“Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn” is the famous quote by John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church. As followers of Jesus, we have so much to be enthusiastic about. We have found freedom in Christ, a purpose for living, a divine destiny and eternal life – and that’s just the beginning...
About an hour ago, I felt the table move in front of me. We were experiencing the tremors of an earthquake. When I checked the news, I realized our nation’s Capitol, the Pentagon and downtown Washington D.C. were being evacuated. Amazing what an earthquake can do. Everything instantly changed. Within moments I received an email from New Zealand...
I am presently in Nairobi, Kenya ministering to present and future apostolic leaders from Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, India, South Africa, Netherlands, and the USA. Many are young leaders, filled with vision from God to start churches and church planting movements in their nations. It is thrilling. Last week I experienced the same in Malaysia, ministering to young leaders called to expand the Kingdom of God in the nations of Asia. It gives me such hope for the generations to come...
Yesterday, my friends in Malaysia told me that if they are caught sharing their faith in Jesus with a Muslim, they will go to jail. In this tightly-controlled Muslim nation, the government requires any brochure inviting people to come to a Christian meeting to state “for non-Muslims only.” Regardless of what the government says, the Kingdom of God cannot be restrained. The Christians in Malaysia have grown to number ten percent of the population. Nothing can hold back the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ when God’s people pray and obey the voice of living God whom we serve! I have been told first-hand this week of amazing miracles happening throughout the darkest places of Southeast Asia – a tumor falling off of a woman’s body whose husband was the main Muslim leader in the community...
Some believers are pretty discouraged these days due to the craziness around them. They feel a bit like Elijah in the cave. In the story told in I Kings 19, Elijah asked God if he was only one left in the midst of the craziness of his generation. You don’t need to look far to see the craziness in our generation: Christian leaders questioning the validity of hell, and others claiming they know when the Lord is coming back even though the Bible explicitly tells us no one will know the day or the hour. When we hear of another Christian leader falling from grace, and see the craziness of...
I leave next week for my first trip around the globe. I plan to minister to church planters and leaders in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and then continue on to Nairobi, Kenya, for leadership training of young apostolic leaders from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and India. This is a season of my life that is focused on training and mentoring the next generation. As Elijah passed on a double portion of what the Lord gave him to Elisha, we are called to do the same...
We are hanging out at the beach with our family this week. The annual beach vacation is great fun every year! But it hit me this morning … we are in an enjoyable season at this stage. I remember some previous seasons of dragging all kinds of paraphernalia and crying babies to the beach … seasons with teenagers going through teenage stuff … but now, life is so relaxing. Despite the hard seasons, I learned a ton. I would not trade those tough times for anything else...
Last week I was in Rwanda, which reminded me that seventeen years ago more than 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered by their own people. On that dreadful night in April 1994, neighbors whose children had played together for years took machetes and savagely murdered their friends and neighbors who were a part of the “wrong tribe.” The devastation lasted for three horrendous months. Some of the murderers were religious people who attended church every Sunday. How could church-going people be so cruel and not have the love of Jesus in their hearts? The scriptures tell us that the heart is deceitful...
The nature of vision is beyond reality. That’s why it is called vision; it is forward thrusting, compelling, and pulling us into the future of what the Lord has for us...
Sometimes we believe we have a vision from God, but in reality it may only be a fantasy. We may attend a seminar and begin comparing the vision we have for our business or church to another business person or pastor who seems to be more successful. Although it is extremely important to learn from others, it seems to me that many leaders fall into the trap of following the vision or good idea of another that has never been meant for them. It becomes more of a fantasy than a God-given vision...