BY LARRY BENNETT IFEL Member & IOM Advisor I trust your weekend was blessed and you are resting in the goodness of His grace. I wanted to let you know about my a new missions initiative called Bibles4Children. What you may not know about me is that the last 15 years I have been heavily involved in international missions, training church planters in third world countries. Our church planters have planted thousands churches in West Bengal India, not counting Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. With the privilege of teaching church planting I have the wonderful privilege of teaching the Exchanged Life to both native church planters as well as expatriate workers. The results are the same, freedom from the past and new life found in the fullness of Christ. Our goal has always been to train trainers and get out of the picture as soon as possible. We have now accomplished that goal and the churches are multiplying and flourishing. I do believe that we are living in the last days and the harvest is plenteous, we have seen it firsthand. I have this sense that the next great move of God will involve both women and children. I have already witnessed God greatly using women on the mission field throughout all of Asia. But I also sense that God is going to move greatly among children. We have already seen pockets of children being great influencers of the gospel, reaching not only their parents but also their peers. We see this pattern increasing so we want to train, disciple and equip an army of children to share the gospel. We have developed a new ministry to foster and accomplish this task – Bibles4Children. Our objective is to provide Bibles and Scripture portions for children in unreached and unengaged people groups. Bibles4Children will be a division of SOW International (www.sowintl.com). Bible storying will be one of our primary strategies and tools in discipling children for ministry. To that end we are now working toward translating a Bible story book of 70 stories. These stories are carefully chosen to not only enable us to teach the gospel but also to disciple. We have used Chronological Storying with adult church planters with outstanding results. We have every reason to believe that
children will be just as successful using similar methods. Why children? Over 27% of the world’s population are children between the ages of 4-14. In Iran over 40% are between the ages of 4-14. The statistics tells us that 85% of those who get saved do so by the age of 15. Children have a simple but profound faith. Jesus teaches us that unless we come to Him in that simple, child-like faith that we cannot enter the Kingdom. When you reach the children you can change a community and a nation. A couple of months ago we (SOW) sent in 10,000 copies of our recently translated Bengali version of the Gospels into Bangladesh. As you know Bangladesh is nearly 95+% Muslim. We have just printed our brochure and our website will be live by the time your readers get this publication. I am anxious to integrate and weave the Exchange Life Message into a generation of children. I cherish your prayers as we undertake this mammoth task. As you know, it is expensive to translate and print, but we also know that the Lord, Jehovah Jireh is our source. Will you pray that the Lord will give us individuals and churches that will partner with us to reach children in these unreached regions of the world. We already have invitations to work in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and other areas that are unreached and unengaged. Trusting our readers will check us out: www.bibles4children.com
BY Pastor Shaul Anton
We Plant hundreds of House Churches in un-reached and least evangelized areas of Pakistan. I have visited your web pages and was much blessed by your ministry. Let me introduce you to "Faith Revival Ministries of Pakistan". FRM was born as a result of a vision and burden, God gave us in 2001. The vision is to win the millions of lost souls of Pakistan through Gospel Crusades and leadership Seminars. FRM is networking with different Denominations Churches in Pakistan and out of Pakistan. Our aim is to rise up the next Generation for God’s Kingdom. We Plant hundreds of House Churches in un-reached and least evangelized areas of Pakistan that do not have a Gospel witness. As we have stepped out in faith to fulfill the call God has placed on our lives, He has blessed this ministry abundantly. Since 2001, hundreds and thousands of souls have been reached through Gospel Crusades and Revival Seminars. Let's take the message of the Exchanged Life & God's love to the ends of the earth and bring in a mighty harvest of souls for God's glory. Together we can make a difference in the lives of millions. We are looking forward to building up a long lasting relationship with you and your ministry. It will be a great blessing for us to partner with you for His glory. Please pray for this Godly vision and join hands with us to see this Muslim nation being transformed by the love of our Lord Jesus. On your reply we will share much more about our ministries and activities with you. We are looking forward to hear from you. If you have any question about us and our network please feel free to ask us.
