A testimony to ponder from Voice of the Martyrs and DC Talk in their book, "Jesus Freaks". Thomas Hudson had not denied his faith in Jesus through lengthy questioning or while he was imprisoned in England in 1558. Now he was walking to his execution. Right before they fastened the chain upon his legs to be burned at the stake, he stopped and stepped aside. He quickly kneeled and asked God in prayer for more strength and courage to die for Jesus. He had sensed that his faith was weakening by doubts entering his mind. He did not want to die while doubting, but in faith. He received comfort to go on. Then he bravely stood up went back to the executioner, was chained to the stake and the fire was lit. Praise God who gives His children all the courage and faith they need for the things they are called to endure for His name's sake. Praise God also that He is there in the flames with them and they are not alone, just like Thomas here and Meshach, Abednego and Shadrach before him.
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Another testimony from Hollywood also touches my heart and I hope it will stir yours with more hope as well.
A college drop-out named Mark signed up to work in the Jesus Film project. He had been on a personal search for meaning and purpose in life when he found this job as a prop man. He thought that he should at least know what the movie was about that he was working on, so he began to read the script. He began reading the Book of Luke and ended up reading it to the very last page. This caused him to open his heart to Jesus for the meaning and purpose he had been seeking! He now knew who he was and why he was here! Later he volunteered to be the dead Jesus taken off the cross and carried to the tomb to be buried, when they had no one to play the part. He got dropped on the head once in his role, but did not quit playing that part in the movie. While he was laying in the tomb of Jesus, God spoke to him and moved him to become a preacher so he could tell others about Jesus! Isn't God wonderfully able! He can even speak to people on the sets of movies and completely get his message across to his people. Thank you Lord for your goodness and power. Please help others to begin to read the Book of Luke or one of the other Gospels and have your Holy Spirit enable them to read it through to the end and make a decision to follow you by faith! Help Mark in his preaching Lord, to stay close to you by repentance and amen. I was so filled with hope and felt like a dark spot in my heart or my thinking had the light turned on when I read about salvation coming to some people in Hollywood California! I don't know of any Christians in Hollywood and so I think my tired brain begins to lose hope that God could get his message of love and truth into a town so enamored with producing entertainment. However, in reading Paul Eshleman's book about the producing of the Jesus Film, I am so delighted to say that God has shown his power to change human hearts even in Hollywood!
As the book, "I Just Saw Jesus" spells out the turning around of a producers heart when he works on making the Jesus Film. God first got his heart prepared through the endless dealing with meetings, deadlines, back-breaking work on budgets and placating or pampering spioled actors and actresses. Praise God that he can use the daily grind of Hollywood movie productions to bring people to search for something more even when surrounded by glamour, riches, fashion and fame. Praise God this producer, John, wanted more than what Hollywood had to offer out of life. Praise God for his Jewish upbringing which had planted a seed in his mind that the answer he might be seeking was possibly in the Bible. He began reading, searching for the answers to the desires within. He first had his eyes opened to the fact that the Bible had the foundation to much of our society: the law, health, education and justice were all spelled out here! He then had a desire to film the book of Genesis. Then he had a bigger vision, to film the whole Bible. When contemplating how to find funding for such a project he found himself speaking with Campus Crusade for Christ with all of its church connections across the nation. In this meeting he asked Paul Eshleman how he had become a Christian and why he did it. Paul told him. They worked extremely hard on producing this movie and John continued on the path of exploring faith in Jesus and asking questions until he made his decision to follow Christ himself. Hallelujah! Thank you Lord for using a movie In Kenya's Masai tribe they have a long-standing tradition in their culture of seeking Satan for the name of a person among their people who would be cast out of the village in payment for sin. This person would take his generation's sins upon himself and outside of the camp away from the rest of the villagers. As soon as they are chosen by the Evil One, they are shunned and cannot have any human contact with the rest of the villagers, their wives, chidren or siblings. (Info from Paul Eshleman's "I Just Saw Jesus".)
Do you remember in the Bible that it says in Romans that God planted a seed or a piece of eternity in the hearts of all the cultures? This seems to be proof of that Biblical truth. Here this tribe knows that there is sin in every human heart. This tribe also knows that something needs to be done to removed that sin from the people for their salvation. They know that there needs to be a scape goat to take away that sin. But the fall into sin has darkened their thinking about that truth seed and warped it so that they seek the devil for a scapegoat instead of God. Sin has also caused them to choose their own scapegoat instead of Jesus. Praise God that the gospel truth has made it to their tribe and many scapegoat men have rejoiced at the glorious news that Jesus is the one and only scapegoat needed now. Lord, may the good news continue to grow in Masai villages until all human scapegoats there have been redeemed and freed by the truth. amen. Anyone else who has traveled to other countries have other truth seeds that have been warped by wrong thinking that they could share? I would love to hear about them. This testimony involves Mattayo of Kenya whom I wrote about last time and one of the first people he witnessed to in Kenya as he went from village to village.
