Give the Best to Jesus!
“…for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given Thee”.
(1 Chron. 29:14)
Dear friends! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ!
Greetings to you in the love of our Lord Jesus Christ! This year, like the previous years, was filled with God’s grace and great opportunities for evangelism and church planting. This year also marked the 25th anniversary as we responded to the Lord’s prompting to establish this ministry.
As the year draws to its end, we bow our hearts and heads before our Lord and thank Him for everything His generous hand provided throughout this year to meet the needs of the ministry. Though we live in the time of great technological breakthroughs, we should never forget that we owe our every breath to our Creator and God! Truly, “in Him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
A man of God, David, expressed this very idea with a brief but succinct phrase: «all things come of Thee.» Every true believer, of course, does not question this Biblical truth and gives glory to God. However, let us take a closer look at the second part of King David’s statement: «and of thine own have we given Thee.» This exemplifies the true position of the man of God!
King David learned two important truths in life: he learned how to appropriate receive from God and how to properly manage what he was given. The first part is simpler, although even in area people fall into temptation of pride believing that their possessions are the result of their intelligence and outstanding abilities. The second part is more challenging: knowing how to properly manage what one has received is rare, indeed.
When a believer takes what they received from the Lord and uses it to satisfy the desires of the flesh, they bury the talent in the ground (Matt. 25:18), they surrender it to be consumed by rust and moth (Matt. 6:19). In general, such a person is not able to preserve what God has given them, and instead inevitably loses it and approaches eternity emptyhanded, without any spiritual fruits.
However, when a Christian person learns how to apply this important truth, they preserve and even multiply what they have received from the Lord because they entrust it into the hands of the One Who can multiply it hundredfold. “And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life” (Matt. 19:29).
Dear friends, may the Lord give us the grace to experience the steadfastness of the first part of the promise and the sweetness of the second part of the promise, as well. Yes, the sweetness, because “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
We are sharing this newsletter with you, dear friends, in the hope that what you will read and see will encourage you to be even more zealous in supporting the Lord’s work on the mission field and to be partakers of the great work of the Gospel!
Love in Christ,
Rev. Vladimir A. Okhotin
REM’s Founder and President
2018-4-en
