New Hope International Ministries

Most of us have spent time in a medical waiting room. Waiting to be ‘called back’ to another room to wait for the doctor or clinician. It can be mildly frustrating. The ICU or surgery waiting rooms are a different matter. Long, anxious minutes or hours can drag by.  It has been said that it’s a ‘minor procedure’ if it’s on someone else, but if it’s you or your loved one, it’s always major.

Waiting on the Lord can also be a difficult thing at times. It can require patience and a lot of faith. However, the Bible is filled with verses about waiting on the Lord and the hope it brings in difficult times.

• “Be strong, and He will strengthen your heart, all you who wait for the Lord” (Psalm 31:24).
• “Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield” (Psalm 33:20).
• “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of those who prosper  in their way, because of those who make wicked schemes” (Psalm 37:7).
• “I waited patiently for the Lord, and He turned to me, and heard my cry” (Psalm 40:1).
• “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him” (Lamentations 3:25).
• “O Lord, be gracious to us; we have waited for You. Be our strength every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble” (Isaiah 32:2).
• “…but those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31).

Let me share a second dimension of the waiting room experience. We sometimes need to wait for the Lord’s help and care not only in our immediate circumstances, but also for the end of our days here on earth. In my advanced years, I take great comfort in knowing that Jesus is coming back for me soon. I’m in the waiting room, and my wait will not be long.

• “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” (John 14:1-4, NKJV).

Years ago, I heard an elderly believer in my Eastern Kentucky home say, “I am no more afraid of death than I am of a butterfly.“ I share that same sentiment here in this waiting room.

• “My soul, wait silently for God, for my hope is from Him” (Psalm 62:5).
• “It is good that a man should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (Lamentations 3:26).

My friend, if you are waiting in fear or uncertainty, hear the Lord’s word to Thomas:

• ^“Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:5-6).

Prayer: Lord, we wholly embrace you as the way, the truth, and the life. May we wait with patiently and joyfully for your return. Amen!

~ Brother Roy

I have recently had a heart-wrenching encounter with bureaucracy. My cancer had returned, and I needed a very expensive medication. My insurance company approved the drug, but I would be responsible for a small co-pay. The co-pay would be $3,323.00 a month for the foreseeable future. It was an amount that was beyond my financial means. I started the process of requesting a waiver of cost from the drug manufacturer.

I came face-to-face with a bureaucracy.  I sent page after page of forms; I made phone call after phone call; I sent fax after fax.  Days passed without being able to obtain the urgently needed medication. A month passed. Then news came that my application and necessary documentation was finally going to a review committee.  

As I anxiously awaited the committee decision, I remembered something my dad told me when I was a boy. My dad came to saving faith later in life than most. He became an active and committed member of the local Methodist Church. Because he was eager and able to serve the church, he was soon loaded down with jobs. Eventually, he was appointed Chairman of the Committee on Committees. That committee was to review the church roll of active members, identify and recruit potential members for the numerous committees.

One evening after a particularly long meeting, he came home weary and frayed. He said to me, “Son, remember this – ‘For God so loved the world, He didn’t send a committee!’” With my recent experience fresh in mind, I want to affirm my dad’s observation. After many anxious days of waiting, the committee finally met and approved my request.

How grateful we should be that we don’t have to go through a committee, a preacher, a priest, or a bishop to have direct access to the Lord. On Calvary the way was cleared for us to come directly to Him. The veil of separation was torn top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). Such an act of grace is beyond understanding. No paperwork, no panel of judges, no review board is needed. “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9, NIV). We have this blessed assurance from God’s word: ^“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, NKJV). Words from a Charles Tinsley hymn are beautiful: “Nothing between my soul and the Savior… Jesus is mine! There’s nothing between”. 

Prayer:  Lord, we thank You for opening the way for us to come directly to You. We need no committee or creed. “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all” (I Tim. 2:5-6, NKJV).

~ Brother Roy

Dr. John Oswalt was speaking at a Spiritual Renewal Series at the church I attend. He used a phrase that I knew in an entirely different context than the one in which he used it. He said, “We need an infusion.” After a momentary pause, he continued, “We need an infusion of God’s love!” I entirely agreed with his statement. Then, I thought of another application with which I was familiar.

