MINISTRY UPDATE 2ND QUARTER APRIL-JUNE, 2000

Greetings and Blessings to you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!  We trust that all is well with you since our last newsletter.  Here it is, that time again for giving you our quarterly ministry newsletter for Precious Testimonies.  We hope and pray that it encourages and blesses you. 

We want to first thank each and every one of you personally for your faithful prayers, sharing of your testimony, and financial support for those of you who have felt led and have been able to give to the Lord through this Outreach.  Without God using YOU and your willingness to be obedient to Him, we would not be where we are today in reaching the hurting and the lost.  To God be all the glory. Thank you and God bless you!

All of us at here Precious Testimonies would like to thank all of the Public Access Stations and our sponsors for each viewing area that we are privileged to air our broadcast in.  Thank you for your willingness to help us in this endeavor of reaching the lost for Christ through video. For specific times and dates as to when these videos will air, please visit the TV Viewing Schedule section at the Precious Testimonies website at http://www.precious-testimonies.com/General/p-t/tvviewingschedule.htm.  

Have you ever felt like giving up on God because you feel like He has let you down?  Perhaps you are going through some difficult things right now, and it’s all you can do to even want to think about God.  If you are in the “valley of pain” . . . it is our prayer that this Newsletter will offer you much comfort.

“Heavenly Father, we ask in the name of Jesus, that you give us the ability to minister accurately to every person reading this.  We ask that you prepare each person’s heart to receive something special . . . just from YOU.”

From the very start . . . you need to realize something, if you are going through a trial right now.  God does not cause most all of our suffering.  It is caused by the evil one, whose name is Satan.  Satan has been granted the power to sift each of us like wheat, if our heavenly Father permits Him to.    “WHY?” we ask, has he been granted permission?

The answer can be boiled down to this one fact:  Because we live in Satan’s kingdom.  If you are a born again Christian, God’s Kingdom right now is in two places: 1) In Heaven and 2) Inside of you. 

When Jesus Christ returns again to earth for all eyes to see, He will establish His Kingdom rule upon this planet, replacing Satan’s dominion on this planet.   However, until that happens, you and I have a full-blown fight on our hands.  We are in hand-to-hand combat with demonic spiritual forces opposing us 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  To Satan, we are spies in his camp.  We are enemies to be imprisoned, painfully tortured, and killed if permitted.  We must suffer every waking moment of our lives, because we have chosen to oppose the actions of his repressive rule.

Yet in the darkest moments of our trials and sufferings, we oftentimes forget this elementary fact: Our Heavenly Father is NOT the source of our suffering: Satan is.

Perhaps Satan’s greatest delight is to subtly trick us into thinking that God is the one causing us to be in pain, instead of where it REALLY is coming from.  Because we do not have the ability to always “see” in the spiritual realm where it is coming from, it makes the devil’s job that much easier into making us think that it must be coming from God. 

In God’s “love letters” to His people, known as His Word, the Holy Bible, He has warned us that we have an enemy whose one goal is to sift each of us like wheat until there’s nothing left to sift.  Before Jesus Christ came on the scene, God the Father gave to the Jewish nation the Book of Job in the Old Testament.  That writing was provided to them to help them realize that because Job lived in Satan’s kingdom, Satan had every right to demand permission from the heavenly Father to sift Job like wheat, (which included his family and those who worked for Job).  

When Jesus came on the scene, God’s “love letters to humanity” tell us in Luke 22:31 that Satan is STILL in the sifting business:  “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat;”

Has it occurred to you that Satan may have demanded permission from God to sift YOU like wheat?   Has it occurred to you that Satan may have demanded permission a number of times to sift you like wheat, and KEEP sifting you, as he did Job?  At one time or another, Satan will DEMAND from God the permission to “sift” every truly born again Christian.  None of us is exempt.  Trials, temptations, and testings are evidences of his siftings.  In one word: pain.  You may be experiencing it right now. 

It is important to focus on one key word God has given us regarding the pain Satan inflicts on us:  DEMAND.  Notice Satan didn’t politely “ask” to sift Peter like wheat.  In rage, he demanded permission to sift Peter.  What gave him the right to demand Peter get sifted?  What gives him the right that he be granted permission from God to sift YOU?

The primary reason is always the same: Because we live in Satan’s kingdom.  He’s temporarily “lord” of this planet, because he won the legal right to be in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve willfully disobeyed God.  In their disobedience, they legally handed over their right to rule earth to Satan, without their realizing it. 

Guess what, though?  When you and I became soldiers of the King; when you and I defected from Satan’s rule over our lives, and we became born again creations of the Most High, reconciled back to God our heavenly Creator in good standing . . . through the blood of Jesus Christ . . . we were granted some LEGAL rights as well!  We were granted the LEGAL AUTHORITY and POWER to start to do some “demanding” of our own!  What kind of “demanding” was THAT?  To be granted the opportunity to snatch others out of Satan’s control, and to fight back when we’re personally being attacked.   

