Encouragement and harvest through sufferring.

 Good friends and those who pray so faithfully...  

It's so good to be back and be able to give you some updates on here. During a period of (sensitive) travel and communications it is not always helpful to those we serve to draw attention to their situations online. Now we enter a season of bringing friends up to date on what God is doing for his glory, within his global and glorious purposes. There is much to report, and the overriding reality is one of thankfulness and fruitfulness which comes out of a season of suffering and hardship. From the townships of South Africa, to the bitter cold mountains of Nepal... From the urban mess of Bogota to the prisons of Asia... from the frontline of Eastern Europe to the unreached people groups of the 10/40 window...

 GOD IS AT WORK !

It is true that when our lives feel hopeless, and our circumstances  seem so uncertain, it is in such a place that we see the solidity of who Christ is and what he has accomplished more clearly. When we are humbled to feel our own fragility and vulnerability, we comprehend more of the majesty and power of his victory, over sin, death, satan, and suffering. In short, when times are so hard that we have nothing left, and in our humility trust in him alone, we see how utterly incomprehensible and immeasurably great our treasure in Christ is. When we feel like the perculiar providence of God has wiped out our stored and personal reserves that we have so easily relied on - we discover that his purposes are good and only good to show us the greater resources, purposes, and equipping we have in him.

Hebrews 13:21 reminds us that God equips us by his power. That same power which was at work in Christ to raise him from the dead...when all in the cosmos seemed defeated... (Col 2:15) works in us to do his will, in order that we might be able to do what is pleasing in his sight. This is not merely a trope we recite at the end of a formal service for "benediction", a nice thought to get us through a Monday in the office,  it is the bedrock of our very existence and sustainance through every millisecond as children of the living God. Our shepherd gave his life for us, and HE LIVES. He lives to intercede for us, to provide for us, to resource us, to use us and blessing us... make us a blessing to a broken world. 

The greatest encouragements I see during this season are from those who are going through the most testing of times, encountering the most challenging tests of faithfulness, and experiencing the most gruelling moments of endurance in a broken world which is so hostile towards the living God. God is good and only good, all his ways are good, and all his provision through Christ is perfect in timing, wisdom and implication in his missional purposes. He works for our good and his glory. 

I am overwhelmed with thankfulness today for those who are being severely persecuted for taking the gospel to those who have not heard and where the gospel has never been heard. The opposition they and their families have face and are facing, during their times of imprisonment, torture and emotional abuse have only spread the gospel more, and shone the beauty of the work of Christ in them and through them.  Be encouraged, there are so many proofs that in our moments of greatest testing, his greater resources are more than enough. 

I am encouraged today by those who run on a daily shoestring to take the gospel to the poorest areas of our world. Many communities will never have the spotlight on them, or a glamorous news crew visit them, or be highlighted for global aid programs, an internet influencer or a celebrity champion, yet in such a place where a man or woman of faith plug away in compassion and private daily dependence, miracles of provision from The Living God are surprisingly regular, and the rejoicing of heaven is seen and heard as the church flourishes in the darkness. A stream of lives are being redeemed, eternally changed and the blinding love of Christ is seen in acts of radical mercy and faithfulness. The effects are parabolic through testimonies of transformation. Be encouraged, the church is exploding amongst those who would seem far from the kingdom and unreachably off the beaten track. Where there is no hope, true hope when it arrives is unmissable. Christ specialises in such places to visit and his heart, life and way overflow in such forgotten frontiers for the gospel. He has many ambassadors in such places. 

Mostly I am encouraged by new life scattering and multiplying... especially in situations and locations where this world does everything to pin down the church and oppress them into oblivion. I cannot think of a better example of this than my dear Ukrainian family in Christ. Here are 3 encouragements.

