By Pastor Munyama Mackail
Isaiah 41:10 AMP
“I will strengthen you, be assured I will help you; I will certainly take hold of you with my righteous hand [a hand of justice, of power, of victory, of salvation].”
During the month of October 2018, Lusaka conference had Evangelistic campaigns. I had a privilege of preaching at a certain remote site as a main speaker for two weeks.
I had to travel to that remote that. when I arrived, we found the team that I was going to work with during the two weeks of Evangelism.
The journey started, I did not know what to expect. This is something I had done before but this time, it felt different.
During those two weeks, a lot happened. It seemed like we were surrendered by the enemy, like we had entered his camp. We experienced about 3 snakes at the site. At first, I thought it was because we were in a remote area. I thought this was normal. But I thought to myself, just because it is normal doesn’t mean it’s right or have pure motives.
I encountered the first one while organizing my notes for the sermon I was going assigned to deliver. I was very freaked up the moment I saw it. “could this be just an ordinary snake?” I asked myself, remembering what happened in the garden of Eden. I resisted it and brushed the whole thing off.
The following day, met face to face with another one just behind the pulpit. I began to notice a trend, I became more alert, I sensed a spirit that was not the Spirit of God. When we encountered the 3rd one, we could not let it live, we smashed its head. I thank God protected us from this
As if that wasn't enough, after a long day of prayer and preaching and teaching, just as we were about to retire to rest, we found out that my interpreter's house (house was made mostly from dry grass) was burnt. We did not know the source of the fire. We did not know who did it. The enemy was determined to eliminate us.
we started asking ourselves why all these things were happening to us when all we were doing was the work of God. I got discouraged and scared. I remembered that the last Evangelistic meeting I attended, I got involved in an accident on my way back home. I got more scared, I heard voices in my head telling me I would die. “devil you are a liar!” I said I gathered up my courage but I remembered I was in a spiritual warfare and that I fight from victory.
I want to tell you; the devil uses fear among others as his popular weapon against God's work through His children. Yes, the sense of fear may come, but do not let it in and make it feel comfortable. Do not to allow it to control you.
We prayed and fasted and read the word. We dealt mostly in the book of Isaiah. We found comfort and courage to fight. I realised that actually the word *fear not* is mentioned 365 times and leant the following from the verse:
Lesson no 1. God has promised His presence to be with us.
Scripture says “fear not for I am with you.” This is the same God who had promised Joshua as a new leader that He would be with him just like He was with Moses. Jesus promised his disciples that he was to be with them always to the end of age. In the same way, God was with me and the team and is with you today. Lesson no 2. We need to depend on God. we continued to depend on God to protect us from the evil one. Remember, it is us who needed to depend on Him because Him is self sufficient. God does not depend on anyone and never depended on anything in order for Him to come into existence. We worship a God who is the uncaused cause- nothing caused Him to come into existence because He existed before the existence came into existence.
Lesson no 3. God gave us strength to move on. It was not easy for the Elder to continue the mission of interpreting after his house got burnt and lost everything. we had strength to pray and fast and God saw us through. Lesson no 4. We did not give up. We were able to fully deliver the message of God till the last day. The Evangelistic campaign went well and people came to Christ and were baptized.
we need not to fear whatever happens in our lives for our God is able. No weapon fashioned against His children shall prosper. Remember not to forget because you can forget not to remember that God is still on the throne.
Comments