Fan the Flame

Posted by Abigail

When we burned large brush piles, my brothers and I used to have contests to see who could get their fire going quickest with only one match.  Have you ever tried to build a fire?  The word “build” describes the process perfectly.  It takes careful insight, thought, preparation, effort and then careful nursing to get the embers blazing brightly.

 

Paul told his son in the faith, Timothy, to fan into flame the gift that had been given him—which appears to be evangelism.  If even a gifted evangelist had to be reminded to put on the heat, we should be encouraged that the work is the Lord’s, just as the glory is His.  I’m embarrassed to confess that I begged the Lord to send me someone else to lead in evangelism, claiming a lack of gifting and my timidity as excuses.  Paul spoke to me when he reminded Timothy that “God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power, love and discipline.”  Sharing the gospel isn’t about having the right personality.  It’s about recognizing that the power comes from the Holy Spirit.  It’s recalling God’s lavish love for us and in dwelling on it, overflowing with His merciful love toward others.  And it’s about disciplining ourselves to obey—by the Holy Spirit’s strength.  The Christian life is hard work.  It’s a battle.  Always.  Any day that I am not fighting, I must realize that I have likely withdrawn to hide.  And any day that I go to battle without seeking the Lord’s strength, I am sure to fail.  Sharing the gospel is certainly no less a battle and it requires discipline.

 

As April, Lauren and I have talked about Christ’s command to “go,” we’ve sought to add fuel to the fire, considering how we can best discipline ourselves to do what we know is right.  Accountability has proven to be a great fuel so far.  It seems that each time April and I are together, the Lord sends an opportunity to one of us, and the other is left excited, to pray and encourage.

 

We’re all agreed that prayer is an important element.  We’re told to pray that God’s kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Scripture is clear that God is delighted when His eternal message is proclaimed, and He delights to use the simple foolishness of the God who became a man, to save sinners and change lives.  Paul said, “Pray for us that we might speak the word boldly as we ought to speak.”  Often through prayer, I find not that God’s heart was changed, but that mine was changed.  I have to plead for the Lord to give me the agony He suffered for those who walk in ignorance and enmity with Him.

 

Studying God’s word is an absolute necessity.  Constantly I am faced with question after question about God’s character, His goodness, His love, the end of the world, what about so-and-so, sin, God’s purpose in pain and suffering and on and on.  Ladies, sharing the gospel will drive you again and again to dig into God’s word to find the powerful truth that sets souls free.  Perhaps this is even God’s purpose in calling us to share His gospel?  It keeps before our eyes the very mystery by which we were redeemed.  And when you’ve been in God’s word, you’ve been sharpening your sword, and you’ll find that the Holy Spirit takes over and does the fighting.  Time after time I’ve parried a blow with a scripture the Lord mercifully brought back to mind.  Time after time I’ve found the perfect answer later and had to store it away for another opportunity.

 

Meditate on the gospel.  Study the gospel.  Seek to understand Christ, His work, His purpose, His claims and His offer of salvation.  The more you study it, the more you will discover the riches of the glory of the inheritance in Christ.  People can tell if you believe what you say and you will find that each time you share the gospel, you learn something more.

 

Lauren is a homemaker, who has expressed to me that she doesn’t feel like she’s a great conversationalist.  “I can’t put people at ease and relate to them,” she told me once, but her passion for truth often opens opportunities for her.  She can’t bear to hear error spoken of the Lord.  When the Jehovah’s Witnesses knock at the door, she doesn’t feel disgust while peeping through the curtains.  She opens the door and invites them in.  Each time she tells me about another encounter, I shake my head.  I don’t know how she does it.  I remember the time the Mormons came for a presentation in her college dorm and she insisted she wanted to go talk to them.  I felt sick as we rode down the elevator and Lauren began asking the Mormon missionaries hard questions.  Our friend, Emily, sat beside me silently praying the entire time—her priceless contribution to the spiritual battle.

