Understanding Biblical truth is a matter of life and death. The Psalmist was acutely aware of this fact when he pleaded with God, ‘give me understanding that I may live’ (Psalm 119:144). The implication being that if he does not comprehend – if he does not ‘get it’ – then he is destined for destruction. People without understanding, after all, are ruined (Hosea 4:14).
The term ‘understanding’ is defined in the book of Proverbs. In fact, the word ‘understanding’ appears no less than forty-two times in that great book of wisdom. Proverbs 9:10 states that ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding’. There it is! The cultivation of our skills in ‘understanding’ is equated with the knowledge of God. Author A.W. Tozer rightly observes, ‘it is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or inadequate’. In other words, if we don’t know God and do not know about God, we will never understand how it is that we are to live. It is, in fact, a recipe for disaster. A similar term to understanding is the word ‘discernment’. If there’s one thing that people lack in today’s world, it’s discernment. This word can be found in Philippians 1:9-10:
And this I pray, that your love would abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may be able to approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ.
The Greek word there in verse 9 for discernment is ‘aisthesis’, which means a high level of Biblical, theological, moral and spiritual perception (definition from John MacArthur’s commentary on the book of Philippians). It implies also a right application of knowledge. And this is necessary because then the Christian is able to live a life of obedience and spiritual devotion because they have been trained to distinguish not only between good and bad, but even between good, better and best. This is because they have been taught to critically analyze and carefully think through and identify what is crucial and what isn’t. They know what things are categorized as excellent and what things are not.
Without maturing in discernment, insight and understanding, I will succumb to every personal impulse and emotion. I will be tossed to and fro by the culture, and consequently live a life of instability and insecurity because of bad decisions, unfruitful relationships and meaningless endeavors. Maturing in insight and understanding requires hard work in the scriptures. There are no shortcuts to knowing God. It is a demanding proposition. If I want to understand, I must know God. If I want to know God, I must strive and pursue after Him by studying His Word with all my might… and I must pray for His Holy Spirit to teach me. But it takes time and effort.
And then even after I may have put in much effort, sometimes I feel as though I am still lacking in understanding. So I asked myself what things hinder me from understanding? What makes it so difficult to understand certain things at times? The Bible has the answer to such questions. In that same passage from Hosea, the prophet tells me in 4:11 that ‘harlotry, wine, and new wine take away the understanding’. This vivid picture couldn’t be any plainer. Adultery and drunkenness not only dulls the senses and callouses the heart, but they are sins that destroy marriages and other relationships. What Hosea is trying to tell me is that if I have gone after other things besides God, then I have committed spiritual harlotry, and with that I become so dull and calloused that I could never understand anything that God is trying to teach me. Falling in love with other alluring gods (like status, the praise of men, money, etc) is such an affront to God that my relationship with Him is fractured to the point where He will not impart the understanding that I claim to have so desperately been seeking. A complete forsaking of all other loves must take place in my life. I must rid myself of all interests that are cause for my stumbling if I would gain this great gift of understanding.
Romania Trip Recap
About
This post is a journal of the mission work that my son Jack and I participated in, along with five other people from Harvest Bible Chapel Pittsburgh North. This trip took place during the last week of August, 2015 in Arad, Romania.
Where is Arad, Romania?
When the discussions about missions in Romania began at our church, I knew little about the country. I knew it was in Eastern Europe but probably could not correctly identify it on a map. Romania is to the east of Hungary, south of Ukraine, west of Moldova and the Black Sea. To the south are the countries of Bulgaria and Serbia. The historic city of Arad is in the Western part of the country, about a half-hours drive from the Hungarian border.
Our Mission
When God calls someone to a task, He gives them the means to do it.
Our church is part of Harvest Bible Fellowship, which plants churches all over the world. Harvest Metanoia in Arad, Romania is also part of this fellowship. In order to expand the influence of the gospel in Eastern Europe, Harvest Metanoia is building a training center outside the city, which will be a ‘home base’ for pastors who will be trained to plant new churches all over Eastern Europe.
We started our week worshiping the Lord on Sunday with Romanian Christians who take their faith seriously. It was a most beautiful service as we sang songs that were familiar to us, but were being sung in a language that we did not know. It gave me a preview of how every tribe and tongue will sing around the throne in heaven. It was an amazing sound that brought tears to my eyes.
