Lasting Foundations

August 4, 2009

A Life Was Changed on June 10, 2009

The girl was singing a song. I sat and listened. She had such a joyful countenance. When she finished singing, I asked, “Why are you so joyful?”

She responded, “When I wrote that song, I wasn’t saved. But now I am.” I asked her what had happened. “Jesus saved me,” she said.

“When?” I asked. “When you preached.”

I had preached in her class almost two months earlier, and she said that after I spoke she was so shaken up by the fact that Christ had died for her sins that she cried through the next two class periods. Since then, her life has totally changed.

Before June 10, 2009, She’d had a form of Christianity, and she was even writing songs about the love of God. But in her songs, she was crying out in desperation for God to give her joy.

She wrote about the song she was singing, “I called it, ‘I love you’ because I was desperate in my life and I wanted to have love and joy in my life and soul.” She sang, “Lord! I come to you now, saying, I love you my God and now I can’t explain your bleeding love to me... Please give it to me now, give it to me now, give it to me now, Your joy.”

She wrote about her life saying,
“Around three years old, I was taken to a nursery school where I started my education. We lived happily only for that period, then my sister was born and my family started to have problems. My dad started taking alcohol, fighting my mum, and he sold everything they had raised after their marriage.

I used to cry every night because I knew what was expected of my dad. One time, he took all our clothes and decided to put them on fire after he heard that my mum was leaving. It was our first trial to escape from that place.

My dad tried one day to kill my mum, but by a good luck I was woken up by noise and what I saw was terrible and I started crying as I begged my dad to stop. I hated school because I knew after going to school my mum could have been beaten or abused. Sometimes I wonder, should I love him as a dad, or should I despise him because of what he has done to my family.

One day we escaped secretly. After settling in urban centres, my dad was coming home claiming that he wanted my mum back. He tried severally with no results, and one day he came and my mum was not in and he took advantage of the opportunity by trying to #### me, but his plan failed. I never told anybody because I knew my father was capable of doing... since he had warned me.

Then the news was broken to me that my dad has passed away. I couldn’t control myself. What I could do is just try and leave this world, but I couldn’t do it.

The situation continued that I severally tried to commit suicide, but all in vain. During the funeral day I felt hopeless.

[some time passed] But when I reported back to school, still my heart was upset and I felt very bad and prayed God at least to have mercy on me because I wanted to change but my heart could not say yes. During that period we received visitors in our school from USA and a fellow called Mr. Gregg whom I call ‘an angel’ appeared to my heart once and changed every situation in my life. Now I believe no one has the stronger love than God, and nothing and nobody can change whatever I think and I have committed to my Lord.

The main thing I like is composing songs, and that fact is so dear to me since I got saved and I believe Jesus is my personal saviour. I love Him so much because he died for me so as to save me from the power of sin. I wake up everyday and ask God to increase my faith just as the apostles said, “Lord, increase our faith.”

As she told me her testimony, I cried. I did not cry about her sad story, I've heard many sad stories. I cried because I was overwhelmed by the great love and power of God.

This whole trip has been worth it, even if just for her.

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

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August 3, 2009

Bernard Died Last Night

On Saturday Bernard’s cousin encouraged him to come to Jesus, but Bernard refused saying that he would become a Christian after next week. Bernard didn’t have a week. He died last night leaving behind his wife and two children.

I met Bernard a few days ago on Thursday before lunch. I joked around with him for a few minutes. Later that evening he came to a crusade where I preached a clear gospel message. I finished the message charging the audience to, “Believe in Jesus now!”

Bernard did not heed my words. He died while in a drunken stupor, and I Corinthians 6:10 says, “Drunkards… shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

He is lost for eternity. He will soon hear Jesus’ words, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Matthew 13:41, 42; 25:41

This is the punishment I deserve. Hell - that is my rightful place.

Jesus came and took my place. He died the death that I deserve and then He rose from the grave. He had mercy on me. While I was yet in my sins, He died for me. Wow! There are no words to express His infinite love toward me. He loved Bernard with that same love, but Bernard refused to believe. He loves you with that same love. He took your place.

“Believe in Jesus now!”

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

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July 18, 2009

The Rich Man

I met Abbott at the beach. He’s a security guard at one of the resorts.

If you subtract his daily transportation costs, he earns roughly 10 cents an hour. He makes $1.75 in a twelve-hour day, and it costs him fifty cents to take the bus back and forth to work. He is grateful to work 365 days a year. His wife works as a seamstress and makes about the same as he does. He has 9 children, and he’s grateful to have put two of them through high school. It costs him $300.00 dollars a year to pay for his kids’ high school education. He said that he did not have clothes for any of his children when they were born, but God provided something for them.

