and the heart laid open to the inroads of Satan. 

When faith is in lively exercise,

The Word of God strictly followed, 

and the promised guidance of the Comforter relied upon,

the soul is strong and vigorous in the divine life, 

and suggestions of the enemy are unheeded.

Satan is a keen observer 

of the different states of the believer's soul,

and of the professing Church.

He knows when he will be successful

 in his attempt 

against the individual believer or the Church:

he waits his time --

he watches for opportunity.

When he sees the mind taking a wrong direction,

he soothes, flatters, stimulates --

solemn thought for us all!  

Andrew Miller, Miller's Church History (Pickering and Inglis, LTD, London), p. 237

Eats

“As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time unless he eats, so it is with the inner man. What is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God—not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe. No, we must consider what we read, ponder over it, and apply it to our hearts.” —George Müller

Source: Berean Call

I Will Seek….

I will seek the will of the Spirit of God through, or in connection with, the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions also. If the Holy Ghost guides us at all, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them. —George Müller

Food For Your Inner Man

“As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time unless he eats, so is with the inner man. What is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God-not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe. No, we must consider what we read, ponder over it, and apply it to our hearts.” ― George Muller (The Autobiography of George Muller). From Berean Call

Christians and Christ’s Intention

“The true Christian was intended by Christ to prove all things by the Word of God: all churches, all ministers, all teaching, all preaching, all doctrines, all sermons, all writings, all opinions, all practices. These are his marching orders. Prove all by the Word of God; measure all by the measure of the Bible; compare all with the standard of the Bible; weigh all in the balances of the Bible; examine all by the light of the Bible; test all in the crucible of the Bible. That which cannot abide the fire of the Bible, reject, refuse, repudiate, and cast away. This is the flag which he nailed to the mast. May it never be lowered!”

—John Wycliffe (c. 1320s – 31 December 1384),

He was an English scholastic philosopher, theologian, biblical translator, reformer, minister, and professor at the University of Oxford. He was an influential dissident within the Roman Catholic priesthood and is considered an important predecessor to Protestantism. Wycliffe attacked the privileged status of the clergy, which had bolstered their powerful role in England. He then attacked the luxury and pomp of local parishes and their ceremonies. Wycliffe also advocated translation of the Bible into the common language.

From The Berean Call

THE IMPERSONATOR

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At this moment I am sitting in my yard listening to a flock of blue jays squawking in the woods. They discovered a four or five foot pine snake in a tree and, surrounding him, are making a terrible racket to scare him off. In the photograph above, the snake is impersonating a tree limb by stretching himself between the two small, limbless tree trunks. He is lying still, patiently waiting for a bird to land so he can inject his poison.

This scene calls to remembrance another snake that uses deception. The Apostle John described him like this:

“… the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world…. ” Revelation 12:9

This snake disguises himself as “truth” through various false religions. Since he deceives the whole world, he is a pro at “blending in the surroundings” and mixing his lies with the “truth”, in order to ensnare the unwise and unsuspecting.

But, no fear disciples of the Lord Jesus, the word of God and the Holy Spirit will guide you through his “garden”, that is, this world. Therefore:

“Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in your faith and in the knowledge that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.”    I Peter 5: 8-9

Carl