Loving God

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Mark McMillion

So I woke up to a beautiful, golden, clear day this morning, and, as I often do, put on some devotional music to start the day. One of the first songs was simply about loving God, about how it takes time to do that, love Him every day.

And I thought about that, how simple that is, how almost trite it sounds, bland to the ears of most of us. And yet God told Moses, and Jesus repeated it, that this is actually the first of the commandments. Someone asked Jesus what was the first commandment and He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. And the second is like unto it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)

“Yeah, yeah, Mark; yeah, yeah! We all know that! We heard that in Sunday school or from our grandmother! But what about…”

Isn’t that the easy reaction? I was just thinking about how easy it is to get so focused on the needs, cares and horrors of this world and to think how essential it is to obey that second commandment, to love our neighbor as our selves. It is so vital, so missing and so desperately needed. But still, that’s the second commandment, not the first.

“Love never fails.” (I Corinthians 13:8) “Love works no ill to his neighbor.” (Romans 13:10) “The greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 13:13) All of these are rather often heard in some circles, circles I and many others travel in. And it’s all true; in our times the simple love of our fellow man is so very missing and desperately needed. Jesus even said of the times directly before His return, “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold.” (Matthew 24:12) Sure does seem like now, doesn’t it?

But the idea that came to me this morning is how that it’s all too easy for any of us to put loving our neighbor above loving the Lord Himself. And maybe I should reference the story I told a while back about “Three Fingers” when it comes to what I’m writing about here. I feel convicted about this myself and see that I have at times been so moved with the needs of humanity in our generation that I may have gotten more caught up with the need to win the world to Him than I have with loving the Lord.

It’s like the thing Jesus said, “These ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” (Matthew 23:23b) We need to both love God and love our neighbor. Years ago I had some brief contact with the World Council of Churches and I learned the terminology that’s used to describe some denominations, “verticals” and “horizontals”. “Verticals” describes the congregations whose main focus is on the heavenlies, on the things of God and Jesus and our relationship with and worship of God. “Horizontals” focus more on the second commandment, our charge from Him to love our neighbor as ourselves. These folks are the ones who are often out at the front in humanitarian aid relief and laying down their lives for the brethren or are zealously active in social issues of our day.

But of course, both of these should not work as alternatives but in tandem. And I think only God Himself can help us get the mix right. That’s why it’s such a help, such an essential to have the living presence of His Spirit alive and functioning in us daily. We can try to get it right in our feeble minds. But it all works so much better if His Spirit in us “leads us into all truth” (John 16:13), even personally and daily in letting us know when we need to “come apart for a while” (Mark 6:31) and just really focus on loving the Lord.

The honest truth is that “You can’t do the Master’s work without the Master’s power and to have it, you must spend time with the Master.” It’s like an oil lamp. All our love for and activity for the lost and needy of the world must come from the oil and Spirit of God, not ourselves. Otherwise it will be like a wick burning without the oil. It gets consumed pretty fast and there’s a lot of smoke. But if we stay soaked in the oil of His Spirit, through truly loving Him, then there will be sufficient oil in our lamps to be the light to the World that He wants us to be.

Some people think that God is some kind of cruel monster, trying to chase us with a big stick. But actually He is Love and He’s trying to love us into heaven. A beautiful picture of this is the story Jesus told of “the prodigal son” who had abandoned his father to go do his own thing in a far land. Jesus said that, at length, the son “came to himself” (Luke 15:17) and decided to return to his father’s house, in shame. And what did the father, who represents God, do? Jesus said, “But when the son was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20) What a tender picture of God’s love for all of us who’ve gone astray.

Joshua, the leader of God’s people after Moses, said to them, “Take good heed unto yourselves that you love the Lord your God.” (Joshua 23:11) It’s great to love others, it’s a commandment of God and His Spirit will put an incredible love in our hearts that He wants us and needs us to have. But it can be a temptation of the workers of the Lord to put our love for our neighbors above our love for Him.

Lord help us all. Because if we let the pendulum swing the other way so we spend all our time in worshiping Him to the neglect of His sheep, then that’s just another mistake of going off in the other direction. I know some people who’ve done that, who once were really active in winning the world for Jesus. But now they spend most of their time at home alone in personal worship and devotion.

Sometimes loving the Lord can just be loving His Word and taking time to really let it speak to you. Jeremiah said, “Your words were found, and I did eat them, and Your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.” (Jeremiah 15:16) Thankfully we can be sure that “He is love” (I John 4:8) and that “We love him because He first loved us” (I John 4:19). “If any many love God, the same is known of Him.” (I Corinthians 8:3)

But in all our Christian service, our concern about the dire plight of the world at this time, the concern about the planet and God’s creation which seems to be suffering as well, it’s good to remember (pointing three fingers at myself at this time) that Jesus told us “without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) Without our loving God and spending time with Him, our priorities will be mixed up. And that won’t be the way it should be, for Him or us or the needy of this world, or our dear planet itself.

