New horizons!

Captains Eduard and Inna Lebedev

We believe in future and hope for the present countries in Eastern Europe – and for Bulgaria!
For five years, we have prayed and planned for the opening of The Salvation Army’s ministry in Bulgaria. Piece by piece important components have fallen into place. In June 2019, the legal registration of The Salvation Army in Bulgaria was approved, and we believe for a start of our mission in the autumn of 2020. Captains Inna and Eduard Lebedev have been appointed as leaders of the work and we pray that we soon will have the full team ready.

The present situation with ‘lock-down’ and restrictions presents a challenge with regard to a date for an official opening. However, the purpose for choosing to present the information is the need for prayer-support for this big step of faith.

Please pray for Captains Lebedev and their children and the other members of the team, and for God’s guidance for the next steps because 

‘Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain’
Psalm 127:1a.

Watch out for new updates on Bulgaria on our web-page in the weeks and months to come.

The time that is given us

This devotion was shared on Easter Europe Territory's homepage as an encouragement in the time that is given us. You can watch the live version on Youtube.

Dear officers, soldiers and friends!

I greet you in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. I thank God for you and for the ministry you do in his Kingdom even in times as these.

One and a half week ago, I wrote that: “Just ‘NOW’ we are all alike” and I illustrated the blog with a picture of two young Norwegian girls who didn’t know how to get home to Norway. The article had the headline “Just now it is very chaotic!”
Both headlines are correct, now, all of us are alike, and it seems very chaotic.

Tolkien was a devoted Catholic and he tried to express his faith in his own mythological universe, you may even have read his epic trilogy “The Lord of the Rings” or seen the famous movies. Frodo and Gandalf are two central figures in the story, and there is a very brief dialogue between the two that I will like to share with you:

 

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf,
“and so do all who live to see such times.
But that is not for them to decide.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

The time we experience just now, is given to us. We have to decide what we do with it.

The Norwegian girls described it is as chaotic. The word chaos come from Greek, and it describes the darkness and disorder that preceded the creation of the world. God created cosmos out of chaos, and the Bible says that 

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
Genesis 1:31b

As God entered chaos to create something good, he also sent Jesus to reveal even more of his love; and as God sent Jesus, Jesus is sending us (1). Because of the virus, we may not be able to care for each other in the same way as we normally do. 

The governments have given us direction for how to act. We will follow the directives, and care both for our own health and for the health of the people whom we serve. Before I started this short devotion, you heard Mahalia Jackson sing: “He’s got the whole world in His hands” and you saw some pictures from around our territory. There are many ways of showing care even when physical contact is limited.

We can do it through social media, with a phone-call, with food-parcels brought to the door, we have even corps making facemasks for vulnerable people because the pharmacies have run out of stock. We do this, and much more, because we are created in the image of the Creator, whose creativity was triggered by chaos. Therefore, we decide that we will be creative in the chaotic time that is given us, and that is a good thing that we can learn from, just now.

However, we also humble ourselves before God and say to him “Without you we can do nothing!”(2) Therefore, prayer is a priority and we go into God’s presence many times during the day to hear the Spirit say to us “Slow down, and know that I am the Lord”(3) 

Sissel Kyrkjebø from Norway will sing this song before Magna will close the devotion with prayer. 

Sissel: "Slow down!" on Youtube

Magna's prayer:

Heavenly Father, we come to you in this time of uncertainty and chaos.
You know us so well.
You know our desire to have control and to be able to plan for the future.
Help us Lord, to surrender to you who always have full control.
You have given your promises of future and hope for those who trust in you.
We trust in you our Lord and Saviour. Give strength and inspiration to find new ways of serving you in our communities through tough times. Come with your Holy Spirit and power to those who are fighting the disease and going the extra mile.
Come with your complete peace to those who are ill. Come with your comfort to those who have lost dear ones.
We need you Lord!
Protect our peoples. Heal our nations. Even if we cannot be physically close to each other, we know you are close to us, and we stand together in prayer to You who hold the whole world in your hands.
Only in You my heart can be still. Almighty, everlasting, loving Father!

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(1) John 20:21
(2) John 15:5b
(3) Psalms 46:10

The source of the new life

I do not think that the ‘I am’-statements Jesus made in John’s Gospel come in random order. The seventh and last statement is:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener!
John 15:1

I am not a gardener, but I know that a plant needs to be alive to bear fruit. Magna (my wife) is the one who takes care of our garden. However, I do quite a bit of lumberjacking and know that the roots are important for a tree or a vine. I also know what happens to a tree and the fruit when it is cut off from its roots.

The idea of being ‘rooted’ in Jesus is a central part of the Christian faith:

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
Colossians 2:6-7

The root is vital for the growth and strengthening of a tree, and for the fruit it will produce in due time. When Jesus taught about the true vine, he was of course focusing on the fruit-bearing. At the same time, he linked the effectiveness of this process to the condition of us ‘remaining in Him and His words remaining in us’ (1). This thought is also found in the Old Testament where a person who delights in the word of God is pictured in this way:

That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.
Psalm 1:3

So when I face challenges in my life, I go back to the roots. When I question my ministry in The Salvation Army, I go back to the roots. I find that everything points back to The Root - the ‘source of the new life’, which is the Word becoming flesh. This Root did also invite anyone who is thirsty to come and drink, so that “the rivers of living water will flow from within them” (2). These rivers flowing from people filled with The Holy Spirit, will also help others to bear fruit. The purpose of fruit is to generate more fruit – and it all comes from the Root – the source of all life.

