India Update #2

I’m in the Mumbai domestic airport right now, waiting for the flight to take us to our first place of ministry, Love-N-Care Ministries.

We arrived in Mumbai (Bombay) last night, and got about 5 hours sleep, and are heading for Visakhaputnam today. On the flight, we sat next to Aruna, an Indian woman who has been living in Orlando for around 20 years. She was very gracious and engaging in conversation. She asked us numerous questions about what we were doing and why, and we were able to share the Gospel with her, and encourage her to consider that apart from Jesus there is no way we can ever be good enough to enter God’s presence. We’ll be sending her some books and music, and hope to contact her the next time we’re in Orlando. Please pray that God would open her eyes to the glorious Gospel of grace.

The short time we’ve been in Mumbai I’ve been considering how different and how alike people are. Externally and culturally there may be vast differences, but internally we are all rebels to God in need of a Savior. How kind of God to provide just what we need for His glory and our good!

I started a book by Isaac Watts yesterday called “A Guide to Prayer.” This were two quotes that stood out. He is explaining why he has gone ahead and published this book (written in 1715), which began as some recomendations for some young men he knew. He wanted to wait until it was more polished, but explained, “I am at last convinced that it is better for me to do something for God, though it be imperfect, than to be guilty of perpetual delays in hopes of better pleasing myself.” How often I put off what God is wanting me to do, simply because I want it be more impressive to others!

In another section, he’s talking about “pleading in prayer.” He says that the most powerful and most prevailing argument in prayer is the name and mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He then suggests language by which we can plead Christ’s work on our behalf in prayer:

“Lord, let my sins be forgiven…for the sake of the curse which my Savior bore and the death which he suffered, which has glorified your authority and honored your justice more than it was possible for my sins to have affronted it.” What a glorious, comforting thought! What assurance we can have as we approach the throne of our heavenly Father to ask that His will be done in us, through us, and throughout the world.

Christians are, of all people in the world, the most blessed. May that thought fill your view today and every day.