Alex Montero Testimony from MIcah Rastelli on Vimeo.
Join our Facebook Group
Subscribe to Vision News, World Evangelism blog, and World Evangelism News and Helps to receive new posts by Email!
June 30 2009 | General | No Comments »
Matthew 21:22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.
One of the greatest weaknesses in my life is believing prayer! I dare not accuse anyone else of this same sin but there you have my confession. Oh, I get up every morning. I pray all the time. I pray for our church people by name all through my day. I beg God to work in the ministry, the family, and in my life.
But over the years sometimes I must admit that I have let it become more something I do, a ritual than simple child like faith, believing that what I ask He is going to do.
I am afraid that I have allowed the hard times in life to discourage me. I fear that I have “learned” to just accept that somethings are just like that. I pray but often it doesn’t even cross my mind that He is going to answer.
I want to pray more. I want to pray believing. I want my old child like faith back. I want to become a more simple believer.
I prayed. He didn’t seem to answer when I wanted or in the way that I wanted. I gave up. I just accepted. I doubt that you are in the same boat that I am in but maybe you have experienced a little of that.
The Bible is full of His promises to hear and answer prayer. I know that the Bible is true. I know that He hears and answers prayer. I know that He can and will change things in my life in answer to prayer.
So my prayer today is that He will help me. I believe but help my unbelief. He has convicted me of my lack of witnessing and praying. I have failed to get out and live what I know.
Could it be that Satan is winning a major war in my life by causing me to pray (oh, yes, every day) but not to fully believe in my heart? Could it be that my accepting things like they are is just a carnal way of not believing God?
I want to pray believing! What say ye?
Join our Facebook Group
Subscribe to Vision News, World Evangelism blog, and World Evangelism News and Helps to receive new posts by Email!
June 30 2009 | Daily Devos | No Comments »
Alex Montero became Vision’s newest member yesterday through believer’s baptism. God dealt with his heart during the Our Generation Leadership Camp. It was a great time. We are excited about all that God is doing in Alex’s life and the future ministry plans God has for him.
Join me in welcoming him into our church family. Let him know how happy you are for the work of God in his life.
Join our Facebook Group
Subscribe to Vision News, World Evangelism blog, and World Evangelism News and Helps to receive new posts by Email!
June 29 2009 | General | 1 Comment »
Matthew 18:33 Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?
The story is a classic. The first man owes a debt that he literally could never have paid. He is called to pay. When he can’t pay he is condemned to suffer in prison until he can pay. Don’t forget that he will never be free because there is absolutely no way that he can pay.
He then begs to be forgiven. He pleads for mercy. He in no way deserves it but he still begs.
He is forgiven. He is allowed to go free and his debt is cancelled.
Going out the door and down the way he immediately sees someone that owes him a small debt. He gets very angry and demands payment.
Though he has just been forgiven a far greater debt he imposes on the man to pay. He places his debtor in the same conditions that had been placed on him.
The debtor begins to beg for forgiveness but receives none. He is placed in prison to suffer until he can pay the debt.
The forgiven one will not forgive but wants to exact all the pain that he can from his debtor.
The lord then calls the first man in and makes him suffer and pay his debt because of his unforgiving heart.
This is not a story about our salvation. It is a story about forgiving and forgiveness. If you are forgiven you should be so grateful, so happy that you would forgive others.
You are not literally free until you can forgive. Though you have been forgiven your hard heart and bitterness are keeping you as a prisoner in your hurt.
When we have experienced forgiveness we know how it liberates us. This same compassion and love that has been shown to us should be extended to others.
Holding on to our hurt, bitterness, anger really only hurts us. It causes us to be tied to the past, doesn’t free us for the future, keeps us from enjoying the present. This bitterness will literally rob us and cause great suffering and heart ache.
Remember, the forgiven forgive! That is a Bible truth that rings out and echoes from page to page throughout!
Join our Facebook Group
Subscribe to Vision News, World Evangelism blog, and World Evangelism News and Helps to receive new posts by Email!
June 29 2009 | Daily Devos | No Comments »
Jake Taube – 5 Models for Training from Mark Tolson on Vimeo.
Join our Facebook Group
Subscribe to Vision News, World Evangelism blog, and World Evangelism News and Helps to receive new posts by Email!