“Well who cares about THAT?!”  you might say.  “I’m hurting.  I’m in no shape to help others, let alone myself.  Besides, the battle is not mine.  It’s the Lord’s.”  But no matter how much you and I are hurting, it does not change this fact.  As long as we are alive, we are in a battle for our emotions, actions, and souls.  We have a real enemy who opposes us, and an enemy who hates everything we stand for, as long as we continue to put our trust in Jesus Christ to be our Savior and Lord. 

Christian marriages are unraveling.  Satan is sifting.  Temptations come, and we give in.  Satan is sifting.  We blow up in anger and rage.  We give opportunity to Satan to sift us.  We’re too discouraged to pray.  The door opens wider to be sifted.  We feel like God has let us down.  We’re being sifted.  We’ve felt we’ve trusted, yet God seemingly didn’t honor it.  We’re being sifted.  We believed God gave us His direction, yet now doubt enters.  We’re being sifted with Satan’s nuclear weapon of doubt.  We’ve been mistreated and falsely accused at church or at work.  Satan is sifting.    We fear.  Satan’s incoming mortars of fear are landing all around us, sifting everything unprotected.   Many of you reading this have been battling so long you forgot you were even in a battle. 

Have you ever met anyone yet who enjoyed fighting in war day in and day out?  Eventually, even mercenaries' get tired fighting. It’s natural not to want to participate in war.  War is hell.  Satan agrees fully.  That’s WHY he specializes in it. Satan is saying to you, “You hurt ME by choosing Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior and rejecting me, and if that wasn’t bad enough . . . NOW you’re trying to persuade OTHERS to do the same thing!  I’m going to make your life a living hell for that!” he screams.

Is he?  Is he making your life a living hell at this moment of time?  Precious one, if he is, (and if you’re in deep pain, you can assume he IS) . . . please take some comfort in this one fact: God is hurting along with you.  Not one earthly commander commands without suffering pain along with his or her soldiers in battle.  Yes – perhaps they are not shot or maimed, and the pain is not as intense as yours, but they are not reveling in joy while you are suffering.  No commander can look upon even ONE of his or her soldiers and feel good when that soldier is suffering. 

God looked down on this planet since the moment Adam and Eve sinned, and He started suffering.  His Spirit was grieved inside Him, because two of His pure creations would now be severed from the fullness of joy that they once had.  Every time Satan demands to sift you and I, God’s Spirit grieves.  His heart aches as He looks down at the evil that is inflicted upon innocent victims of Satan’s siftings. 

But every time we think these thoughts, “Lord – I don’t care how bad Satan sifts me, I will NOT turn my back on you” . . . we give Him a joy that cannot be obtained from any other source.  The GREATEST joy He experiences is to have one of his suffering sheep whisper those words to Him in their thoughts . . . in the middle of their darkest hour.  “You are my Lord and Master.  Though Satan slays me, I will not regret ever asking you to be my Savior and Lord.”

TWISTED THINKING

There is some very twisted “disinformation” being propagated around the world by the devil getting people to believe that whatever happens, “It was meant to be.”  It might be meant to be by Satan, but NOT God!  God does NOT mean it to be . . . having babies aborted in the millions every year.  It is NOT meant to be by God . . . that our youth are killing each other over drugs and turf wars.   The cold-blooded killing that goes on around the world daily is NOT “meant to be” by our heavenly Creator.  Please let’s get that straight.  Satan is behind it, and in many cases never asks God's PERMISSION to do it either.  He gets away with it because it’s His kingdom down here to do as he pleases.  He has the legal right to do so, until he’s dethroned. 

But isn’t God sovereign?  Isn’t God the one in control down here?  To say He isn’t would be a lie.  If Satan had complete and total say about what goes on down here, Israel would have been a pile of dust a long time ago.  Likewise, so would America.  Satan hates both nations, and would sift them both with nuclear warheads if he had his say.  Yet God has not permitted Him to do so as of this writing.  Had Satan had his say, Hitler would have taken over the entire world, but God did not allow him to do so.  If Satan had his say, every Christian who confesses Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord would be dead RIGHT NOW!  Not tomorrow.  Yes - God is in control . . . but for reasons we have not been permitted to comprehend on this side of life, Satan is allowed to execute his will more fully that what we sometimes care to realize. 

