A Ugandan Church

Sheriff and Gifte

This is Pastor Sherriff and his wife, Giftee. They heard LoveWorks at a ministry called, Perth For Jesus, which is led by a Chinese woman named Vera Lim. Our team has done some ministry with Vera’s and it has been very beautiful to see how God’s Love enables us to serve each other. Pastor Sheriff asked if we would consider coming to his church and we agreed. It was an awesome day! Ugandan worship is vibrant and joyful. And the people were so responsive to God’s Word.

A church is a community

Romans 8:35-37 was my introduction to LoveWorks that morning. I shared how God’s Love establishes and secures us in Him so that we can overcome all things. Love is the evidence that we know how to pass from death to life in our daily experiences. My heart opened to share my own journey of God loving me in my sin so that I could love my wife in her sin. “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know you are my disciples.” As I shared the stories of how practicing God’s Love transformed my life and also redeemed our marriage, many people were in tears. All through the message the people were shouting with joy and giving glory to God! It was awesome to see their hearts being deeply moved.

In prayer, I asked God to show each person someone they needed to repent to. I challenged them to go and confess their hard heart against them without any blame and seek their forgiveness. Tell them you want to love them again. Many tears were falling. The pastor came and was deeply moved as tears filled his eyes. He saw the Holy Spirit doing a strong work among his people and he was so grateful.

Sue and I will return to this church in a few weeks and I can’t wait!! They asked if we would go with them to Uganda. Again I see LoveWorks being taken to the nations through people who are experiencing the power of Love’s transformation.

My trust in God flows out of the experience of his loving me, day in and day out, whether the day is stormy or fair, whether I’m sick or in good health, whether I’m in a state of grace or disgrace. He comes to me where I live and loves me as I am.

ABRAHAM

Abraham

Abraham was at the Ugandan Church when I spoke recently. He sat on the front row with his young child. His wife was home because she was soon to deliver their second child so she was resting. Abraham was joyful in worship and could really dance! He made my face beam with joy at his freedom. After worship, the Pastor introduced me and I began to speak about how God’s Love empowers us to say “no” to our fleshly responses like – anger, fear, worry, control, silence, bitterness, and addictions. I spoke about how God broke my heart. How did God break my heart? By calling me to love my wife in the midst of our divorce. This stirred up my own dark heart as my flesh did not want to love her because of pain. But when I would surrender to Love, it would break my heart and make it more like Christ’s.

I showed them how to use the weapon of “Believes All Things”. This was huge for Abraham and tears filled his eyes. The Spirit of God was doing a deep work in his heart. After I closed in prayer, Abraham approached me.
“You are an awesome dancer!” I said to him. He beamed a huge smile and said, “This message has really hit my heart. I do not tell my wife good things about her. I do not tell her what I find is beautiful about her. In the past, when I spoke words like this, she would shut me down and tell me to stop saying things like that. So I stopped. Now I see I must begin to speak these words over her even though she may not know how to receive them. I need to pour the truth into her and speak life over her.”
I prayed over him and he responded, “I am excited to see what will happen as I stay faithful to speak words of life to my wife.”
Here is a marriage that will reach new places of freedom and joy because this husband made a decision to speak life over his wife. If you have a story of seeing the power of “Belief” at work in your marriage or other relationship, please write it down and send it to me.