I understood the phrase in a medical context. My wife has a type of iron deficiency that cannot be treated by oral medication. Across the years, she has periodically needed to go to a medical clinic for an iron infusion. The infusion is a way to deliver medications directly into the bloodstream instead of taking them as pills or liquids. This procedure provides a relatively fast and efficient method of safely administering the medication.

The wear and tear of daily life depletes my wife’s iron reserves over time. She needs an iron infusion a couple of times a year to keep her functioning normally. In the spiritual realm, many of us experience a similar situation. The ravages of living in our fallen world can deplete our reserves of faith and spirituality vitality. Times of renewal in special services such as revivals, retreats, or spiritual emphasis times apart can be very important to help supplement our routine Christian activities. A diminished capacity for Christian service and a lack of enthusiasm are often an indicator that we need a period of refreshing, an infusion of His love.

Our Heavenly Father is able to infuse Jesus’ life-giving blood into our veins. By faith, we can receive this spiritual gift and find new power to do those things He has called us to do. We may need to come apart from our regular routine to take full benefit of an infusion of His love. There is just something special about taking time out to focus on Him and His ‘life-giving flow’. 

Prayer: “May you be infused with strength and purity, filled with confidence in the presence of God our Father when our Master Jesus arrives with all his followers” (1 Thessalonians 3:13, MSG).

~ Brother Roy

Jesus had been talking to His disciples about what to do when someone sins against you. And Peter decided he was really going to impress Jesus: “Lord, how many times do I have to forgive someone for sinning against me? Up to SEVEN TIMES?” (Matthew 18:21).

Jesus was not impressed. “Not seven times, but SEVENTY TIMES seven” (v.22). Now, some English translations say 77 times, some say 70×7, but the truth is, Jesus could have just as easily said 700×7 or 7,000,000×7, because what He was getting at was you don’t ever stop forgiving someone who has wronged you. (Now, if someone is wronging you 490 times, it may be best for your wellbeing just to avoid that person if possible; but we do not forgive to seven times, we forgive to times without number.)

Why is it so important that we continue to forgive someone who repeatedly wrongs us? Have you ever had someone wrong you in a way that made it difficult to forgive? Maybe someone said something hurtful about you behind your back, but word of it reached you. Maybe someone took advantage of you financially. Maybe a coworker lied about you, and it cost you a promotion. Maybe someone in your church spread untrue information about you.

The truth is, getting angry, nursing a grudge, feeling wronged – sometimes those things feel good! It can feel good to pet and stroke our sense of being mistreated. It makes us feel superior to the one mistreating us. Sometimes it even makes us feel justified in doing wrong to that person or others. It feels good to vent our anger to someone (or to the shower walls): Boy, did he ever do me dirty. She is the most ignorant gossip I’ve ever heard. What a selfish bunch of hypocrites those people are. I’d like to take him down a peg or two, I tell you what. It feels good!

And it’s literally killing us. The anger and the bitterness and the stress that spill out of us when we refuse to forgive is literally changing the chemistry of our bodies. The Mayo Clinic reported that holding on to grudges and bitterness and unforgiveness can lead to anxiety, stress, hostility, high blood pressure, depression, weakened immune system, increased risk of heart attack and stroke, low self-esteem, and other mental health issues.

The truth of the matter is that the person who is really being hurt by my unwillingness to forgive is…me. In fact, the person that wronged us is probably barely aware that we exist, much less that we are harboring bad feelings against them. They are going on with their life without giving us a second thought; meanwhile they are living rent-free in our minds and driving us crazy with stress.

Did you know that our bodies work in such a way that if we are holding onto bad feelings and rehearsing wrongs that somebody did to us, even if that person is miles and miles away, our body chemistry – the chemicals that our brain releases when it is under stress – is the same as if they were sitting right next to us? Now, why would you want to spend your time sitting up next to the person who is causing you so much anguish?

There is only one way to break the cycle of bad feelings, bitterness, and stress (that is actually attacking our physical health): to forgive, as many times as necessary.

“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32, NASB).

