VIDEO The Key to the Missionary’s Devotion – Why I’m a Missionary

The Key to the Missionary’s Devotion

…they went forth for His name’s sake… —3 John 7

Our Lord told us how our love for Him is to exhibit itself when He asked, “Do you love Me?” (John 21:17). And then He said, “Feed My sheep.” In effect, He said, “Identify yourself with My interests in other people,” not, “Identify Me with your interests in other people.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 shows us the characteristics of this love— it is actually the love of God expressing itself. The true test of my love for Jesus is a very practical one, and all the rest is sentimental talk.

Faithfulness to Jesus Christ is the supernatural work of redemption that has been performed in me by the Holy Spirit— “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit…” (Romans 5:5). And it is that love in me that effectively works through me and comes in contact with everyone I meet. I remain faithful to His name, even though the commonsense view of my life may seemingly deny that, and may appear to be declaring that He has no more power than the morning mist.

The key to the missionary’s devotion is that he is attached to nothing and to no one except our Lord Himself. It does not mean simply being detached from the external things surrounding us. Our Lord was amazingly in touch with the ordinary things of life, but He had an inner detachment except toward God. External detachment is often an actual indication of a secret, growing, inner attachment to the things we stay away from externally.

The duty of a faithful missionary is to concentrate on keeping his soul completely and continually open to the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. The men and women our Lord sends out on His endeavors are ordinary human people, but people who are controlled by their devotion to Him, which has been brought about through the work of the Holy Spirit.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Beware of pronouncing any verdict on the life of faith if you are not living it. Not Knowing Whither, 900 R

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Why I’m a Missionary

So, Who Am I?

“I am who I am.” Exodus 3:14

 

Dave enjoyed his job, but for a long time he’d sensed a pull toward something else. Now he was about to fulfill his dream and step into mission work. But strangely, he began to have serious doubts.

“I don’t deserve this,” he told a friend. “The mission board doesn’t know the real me. I’m not good enough.”

Dave has some pretty good company. Mention the name of Moses and we think of leadership, strength, and the Ten Commandments. We tend to forget that Moses fled to the desert after murdering a man. We lose sight of his forty years as a fugitive. We overlook his anger problem and his intense reluctance to say yes to God.

When God showed up with marching orders (Exodus 3:1–10), Moses played the I’m-not-good-enough card. He even got into a lengthy argument with God, asking Him: “Who am I?” (v. 11). Then God told Moses who He was: “I am who I am” (v. 14). It’s impossible for us to explain that mysterious name because our indescribable God is describing His eternal presence to Moses.

A sense of our own weaknesses is healthy. But if we use them as an excuse to keep God from using us, we insult Him. What we’re really saying is that God isn’t good enough.

The question isn’t Who am I? The question is Who is the I am? 

By:  Tim Gustafson

Reflect & Pray

When has thinking you’re not good enough kept you from serving God? How does it encourage you to look at Bible characters God used despite their flaws?

Eternal God, so often we doubt that You could ever use people like us. But You sent Your Son to die for the likes of us, so please forgive our doubts. Help us accept the challenges You bring our way.

Our Habitation of Peace

Psalm 120:1-7

Have you ever cried out like the psalmist, asking God for deliverance from those with lying lips? Sometimes it seems that our world is being swallowed up by deception.

One of the results of being bombarded with lies is anxiety. No matter how deep and well-founded our peace is, there are duplicitous people who might unravel it. If we believe every news commentary, we may lose hope to the point of despair. If we become victims of slanderous gossip, we could become suspicious. Every day we must decide how to handle the deception around us and choose whether we will allow ourselves to be motivated by fear.

Psalm 120 is the first of the Songs of Ascents, which the Israelites sang on their way to Jerusalem for the annual feasts. The psalmist says his dwelling place outside of Israel is with those who live by deceit and discord. In his words we sense a longing for Jerusalem, a city whose name derives from shalom, or “peace.”

And this is our refuge as well—not the physical location, but the habitation of peace that awaits us when we go to the Scriptures to gain God’s perspective. That’s where we learn to discern truth from error and discover Christ’s peace, which transcends every circumstance. It’s also where we find the courage to stand up for truth and oppose moral compromise.

The psalmist bemoans his situation by saying, “Too long has my soul had its dwelling with those who hate peace” (Psalm 120:6). If you relate to feeling wearied by the world, find rest by inhabiting the peace found in God’s Word.

