Feeling God's Heart

Most of us don’t like our heart torn apart with the suffering of others. I have learned that God wants us to feel what He feels about people who are mistreated. Christ teaches us to love one another and live together as peaceably as we can. Even in the Old Testament God said we should be kind to the stranger and the fatherless.

On a trip recently I watched the movie “Dances With Wolves” on the television in our room. Every time I see parts of that movie, my heart is torn to realize how cruel we have been to America’s natives through the years.

The Lakota chief in the movie said, “Our country is all that we have. We will fight to keep it.”

Some of the early settlers were kind to the Indians, but then they wanted their land. Often the Indian tribes fought with each other. They naturally fought to keep the territory they had always lived on. This is the way civilization spreads. We cannot expect anything better from people who don’t know God.

God’s way is to give our lives if necessary to help the ethnic people around us. A physician, Marcus Whitman, and his wife went to the Willamette Indians in Oregon. They suffered loss and were eventually massacred in 1847, but many from that tribe came to know the Lord Jesus.

Most of us think primarily of our own concerns. We do not want to give an inch to people who seem different from us. Of course, we expect them to keep the laws of the land and not become violent toward us. But do we feel God’s heart?

Someday in God’s kingdom (the millennium) people will live in peace. See Matthew 5-7. We cannot change the world through pacifism, but we can see individual lives changed as we live for Jesus and share His Word. God will change hearts around us if we give Him a chance. Until then we must care about individuals and suffer with them if necessary.

Before I went to Laos I worked among the Navajo Indians. They were not perfect, but I learned to care about them even as I shared Jesus with them. So it was not hard to love the Laotians and other Asians I met overseas. We should also care about any Americans living near us in poverty and do something to help them as God opens the way.

By nature we are all sinners, selfish and self-centered. We must learn God’s way. We must be pioneers and be willing to pay the cost to change lives. We cannot change the world but we can make a start.

Maybe I am a dreamer but Jesus was, too. He sounded like a dreamer as He preached the sermon on the mount but He was showing us the way of love and true freedom.

God loves every culture, every ethnic group. Just read His plan in Revelation 5. He is going to reach every tribe and race, every nation and language.

Let your heart be open to feel God’s heart. If you care, you will pray. If you pray, God can change you and also the people around you.

You can’t speak to every person of another ethnic group that you see in the neighborhood or the grocery store, but you can pray as you see their faces. Prayer makes a difference. Prayer will make a difference in us and also in others.

-- Rosemary Watson

New Lao friends

Many of you have read the story of Peng in my book AS THE ROCK FLOWER BLOOMS. I am including here two pictures taken of him several years ago. He is still living for the Lord.







Now God has led me to some new Lao friends. I met them at the open air farmers market in Broken Arrow! We didn't get many tomatoes from our garden this year, so I took time to go to the farmers market and found some delicious tomatoes there, also peaches and okra.

I also found several Laotian families selling vegetables! I always look for Asians wherever I go, and I could tell right away these people were from Laos. They were very friendly when they heard I had lived in Laos years ago.

I have now given each family a small personal Bible tract in English. Some could still read Lao, so I copied a few pages from my Lao Bible and took them to the market this morning. They took the pages eagerly, praise God.

In August I wrote Peng's story in simple English as a children's book, so I gave that to Kat and also to a family that has five children. It will be interesting to hear their reaction when I see them next Thursday afternoon at the market. The story shows how Peng searched for God and found out about Jesus through John Davis years ago. Right away Peng put his trust in Jesus, believing Jesus was more powerful than the ancestor spirits he had served all his life.

The story shows how God protected Peng's rice fields because he didn't make a blood sacrifice to the spirits. When a storm flooded other people's fields, Peng's fields were not. Another time when pigs got loose and destroyed some fields, Peng's were not touched. This convinced the village people that Jesus had power over the spirits they had been serving. Several families turned to Jesus.

If you want to read this book in more detail, you might try to find it through Amazon.com sometime. If they don't have the book, try again in a month. Sometimes you can buy a copy for less than ten dollars. The book is now out of print, so Amazon.com is the only place you can find it. I haven't tried Ebay yet.

It is a blessing to be involved in reaching Laotian people for the Lord here in my area. If you see any Asian people in your neighborhood, just be friendly and ask them what country they are from. All Asians are friendly when you speak kindly to them. Let's not ignore this wonderful mission field that is right here in America.

Pray that Sai and his wife Yia, Bee and Chon, and Kat and her sisters will come to know and trust Jesus personally. The Lord Jesus can bring salvation, peace and joy into their lives.

Exalt Jesus Alone

When reading through the book of Luke in the New Testament, I tried to see it from the viewpoint of someone searching for God. What would a Muslim or a Buddhist think of these verses? Many religions teach that Jesus is a prophet of God, but he is much more than that.

From the very first a reader will see that Jesus’ birth was miraculous. The eternal Spirit of God was involved even in the birth of John the Baptist who proclaimed that Jesus the Messiah was coming.

The Holy Spirit of God came upon Mary in order that Jesus might be born as a human man but still be God. His father was not Joseph, but the eternal God who created the world. Jesus did not have a sin nature. His spirit came from God and he was God Himself.

Read the New Testament, and you will see that people sensed Jesus was different. He never sinned. He never yielded to temptation or had an evil thought. He was pure and sinless as a child and to the last day of his life. Before Pilate sentenced him to death he said, “I find no fault in this man.”

In Luke chapter 4 you see how Jesus defeated the devil. Satan tried to lead Jesus into testing God and doubting God, but Jesus refused. He loved God and trusted his Father with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Further on in chapter 4 we see that Jesus was supernaturally protected when his enemies wanted to destroy him. The religious leaders of his day were angry because they realized that his message had supernatural authority.

Jesus overcame evil spirits and cast them out from people who were possessed. He healed every kind of illness. He reached out to everyone constantly in love and true compassion.

A mere human being cannot do this. An ordinary man, even a religious person, will eventually lose his patience or stumble in some way. Those closest to our religious leaders today can see that they are only human. They have faults and weaknesses. We excuse them because we ourselves are human. We don’t expect perfection of other people.

But we should expect it of Jesus, because he is God who came down to earth to redeem us. He paid the price for our sins when he died on the cross. The Bible clearly says, “The soul that sins shall die.” Jesus died so that we will not have to suffer eternally for our sins. God accepted his sacrifice as full payment. The fact that Jesus rose again and the tomb was found empty on the third day is proof that God was pleased, fully satisfied.

We can’t add anything to what Jesus did for us. Our good works will not make us more acceptable to God. If we offer our good deeds to God, He will be offended. He will see that we don’t fully value what Jesus did. We must exalt Jesus as Lord above all. He is my all-sufficient Savior. Are you trusting in your good works, or is Jesus your Savior?