 

April is a gifted encourager and she has always sparked my fire by her simple way of sharing what the Lord has been teaching her–to anyone who will listen.  Someone asks her how she is and she opens up and tells them what she read that morning in Psalms.  Or how the Lord has shown Himself strong in her life.  Or how He has been convicting her of the eminence of eternity and His love for her friends that don’t know him.  Yahweh commanded the people of Israel to tell to their children His mighty deeds so that they might fear Him.  When put on trial, Paul’s defense was always simply his testimony.  Whether a person knows the Lord or not, hearing His power manifested to another can draw them to Him.  April’s words are worship to God, and overflow from a heart in love with Him, preaching to others the reality of His work in her life.

 

I wish I could tell you of some way I take opportunity for the Lord, but I still lack much discipline.  I find when I ask the Lord for opportunities, He gives them abundantly, with people who stop me to ask me questions or need my help.  One day I was almost late picking Papa up from work because a lady was pouring out her heart to me as I stood in her small sewing machine repair shop.  Anxiously, I smiled and nodded, then rushed away.  But Papa put my heart back in place when I told him about it.  He said something like, “If people talk to you, that may be opportunity from the Lord.”  To keep this in mind, I am trying to allow myself extra time running errands, to leave room for eternity.  All too often I find that the urgent edges out the important for priority.

 

Lauren, April and I are all different, and each of us has a different story with the Lord and a different way of sharing what He’s done.  As we’ve talked lately, I’ve realized how the Lord can use each gifting, each personality to share His gospel in a unique way.  Your story is unique, your person is unique—but you are Christ’s.  He is yours.  And He has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power, love and discipline.

April, Lauren and I have all found materials from The Way of the Master and Living Waters tracts to be very helpful in sparking conversations.

 

 

 

 

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Gulping Raw Eggs

Posted by Abigail

I had a friend who decided it would be healthy to eat several raw eggs a day.  The first one slid down his throat with a horrible gurgle that made him gag and retch.  But the next one was easier.  He only gagged.  The third one he swallowed quickly and managed to survive.  After that it grew easier and easier.  Then, one day, he stopped eating them.  Just stopped.  Something caught his attention and distracted him and he quit eating raw eggs.

A couple of years ago I prayed something like this:  “Lord, You know I’ve never been outgoing and I’m just not a gifted evangelist.  If I’m to marry, please be preparing a husband for me who has a passionate heart for evangelism—who will lead out in sharing Your truth and make up for my deficiency.”

In His own way of answering prayer before we ask, the Lord turned my request on its head.  He began giving me opportunities to share the gospel.  Not just little open-cracked doors, but people who flung open the door, reached out and grabbed me by my collar to drag the gospel out of me.  A worker stopped me on my way into Wal-mart with a simple, “What a cute skirt!”  I smiled, easily “Well, thanks.”  Her next question, “Are skirts a religion thing for you?”  There’s no escaping that one.  “Not exactly,” I admitted.  “But my dad prefers them, so I wear them to honor him and the Lord Jesus.  Do you believe in Jesus?”  Her questions were relentless.  And she was completely ignorant of the gospel.  Like I said, reached out and grabbed me by my collar.  A waitress in the Waffle house watched me pray with my friend and later commented, “Your headscarf is beautiful.”  Hesitation.  She wanted to ask more.  “I’ve never seen someone wear a scarf like that.  Do you always wear it?”  And I had to explain, “Well, actually, I just love the Lord Jesus and I just try to obey His word.  I wear a head covering while praying in obedience to His teaching about His authority structure—which leads back to His authority.  What do you believe about Jesus?”  Everywhere I went, people began talking to me; stopping me to ask me questions; commenting on this or that.  A Japanese girl approached me in the campus library asking for help connecting her laptop to the internet.  I knew the Lord was handing me another opportunity, but this time I chickened out and tried to stifle my conscience.  “I can never understand the Japanese students!  How could I explain something so foreign to her?”

After that day I realized what had happened and I began to pray for more opportunities to share the gospel.  The Lord showered them on me.  When I was alone in town I would go “fishing” in stores and small flea markets.  Soon it seemed every conversation turned toward Christ’s redemptive work on the cross.  It became almost second-nature.

For me, sharing the gospel was like eating raw eggs.  When the Lord flung open the doors and chided “Forget waiting for someone else to be obedient” I gagged and sputtered, feeling lost and embarrassed and confused.  But the Lord started taking over and it got easier and easier.  Then something happened:  I must have stopped asking for opportunities.  I began to hurry through stores and avoid eye-contact.  My heart wasn’t open to spontaneity and numerous eternal moments passed me by on their way to the check-out.

When my friend realized he’d stopped eating raw eggs, it took him a while to work up the courage to get started again.  And when he did, it was like the first time all over again.  The gagging, the wheezing, the disgust.  Almost worse because he had thought it would be easier this time.

Recently I was reminded of the reality of eternity—an eternity with or without God and His goodness.  Like coals that have lain silent, the burning embers of a passion for the lost are beginning to rekindle.  Again I see souls walking past me in stores, instead of clothes stretched over skeletons.  About a month ago, my friend, April, and I were at the fair, watching a booth for the Crisis pregnancy clinic at which we both volunteer.  After closing up for the evening, we wandered the carnival area, people-watching, our hearts and thoughts wandering the same direction: “fishing.”  The Lord had been working in her heart the same way, reminding her that His precious gospel was not something to be hoarded.  That night, as we sought to open up conversations, I felt like we were chugging raw eggs.  Gagging, gurgling, and choking.  Afterwards I felt horrible.  But the nagging reminder that eternity is just around the corner hovered over both of us.

A few weeks later, we were in the bathrooms at Wal-mart when we bumped into an acquaintance of April’s.  As they spoke, April accepted the heart-challenge the Lord was giving her and gave her friend a tract, expressing that she’d been convicted lately that she should express her love for friends by sharing with them her hope for eternity.  “That was horrible,” she sputtered afterwards.  “I said all the wrong things.”  But that wasn’t the point.  The point is that she was obedient, and as I watched her obedience, the Lord continued to stir in my heart.

Ladies, I’m extending a challenge to you.  Here at Pearls and Diamonds we seek to encourage young women in lives of obedient worship.  Oftentimes we highlight lifestyle, which is an important part of obedience.  We talk about marriage and submission and loving our families and dressing modestly.  Modern Christianity advocates “lifestyle” evangelism.  But lifestyle never saves anyone.  All too often, when I am talking with the young women who come to the pregnancy clinic I hear this message:  “Yes.  I should go to church.  I should be a better person.”  That is the gospel that our lifestyle preaches.  Unbelievers scour the world critically and see “lifestyles”—which they equate with salvation.  But for them to attempt reformation would be fruitless—they lack the empowerment for true obedience.  “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”  And “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.”  The plea continues, “How shall they hear without a proclaimer?”

As I expressed in “Lest We Worship Godliness”, when I’m surrounded by positive peer-pressure, it’s almost easy to live a “holy lifestyle.”  It’s comfortable, for those of us raised in solid families, to talk about homemaking, grocery shopping, baby raising, home schooling and even theology.  Make no mistake, I am quick to agree that the value of woman’s position is preserved through the bearing of children—if they continue in faith and love with a pure heart.  But Paul said our good works are to adorn the gospel—lend it credibility for changing hearts and lives!  And it is the gospel that lends our lives credibility.  What was Christ’s last request before ascending to the Father?  He reminded all His disciples, men and women, of the authority that had been given to Him.  Then He said, literally, “As you go, therefore, make disciples…and I am with you always.”

“As you go…make disciples.”