~ Matt Kinnell, NHIM Board Chair

Burial in a stone tomb in first century Jewish tradition would normally consist of two parts: the body would be wrapped in a shroud with spices and laid on a shelf in the tomb, then about a year later, after the flesh had decomposed, the family would reenter the tomb and take the bones and place them in a little box known as an ossuary. The ossuary would then be placed in a small niche in the tomb as its permanent resting place. So Jesus’ body, cared for under the tradition of His day, was laid inside Joseph of Arimathea’s personal tomb to await decomposition, when His bones could be transferred to an ossuary box and stored away for the final resurrection on the Last Day.

The ancient Jewish understanding of the afterlife was a place called Sheol, which was this sort of shadowy, gloomy place of next-to-nothingness where the dead would languish until a far-off final day when God would raise up the faithful dead of Israel, all at once, in a great bodily resurrection. The Jews of Jesus’ day had a clear idea in their minds of what resurrection meant – it meant the final bodily resurrection at the last day, presumably after a Messiah had come and conquered all invaders and set up a righteous kingdom in Jerusalem.

That is likely what Jesus’ followers would have thought about the fate of Jesus of Nazareth: we thought He was going to be the one to rescue Israel, but now He’s dead, so He’ll be waiting in Sheol for the final resurrection just like the rest of us. We have honored Him in burial for all that He meant to us, but clearly He was not who we hoped He was.

And so Jesus’ followers spent the Sabbath in hiding. It seems logical that they would be in fear for their own lives. When a revolution falls apart, it doesn’t usually turn out too well for the rebel leaders. Some 100 years before Jesus, a man named Spartacus led a slave rebellion against the Romans, and when he was defeated, the Roman general Crassus captured 6,000 of Spartacus’ men and ordered them all to be crucified along the road to Rome. So the disciples would have been hiding like defeated revolutionaries.

The shock of how quickly things turned from the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday to dead and buried by Friday must have been stunning. I’m sure most of us are familiar with the experience of unexpected loss and the alternating feelings of crushing grief and surreal numbness. What must that Sabbath have been like for Jesus’ followers? Crushing grief, paralyzing fear, and a complete disorientation as to where to go from here.

And at the center of all of this, there is the tomb, the final resting place of Jesus of Nazareth. It is sealed with a stone and protected by guards. All the hopes, all the dreams, all the plans that Jesus’ followers had been so excited about lay sealed behind that stone. All hope was gone.

But when Jesus’ followers came to the tomb on Easter morning, they found it empty. The immediate assumption was that an empty tomb meant the body had been moved. If that is where the story ended, that would have been the lasting impression. And faith in Jesus would likely have faded.

But that wasn’t where the story ended. Because the risen Jesus appeared to Mary, then to the disciples, then to more than 500 at one time. Finally, He appeared to Paul, who testified that the essential meaning of the risen Messiah is that we who are in the Messiah will be raised as well.

The tomb is empty, because He is risen. And because He is risen, the tomb cannot hold us, either. “Death has been swallowed up in victory!” (1 Corinthians 15:53, NIV).

~ Matt Kinnell, NHIM Board Chair

While setting in the waiting area of a doctor’s office, I noticed a sign saying Worker’s Compensation Patients sign in here. It is my understanding that Worker’s Compensation is insurance that provides benefits and/or medical care for workers who are injured or become ill as a direct result of their job. With time on my hands, I kept looking at the sign and thinking about it in terms of a spiritual application. God’s Word has some important things to say to those who work for the Lord here on earth.

If you have committed your life to serving the Lord, His compensation plan is amazing. You will be rewarded! In Matthew 19:29, Jesus assured His disciple Peter that anyone who sacrifices to follow Him “will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life.”

Things a Christian Worker should  know about the God’s Compensation Plan:

• ^“And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart” (Galatians 6:9, NKJV).
• “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ” (Colossians 3:23-24, NKJV).
• “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work” (John 9:4, NKJV).
• “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established” (Proverbs 16:3, RSV).
• “I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35, NKJV).

Being a Christian worker and co-laborer with Jesus means we must be about our ‘Father’s business’ (Luke 2:49, NKJV). There is a word of caution that needs to be stated here. While a Christian is expected to work for the Lord in building the Kingdom of God, work without faith and obedience to the Lord is a ‘dead end job’. Works cannot save us. ^“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9, NKJV).

