UPDATE  -  SUMMER 2003

Greetings in the precious name of our Lord Jesus!  We hope you have been enjoying summer thus far, as it comes and goes so quickly it seems for most.  Yet if you know someone currently stationed in Iraq, the summer cannot pass quickly enough, due to the intense heat in that part of the globe. Our prayers go out to those who are serving in the Armed Forces in Iraq and other parts of the globe under the difficult conditions in which they face.  In the atmosphere where life and death weighs in the balance for many, and questions arise as to the importance of putting one’s life on the line for exactly what causes… it hopefully serves notice to everyone in those trying situations that our lives truly are only secure when we can confidently say:  “Whether I live or die, I am the Lord’s.” 

Recently while Kathleen and I were ministering in prison with Alpha Prison Ministries at Carson City Correction Facility, in Carson City, Michigan, (a place that God is so powerfully touching lives, as He is in various prisons around the country because it’s such a fertile harvest field), I had the privilege to minister to a brother who has been in prison now for 13 years.  The brother shared with me that prior to being sentenced to prison for far too many years for the crime he committed, he and his wife had been used mightily of God to minister to others.  In their faithfulness to God’s call on their lives, temptation knocked on his wife’s door, and his wife fell into sin by having an affair with another man.  The brother sought God to cause his wife to stop the affair and let their marriage become whole once more, but his wife kept staying unfaithful to him.  At a weak moment, he consumed more alcohol than what he was able to deal with, and committed a crime that he probably would not have committed otherwise had he not been drinking so heavily. 

The brother was not bitter or complaining as he shared this story with me, and he did so in this manner:   “Brother Norm, why do you think God has allowed this to happen in my life?  I was being obedient to God in our marriage; I was ministering to others as God opened doors and gave opportunity.  Yet in a weak moment of frustration when my wife was cheating on me, I committed a petty crime and got caught at it, and now I not only don’t have a wife, I also have four children I can’t be a normal father to either.   I’ve asked God a million times why He allowed this all to happen and I never seem to get an answer.  I just wish I knew why God allowed this all to happen.  It just makes no sense to me … does it you?”

The precious brother asked one of the most difficult questions that each of us ask ourselves to one degree or another as we walk with the Lord: “Why, Lord, are you allowing this to happen?  I’m not aware that I’ve sinned to any degree that I should have to suffer like this?”

As I prayed silently that the Lord would give me the right answer for the moment to give the brother, this is what came to my spirit and I felt impressed that the Holy Spirit wanted me to deliver it to him:

“You are here because of God’s wisdom and will be rewarded for your faithfulness to Him for it.”

I seriously question if that made the brother feel much better at the moment, but my prayer is that he will one day come to realize that either God is in control of each of our lives or He isn’t, no matter how much evil has visited us. 

Perhaps you are faced with a situation that seems as evil and as unfair as anything you could imagine happening to a person.  Perhaps you feel you’re a victim of circumstances and possibly evil that a “loving God” should just never allow to happen to one of His children.  Perhaps you almost even feel betrayed by God.  Many people have experienced  that this year, and in seeking God for understanding as to how we are to deal with it, here’s all I’m able to hear from the Lord when it happens: “Don’t let bitterness, resentment or anger control you, but rather, believe that in my wisdom and limitless power, I am working good out of the situation you find yourself in.  Stay faithful to Me, and you will be rewarded for it.”

We each have God’s assurance from Romans 8:28-29 that God is “working all things to our good, if we stay faithful to Him,” don’t we?  No matter how many bad choices I’ve made, God assures me that He’ll work good in my life if I’ll stay faithful to Him.  Exactly what possible “good” could that be?

If a person is sentenced to life in prison for a crime they didn’t commit – is it impossible for God to conform that person to the image and likeness of Jesus Christ while in prison?  If my spouse has cheated on me and now I find myself single, lonely and poor, is it impossible for God to conform me into His likeness?  If evil seems to be my daily cross to bear, is it impossible for God to shape me into the likeness of Jesus Christ? 

For most of us, I have to believe the most difficult scripture to cuddle up with as a bedtime teddy bear is found in Romans 8:16-18:

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.  For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Glory which shall be revealed in us?

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). 

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake.  (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed – in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put in incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.  (1 Corinthians 15:51-53). 

Precious born again saint, through the enablement of God’s Spirit, fast forward your life to a future time when you will be able to look at yourself in a mirror and see a transformed creation of God’s making beyond your wildest imagination!  Look closer at that glorified body God will transform you into.  I have a witness in my spirit that you will be given the ability to then understand how all the physical and emotional sicknesses and diseases you suffered, the unjust situations you found yourself in, the times of having little or nothing when others had so much, the times of being outright persecuted for your faith when you had done nothing wrong but confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the all-encompassing adversities that life handed you … you will stand there in utter dismay at how God used all of life’s painful things to help fashion the glorified body He has rewarded you with.  What can we say to all this but “Wow! How truly great this Salvation is, and is going to be!”

