Post by Gerard Mendes on May 25, 2005 12:31:17 GMT -5
From: Corina Teperdel
Subject: Romania again...
To: gerardmendes@yahoo.com
FALLING IN LOVE WITH ROMANIA...
In the first letters I wrote, I tried to give you a general image about the spiritual field in Romania. I concluded that things don't look too great. Then I asked (a rethorical question, I guess) if the solution would be more missionaries to come here. And I also suggested that this is not the answer by all means.
What did I want to say, actually?... I surely do not pretend that we don't need help from outside. I don't claim that we are sufficient to ourselves. Every human being needs touches from outside itself. Every nation is grateful when another one is streching out a hand - to say hello, to comfort, to join, to help...
I'm not saying that we don't need others. I'm not saying: "Don't come to Romania, we can do it by ourselves..."
I guess we need all the help we can get. But... REAL help. Real comfort. A real touch of God through that streched out hand...
What do I mean?... Well, using just a phrase - we don't need just missionaries, we need SPIRITUAL FATHERS.
A father is here to stay. To watch his children grow. To have patience with them. To see them making mistakes and still love them. To change diapers sometimes. To be ready to invest a big part of his life, and maybe even all of it. A spiritual father does not love a ministry. He loves people. He does not love numbers. He loves hearts. A father is ready to lose his life for just a few persons, if necessary. Not only for crowds. A father is always here, until the child is mature enough to make it through by himself. A spiritual father loves from heart to heart, not from requirements to results. Also, a spiritual father is not under the pressure of "producing" the growth of his children. Of "making" them mature.
Have you ever seen a shepherd beating his sheeps in order to make them give milk or to give birth to little lambs?... No, he is just there. Leading to green pastures and still waters. Protecting. And waiting. Have you ever seen a gardner pulling and pushing a tree's branches in order to make them bring fruits as soon as possible?...
We all are SO much afraid of seeing the years of our lives passing away without leaving behind us visible results... We are so afraid of failure, of losing our time and our lives... We NEED results. We NEED to see something. If we don't, we are lost...
It takes a lot of courage to be ready to give your life to only 10-12 people, and not to many crowds, to be ready to invest years without seeing too much behind you... A lot of courage... AND God's guidance, of course... But are we ready for hearing such a thing? Does this match with our standards and scale of values? Can this fit into our universe? Because, if it cannot, we will never be able to believe that God Himself might ask this from us...
The most important lesson of my life came through a book: "The Final Quest", by Rick Joyner. God taught me through it that HIS standards and evaluation methods and scales are overwhelmingly different than ours. You can literally change the history of mankind, and still be among the lasts in Heaven. Or you can be a nobody here, on this earth, living all your life in anonimity and leaving almost nothing visible behind you, and still be a king in Heaven. (I would strongly recommend that book to the whole Christianity, if I could.)
Actually, I was asking myself so often which are the fruits we are called to bear for God's glory... Complex issue... I think they can be lots of different things, but not ALWAYS visible results. Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. Can you agree with me?... Sometimes it might mean just to lose our life for Jesus (and I am not talking about dying here), having NO idea why. Without seeing too much. Sometimes seeing almost nothing.
Another book I would highly recommend is "The Prisoner From The Third Cell", by Gene Edwards. It's a small novel that tries to describe the life of John the Baptist from a certain point of view. Have you ever thought of that? What did John the Baptist see behind him? He died without even knowing for sure that Jesus is the Mesiah, probably with the question and the fear that he might have lost his life for an ilusion. Still, in Jesus' eyes, no other man was considered greater than him...
We need in Romania spiritual fathers. We don't have them. We have leaders of every kind - pastors, evangelists, missionaries, even people who claim to be apostles, but not spiritual fathers.
You know, we, the ordinary people, the ones who still need a father, usually have this "nose", this capacity to "smell" if the one who leads us cares about US or only about his ministry... I've met VERY few leaders of this kind - people who care about PEOPLE... They are rarities in the Christian arena. They are precious and praise-worthy. But very few.
Most of the leaders I know live for a ministry. They easily sacrifice a heart for a principle, a life for a goal, a human being for an idea... Jesus said long ago that the Law was made for the man, and not the man for the Law. He knew SO well what He was talking about...
We, humans, have not changed since then... We still sacrifice people for "Law's" sake... And the sad thing - or maybe the good one - is the fact that the person we ignore knows that, feels it, recognizes it... We all know when we are really loved and when not... Isn't that true?...
next:
Subject: Romania again...
