The other night we went to Lowes.  As Hannah got out of the car I noticed her picking something up out of the car.  As parents often do when their kids take a little too long, I hurried her up only to notice what she was trying to get before we went into the store.  There she was proudly holding her pink princess Bible.  She carried it in for all the world to see that she was proud of her B-I-B-L-E.

She then wanted me to take a picture of her and her Bible on a lawn mower.  Who knows maybe one day she will ride her lawn mower around the world to proclaim the gospel

Do you get sweaty palms and knots in your throat when it comes time to witness to someone?

Fear instantly grips most believers when it comes time to share their faith with someone they do not know very well. Excuses flood our minds of why we shouldn’t do it. When the Holy Spirit compels us to witness we think it is the devil trying to make us fail. Let me give you a prophetic word, the devil tricks no one into witnessing about Jesus.

He does, however, cause us to fear failure. Failure is not possible when it comes to sharing our faith. We may not see the results right away but we NEVER fail.

We were destined to be witnesses. We were created for such a time as this to share our faith. I like what Paul says to Philemon:, "that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus."

It is already in you, you just have to acknowledge it. You are a witness. You just may not realize it yet. Look at yourself in the mirror every morning and say, "I am a witness" three times." Well, maybe you don’t have to talk to yourself in the mirror, but get this within your Spirit. You are a witness and were created to witness.

Lay down your fear! Remember the show Fear Factor.  The show spotlighted people facing their worst fears. Eating raw bugs (like eating cooked ones would be any better), risking their lives to cross canyons on ropes and much more. People are excited to see people face their fears. Maybe they should put all of US spiritual cowards on the show and watch us go out and witness. That is a major fear factor.

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of POWER and of love and of a sound mind. Fear means timidity. You don’t have to be timid…be bold. God has already given you every thing you need to witness. JUST DO IT!

D.L. Moody relays the story of how a family can be won to Christ by a smile.  Let us be smiling witnesses for Christ.

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"One Sunday morning in London," reported Mr. Moody, "Spurgeon said to me, just before he commenced his sermon: ‘Moody, I want you to notice that family there in one of the front seats and when we go home I want to tell you their story.’

"When we got home," said Moody, "I asked him for the story, and he said: ‘All that family were won by a smile.’"

" Why," said I, "how’s that?"

" Well," said he, "as I was walking down a street one day, I saw a child at a window; it smiled, and I smiled, and we bowed. It was the same the second time; I bowed, she bowed. It was not long before there was another child, and I had got in a habit of looking and bowing, and pretty soon the group grew, and at last, as I went by, a lady was with them.

" I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to bow to her, but I knew the children expected it, and so I bowed to them all. And the mother saw I was a minister, because I carried a Bible every Sunday morning.

" So the children followed me the next Sunday. And they thought I was the greatest preacher, and their parents must hear me. And, finally the father and mother and five children were converted, and they are going to join our church next Sunday."

"Won to Christ by a smile!" said Moody. "We must get the wrinkles out of our brows, and we must have smiling faces, if we want to succeed in our work of love."

HT: Encyclopedia of 15,000 Illustrations: Signs of the Times.

There are still some items left to be auctioned this Sunday night.  You will find the items attached in a PDF.

Having been through several hurricanes while living on the coast of Texas, I am aware of the great need in a devastated community.  What happened in Joplin is unfathomable.  Yet in the midst of all their heartache we can be a help.  One of the greatest things we witnessed in the aftermath of hurricanes was the outpouring of compassion from outside our community.

Joplin is only an hour away and we can touch their lives through the hands of others.  I have been in contact with two different groups who will be on the ground in Joplin.  The NW Arkansas food bank has recommended a ministry that we can work with that will be taking items to Joplin this week.  They have been making daily runs to Joplin to hand out items that have been donated by good people from our area.  They are delivering the items to the affected people and their neighborhoods rather than setting up a trailer and making them wait in line to get things they need.

ITEMS NEEDED right away:

Hygiene items: Toothpaste and Toothbrushes, Combs, Hairbrushes, Soap, Shampoo, Germ-X, etc.

Baby Items: Diapers, Diaper Wipes & Baby Formula

Towels & Washcloths (New or Used)

Please bring these to church by tomorrow evening.  Our ministry contact will come by and pick them up to deliver on Thursday.

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We will also be working with the Section 1 Assemblies of God to get items to Joplin next week.  Our section has been in contact with the Joplin section and we will be working closely with them and Convoy of Hope.  Joplin’s AG churches were hard hit. One church was completely destroyed and several others sustained major damage. 

Items that are needed by Wednesday June 1st:

bottled water
canned food
dry food
clothing
shoes
personal items(toiletry, etc.)

Please drop off at the church by Wednesday, June 1st.

There is also a place to donate to Convoy of Hope online: Click Here to Donate. Or you can give at the church and we will forward the money to Convoy of Hope or the Joplin Section of the Assemblies of God.  The church will be sending an offering to the church that sustained a total loss.

Thanks for your help and sacrificial giving.  God honors us when we have compassion on others.  Please continue to pray for all those affected by this horrific disaster.

This spring has been wet!  Storms have come and gone.  Some severe, some just rain.  I love thunderstorms.  From the clouds that they make, to the sound of heavy rain on the roof.  Call me crazy but I love the sound of hail crashing down on the roof or hearing it ping off of metal.

Many people do not have this same liking for storms.  Especially when it comes to spiritual storms.  The storms of life are often hard to bear.  They blow through our lives and sometimes we wonder what hit us.

The truth is, they make us better.  Storms in our lives are meant to leave us stronger.  The more storms we face the easier it is to weather them.  I remember as a child being terrified of thunder and lightning.  I would run to my parents side when the weather would get bad.  Now, however, its different.  In my lifetime I have been through 4 hurricanes and probably a dozen tropical storms and depressions.  Storms don’t seem to faze me as much.

The more we face the hardships of life, the more we lean on Christ and know that He will see us through.  The storms may hurt and the pains may sting, but through it all we endure by the grace of God.

I read this morning in Proverbs 20:30, “Blows that hurt cleanse away evil, As do stripes the inner depths of the heart.”

Storms and trials have a cleansing effect in our lives.  The floods many places are experiencing right now, find the debris moving down stream.  Sometimes God uses the storms to move the debris from our lives and make us more like Him.  Weather the Storm. God is a refuge and strength.  A very present help in time of need.

Charlie Peace was a criminal.  Laws of God or man curbed him not.  Finally the law caught up with him and condemned him to death.  On the fatal morning in Armley Jail, Leeds, England, he was taken on the death-walk.  Before him went the prison chaplain, reading some Bible verses.  The criminal touched the preacher and asked him what he was reading.  “The Consolations of Religion,” was the reply. 

Charlie Peace was shocked at the way he read so professionally about hell.  Could man be so unmoved under the very shadow of the scaffold as to lead a fellow-human there and yet, dry-eyed, read of a pit that has no bottom into which this fellow must fall? Could this preacher believer the words that there is an eternal fire that never consumes its victims, and yet slide over the phrase without a tremor? Is a man human at all that can say with no tears, “You will be eternally dying and yet never know the relief that death brings”?

All this was too much for Charlie Peace. So he preached.  Listen to his on-the-eve-of-hell sermon.

“Sir,” addressing the preacher, “if I believed what you and the church of God say you believe, even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it, if need be, on hands and knees and think it worthwhile living, just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that!”

Excerpted from Leonard Ravenhill’s Why Revival Tarries.