Remember, In Everything Give Thanks

“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herds in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” (Habakkuk 3:17-18)

It is easy to be happy and cheerful in times of prosperity, when one has all the comforts of an affluent lifestyle and everything seems to be going well. The testing times come, however, when these material comforts are somehow taken away, and one feels defeated and all alone.

Except for God! Whatever else may fail, God “will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). Since we still have the Lord (assuming we have trusted Him for forgiveness and salvation through Christ), we can always “rejoice in the LORD, . . . in the God of my salvation.”

Job, for example, lost all his possessions, then his children, finally his health, and even his wife turned against him. Yet he could say: “The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).

God has commanded the Christian: “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Not for everything, but in everything!

This has always been one of the greatest testimonies a Christian can give to an unbeliever—the testimony of a life rejoicing in God’s salvation even in the midst of trouble. This was the example of Christ Himself, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17). HMM

Revival of Repentance

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

—2 Chronicles 7:14

I have little fear that any nation or combination of nations could bring down the United States and Canada by military action from without. But this I do fear—we sin and sin and do nothing about it. There is so little sense of the need of repentance—so little burden for the will of God to be wrought in our national life. I fear that the voice of blood will become so eloquent that God Almighty will have no choice but to speak the word that will bring us down.

I do pray often: “Oh God, send a revival of repentance and the fear of God that will sweep through the continent that we may be spared and that we may honor Thee!”   EFE044

Lord, I pray for our country today. Our morality has deteriorated so horribly since Tozer’s day. I too pray, “Oh, God, send a revival of repentance and the fear of God that will sweep through the continent that we may be spared and that we may honor Thee!” Amen.

 

Are they not all ministering spirits

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?—Hebrews 1:14.

 

Near you in sympathy the angels stand,

Their unseen hosts encompass you around,

Strong and unconquerable the glorious band,

And loud their songs and hymns of victory sound,

And near you, though invisible, are those,

The good and just of every age and clime,

Who while on earth have fought the self-same foes,

And won the fight through faith and love sublime;

Let not the hosts of sin inspire a fear,

For lo! far mightier hosts are ever near!

Jones Very.

 

With every evil: overcome, and every new likeness of Christ inwardly put on, you are brought more completely within the circle of the great cloud of witnesses, the myriads of angels in full assembly, and the spirits of good men made perfect; their strength passes mightily into your soul and their peace is laid brightly within the heart. This is one of the essential elements of our strength when we are supported and buoyed up in doing the Divine will. You are not marching alone. You feel it; you know it. Visible or invisible, a mighty host is with you; you are marching with them in countless and serried numbers; one spirit moves the whole and lifts their feet, and they keep step to the same music.

Edmund H. Sears.

 

The Reason Is: To Glorify Christ Jesus

“He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” John 16:14

The Holy Ghost Himself cannot better glorify the Lord Jesus than by showing to us Christ’s own things. Jesus is His own best commendation. There is no adorning Him except with His own gold.

The Comforter shows us that which He has received of our Lord Jesus. We never see anything aright till He reveals it. He has a way of opening our minds, and of opening the Scriptures, and by this double process He sets forth our Lord to us. There is much art in setting forth a matter, and that art belongs in the highest degree to the Spirit of truth. He shows us the things themselves. This is a great privilege, as those know who have enjoyed the hallowed vision.

Let us seek the illumination of the Spirit; not to gratify our curiosity, nor even to bring us personal comfort, so much as to glorify the Lord Jesus. Oh, to have worthy ideas of Him! Groveling notions dishonor our precious Lord. Oh, to have such vivid impressions of His person, and work, and glory, that we may with heart and soul cry out to His praise! Where there is a heart enriched by the Holy Ghost’s teaching there will be a Saviour glorified beyond expression. Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly light, and show us Jesus our Lord!

 

VIDEO Clearly God is in Our Crisis – Be Sure of God’s Will

Set your mind on things above….For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  Colossians 3:2-3

There’s a new crisis every day—a debt crisis, an economic crisis, a humanitarian crisis, a political crisis, a constitutional crisis, a crisis at the border, a crisis with the environment, and, as of this writing, a measles crisis alarming parents in the United States. Our planet is engulfed in crises, and our human emotions can’t bear it all.

The dictionary defines a crisis as “a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger.” But thank God we have Christ amid the crises of life! Think of His blessings in ages past. Nothing has touched your life without His knowledge, and there are a million dangers from which He has kept you, though you’ve been unaware of them.

