By Mark Ellis, Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net)
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (ANS -- January 7, 2016)
-- He is one of the most influential pastors, authors, and theologians
in America. Recently he shocked an interviewer by revealing that he and
his wife had deep struggles in their marriage, but corporate worship
played a decisive role in changing John Piper’s attitude toward his
wife.
“I
think I’m still married because of corporate worship,” Piper told
Pastor C.J. Mahaney and an audience of pastors at the 2016 Sovereign
Grace Churches Pastors Conference held in late October.
“What
do you mean by that?” a stunned Mahaney asked, momentarily taken aback.
Mahaney leads a Sovereign Grace Church in Louisville.
“Noel
and I would have periodic, real struggles, not communicating, hurting
each other with our words, feeling hopeless that we could be happy,”
Piper confessed. John and his wife, Noel, have been married since 1968,
have five grown children and numerous grandchildren.
Undoubtedly, many at the conference had no idea about Piper’s marital struggles.
“I would go to church under those awful conditions and I’m supposed to preach,” Piper continued.
But when God inhabits the praise of His people, hearts soften and a renewed perspective emerges.
“In
those moments of singing about His greatness and His mercy -- the
gospel -- I would generally be melted and I would feel hope,” Piper told
the other pastors.
As
his spirit connected vertically with God, a shift took place in his
mind. What an idiot, he thought to himself, that I would make so much
out of that (situation with his wife).
“That
would happen repeatedly in song, in corporate worship,” he told
Mahaney. As God increased, Piper was humbled and renewed hope emerged.
“God struck me down with hope. With hope he struck me down.”
About the writer: Mark Ellis is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net), and also founder of www.GodReports.com, a website that shares stories, testimonies and videos from around the world.
** You may republish this or any of our ANS stories with attribution to the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net).
Please also tell your friends and colleagues that they can receive a
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signing up there.
ALBUQUERQUE, NM (ANS -- Jan 7. 2017) -- For
about two months out of each year, the telephone at Joy Junction, New
Mexico’s largest emergency homeless shelter, rings almost off the hook
with calls from happy sounding voices offering food, volunteer help and
monetary gifts.
Our online giving portal at www.joyjunction.org is also busy, with concerned and kindhearted people wanting to make a donation.
As
you may have guessed, I’m talking about the Thanksgiving and Christmas
seasons. However, the need to take care of our city’s homeless is one
that is year round.
But
online giving makes a dramatic decline at 11.59 pm on new year’s eve,
and when the phone rings after the holidays it’s usually a desperate
family looking for help.
When
someone comes in the office, rather than volunteers coming to help,
many times in comes a sad and scared mom looking for a place to stay.
Other times it’s an embarrassed and humiliated dad having to swallow his
pride to make sure his wife and kids will find food and shelter until
he finds a permanent place to stay.
Tonight
and for days, weeks and months to come, Joy Junction will still shelter
families who without our assistance would have no roof over their
heads. Everyone we help is hurting in one way or another.
As
concerned and caring community members, we need to remember two
important facts. First, the homeless are with us year round, not only
during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
Second,
with proper help, many of our guests, who have unique stories of quiet
desperation that most of us could never imagine in our worst nightmares,
can and do turn their lives around.
While
many of the homeless have made bad decisions in their lives, such as
getting involved with illegal drugs or abusing alcohol, who among us
hasn’t made a bad choice? It’s just that usually our choices aren’t as
obvious as those made by the homeless.
And
let’s face it. If you or I had been forced to contend with many of the
unspeakable circumstances experienced by the homeless, who’s to say we
wouldn’t make a similar choice?
Then
there are others, who maybe because of domestic violence or a difficult
economy, are just unable to make it without the assistance offered by
Joy Junction or other similar ministries.
A number of the homeless are also people who have served this nation in times of need.
According
to national surveys conducted in years past by Joy Junction and other
faith-based ministries around the United States, nearly one in three men
staying at homeless shelters is a veteran.
If
there’s one thing I’ve learned after working with New Mexico’s homeless
for 30 years, it is that with the right sort of help, many of them turn
their lives around.
