Love on the streets 06.27.16

Today Mary Ann and I met at Green Sage and headed to the nearby stairs right away to pray for the Lord's direction for the outreach. After we rose from prayer, we engaged in a conversation with two young guys who, we found out were homeless. One of them, John was a believer and became by choice homeless and decided to travel all across the country and hitchhike from one place to another. We meet those "floaters" all the time on the streets. Mary Ann exhorted him with the promises of God and encouraged him to seek Him wholeheartedly. As we were talking to him, the Holy Spirit said that he needed prayer for healing. It turned out, he had both Lyme disease and Crohn's disease on top of a broken ankle. He didn't believe that the Lord can heal someone instantly and the healing didn't happen right on the spot. When we meet unbelief like that, our strategy is usually to tell them about a previous story where we saw God heal someone on the spot. A testimony often breaks unbelief and people want to experience a miracle because they think if it worked for the other person, it can happen with them too (that's how I became a believer...). It's not always the case, though.

In John's case we didn't see instant healing but the Lord gave me a word for him about Jesus wanting us to have works made with gold, silver and costly stones (1 Cor 3:12-15).

After that we headed to Pritchard's park where Mary Ann was looking for open doors while I took out my guitar and worshiped, but the crowd of traveling hippies didn't seem to be a fertile ground this time. It's strange and sad to me that so many young people leave their home by their own choice and end up in these temporary gangs in different cities, drugged up in dirty clothes. I do believe though that God wants to shine His light through us in the darkness as we step out and obey Him.


I did have another encounter with traveling hippies just at the nearby Walmart this past weekend as they were begging for money and food to be able to travel. "Trip" and his friend were standing at the driveway to Walmart when I approached them with a can of nuts and some cold water. It turned out that both of them had a background in Jesus and as we prayed together, the Lord started to heal Trip's hand that was broken from him punching another guy a few days ago. They were very open to the gospel and I left them with a Time to Revive Bible.

The Lord really loves and loves to save the hippies.

We are made to love

In Mt 22:37 Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God with all we are and have - our mind, our heart, our soul and strength. This is the most important commandment for many different reasons. One reason is because if we do that, the rest of the commandments will flow out of our hearts following the first one. 1 John 4:20 says that it is impossible to really love God and hate a brother.

Another reason is that the human heart is fearfully made to be only completely satisfied if we walk in the first commandment. There is a spirit of boredom and dullness in the body of Christ, because many  of us don't put first things first. Continuous submission to God will energize the human heart and will keep us vibrant throughout the years. David is a perfect example, who remained a worshiper of God on the first place even in his elderly years.

Our obedience is maturing as we are faithful on the little things. The Holy Spirit is our escort in the journey of complete surrender.

Love on the streets is an expression that we want to love God with our time and gifts. Evangelism, reaching the lost and discipling the Lord's people is to be lived as a lifestyle, but I have found it important to make time to focus on it.

When I think of Love on the Streets I think of loving people of course, but first  and foremost I think of showing love to Jesus. By making time in my schedule for it, I would like to express to the Lord that what's important to Him is important to me. Jesus tells us in Mt 28:19 to go and make disciples of all nations. A nation can be a far country, but starts at the place where we live. 

Evangelism is only one facet of living our lives fully for the Lord, but it's an important one. Jesus was very focused on this during His earthly ministry. His healing ministry was submitted to the message of forgiveness of sins through faith.

Every LOTS is different and we are open to the Spirit's leading. Today for example we played chess with an elderly man. We did not speak about the Lord to him directly, but we had our Bibles with us as we entered into his world for a little time.

For another man God has given a place today to stay at after we asked Him to. Praise the Lord!

Another man needed some scriptural foundation on the topic of salvation, so we offered him a Bible study. We pray that he would show up next week.

I enjoy seeing the diversity of actions we do during the outreaches and I am very thankful for it.

Loving God is the most fulfilling thing we can live for. That's how we are made!

Blessings,
Adam

Hephzibah

Hephzibah - The Lord delights in you. That is the word the Lord gave Isaiah in a time when Israel was in a place of backsliding in their relationship with God. The Lord promised that He would not give Israel rest until they mature into a delightful Bride who partners with Him. He delights in His people even while they are growing.

Jesus not only sees us wholly with all our good and bad attributes, but He also sees what we can become. He called Peter the rock when he was an unsaved fisherman. He knew what Paul could become by His grace while he was still persecuting the Lord's people. 

He sees us as we are, but also know whom we can become 10-20-50 years from today. On the streets we often encounter people who are in terrible condition - addictions, sickness, they seem hopeless to the human eyes. But who would have thought that Peter, who denied Jesus to a young girl would soon speak under the anointing of the Holy Spirit and 3000 men and women would repent of their sins.

