How To Be Blameless

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible as well as the longest prayer in the Bible. It is as beautiful as it is instructive. It teaches us how to pray, which is the most important prayer request you can ask; “Lord, teach us to pray…” Luke 11:1.

                                                         
The first three verses of Psalm 119 are the only verses in the Psalm that are not a prayer.
 
“Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD. Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart. They also do no wrong, but walk in His ways.”
 
These verses describe the outcome of allowing this prayer to shape your prayer life for a lifetime of praying. The three words and phrases that it uses to describe that life are blameless, keep His testimonies, do no wrong.
 
Some are overwhelmed by the impossibility of ever becoming blameless, or always keeping God’s testimonies, or never doing wrong. But that is because we think in terms of performance but the Bible does not; it presents perfection as progress in a particular direction; and that particular direction is in following God’s Word.
 
Progress is seen in the three phrases walking in the law, seeking Him, walking in His ways. The only way this can be done is to trust and obey, one step at a time; not with perfect performance but by faithful progress in His Word.

Allow God’s Word to shape your prayers and begin seeing what He can do. “Lord, teach us to pray…” 

Mongolia Part VII; Last Entry on Mongolia

Our team (the four of us from the US, the leading pastor in that region of Mongolia, and four young Mongolia professionals that served as our interpreters) traveled from Choibalsan to the city of Baganuur. Pastor Amara lives in Baganuur and has one of the strongest churches in Mongolia. For the next part of our trip, Pastor Amara had arranged for pastors from the remote areas of that part of Mongolia to meet us at a camp north of Baganuur.

                                                                                           
The camp is located in the foothills of the mountainous area of Mongolia. It is situated in a beautiful valley beside a large river. The camp is used by various groups. It consists of about 20 gers, which are igloo-like canvas tents. The ger is the typical Mongolia home. We saw them all through the countryside and even in the towns. At the camp, each ger had five beds along the outer edge of ger with a wood-burning stove in the center. The top of the ger is open, like a teepee, and can be covered when raining. In the middle of these gers is a dining hall where we ate our meals. There are three “outhouses” on the outskirts of the camp.

 We arrived late in the evening and it was cold. We got settled in our ger, built a fire, and were very comfortable and tired. About 35 pastors and church leaders had already gathered and were ready for our first session. They quickly warmed up to us and during the five days that we were together we shared wonderful times of teaching and worship together. Each day we met together for meals, for pastoral training, for worship, and fellowship. Our team grew to love the Mongolian pastors and church leaders.

Each day we would get up early and walk around the hills that surround the camp for our quiet time. It was so beautiful to see the vastness of Mongolia from the hills. At the top of many of these hills are piles of rocks with a large stick in the middle and a blue cloth tied to the top of the stick. These are “prayer altars” to the earth and sky gods that many of the Mongolians worship. They reminded us of the “high places” in the Old Testament that were dedicated to the Baals.

Two highlights for me at the camp were the Lord’s Supper we shared together with the pastors, and early one morning as I was awakened by singing. It was still very dark and I could hear singing. A group was singing How Great Thou Art in a language I did not know. It was 5 AM.

I got up and went out to find a South Korean mission team that had arrived at the camp during the night. The South Korean believers are strong about getting up early and praying. About 35 of them had gathered down by the river and were having their prayer time together. I joined them. They did not know me but welcomed me with open arms. They sang and prayed and sang and prayed. Their leader led in a message from 1 Timothy. The brother next to me showed me the Scripture in English from his smart phone. As the sun was coming up they were ready to conclude and asked me what church I was with. I told them and the leader, I found out later was the pastor, asked me to give the blessing. I spoke the blessing from Numbers 6:24-26, “May the LORD bless you and keep you…” It was a highlight for me because the South Korean church has been leading the way in the world in prayer ministry and missions for over 35 years. It was a thrill for me to join in with one of their prayer services.

We left the camp and traveled back to the capital city of Ulaanbaatar and spent four days teaching and encouraging the group of young professionals that David Beckett had led to Christ and discipled while they were going to the university in South Korea. These young people all have jobs in the downtown district and are on fire for the Lord. It was encouraging to be around such strong young believers with such influence in their nation.

While we were in the capital we stayed in a guest house in the downtown district. We were able to share Christ with two German professors who were in Mongolia doing research. I had used the phrase “born again” and one of them overheard me and asked to meet with me to know more about it. That evening, I met with both professors, one a Tibetologist (studies Tibetan history and religion) and the other a linguist studying ancient Mongolian script. We met that evening over tea.

