Today was our first full day back from a really great trip visiting a community in Argentina that needed encouragement, freedom, and healing. It was amazing. We saw healing, freedom from demons, repentance, response to the gospel, confessed sin, and people born of water and of spirit.
I was tired, but my friend Bryan had made a commitment to a friend to visit him on his birthday.
So, we go.
Our friend Miguel thought maybe we wouldn't come, but we got to bring him cake, which he immediately wanted to share with the men that he lives with. We got to pray for him, speak Kingdom identity, encouragement, and lots of hugs.
He wasn't the only one we saw.
As we approached the big section of the prison someone calls for Bryan by name. It's a good friend who was born again about two and a half years ago. We have known him almost 4 years and he is in an area of discipline. He and 40 other men are in a room and he wants us to come and visit him.
We stop.
He is happy for the chance to share the words that God is putting on his heart. He has been struggling to stop using drugs. When he was born again he changed dramatically, but hasn't been totally free from drugs. I encourage him that he needs to keep being led by Holy Spirit, but these men must repent, be born again, and receive the Holy Spirit or they will never enter the Kingdom of God. All the wisdom in the world and beautiful experiences with God mean little if they never enter the Kingdom.
We return.
Our friend needed Jesus above all. We prayed, but the conditions are disgusting. He asked for bleach and soap to help them clean up the place. We go to visit Miguel and run into at least a dozen more people asking for help, some demonized, some drugged, some sick, all of them need to know Jesus. We buy the bleach and soap ($2, imagine $2). We go back and these men can now have a cleaner place to exist for 2 days, but what will change this is not $2 or $2000, it's them hearing the gospel and dying to their old self to be born again, then persevering until the end. And oh what a glorious end without comparison in Christ Jesus.
We pray for more and muliplying workers in the harvest.