Specifically,
rehabilitation requires not only mental and physical counseling, but
also spiritual nurturing to give these men and women the strength they
need to return to society. That’s what Joy Junction in particular – and
faith-based ministries in general – are all about.
This
nurturing of faith is the key to taking people off the streets, giving
them new lives and making them productive. Yet it must be done in a
sustained way. Just as the problems creating homelessness are not
“seasonal,” neither are the solutions.
The
homeless need an environment in which they are kindly and
compassionately challenged to acknowledge and quit unhealthy behaviors,
otherwise they will never acquire the practical or emotional skills they
need to succeed.
Establishing
responsibility and accepting a consistent faith in Jesus Christ is the
beginning of transforming a lifestyle learned on the streets to a safe
and successful life.
Those
of us who help Albuquerque’s homeless at Joy Junction do so because
it’s both the Biblical thing and the right thing to do. It is that
belief which gives us the strength to get out of bed every morning and
care for men and women who are ignored by many people in Albuquerque.
As
you go about your daily duties, please remember those in need. Even
though we are officially past the holiday season, please use this very
cold weather as a reminder to thank God for the blessings of your home
and as an opportunity to reach out to others who are not so fortunate.
Sometimes when people consider the overall homeless picture, they declare the situation to be hopeless.
For
Joy Junction, while helping the homeless is indeed difficult, with the
transforming power of the Christian faith, combined with your generosity
over the last 30-plus years, we are succeeding. We are ending
homelessness and hunger one life and one meal at a time.
So
with that in mind, I hope you will continue to remember us and others
in 2017 who give food, shelter and a message of hope and encouragement
to the homeless, hungry and discouraged. We’re making a difference.
Photo captions: 1) A homeless family. 2) Jeremy Reynalds greets a homeless man. 3) Jeremy Reynalds with his wife, Elma.
About the writer: JeremyReynalds,
who was born in Bournemouth, UK, is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST
News Service, a freelance writer and also the founder and CEO of Joy
Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter, www.joyjunction.org.
He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New
Mexico, and a Ph.D. in intercultural education from Biola University in
Los Angeles. One of his more recent books is “From Destitute to Ph.D.”
Additional details on the book are available at www.myhomelessjourney.com. His latest book is "Two Hearts One Vision." It is available at www.twoheartsonevisionthebook.com. Reynalds lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife, Elma. For more information, please contact Jeremy Reynalds at jeremyreynalds@gmail.com.
** You may republish this and any of our ANS stories with attribution to the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net). Please also tell your friends and colleagues that they can receive a complimentary subscription to the ASSIST
Killed for Christ in the Philippines – a Love Story
January 12, 2017 Indigenous
missionaries remain in hostile, remote areas in the Philippines that
foreign missionaries have left due to security risks.
A little over two years ago, a Muslim in the Philippines named Datu*
found himself at a Christian wedding – his daughter was marrying the
son of a Christian pastor Datu had stoned for sharing Christ with his
family members.
The pastor was now preaching at the wedding in a town (undisclosed)
on the western peninsula of the island of Mindanao. Throughout the
courtship, Datu was one of several area Muslims who had hurled stones at
the pastor, his church building and his home. Some of the Muslims had
issued threats, with Datu saying he wished to kill the pastor's son for
courting his daughter.
Pastor Bagwis* had shared the gospel with Datu's family members in the first place because his son, Efren*,
loved Datu's daughter. When Datu saw that she returned Efren's love,
the Muslim father objected, but over time he acknowledged that Efren was
a good man, said the director of an indigenous ministry that discipled
the pastor.
Datu consented to the marriage after exacting a high dowry – a
carabao (water buffalo), cow, goat and chicken. The ministry director
said God miraculously helped Pastor Bagwis to provide the dowry. The
date of the wedding was set, with Pastor Bagwis stating they had to be
married in a church because his son was Christian.
While foreign missionaries have largely left the
Philippines due to security threats, indigenous missionaries there
continue to live, work and preach in harsh spiritual climates.
