Numbered With The Transgressors

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Greetings sisters!
I pray you are victorious over your flesh today!  I'll admit there are days I struggle with that but the Word of God strengthens me. 
And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.  And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. (Colossians 3:15-17)

We are seeing aspects of Matthew 10 come to play in our life....

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues;  And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. (vs 16-24)

I wrote a post the other day of our police encounter, you can read that here:

Anyway we thought that incident was over with but apparently not.  Just last night we spent the night at one of the places the police officer suggested and were taking a walk this morning.  We saw a police car cruising the parking lot and as we were crossing by the front of the building he crept around the corner and stopped in front of us.  He warned us about panhandling.  Brother Jim asked him what he was talking about, we were just taking a walk.  He mentioned something about the 3 police the other night and their warning against panhandling.  At that time another police officer snuck up behind brother Jim and was standing there.  Brother Jim allowed his flesh to rise up a little and had to walk away from them, saying he wanted to talk to the chief of police. (He was a bit frustrated from being harassed.)

It's clear that they are harassing the Christians because the 3 police officers the other night were given a gospel card, we look like Christians, our van has our ministry message on it and the officer purposely sought us out this morning to give a warning.  There were several other white vans in the parking lot with many people walking around but they didn't stop them.

Brother Jim took some time to refocus his mind and set it on things above (Colossians 3:2) and said he would like to have the opportunity to give them the gospel.  It wasn't long after we were getting ready to move on down the road and at a gas station just around the corner we saw both police officers joined by a sheriff.  How perfect!
We pulled in, brother Jim jumped out with some gospel cards and walked over to them.  He apologized for his tone of voice and then proceeded to give them all the gospel. Praise God!


I said to brother Jim that our savior was numbered with the transgressors....and it seems as if we are also.  I mentioned how we were never harassed when we were worldly crazy drunks (often partying with the officers of the town) but now that we have left all that behind to do good works for the Father and preach the gospel, we are the outlaws.  Also.... now that we live in a van, we are treated as if we are criminals or homeless people feeding off society when in all actuality we have more resources than many people because we've been very careful with what the Lord has blessed us with. Brother Jim said 'We are rich, in resources and in the Lord.'  We don't take anyone's money, in fact we've had people who claim the name of Christ, thank us for what we do in proclaiming the gospel and try to give us money for our ministry.  We turn it down and tell them to go do good for the Lord.

This isn't the first time we've been harassed by the police in a town and it seems that soon we will moving from town to town as satan unleashes his vengeance through the government forces.   It's their world, not ours.  Born again believers are not welcome here anymore than our Savior or the apostles were.  Satan hates the truth and will use his people to try to stop the proclamation of the life giving gospel...but those who have ears to hear, WILL hear.

 Amen.

 Have a joyous day sisters and stand strong.

 Love in Christ,
Sister Deb
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