When we have truly received forgiveness of sins by His grace, our desire will be to show our faith by working for the Savior. The service we offer to others must be more than just words. The Epistle of James provides words of wisdom, “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:14-17, NKJV).

Worker’s Prayer: Lord, let me so labor that I may hear You say at the end of my life’s work, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord” (Matthew 25:23, NKJV).

~ Brother Roy

Imagine you are approaching the starting line of a race. You stretch out your muscles, trying to loosen up any tightness that might lead to injury. The starting official approaches you. “Are you really going to run dressed like that?” What the official was noting was that you are dressed more for shoveling snow than for running a sprint: heavy boots, stiff denim jeans, a bulky sweatshirt, an overstuffed parka, a backpack filled with books. Who would attempt to run a race weighed down by all that?!?

The writer to the Hebrews encourages us to “rid ourselves of every obstacle and the sin which so easily entangles us, and run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1, NASB). If we are going to be effective citizens of God’s Kingdom, if we are going to find our place in the Gospel vocation of “His Kingdom come, His will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”, we are going to have to strip off and leave behind spiritual baggage that is weighing us down.

Before we can move forward to pursue the life of righteousness to which God has called us, there are things of which we must rid ourselves. Maybe it’s a specific sin in which we know we shouldn’t be engaging. Maybe it’s a grudge or bad attitude that we just can’t let go of. Maybe it’s an unhealthy relationship. Maybe it’s something we’ve prioritized over God’s Kingdom, like wealth or success or politics. Maybe it’s that thing inside us that makes us want to have our own way. Maybe it’s a prejudice or hatred against someone who is different than us. Maybe it’s an insistence on our own comfort that prevents us from being generous to our fellow humans in need. Maybe it’s a spirit of unkindness toward someone. Maybe it’s just plain old self-centeredness. These kinds of things are weights – spiritual baggage that keeps us from being what God has called us to be.

Sometimes weights are not necessarily bad or evil. Judson Van de Venter was a Pennsylvania art teacher and an accomplished musician, singer, and composer who was also a faithful member of his church. He began to feel that God was calling him to go into full-time evangelistic work, but he was afraid that if he committed himself to full-time ministry, he would have to abandon his dream of becoming a recognized musical artist. One night as he was struggling with this conflict between his art and his calling, Van de Venter sketched out the words to a song:

All to Jesus, I surrender, all to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live.

All to Jesus, I surrender, humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken – Take me, Jesus, take me now!

Once Van de Venter was willing to surrender – to lay aside – his ambition as a musician, he was able to walk into the calling that God had for him as an evangelist. He preached all over the U.S., England, and Scotland. Late in life, he took a teaching position at Florida Bible Institute, where he influenced a young student named Billy Graham.

And that great hymn of surrender he penned? It has been sung from the smallest churches to the grandest cathedrals. It has been performed everywhere from Billy Graham Crusades to the Grammy Awards to the Oprah Winfrey Show. And to think he worried that if he surrendered his ambition to God, his art would never have an audience.

Sometimes God has a way of taking the things we lay down for Him and returning them to us in ways we never imagined. But first, we have to surrender them to His purposes – to be willing to leave them behind if that’s what He requires.

The writer to the Hebrews admonishes us to rid ourselves of any obstacles or sins that would weigh us down in the course God has set before us. Whether that admonition calls to mind something specific in your life, or you want to commit not to hold back any encumbrance that the Spirit might reveal to you, now would be a great time to pray with the hymnwriter:

I surrender all! I surrender all!
All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all!

~ Matt Kinnell, NHIM Board Chair

Missionary friends from Kenya were in town to speak to a gathering of Asbury University students who were interested in missions. Following the meeting, they stopped by our home for a visit. We relived many wonderful times together in Kenya, including memorable safari drives. Many of those scenes are indelibly etched in our minds.

Our friends had shared with the students an event experienced on a safari drive in Maasai Mara. The Mara is truly one of the great big game areas in Africa and is located not far from the mission hospital where they served. They sighted a group of African Cape Buffalo quietly grazing. Positioning their vehicle to watch for a little while, they spotted lions hiding in the tall grass. While the Buffalos had their heads down grazing, the lions would silently creep up a few feet. If a Buffalo looked up, the lions would lay flat and motionless. The lions stalked ever so carefully and were just about close enough to pounce when a buffalo raised his head. He spotted the lions and snorted. In an instant the buffalo were gone. Danger averted!