"During the marriage ceremony, Pastor Bagwis preached Jesus Christ
crucified," the ministry director said. "To God be the glory, Datu and
his family repented, confessed Christ, believed and accepted Jesus
Christ."
Datu and his oldest son were baptized a month later, and Muslim
relatives began to threaten and harass them. His son was so bold in
proclaiming Christ in the predominantly Muslim area that Pastor Bagwis
obtained permission from Datu and the director to relocate him for his
safety to a ministry center in a distant city, where he received further
discipleship training.
Datu, meantime, continued to be discipled and also became bold in proclaiming Christ, increasing the ire of Muslim relatives.
"He suffered the same things that he had done to Pastor Bagwis," the
director said. "If before he was the one who stoned the church and
Pastor Bagwis, now he also suffered the same things after he became a
Christian and practiced and obeyed biblical doctrine."
In the last week of December 2015, Datu's son went home to visit his
family. The next week – a year ago this month – the director received a
call from him that Datu had been killed. The slain Christian's family made a coffin and buried him in one day.
He had five stab wounds on his back, and his neck had been cut in the
front and back in an apparent attempt at decapitation, "because Muslims
there practice beheading if they don't like the person," the director
said.
Datu's son told the director that the family and other church members
had gathered on Jan. 2, 2016 for a dinner of thanksgiving for blessings
of the previous year. His father had told them that he would first get
two ducks that he would cook for the feast.
After waiting for hours, they began to search for him. At 3 a.m. on
Jan. 3, a neighbor found Datu's mutilated body. Unable to pay for a
coffin, a morgue or a funeral service, Datu's son and the pastor
hurriedly built and painted a coffin and buried him that day.
"Please pray for the man who did this horrible and brutal thing to
Brother Datu," the director said. "They suspect that the one who did
this is Brother Datu's uncle, because he is the right hand of the imam
there. Please pray for their salvation."
Datu had received threats, but he'd said he didn't mind because he
felt he deserved them for having previously persecuted the church, the
director said.
"They killed him because Datu was boldly sharing the gospel in the
town," he said. "I told his children that they have to remember their
dad as he was before he was killed, and that the memories they have to
hold dearest are the ones of when he was healthy, and especially the
wonderful moments God gave of praying together and having fun together.
And, best of all, that we know we will see him again in Heaven."
One year later, the family continues to hold fast to Christ and
proclaim him, along with the ministry's other indigenous evangelists.
While foreign missionaries have largely left Mindanao due to security
threats, indigenous missionaries there continue to live, work and preach
in harsh spiritual climates.
The director said Muslims recently visited another center on Mindanao
where a children's program was held. One of the visitors told the
center leader that they had come to observe activities to find out what
they were doing that had incited their fellow Muslim tribesman to burn
down their church building last year.
"Maybe what you do is 'haram' [forbidden by Allah]," the
Muslim told the leader. "The center leader said, 'Okay, you can observe
us.' The man and his wife and child, and other wives from the tribal
group who moved to the village got to join the children's month
celebration."
Other Muslim women also came to observe, with the leader and
Christians praying and fasting that God would shine and be magnified,
the director said. They prayed that they could offer educational
scholarships to their children, and that the Muslim visitors would know
that what they offer as a Christian learning center is not bad but all
for the glory of God.
After the month-long children's program, the Christians invited the visitors to a meal, which the Muslims declined.
"These visitors would not eat with them even if they prepared food
for them," the director said. "The guests said, 'There is another time
we can eat together with you.' Pray that the bridges that were built for
the gospel, and the seeds that were sown, would bear much fruit!"
To help indigenous missionaries to meet needs, you may contribute
online using the form below, or call (434) 977-5650. If you prefer to
mail your gift, please mail to Christian Aid Mission, P.O. Box 9037,
Charlottesville, VA 22906. Please use Gift Code: 801PGE. Thank you!
An
indigent orphan in the Philippines is high on life as he enjoys a meal
provided by an indigenous ministry on Mindanao Island. He is one of
hundreds of poor children the ministry has served through school, puppet
and feeding programs in the past year. Besides its orphanage, the
ministry operates a senior citizens center. These outreaches help build
bridges for the ministry’s goal of planting a new church every year.