Merkel’s Call

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Mark McMillion

According to my German friends, the Prime Minister of German, Angela Merkel, was asked the other day by reporters about what horrors would come from the influx of people from the Middle East into Germany and Europe. What I’ve been told is that the Prime Minister replied that the people of Germany should get out their Bibles and share their faith with the refugees coming to (at least nominally, somewhat) Christian Europe.

How can you respond to that? Stunned silence? Probably that was the response of a number of people there. But someone should have jumped up on a chair and yelled, “Give that woman a cigar!” Maybe you’re not from Europe and don’t have the perspective to realize how unusual that is, at least in my opinion, to be coming from the leader of the most powerful country in Western Europe.

Of course she’s totally right. I certainly think so. It’s kind of like stating the obvious. But it also sadly reminds me of a Bible verse I read shortly after I became a Christian that seemed to sum up what my life had been like for years before I had the stunning experiences that brought me out of my unbelief.

Psalm 10:4b says “God is not in all his thoughts.” That was how I was for years; any thought about God never entered my mind. And sadly it seems that for many west Europeans, they’ve been in that condition for decades. God has not been in all their thoughts. That’s why it’s been called “Post Christian Europe”.

So it’s against that backdrop that Angela Merkel has called for Christians to get out their Bibles in response to the challenge of Islam that’s come with the influx of refugees. But, here’s something else I didn’t know till yesterday. Angela Merkel, who’s originally from what was Communist East Germany, is the daughter of a Christian pastor. And if you’re the daughter of a Christian pastor during the time of Communism in East Germany, then your faith in God and in Christ was not something cheap or frivolous. It cost something to have faith in God in those times. And it especially cost something to be a pastor there.

But of course the question is, will anyone respond to Merkel’s call? I’m sure some will. A few dozen, a few hundred even. Maybe more? Actually, you’d be surprised. God can do, and has done in the past, some real miracles with even a few dozen or a few hundred. Jonathan and his armor bearer took initiative against the greater Philistine forces and were the initiators of a great victory for the people of the God of Abraham. Jonathan famously said, “God is not limited by many or by few.” (I Samuel 14:6)

But, honestly, I’d like to interject here that I don’t even like to begin to use any terminology on this subject that is infused with terms of battles and wars. The whole sad story of current events now with these poor people is so drenched in terms of conflict. Also history itself is packed with the terminology of the Crusades and all those wars so that it really colors the whole dialog on Christian-Muslim experience. As a Christian, I find that thinking of “fields”, of “sowing” and “seeds” is much closer to the words of Jesus than all our analogies of warfare and victory, even if we know we’re speaking spiritually.

It says of Jesus, “When He saw the multitude, He was moved with compassion upon them, for they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep, having no shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36) Then He turned to His disciples and said to them, “The harvest truly is plenteous but the laborers are few. Pray, therefore, that the Lord of the harvest will send forth laborers into His harvest.” (Matthew 9:37 & 38) At another time in another place, He said to His disciples, “Do you not say that in four months will be the harvest? I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest.” (John 4:35) And of course we all know that in those times, Jesus was not talking about wheat, barley and rye. He was talking about the harvest of souls that were fainting and scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. He was talking about a harvest of human souls that was already “white unto harvest”.

It may very well be, and I am convinced that it’s true, that this migration of people out of the Middle East into west Europe is an unprecedented opportunity. The Christians of Europe can get out their Bibles and their tracts, fill their hearts with the love of God and go out to meet these ones who have come here. One time Jesus said, “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, that My house may be full.” (Luke 14:23) And that’s literally where thousands of these people from the Middle East are now, in the highways, hedges and open fields of Europe as they trudge north to try to find peace.

Boy, that would be news, wouldn’t it? If bands of Christians rose to this occasion and “let their light shine before men“? (Matthew 5:16) Do you think God would be with Christians who went out to share His love with these ones? So the question seems to be, “Who will answer Merkel’s call?”

Broken pieces of the ship

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Mark McMillion

This morning I was reading something from “Streams in the Desert” by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman. It was talking about when Paul was shipwrecked on his way as a prisoner to Rome in Acts 27. The devotion was on the verse, Acts 27:44 “And the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land.”

How can you get anything significant out of that verse, right? Well, the devotion brought out that in this dire time in the great apostle Paul’s life, shipwrecked and at wit’s end, a great flaming angel did not appear upon the waters to raise Paul bodily above the rest. A chariot of fire with mighty thunderbolts did not come to his deliverance. And, by in large, that’s how God works most of the time.

God uses little things, broken things, seemingly trivial things. And with those He does His mighty works.

Paul was destined to be in Rome, God had told him, “As you’ve witnessed for Me in Jerusalem, so must you also bear witness in Rome.” (Acts 23:11) Some things just seem to be destined and foreordained by God, if we continue to do our part. And even in this mighty storm that was upon Paul and the ones in that ship, even there God was in control. Like I wrote about recently when a tornado came over the house I was living in, “God has his way in the whirlwind and the storm.” (Nahum 1:7) But there’s even more significance to this seemingly insignificant verse. “…broken pieces of the ship…” How poignant that is. Because so often that’s what each of us are in some points in our lives.

