Theophilus Ministries

Blessed be the LORD God of Israel From everlasting to everlasting! Amen and Amen. (Psa 41:13)

Moses said “I have been a stranger in a strange land.”   As christians, we too are strangers in a foreign land.  This world is no longer our home and, in fact, has become a harsh and unwelcome environment for us to pass through on our way to our heavenly abodes. 

But this is only the introduction to the long book of our existence with God.  We have not even started to live as this life is but a shadow of the life that is to come in eternity with our heavenly Father.  Our God is blessed from everlasting to everlasting and all those in Christ will enjoy the fruit of His grace and mercy at His side through the endless pages of time. 

Lift up your voices today and sign the praises of the King!  He is mighty. He is Holy.  He is Love.  Amen and Amen!

Devotional Ramblings God, grace, Psalms, spiritual warfare, suffering, trials

“Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me.” (Psa 40:7)

We must never forget who the Bible is written about.  It is more than a book, it is the very “power of God to salvation for everyone who believes“.  It is “living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” and the “sword of the Spirit“.  It is a love story and tells of God’s great love for His creation and His willingness to go to any length to restore a right relationship with us. 

But more than all of this the Bible declares something of far greater importance.  It declares the unbounded majesty and greatness of the one who came to save us Jesus Christ the Son of God.

“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isa 9:6)

Devotional Ramblings Bible, christianity, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, Psalms

“Hear my prayer, O LORD, And give ear to my cry; Do not be silent at my tears; For I am a stranger with You, A sojourner, as all my fathers were. Remove Your gaze from me, that I may regain strength, Before I go away and am no more.”  (Psa 39:12-13)

How diffent the relationship between God and man was before Jesus came.  The chasm between God and the beings He created that was created by sin made man a stranger.  Sacrifices and atonement were done through intermediaries and man had no direct spiritual connection with the God of the universe. A sense of futility is often heard in the cries of the old testament believers as they cried out to a God who seemed, at times, very distant and inaccessable.

But this is not the case with us.  Jesus said “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” (Joh 15:15) We are a blessed people as the body of Christ, having been reconciled to God through the blood of our Lord.  The chasm is gone and sin has been vanquished.  There are no intermediaries between God and us and we have the confidence as it says to “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Heb 4:16)

Are you struggling today?  Do you need Gods help?  David had the faith to cry out to a God that he had not even been reconciled to; how much more faith should we have in our petitions knowing that Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father interceding for our every need.

Lord, give us the strenth to seek you, to cry out to you and to put our complete faith in Your ability to save us to the uttermost, today and forever. Amen.

Devotional Ramblings Christian Business, christian living, christianity, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, prayer, Psalms

Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation! (Psa 38:22)

There are times when the struggles in this life become overwhelmingly burdensome.  When the people around us, the situations we encounter and the body we live in all seem to be conspiring to drain every last trace of goodness out of our bones. Strangely enough is in these times of desperation and trouble the last thing we feel the energy to do is to cry out to the Lord.  We often feel like God is far off from us and aloof to our plight.  But He is not.

Cry out to the Lord, and ask Him to save you from your present troubles.  Jesus died so that we might be reconciled to God the Father so cry out to Him with all of your heart and He will hear you.  If you have a personal relationship with Jesus and have been “born again” as it speaks about in the Gospel of John Chapter 3 than you have the confidence to know that God will keep the promise that He made in Romans 8:28:

“we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Rom 8:28)

If you are not “born again”, having actively received the salvation that God has freely given us, than you do not have the hope that these promises from God are for you.  However, this is easy to fix.  If you desire to have peace with God and peace in your heart the scriptures say that all you must do is believe in what the Bible declares about Jesus the Christ.

Step 1:  Understand the problem - you are a sinner like everyone else:

“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23)

Step 2:  Understand the implication of that problem:

“For the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23a)

Step 3: Understand the hope that you can have in Christ Jesus:

“but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 6:23b)

Step 4: Understand the love that God has for you:

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8)

Step 5:  Understand the solution to the problem:

“WHOEVER CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD SHALL BE SAVED.” (Rom 10:13)

Step 6: Understand the result of trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ:

“if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom 10:9)

The Bible declares that today is the day of salvation so choose today whom you will serve:  He who is able to save you to the uttermost; or he who desires your destruction.

