I will probably be in heaven due to the ministry of a person who went to heaven Wednesday night time.
In 1973, Dr. Cecil Sewell, Jr. left his church in Alabama to develop into the pastor of a small congregation in Houston, Texas. One among his first acts was to start a bus ministry, one thing few church buildings throughout the nation have been doing. The church bought an old-fashioned bus and enlisted volunteers to knock on doorways locally in search of individuals to carry to worship.
In August of that yr, two males from the church knocked on our household’s condo door. My father instructed them my brother and I might be on the bus the subsequent day. That Sunday, by means of Dr. Sewell’s sermon, I heard the gospel for the primary time.
His spouse, Sharon, was my Sunday college instructor. The joyful religion she and her husband shared turned powerfully compelling for me. Just a few weeks after we began visiting, on September 9, 1973, I requested her how I might have what she had. That day, she sat down with me and led me to belief in Jesus as my Savior.
Just a few weeks later, Dr. Sewell led my brother to Christ. Just a few months later, he baptized us each. Through the years, he licensed and ordained me to the ministry, carried out my father’s funeral, and carried out our marriage ceremony. Over the many years since, he has remained my first father within the religion.
His daughter, Melanie, went to be with the Lord in 2013. Now they’re reunited in worshiping our Savior. At some point, I’ll be part of them. Within the meantime, each individual I affect in any approach for Jesus is an extension of Dr. Sewell’s ministry. His vibrant love for our Lord and his ardour for evangelism will mark me ceaselessly.
Francis Chan compelled to go away Hong Kong
These are difficult days for the gospel.
Pastor and writer Francis Chan and his household have been compelled to go away Hong Kong after Chinese language authorities rejected their visas. A German ministry based in 1972 that locations Bible verses on public promoting is going through opposition from those that need “extra neutrality within the worldviews” of organizations that purchase promoting house. No different spiritual group or worldview is going through such restrictions.
The Human Rights Marketing campaign, an LGBTQ activism group, is urging the Biden administration to require that faith-based colleges undertake its positions or lose their accreditation. As I famous yesterday, the so-called Equality Act poses an unprecedented hazard to non secular freedom for evangelical Christians in America.
However God remains to be on his throne. He guarantees that his phrase “shall accomplish that which I objective, and shall succeed within the factor for which I despatched it” (Isaiah 55:11). If we’re keen to talk biblical fact with boldness and braveness, God will use us for his everlasting glory.
“That is hope for us, new life for us”
The Pew Analysis Heart reported this week that Individuals have been extra possible than these in some other superior financial system to say the pandemic has strengthened their religion. Solely 4 p.c stated it made their religion weaker.
The primary new constructing in years is being constructed at Mississippi’s oldest jail, nevertheless it’s not a brand new cellblock. For the primary time within the jail’s 120-year historical past, a church is being constructed inside jail partitions. Companies will probably be carried out by inmate pastors.
A seventeen-year inmate stated, “A variety of us are available in right here considering all of us [have] been forgotten, that everyone did away with us. So that is hope for us, new life for us.”
In response to evangelist Nick Corridor, God is utilizing the coronavirus pandemic to spark what “could possibly be the best evangelistic hour within the historical past of worldwide Christianity.” Throughout Easter week alone, his ministry shared the gospel with over 120 million households from 140 international locations; of those, 130,556 turned Christians.
He added: “With whole views of individuals listening to the gospel final yr, we had extra individuals in a single yr hear the gospel than we’ve had within the final fifteen years mixed.”
“Blessed are the lifeless who die within the Lord”
No quantity of discrimination towards Christians can maintain Christians from loving Jesus and loving everybody he loves. Or from paying any value to share our Lord with our tradition.
Dr. Cecil Sewell gave up each Tuesday night for evangelism, visiting in properties throughout our group to share Christ with them. Church members who volunteered within the bus ministry he launched spent each Saturday morning knocking on doorways, inviting everybody they may to journey the bus to church. He and so they have been usually rebuffed however by no means discouraged. Solely the Lord is aware of how many individuals have adopted Jesus as a result of Dr. Sewell adopted Jesus.
Who’s your non secular father or mom? Who helped you observe Jesus? Like me, you owe them an everlasting debt of gratitude. But when they’re like Dr. Sewell, they’d inform you that the easiest way to repay them is to pay our debt ahead by sharing Jesus with everybody we will.
Dr. Sewell’s homegoing is a vivid reminder that we’re all in the future nearer to eternity. Our job is to be trustworthy every day till the day Jesus returns to earth or we go to heaven.
Then, on that day when demise shall be no extra and life turns into life everlasting, we’ll see Jesus. After I thank my Savior for my salvation, I’ll thank the person whose ministry led me to him. Within the meantime, I declare this promise for my non secular father: “Blessed are the lifeless who die within the Lord… that they could relaxation from their labors, for his or her deeds observe them!” (Revelation 14:13).
His deeds will observe him ceaselessly, to the glory of God.
NOTE: That is the final word you’ll see from me relating to the discharge of my latest e-book, To Comply with in His Footsteps: A Day by day Stroll with Jesus by means of the Holy Land. Though you might not get to go to Israel this Easter, I pray that my latest e-book transports you to the land the place Jesus lived—and that these phrases and pictures in the end carry you nearer to him. Please request your copy of our new Easter devotional immediately.
Picture courtesy: SWN / iBelieve.com
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