May 2010

Hello friends and family,

 

What a wonderful day to be alive and serving the Lord.  The Bible tells us that we have a cloud of witnesses.  I believe many wish they were on the earth today to be a part of the end-time harvest quickly approaching.  It is time to work for God while we still have the opportunity.  Let’s go for it with all of our lives! 

 

As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.  John 9:4, NIV

 

This has been a wonderful month.  To start it out, Trisha and I had the opportunity to share our testimonies on Easter Sunday morning.  It is a rare occasion when Trisha speaks to the congregation, but she delivered well, and even preached a little.  I was very proud of her.  The altar was full of people receiving salvation, and we received several encouraging testimonies.

 

This past weekend I had the privilege to be with a wonderful friend of mine, Pastor Gary Veazy in Springtown, TX at Outreach of Love Church.  The power of the Gospel was at work in a mighty way.  I live for this kind of weekend.

 

We kicked off the Acts 29 weekend on Friday night with an Acts 1:8 encounter, “You WILL receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you to be MY witnesses.”  God empowered His people with the might of the Holy Spirit to be His witnesses. Several different ministries joined together on Saturday morning and we were able to mobilize around 70 people to go out into the city.  The Church came together to advance the Kingdom of God. We reached about 800 homes with the Gospel.  Powerful testimonies were shared of how people received healings and were moved to tears through our outreach to the community. 

 

We finished up on Sunday morning with a church full of visitors and the altars filled with people getting saved.  I also gave an altar call for healing and saw a variety of afflictions healed.  Just to name a few, one man testified that God gave him his right mind back; another could not walk up stairs for 20 years and all of the pain was gone as she walked right up the stairs onto the platform; and one lady was healed from forty years of arthritic knee pain. 

 

To top it all off, Pastor Veazy and I installed an evangelism director at the church and built a team around him of around 20 people. This is the team that will continue to pray and be equipped to better mobilize the church for outreaches on a regular basis.  That fires me up!  That’s the role of the evangelist. Not just traveling and preaching, but reaching communities, equipping churches, seeing the lost saved, sick people healed, and evangelistic teams started.  All in the name and through the power of Jesus Christ.  That is the Gospel at work!!  Hallelujah!! Your faithful support helped reach this city this past month, and we are so thankful to be on a team that is touching America. Our cloud of witnesses sees us going forward in partnership to reach this nation.

As an evangelist, I often think about creative ways to reach people.  I will ponder, pray, and meditate on what would be the most effective way to mobilize a church or just share the gospel one-on-one. Through this process, God has given me some great ideas. However, some time ago I was in Los Angeles, CA. for ministry. While I was there, a friend of mine quoted Romans 1:16, "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel; for it is the power of God unto salvation for those who are being saved." God began speaking to me very clearly that I had been putting too much stock in ideas that were creative, and it changed my life.

I began to realize that I needed to re-focus on just the simple Gospel message. There is only one message under heaven that brings salvation to mankind, and it is the message of Jesus Christ. It is not about how well we communicate, how long we've been saved, how much of the Bible we have memorized, or what church we attend. The fact is that the most important thing in life is that the Bible come out of our mouth to the lost concerning their salvation; that is what's effective. The Gospel is POWER unto salvation - not our charisma, speaking ability, style, or sense of humor. The Gospel message releases power that nothing else can release. It has nothing to do with our ability.  If it were in our ability, Christ died for nothing. This truth has set me free and I believe it will set you free, as well. The only thing we are responsible for is to deliver the message and allow God to do the rest.

Jesus will be whatever we proclaim Him to be! If we proclaim a saving Jesus, He will save. If we proclaim a healing Jesus, He will heal. If we proclaim a delivering Jesus, He will deliver! The Holy Spirit will act upon our proclamation! The Gospel is not simply pages in an old book in a historic library, because when we preach it something happens. History is for the dead and Jesus is alive! When we share the Gospel, it releases heaven's power to save the lost like absolutely nothing else or anyone can.

So I say to you: Do not concern yourself with your own ability, but rest in His ability that as you release the Gospel through your mouth, His power will follow. You may say that you have preached it and didn't see anything change. The Bible says, "Do not fix your eyes on what you can see because what you can see is temporary, but fix your eyes on what you cannot see, for it is eternal." You have no idea what is happening in the Spirit because you cannot see it. Nor does it matter if you feel it; only believe the word and act. It will happen. If you are not sure what to say, check out my Acts 29 School of Evangelism Manual in my resource department. It will be of great help to you.

Yet again, we had the privilege to travel extensively this past month. We went to several places in Texas, as well as Cleveland, MS., Saint Elmo, IL., and Granite City, IL. In Saint Elmo, we hit the city with another Acts 29 weekend.  I had been there before and set up an evangelism team so when I returned they were ready. We reached half of the city in one day. God moved in power as the Gospel went forth. Many visitors attended the church and were saved. One of them was delivered of demons. Amen! Jesus set the demon possessed free yesterday, today, and forever more!

Again I want to thank you for making testimonies like this go from a possibility to a reality! I cherish your partnership and eagerly await what God is going to do in the days ahead. Continue to pray for this ministry, as we are moving full-steam ahead. The month of May is going to be intense.

Together in the harvest,

Joe Oden