Owerri 17

We shared the report of the trip with the church body yesterday.  This was a daunting task since there is so much to share.  It was great to see a packed house.  I wonder what Paul felt like when he returned from a missionary journey.  How could you remember it all in one sitting?    Again, let me thank all of you for your prayers, support, help and encouragement.  As Dr. Okere says “All of us are on the team and some of us get to go.”  Some of you sacrificed greatly in order for us to go to Nigeria.  May God bless you abundantly!

I am sure that I know why we went to Nigeria this time.  It was evident every day we were there.  I did not share the Gospel in one place that someone did not receive Christ.  Diseases and sickness were healed.  Deliverance from the grip of demons was accomplished.  The power of darkness was pushed back.  Relationships were renewed and new ones begun.  Investments were made in people, in education, in church planting, in relieving suffering and in general good will between Americans and Nigerians.  The excellent diagnoses and treatment by our medical team will be talked about for months to come.  They treated some people who had never seen a doctor.  Some of these people had never taken medication before.  Something as simple as ibuprofen can relieve a chronic ailment on the spot.  It is difficult for us to grasp this since we can buy the best medications in the world almost at will and never have to worry about its quality.

So, why did we go?  It was all the above and more.  But here’s the thing: you can’t tell God “no” and expect peace in your life.  When He sends you out, you had better go and go with a joyful spirit.

But here is the question that has perplexed me: what did He teach me about my own culture while I was in another culture?  The resistance to the Gospel is palpable in our culture.  One good friend has suggested to me that God wanted make us “stronger soldiers” as He threw us back into our own culture.  I am not the same man that left here.  You can’t be.

I look at the American church.  We view church growth as some sort of competition at building a better mousetrap to capture the static number of mice that are willing to jump from one vessel to another.  This disturbs me.  I fear that we are far too interested in what’s in it for me.  Our definition of success has taken on the American corporate image rather than the image of Jesus.  What impact are we leaving?  What will be our legacy?  Whose opinion really matters?

As I take inventory of my own life, I look at the ways I complicate the Gospel message by my own sin.  I feel that my own ego gets involved too often in living out the Gospel in Savannah.  I have doubted the power of God to change a life or set a soul free from demonic bondage.  I must trust in the One Who has the words of life.  I have seen Him change people and do the miraculous.  The situation of our world today demands from me a faithfulness that can not be deterred.  The only way I can do it is through the power of the Holy Spirit and the gifts He has distributed to me.

Let’s pray with Jesus “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”