Our own ship has been broken and our life seems to be a ruins. Our family has been broken and seemingly destroyed. Our health is broken. Our church fellowship or denomination has been broken or shamed. And yet, God only uses broken things.

God told Saul, “When you were little in your own sight, I anointed you king over Israel”. (I Samuel 15:17) God wants and needs broken things, because that’s all He can work with. In perhaps one of the most important Psalms in the Bible, Psalm 51, King David in his desperate repentance and metanoia said to God, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, oh God, You will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17)

Brokenness. Nobody almost ever wants to be broken, to be defeated, to be embarrassed, to seemingly fail. But God gets some of his greatest victories out of seeming defeat. That broken vessel, the ship Paul was on, was lost. But he and all on board were saved because they kept listening to what Paul, God’s representative to them right then, told them to do in that dire crisis.

In the same way, if individuals or bodies of individuals keep listening to the Lord, keep our eyes on Him and our direct hotline of prayer to His Throne alive through direst times, He will not fail to keep, deliver and guide through anything. He loves to do the miracles, that’s the nature of God. And in our brokenness, whatever form that may take, He can do what He can’t do when we are so “together” and on top of things.

Jesus even said, “Whosoever shall fall upon this stone shall be broken. But on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.” (Matthew 21:44) God help us to fall on the Stone, Christ Jesus, in brokenness and dependence on Him. This is the safest state there is: utter dependence on the Lord. The proud, the haughty, the self sufficient who think they don’t need God or His ways and His love will sadly someday at length find the same Stone we are supposed to fall up will fall upon them when they see their lives were empty, meaningless and selfish. Although God’s wheels of justice sometimes seem to grind exceeding slow, they eventually grind exceeding fine.

God help us to have the vision of just being “broken pieces of the ship”. Broken things, little things, even despised things which God said He would use “to bring to naught things that are”. (I Corinthians 1:28) “’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways’, says the Lord.” (Isiah 58:10)

How inglorious to be floundering about helplessly and desperately on a plank in a stormy ocean, at wits end. But there the apostle Paul was and from there he was delivered by the One who always had “delivered him from every evil work”. (II Timothy 4:18) May God give us all the eyes He wants us to have to even be “broken pieces of the ship”, if so be the will of God.

At the Camp of the Saints (Part 4) The Last Night

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Mark McMillion

The last afternoon with my Christian friends at the east Europe get together was spent in a prayer meeting and heart sharing. I talked with them about things that I’ve needed to ask prayer for a long time. It was emotional for me. I said things I haven’t said to almost anyone for years. I was desperate for their prayers and for His grace. Perhaps it’s like the verse, “Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ”. (Galatians 6:2)

Later a young east European man came up to me and asked if we could talk. Actually I’d shared a room with him the night before in the inn/hotel where the fellowship was being held. But he’d come in late and we hadn’t talked. He was a friend of some missionaries who’d come there and they invited him.

He told me that, when I’d shared my heart and asked for prayer earlier in the day, it very much troubled him. He’d fought back tears because he was going through exactly the same thing. Also, because I explaned some of my background, he said what he was going through right then was identical to a crisis I experienced around his age. He was very aware that we’d ended up in the same room together and that perhaps the most difficult experience in my life, years ago, was exactly what he was going through now.

He shared that his personal life had recently been more or less destroyed by events beyond his control. He was distraught, depressed and thinking thoughts of revenge, retribution and even violence.These are emotions that many people have felt at some of the worst times of their lives.

He had been brought up a Baptist but for one reason or the other, became dissatisfied and unfulfilled there. So he’d moved away from faith, applying God’s Word in his life or going to Him in prayer, at least for the most part.

So I shared one of the most poignant verses in the Bible for ones experiencing what he was right then. Romans 8:28 says, “All things work together for good to them who the love the Lord, to them who are called according to His purpose.” For anyone going through the life-altering crisis this young man was going through, that verse is about as essential a truth as you can find in God’s Word. Another key Bible verse I shared with him is what Joseph said to his brothers who had virtually ended his life and sold him into slavery years before, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” (Genesis 50:20)

This young man agreed with me that in a real sense, his life was over, at least most of what his life had been for the last 10 years. He was faced with two choices. He could try to hold on to what was gone, to change things that really couldn’t be changed or to get revenge for how he was wronged. That path would lead nowhere. He might end up in jail, dead or just to live the rest of his life, never recovering from this trauma and injustice he was experiencing.

Or he could call out desperately to God, embrace the truths of God’s Word and experience the Love of God that He would have for him in giving him a completely new start in life. Only God could do. Drugs and counseling could not reach the deepest place in his heart and heal and renew the deep pain and injury he was experiencing.