He will never forget you nor forsake you or fail you. Sometimes, it’s in the crisis that we see God more clearly than ever. He comes with peace, with power, with protection, and with a sense of His deepening presence. If you’re in a crisis today, look upward. Set your mind on things above, not on things of earth, for your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Thro’ many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come. ‘Tis grace hath bro’t me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. John Newton, “Amazing Grace”

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How to Be Sure of God’s Will – Dr. Charles Stanley

Physicist Michael Pupin: Science Leads to God

Michael Idvorsky Pupin (1858–1935) was a leading American researcher who made many scientific advances, including development of the fluoroscope and an electrical transmission system for long-distance telephone communication.1 A physics professor at Columbia University for 40 years, Pupin’s many discoveries resulted in devices widely used today.

Pupin’s oscillating circuit research made it possible to have simultaneous transmissions of several messages through one wire, and it was his inductance coil research that made long-distance telephone calls possible.2 Both inventions made him quite wealthy—over one million dollars for his inductance coil alone, equal to about 30 million dollars today.3 His research also laid the foundation for modern radio broadcasting. Dr. Pupin even contributed to substantial advances in X-ray technology and was also “one of the leading popularizers of science” in America.3

Background

Born in what is now modern-day Serbia, Pupin learned much about life from his mother, a woman of great wisdom and mental vigor. She taught him the importance of both education and Christianity, and he described her as a pious woman who “had a rare knowledge of both the Old and New Testaments.”2 Although barely literate, she taught her son that “knowledge is the golden ladder over which we climb to heaven; knowledge is the light which illuminates our path through this life and leads to a future life of everlasting glory.”4 He gained from her an impressive amount of not only biblical knowledge but also an understanding of the cosmological argument for God.

“God sends sunlight to melt the ice and snow of the early spring, and to resurrect from death everything that lay lifeless in the cold grave….The same sunlight awakens the fields, the meadows, and the pasturelands, and bids them raise the daily bread of man and beast; it also ripens the honey-hearted fruit in orchards and vineyards.”4

This inspired Pupin’s mother to realize that the same “heavenly force” that causes lightning also carries “the humble human voice over the wires between distant peoples [and is a] proof of God’s infinite wisdom which uses one means only to do great things as well as small….Who can fathom the power of God!”4 Pupin noted that her view of science knowledge “brings me nearer to God: and this new knowledge [of science] certainly does.”4 When his mother died, he wrote:

Only the love of God and the friendship of man can give that spiritual power which one needs in moments of great sorrow. One day…a letter arrived from my sister, telling me that my saintly mother was no longer among the living. I vowed on that day that her blessed memory should be perpetuated as far as a humble mortal like myself could do.4

In Pupin’s best-selling autobiography From Immigrant to Inventor, a book that won a Pulitzer Prize, he detailed his arrival in the United States as a penniless young man who worked his way through college at Columbia University and eventually became one of the most important inventor-scientists of the last century.5

In 1889, Pupin earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Berlin. His predilection was not for teaching but rather for research, an area in which he excelled.5 His achievements were later honored by his election as president of the most prestigious science organization in America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In 1920, he received the Edison Medal for his work in mathematical physics and its application to the electrical transmission of intelligence.

Religious Beliefs

Pupin believed the “presence of beauty and order in the universe” were the “manifestations of the transcendent divine Word (the [Logos] of John’s Gospel) that has brought all things into being.”3 His theology of creation taught him that both God and God’s creation communicate to us. Pupin even saw the laws of physics as “a manifestation of the Creator,” adding that humans are mortal, but

the laws which the stars and planets obey and have always obeyed in their paths through the heavens are unchangeable….We do not know of any natural processes by which eternal things have been evolved. Their existence is the best philosophic proof that back of all this…there is the unchangeable, the eternal divinity.3

Pupin firmly believed that science can make us better Christians because science “teaches us that the Universe is guided by an intelligent Divinity,” an intelligent designer that we call God.6 Furthermore, science can teach us “how to cooperate intelligently with God” by

teaching men what His laws are and how to obey them. Science is proving that the human soul is the greatest thing in the Universe, the supreme purpose of the Creator. Science is leading us closer and closer to God….Science does not contradict belief in the immortality of the human soul. Science is revealing God in greater and greater glory.6

Furthermore, Pupin believed that God’s creation can teach us a great deal if we humans only would humbly listen to the world and attempt to decipher its hidden meanings. Whenever we succeed, we find

that each one is a divine message of a new truth, a morsel of the Infinite Truth, which is God. When Newton succeeded in deciphering the message conveyed to him by…the motion of planets around the sun, he found a new truth, the truth long hidden in the word “gravitation.”7

