Simon says ...

Have you ever played the game, "Simon says?" While perusing Pinterest the other night I came across this pin ...

"Go then and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Matthew 28:19  

"...all the nations..." Powerful! Not just cities, not just neighborhoods, but ENTIRE NATIONS!  
All of us have not only memorized that verse, but we have also "gone." 

When I was a teenager my heart burned for the nations, especially Africa. I would lay on my floor in my bedroom and cry out for God to use me to reach the nations with His love. Turning the channels on our TV one day, I came across Reinhard Bonnke, missionary/evangelist to Africa. He was preaching in Africa and he began chanting, "Africa will be saved. Africa will be saved." The presence of God filled my living room as I wept, prayed and I believed that one day the entire continent of Africa would be saved. 

Sitting and serving in Germany right now, my heart continues to burn for the nations. More than ever before we need to pray for laborers and the funds needed to "go." In the past few months I have had missionary friends having to leave the field due to lack of funding. 

Let's stand and pray for each other because ... 

Sometimes ... discouragement threatens to snuff the fire out. Bills intimidate and attempt to encircle me like mountains on every side. A thick fog named stress dares to cloud my view and my perception becomes skewed. 

Let me see if I can explain it. 

A few weeks ago I received a call from a friend requesting touristy help regarding Switzerland. She's lived here for at least 10 years and she's traveled quite a bit, but since we lived in Luzern before, she wanted to ask some questions. I told her it was a beautiful city and it's close to a magnificent mountain named Pilatus. Breathtaking, really. She chuckled and said that for years of visiting Luzern she never saw the mountain and thought those postcards showing the mountain were a joke. Until one clear day. She sucked in her breath, slowly releasing, then told me about the first time she actually saw Pilatus.

Recently, I heard a message about "seeing." What do you see when you pray? Do you "see" your situation turning around? Do you "see" the entire nation where you are serving being set free in Christ? We have to "see" it in the spiritual before we ever "see" it in the natural. 

Look at the picture below of Luzern. You may be saying, "how could she not see that mountain. It's huge!" Like my friend, I have driven through Switzerland on foggy days and the alps have seemingly disappeared. My vision is skewed and if I didn't know they were there, I wouldn't believe it.  If I hadn't seen them for myself I would have doubted their very existence. 

"I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living." Psalm 27:13

Like Psalm 27:13 states, "...we would have fainted unless we believed to see His goodness..." We are "seeing" the mountains in our life dissolve. Why? Because He's done it before. 

Let's trust through discouragement. 

Let's lean on Him at all times especially when we find it hard to stand. 

Let's rely on His word. 

Let's stay in His presence because ... 

The mountains take one look at God and melt, melt like wax before earth’s Lord. 

Psalm 97:5

I absolutely love that verse! Isn't it great?! Our mountains will melt like wax in His presence. The fog lifts in His presence. Discouragement has to go in His presence. 

May we be a testimony of His glory together as we ask God for the nations.

May we see the ruins come to life. 

May we witness His glory being poured out on this Earth. 

"Only ask, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance,
    the whole earth as your possession."

Psalm 2:8