He was like a ship that had been torpedoed, a computer whose hard drive had crashed. But I could tell him from my own experience that this was something he could survive. “With man, it is impossible. But not with God, for with God, all things are possible.” (Mark 10:27)

Perhaps the best thing was that he was really listening. He began to have hope that he’d not had. Over the 2 hours we talked, his whole “countenance”, the look on his face gradually changed from sadness and anger to one with more hope and even a smile. He did have a foundation in God’s Word. He did know the principles of God’s dealings with man, even if he’d not been applying them in his life for a while.

As we searched the Word together and talked into the evening, it was wonderful to see his mind come around towards the things of the Lord and to begin to have a vision where there had not been one, to have a healthy view of the future where there had only been hopelessness and temptations to violence.

It’s like the verse, “to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace”. (Romans 8:6) As we talked of the things of the Lord, the atmosphere just changed. The seed of God’s Word was falling on good ground. Or perhaps the Lord had to “break the rock in pieces” (Jeremiah 23:29) and root out the weeds of his life so that He Himself could give this man a new start, on the ruins of his former life. This dramatic event could actually be a new beginning for a new life for him, better than he’d ever known before,

I told him it would take time, years probably for this all to fully be in his past. There would be temptations every day to look back to what he had, how he’d been wronged, how much it all hurt. But that if he truly held on to the Lord like he had never done before, this all could be the beginning of something better than he’d ever experienced before.

So it turned into a wonderful evening and a wonderful day. It was a blessing for me to able to share my experiences with this new friend and to be, in a sense, living proof that what sometimes looks like “the end” can turn out to be just “a bend in the road” , if we keep holding on to Him.

Days of Heaven

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Mark McMillion

I heard someone say one time, “I couldn’t tell you about it when I didn’t have the victory.” So I don’t totally have the victory about this right now but I’ll give it a shot at telling you.

It says in the Bible, “Now we know in part, but then shall we know as we are known.” (I Corinthians 13:12) And this is not only true of knowing the Lord that way in heaven to come. Up there we’re going to know each other that way too. And that will be a big part of heaven, a closeness there that we almost never have here with each other on earth.

But sometimes we do. Sometimes God allows and engineers situations so we’re led down a path where we are in the right place at the right time with someone with whom we experience a closeness, I’ll even use the word “intimacy”, if you understand that the way I mean, which is on a scale so advanced that it approaches that of heaven. That’s happened to me recently.

“Good for your Mark, I’m so happy for you!”

Umm, yeah; thanks. But this is like two things I’ve written about before, “Sweet Potatoes with Butter” and “Pinnacle Experiences.” In my case, the Lord has allowed me to have some time of communication with someone I’ve vaguely known at various times for years. I’ve always been struck by this person. They’ve always seemed so unusually angelic that it’s been difficult for me to be around them the few times that I have been.

What do you think of when you think of an angel? Beauty? Wisdom? Humility? You can trust them. They have a stability and a “health”, for the lack of a better term, that kind of leaves you in awe. What if you talked to that angel?

Some have had experiences with angels a few brief times in our lives. But real angels are not usually there for hours. They don’t talk to you for hours. They’re heavenly beings from that other realm who God allows to sometimes cross our path or even appear and speak to us.

But perhaps you’ve had some kind of experience with a human being who somehow has such grace, wisdom and beauty that it just doesn’t seem real. Sometimes you just almost stare at that person in awe at their beauty and words, their gentle soul and obvious grace.

As you and they talk, it’s almost like being pulled out of this world and into the realms of heaven. You don’t want to do anything wrong because it’s almost like a charmed time you are in. But a good time, given by God, where the essences of heaven pour into you and you’re lifted out of the humdrum dreariness that so often you are in, seemingly for so long.

This is the type of experience we think of that men and women have who get married. But maybe even married couples don’t always have this or they don’t have it any more. But it doesn’t have to be limited to that. And for Christians, it can be just something that God allows, like finding an oasis in a vast desert you’ve have traveled alone in for so long. The only way to describe it is heavenly. Somehow this person is almost like a window into heaven or at least God is using them this way.

It sounds great, no? This happened to me recently. But then… but then. We have to come down from our mountain. We enjoy those “sweet potatoes with butter” but then it’s over. You’ve been on a shining mountain, a true “Close Encounter“. But you have to come down.

I don’t know how it is for you. But for me, my life for a number of years has been one of single-minded purpose in daily laying down my life for Him and others. But that has almost always been in a type of loneliness I’ve grown used to and accepted as how it has to be and how things are in this world for me.

The wonderful thing is that we each have the Lord, at least the ones of us who know and believe in Him. “My presence shall go with you and I will give you rest”. (Exodus 33:14) We have the light of His Word in our hearts, which we have laid up there through faithfully memorizing and retaining it. We have the presence of His Holy Spirit. These are things that abide with us and help us to navigate and exist in what is frankly an often dark and lonely world, full of shadows and vanity.

Our daily contact with other human beings is so often shallow in the extreme compared to the deep and intimate contact we will have with each other in the hereafter. Our main need is His salvation and presence and we have that constantly and daily as we pray and lean on His Word. But daily heartfelt intimacy with other human beings can often be rather rare, even if you’re surrounded with people during you day.

