The Lord is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation. Psalm 118:14
Dear Supporting Friends and Family,
I just printed off the first ever worship song book in the Dinangat language for the believers to use during praise services! What a joy it was to see the songs come streaming in. If we ever doubted their understanding of the gospel, these songs wipe away any doubt. Listen to some of the songs:
Basa's song: Father God we say thank to you. You always thought of us and think of us. Therefore we say thank to you. You sent our savior Jesus; therefore, we say thank you to You. Father God we say thank to You.
Bau's song: O-o-o I want to go to where heaven is. O-o-o we people are not able to save ourselves. O-o-o but there is God's son, the Christ who is able to save us. He will save us and lead us to God's place (heaven).
Mesari's song: We are not able to save ourselves. But Got because You exist You always help us. You gave us Your son. Because of our sin Jesus went up on the cross. Because of our sin He spilled out His blood. Because of Jesus You save us.
Nonjong's song: Great Father give us Your life. Great Father give us Your life. You give it to us, and we will hold it. You give it to us, and we will quickly hold it. We want to praise and praise God. We want to praise and praise God.
Tears well up in my eyes as I translate these songs. I can't tell you the joy that comes from what this all means. These people used to be trapped in a lifestyle of bondage to spirits and/or striving to earn favor from a God they didn't understand. And now they call Him "great Father." Now they sing praises to Him in freedom and truth because they see the great price the Son paid for them and they are free. Free to love Him. Free to serve Him. Free to worship Him.
The book of second Peter warns of savage wolves coming and destroying truth. Well, that is exactly what happened here last week. The Pastor of the dominating denomination came here to do his work. Many rumors have gone around concerning what these guys teach. So when this pastor showed up I decided to pay him a visit and directly ask him. It was a nice visit; and although I was very nervous, the visit seemed to be profitable. This proved to be an excellent discipleship time with the believers as they saw how to deal with these kinds of issues. However, we've heard from several people that he told everyone that they must do good works in order to be saved. The good news is that the believers noticed the different teaching and have been talking up a storm about it. They have been saying, "But God said He was satisfied with what Jesus did. It's only by His blood that we can be saved. Doing good things to say thank you to God is very good, but it cannot save us because we are nothing but sinners." There are a couple people that we are not sure about, but for the most part people are recognizing that this teaching is not consistent with Jesus' finished work on the cross. Praise God!
All your prayers for us concerning discipleship have been bountifully answered. We still meeting with the believers twice a week for teaching and then one evening a week in smaller groups. And some of the men have started to do the review questions before each session. This has been a joy to disciple them through and they do so much better than I could ever do explaining things. It's beautiful to hear them express it in their own words.
One thing that you could pray for is that the believers begin to sense a burden for the lost.
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