Olive Branch Mississippi and The Gospel...

Recently, I made my way to Olive Branch, Mississippi, with the opportunity to share with several women from different churches in the surrounding area regarding Pure Joy International. What a sweet time of fellowship, sharing and prayer. Several of them are prayerfully considering one of the three trips coming up. God is moving to put the teams together for each trip. So please continue to pray for the teams as they come together. He Knows.

In January each year our Pure Joy Board, Advisors, and Staff meet to review the previous year and look forward to what God has in store for the new year. Each year I give the group a new notebook. This year the ministry staff all received a notebook with a statement on the front that says:
                                             

This Message Is Illegal In Many Nations

And then it has Romans 1:16 quoted:
Romans 1:16 (ESV)
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

There are many things we do daily to keep from doing something our nation (U.S. A.) has deemed illegal. It is illegal to drive up a one-way street the wrong direction. It is illegal to take things that aren’t yours, it is illegal to forge someone’s name on a document, etc., etc. But it is not illegal to go to church on Sunday, it is not illegal to share the gospel with a lost person, it is not illegal to claim your Christianity, at least not yet, in our nation.

  

God has called many to go into the nations that do consider the message of the gospel illegal. He has called men, women, families, the old, the young, to carry the message of hope, to be the light in the darkness. Many pay the price for doing something foreign nations consider illegal which can result in consequences such as being kicked out of a country, prison time, beatings, beheadings, etc.

 

I say all this to remind us of two things very specifically:

1. We have missionary men, women, boys and girls, (young and old) risking their lives daily in foreign nations, living in desperate situations, just to be able to share the gospel of Christ with those that are lost and in need of a Savior. Please remember them in your prayers.
2. Sharing the gospel in our nation (USA) is not illegal, let’s stop acting like it is.

This coming Sunday is Easter Sunday. Please invite your lost friends to church to hear a message of hope. It doesn’t get spoken any clearer than Easter Sunday and you won’t be doing something illegal. (smile)

Love you, He has Risen!

His,
Vickie