THE HARVEST IS INDEED PLENTIFUL

If you don't think that the greatest ministry in the history of the world will be online then watch this.
Matthew 9:37 Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborers are few.
38So pray to the Lord of the harvest to [a]force out and thrust laborers into His harvest.

UPDATE TO DEAD MAN WALKING

On Tuesday Dec the 1st I wrote about God speaking to me and changing my future forever. He also told me that He was going to open a door for me. Over the last decade I’ve been very successful except for this year. 2009 has been the most difficult year of my professional life. I was at the pinnacle of my career at the end of 2008 and up to just a few days ago I had struggled all year to find a job in my field or to find a job in any field that would support my family. I have sent my resume out hundreds of businesses this year and have gone on so many interviews that I can’t even remember them all. We have lost nearly everything and if it were not for family and friends helping us we would have not had a place to live or food to eat. I’ve never even needed a resume before. If I needed a job I just made a phone call and went to work. This year God showed me that I can’t do anything on my own. I told my wife and friends this week that if I didn't know anything else about God I know that he honors the heart of repentance. He told me on Monday that he was going to open a door for me and I felt that I needed to make an offering of faith. Behind on my bills and with nothing coming in I gave what I could. I gave a $10.00 offering as a sign of faith and on Friday just four days later at 12:30pm I received a phone call and by 3:30pm I was working. I closed that night and worked all weekend. I’m back in my field doing what I enjoy and what I have been most successful at.

To God be the glory forever and ever!!!

Charles

ONE SAVED ONE LOST

I have many testimonies to share with you but one stands out to me because of the traumatic and emotional impact that it had on me personally. Years ago I owned a small buy here pay here dealership. In that business you have the opportunity to minister to people with a wide variety of circumstances and problems. I financed a station wagon to couple that had just moved down here from Michigan with their five children. The man was covered in signs of hard life from bad tattoos and scars to a very defensive attitude. I witness to them both. Steve (not his real name) seemed to be receptive and told me that he would come to my bible study but would not go to church. Over the next few weeks I had the opportunity and platform to be able to speak to Steve on a more personal level. At the time I was in a constant state of fasting and prayer and was very sensitive to the Holy Spirit. I told Steve specifically that it was time and that God was calling him. He said that he was just not ready yet. The holidays were upon us so on Friday I closed the store around mid day to take my family shopping at the Mall. Steve called my cell phone in a panic. He said that he was lost somewhere in metro area and wanted to make his payment. I told him that it was alright and that we could get tomorrow yet he insisted in and frantic insane manner. I finally had to get stern with him and hang up. On the way home miles away from the dealership we exited the Hwy. Passing a bank I noticed a truck (one that I had never seen before) and the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said “that is him, turn around and go back”. As I was making a u-turn my wife asked me what I was doing and told her that I would tell her later. Keep in mind this is a city with hundreds of thousands of vehicles on the road every day. When I walked in the bank there he was standing at the counter. I call his name and when he turned around to see me the look on his face would have told me that he was now a believer. He asked me how I found him. I told him that God had sent me to tell him that it is time. Once again he told me that he was just not ready. The following Saturday his wife came in to the dealership to make a payment. She was obviously upset about something. She told me that Steve had gambled most of their money away and the living conditions were atrocious for her and her five children. I knew by the Spirit that Steve was not her husband. With no reason I began to testify to her about a man that attempted to commit suicide at the dealership several months earlier (another story that Ill share sometime). She began to go into a hysterical cry. She was crying so hard she could barely breathe. Once she was able to talk she told me that she pulled off on the side of the road this morning and asked God to send her someone to help because she was going to kill herself. I had the opportunity to pray with her. She received Jesus as Lord and savior and immediately her countenance had changed. It was as though she had lost hundreds of pounds instantly. I was honored to be a witness to such a glorious event. The following Monday morning I received a phone call from Steve in a state of absolute rage. He said to me “What the hell did you do? She left me and took the kids back to her husband in Michigan”. I explained to him that she received Christ and was born again and that God was calling him too. I asked him if I could pray for him and he said yes because no one was ever going to hear from him again. I knew that this was extremely serious so I prayed with everything that was in me and with everything that I could think of. When I was done he calmly said goodbye and went into the garage and hung himself. I could hear the devil laughing saying “I got him.” I don’t think that I ever cried so hard in my life. The grief was beyond description. As horrible as that was, a woman and her five children were saved from a potential deadly situation and her eternal state was changed forever for the glory of God. I have had many opportunities to witness to people and see them born again but never anything so dramatic as this.