“Please remember in prayer our orphanage ministry for the abandoned,
underprivileged children and the starving, unhealthy indigent children
in the communities whose families are below the poverty line,” the
ministry director said.
“Whatever it takes, Lord, increase my resolve to do your will with all diligence.”
Becoming diligent is
hard work, but diligence is not synonymous with working hard. I know
from personal experience one can get up early and go to bed late, and
expend a lot of energy, and be very busy, and not watch TV or get lost
in social media binges—can appear to work hard—and still not get much
done that really matters.
Diligence combines a willingness to work hard with a discerning
focus, a sense of urgency, a vigilant carefulness and faithful
perseverance. And one of the clearest biblical calls to diligence is
Paul’s exhortation: Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,
making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do
not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (Ephesians 5:15–17)
Discerning Focus
A diligent person seeks to “understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:17).
Based on the context, Paul isn’t referring to God’s hidden will (for
instance, about if or who we should marry). He’s primarily referring to
God’s revealed will regarding specific sins to avoid. We learn to
“discern what is pleasing to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:10).
But judging by the way Paul approached life—living as a “soldier” who
avoids “civilian pursuits” in order “to please the one who enlisted
him” (2 Timothy 2:4)—it’s
safe to assume Paul would affirm applying this principle to lesser
priorities that, while not inherently immoral, distract us from our
focus. Both sinful and unnecessary distractions are often difficult to
set aside.
As I write, an issue in my life is causing me significant concern and
anxiety. There’s a mix of good anxiety, similar to Paul’s anxiety for
the churches (2 Corinthians 11:28) and sinful anxiety, the kind Paul instructed the Philippians not to indulge (Philippians 4:6–7).
Diligence requires that I must discern which is which and deal with sin
appropriately. But diligence also requires me to discern that God’s
will for me right now is to focus on completing my work for
today and temporarily neglecting the demanding issue, which, while
important, is not the priority at this moment.
In a very real sense, a diligent person must learn to be neglectful.
There are myriad clamoring and demanding temptations and lesser
priorities a diligent person must strategically neglect. This requires
developing the discipline of discerning focus.
Sense of Urgency
A diligent person “[makes] the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16).
He realizes that time is limited. Again, the context tells us Paul
likely has holiness in mind: We should not waste our time on sin. The
best use of time is to be filled with the Spirit and bearing the
Spirit’s fruit (Galatians 5:22–23) and not dissipating sins like drunkenness or sexual immorality (Ephesians 5:3, 18).
But, again, Paul would say the same thing about “civilian pursuits.”
There’s not enough time to do everything we’d enjoy doing. Even as
soldiers, there’s not enough time to do all the very good, spiritually
helpful things we’d like to do. But there’s sufficient time for us to do
what God gives us to do (2 Corinthians 9:8).
A diligent person feels urgency over the brief time he has on earth
and seeks to wisely use his brief number of days on the few things he
discerns to be the most important for him (Psalm 90:12).
Vigilant Carefulness
A diligent person also looks carefully how he walks, “not as unwise but as wise” (Ephesians 5:15). This kind of care requires a cultivated vigilance. It does not come naturally to most of us.
Most of us have a natural inclination to coast, to fall into familiar
ruts of thinking and behaving. Most of us have sinful or defective
habits of emotional responses to certain situations and relational
dynamics that were conditioned in childhood and adolescence. We might
hardly notice them because we’re not looking carefully. Most of us don’t
want to expend the mental, emotional and spiritual energy to cultivate a
vigilant care over how we walk.
Which means most of us are not wise. I know I’m not by nature. I
don’t have a natural inclination to this kind of vigilance. But I’m old
enough now to realize the real, long-term benefits of vigilance where
I’ve applied it—as well as the consequences where I’ve not applied it.
This only increases my resolve to abandon the foolishness of
carelessness and to look more carefully how I walk.
Faithful Perseverance
And finally, diligent people faithfully persevere in cultivating and
applying a discerning focus, a sense of urgency, and a vigilant care
over how they live. This is not explicit in the text, but it is surely
implicit, especially in the word “time” (Ephesians 5:16).
