Monday, June 27, 2011

REPORT ON SUNDAY 26TH SERVICE

Last Sunday was a special service emphasizing the NEW LIFE in JESUS. The hall was packed to maximum capacity, with many people attending for the first time. The service began with praise and worship. People were encouraged to believe that none of them were there by accident, but that Jesus had called each one by name and made it possible for them to attend. They were also encouraged to have faith that Jesus wanted to bless them in various ways and to heal all their sicknesses. When Pastor Robin came on stage, he welcomed everyone with similar words of encouragement in his own powerfully anointed style. He began with praying and asking the Lord for special blessings on each one present there, for deliverance and release from all sickness.

He then proceeded to preach on the Gospel of John chapter 11, verses 1-44, regarding the death and raising to life of his dear friend Lazarus, brother of Martha and Mary. Although this family was very close to Jesus, they were not spared the problems that try our faith! Everyone has to face such problems in life. Pastor noted how Satan always tries to kill the men first, knowing that if he succeeds in eliminating the head or future head of a family, he can easily destroy the other members. Pastor invited everyone to observe this phenomenon in society. Who are the people most prone to alcohol, drugs, tobacco and other harmful habits? Apart from a minority of women, it’s mostly the men. Who are the people in a family first attacked by fatal illnesses? It’s mostly the men. However, there is ONE NAME that can cancel all Satan’s evil plans and that name is JESUS!

Pastor also brought out the point of how Jesus went to Lazarus’ tomb four days after he had been buried and asked the people there to remove the stone closing the entrance. Martha warned Jesus about the stench that would be emitted by such an action. Jesus did not care. He is willing to come to us wherever we may be, however repulsive be a situation that we may be in. Only He can take us out of it, as He called Lazarus out of the grave after being buried four days! When Lazarus came out, he still had the bands of cloth with which dead bodies are wrapped. Jesus commanded the men there to unbind him. When Jesus calls us out of our bad situation/s, He will also release us from bondages that have held us captive and set us completely free!

Pastor then prayed for everyone to be freed from various bondages and illnesses that he named. He made many prophecies, especially about broken relationships being healed. He ended the service by praying for relationships in families to be healed and cemented, especially families who were present that evening. He asked them to come together, to hold hands and finally to embrace each other. At the end of the prayer, there was a long queue of people who went up and gave amazing testimonies of how God had touched their lives that evening and healed them. These testimonies will be telecast in various parts of India on Campus Channel (daily program at 7 a.m. and 9 p.m.), on New Hope television and N.M. T.V. Praise the Lord!

Saturday, June 25, 2011

WEDNESDAY BIBLE TEACHING

Pastor Robin spoke on mark chapter 11, verse 1 onwards. Jesus sent two of His disciples to bring a colt to him to ride on. This was a fulfillment of the prophecy made in Zechariah 9:9, “Behold your King is coming to you…riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Pastor Robin noted that Jesus was not merely fulfilling a prophecy that he knew about. If He had been doing just that, He would have sent them to bring any donkey they found. But Jesus, in His Divine Spirit had seen a particular colt that He was targeting and gave His disciples precise instructions about where they would find it and described it to them to ensure there would be no mistake. Jesus directed them to untie it and reply to anyone who questioned them, that He needed it.

With his Divinely gifted deep insight, Pastor Robin made a comparison of how Jesus, from whom nothing can be hidden, had seen you, unable to get out of your bad situation, perhaps rejected by everyone, bound by chains of helplessness and feelings of uselessness. So Jesus sends His own person to you, to release you from those chains and to bring you to Him because He needs you. Even if no one else finds you to be of any worth, Jesus has decided to use you for Himself and His service! There’s always a precise time for everything, even for your release. So you need to wait with hope and trust, knowing that God has already sent the right person to free you at the right time. When Jesus sat on His chosen colt who no one had used before, the people laid their garments on the road He was traveling and waved leafy branches as they went in procession with Him, proclaiming Him King. This was usually done as a sign of victory when a king returned after winning a battle. Here they were doing it in advance. So whenever we pray for something, we should thank and praise God for the victory that is already ours because He has already won the battle for us!

In a previous teaching, Pastor Robin had noted that Jesus does not call the qualified, but qualifies the called. How does He qualify us for service? Before He distributed the bread at the last supper with His disciples, He broke it. Jesus can only use “broken people” through whom He can release His love and power to free others. Every successful and well-known preacher, prophets of God sent in the Mighty Name of Jesus, have all gone through severe breaking and remolding to be powerful instruments for His service. Anyone who desires to be used as a powerful instrument in God’s hands must go through this breaking.

Pastor Robin then prayed for everyone to be released from various bondages and while commissioning us to go out and give the Good News to others, prayed that the Holy Spirit might work through us with His gifts of healing and deliverance. He asked everyone to write down at least five names of people whom we could reach out to before Sunday. As we placed our hands on the names, Pastor Robin prayed for them and said that if we do this every week, we’ll be reaching out and freeing people from Satan’s power very quickly. Praise the Lord!

Friday, June 3, 2011

BIBLE TEACHING - Numbers 13:23-33

God told Moses to send out men to spy out the land He had promised to give them. There had to be one representative from each tribe. So they went out, the 12 of them and came back with samples of the luscious fruit they found there. They reported that it was truly a land flowing with milk and honey. But they also reported about the difficult foes they would have to fight against to be able to take over the land. There were well fortified and protected cities with strong men, even men of the stature of giants, descendants of Anak. In front of these men, the Israelites felt like grasshoppers and the men of those cities also considered them to be so. They passed on their fear to the awaiting congregation. Only two of them, Caleb and Joshua were willing to trust God and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”

Pastor Robin noted that like the fearful Israelites, there are many born again Christians who have left Egypt, meaning the old life, but are still in the desert. They have not yet got into the Promised Land, the Kingdom of God, where they can enjoy the complete care and protection of the Lord and avail of all it offers namely love, joy, peace, good health and God’s blessings of abundance. The desert is meant to be only a necessary passage to The Kingdom of God. But to get into the Kingdom, we need to trust God to overcome every obstacle of our minds, mainly the lies that Satan has put in and keeps reinforcing by whispering negative thoughts to us if we listen to him. Many Christians believe Satan’s lie and depend on their own strength rather than God’s mighty power to overcome them and experience failure. So they feel themselves to be as small as grasshoppers and those whom they have to deal with also see them in the same light. They do not always feel capable of taking a bold stand for truth and feel the need of merging with the society in which they live. That’s what grasshoppers do. Green, brown and mud colored grasshoppers are always found in the environment of their particular color.

Satan protects and prospers his own people while they are in the world because he knows they will eventually be with him in Hell. God protects and prospers His own people who are in His Kingdom. But for those who remain in the desert, there is no one! So we should boldly go forward in the mighty power of God and enter the Kingdom that is our eternal destiny. Pastor Robin said that in one finger of a believer is more power than the whole of Hell! Praise the Lord! Then he prayed for the whole class to be convinced of whom they really are as born again children of God. After that, many came forward to share how the teaching had really applied to them and while thanking the Lord and Pastor Robin through whom He had spoken, took a decision to move forward boldly. Praise the Lord!