Humans may “feel intuitively that science will never penetrate the mysteries beyond it, but our faith encourages us in the belief that there behind the impenetrable veil of this eternal background is the throne of a divine power, the soul of the physical world, the activity of which we contemplate in our research of physical phenomena.”4

Pupin added that scientific research brings us closer to our Creator “than any theology invented by man ever did. The cultivation of this belief is certainly one of the ideals of American science….In the face of this ideal, there certainly cannot be any conflict between science and religion.”4

Language Created by God

God planted the “wonderful signaling system” called language “into the earthly clay of Adam’s body.”7 Language is the instrument by “which God’s spirit communicates with the soul of man….The existence of this instrumentality is the most concrete physical evidence that God loves the soul of man and that He also loves the body.”7 Furthermore, Pupin wrote that the most striking fact of the human body is its marvelous design

for the reception, transmission and distribution of messages. The numerous bundles of nerves which connect the eye, the ear, and every other part of our body to the central brain remind one much of telephone cables in many of their details.7

He concluded that the main goal of his institution, Columbia University, was

for the Advancement of the Public Good and the Glory of Almighty God. We are training the souls of men to seek the Lord our God by listening…to His divine messages, knowing well that by helping to decipher them they will prepare those morsels of God’s infinite truth which feed the growth of human life.7

Edward Davis wrote that Pupin was “a creationist in the very basic sense that the universe cannot be understood as a self-organizing entity; the creative mind of God was an indispensable part of the explanation for the dazzling displays of order that confront the scientist on all sides.”3

Conclusion

Michael Pupin was an eminent scientist who accepted the Genesis creation account yet became a leading researcher. He published almost 50 scientific papers, held 34 patents, and was awarded 18 honorary degrees, including degrees from Princeton, Brown, and Columbia universities.2 Despite modern assertions that “true” scientists are evolutionists,8 actual science is fully compatible with the Word of God. Science leads to God.

References

– Asimov, I. 1972. Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science andTechnology: The Lives and Achievements of 1195 Great Scientists from Ancient Times to the Present, Chronologically Arranged. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 505.
– Davis, B. 1938. Biographical Memoir of Michael Idvorsky Pupin 1858-1935. In National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Biographical Memoirs, Volume XIX, Tenth Memoir. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 300-323.
– Davis, E. 2009. Michael Idvorsky Pupin: Cosmic Beauty, Created Order, and the Divine Word. In Eminent Lives in Twentieth-Century Science & Religion. Rupke, N. A., ed. Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang, 295-316.
– Pupin, M. 1960. From Immigrant to Inventor. New York: Scribner.
– Wills, A. P. 1935. Obituary: Michael Idvorsky Pupin. Science. 81 (2107): 475.
– Wiggam, A. E. 1928. Exploring Your Mind with the Psychologists. New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 384-407.
– Pupin, M. 1922. A Herdsman’s View of Human Life. Columbia Alumni News. 13 (13): 197-199.
-Thomas, B. Nye vs. Ham Debate: No True Scotsman. Creation Science Update. Posted on icr.org February 7, 2014.

by Dr. Jerry Bergman, Ph.D. who is Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Toledo Medical College in Ohio.

Cite this article: Jerry Bergman, Ph.D. 2014. Physicist Michael Pupin: Science Leads to God. Acts & Facts. 43 (9).

Bringing Others to Jesus

John 1:35-42

Andrew is the disciple known for bringing people to Jesus. Immediately after meeting the Lord, he introduced his brother Simon Peter to the Messiah. Another time, when a great multitude was hungry, he found a boy with five loaves and two fish and brought him to Jesus (John 6:8-9). When some Greeks wanted to meet Christ, Andrew and Philip made the introductions (John 12:20-22). The disciple had great enthusiasm for the Savior.

Andrew’s own conversion experience motivated him to let others know about the One who’d changed his life. How about you—have you lost the joy of your salvation? If your Christian life has become stale and musty, it’s time to remember what Christ has done for you and to ask that He restore your excitement.

Think about how Andrew longed to know the Savior and spend time with Him (John 1:38-39). The disciple’s example is a good reminder that sweet fellowship with the Lord isn’t supposed to end with devotional times. It should also stimulate a desire to share with others the joy we find in our relationship with Christ. Andrew was motivated by his conviction that Jesus was the Messiah (John 1:40-41). He’d found the answer for a lost and hurting world and wanted others to know.

When Andrew answered the call to discipleship, Jesus told him he’d be catching men instead of fish (Matt. 4:18-19). As followers of Christ, we too have this same assignment. Our styles and opportunities vary, but we’re each responsible to develop a lifelong habit of bringing others to Jesus.