June 29 2009 | Missions | No Comments »
EVANGELISM is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. –D. T. Niles
If your Gospel isn’t touching others, it hasn’t touched you! –Curry R. Blake
We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God. — John Stott
The greatest hindrances to the evangelization of the world are those within the church. –John R. Mott
The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed. –Hudson Taylor
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. –Jim Elliot
People who don’t believe in missions have not read the New Testament. Right from the beginning Jesus said the field is the world. The early church took Him at His word and went East, West, North and South. – J. Howard Edington
The Holy Spirit can’t save saints or seats. If we don’t know any non-Christians, how can we introduce them to the Savior? –Paul Little
Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. — John Piper
Evangelization is a process of bringing the gospel to people where they are, not where you would like them to be. When the gospel reaches a people where they are, their response to the gospel is the church in a new place… –Vincent Donovan
The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become. – Henry Martyn
How you believe God perceives people will determine how you respond to them. –Jacquelyn K. Heasley
Life is too short and hell is too hot to just play church. –Larry Osborne
Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell. — C.T. Studd
It is possible to do evangelism without planting churches, but it is not possible to plant churches without doing evangelism. –unknown
God’s plan in these last days is revival in His worldwide church and through the revived church the reaping of a final great harvest of souls. –N. Grubb
The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. –C. S. Lewis
We talk of the Second Coming; half the world has never heard of the first. – Oswald J. Smith
We Christians are debtors to all men at all times in all places, but we are so smug to the lostness of men. We’ve been “living in Laodicea “, lax, loose, lustful, and lazy. Why is there this criminal indifference to the lostness of men? Our condemnation is that we know how to live better than we are living. –Leonard Ravenhill
Being an extrovert isn’t essential to EVANGELISM–obedience and love are. –Rebecca M. Pippert
It is now possible to live a “christian life” without doing the things that Jesus commanded us to do. We have hired people to go into all the world, to visit those in prison, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to care for widows and orphans. The average Christian doesn’t have to do it. –Cal Thomas
Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love. – Roland Allen
Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth. –John Wesley
“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for.” Spurgeon
Some that concern the life we need to live for the world that needs a witness:
“Live simply so that others can simply live.” unknown
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Jim Elliot
Trust and obey not think and decide.Never doubt in the dark what God has revealed in the light.
Thanks to Guy Muse Missionary to Ecuador for the compilation of the above quotes on his blog.
Join our Facebook Group
Subscribe to Vision News, World Evangelism blog, and World Evangelism News and Helps to receive new posts by Email!
June 29 2009 | Missions and Quotes | No Comments »
· Why should anyone hear the gospel twice before everyone has heard it once. Oswald J. Smith
· “Father make me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me” Jim Elliot
· The church that does not evangelize will fossilize
· The mission of the church is missions!
· This generation can only reach this generation!
· Only as the church fulfills her missionary obligation does she justify her existence.
· If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him! C T Studd
· As long as there are millions destitute of the Word of God and knowledge of Jesus Christ, it will be impossible for me to devote time and energy to those who have both. J L Ewen
· Why should so few hear the Gospel again and again when so many have never heard it once? Oswald J Smith
· Farther, still farther, into the night.
· Church of Christ, what wilt thou say When in the awful judgment day, They charge thee with their doom?
· A hundred thousand souls a day
Are passing one by one away
In Christless guilt and gloom
Without one ray of hope and light
With future dark as endless night
They’re passing to their doom
· Now let me burn out for God. Henry Martyn
· Stir me, Oh! stir me Lord–I care not how,
But stir my heart in passion for the world;
Stir me to give, to go, but most to pray,
Stir, till the blood red banner be unfurled
O’er lands that in heathen darkness lie,
O’er deserts where no cross is lifted high.
· Untold millions are still untold!
· If God wills the evangelization of the world, and you refuse to support missions, then you are opposed to the will of God! Oswald J. Smith
Join our Facebook Group
Subscribe to Vision News, World Evangelism blog, and World Evangelism News and Helps to receive new posts by Email!
June 28 2009 | Missions | No Comments »
Matthew 15:8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
They were figuring out ways to justify their behavior regardless of what God had said clearly in His Word. They were substituting commandments of men for the Word of God.
Both of this sins or mistakes seem to be very common today. Today we too have figured out ways around what we know to be clear Bible teaching. The church has lost its power today for this very reason. We have also become more concerned about whatever society says as right and wrong rather than what the Word of God says.