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By Dr. Stephen Phinney The problematic issues related to Justification vs. Sanctification has been a topic of theologians for centuries. Man tends to complicate the simplicity of "Not I but Christ" because man wants to be in control of their perceptions. Let us examine authentic justification, sanctification, and faith. The term "true justification through Christ" is much different than how most self-proclaimed Christians use it. The actual definition of justification is that of the illustration of Passover - forgiveness. Compromising, independent people try to forgive themselves without the appropriation of Christ's redemptive justification or try to live up to a reputation they themselves put in place. Justification is a gift and it comes to us through grace, a freewill offering from Christ. It means to "remove one's sins from someone." It is noted in the Greek text as "remission." Remission is the process of restarting or being given a second chance at His mission. In order for this to happen, one's sins must be put aside or "sent away." The Hebrew text reveals to us even a clearer understanding of this: "to place on the side, to disregard or bypass." In the Old Testament, man's sins were removed, or passed over, until the next animal sacrifice took place. The "sinners' " sins were placed on the animal and it was killed in order to send the sins away. This is why Jesus had to become a permanent sacrifice for all sin - to permanently provide a pass over of all past, present, and future sins. The Old Testament's version of sacrifice did not change the heart or character of man; it simply, temporarily removed the sin itself. The New Covenant (the blood sacrifice of Jesus) removed sin and its power, as well as, guilt. Jesus' blood sacrifice also changed the identity and heart of the man. In short, He made us just - just as if we did not sin. People with compromising reputations are not only independent, but they tend to mock God by attempting to accomplish more faith, or prove their faith, by expecting fruit just because they have obtained faith. In reality, faith is not accompanied by its inevitable and expectant fruits. True faith is alive, active, and mixed with the love of God, which produces good works. Compromising people of a bad reputation profess and presume faith. The end result is a barren and destitute tree that cannot produce fruit. Even demons have this kind of faith. This type of "false Tribes People faith" consists of the intellectual belief of sin and the work of Christ, insteadSchedule of repenting and returning to God to rely on His promises. Independents usually focus on getting themselves bailed out of selfish behavior or use God's promises to prosper themselves. They lean toward treating God like He is some type of slot machine. When works are practiced instead of being a result of faith, they are false works, producing plastic fruit. Can non-Christians produce real fruit? This question demands an answer with a question. Can pine trees produce apples? Of course not! This is one of the toughest doctrines for Christians and non-Christians alike to embrace. All the "good works" of unsaved people do nothing. They may see temporary benefits here on earth, but the eternal value is useless (James 2:20). Unsaved people are in need of new life. They need to ask the Lord Jesus to come and dwell within their mortal bodies. This process is called being born-again. Once a person asks Christ into his life, the Holy Spirit comes to live within him. This process of sanctification converts him into a "fruit tree." Now the life of Christ, through the seed of faith (Matt. 17:20) that He places in the new believer, can begin producing real fruit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). Can Christians be a part of "false faith?" One of the greatest controversies of Christianity is that of "sinless perfection." A Christian never becomes sinless because of the sin that remains within the mortal body of the believer. Sin means "to miss the mark." All Christians have the choice to sin, even though they are perfect spiritually in Christ Jesus. Even the most obedient Christian cannot say that he has not sinned as a believer. "Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin" (James 4:17, NASB). No Christian can keep all the mandates of God, nor does He expect us to. This is why He sent His Son to fulfill the law in and through us. Once we accept Christ into our lives, we are given a new nature, a new reputation - the nature of Christ Himself. This reputation comes with a new past - the past of Jesus Christ Himself. True authentic Christianity comes
Editorial Comments: Kathy Hill, CO editor@iomamerica.org Entire contents of this publication is under Š supervision of IOM America 2013
Reproduction permitted when entire publication remains intact. Digital view or copies can be obtained online at: click here All Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, Š Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963,1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
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with a brand new reputation; a reputation, I might add, that is NOT earned, worked at, or acted out. His reputation is given to us as a gift. This is accomplished by God sending the Holy Spirit to live within our mortal bodies. The doctrines of perfection come into play when the Spirit purifies our spiritual nature, which is what becomes perfect in Christ. The mind and body remain vulnerable to our "flesh" (the trash the old man left behind) because sin continues to reside in our bodies and persists in affecting our minds. We are given the power to resist indwelling sin (our old reputation) and choose life coming through our new spiritual nature. This is why we are called to "put off the old self and put on the new" (Eph. 4:22). When sin, flesh, decides to raise its ugly head through the body (Rom. 7:23) by way of the mind, we are to "consider ourselves dead to sin and our old reputation, but alive to God in Christ Jesus" and His reputation (Rom. 6:11). Something to Pray About! Dr. Stephen R. Phinney, © 2013 Exchanging Life Publishing . Article used by Permission:
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