December 18th, 2008
Matthew 1:23 “The Virgin shall be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”
Isaiah 9:6-7a “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end,…”
Luke 2:11 “For there is born to you this day in the City of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
John 3:15 “that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Dear Friends,
“ MERRY CHRISTMAS”----- we pray the Lord will bless you this Christmas season, New year, and always. Jesus said: “I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).” ---John 10:10b AMP
[Many fruitful things are happening in the ministry outreaches of which I will share some about later, but 1st I would like to write about Jesus’ birth.]
The truth is that the birth of Jesus is one of the greatest and most significant times in all of history. In fact today as I write this newsletter, it is December 18th, 2008---in the year of our Lord. The calendar was changed back to “0” in recognition of the year of the birth of Jesus. That is amazing.
Napoleon (1769-1821) was the emperor of France and one of the greatest military commanders of all time ---he had conquered most of Europe at one time. He was a proud and powerful man, but later in life after many victories, he was defeated and imprisoned. He understood history and had impacted history, and as he began to reflect upon history in later life---he had this to say about Jesus: “I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire on love, and at this hour millions of people would die for him.”
“Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and His will confounds me…I search in vain in history to find the similar of Jesus Christ, or anything that can approach the gospel.”
[ Quotes from “Evidence That Demands a Verdict. –Josh McDowell]
But today, how many people really understand the significance of Jesus? What does Christmas mean to people today? Well it means different things to different people:
1. To people of other religions such as Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists, and other non-Christian religions---for the most part, they don’t care much about Christmas or the birth of Christ.
2. For Atheists who do not believe in God, for many of them (at least in America), Christmas is apparently one of the most important days in their lives as they devote a lot of their time and energy trying to remove all Christmas mangers and words, etc from all the public places and public schools, etc. Maybe they are just jealous they do not have a special day they can celebrate for themselves and say “Happy go to (?) day”
3. For other people Christmas is a material holiday. It is simply a day when people give and receive gifts. Sometimes it can be a time of a lot of stress, where people feel obligated to buy a lot of presents (they can hardly afford to buy) and give them to people (who for the most part don’t even need them.)
In any parts to the world, people who own retail business are excitingly looking forward to the December Christmas season because it is the highest sales month of the year. The Christmas season will determine whether those businesses will have a net profit or net loss for the year---so they are looking to Christmas for economic reasons.
Personally, I think that there are good things about being able to give gifts (within reason) to one another at Christmas, and being able to give special gifts to the poor, and for the economy to benefit from increased sales, and for businesses to make a profit so they can pay the salaries of their employees so they can in turn support their families. But all those things need to be far back in second place to the real reason we originally & still should celebrate Christmas.
The purpose of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus, Who is God the Son---and He gave you & me our lives---He gave us the ability to breathe every breath that we take---He gave our heart the ability to beat every beat that it makes; and we might take note of the fact that He has the power to take any of that away any second He so desires. God deserves and requires our respect, and always should have 1st place in each of our lives.
Gal. 4:4-7 {At Just the Right Time*God Sent Forth His Son*To Redeem & Adopt Us} “MERRY CHRISTMAS”
On Thursday, Dec 4th, Emie and I and some other ministry friends traveled the 3 hour roundtrip drive to the Abuyog prison to attend a special church service and Pastor Norman’s birthday celebration. I have shared about this prison in the past and every time we go there how we have experienced a special presence of the Lord as these 60 + inmates praise and worship the Lord. Several of these men ( mostly maximum security prisoners)
have given testimonies about how they were thankful to God that they had been sent to the Abuyog prison. The reason they are thankful is because that is where they came to really know Jesus Christ as their Savior & Lord. Had they still been out in society they testified they would still most certainly be lost. Now they look forward to one day returning to their homes as new people in Christ and living productive lives in their communities. I write more about this, and other topics & include some pictures in our BlogSpot: philippine-missions.blogspot.com
In the regional radio broadcast which airs every Sunday morning from 8:30 am to 9:00 we continue to get many positive results from people in various parts of Biliran, Leyte, and Samar. Recently Emie received a text message from a man named Dominic and he said: “Thank-you very much for the word of God you shared through the radio. The word is always encouraging to us and it helps us understand the ways of God. I became a Christian through your broadcast.”
Last Friday-Sunday, I and my Filipino nephew Dennis, traveled to Biliran Island and visited 5 of the churches there and 1 in Palarao Leyte. I was able to give a surprise gift to the pastor in each church---with rice, canned goods, noodles, cookies and candies. Because we were going to have a surveyor come to the Culaba church on Saturday---I ended up visiting the Palaro Church in Leyte starting on Friday afternoon and then I went to Bato, Looc, Cabucgayan, and finally to Caibiran later that night. All the pastors we happy to receive the Christmas gift and were surprised to see me as I did not announce my coming. On Saturday morning we had a special morning meeting with church members in Caibiran and then drove another hour on rough roads to get to Culaba to meet the surveyor. The next Sunday morning was the anniversary celebration for the Culaba church and I was the guest speaker. It was a busy 2&1’2 days and it was nice to fellowship with and encourage the pastors and church members that we met. Most churches are growing and new people are being saved.
In our missions headquarters church here in Tacloban City, this December we have seen 2 new couples and new 6 young people (late teens & early twenties) and they are attending church regularly. Sunday attendance has been averaging 100-120 in the past few weeks.
I have said in the past that: “Effective and fruitful missions that reaches people for Jesus in foreign nations---is the result of a faithful partnership between those who are willing to go and those who are willing to help send. We have been able to reach thousands of people for Jesus, help strengthen and encourage Christians in their faith and service to the Lord, and able to help the poor in a variety of ways as led by the Holy Spirit---as a result of each of you: who pray for us and the ministry outreaches, and encourage us, and invest financially in helping us share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank-you many times over for your friendship and faithful partnership is helping us lead people to Jesus. We regularly pray for God’s powerful blessings upon you.
In Christ’s love,
Gordon & Emie
P.S. Please continue to pray: for more people to be saved and discipled; for God’s fresh anointing, clear direction, powerful protection, & blessing upon our health; and for new powerful & effective prayer intercessors to pray for us and the ministry outreaches; and for generous provision for all the financial needs of the ministry. Please pray the Lord will touch the hearts of new people to donate financially and for others to give special donations to help us cover all the needs for the rest of the ministry this year and to start out the New Year of 2009 with good financial health so we can move ahead in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the most effective and fruitful ways. Thanks & God bless you.
[ For those who want to receive tax deduction credit for 2008, donations need to be postmarked prior to midnight 12-31- 2008.]