Devotional Ramblings Bible, christian living, christianity, God, holiness, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, obedience, practical living, Psalms, repentance, salvation

The next day began with our normal routine, a little prayer, a little of the Word and then breakfast before the seminar.  The convention center was very quiet as sundays are generally slow for them.  To our surprise everyone was present when we arrived and they were ready to get started.  I After some annointed worship by Brook and a short devotional we dove right in to breaking the Gospel of Jude down and scrutinizing it line by line.  Wayne gave some practical reminders on the precepts we had already learned over the previous two days and then cut the students loose on actual work of the study.  We all worked diligently for a full 4 hours guiding and correcting the students as they tried for the first time to study a piece of scripture in depth with no other study aides.

I was amazed that even the students that had very little education (1st or 2nd grade) were still getting the hang of the method - it is not an easy method for anyone to get ahold of because it really challenges your ability to meditate on what is being passed to us.  I know that the fruits are there because i have seen them in my life - The Lord always meets us when we are given over to learning about Him. 

After about 4 hours Wayne had everyone stop so that we could quickly go over the text together.  The room was quiet and intense the whole time as they saw the things that they had pulled out of the text and all of the information that they missed.  The big eye-opener for them was during this study as they were finally seeing the depth of information that lie in this book that we call God’s Word.  There was no way to finish this study and many of the students only got through verse 4 or 5 in the four hours we gave them, so we sent them home with the assignment to finish off the rest of this epistle as a personal study.  I spoke with the people about how this simple seminar could do one of two things: It could have a revolutionizing effect on their walk if they gave themselves over to this depth of study; OR it could have been a waste of time because the precepts we taught never get applied.

I closed the event with another devotional from Mark 8 where after feeding 5,000 and 4,000 people the disciples the basic principles about what is important in our walk with the Lord.  This is a pertinent question for all of us - how many Bible studies do we all sit in in a week without applying these precepts to our lives?  Its about more than sitting in church and hearing great teaching; its about experiencing the very Word of God personally and intimately, and then responding to that Word in obedience regardless of how hard that is.

Then He charged them, saying, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have no bread.” But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, “Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?” They said to Him, “Twelve.” “Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?” And they said, “Seven.” So He said to them, “How is it you do not understand?” (Mar 8:15-21)

We gave out 16 certificates to the people who had worked diligently to finish all of the work and really sought to learn from the seminar.  There were about 7 people that did not receive certificates of completion; most were either children or couldn’t read.  After we wrapped up we took some pictures and waved goodbye as all headed in different directions to their homes.  Anselmo Adano, a good friend of mine, stayed back to travel back to Panama city with me the next day – this ended up being a divine appointment.    Anslemo was genuinly touched by what the Lord had done in the seminar and his heart was now broken and desiring to not let this opportunity to change the heart of his church slip by.  Anselmo is a leader in the chruch that more or less prayed Theophilus Ministries into existence.  Knowing their need for biblical instruction and pastoral training the church had been praying hard for the Lord to send a missionary to come to Panama and take on this task.  This happened when the Lord called us to do this very thing.  Anselmo and many others had been concerned that despite all of this the church was now taking this answer to prayer for granted and not responding to the doors that had been opened.  We spoke through dinner and into the night about the potential that simply studying the Bible in depth could have on the body.  We both agreed that this was a good work and that it is from the Lord and so we need to be diligent in continueing in it.  It is no mystery to me why our last study was in Jude as the purpose of the letter is to warn the believers about ungodly men that have snuck into the church to divide and destroy.  This is the warfare of the enemy that is actively going on to make our work and others like it fail.  But our God is the Lord of Hosts, which translated means that He is the God of the Armies!  And as always He has outflanked the enemy and made him look like the fool he is.  Little did Anselmo or anyone else know that Bertin, the pastor in La Chorrera near Panama, and I had already spoken before the seminar and he said that he had a desire to help with these churches and would be willing to begin bringing them the Bible college curriculum so that they could have more consistent attention and discipling. After a time of emotional prayer, Anselmo and agreed to work together to plan the next event in detail to make sure that everyone was engaged in the process and that the work continued – then we slept.

We got up early the next day and after breakfast we bid farewell to the Wayne, Brook and Miguel.  Anselmo and I took the bus from Santiago to La Chorrera where we met up with Bert from CC Panama.  The 4.5 hour bus ride provided me with time to finsh some work I had started on the weekend .  We had lunch with Bert and one of the brothers from the church Tony in Veracruz near the old Howard AFB.  We coordinated some next steps to integrate Bert into the work with the Churches we have been helping  before leaving.  We then continued to the airport, said our goodbyes and parted ways.  After a long wait (more work catch up – internet is perfect in Panama) I boarded my plane at 7pm and closed out this chapter in the work that awe are doing. 

Thank you for all your prayers, thank you for all of your support and I thank God for all that He accomplished on this trip.

Panama Missions, Spanish