One of the people Mattayo witnessed to was a witch doctor. This man became very angry and tried to kick Mattayo out of the village by intimidating him with threats of curses and using his village-given authority. Mattayo, however, stood his ground informing the witch doctor that Jesus' power was greater than all the black magic the witch doctor could muster. The witch doctor fell to the ground trembling. He asked Mattayo to return the next day so that he could speak with him again. Many villagers told Mattayo not to return, because it would likely cost him his life if he did. But Mattayo was satisfied to die while sharing the good news of Jesus, his calling. He answered, "If I die it will be for the Lord." When Mattayo arrived at the witch doctor's house there was a crowd waiting inside. Mattayo, the Kenyan warrior for Christ, spoke for an hour to the group, then the witch doctor came forward to address them. He told the villagers how when Mattayo told him that Jesus' power was greater than his magic something strange happened to him. He explained, "It was as if a big cross came out of the sky, went through my body and cleaned all the bad out of me! I must tell you that I am now a follower of Jesus and everyone of you will be too!" And sure enough, now the witch doctor's house is a house church. This particular village happens to be a village full of warriors, the fiercest, most well-known in all of Kenya and now 1,800 of them have decided to become followers of Jesus after watching the Jesus Film. Many are nomads and so they have a traveling church that has worship services under trees across Kenya. Jesus knows how to gather even warriors to himself! I like how Mattayo did not just speak the truth about Jesus power being greater than the black magic, but He added action to his faith making it alive and not empty words. I love the witch doctor's testimony and how it vividly illustrates (to me) the dimensions beyond our 3-D thinking. The vision of the cross coming out of the sky and going through his physical body and impacting it is beyond 3D. It was like his eyes were opened not to just the spiritual dimension, but Jesus holy, pure and good dimensions. I say this because witch doctors and many tribal African people already acknowledge the reality of the spiritual realm beyond what the eyes see and that is demonstrated in the fact that they get in touch with evil spirits, satan and tap into their powers. Even though the witch doctor could see dark spiritual realities he was not able to see Jesus' good spiritual realities until He was told with words and with faith and the Holy Spirit showed him. What do you think about the dimensions involved with that cross appearing from nowhere and moving to him specifically, not to Mattayo, and sweeping through his body as well as making him aware of a removing of things within him- not all things, not his personality, not his memories, not his thinking processes, but those things which he identified as bad, but not the good? Tell me your thoughts.... I am always encouraged and refreshed in my faith in God's great ability to reach people's hearts in different cultures. Here is a quick summary of Mattayo's story taken from Paul Eshleman's book, "I Just Saw Jesus".
Mattayo grew up in Kenya where teenage boys must prove their manhood by killing a lion with his own spear or dying. When that time came Mattayo was able to kill the lion with his spear as was required. On another day he and his friend were confronted by a lion and his friend was badly injured in the attack. He then carried his mangled friend 20 kilometers to a mission station for medical help from missionaries. The freind died after only a few hours, but Mattayo was told about Jesus from the missionaries there and received new life from Jesus as his savior. When his friends found out about his new faith they stole his cattle and rejected him. He left his village and began traveling from village to village telling others about Jesus the Savior. Mattayo reminds me of a modern tribal Samson or David with his lion fighting experience similar to theirs. As I was writing this testimony up for you, the Lord, I believe, quickened my heart or mind to see a spiritual parallel here. We also have friends who have been seriously injured or mauled by a lion, a spiritual lion- Satan. We need to be more vigilant in asking the Holy Spirit how we can carry our spiritually injured friends to Jesus for spiritual help like Mattayo did in Kenya. Lord, please help us to have the courage to give our friends spiritual aid even at personal expense, like walking 20 km with aching arms like Mattayo to do all that we can do for our friends. Please open our eyes to see when our friends worship family, pleasure, leisure, alcohol, drugs, sex or other idols in our culture. Please quicken our hearts to respond and obey your leading on giving our friends spiritual CPR. Amen. |
Tamera BrockmanMember of FTPC currently aware of the greatness of the adventure in faith with Christ. She hopes to share some of the adventure with you through this blog. Her views are not necessarily held by FTPC. Archives
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