He’s one of the poorest men I’ve ever spoken with, yet despite his conditions he was content, joyful, and he had great faith.

We spoke for a little while about non-spiritual things before he asked me what I do in America. I told him, “I am a preacher.”

He responded, “Are you born again?”

I said, “Yes.”

He then asked very seriously, “Are you sure?” I responded in the affirmative, and as we continued talking, it became clear that Jesus meant everything to Abbott.

I consider this man to be a giant in Christianity today.

Jesus did not die to make us rich with worldly goods. He died to give us what cannot be bought with money; He died to give us His life. A life marked by love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.

Abbott is rich.

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

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July 17, 2009

How do you know that Jesus is the only way?

I was just about to get into my car after four days of teaching at a private Christian high school when a group of “cool” guys approached me. The lead spokesman for the group raised a question in reference to a story I had told. He said, “You spoke of the Oxford Archbishop who asked you, ‘How can you know something [about the afterlife] until you have died and seen whether it is true or not?’ This man had a good question. With so many religions - Islam, Buddhism... How do you know that Jesus is the only way?”

I smiled with delight. Sacho High School is one of the top schools in the country; these kids are smart. It would have been easy for them to go on with their lives and forget my preaching, but they had clearly decided to be upfront and real with me.

I responded saying something like this:

“Jesus claimed to be the only way. He said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one cometh to the Father, but by me.’

“If this is not true then we are left with three options.

“One, He knew He was not the only way and He was deliberately lying. Why would he do this? Maybe to build a big following? No, He wasn’t trying to gain a big crowd. He often spoke words that caused almost all his followers to leave Him.

“Two, He was a self-deceived lunatic. If this was the case then why did those who knew Him best respect and honor Him as though He was perfect? All of the disciples who saw Jesus after He rose from the dead were willing to go through persecution and death proclaiming that Jesus was the sinless Son of God. Usually those who know someone best are those who see their faults, but these men went through torture, imprisonment, and death holding to their claims that Jesus had no errors.

“Three, Jesus never said these things; He was falsely quoted. If the New Testament Christians allowed Jesus’ words to be reported carelessly, then they were not the kind of men that would have gone to their deaths for those words. They heard the words, they recorded them, and they all gave assent to what was written. They then took the Scriptures around the world as missionaries and died for their witness.”

I then asked the guys which argument they felt was valid. “Do you think Jesus was deliberately lying?”

“No,” they all said.

“Do you think He was a self-deceived lunatic?”

“No,” they all said.

“Do you think the New Testament Scriptures were shoddily written?”

“No,” they all said.

I then told them, “Jesus is exactly who He claimed to be. He is the only way to the Father, and someday soon you will stand before Him and He will either say to you, ‘Well done my good and faithful servant,’ or He will say, ‘depart from me you workers of iniquity. I never knew you.’”

I went on to say, “Muhammad wasn’t perfect and he never claimed perfection. He continually asked forgiveness for his sins, and even on his deathbed he was praying for forgiveness.”

They laughed as I continued and told them about Muhammad believing that demons were speaking to him until his wife Khadijah, who was 15 years his senior, told him that it was the angel Gabriel speaking to him. They thought it disturbing that he killed those who rejected him and married many woman, including Aisha when she was 9 years old.

I spoke a little about Buddha, and then I challenged the guys to look up the history for themselves.

They asked a number of questions, and we had such a good time talking that it was hard for me to leave. I encouraged them to start a Bible study and to contact me if they felt that I had misled them in anything I said or if they had more questions.

I finished the discussion challenging them to believe in Jesus, who is who He claimed to be: THE ONLY WAY.

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

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June 22, 2009

"Only Preach Jesus?" Ha, ha...

A few weeks ago I spoke with a girl on a Sunday afternoon and she told me that about forty percent of her church service was about money. She said this was typical.

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a pastor and I asked him about a crusade that is advertised for this week in Mombasa. I asked him if the man leading the crusade, Bishop David Oyedepo, was rich. He said, “Oh very, very rich.” I then asked if Bishop Oyedepo would do a crusade and speak one hundred percent about Jesus, and say nothing about money. The pastor laughed a the apparent idiocy of the idea and said, “No, he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it!”

The thought of church services and crusades without money as a major theme is a ludicrous idea to many Kenyans. I might go to the crusade tonight to see for myself what he has to say.

Update: Katie and I headed to the crusade late Monday night and found out that the Bishop was not going to be in town until Tuesday. See Jeremy’s blog to find out how Tuesday went.

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

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June 17, 2009

Street Kids II

I was a little scared, but I had the confidence of doing what I knew was right.

