Good morning. I hope that you are doing well on this final weekend of February. Two months of this “new” year are almost gone already. My oh my how the time flies. I do have a request this morning. Please take some time and pray for brother Jacques and the children at the orphanage in Haiti. It is incredibly dangerous there right now. Several people have been killed by the gangs within about ½ mile of the house. Pray for their safety and also that we might be able to find a place to relocate them to with the hope things might settle back down in the future.
The other day I was working on a lesson and wanted to look at a verse from the book of Ephesians. As I sat at my desk I glanced over and noticed that my travel Bible was setting there. I must have sat it there when I returned from the Mexico mission trip. It is the Bible I typically use on mission trips and other times when I prefer to carry a smaller Bible. Even though it is called “pocket size” I’m not sure that’s really the case. It is approximately 6” x 4” x 2” thick. It would be rather cumbersome in your shirt pocket. Nevertheless, it is the perfect size to put in a backpack or carry when doing evangelism. It can also be held in one hand while preaching or teaching, which is good since most places don’t have the large pulpits like we do in the States. In fact, most of the time there isn’t a pulpit in many of the areas where we preach. Anyways, I love this Bible. The first place I remember taking it was on a trip to Romania many years ago. I still have the notes written in it from a sermon I gave with about ten minutes notice. So, as I was preparing my lesson, I picked up my Bible and started flipping through the pages to Ephesians. The weird thing is, I couldn’t find it. At first, I thought maybe I had turned the pages too quickly, so I slowed down and methodically turned the pages. I thumbed through the pages of Galatians and then….I found myself staring at the start of Philippians. I was a bit confused, thinking maybe everyone else was right and that I had lost my mind. I began reciting the books of the New Testament in my head. Sure enough, Ephesians was supposed to be right after Galatians. What in the world was going on? Then I noticed that there was a gap in the page numbers. Somehow, somewhere, I had lost 4 pages out of my beloved Bible. My notes in that section and the verses I had underlined for witnessing were gone. Obviously, that was a disheartening discovery. My favorite travel Bible may have to stay home on the next trip.
As I thought about my Bible missing a section it made me think of the world in which we live. I could just use my Bible but never preach or teach from Ephesians again. After all, there are a lot of people that willingly ignore verses, sections, and even entire books of the Bible. Many people have turned the Bible into a food buffet. They simply choose the parts they like, take what they want, and leave the rest behind. If people used a sharpie to cross out everything they didn’t like or agree with, it would look like some of those redacted government reports that they show on the news. Sadly, we live in a time where there is not only ignorance about what the Bible says, there is intentional rejection of God’s Word in areas that conflict with what is socially acceptable.
The only section of Ephesians that is still intact in my travel Bible are the verses at the top of the page where Philippians begins. They are verses 18 through 24. I think the first part of that is an appropriate passage for us to consider. Verses 18 through 20 say the following:
18 Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert in this with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints. 19 Pray also for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. 20 For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough in Him to speak as I should.
In the world in which we live, it is going to take a lot of prayer, perseverance and boldness to share God’s Word as we should.
From our neighborhoods to the nations,
Pastor Larry
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