So, like I said at the beginning of this, I’m not sure I can tell you about all this when I don’t have the victory. We who are saved have a victory. We have the Savoir who’s “delivered us from every evil work“. (II Timothy 4:18) But still for some, even of the saved, we live with a heaviness and a loneliness that’s seldom lifted expect for those rare times of “days of heaven”, in some cases with virtual angels who walk the earth, splendid creatures who exude a beauty and grace, love and humility, and a knowledge of how to live life that’s virtually breath-taking and blinding. But it shines brilliantly in our hearts and is a glimpse into the future and heaven to come.

Tomorrow I will be back to “normal”. I hope I can do what I wrote about recently. I hope I can bring the pinnacle experience I’ve had with me back to my normal day-to-day world and share it with others. But right now I’m a little afraid I’ll be remembering these days of heaven and, frankly, be missing them a lot. God told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” (II Corinthians 12:9) I’ll be holding onto his Word and to Him. But also I’ll really be looking forward even more than before to the true heaven to come and the intimacy and beauty there that I’ve experienced a touch of here.

At the Camp of the Saints (part 3) Sammy’s story

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Mark McMillion

Another fascinating person I met at this east European fellowship was a young man from these parts. Sharp looking guy, bright smile, but probably the first thing you’d notice is that he is around 4’ 8” tall (about 1.42 meters). I learned later that he was born partially blind and deaf. But a hearing aid and an eye operation 5 years ago have made that side of his life better.

He shared his life story with all of us one night and it was touching and amazing. He wasn’t totally an orphan as he had his mom but Sammy was placed in an institution for special needs children when he was very young. He grew up there and, as you may know, this is not usually a happy, healthy place. And in parts of eastern Europe, these places are sad, gloomy places with often somewhat extremely poor conditions physically.

When he was 9, a young east European missionary woman came to his institution to do activities and have stories with the young people there. Sammy was especially drawn to her and they began a friendship that went on for years. She led him to Jesus and ministered to him spiritually as well as helping with his speech which had been slow since he didn’t hear well. From what I understand, Sammy was soon sharing the Bible stories he’d heard with other kids in the institution.

But then one day, unannounced, the missionary woman stopped coming to visit. She kept writing him regularly for the next years. But he never got the letters because of jealous people at the school who didn’t pass them on. Nine years later, when he was 18, his missionary friend came back. Of course this was a joyous time and also he found out she’d been writing him all that time.

In the past, the conditions in special needs schools and orphanages in this part of the world were very dire. But it’s getting better now.

During the years he was growing up and his missionary friend was not there, he had held on to his faith the best he could. But it wasn’t easy. He found some fellowship in local churches but this at times was a mixed blessing. For example he was told that his praying to Jesus would not do. He had to pray to “the Lord”. Things like that. I’m leaving out a lot of details in order to not make this long. But you get the picture that he had a very rough upbringing, both as a virtually orphan and also a special needs person.

I guess a verse that comes to mind for this dear brother is “that on the good ground are those who, in an honest and good heart, having heard the Word, keep it, and bring forth fruit.” (Luke 8:15) I’ve been struck by how much he has “kept” the truth that’s come his way, even if it came sporadically and often tainted and faint through some of the channels and ways it came to him. But he “kept all these things and pondered them in his heart.” (Luke 2:19)

And now that he’s an adult, can you figure out what he has done with his life? “We comfort others with the comfort we ourselves are comforted with.” (II Corinthians 1:4) He was prayed for and loved and taught by a missionary when he was young and growing up. Now as an adult he feels he wants to do the same thing. He’s recently graduated from university with a degree in special education. He’s seen that he has a place of service right where he grew up, with the same kind of people and situation he’s come from, ministering to the young people in his city who come from the same background he came from.

He’s been through it himself and survived so he can be an example to others of growing up to be something of value and victory. And through all this, it’s the light and love of the Lord that’s been the deciding factor time and time again. Plus the love of a local national missionary who never gave up on him. The kids he ministers to often want him to come home with them when they go home so that he can meet their parents.

When he was sharing his story that night, I got a verse for him or that fit for him. “The people which sat in darkness have seen a great light and to them who dwell in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up.” (Mark 4:16, Isaiah 9:2) He’s become the Lord’s light to some people who really often dwell in severe darkness. Then later when he was sharing how he had struggled to speak properly when he was growing up because of his hearing problems, another verse popped into my mind for him. Paul said about himself when speaking to the Corinthians. “For his letters say they are weighty and heavy, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible.” (II Corinthians 10:10) Dear Sammy has a somewhat weak physical presence. But his spirit and heart have become strong through the Lord and he’s a strong and bright witness and blessing in his part of the world.

“I have seen the affliction of My people. Come, I will send you.”

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Mark McMillion

If there is anything that should mark a person with faith in God, it should be love. “God is love.” (I John 4:8) and if you know and believe in God, that nature and essence of love should dwell in you too. It says of Jesus, “When He saw the multitude, He was moved with compassion upon them, for they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36) And let’s face it, that scenario is playing out before our eyes this very day here in Europe as unprecedented waves of displaced migrants sojourn across mountains and borders in whatever way they can to reach what they hope will be safer lands than the ones they come from.