To: gerardmendes@yahoo.com
FALLING IN LOVE WITH ROMANIA...
In the first letters I wrote, I tried to give you a general image about the spiritual field in Romania. I concluded that things don't look too great. Then I asked (a rethorical question, I guess) if the solution would be more missionaries to come here. And I also suggested that this is not the answer by all means.
What did I want to say, actually?... I surely do not pretend that we don't need help from outside. I don't claim that we are sufficient to ourselves. Every human being needs touches from outside itself. Every nation is grateful when another one is streching out a hand - to say hello, to comfort, to join, to help...
I'm not saying that we don't need others. I'm not saying: "Don't come to Romania, we can do it by ourselves..."
I guess we need all the help we can get. But... REAL help. Real comfort. A real touch of God through that streched out hand...
What do I mean?... Well, using just a phrase - we don't need just missionaries, we need SPIRITUAL FATHERS.
A father is here to stay. To watch his children grow. To have patience with them. To see them making mistakes and still love them. To change diapers sometimes. To be ready to invest a big part of his life, and maybe even all of it. A spiritual father does not love a ministry. He loves people. He does not love numbers. He loves hearts. A father is ready to lose his life for just a few persons, if necessary. Not only for crowds. A father is always here, until the child is mature enough to make it through by himself. A spiritual father loves from heart to heart, not from requirements to results. Also, a spiritual father is not under the pressure of "producing" the growth of his children. Of "making" them mature.
Have you ever seen a shepherd beating his sheeps in order to make them give milk or to give birth to little lambs?... No, he is just there. Leading to green pastures and still waters. Protecting. And waiting. Have you ever seen a gardner pulling and pushing a tree's branches in order to make them bring fruits as soon as possible?...
We all are SO much afraid of seeing the years of our lives passing away without leaving behind us visible results... We are so afraid of failure, of losing our time and our lives... We NEED results. We NEED to see something. If we don't, we are lost...
It takes a lot of courage to be ready to give your life to only 10-12 people, and not to many crowds, to be ready to invest years without seeing too much behind you... A lot of courage... AND God's guidance, of course... But are we ready for hearing such a thing? Does this match with our standards and scale of values? Can this fit into our universe? Because, if it cannot, we will never be able to believe that God Himself might ask this from us...
The most important lesson of my life came through a book: "The Final Quest", by Rick Joyner. God taught me through it that HIS standards and evaluation methods and scales are overwhelmingly different than ours. You can literally change the history of mankind, and still be among the lasts in Heaven. Or you can be a nobody here, on this earth, living all your life in anonimity and leaving almost nothing visible behind you, and still be a king in Heaven. (I would strongly recommend that book to the whole Christianity, if I could.)
Actually, I was asking myself so often which are the fruits we are called to bear for God's glory... Complex issue... I think they can be lots of different things, but not ALWAYS visible results. Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. Can you agree with me?... Sometimes it might mean just to lose our life for Jesus (and I am not talking about dying here), having NO idea why. Without seeing too much. Sometimes seeing almost nothing.
Another book I would highly recommend is "The Prisoner From The Third Cell", by Gene Edwards. It's a small novel that tries to describe the life of John the Baptist from a certain point of view. Have you ever thought of that? What did John the Baptist see behind him? He died without even knowing for sure that Jesus is the Mesiah, probably with the question and the fear that he might have lost his life for an ilusion. Still, in Jesus' eyes, no other man was considered greater than him...
We need in Romania spiritual fathers. We don't have them. We have leaders of every kind - pastors, evangelists, missionaries, even people who claim to be apostles, but not spiritual fathers.
You know, we, the ordinary people, the ones who still need a father, usually have this "nose", this capacity to "smell" if the one who leads us cares about US or only about his ministry... I've met VERY few leaders of this kind - people who care about PEOPLE... They are rarities in the Christian arena. They are precious and praise-worthy. But very few.
Most of the leaders I know live for a ministry. They easily sacrifice a heart for a principle, a life for a goal, a human being for an idea... Jesus said long ago that the Law was made for the man, and not the man for the Law. He knew SO well what He was talking about...
We, humans, have not changed since then... We still sacrifice people for "Law's" sake... And the sad thing - or maybe the good one - is the fact that the person we ignore knows that, feels it, recognizes it... We all know when we are really loved and when not... Isn't that true?...
next:
