Defeat may serve as well as victory
To shake the soul and let the glory out.
When the great oak is straining in the wind
The boughs drink in new beauty, and the trunk
Sends down a deeper root on the windward side.
Only the soul that knows the mighty grief
Can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come
To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.
~Edwin Markham (1852-1940)
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a Man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at His coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet…. that God may be all in all…. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles in 1 Corinthians 15
Oh beloved, it is true. He brings us further and sends us farther than we ever thought we could ever go. This fool of a writer and preacher Loves both the good news of the Gospel and the Person about Whom the good news speaks. And as He enables this weak vessel, words of encouragement and grace have gone to many places in the world. Many have been encouraged and many have come to know Him. He has placed on me the calling to live such a life that one million more might surrender to the same great Love i have found, and then pour the same out on all mankind.
A calling like this makes absolutely no sense. It is totally impossible for an ex-drunk and ex-horrible father to reach a million people. Who would listen anyway? Yeah, impossible.
But G_d.
So, over the past few years, He has allowed ever-intensifying testing of the work He is doing in my life. And in the testing, He has proved Himself faithful. He has placed me among an ever-growing number of people that i might simply love and teach and discipline and counsel and share and love some more.
My beloved wife and i minister in a couple of lifegroups, we do a little counseling, and we have over 425 pre-school, secondary and tertiary students in our Language Development, Worldview and Global Issues courses here in West Java. Some 50,000+ follow on Facebook and some 3,000 people from 151 countries view one or more of the electronic venues of Ps. 16:11 ministries each month. And online, this fool boldly proclaims the message of the gospel. And while exceedingly encouraging, at the moment, things look quite a bit short of the target million He has set before us to reach.
Even in person, i have never shied from sharing His great Love and the good news of Jesus. However i have, to my chagrin, almost always held back from one thing in my messages: asking for a public response like standing up to confess Jesus Christ as Lord, or to ask for healing. And to my even deeper chagrin, this has been mostly driven by my own fear of being rejected. This has been a great breach in my presentations of the Gospel at times, and left the ends of some preaching too open-ended. i know deeply that He is not ever disappointed in me any more – but this fool of a preacher has often felt disappointment in himself and his own cowardice.
But G_d.
Last week, “at the last moment,” i was asked to add a piece to a message i was to give to approximately 200 students at an international school in West Jakarta. The school is seeing some significant problems with sexual sin and latent violence from pornography and video games. So, as is the habit of a mystic, i asked Him what i should speak about.
He said, “tell them to make their decision today.” i was to set before them life and death, and implore them to choose life. And so, i set about to put together the first “hellfire and brimstone” message of my career. It was blunt. It was clear. And it was the gospel. The message then segued into the original theme of the message: that G_d would finish what He started in you (each of us).
So, as i finished preparing the slides, He spoke to me and said, “One hundred will come to know me tomorrow.” And i really got the sense that i was actually supposed to have these kids stand to make their decision. Gulp… Except there was no fear any more. Glory to G_d. This was just one more victory of His Life over our life, now lived in Him. His Grace always gives us whatever we need to do His will.
And so, as i prayed the next morning in the auditorium before the meeting, His Presence was actually making the room a little bit brighter… it was an astounding morning. Then some 200 hundred students filed into the auditorium. There was some music and a presentation on a community service club… and then it was my turn.
Speaking in front of a large audience is always an amazing experience if done in the Spirit. Surely, it is the job of a preacher to pray and study and prepare for a message. However, after the preparation is done, it is vital to “get out of the way,” and let Him use us literally as an oracle for His truth to pour out through us onto the audience.
The message commenced and as i participated with Him in the great commission, He brought me to the point in the message where it was clear that i was to ask kids to stand if they wanted to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and to declare that they wanted to be healed. And in the asking, 175 of the approximately 200 secondary students in the room stood up within seconds of each other, even large swaths of the room rising nearly in unison. So, within the 175 were the 100 whose hearts were truly to be changed that day – or this was just another case of Him doing His thing exceedingly, abundantly beyond anything we could hope or imagine!
Astounding.
Oh, the gospel is truly this amazing. This is for sure. What is astounding is that i ever doubted that G_d would be able to move the hearts of an entire room if it so pleased Him to do it. And after the meeting came to a close, this old fool of a preacher was walking down the stairs from the fourth floor of the building as He spoke again, “welcome to the warrior class.”
Hooah! Thanks Papa. Wow you are good!
G_d wins. G_d drives His victory home in our lives, in our families, in our careers and throughout our former failures. G_d’s Love makes an exceedingly good covering over our shortcomings. So much so that we are made truly whole, and able to bring Him actual fame. For, anyone who knew the former man, now preaching before that crowd might not even guess he would ever be standing in that place.
But G_d.