Over 3000 years ago, God spoke to an 80 year old shepherd who’d lived in a desert for 40 years, “I have seen the affliction of My people. Come now, I will send you.” (Exodus 3:7 &10) God didn’t send angels to deliver His people from their severe affliction. He called one of us, a flesh and blood human to be His instrument. And that man responded to the call, howbeit with some questions, with some trepidation. But it resulted in the freeing of the Hebrews from their affliction, one of the mightiest works in history where God and man worked together to “set the captives free”. (Luke 4:18)

But sadly it’s perhaps more common in history what was said 1000 years later. Speaking to those who observed the desolation of Jerusalem by Babylon, Lamentations 1:12 says, “Is it nothing to all you who pass by?” Foreigners passed by the destruction of the Hebrews and it meant nothing to them. Rather like the Pharisees who “passed by on the other side” (Luke 10:31 & 32) when they saw the beaten man on the road to Jericho. But the Good Samaritan stopped to help and he’s been remembered for his kind deed ever since.

Are there any good Samaritans today? Or will the people of our generation just “pass by on the other side”? This is one of the things that drove me to visit the Syrian border that I wrote about a few months ago in “Visiting Syria”. Now I’ve moved back in Europe, for a number of reasons. But one of them is to try to do what I can in this historic and heartbreaking time.

Jesus said of one woman, “She has done what she could.” (Mark 14:8) I can tell you with joy that I know already of some friends, people of faith, who are beginning to do what they can here in Europe. I have a friend in Sweden who’s taken the initiative to start passing out tracts to refugees who’ve come to that country. Another long time friend in Austria is now doing the same thing with her husband. Others I met recently from Berlin, as well as friends in Hungary, are stirred in their hearts to take action there at this time. We can’t just pass by the man on the road to Jericho. Paul said, “The love of Christ constrains us.” (II Corinthians 5:14)

But you can think or even say, like they did long ago to Jesus, “What are these among so many?” (John 6:9) There was a multitude to be feed but they only had five loaves and two small fishes. So they said, “What are these among so many?” Well, in that case, the Lord multiplied those loaves and fishes and fed the multitude.

Today, what difference will it make if a few dear souls, scattered out around Europe, go out to visit refugee camps to help in what way they can and to also share the hope of the Gospel with those people? Well, it’s a start. They’ll help someone today if they do that. They won’t turn the tide and solve the problem. But they’ll help someone today. And they will be obeying God and His admonition and commandments that are the foundation of the Old and New Testament: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. (Mark 12:31)

And who knows? Maybe the efforts of those few will inspire others. Maybe they’ll be so blessed by God for doing what they can that others will catch the vision. Maybe they’ll start communicating among themselves, sharing how things have gone in their witnessing, what’s working in these situations and what isn’t. Maybe this is one of the most golden opportunities in our generation to share the love of God with folks we’d never be able to be in contact with any other way.

So I’ve been happy to hear from friends around Europe in this first month I’ve been back here that, for many, their hearts are being touched by God in this time. They feel, like it was said of Esther of old, “You are come into the kingdom for such a time as this.” (Ester 4:14) This may be the time when the grace and calling they’ve had in their lives comes to the fore more than ever before, when they are the instruments of God’s peace to reach a people who could have never been reached any other way. At a gathering of east European Christians I was at last week, this was a subject that many felt strongly about.

For some, this may be their finest hour. But many are saying what a horrible time this is, what a danger, what a conspiracy, what a doom. But perhaps in God’s eyes, for some of His people, this is an opportunity that’s never happened before to “let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

What Jesus said 2000 years ago to the believers is still true, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14) . But He has no hands but your hands, He has no voice but your voice, He has no feet but your feet in this day and age. Jesus said to His disciples during a very rough time when so many were leaving Him, “Will you also go away?” And Peter said, “To whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:67 & 68)

Except perhaps today, these pitiful multitudes coming to Europe will say to the Christians here, “To whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.” May the mighty God of Abraham stir up His saints to rise to this occasion and pour forth His love and truth to these multitudes, coming to the shores and lands of Europe.

(I’d like to hear from Christians in Europe who’ve been moved by God to “do what you can”. Have you found some way to help and even to bring the truth of His love to these ones pouring into this part of the world? If so and you have time, please send me a note about it. Thanks.)

At the Camp of the Saints (Part 2)

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Mark McMillion

This afternoon I was having a Bible class with around 10 young people between the ages of 7 and 17, children of some of the attendees at the Christian fellowship I’m at up in the mountains of Romania.

Teaching Daniel chapter 2 is one of my favorite things since it’s about the easiest chapter there is to introduce the phenomenon of Bible prophecy. It’s actually about someone who was probably not older than 14 at the time. So this adds to the interest in the chapter for younger people.

