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Our weekend was wonderful and then the miracle happened! We had 75 in club on Saturday and 52 Sunday morning for our Easter breakfast and 71 for our Sunday evening service. Our Day was special because we had several visitors, the kids did a play that a junior, Mirela, wrote and our choir presented a mini-cantata with video. On Monday I visited Wendel, pastor of Hope Baptist. As I got to his house he greeted me with these words, “Pastor our Sunday was a wonderful experience Carlinho’s mother made a decision to accept Christ.” THAT didn’t make sense! The only Carlinhos that I could think of was my friend Carlinhos who had worked with me in the Junior’s Sunday school class. It couldn’t have been his mother that got saved because she was a witch who had threatened to shoot me. It couldn’t be THAT woman. But it was. Way back in 2004 I had visited this woman and in my rather abrupt way I made her listen to John 3:16 as I put her name in key parts. She didn’t like it one bit and hated me ...

Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace (Romans 14:19) Are you a scrapper? Many Americans are. Here in Brazil Americans are often viewed as fighters or even bullies. When I first heard this I was a bit put off. I always vied us as peace-keepers. Either the peace is kept or we kill everyone! Oops. Is America a peaceful nation? I guess that it depends on which side of the gun barrel you find yourself. Paul says that we are to "follow after" peaceful things. That means to "pursue or chase after" them. The other day I did that. I chased something. It was't peace, however. A weirdo cut me off in traffic and then had the gall to be mad at me for staying on his bumper for a block or two. I praise the Lord that my van is not equipped with heat-seeking missals. If it were all of the Boom-Box bums, Maniac Motorcyclists and Cut-off Clowns would pay dearly. Of course I NEVER do any of those stupid thing. Was I chasing peace? No. I wanted to let th...

But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14) The above is a fairly common phrase. It is used to express disbelief and astonishment at being fooled or surprised. It says, "You're joking, right?" or "You have GOT to be kidding!" It is usually spoken with a look of startled disbelief and gaping jaw. Paul used this expression in a different way. Well OK, he said it in Greek and in a foreign context too but notice what he said,   But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts there of . The words slapped me again this morning while in Romans 13. It woke me up. The question popped into my brain, "How does one 'put on' Jesus Christ?" When you put ME on, you are fooling me. When you put Christ on you imitate Him. To put on Christ is to put on perfection. You mimic his actions, attitudes and goals. Way back in Job 29 I read Job's words in verse 14, I put on righteousness, and it clothed me...

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11.28) “They burned my sister to death. Or at least that is what we think.” This shocking revelation came from the trembling lips of a devastated brother. Just one month prior his twenty-eight year old sister had been found smoldering in her bed. The heat of the flames that ravaged her young body was so intense that it had rippled the PVC dropped ceiling of her tiny bedroom. Ninety percent of her body was burned. To make matters even worse she was seven months pregnant. To this day no one knows exactly what happened. Her drug dealing live-in denies any wrong doing but has since left town. This girl was kept on life support for a week and as she slipped into eternity the doctors extracted a little girl from her lifeless womb. In conversation yesterday her sixty-four-year-old mother told me, "Only in God's strength will I and my sixty-seven year old husband be able to care for this littl...

I think that I’ve already related this but our attempt to get a free lease on a piece of land has failed to date. City Hall doesn’t give land to churches. Or at least that is what they think. I was talking to pastor Samuel on Sunday and he believes that the land is ours for the asking. His idea is to go straight to the top with our presentation and plea. Of course we’ve already done that in asking our Father. Pray that we take the proper action and get the right response. Yesterday while running some errands I encountered an enormous bank line. I needed to make a withdrawal so there I stood for almost an hour. As I entered the tail-end of the line I noticed that the lady in front of me was reading a “spiritual” booklet. Being the snoopy sort I glanced at what she’d underlined. It read something about, “God’s will for your life…”. That got my curiosity up and I said, “Another great way to discover God’s will is found in Romans 12. Especially verses 1 and 2.” For the next 45 minutes ...