 They both spoke very good English. I complemented them on knowing two languages so well. They corrected me and said that they both speak seven languages fluently.  What an interesting conversation we had as I shared from John 3 on the new birth. Neither man saw the need to be born again, but they listened and were interested in the gospel.

Our trip to Mongolia was amazing. I pray that our Lord will allow me to go back. The Kingdom of God is alive and growing in outer Mongolia! We were glad that God allowed us to receive such a blessing from Him through them there.

Mongolia Mission Trip; Part VI

We arrived at Ganah’s apartment and found the three pastors waiting for us. Nine of us crowded into Ganah’s small living room and started the “quiet time.” They began by singing some praise songs in Mongolian. Some of them we recognized. Then we had a brief time of prayer, each person praying out loud, but softly. Then, the main pastor spoke to me through the interpreter and said, “We have been meditating on the parables in Matthew 13. Please share with us your thoughts on their meaning.”

 I began by explaining the Greek word for parable, which means to throw down along side of something. The parables were simple stories with the eternal truth of God for anyone who was hungry for a word from God. Jesus said that He taught in parables so that those who had a hunger for God’s word would want more and those who did not would only talk about what a nice story it was. Then I began sharing the eternal truth found in each story.

About 15 minutes into the lesson, I noticed that Terry Taylor, who was sitting next to me with the door between us, had put his head down and was silently weeping. I did not know what was wrong, but kept going. After a few minutes he lifted his head back up and others began to ask questions and to respond to the lesson I was teaching.

After about 45 minutes of questions and discussions we sang and prayed again and concluded our “quiet time” together. Then the pastor of the main church in Choibalsan spoke to me again through the interpreter and said, “We would like for you to come and teach our church leaders, tomorrow if possible. And we want your team to conduct the service today at our church after we go out into the community and invite anyone who may be interested in knowing about Jesus Christ.” We accepted their gracious offer.

The pastors left and Pastor Amara, the Mongolian pastor on our team, said that what happened was very unusual. He said usually the Mongolians take much longer to trust outsiders. Terry spoke up and said, “I will tell you what happened. About 10 minutes into the lesson, suddenly, I felt the Holy Spirit fill the room and unite our hearts with theirs. I do not know of any other way to describe it except the Lord united us together with them. I was overcome by it and began to weep.” It was a wonderful experience that God gave to Terry and to us with them.

That afternoon about 25 of the church members met at the church, divided up into teams of two or three, and went out into the community to invite people to the service we were planning. About 4:30 PM the praise band (about 5 young people from the church) began to play and the teams started coming back, along with the people. By 5 there were about 50 people in the room, by 5:30 about 75. By the time Pastor Amara began to preach the room was filled to the back with about 100 people, 70 or more from the community.

After Pastor Amara spoke, I shared the gospel, then others from our team spoke sharing testimonies and Scriptures. David Beckett was the last to share. When he concluded it was about 7 PM. Everyone was still there. He asked for the pastors to come forward. About nine of us spread out across the front of the church. Then he invited anyone who wanted to receive Christ or to ask for prayer to come forward and speak to one of the pastors. Before the youth praise band could start playing, the people started coming forward and for the next 30 minutes we ministered to people one by one. Many of them came in tears.

None of the ones that came to me could speak English and I did not have an interpreter. They would look at me and speak in Mongolian. I did not have a clue what they were saying. I would say to them, “I don’t know what you just said, but God understood it and I am going to pray for you to be saved, or healed, or whatever the need may be in your life, to be fully met by Jesus Christ.” Then I would begin praying and they would too. What a time we had. The whole front of the church was full. Each of us pastors were praying and ministering to people.

Finally everyone was seated again and started singing. Our team left to go back to the hotel about 7:45, but they stayed. We learned the next day, that they stayed and sang for some time after we left.

The next morning, Sunday, we met with the church leaders early and taught from the New Testament words for “servant,” from the Greek. The Mongolians have a gift for learning different languages and they loved the Greek word studies. We connected. I felt the Spirit and revival just like I have in Uganda and in Indonesia. By the time church started the place was full again and with the Spirit of excitement and revival.

Our team left the church at noon to get catch the Mission Aviation Fellowship plane that was to pick us up at 2. Their church service was still in full swing when we left. They were having revival and we were grateful that God had allowed us to get in on it with them. What a time we had in Choibalsan. Next blog; the flight in the Mission Aviation Fellowship plane to the camp with the training for the pastors of the “remote” churches in eastern Mongolia.