Our job on this missions trip was to assist in the building of office space and storage areas within the structure, specifically drywall and insulation. The expectations for our team of volunteers was to put up two layers of drywall on three to four rooms. By the end of the week, we were able to exceed the expectations by putting up two layers of drywall on six rooms (with insulation), framing another area for an additional three rooms of storage and partially dry walling those framed areas and part of a hallway.
On the initial tour of the construction site, the director of the project pointed out the new neighborhood across the street where many new houses were built in the last year. He said that the new neighborhood asked the church if they would make enough room in the building to conduct kindergarten classes for their children.
This was especially exciting for me as I envision the church growing in the years to come, simply because they reached out to their neighbors to help educate their children. My mind raced ahead five, ten, twenty years from now and I saw those kindergarten children coming to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. I saw parents attending church and hearing the message of forgiveness. And across the other side of the construction site I looked down into the empty concrete box that would soon be the baptismal pool where many of these new believers would declare their allegiance to Christ, going down into and coming up out of the water: a symbol of new life!
We spent a busy five days putting two layers of drywall in what would soon be the training center offices and storage areas. Our team worked well together. Some of us had construction experience and some of us did not, but after screwing a few sheets into the metal framing, we fell into a groove. We were able to cover the walls in 6 rooms with double layers and also single layers on an additional 3 storage rooms and a partial hallway.
In the grand scheme of the project, spending a week drywalling in a few rooms is not a huge deal on the surface. But as the week wore on, I started to see that more than just a building was being built. New relationships were being built. Our new Romanian friends were greatly encouraged by our church standing with them in this project. The missions team however, received much more encouragement than we were able to give. Someone on the trip adequately summed up this thought by saying, “when you do missions, you take home much more than you brought”.
when you do missions, you take home much more than you brought
Beautiful People. Beautiful Country.
In the evenings we spent some time with our hosts and the members of the church in Arad on various tours of the vibrant city and beautiful countryside. Romania is a country with many stories to tell. It is said that the Apostle Andrew and his followers from Jerusalem settled there. We saw Corvin’s Castle in Transylvania, where Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) was held prisoner, which dates back to 1446.
We visited the Densus Church which dates back to the 7th century. The paintings on the walls of early church figures had their eyes gouged out by enemies of Christianity.
We toured Timisoara where the 1989 Romanian revolution against communism was born. You can still see bullet holes in the facades of many of the buildings there. Several of the nights we spent in downtown Arad where an annual street festival was being held. As great as the sightseeing was for us after a hard days work, what I enjoyed most was riding in our minibus, listening to Romanian Christian music and getting to know our hosts. They rolled out the red carpet for us and treated us like royalty.
Our team and our sending church was also profoundly changed. We grew in our respective faiths as we faced challenging questions like: How are we going to get the funding to go? How are we going to do construction jobs with no experience? How are we going to maintain the stamina that we need for such physically exhausting work? How are we going to overcome the language barrier?
We saw God do amazing things: He provided exactly enough funding for each of the participants through generous people who saw this as a worthy missions project. He provided us with expert builders who trained us quickly on what to do all week long. And he provided the energy and strength necessary to do the job with excellence and enthusiasm. The driver who took us back to Budapest for our flight home said it very well, as I mentioned to him about getting home very late after dropping us off: he said, ‘God called me to this task. When God calls someone to a task, He gives them the means to do it’. He is right. That statement speaks about God’s involvement in the whole trip from its conception. He called seven of us to a task, and despite our insecurity and fears, He gave us the means to do it.
Our Mission is not Over
Even though we’re home now, the mission is not over. There will be a “Phase Two” in the summer of 2016 as Harvest Metanoia is planning to move their church services to the new facility. Our church will be in prayer and in discussions on how we want to proceed to help them in this effort.
Check out this 9 minute video which summarizes our fantastic week in Romania:
Let's Go To Jail Together!
Why Prison Ministry?
My Friday nights are usually not glamorous by the world's standards. Many of my weekends begin by finishing up at work, going home for dinner, and then heading to the Butler County Prison to share the gospel with the inmates. Why would someone who has a million things to do spend time at the jail, especially on a Friday night?
There are really only two reasons:
1) People need Jesus.
Convincing a prisoner that he is a sinner is usually not a hard sell. Most of them know that they have done wrong. They have broken the law. They admit that they've committed some horrible crimes. They've wasted their lives in various sinful addictions. In some cases, they've ruined the lives of other people. They've experienced great hurt and brokenness in relationships. Their lives have been shattered by the effects of their own sin. Many of the men aren't even sure if anyone loves them or cares about them anymore.