Their account delivered a powerful message. Had not the animal lifted his head and looked up, it would be dead. What a great illustration of the phrase, ‘Heads up!’ The expression is used to call attention to an impending danger or the need for immediate awareness. God’s word gives us a similar authoritative directive, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8, NKJV).

It is essential that we stay watchful against the subtle and malicious designs of our spiritual enemies. This can be especially true when life seems calm and uneventful. The temptations of unfaithfulness and lethargy can creep up on us. Whether Christians are vigilant or not, they may be sure the adversary of their souls is on the alert and ready to take advantage of every opportunity of attacking by force or seducing by craft.

Heads up! No person should be so confident of the steadiness and purity of their character as to deem themself exempt from the necessity of monitoring their conduct and consciously regulating it by the counsel of God’s word. “We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19, NIV).

The Apostle Paul has this message to the unobservant: “While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,‘ destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape (1 Thessalonians 5:3, NIV). Feelings of freedom from care can lead to a false sense of security and careless behavior. Heads up!

The hymn “Watchfulness and Prayer” by Anne Steele gives expression to my thoughts:

Alas! what hourly dangers rise!
What snares beset my way!
To heaven, oh, let me lift mine eyes,
And hourly watch and pray.

~ Brother Roy

I was sitting in my car in a Walmart parking lot and noticed a lady with a rather unkept appearance walk by. From a back corridor of my mind came a nearly forgotten phrase: ‘wreck of the Hesperus’. I remembered hearing my grandmother use that phrase to describe a dowdy person.  Although I had a general idea of its meaning, I had no clue as to its origin or precise meaning.

When I got home from my Walmart visit, my curiosity drew me to the computer for an internet search. I learned the phrase was “of American-English origin”.  The phrase ‘like the wreck of the Hesperus’ means “in a sad state, or disheveled”. The phrase arises from the title of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s ballad poem, “The Wreck of the Hesperus“. The theme of the poem is how arrogance and foolish human pride can lead to tragic consequences. The poem follows a sea captain’s fatal decision to sail his ship, the Hesperus, into the wake of a devastating storm. His haughtiness coupled with overconfidence ended in the loss of the ship, its crew, his own life, and sadly the life of his own precious little daughter.

The poem elicited a sense of pathos in my spirit. I thought of the myriad of people whose paths I have crossed in my six decades of ministry. So many, like the sea captain, reject divine direction and wisdom, only to pay a dreadful price. Casting off Biblical restraint and ignoring a loving Heavenly Father’s offer to pilot them through perilous seas, they sink below waves. The beaches of time are littered with shipwrecks of prideful souls who have said to God, “I don’t need your help. I am the captain of my soul.”

Scripture speaks often of lives ruined by pride and arrogance. There are numerous verses about being humble and even more about pride. One of the Bible’s best-known verses notes, “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18, NKJV). The Apostle Paul observed that people who have rejected faith suffer spiritual shipwreck (1 Timothy 1:19). The words of the Prophet Ezekiel serve as a stirring reminder of the destiny of those with a haughty spirit: “Now you are shattered by the sea in the depths of the waters; your wares and all your company have gone down with you” (Ezekiel 27:34, NIV).

In the last two lines of his poem, Longfellow utters a mournful prayer: “Christ save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman’s Woe!” When the Hesperus went down, not only did earthly possessions disappear below the waves, but tragically everyone on board was lost. A sobering reality is that our choices impact those around us. Our choices touch our families and friends. So, let us walk before the Lord in humility. Scripture states, “Therefore, He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6, NKJV).

Prayer: The words of Edward Hopper’s great hymn, Jesus Savior Pilot Me, will serve as our prayer:

Jesus, Savior, pilot me,
Over life’s tempestuous sea:
Unknown waves before me roll,
Hiding rocks and treach’rous shoal;
Chart and compass come from Thee–
Jesus, Savior, pilot me!   

~ Brother Roy