It was 4:30 a.m. (we had to leave early to miss rush hour traffic), and Jeremy and I pulled up to the same heap of rubble and dirt at which I'd left Mark David just 14 hours earlier. In our backseat sat Joseph, the security guard from where we're staying. Our friend and pastor of a church in the slums, Dr. Francis, had insisted that we take him for safety's sake.

As we stopped the car, Joseph got out to get Mark David. He gazed uncertainly at the mass of what seemed like nothing laid out before him. He walked up and looked around for a few minutes but couldn't find the hole.

I didn't really want to get out of the car in that neighborhood, much less in the dark of the early morning hours. I put the car in neutral and stepped out into the night.

I took the camera from Jeremy and walked up to where I had seen Mark David and his friends point the previous day. As I rapped on the plastic covering the hole, Mark David scurried up. Joseph's eyes grew wide, and it was clear he was shocked to see a child crawl up out of the ground like a rabbit.

The four of us went home, and packed up the family. Dr. Francis sat down and spoke with Mark David in Swahili for almost an hour as we prepared to leave. After hearing his story firsthand, Dr. Francis gave him a note to give to a teacher that included Dr.'s contact information. Dr. Francis wants to join us for a follow up visit in a couple weeks.

Upon arriving in Machakos town, we met with Dr. and Mrs. Kaleli for breakfast at T-Tot, a restaurant we'd visited during our two-week tour of the area's secondary schools. We spent about an hour there, and Dr. Kaleli talked to Mark David and tried to help him understand the foolishness and danger of running away (Dr. Kaleli often tells of how he considered running away to Nairobi when he was young).

After breakfast, we gave him 40 cents for the bus to get home and to call us later. We might hear from him in a few days, but the plain fact of the matter is, we don't know if he'll contact us. I hope he finds his mom and gets back into school.

I will post an update if we hear from him again.

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

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June 16, 2009

Street Kids - Just Another Day in African Ministry

What do you do? Do you bring him back to a father who beats him because he misses his mother and wants to go back to school? I told him I wouldn't give him any money. I just offered him a ride back home.

I've seen street kids in countries all over the world. You just get used to it when you travel to third-world countries. Some of them have pimps, while most just travel in groups. Some of them are thieves, and some of them are murderers. Many, like some of the children I saw today, are addicted to sniffing glue.

So what do you do when there are 10,000 needs all around you?

With a whispered prayer, you help the one that's in front of you.

Yesterday, on a rare quiet day, I brought my kids to the city park to shoot JJ's bow and arrows and to see the monkeys. I saw the street kids coming and fully expected them to ask for money or food. I prepared myself to say, with a wave of a finger, "Don't beg."

But the three kids that came just stood around and watched as I played with my children. I started a conversation, and the oldest said his name was Mark David. The two younger ones were Stephen and James. Eventually a sad story came out, a story of which I'm still somewhat skeptical, of how Mark David's father beat him and how a year ago at the age of 12 he ran away from home.

He ended up on the streets of Nairobi. Today, I saw where he sleeps on the side of a busy road in a pile of rocks and trash. And old hole with some sticks and newspapers covering it make up his bedroom. He said he wants to go home. He hasn't seen his mother since he left, and she doesn't know where he is. She has no phone, and he has no money to call. And he misses her.

He told me he's from Machakos. He told me this without knowing that I was planning on driving through Machakos tomorrow. I asked him again if he wanted to go home, and he kept saying, "Yes!" He said he wants to go back to school. I told him to meet me today at the same park. When I drove in at the appointed time, he was waiting with his two friends at the park's entrance. He was so excited to see me and the kids.

We played soccer for half an hour, and shot the bow and arrows. After some time, five other street kids came over with a different look in their eyes. They wanted to fight, and they started picking on Stephen. When the rough kids left a few minutes later, I could see all of them sitting on a park bench doing something together. Mark David told me they were sniffing glue.

Before we left the park, I approached two well-dressed, motherly-looking women who had been in the park the whole afternoon. I asked them to talk with Mark David to verify his story. They were skeptical, but after speaking with him for fifteen minutes they believed he was sincere. At the point where he told them about his father beating him, they told him to call the police if his father did so again. They also told me they were confident that the school would take him back, and they thanked me for offering to take him home.

So, did I do the right thing in offering him a ride back to Machakos? I don't know. I'm actually a little bit scared to go pick him up in the morning. It's a rough area, and a local pastor is sending a security guard with us for safety's sake. But when Mark David and his friends jumped out of the car this afternoon, I told them to go stand over by where they sleep. They went and stood on a dirt pile, and with excited smiles on their faces, they pointed down at the newspapers covering the hole in the dirt as if they were proud to show me where they slept. They waved good-bye to me as we drove off.

