Ministry of the Word in Tripura

Today, we attended the Lord’s Table Meeting in Ratchantai, near Agartala in Tripura. As we enjoyed feasting on the Lord through hymns of praises, the brothers invited me to break bread with them. It was a joy indeed to break the bread with the saints in Tripura! After the bread breaking meeting and prophesying meeting, the brothers requested us to minister the word. As usual, my co-working brother ministered first and I followed him with the same burden he released. As I ministered the word following him, the Lord gave me a fresh burden and I released whatever the Lord burdened me with. 

The first burden was the need for shining forth the gospel of the blessed God. This was possible only if we first received the shining of the Lord. As the moon receives it's light from the sun and then reflects it in the dark night, we must also receive the shining light of the Lord and reflect it to this dark world. This reflecting of the Lord’s light is the shining, and this shining is the gospel.

“According to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, with which I was entrusted.” (1 Timothy 1:11, RecVer)

As I ministered, more light dawned upon me and the Lord showed me further light to help the saints in a very practical way. The way to receive the shining is by turning to Him, the Light, and receive His shining. This can be done practically in spending time with the Lord in prayer. I encouraged all the saints to set apart time every day for personal prayer. If possible, at least an hour to fellowship with the Lord, call upon His Name, and pray the burdens the Lord imparts. This must also be done along with the reading of the Bible everyday and picking a verse to pray-read. I further encouraged the saints to not complain about the unavailability of the ministry materials in their native language,  Kokborok. At least, they have the Bible in Kokborok. So thay must be faithful to read the word of God in Kokborok. Instead of complaining about what is not available, they must be faithful to read what they already have.

Besides this personal reading of the Bible and prayer, I also encouraged them to spend family prayer time everyday with their family members. Then, brothers prayer with the brothers, and sisters prayer with the sisters. In this way, all the saints should be living a prayer life, and the church sould be the house of prayer. 

Once, regular and daily personal and corporate prayer life is established, the saints will be shined upon by the glory of God and they will shine forth the glory of the blessed God as the gospel. By this shining, one by one, all the family members will be saved and there will be much increase in the church life here in Tripura. 

Through conversation with the saints here, it was obvious that they have very much been affected by the political and social situation that they have been facing. In fact, the Bengalis from Bangladesh have been migrating into this state and have even overtaken the local populace in many areas of life. This has been a nagging thought in the minds of the native people including the saints. Therefore, I encouraged them to pray for the salvation of all these migrants and have a view of God in viewing them as fish sent by the Lord to their land for their fishing. In fact, the Lord promised us that He will make us fishers of men. It will be difficult if not impossible to go to the land of these migrants for the gospel, but now that they have come, our responsibility should be to share the gospel of the love of God to them.

In addition, they have also been so much occupied with gaining their own land. But my burden was to help them receive God’s burden and pray the Lord’s prayer, praying for the kingdom of God rather than for our own kingdom. Our view should be according to God. Our prayer should also be according to God. There may me many things we cannot do, but God would not expect us to do what we cannot do. He will only expect us to do what we can do. So, we must be faithful to do what we can do and just do it faithfully. 

After the ministry of the word, we prayed and all the saints responded from the burden just released. Then, we all prayed together again and ended the meeting followed by lovefeast.

Later, in the evening we visited a family and preached the gospel to the unsaved family members of a brother. The Lord blessed the gospel preaching and those who have not yet believed into the Lord believed and confessed that Jesus is Lord! The truth concerning baptism was also shared to them. We then prayed for them and let them take their own time for their baptism. 

Thus, the day ended. And this was how we enjoyed the Lord’s move in Tripura.

Praise the Lord! May the Lord richly bless His move in Tripura!