Coming back to earth, to the present and to the now …  another door of possible opportunity has opened up to us beginning later this year.  A Chaplin from one of the prison units in Ionia, Michigan has asked us to come in and teach material written by Neil T. Anderson on Sunday evenings.  One book brother Neil has written that God has, and continues to use mightily, to set people free in many different areas of their lives is titled:  Victory Over The Darkness.   It gives an in-depth understanding of what it means to be in Christ.  It has an excellent Study Guide to go with it, and the Chaplin would like us to be able to give each prisoner that would attend the service a copy of this book, plus the Study Guide.  We will be teaching this information that is so spiritually liberating to about 20 –25 men over a period of months, who in turn will be able to pass it along to others both in and out of prison, and we’re very excited about the opportunity to be able to do so.  However, to be able to provide both resource materials to these brothers, we’ll need God to provide the funds to be able to buy the literature for the prisoners.   We ask that saints lift this matter up to the Lord with us in prayer and let's seek Him to provide the funds to obtain these resources, or that God will somehow provide them in another way if these resources are to be made available to the prisoners.

Praise reports are always such a blessing to get from viewers of the www.precious-testimonies.com website, as seeds of hope, encouragement and spiritual insight are being planted through God’s harvest field.  We thank every person who has contributed to the site in one way or another.  It truly is a precious resource from God to point the discouraged and the unsaved toward the One this world was created by.  Here’s just one of the several praise reports we’ve received:

Hello, my name is D’Angelo, and I am 17 years old.  I read about the testimony about the secret rewards in heaven, and I am a suffering born again Christian.  I had kidney failure and I sought the Lord when I was in grave pain.  He saved me from suicide.  When I read this I was feeling very sick.  I thought I was going to pass out from a stroke since I have been having high blood pressure lately.  I prayed to the Lord to forgive me, and I decided to go on the Internet to read scripture.  I went on Google and typed “rewards in heaven” then on the search I came across “SECRET REWARDS IN HEAVEN” on your website.  I clicked on it and read that amazing story.  When I got to the part where the Lord is telling about the secret reward of incomprehensible joy, I was nearly in tears.  I was stunned when I thought that this was no coincidence that I came across this when I suffered that night.  For some reason I do feel joy because of the Lord.  I laid in my bed and cried because of this new life, and I feel like I might get this reward if I stay on, and keep faith in the Lord.  I can’t even imagine such joy.  Right now as I type I’m crying because of joy!  I truly love the Lord!  Thank you for this great testimony and website!

When reports of this nature come in, it causes us to have tears of joy as well.  The Salvation God offers us is surely right out of this world, though tears of great pain sometimes accompany it this side of eternity.   

We ask that you continue to lift up this ministry in prayer, that God will provide ongoing finances for every expense as giving has been down through this global recession.  It has never been our policy to make much mention of finances, as God has always provided the means for us to do what we do.  We realize this is because people are praying for us however, so we never want to take lightly why God is meeting the needs of the ministry. 

We also thank you for covering Kathleen and I personally in prayer.  Much of what we teach involves breaking strongholds in others to one degree or another, and if God enables us to teach on Neil Anderson’s material through the winter months, it only stands to reason we’ll need ongoing prayer coverage to keep demonic attacks subdued.

Our prayer for you is that you remain faithful to the call the Lord has placed on each of you, no matter how “insignificant” the devil might try to convince you it might be.  Nothing done for the Lord is “insignificant.”  Nothing done to help bring people to Jesus Christ will ever be in vain.  Keep plugging away at what you’ve been called to do.  Though maybe very little seems to be bearing fruit … you just never really know the importance of the seeds you are planting in those around you.  Sometimes when it seems like the ground is the driest, the roots of the seeds you planted are going down the deepest. 

Lord, please release a greater revelation to each of us of what it means when we’re exhorted to “PRAY WITHOUT CEASING.”  (1 Thes. 5:17).  Could it be that without sufficient prayer in a given matter, angels don’t even get sent from You, Lord, to help in our situation?  Could it also be that the angels YOU assign to us, needs strength from God to keep fighting on our behalf?   

This much we know, every unselfish prayer we pray is never prayed in vain, nor is it going unheard.  Every unselfish prayer we pray will one day be rewarded.  We trust God will grant you the grace to keep you in the battle between good and evil that is on every front.  To God be the glory!

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!