As you go, open your heart to spontaneity.  Open your heart to purpose to share the only eternal possession you have—Christ.  Pray for openings—in spite of opposition.  The eggs get easier and easier to swallow—unless you stop.  Watch the souls around you traveling their weary way to hell and weep for them, mourn for them, catch hold of them and plead with them!  Do you remember what it is to be lost?  Sometimes I forget, but God’s word is sure to remind me: I was cut off from grace!  We were enemies of God.  Imagine your hope, your joy and your peace with God gone, then look into the eyes of that woman walking past you in the grocery store.  Forget excuses of wasting her time—the message you hoard is eternal!  Paul said he implored men to be reconciled to God!  Through God’s grace you hold the key to the narrow gate: Jesus Himself.

How shall they hear without a proclaimer?

Note:  I do not recommend eating raw eggs, ladies.  I do, however, recommend sharing the gospel. 

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Someday

Posted by Abigail

I was sixteen years old when my Grandma took me driving and told me I needed to be more aggressive. Five years have passed and this weekend found me pondering her words as I navigated Kansas City to visit her. She’s eighty-two and as far back as I can remember she’s been running a hundred miles and hour serving other people. She spent most of her younger days in a cult one step removed from Mormonism, but she met the Lord not long before my birth. A short time later, she lost her husband. She’s been a widow as long as I’ve been living.

At sixteen or twenty-one, it’s easy to rush forward, hurrying toward the next thing, dreamily planning the future. Marriage, children. How many of us look beyond marriage to a time of being single again? We think of our wedding day as signifying the day in which we have finally arrived, the day when our life is fulfilled. For those newly married brides, a baby is the next thing—the completion to fulfilled life.

When that dream ends, what comes next? When the nest is empty and we’re back to sleeping in a twin bed, then what?

I watch my grandma with pride and amazement. She lives simply, but always busily. She went to a ladies Bible study at a retirement home and took cupcakes and fruit salad. I’m willing to guess that most of the ladies present were younger than she is. She’s held more dying people than I can count, pouring love and tenderness into their last days. She’s sent parts of her carefully stewarded retirement overseas for the spread of the gospel. She studies God’s word and shares it with everyone she can find. She’s helped out young mothers. She eats lunch once a week with a troubled little elementary school girl. She keeps tabs on a destitute nephew. Prays daily for her large family: some know the Lord and some don’t. Offers smiles, encouragement and even rebukes to those she comes into contact with. Shares Jesus when she can.

From the other room I heard her answer the phone when a neighbor lady, another widow, called. After a few minutes, she gently said, “I’d rather not talk about other people like that. It doesn’t really do anyone any good.”

She’s about to have her knee replaced. “That’s just what happens when you get old and your body wears out,” she shrugged. “And I have to make an appointment to get my batteries checked,” she joked about her pacemaker. No bitterness. She laughs easily, teases lovingly and trusts the Lord in everything.

I think of my grandma and I think of Paul’s requirements to Timothy for widows “indeed.” The wife of one man, a reputation for good works, brought up children, shown hospitality, served the saints, assisted those in distress and devoted herself to every good work. His greatest warning was that they be wary of becoming gossips. When he wrote to Titus he said that older women should be teachers of what is good—to the younger women.

It’s natural for young women to think and dream and plan for marriage, to strive to become godly wives and mothers, to look forward to that time. But being a godly wife and mother is not the end in itself. Being a wife and mother is not what fulfills a woman. Even a pagan can be a wife and mother. Serving the Lord, being obedient to Him, loving Him and serving His people—that’s what fulfills a woman, in whatever circumstances she finds herself.

My mind goes back two thousand years to another widow who lived her life serving the Lord. Anna, the daughter of Phanuel grew up in Israel and married, but her happily ever after ended seven years later with the death of her husband. Being a widow in Israel was especially difficult, yet Anna spent her days in the temple, serving the Lord with fasting and prayers, waiting for the Messiah. Then one day, when Anna was eighty-four, a young woman entered the temple with her husband and newborn son and Anna knew that the Lord had finally sent redemption. When I look into my grandma’s smiling eyes, I think I might know what Anna looked like.