I love to see God taking seemingly hopeless people and radically turning their situations upside down for the better. I love to go out on the streets and look for "tax collectors", "fishermen", "prostitutes with 7 demons" whom the Lord can turn into mighty warriors.

I always pray that God would send laborers to the harvest and sometimes the way He answers my prayers can be surprising. The fact that He sees the warriors in Gideon-like people speaks of a heart of a Father who has faith in His children. How wonderful!

My prayer is that God would give us His heart and eyes and vision for these people.

Finally, here is a quote by Brad Long:

"Thirst is a gift given by the Holy Spirit, who already dwells with believers, drawing us to a place of need where we may be reduced to praying for everything He wants to give us.  Take the risk of following Jesus wherever He calls you.  Before long you will find yourself in some situation where you crash up against impossibilities.  You don't have to go to the foreign mission field to be reduced to this state of dependence.  Just try to bring a non-Christian to Jesus or minister to someone with problems.  Sheer powerlessness will lead you to dependence on Jesus, who will -- if you ask Him -- give you the power of the Holy Spirit... And so I say, ask for the power of the Spirit. Definitely ask, until you have an urgent yearning born of helplessness..."

Amen!
Recommended passage: Isa 62:1-8

Cells in a Body

Rom 12:4-5 For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

This last week I was very blessed to see how God made His children differently and we all have different gifts. A little summary:
- Wayne, who has a very pastoral heart and loves to follow up in prayer and in person with the folks we meet on the streets, despite being busy stopped by and exhorted a few people who were lingering on the streets.
- Pam, who is the doctor of heart issues got to speak with some guys who needed healing from Jesus in their hearts.
- Jeff was faithful in anchoring in prayer for us and the city as we were walking the streets.
- Sarah last week had an opportunity to step beyond the boundaries of her workplace and pray with a man on the streets whom he had seen before on her job, but wasn't able to share the Lord in that situation. She did this time very boldly and filled with the love of Jesus. What an opportunity the Lord gave her. We all know the feeling when we are on a job and we want to share, but the opportunity is just not right. The Lord redeemed an opportunity for her this time. 
- I personally really enjoyed praying with a man who had a serious heart problem and HIV. The Lord has put me in a position where I always have some extra supplies of natural remedies in my car and I felt led to give this men some specifically for his condition and encourage him to meet again. 

I imagine the Body of Christ as a literal body, every person being one cell in it. Multiple cells form a tissue, which can be muscle, connective tissue, neural tissue etc., all with different functions. God designed the body with MUCH wisdom and every organ, tissue and cell has a reason. How awesome it is that we can find our place in this body and relate to the other cells, maintaining the wholeness and the function of the Body.

I look forward to see what kind of a cell He develops me into. It's of course not all about destination. Most of the time I really enjoy the journey and the development. We just need the right nourishment to grow. Just as our cells need oxygen, sugar and other elements to function, we need these as well. We need His Spirit, the Word, other members to fellowship with. 

We also need to function in our gifts. If you don't use your arm muscles for a few months, maybe because you have a cast on it, your muscles will suffer a significant decrease. This is called atrophy. To avoid or reverse this, we need to exercise.

We need to take our gifts the Good God has given us and serve others. Believers and unbelievers. Those gifts, whether it's natural or supernatural are given to make disciples and edify the body. Of course we enjoy it as well along the way. God gives us joy as we serve.

I would love to see the local parts of the Body grow and function in it's fullness and it's glory. I look forward to the two days of prayer for the region in May. This is another few sets of push-ups that will grow the muscle.

Prayers that move the hand of God

After a complicated start, Pam and I decided to go to Pritchard Park and see what the Lord has for us. After a short worship time in the cold weather, I felt like the Lord wanted us to engage with the homeless people hanging around in the park. 

One man we talked to turned out to be a faithful servant of Jesus among the homeless with great visions in his heart. His heart's desire is to establish a sober house for people, especially homeless who struggle with different types of addictions. My heart just jumped to see the measure of faith he had. I believe that it is very much possible that the Lord will give him the desire of His heart, in fact I believe that it was the Lord who imparted this vision into this man's heart who used to struggle with the same types of bondage himself - drugs and alcohol. The Lord delivered him fully from that place of darkness and now with a thankful heart he is serving Him like Peter's mother-in-law, whom Jesus healed from a serious feverish disease (Mt 8:14-15).

We prayed with him for his vision to be established and that the Lord would heal his back and numbness in his extremities. He received partial healing as he said that his numbness had decreased. We praise the Lord and ask Him  for full healing!

After departing from him we engaged with a middle aged black man who really wanted to have faith in God, but because of all the hardships he had to go through and now living on the streets, he was having doubts and unbelief in his heart. The Lord sees the sincere desire in his heart to know Him and experience how real the Father's love is. We prayed with him that God would fill him with His incredible love and heal all his wounds. He thankfully received our prayers on that. 

