Its great to see how much bigger my God is compared to this world's many small 'g' gods. This past sunday night, some friends and I decided to go out sharing out faith on campus and we invited a few guys who don't normally go with us. It was great to see their obedience to God's command even though they were very uncomfortable doing this with people they have never met before. Just as normal, we prayed before talking with anyone....except for Clay, who couldn't hold it in when he saw an oppurtunity to talk with a girl about Jesus....and one of the things we prayed for and always pray for was that God would go before us and prepare the way, prepare their hearts, and soften them so that the seed of His Word could be planted there. We also prayed that God would go after us and water that seed after it has been planted and eventually bring forth the harvest in His Kairos (God's due time). The four of us that prayed then decided to split up into twos and Dean and I decided to go together. As Dean and I were walking around campus, we decided to go in front of West Hall as we were talking to each other. On the front lawn, there was a table set up with four chairs around it and four people were just chillin out there at like 10:30pm. We started to walk toward them, when we heard one of the guys mention the Bible loudly as he was talking. I immediately was able to see that God had prepared the way as His servants asked and was reminded of James 5:16 which states, "...the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." As we approached them, I asked them what they were doing out there and they said they were four friends who all the sudden got to talking about the Bible and had been talking about it for the past 2 hours. I knew then that it was all God's doing. Don't ya just love how he works? So I asked them if they were sure they where they were going when they died and three of the four immediately said "Heaven, sure of it". I then asked how they knew for sure, to which one replied, "because I do whats right, am a good person, etc." I went through the 10 Commandments (the Law) with her because as Romans 3:20 states, "for by the law comes the knowledge of sin" and she was proven to be a not so good person in God's standards of perfect holiness. I then explained that Jesus paid her penalty and took her punishment for her to know Him and His love for her. She was blown away at the simplicity of it all. By the end of the conversation, the two girls were sure that they were unrighteous apart from God's gift of reconciliation to Himself through Jesus. The girls struggled with understanding Creation and evolution, so Dean gave them all a copy of "One Heartbeat Away", which blows the religion of evolution out of the water. We later talked wtih two guys, one of whom was supposedly saved and the other who acknowledged to us (though he didn't have to, just to God) that he was in need of repentance (turning from a sinful life, to a God-honoring life) and belief in Jesus. The last group we talked with was about 5 people and one of the girls had many questions to test us with about being in the world. God was speaking straight through me for her and giving me all these verses to tell her. Then she stated something incorrectly from the Bible and I knew where it was to correct her. I noticed that as we had been talking, a guy came walking up and sat behind them who had a Bible in his hand. I asked to borrow it and he was glad for me to. I shared with her the passage from Ezekiel 33 about the Watchman and her whole demeanor changed. She stated that she had been backsliding a lot and needed prayer. After we talked, Dean and I left and the guy followed. He said he had been praying on campus and wanted to start going with us every time we went to share. He had been praying for revival and so had I. I think God is doing something amazing this semester. I wanna be steadfast to Him though.
What is the Sabbath? Why did God include keeping the Sabbath in the 10 Commandments? Does the Bible call Christians today to keep the Sabbath? Should believers do any work on the Sabbath? Is the Sabbath Saturday or Sunday? Does any of this matter? These are all questions that the Bible answers for us, although there are a variety of different practices among churchgoers. It must first be noted that the keeping of the Sabbath was commanded by God Himself to the people of Israel as they wandered through the wilderness. God wanted His people to so reflect His holy character that He called them to rest from their work as He rested from the work of creation (Ex. 20:8-11). As He often does, God had called Israel to do the opposite of what common sense states. To take a day off of work is seen by many to be contrary to good productivity, but in the Lord's economy, it shows true success. By resting on the Sabbath day, Israel was publicly declaring to God their faith in His ability t...
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