I won't soon be able to forget the smiles on their faces as we left. If I didn't show up tomorrow, or if I miss them, I'm sure they're used to a life of disappointments.

We'll see what happens.

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

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June 15, 2009

I Will Follow Jesus?

“If you lived 2,000 years ago, how many of would have liked to be one of Jesus’ disciples?” I looked over the audience of over a thousand Kenyan teens to see almost every hand raised in response to my question.

I then told them the accounts of how each of the disciples was martyred for his faith (as told in the Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and other references). The kids listened in shocked silence as I told them one gruesome story after another.

When I completed the stories I asked, “Now, how many of you would have liked to be one of Jesus’ disciples?” For a few moments not a single hand was raised, then about five to ten hands went up. Evidently the kids were not so sure about following Jesus to the death.

When I was a young teenager, I would have been one of the ones who raised my hand. The prospect of dying for Jesus was exciting to me. I was confident I would have followed Jesus to the death, but, despite my passion for God, I was a lost sinner.

Deciding to follow Jesus to the death cannot save a person from sin.

Deciding to follow Jesus might lead us to call Him, “Lord, Lord,” or “Good Master,” but it will not save us. I did not leave the students wondering whether or not they would follow Jesus to martyrdom. I told them the good news. That salvation comes not from our self-sacrifice, but from Jesus’ sacrifice. Salvation comes not from our self-denial, but from His self-denial. Salvation comes not from our passion, but from His Passion.

In Matthew 16:22-27 Peter rebuked Jesus for speaking of dying in Jerusalem and Jesus turned and rebuked Peter and then told him take up his cross and follow Him. In closing this exhortation Jesus said, “And then he shall reward every man according to his works.” How would the disciples fare if they were rewarded according to their works of following Jesus?

How many of the disciples took up their cross and followed Jesus to Golgotha? Not one.

The disciples should have announced boldly to the soldiers in the garden, “Jesus is the Christ!” They should have announced it before the council and the high priest. When the high priest convinced Pilate to crucify Jesus, Peter should have been standing with Jesus, saying, “If you crucify Him, you will have to crucify me too.” There should have been more than three crosses that day on Calvary.

That is what they should have done, but instead, when the time came to make a decision to take up their crosses, Peter verbally denied Jesus and the rest all rejected Him by fleeing away in the garden. They were all ashamed of Him, and if they were judged for their works they would have faced Jesus’ damning proclamation, “But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.”

Jesus knew Peter would deny him, so He prayed, “...that your faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” Peter needed faith to be converted. Conversion could not come through the work of taking up his cross and following Jesus, at this he would fail. Conversion could only come through faith in Christ taking up His cross for them.

It was through Christ’s death and resurrection that the disciples were converted, and it was through the power of God working in the disciples that they were able to take up their cross and eventually follow Jesus through persecution and death.

What they could not do, Christ did. The disciples failed to take up their crosses; Jesus took up His. They did not sacrifice enough; Christ’s sacrifice was sufficient. Their passion failed; Jesus’ Passion conquered.

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

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June 5, 2009

Has Jesus Changed You?

We stopped at a small convenience store near the center of Machakos, Kenya, and when I stepped off the bus I came face to face with a man on a bike with an intense look in his eye. We shook hands and I immediately asked him if he knew Jesus. He responded with a loud, "Yes!" I had my misgivings because of his composure and the smell of alcohol on his breath, so I asked him, "Has Jesus changed you?" He responded to my question saying, "God answered my prayer. My daughter was very sick, so I laid my hands on her, prayed for her in Jesus' name, and God healed her." To which I responded, "I did not ask you if you healed the sick, I asked if Jesus changed you." He looked at me for a moment, and then without a word he hung his head down.

I told him what Jesus said in Matthew 7, "Many shall say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, you that work iniquity." I told him, "I don't care if you healed the sick or even raised the dead." I then spoke to him about his need for conversion through Christ's death and resurrection. His eyes filled with tears as I prayed for him. I am not sure what happened in his heart, but I know that the question, "Has Jesus changed you?" struck him a good blow. One of my friends who was watching from the bus said that the look on the man's face as we drove off was unforgettable.

Have you passed from death to life? John wrote, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." 1 John 3:14, 15. I used to hate my father and my mother, I hated their rules and their authority over me, but Jesus changed me and filled my heart with love and gratefulness for my parents.

I thank God for His life-changing power. I love how Charles Wesley put it when he was longing for a thousand tongues to join him in praise, "He breaks the power of canceled sin, he sets the prisoner free; his blood can make the foulest clean; his blood availed for me."

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

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April 8, 2009

Interview with Zac Poonen

In this interview we asked Mr. Poonen "Do you have any sin in your life that you cannot over come?" Hear his answer in this video clip.

 

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

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