‘Manna’ for today:

I want to be like a tree by the streams of living water.

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(1) John 15:7
(2) John 7:38b

I see that you are tired!

“I see that you are tired!”- is the first line of a song I love to play and listen to*. It is Jesus speaking to a person in great distress, and the next line is not really comforting: “but I cannot walk all the steps for you – you have to walk yourself”. 

If it had stopped there, it would have been very sad, however, the song continues: “But I will walk with you”.

The next verses of the song deal with pain and Jesus crying with the person and when he still wants to give up Jesus says that he cannot live his life, but live with him and even turn death to life for him.
The song gives a true picture of how I see God in Jesus – a God who is with us in our sufferings. Even Isaiah saw that many years before God revealed himself in Jesus, he wrote:

I live in a high and holy place,
but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of the contrite.
Isaiah 57:15

I have seen God doing miracles. I have seen people being healed, and I have also seen people who have not experienced healing even though they themselves and people around them have been praying for healing for years. However, among those living with pain and suffering I also find people who can testify that God is present and suffering with them.

Twenty-seven years ago a man arrived to a prayer-chapel just I was going to start the meeting. I noticed that he didn’t walk very well and he had brought a soft chair which he sat in. After the meeting I spoke with him. He told that he had suffered with Multiple Sclerosis and had been in a wheel-chair, but was convinced that God would heal him. “He has started the process”, he said, “and when I asked him where his angels were this evening, I saw one behind you!” – “It will happen, you see!”. His favourite verse was: 

“For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways”. 
Psalm 91:11 

I only met this man once.
In an interview with him several years later, I read his story. He was now living a normal life and running the family farm. He shared his testimony. As a young man, he wanted his own carrier, and was not realizing that in doing so, he also drifted away from God. When the sickness struck him, it brought him back to the foundation of his life. His life in Christ. Jesus was with him in the suffering. When he felt that he could not go out on the field and did not have strength to lift the stone, Jesus said he would walk with him, and stone by stone ‘together with Jesus’ he also regained health.

Very often it is in the hardship, and not in the miracles, we realize the value of God being with us. 

I have experienced remarkable healing in my own life and family. However, in a long depression I was not ready to admit the fact that I was depressed, because God’s presence was just as strong as in the good days. I am grateful for this ‘hard-time’ experience in the same way as I am grateful for experiencing God’s presence when I was injured in a suicide-bombing in Istanbul in 2016.

I know that God sees YOU when you are tired, when you weep, when you want to give up – I pray that you will see him as well, because he is there beside you!
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Published in the Russian War Cry #4 2019 p 8

* Link to Sissel Kyrkjebø's version
* Link to the song - with English text 

From lamb to shepherd

Is it possible to go from being a lamb to becoming a shepherd?

If we restrict ourselves to experiences solely from the physical world, I must admit it is too far a stretch for me. However, in the spiritual world this seems to be the desired progress, and one of the attributes of the life in Christ.

The Baptist pointed to Jesus and said:

“Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
John 1:29

So Jesus was both the Lamb of God and stated:

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
John 10:11

If we are in the world as He is in this world (1), then we also should develop from lamb to sheep to shepherd – without losing the fact that we are God’s children all the way along.

As the lamb of God, Jesus was the perfect sacrifice. His atonement was perfect.

At the same time the idea of being ‘sacrifice’ is a central thought in the Bible. Paul touches this concept many times:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Romans 12:1

Earlier in the same letter Paul quotes Psalm 44:22 when he writes:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
Romans 8:36

This must be read in the context of the fact that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ. We are more than conquerors.
However, there is a sacrifice involved in going from being a lamb receiving care all the time to becoming the shepherd giving that care in and through Christ. But it is the way to go – we believe in the priesthood of all believers, and the growth of God’s Kingdom depends on this growth taking place in the individual believer.

The ‘manna’ for today, also comes from Paul:

Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. (1)

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(1) 1 John 4:17b
(2) Acts 20:28b

* © Nathan Greene – check his great collections!

The light of life

NORSK
The second of Jesus’ “I am” statement, is “I am the Light of the world!” (1). Even though there is no problem associating the other attributes of Jesus with his followers, the attribute of being “Light of the world” Jesus explicitly also assign to his followers.

In his sermon on the mount, he said:

“You are the light of the world …. let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
Matthew 5:14-16

These are well known verses, and it is interesting that Jesus connects the shining light with good deeds that will glorify God. This connection is also interesting in a holiness-perspective, and was one of the reasons why John Wesley made the statement: “No holiness, but social holiness” which I referred to in the blog: “Engaged for others” six months back.

In the narrative when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, we read that:

“he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.”
Exodus 34:29b

David testified:

Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.
Psalm 34:5

After having prophesied the promise that God’s Spirit will not depart from you from this time on and forever, Isaiah continues with this exhortation:

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.”
Isaiah 60:1

This glory will lead to action, to good deeds. It is the light that drives the deeds, never the good deeds that drives the light. It is always first into him, who is the source of the attributes, and then out in the world to bring glory to the Father.

‘Manna’ for today:

Bring his light of life (1) into the world: Arise and shine!

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(1) “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 8:12