1) THE CHURCH HAS BEEN HELPFULLY SCATTERED: Be encouraged... the displacement of those oppressed and who have lost "everything" has been incomprehensibly painful, but it has resulted in scattering of the gospel to places it would never have gone. In fact friends who are said to have lost "everything", have not - in fact they have been released of the useless baggage of what this world offers and keeps us from mobility for the gospel. This has been excruciating and brought grief, yet freedom and ultimate release. What they now possess is the heavenly interest of invested obedience to Christ in the face of static opposition. Placing their hope and treasure in Christ they discover they have way more resource than they could think or imagine. An attempt to obliterate the Ukrainian nation and particularly the evangelical church has not only failed to succeed, but has spectacularly backfired as many have gone to share the love of Christ and their testimony of God's provision, in Christ, through hardship, in warfare, without homes. Sometimes this journey has been in secret with the underground church, many times it has trod the lonely road of losing friends and family or church members. Those who trusted... have been tested and have a greater obedience, stories of his goodness, maturity and ministries for his glory.  Like the Thessalonian church (1 These 3:12) their grace and loving testimony is "overspilling" to other places (countries) previously not thriving in gospel outreach or hope in Christ. Such lives of truth are too powerful to ignore. 

2) CHURCHES ARE BEING PLANTED IN UNEXPECTED PLACES: Be encouraged, the migration from big cities (air raid targets), and education centres being the focus of "strategic destruction", have sent the church to hundreds, thousands and even millions in forgotten villages both in Ukraine and throughout Eastern Europe. In the village, the soil is fertile, everyone knows each other, everyone knows where resources, help and treasure can be located. This is why churches of 35 in their congregation before the war now run into several hundred, the bulk being young in faith having recently come to Christ or been baptised. A word in season, a coat for the winter, a meal for the hungry has led to lives redeemed and set on track for Christ, a multiplying testimony of rescue and provision. Houses are not always homes. A happy home does not consist of orderly feng shui furniture, but of knowledge that you are unconditionally and universally accepted and loved as you are. Such homes being found, people now don't want to leave... however they came to be there. Now they feel full of grace for what Christ has done for them, yet at the same time hungry for so much more of God's word, the help of those who disciple them, the company of the new community of grace and their shared missional objectives to displaced peoples. God really can use what was meant for evil for incomprehinsible good. In times of poverty and famine it is possible to discover that you are overflowing with God's kindness. 

3) YOUNG SPIRITUAL LEADERS BORN IN SUFFERING ARE LEADING THE WAY OF MATURE SERVICE AND LEADERSHIP: When young people where being trained for leadership, many assumed it would be for Ukraine. The great unreached materialistic cities of Europe where not the target but this is what God has done. Note the 3 young pastors who plant the city church to reach the young so traumatised by displacement, lost hope, discontinued education and failed dreams. Note the 2 pastors who having planted just recently have over 200 attending each Sunday in a major European city. 

In the toughest of times, where our hearts can only see the hardness of our world. the heart of GOD still overspills goodness, compassion and mercy. In the darkest of times, the church shines brightest. In the failures of governmental systems, the new community offers the only relational solution which works. When our God comes, he does not come with a system or a bullet plan, he comes himself. gives himself and rescues us by himself, investing in us all he is and the resources that are rightly his. 

Whatever you are going through today, God really does have a glorious plan to work things all together for good. Maybe in this moment and trauma, it is difficult for us to see, but be assured that when all are gathered from all locations, times, generations, cultures, backgrounds, abilities and circumstances... the song will be a united one. Our God is worthy of all praise. Our God does all things well. Our God is bigger than our problems and our failures. Our God is FOREVER GOOD. 

James 1:2-4

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,

for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, 

lacking in nothing.

2 Peter 1:2-3

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 

 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.

1	He gives us more grace when the burdens grow greater, He sends us more strength when the labours increase, To added affliction He adds His rich mercy, To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.
	His love has no limit, His grace has no measure, His power no boundary known unto men, For out of His infinite riches in Jesus, He gives and gives and gives to us again.
2	When we have exhausted our store of endurance, When our strength has failed when the day is half-done, When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, Our Father’s full giving is only begun.
	His love has no limit, His grace has no measure, His power no boundary known unto men, For out of His infinite riches in Jesus, He gives  and gives  and gives to us again 2 COR 4:17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.