The “evil days” describe the age in which we live. Every one of the
days we live as Christians on earth, until we are taken by death or
Jesus returns, are embattled with evil, which Paul makes clear in
Ephesians 6. The dangers of falling into sin or giving ourselves to
“civilian pursuits” do not disappear. Paul’s exhortation is one we must
apply “every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of [us] may
be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13).
Whatever It Takes
All diligence is hard work. But Christian diligence goes beyond hard
work to a Spirit-empowered cultivating of a discerning focus, sense of
urgency, vigilant carefulness and faithful perseverance. And a Christian
knows that without God’s help, we’ll miss the mark and waste a lot of
life on a lot of sin and “civilian pursuits.” So we pray: Whatever it takes, Lord, increase my resolve to do your will with all diligence.
Jon Bloom
Jon Bloom is the Executive Director for Desiring God Ministries
November 3, 2016 Many
people in towns outside Mosul have no homes to return to, and so far
Islamic State jihadists have kept most of them from fleeing.
Separating a young mother from her children and husband, Islamic
State (ISIS) terrorists took her hostage when they seized Iraq's
second-largest city, Mosul, and the surrounding villages two years ago.
"She was put in an underground hole - she said that for two years she
didn't see the sun," the director of a ministry based in northern
Iraq's autonomous region of Kurdistan said. "She was grabbed from her
husband, and her husband saved the kids and didn't see her after that."
The woman escaped recently when Iraqi coalition forces retook
villages outside Mosul, and then she made her way to a makeshift camp
for displaced people in Kurdistan, where the director's ministry
provides aid, he said.
"She told me that U.S. forces shot that place, and she was able to
run away," he said. "They shot that compound and killed those
terrorists, and she was able to run away."
"Now they see the true face of Islam," the ministry
director said. "A lot of heart-breaking stories will come out of Mosul
with people who are ready to leave Islam and beg for Christ to take
their lives and give them healing."
The surviving mother is one of the few people who have been able to
escape ISIS control of Mosul and surrounding villages as Iraqi coalition
forces have mounted an offensive to retake the terrorists' last
stronghold. Aided by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, 5,000 U.S. troops, and,
on the other side of the city, the mainly Shiite, Iran-backed Popular
Mobilization Forces, the Iraqi Army this week entered Mosul for the
first time since ISIS took the city in June 2014 and proclaimed it a
base for its caliphate.
Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to flee as coalition
forces liberate more areas, but few have yet to escape to Kurdistan from
Mosul's surrounding towns and villages, which are largely devoid of
people because ISIS has forced them to Mosul, the ministry director
said.
"They're keeping a lot of people hostages - anybody running away,
they're killing," he said. "There were two brothers; they killed one of
them while he was running out. Most of the people are hostages right
now. They want to flee, they just can't. What's happening right now in
Mosul is what they did to the Christians; it's genocide. They're killing
everyone who's not working with them or not helping them."
United Nations officials have expressed concern at reports that ISIS
took 550 families from villages around Mosul as human shields in order
to prevent civilians from escaping. Citing an Iraqi intelligence source,
CNN reported that ISIS executed 284 men and boys in Mosul on Oct. 20
and 21. The terrorists are widely reported to be using civilians as
human shields against the coalition forces. Iraqi
coalition troops found a damaged church building in one of the towns
outside Mosul after retaking it from Islamic State terrorists.
ISIS militants have left mines and bombs in formerly occupied areas
that coalition forces are painstakingly disarming, and fighting has also
destroyed civilian homes and other buildings in predominantly Christian
areas such as Qaraqosh. The Christian leader said a young woman was
attending one of his ministry's seven-day discipleship trainings
recently when her eyes suddenly filled with tears. He asked her what was
wrong.
"At that moment somebody had just sent her a picture of her house,"
he said. "She showed me a photo of her house two years ago, and then she
showed me her house now, and it was totally destroyed. She used to live
in a very nice house."
Many Christians have lost their homes to ISIS, and even liberated towns are not fully safe for return, he said.
