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Connecting to Jesus BY SCOTT GRISWOLD
“S
ome of my moto-taxi friends call me ‘Grandpa Jesus,’” smiles Mr. Morn Va. It must be because he is always talking about Jesus. Mr. Va wasn’t even a Christian eight years ago. Someone took him along for the ride to a big Seventh-day Adventist camp meeting in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The nice fellowship led him to request baptism. “I began to love Jesus,” Morn Va said, but he didn’t really understand. “At first I believed that I needed to do good deeds to be saved from sin,” he told us. After reading his Bible from cover to cover in one year, truth broke through. “Now I believe that Christ died to give me life.”
Still people often get it mixed up. Recently a friend said, “I’ve been in church all my life. Just in the last few weeks I’m learning to love Jesus.” We are not inviting people to a different set of rules or even a different religion, we are inviting them to a vibrant relationship with our living Savior.
“Grandpa Jesus” loves to introduce other people to Christ. Recently, a 30-year-old man named Savuth hopped onto Morn Va’s moto-taxi. He had seen Morn Va go to church. “Why do you believe in a foreigner God?” he asked.
Whether you are an ASAP worker in Southeast Asia or a member in North America, your first job is to spend time with Jesus. Your second job is to help others have that connection too. This is the Gospel. “Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18).
“I do not believe in a foreigner God,” Morn Va replied. “I believe in the almighty God who can save me and deliver me from sin.” A few days later he had a chance to share with Savuth straight from his now well-worn Bible. “Jesus is the way, the truth, the life,” Morn Va caringly insisted. Savuth was convinced enough to come to church and start studying the Bible. In this ASAP Ministries literacy teacher, we have a great example of making disciples. Morn Va, a follower of Jesus, is introducing people to Jesus. It’s that simple.
Jesus said to Peter, “Come follow Me” (Matthew 4:19). He found Philip and said, “Follow Me” (John 1:43). When He appointed the twelve, it wasn’t just for ministry, it was “that they might be with Him” (Mark 3:14). And He taught Martha that sitting at His feet was “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:42, KJV).
One of the best things you can do for new believers is to help them study the Bible in a meaningful way, finding Jesus on every page. I used to meet weekly in the park with a man named Ray. I asked him to read a chapter from the Bible before he came, then we discussed how it personally applied to his life. It was exciting to watch him grow, even getting victory over his alcohol problem.
SECOND QUARTER 2014
Reaching Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar & Beyond