THE FATHER HEART OF GOD

This month we’re touching on the loving heart of our Father. Throughout this issue you’ll find ways he displays his faithfulness in staying beside those in need. How he helps the widows and orphans, and how he daily uses you, our prayer and financial partners to meet ministry needs overseas and here in the US. In Iraq our teams lead Bible studies sharing with refugee children God’s character of love, faithfulness and holiness. In Egypt, fatherless children in our program see the consistent love of God through our hard working teams. Read on page two as fatherless Nikita who attends Grace Bible College in India, shares her testimony of how she came to trust in God.

And this month, as our team in the Colorado office struggled through COVID (delaying the mailing of this newsletter!), we too have basked in the love and healing hand of our Father in heaven. We are all well; thank you for your prayers!

One of the greatest experiences in life is to find love. I think of the music group “Foreigner” that sang the words, “I want to know what love is.” Lionel Richie, sang the haunting words…“Hello… is it me you’re looking for?” These songs tug at the heart and yet they only touch on an imperfect human expression of love, an inward focused, self-serving love.

Listen to the disciple John’s first-hand experience on this topic: See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. I John 3:1-2 NIV

He wrote three books, and in each one, it’s hard to miss that he was in absolute awe of who God is and what he meant to him. John shared with such exuberance. When we see his use of the word “See” he literally is using the same word that the angel used to tell the disciples, “Come see the place where he lay, he is not here.” John was a first-hand witness to Jesus’ ultimate act of love and the power of his resurrection. It had irrevocably changed his life, and the truth of this love had set him free.

See, engage, participate in the love of the Father. That transformative relationship that changes us from death to life and from an enemy of righteousness and holiness to a child of God. It is transformative in that we then understand what love truly is, not a self-serving love but a love for people and the very best interest that God has for them.

A life that is covered in God’s holiness and knows what forgiveness is, and is also able to forgive. A life that lives out the personality of God in assisting with justice, righteousness, mercy towards other, in wisdom in knowing the times and how to influence others with grace and truth. This love transforms us to engage in the life of Christ so that the life giving gospel will converge with thoughts and heart, purpose and motivation, to bring people into an interactive life of living out and enjoying the relationship with the Trinity.

As we look at what is taking place in Indigenous Ministries, it is our desire to see the life of Christ, that seed of holiness, righteousness and truth be planted deep into the hearts and lives of the people God has put into our path. From our student and pastors’ training deepening their faith and knowledge of God, to working with those who have gone through horrendous difficulties and challenges, that they would know Christ and would grow in faith to be like him each day and at his appearing. – John Cook, CEO