"Qaraqosh is 90 percent liberated, and the other 10 percent doesn't
have any soldiers but they have snipers there; ISIS has snipers
everywhere," he said. "They have built tunnels from house to house so
it's not 100 percent secure."
The 108,000 troops fighting to dislodge the estimated 5,000 ISIS
militants could take months, with street-by-street, and in some cases
house-to-house, firefights necessary to combat urban guerrilla defense
tactics and limit civilian casualties. Coalition forces have begun to
encounter civilians waving white flags to keep from being attacked.
In Bazwaya, the last, previously ISIS-held village before troops
entered Mosul from the east on Tuesday (Nov. 1), residents hung white
flags from buildings and stood outside their homes, their children
flashing the "V" sign for victory with their fingers, the Associated
Press reported. Hundreds of such families will be evacuated to camps for
displaced persons, an Iraqi Special Forces commander told the AP.
"We're getting ready for them - if we start seeing groups coming our
way, then we're going to minister to them," the Christian leader said,
adding that his organization needs assistance to prepare aid supplies.
"We don't have many resources. I don't have a lot of food and medicine
and other items, but we're going to do as much as we can."
The ministry, which Christian Aid Mission assists, has been
distributing Bibles, leading Bible studies and holding discipleship
training sessions for displaced people for more than two years, with
many becoming Christians. Before ISIS seized Mosul, it had the
reputation as the Iraqi city that was most closed to the gospel, the
director said.
"So now they see the true face of Islam, they saw the teachings of
Islam and they know what it means to be under the Islamic State," he
said. "I believe a lot of heart-breaking stories will come out of Mosul
with people who are ready to leave Islam and beg for Christ to take
their lives and give them healing."
The ministry seeks assistance to purchase food, clothing, blankets, tents, medicines and Bibles.
"I want to encourage people to supply whoever is working there,
whether us or anyone else, to help these people, supply them with the
Word of God, supply them with the tools they need to work with these
refugees who are coming," the director said. "And if Mosul is going to
get liberated, Lord willing, we will be going to Mosul to do some work
there. I hope to put a Bible in every house in Mosul and declare Christ
as King of kings and Lord."
To help indigenous missionaries to meet needs, you may contribute
online using the form below, or call (434) 977-5650. If you prefer to
mail your gift, please mail to Christian Aid Mission, P.O. Box 9037,
Charlottesville, VA 22906. Please use Gift Code: 444IRAQ. Thank you!
Iraqi
coalition soldiers recently helped clear a town outside Mosul of
Islamic State militants ahead of the battle to retake Iraq’s “second
city” from the jihadists, which is expected to drive hundreds of
thousands civilians to camps for displaced people in northern Iraq. “We
are expecting a huge number of refugees coming to our area in the coming
months, as there is a lot of official talk about Mosul being liberated
before the end of this year,” the director of an indigenous ministry in
northern Iraq said. Besides funds for food, clothing, blankets, tents
and medicines for the next three months, the ministry needs help to
purchase 30,000 New Testaments at $2 each, 10,000 children’s Bibles at
$5 each and 40,000 Bibles in Arabic and Kurdish. “Humanitarian aid will
help us extend the hand of mercy to the people who need it with the
message of healing and salvation for people with a lot of stories and
tragedies that will result from this war,” he said.
“I
think I’m still married because of corporate worship,” Piper told
Pastor C.J. Mahaney and an audience of pastors at the 2016 Sovereign
Grace Churches Pastors Conference held in late October.
About the writer: Mark Ellis is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net), and also founder of www.GodReports.com, a website that shares stories, testimonies and videos from around the world.
ALBUQUERQUE, NM (ANS -- Jan 7. 2017) -- For
about two months out of each year, the telephone at Joy Junction, New
Mexico’s largest emergency homeless shelter, rings almost off the hook
with calls from happy sounding voices offering food, volunteer help and
monetary gifts.
And
let’s face it. If you or I had been forced to contend with many of the
unspeakable circumstances experienced by the homeless, who’s to say we
wouldn’t make a similar choice?
About the writer: 