Sisters, your whole life will be filled with someday. Someday you will likely be sixteen and driving. Someday you will likely marry. Someday you will likely have a baby. Someday your children will likely grow up and fly away. And then someday, someday you will likely be a widow. Through each someday the Lord wants you to recognize today—this is the day the Lord has made, rejoice and be glad in it.

For twenty-one years I’ve lived as a single woman on one side of marriage. For twenty-one years my grandma has lived as a single woman on the other side of marriage. The call to both of us is the same—serve the Lord.

Consulting with Father

“Sometimes I feel a little bit envious of you,” my friend Tabby confessed. “You know so many people and have so many opportunities to serve the Lord.” My mouth dropped open. So many people and so many opportunities. Yeah. And I miss most of them. Those that I see overwhelm me and leave me feeling helpless, small and alone.

There’s a lot of things I keep to myself. Many simply aren’t fit for sharing or could be embarrassing for others, but when I’m feeling low or alone I call Tabby. And I ask her to pray. Even if I can’t tell her why. On the days when I’m fighting tears and I’m stranded in the middle of an ugly situation far from a phone, I send a quick cry to Father and I remember Tabby. She prays for me every day. Every day I know that she’s been talking to Father about me. And about the people I know. She’s asked me for a list of names and she faithfully cycles through them, praying for me and the people the Lord brings across my path.

“What do you pray for me?” I asked her. “Mostly just scriptures,” she answered, shrugging. “That the eyes of your heart would be enlightened, that you would run with endurance, that your love would abound still more and more, that you would approve the things which are excellent…” she went on, quoting beautiful passage after beautiful passage—God’s own words which she prays over me every day as she talks with our Father about me. My eyes widened as I listened, suddenly realizing just how blessed I am to have such a faithful friend—a faithful comrade at arms. She lives states away now. I see her every few months. But in the spiritual battle we’re waging, she’s got me covered.

If you think there’s no ministry for you at home, think again! Perhaps you’re like me, thinking, “I don’t even know what to pray for!” Paul prayed often for those he loved. Tabby has patterned herself after him, consulting daily with the Father. Here’s a few of the passages she uses:

For believers:

Matthew 5:13-16 To be light and salt of the earth…

Matthew 6:33 To seek first His kingdom…

Matthew 22:37 To love the Lord!

Romans 12:1-2 To present themselves to God…

Romans 13:14 To put on Jesus!

Romans 12:9-13 To have godly practices…

Ephesians 1:18-23 To know the hope of His calling…

Ephesians 5:7-10 To walk in the light and learn to please the Lord…

Ephesians 5:16-17 To walk carefully, redeeming the time…

Ephesians 6:13-17 To put on the armor of God…

Philippians 2:3-5 To do nothing from selfishness…

Philippians 3:14 To press on toward the goal…

Philippians 4:5 To have a gentle spirit

Philippians 4:6-7 Peace!

Philippians 4:8 To have pure thoughts…

Colossians 1:9-12 To walk in a manner worthy of the Lord…

Colossians 3:2 To set their minds on things above…

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 To rejoice always…

2 Thessalonians 3:5 To direct their hearts into the love of God…

1 Timothy 4:12 To be examples…

2 Timothy 2:21 To be vessels of honor…

2 Timothy 2:22 To flee youthful lusts and pursue righteousness…

Hebrews 12:1-3 To run the race with endurance…

2 Peter 1:5-9 To gain these qualities…

1 John 3:18 Not to love in word but in deed…

1 John 2:15 Not to love the world…

For unbelievers:

John 8:32 To be set free by the truth…

Romans 10:19 To confess and believe…

2 Timothy 2:26 To escape from the snare of the devil…