New Ones: Gospel Preaching

As we have been praying for quite a while now for the practice of the God-ordained way of gospel preaching and shepherding, the Lord begins to answer our prayer one by one. First, He stirred up the spirit of the saints in our church life with the burden of prayer. Then He led us to His word concerning going out to preach the gospel or visit people. He led us specifically to a Bible verse with a footnote in Johnn 15:16. After one Lord's table meeting we all enjoyed pray-reading and fellowshipping on "go forth."

John 15:16
You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and I set you that you should go forth and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give you.

Note from the Recovery VersionThe Greek word for go forth means to depart, implying to leave for another place; hence, it is rendered go forth. It is the same Greek word as that for go in 14:4 and 16:5. The fruit borne by going forth in this way does not denote the virtues of the fruit-bearer's character, such as the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the believer's living, mentioned in Gal. 5:22-23, but it denotes the believers produced by the fruit-bearer. This corresponds with the subject of this section, 12:20--17:26, which is Christ's multiplication. The virtues we possess through our abiding in the Lord cannot be counted as Christ's multiplication. Only the believers that we produce in the Lord are the tangible multiplication of Christ. The Father's house in ch. 14, the true vine in this chapter, and the man-child in ch. 16 are all related to the multiplication of Christ.

As we enjoyed a time of fellowship as a church, we all are burdened to first pray for all our contacts and plan to meet the relatives of all the saints this coming month. The Lord led us in such a way that every Lord's day after the meeting, we would fellowship on how to practically carry out our burden. Last Lord's day, we practiced preaching the gospel in Hindi in order to reach out to the local Hindi speaking people. The Lord also blessed us with new ones.

The Mother of a Paralysed Boy

A sister who is a nurse by profession is working for a family whose child is paralyzed due to a brain hemorrhage. She requested a visit for prayer which led me and my wife with another sister to visit. When we saw the situation of the child lying on a bed, our burden was for the mother and her family's salvation. I wasted no time to preach the gospel and led her to the Lord Jesus Christ and also led her to pray to receive the Lord. Of course, we also prayed for the healing of the boy child. Then my wife established a contact with her over the phone. Our prayer is for the healing of the boy and also for the spiritual healing and salvation of the entire family. 

Life Insurance Agent

A week ago, a new one brought by one of our brothers attended the meeting. He works for a life insurance company. Though he indeed to sell life insurance to me, I took that opportunity of "life-insurance" into a gospel. I preached the gospel to him and expounded the truth concerning the receiving of eternal life which has been insured from eternity past to eternity future. To receive such an eternal life insurance, the only condition is the believing into the Lord Jesus Christ. After preaching the gospel to him, he received the gospel and prayed to receive the Lord.

A Seeking Engineer

Last Saturday, during our gospel preaching, a seeking one was contacted, who also attended the Lord's table meeting. Though he did not partake of the bread and the wine, he enjoyed the meeting so much that he even stood and spoke his enjoyment in the meeting. After the meeting, he testified how much joy and happiness he felt by attending the meeting. We also preached the gospel to him in a fine and thorough way and led him to receive the Lord in prayer. Since he is such a seeker, we also gifted him the New Testament in Hindi for him and his wife. His promise was that if he continues to enjoy, he would take a step further for baptism and start a home meeting in his house. 

Besides, we also met another an engineer who received the Lord in the park during our gospel preaching. Then, we preached the gospel to two Muslim seekers; as they wanted to know who Jesus is. We spent over an hour to preach to these seekers. These are few notable accounts of how the Lord begins to answer our prayer and honor our burden.