There are obviously occasions when some inmates come to the Bible study for the wrong reasons. But often times there are guys there who understand that they are broken and they want to be fixed. They are lonely. They are confused. They want answers and they aren't sure where to turn. They've heard advice from so many different groups - 'This Anonymous' and 'That Anonymous'. Ten steps to 'this' and twelve steps to 'that'. While some of these groups may provide some help to the prisoners, what they really are missing is the life-changing power that is only found in Jesus Christ Himself.
In their own words, what the prisoners really want is to be delivered from the things that cause them such anguish in their lives. Jesus Christ is that Deliverer that sinners so desperately long for. God has called upon those of us who know the truth to share it with the people who do not.
2) I need Jesus.
Doing prison ministry forces me to study God's Word. Putting lessons together for the prison bible study takes discipline. When I know that someone else is depending on me to explain something to them from the Bible, it creates a situation that requires diligence in my own personal Bible study.
Establishing a relationship with Jesus that has vitality and life takes time and effort spent in His Word and in prayer on a regular basis. That's what the prison ministry does for me personally: I need Jesus every bit as much as a criminal behind bars; and spending time building relationships with the inmates is futile if I am not drawing from the endless well of grace and mercy myself. Over the years, this single greatest cause of my growth as a Christian can be attributed to my involvement in prison ministry.
Prison ministry has many disappointments. Sometimes you just never know if you're getting through. Many times an inmate will leave the jail and you don't know whether he's going to make it out there or not. But there is also great reward. When you see the light bulbs going on... when people get it... when you know that they understand what you are saying from God's Word... they are getting Jesus. And so am I.
For more information about prison ministry and how you can be involved, email the church at admin@harvestpittburghnorth.org
The Easiest, and Most Effective, Way to Evangelize!
Several months ago I attended the funeral of an old family friend. Johnny lived to be 95 years old and had been friends with my parents and grandparents. He loved the Lord and was active in service at his church for many years. When I talked to his son at the funeral, I learned something about Johnny that I never knew. He and his wife were neighbors of my grandparents many, many years ago. One day my grandfather invited them to go to church with him and they gladly accepted. While attending church with my grandparents, Johnny and his wife Gladys were saved! They spent decades of selfless service in the local church, impacting untold numbers of people. Their lives, and the lives of many others, were changed forever because my grandfather just simply extended an invitation to come to church.
What about us? Are we telling people about our church? Have we made others aware of our church or is it one of our best untold secrets? Our neglect of others around us is costly and devastating, not only to them, but to us as well! Imagine how many Johnnys and Gladys's we've ignored!
We ALL can do this! Some of us may not feel entirely equipped to adequately answer complicated Bible theology questions, but we certainly can extend invitations to people to come to church to find answers.
What kind of people must we be if we do not ask others to join in on something that is so vitally important in our own lives? What kind of Christians must we be if we're keeping the church to ourselves? The Bible tells us that we are to love others as we love ourselves. I imagine there's much effort and planning that happens in each of our respective families as we prepare ourselves to get to church and small group each week. Shouldn't some of that effort and planning be directed towards other people?
How do we do that? Here are a few simple thoughts:
- Have regular conversation about your church with family, neighbors, friends and work associates. Talk about what you're learning, what you're involved in and how it's impacting your life. If we really love something, doesn't it just automatically come up in the course of conversation? If something has a regular profound effect in your life, isn't it something you're going to tell everyone? Speak highly of your church. Airing your frustrations or disappointments does great damage in stirring the interest of others.
Just talking about church may perk someone's ears up and they may come out of curiosity, but some other people need to be asked directly. They need to feel like they are important enough to you and that you cared enough to ask. Just plainly tell them that you'd like them to come to church with you. Offer to sit with them, meet them in the parking lot or offer to pick them up if necessary.
Be prepared with the church website information, meeting place and time, phone numbers, etc. The refrigerator magnets available on the information table in the lobby are a fantastic tool for this. Carry them with you and give them to people as you extend your invitation.
Don't forget to pray that God would lead unchurched people to you and that you could seize every opportunity to speak openly about your church.
If our church is going to grow in its capacity to minister to people and make disciples, then we each need to do our part in making sure that everyone we come in contact with knows that they are welcomed to come and worship with us at Harvest!
Many blessings to you,
Mark