If you’re a teacher, there’s a lot you can do to dramatize this chapter. Daniel and his friends are taken captive and carried away from their home country. They are educated, probably “upper class” kids. They’d already had serious instruction in the things of the Lord and had taken it to heart.

But then Daniel and his friends are put to the test and nearly executed. Daniel and the others got down to desperate prayer and the Lord answered in one of the most miraculous ways in the Bible. Like I told the kids in my class, “What if you were suddenly carried away to Moscow?! You have to appear before Vladimir Putin and his advisers in the Kremlin to tell him what he had dreamed!” It makes it more real like this.

A lot of drama helps if you’re teaching kids. There’s the strange statue and, even stranger, that stone that hit the statue on the feet. So I was the statue, one of the kids held a big basket which hit me (the statue) on my feet. I crumbled to dust in front of their eyes and the basket (the stone) became a great mountain. Lots of spectacle in that when you act it out .

The result? King Nebuchadnezzar fell at the feet of Daniel in front of his whole court. So I fell at the feet of one of the kids there and we played like I was Vladimir Putin, speaking my broken Russian, falling at their feet in thankfulness and awe that they were able to reveal the secret. It helps to bring it all home to kids and to help them remember it and grasp the significance when you do this. Often times that’s what they remember the most

But also in the room was a friend of mine who is 20 who comes from a family of dedicated east European Christians. All through our class I’d been trying to bring it all back to their level and help them to see how this could have been them and what it would have been like to have been 14 year old Daniel. Then at the end of the class, my 20 year old friend shared her life story with the ones there who were actually the same age as her younger sisters and brothers. She told them something like this.

“In 7^th grade, because of my Christian beliefs, I really didn’t have many friends in school. So I decided I wanted friends and for them to accept me. From then on I started going to parties without my parents knowing.

When I turned 15, I started a relationship with a boy who at first accepted my beliefs. But after a year he told me he had lied to make me like him. I continued to be with him another 2 years and through that time he and his friends told me that I lived in a fantasy world and that I’m trying to run away from reality. This affected my beliefs and caused me to doubt my faith in the Lord. Around the end of our relationship, we went for a summer vacation where we had a big fight and I ran out crying.

I ended up looking at the stars which often brought me peace. I decided to give the Lord “one last chance”. Inside me I had a battle and felt I was making a fool of myself. But I told the Lord my feelings and I told Him I wanted to see a shooting star from left to right if I was not supposed to be together with my boyfriend. Or right to left if he was the one for me. And I told him if nothing happens, then I will never believe in Him again.

I waited for about 10 minutes but nothing happened. So I stood up to leave but then a very strong voice in my head told me, ‘Sit down. The answer is coming.’

When I sat down and looked up, an enormous shooting star went exactly from left to right the way I had asked. The Lord told me then that my future boyfriend would have the same beliefs that I have. This showed me that the Lord truly loves me and that He will never leave me or forsake me. This was about 2 years ago and now actually I do have a boyfriend who has the same beliefs as me and he has a strong relationship with the Lord.”

So for me this was a great way to end the class with these east European kids from missionary families, hearing from one from their generation who’s come to know the Lord personally and has their own experiences (some learned the hard way).

(In part three I’ll tell you about a young man I met for the first time here, one who’s overcome obstacles most of us never face, who is an incredible light for the Lord in a far off corner of eastern Europe.)

At the Camp of the Saints (Part 1)

Posted on September 8, 2015 by Mark McMillion

As many of you know, I moved back to eastern Europe a few weeks ago after living 6 years in Texas. It’s been a bit of a transition and it’s an ongoing process to let the Lord transform me back to how He wants me to be in this part of the world.

Right now I’m up in the mountains at an informal get together of a few dozen people who have similar backgrounds and Christian calling to me. It is very revitalizing to be in this atmosphere, it’s hard even to describe it. But there’s just something about being around fellow disciples and committed Christians, many of whom are like the Lord talked about ones who had “born the burden and heat of the day.” (Matthew 20:12) A number here have had lives of Christian service for decades. So being here is a lot like the verse, “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity.” (Psalm 133:1)

One of the best things for me has just been the depth of communications and heart-to-heart contact that goes on here. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty” (II Corinthians 3:17) and sometimes that’s manifested in wonderfully deep, clear, heart-sharing with friends.

So I thought to share with you some about some folks I’ve met here, ones I never met before who’ve deeply impressed me with their Christian witness and the lives they’re living. I’ll leave out their names and some specifics as that’s probably for the best. But their lives are fascinating and resonate with how I feel we all can be, and should be, in the way the Lord can lead and use each of us.

One of the first I talked to was a man half my age. He grew up in a missionary family. But that of course doesn’t really count for all that much when one has to personally choose what they believe and want to do with their lives. Someone has said, “God has no grandchildren.” In this case, this dear brother, after a few years of “sowing his wild oats”, put his life firmly back in the Lord’s hands and has found a way to be a very effective witness in what I consider one of the more “post Christian” countries in all of Europe.