For me the top event of the day was when two men seeing us talking and praying with their friends and sensing the prompting of the Spirit asked us to join them in praying for their families and all the homeless people in Asheville. As we knelt down beside them, I felt the Lord's presence and His desire for us to humble ourselves and to admit that we are weak and incapable by ourselves, but how much He can do if we ask Him. He heals, He delivers, He saves, because He loves. (2Chr 7:14)

Now is the time for the people of God to blow the trumpets and come together in unity and meekness to cry out to the Father that He would heal our lands. (Joel 2:1)

Please pray for us that we would be able to care for the people we meet on the streets in practical and spiritual ways. We also ask for laborers, for the harvest is great and the workers are few. 

If you would like to be part of the Great Commission and serve the Lord on the streets with us, join us next Monday, the 9th at 4 pm at Green Sage downtown Asheville.

If you have any questions, email me at adam.bardoczi@gmail.com

God - The Source of love and life

I'm excited that our Revive Asheville team is growing this year. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says that if the people of God who are called by His name seek His face together with humility and walking in repentance, He will intervene and heal their land. I believe there is a lot to heal in our land and I'm very happy to see the growing hunger and thirst among the people for God. There is also increasing darkness that we see all around the world, but the darkness and the light is growing together.

As we gathered this Monday to seek His face, we felt led to not go out and minister with works, but to go deeper in God and intercede for the city. We found out that the abortion clinic that the enemy is trying to bring back to Asheville after the local clinic closed down last year has not opened yet. God answered our prayers from last year that the plans of the enemy would be confused and come to nothing. Calling the company we just learned that they are trying to be established, but they don't find a doctor who would take on that job! Yes! Our prayer is that it would stay this way, forever. Please pray with us for the cause of the unborn.

After our extended prayer time we decided to walk down to Prichard Park just to check in. On our way out we had a pleasant talk with one of the waitresses of Green Sage. Apparently over the past few months their whole staff have changed up. We pray that our ministry this year would be a blessing to them week by week and make them grow in the knowledge of God. 

At Pritchard Park an elderly man seeing Bibles in our hands RAN up to us to see if we were Christians. Finding out we were, he gave us a picture of God as the father and mother of all men and as One sitting down and wanting to have mankind sitting on His lap. I believe that God actually wants to do this. He wants to reveal Himself as the God of love to the world through His Church cooperating with Him. He wants to love us and He wants us to love Him on His terms. This man showed great appreciation towards God and towards us, His saints. 

We prayed with him, encouraged him (and he exhorted us very much as well!) and then departed. 

I look forward to go out again next Monday. Join us, if you would like to be part of what God is doing in the midst of our city. We all can contribute in small, but significant ways to God's plan as we partner with Him.

It's a glory that the Father chooses weak and broken people like you and I to bring restoration to this world.

He is so good!

Blessings

Adam

Tend the sheep!

Tend the sheep!

After our prayer time at Green Sage we decided to show some practical love in the cold weather to the people we encounter on the streets. Sharing Christ and sharing a hot cup of coffee - great combination.

While passing out the hot drinks we encountered different types of grounds. Some of them were fertile and filled with the love of Christ, happy to share that God dwell
s deep within their hearts. Some of them were hard, not ready for sowing. Some of them were rocky and thorny - they are not grounded with their faith, but as the hot drinks warmed their bodies, so can some encouragement fan the tiny flames in their hearts for God.
If we are open and dial into God, we will recognize the opportunities in our daily lives when our uncompromised love for Jesus can help wavering believers to gain some encouragement in their walk with Christ. Making disciples very much includes making an effect on those who are spiritually less mature than us and are not necessarily unbelievers.

The Lord affirmed us and our work on the streets through a gentle soul who spends a lot of time in the heart of the city and have daily encounter with the folks there. She told us how the Lord uses our ministry to change people's lives there. Some of them started to bear very good fruits. They have become much more gentle and less argumentive. The Spirit of God have been growing the seeds we planted into their hearts over the weeks.

After rejoicing in her words, we asked her if we could pray for her and she gladly said yes. She felt very loved by God and by us as she experienced the Spirit's gentle presence and received some encouragement from the Lord.
I've heard stories similar to hers many times - she used to be a strong Christian, but the sprouting faith got choked by different things of the world and she's been feeling distant and disconnected from the Body of Christ and from God Himself.  Thankfully God always welcomes us back to the Father's house, if we are willing to go.

Romans 8: 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We hope and pray that she continues to surrender to the love of God and His great plans for her.

Join us next time to experience what God is doing in the city on the 18th of November at 8:30 AM at Green Sage!

Here is a great resource on how to share your faith by Time to Revive.

Blessings

Adam