Make “sense” out of this if you can: As soon as Jesus had been baptized and the Holy Spirit descended on Him, the Holy Spirit rewarded him with some “suffering.”  Scripture records for us in Matthew 4 that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the desert to be “sifted” by the devil over a 40 day-plus time period.  It was a showdown of sorts on main street at high noon.  Jesus won, Satan lost.  But WHY did God purposely bring the confrontation about in the first place?  Yes – many insights can be gleaned for saints today reading about this confrontation . . . but does it REALLY make sense to us that Jesus had to suffer over that extended time period so long and so unjustly?  Couldn’t the Holy Spirit allowed Jesus not to eat for a DAY rather than FORTY? 

Dear reader . . . we must remember one thing in all this to make ANY sense out of this battle of good and evil that we are a part of.  We only see HALF the picture.    Until we get on the other side of life, we are not going to make total sense of things.  As a child, I see a world that hinders me from doing what I want to do.  Parents and authorities restrict me.  As a grown adult, I see the world much differently.  It is IMPOSSIBLE for me as a child to see the world the way a grandparent sees the world.  I first must pay my dues to grow up before I become a grandparent and see what they see and understand.

Likewise, I must pass over to the other side to see what they see and know, for the war of good and evil to make sense. 

Precious one . . . if you’re going through intense pain right now, try to take comfort in the fact that God has the power to turn all the evil you are the victim of into YOUR ultimate good.  Perhaps not in this life, but in the next.  As Jesus was sifted in the desert, sifted in the Garden of Gethsemane, and sifted on the cross . . . he will always remember through all eternity how insatiably evil Satan is, and always will be.  Don’t try to convince Jesus otherwise.  Perhaps – just perhaps – that is something God the Father wants some of us to realize as well . . . for all eternity.  Perhaps Satan is sifting some of us more than others because God knows how much we need to be reminded throughout eternity just how evil and cruel Satan really is.

Remember – in heavenly realms, Satan somehow convinced a third of the angels to follow his command and rebel against God.  If that much freedom was allowed in heaven to rebel . . . can we merely ASSUME that same freedom will not be there in the future?  Truly, we DO see through a glass very darkly.  We don’t have the clear and total picture.

Much of the secrecy that is kept from us mere mortals is no coincidence.  It’s meant to test, refine, and purge us; making us into purer gold.  What will we do when Satan is sifting us?  Will we give up?  Quit on God?  Grow distant from Him?  Confess we believe in Him, but reject Him in our thoughts and actions as if we somehow come to believe He has rejected us? On the other hand, will we get mad at the devil as Jesus did and fight and resist him?  Until we’re being sifted . . . none of us REALLY know what we will do.  Yet God does.  Moreover, He loves us enough to show us our true nature, if He so deems that we need to see it.  In addition, it’s His to do as He pleases to make us the giant oak tree that He wants.  Giant oak trees stand up under the fiercest of storms.

God the Father wants each of us to resist and fight the devil as Jesus did - until our last breath – our last drop of blood.  How can we BEST do that?  Employ daily and hourly the weapons of our warfare God has given us to battle with, found in Ephesians 6:12-18 . . . and NOT be tricked into believing that God is the one bringing about the suffering.  If God were that much into bringing about suffering, WHY would I want to go to heaven and receive MORE of it? 

God wants us to realize that suffering comes from Satan, period.  Why it is allowed to happen, you may or may not get an answer to in this life.  What you CAN know is this: Jesus wants you to fight.  Not fight God, but the devil.  Until your last breath.

Satan wants you resisting God, not him.  When you stop witnessing, stop praying for others, stop caring that people hear the Good News of the Gospel, you’re resisting God.  When that happens, you’re one less threat to Satan.

You’re never going to let Satan do that to you, are you?   Onward . . . Christian soldier.  Keep fighting your battle.  Fight with the Army of God, His Church (not against it).  It’s part of our destiny . . . to help destroy the works of the evil one, “in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 3:10).  We, the Church (individual members thereof), are God’s agency to take the Gospel to the four corners of the earth, and to make disciples.    Lets each of us do our part, until our time is done.  Great throughout eternity will be our reward.  Greater than anything we can comprehend on this side of life.

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  (1 John 3:2 NKJV) 

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.  [Devour your joy, faith, trust; your very earthly existence, emphasis ours].

Resist him, [fight as hard as you can, emphasis ours], steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. 

But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered awhile [been sifted, emphasis ours], perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.  (1 Peter 5:8-10 NKJV)

“May” is a key word in the above passage to see the promises fulfilled.  They are not guaranteed, as we might tend to assume; we must cooperate with God to see them fulfilled.

Dear reader, until our next quarterly newsletter, we pray that your life be blessed in all that you say and do for His glory and for His kingdom.  Thank you and God bless you for taking the time to read this newsletter.

In His Love & Service,
Norm & Kathleen Rasmussen

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: If you are questioning in your heart what this Christian life is all about and would like to know more about being reconciled to God, please click here to learn how you can do that. Thank you and God bless you!

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