I feel that Western and Northern Europe is not a place in these times where sharing your faith and witnessing for the Lord is often met with receptivity. “Nah, that’s not for me” is a phrase often heard, or worse than that, if you speak up for the Lord there. But this dear brother is working and studying in a country I know pretty well, one that I don’t at all consider a receptive part of the world to the Gospel. From what he’s told me, he actually pretty bold about it.

He’s often worked as a waiter or other things like that so this brings him in contact with a lot of people. And he’s learned how to wisely and gracefully bring the Lord and the things of faith into conversations. But he also keeps in contact with people, drops by for a visit sometime, gives little gifts to ones he knows and overall cultivates his friendships. This has often brought comments like about how they don’t know anyone else like him who’s as friendly and concerned as he is. Rather like Solomon said, “A man that has friends must show himself friendly. And there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.” (Proverbs 18:24)

But another thing I noticed from what he said was how he just seems to have a lot of love for the Lord and others. So much so that he’s wiling at times to be “a fool for Christ” (I Corinthians 4:10), like Paul said. Most of us who witness for the Lord in any way know that we will get opposition from time to time and even have folks think we’re crazy or eccentric. But it was the same for Jesus, “When his friends heard of this, they went out to lay hold on him, for they said, ‘He is beside himself’.” (Mark 3:21)

So this was very inspiring to meet this new friend and to hear of someone regularly witnessing on his job and in university, standing up for Godly values and unafraid to call a spade a spade when confronted with the atheist/agnostic morals and ethics of modern Northern and Western Europe. I got the verse for him, “The Lord didn’t leave Himself without witness” (Acts 14:17) in that He has strengthen and raised up this young man to be His light in what is often the atheist darkness that prevails in many parts of that area of the world.

(In part two, I’ll tell you about a Bible study I held with the young people at the fellowship and how afterwards a 20 year old friend of mine shared an amazing story that changed her life and faith in God.)

The Stand

Posted on August 31, 2015 by Mark McMillion

Someone said one time, “If your will power doesn’t work, try your “won’t” power.” Ha! But there’s a lot of truth in that. The Bible talks about the stand of faith. An obscure verse that highlights this principle is Judges 7:21, “And they stood, every man in his place, round about the camp, and all the host ran and cried and fled.” In this case, the forces of God didn’t attack. They just took the stand of faith.

I’ve definitely had times in my life when I just couldn’t seem to take any forward steps. And sometimes this went on a long time. But even if “my gas pedal” just didn’t seem to work, I still had “my brakes”. And I kept my foot on the brakes. I wasn’t going to go back, even if it seemed impossible to go forward. I think this can happen a lot of times to a lot of us. The Bible says, “Having done all, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:13)

But sometimes the storms get so strong, we’re rendered so helpless that all we can do is just hang on. “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.” (Isaiah 59:19) And at times all we can do is to take the stand of faith. Our “will” power is seemingly matched by the onslaughts of the enemy or the storms of life. But we still have our “won’t” power.

“Resist the Devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” (I John 4:4) His Spirit in us will cause us to do the humanly impossible. We can choose, no matter what.

That’s one of the things I came away with from the utterly horrific times I went through in the last months and year or so before I came to a knowledge of God. “There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.” (I Corinthians 10:13) When I read that verse for the first time, I was just so very astounded. Because that was exactly what I had experienced, even without salvation earlier.

In my greatest, overwhelming inundations of fear, defeat and death, there was always some tiny sliver of light, some “way of escape”, no matter how faint. And through it all, I learned I had a soul. I learned the hard way. “The way of the transgressor is hard” (Proverbs 13:15) and I don’t know if it could have been any harder, if I was to survive it. But it was because of my sins and my lack of knowledge of the will and existence of God. He brought me through it but not without the smell of smoke. It took months and years of the cleansing of the Word of God to, in a sense, “rewire me” and to be “renewed in the spirit of my mind.” (Ephesians 4:23)

Back in those times, I had no idea really where “forward” was. But the forces of darkness and sin were so strong in my life that if I didn’t learn how to use my brakes, if I didn’t have forming in me the basics of recognizing evil and repentance of sin, then those things would have fully taken my life before I was 21. But I learned I could resist the enemy and the darkness. I learned I could choose and therefore I was responsible for my decisions. Often they were bad decisions but that’s how I learned, at length.

I didn’t have the power of God then because I wasn’t saved. “As many as received Him, to them He gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” (John 1:12) That verse encapsulates my salvation experience. I received Him, Jesus. And He gave me the power I didn’t have to, not only resist the wrong, but to know what was right.

So don’t underestimate the stand of faith. Don’t underestimate your “won’t power”. Just make sure you are exercising it on the enemy and your sins; don’t use your “won’t power” against the Lord. “If you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land, but if you refuse and rebel… (things won’t go so well).” (Isaiah 1:19)

PS And when writing this, I got a little concerned. Because, as much as we all need to understand the stand of faith and how to apply our “brakes”, it’s perhaps equally or more important to know when to “step on the gas”. Faith in God is not just about standing and resisting the darkness; it’s perhaps even more about getting moving with, and for, God. More about that in the next post.