Each of our religious institutions have, like the Pharisees, put up a fence around the law. We know that the Bible doesn’t necessarily say it but we feel like it is important and good. Our young people come to the Bible and can’t see what we say God wants.
They think that if God really says it that they should be able to see it in the Word. They look and it isn’t there. They then rebel not so much against God but against our religious opinion that is often not based on Bible.
We are causing people to do what we have done. We honor Him with our lips but our hearts are far away. I want to love Him. I want it to be from the very center of my being.
I do not want to play spiritual. I want it to be who I am. I do not want to be a hypocrite.
I do not want to preach to others what I do not live myself. I do not want to honor Him with my lips, my words and not my heart.
Has God spoken to you today? Do you see in any way how you are playing religious games? Could it be that you honor Him with your lips but your heart is far from Him?
Join our Facebook Group
Subscribe to Vision News, World Evangelism blog, and World Evangelism News and Helps to receive new posts by Email!
June 28 2009 | Daily Devos | No Comments »
Dear Vision,
It is a great honor and privilege to get to open and preach the Word of God to you each week. Lord willing, we will finish the book of Hebrews this Sunday. Next week we will head into the book of Ephesians.
The message today is maybe one of the most important we could have. We are going to look at probably the least mentioned sin in the Bible. Not that it isn’t mentioned a great deal in the Bible but that we do not preach about it nor do we confess it! Check out some of these quotes:
Covetousness makes a man treasure up for himself upon earth things for which he has no need, and lay up no treasure in heaven.
Covetousness deceives a man about his values. He places emphasis on things and misses the blessings of living for Christ and for others.
Covetousness causes a man to see only his wants rather than the needs of his soul, so it blinds the eyes of his understanding and closes his ears to hearing God’s claims upon him and his life.
His self-interests cause his ears to be closed to the precepts and commandments of the Word of God that God has given for the good of mankind and for His own glory.
In his heart he says I must have my way: I’ll have that woman or that man if I have to break up their marriage to get them. I’ll have that position if I have to kill someone to get it. I’ll have my pleasure and my drink, my money, my home, my job, my good times in life and my way, no matter what the consequences!
Covetousness then, blinds the soul into believing a lie: that he has the right to do with himself as he pleases; and he says to God, “Don’t You get in my way!”
I hope you will listen with the Spirit and hear in your heart what God would have to say. I know that He will grow us today!
Tonight we will get a greater understanding of Faith Promise Mission Giving!
God bless each of you so much. Thanks for all you do and I pray that God works greatly in each of our hearts!
Austin
Join our Facebook Group
Subscribe to Vision News, World Evangelism blog, and World Evangelism News and Helps to receive new posts by Email!
June 27 2009 | Pastor's Desk | No Comments »
Matthew 13:58 And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.
It is amazing to me that He did not do many of the things that He could have and would have done due to their lack of faith. It causes me to wonder what God might want to do in my life if I were to trust Him more.
I must admit that I have several problems that hinder my faith. You might be dealing with these too!
One is that I am super familiar with the things of God. That is sort of what happens in this passage. Jesus is among those who knew Him best. They should have believed but they didn’t. I have been in church all of my life. I have prayed every day of my life. I have gotten used to the things of God and may be just settling for things when He would have me trust Him and expect more.
I have prayed and believed before and things didn’t work out like I expected so I begin to doubt that He will do things. It is because I expected and believed but He didn’t choose to answer several other times and I then got used to it and sort of accepted that maybe I should just settle.
I am convicted about that today. I know that both of these sins are great hindrances to what God wants to do in my life and ministry.
Sometimes I think that I would like to blame my lack of faith on maturity or maybe you could say experience. I tend to think that He hasn’t answered that prayer in the past and so won’t now.
Well to finish up this thought I believe that I should be praising Him no matter what. I believe that I should be super grateful for all that He has done and is doing. I believe that I should take every day and do the best I can with His power to obey Him and then wait on Him to do great things.
I want to pray believing. I want to read believing. I want to see God work. I know that the greatest hindrance to the work of God anywhere is me and my unbelief. God, please forgive me for my sin of doubt and unbelief. Help Thou mine unbelief.
Join our Facebook Group
Subscribe to Vision News, World Evangelism blog, and World Evangelism News and Helps to receive new posts by Email!
June 27 2009 | Daily Devos | No Comments »
