God Answers!

God is answering your prayers and mine.

It is only the third week of April, and God has already provided the 80% of support needed! Praise the Lord! He is loving and faithful and I am so thankful for the many prayer and financial supporters He has provided. This means that I will now be talking with GBIM about flight itineraries while praying and watching for God to raise the remainder of my support. I don't think it has sunk in yet that this important step has taken place. My God answers prayers!

I have been thinking a lot lately about another need God has answered...the need for a redeemer. In Genesis 3:15, immediately after Adam and Eve rebelled against God, God foreshadowed the coming of one who would crush the head of the serpent, that is Satan. Job referred to God as his redeemer in Job 19:25 when he said "As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives...." The Israelites, before being redeemed from their slavery, celebrated the Passover by sacrificing a lamb and putting the blood of the lamb over their doorposts. Indeed, sacrifice was central to the Old Testament order, graphically portraying the need for a single, perfect sacrifice to redeem the world from sin. Isaiah 53 outlines who the Redeemer and Deliverer would be (Jesus Christ!) and what He would do.

But God didn't stop at foreshadowing. He sent His Son, Jesus, to live as a human and to die and to rise again. Jesus Christ conquered sin and death. For the world. That's what Easter is all about!

So here's the new thought for me...Christ is all-sufficient. I know, you've probably heard this before, but consider this news as if it were for the first time. Imagine that you have lived your life in a country founded in Buddhism. You have lived in a place where the lies of Buddhism are not only the religion, they are the culture. One of these lies say that, for women, their only and ultimate purpose is to provide for their parents, no matter what job they have to take. Prostitution often becomes womens' only option, and their families do not mind so long as they receive money. The only way out for the enslaved women, and from all lies that enslave the Thai people as a whole, is truth, redemption, and purpose in Christ. You see, Christ is the ONE, all-sufficient sacrifice, at one point in time, who has redeemed me and can redeem anyone from any culture with any past. He is the reason for purpose, the One who gives value. Christ is the universal answer. He can redeem those in the jungle tribes of Ecuador, those in the big cities like New York or Chicago, the European intellectual, those living on less than $1 a day in Africa, the people of Thailand, you, and me. Jesus Christ is the only hope of the world. Each individual must learn about Christ. That's why I'm going to Thailand.

A final thought...imagine with me again...this time (Revelelation 5) we are in heaven in the throne room of God. The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders surround the throne of God and are singing Jesus Christ's worthiness. They announce that Jesus has purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. Ten thousand upon ten thousand angels also announce His worthiness. Every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea proclaim with all that is within them praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever to the Lamb. The living creatures say "Amen" and the elders fall down and worship. Wow.

So please pray that...
-the details of a flight will be worked out.
-the rest of the support I need will be provided.
-God will continue to prepare my heart and the hearts of those He will allow me to spend time with. Ask that He will use me to tell Thai people that Christ has made the complete sacrifice!
-I will be an encouragement to the three families I will be staying with: the Offuts, the Weimers, and the Nesbitts.

And praise God for sending a Redeemer!