HANDS HEADLINES – Page 25 – Ministry and Life Updates

Need Bread?

Posted on November 12, 2010November 12, 2010

The Lord ministered to me through this sermon by Dr. John Piper given at Angola Maximum Security Prison in southern California. Watch this excellent video or download the audio version below. Thought you might really be encouraged by it.

“Jesus did not come to assist you [in achieving] the [temporal] desires you had before you were born again. He came [primarily] to change those desires radically and to be the main desire.” ~ Dr. John Piper

John chapter 6 is the sermon text. Here the crowds who followed Jesus so eagerly – finding Him useful for their well being do to His amazing miracles – dwindled away, became frustrated and stopped following Jesus. In fact, John tells us that only the 12 disciples stayed behind to follow Him. At the beginning of the story, there were over 5,000 people following Christ and within a day or two later, only 12. Why the turning away? It seems that the people could not accept Jesus’ explanation concerning “the Bread of Life” and eating “true bread.”

Jesus came to BE bread, not just to give bread.

The video is almost 50 minutes long. Normally I do not post such a lengthy video, but it is worth it! Why not watch it during a lunch break? Or set aside some extra time in the morning? I found that Piper’s words to inmates serving life sentences – some on death row – were right at the heart of my need and the need of every sinner who needs God.

The video can be found on the Desiring God web site, where you can also download the audio version for free.

To pause the video above, hover your mouse over the lower left corner of the video. Then the pause button should appear.

Ministry

Miners heard Jesus

Posted on October 14, 2010

Rescued Chilean Miner Praying; Note T-Shirt Jesus Emblem (Photo from BBC News)

Here’s a recent update from our Chilean staff director, Christian Maureira:

“Probably you are watching on TV the rescue of the miners and also maybe you noticed a T-Shirt they are wearing. All those T-Shirts are a gift from Campus Crusade for Christ Chile. In the front you can read “Gracias Señor, Thank You Lord” and on the back; the Psalm 95:4 “In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.”

Over the last couple of weeks, they also received MP3 players with the audio version of the JESUS Film and the Bible in audio format.”

Stories of faith at the miner’s camp are all over the internet.

Thank the Lord that the men were brought out safely and that they have chosen to glorify God in their rescue! Please pray that the testimony of these miners would impact Chile and people around the world.

Certainly their story is a reminder of another Rescue story which allows people lost in darkness to be delivered up into pure light, connecting in personal reunion fellowship with the Creator and all His creation.

Cru Digital Ministry

Big Implications of Translate.Google

Posted on October 7, 2010October 6, 2010

Ever noticed a little “translate” button like this on a web site?

Soon you’ll see more and more sites offering multiple language translations.

Think of the implications of this in a web site offering Bible verses or Bible Studies, for example. Or an online discussion board about God which draws visitors from many countries.

Watch this video to learn the amazing way God is “lining things up” with many, many organizations cooperating with Google to help make machine translation sufficient for basic web reading, if not beyond sufficient to “excelente!”

Machine Translation = Language translation done on the fly by a computer. Up until very recently, the quality of machine translation was considered very poor. There are just so many exceptions in language and grammar rules, that computers could not understand and contextualize translation jobs like the human brain does so well. But, things are changing rapidly. Watch the video. Pretty cool indeed.

Here is the direct link to the video.

To learn more and to try it out for yourself, visit Translate.google.com

Ministry

Thailand Conf Photos

Posted on September 28, 2010September 29, 2010

Great Joy to Serve these Leaders from 25 Nations!

Group photo - we came from all corners of the world

Thanks very much for praying for me as well as Shannon and the kids while I was gone. After about 28 hours of straight travel, I returned home Sunday night.

Enjoy these photos from the conference. I really wish I could personally introduce you to each of these people I met. They are all missionaries with Campus Crusade and have come to Christ in their own countries – many through the ministry of Campus Crusade. Now each of them serves in operations roles – helping every team in their country increase capacity to reach people for Jesus. Often they accomplish so much with very few resources. All by the grace of God. It was a joy just to listen to them share their stories. To me, they truly seem similar to some the people the writer of Hebrews mentions as those of whom the world wasn’t worthy.

At the conference we heard an inspiring devotion from our South East Asia Team Leader – Tom Roxas. The title was “Idol Maker or Idol Breaker” about the life of Moses from Exodus 32. What is an idol? – “An idol is anything which displaces God in my heart. It may be something which is quite harmless in itself, yet if it absorbs me, if it be given the first place in my affection and thoughts, it becomes an “idol.” – A. W. Pink

Tom also shared from his personal life on how God gave him amazing grace to share in prison with the man who had murdered his brother. How, without knowing who Tom was, the man invited Christ into his life. Later the man realized that Tom was related to his victim, and through tears Tom told him he was forgiven through the power of Jesus. His personal sharing touched many of us as we saw how God could truly use us when we break idols to allow King Jesus to have His way. Powerful testimony on God’s love and a reminder of how God loved us even though we had similarly took the life of His Son.

Here are a few scenes from the conference. (Eveb more photos are here.)

Want to see me riding an elephant? See the very short video clip of the slow walk and murky submersion of the elephant (fortunately not submerging the riders!) during a quick tourist excursion we took one day.

small group work session at the conference