To God be the glory forever and ever,

Charles

Romans 11:29

Romans 11:29 (King James Version) 29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
I have many gifts from God and even over the last couple of years when I was at my lowest spiritually the gifts still seem to make their way to the surface. One of the ways that God talks to me is through dreams and visions. Earlier this year I had a dream that I was walking with my family through streets filled with crime and sin. The place was dirty like something you would see in the aftermath of a war. There were children begging, women with dirty clothes, sick and diseased either doing drugs or being sold into prostitution. The men on the streets involved in sinful trades and activities. As I walked my family though this horrific scene I knew that the way out was behind me yet I continued to move forward. At one point my wife and kids voiced their concerns and fears and I told them that it was going to be ok. At the end of the road was the most desolate place you can imagine. Desert, barren, hot with no water and nothing but sand and mountains of red dry earth. That was the direction that I was still taking them. That’s when I woke up and the dream had ended. That dream haunted me for months before I could even speak of it. The interpretation is obvious. The direction that I had chosen over the last couple of years did not included God or anything might resemble the life of a Christian. Without a true state of repentance and revived relationship with the Lord I was leading my family to a life of death and destruction.
On several other occasions I had dreams; visions, prophecy and the Spirit of God warn me of events and things that were going on in my life. The gifts that God has given me are thankfully still there. Without them I would have surely ended up in worse state than I began. The calling of God is still on my life as well and by grace and fellowship the Holy Spirit I will see that calling manifest and bear fruit.
To God be the glory forever,
Charles

DEAD MAN WALKING

The last couple of years have been a tremendous battle for me. I have struggled with sin and fought the toughest war of my life. I am a VFW and a decorated soldier. The war that wages in the body and soul is by far a tougher and more serious battle than anything that I’ve encountered before and with eternal consequences. At times I have felt like I was at war directly with the enemy but in fact the true fight was with myself.
Drinking and gambling had become part of life. I remember justifying the first thought that lead to a trip to the gas station where I purchased beer for the first time in 10 years. With my talent I justified the gambling, with the ability to drink with little effect I justified a few drinks here and there. What had started out as a few drinks here and there turned out to be a six pack almost every night. Even though I wasn’t getting drunk, alcohol and the lifestyle that I was associating with had destroyed my ministry, strained my marriage and nearly turned me against God.
Every possible emotion from fear to raw uncontrollable rage had surfaced. Yet in the middle of it I couldn’t see that it was me. There is no one to blame. You cannot control the things that happen to you weather you are in the will of God or not, but you can control how you handle them. I was living in the flesh and facing judgment and yet my excuse was (“this is just who I am”, I’m a grown man”, I have to be true to myself”).
Needless to say having given place to the enemy I had begun to be attacked from every possible front. The fight had become too great and I was beginning to think that I was going to lose my life and my salvation. With no answers and nowhere else to turn, I believe I heard the Spirit of God say to me “If you lay down your life you will live”. Almost immediately I had the revelation that I wasn’t facing multiple battles I was facing only one, the battle against my own flesh. Somewhere along the way I picked up my life and began to live it for myself. I was bought with a price. My life is not mine to live but it for the service of God. All of a sudden the solution to all of the problems became clear; I must die so that Christ can live in me.
Years ago when I witnessed countless miracles and salvations I was a dead man walking and was experiencing life in a more beautiful way than I could have ever imagined. I saw things that most people only get to read about in books. The commitment to live in the flesh is a subtle and gradual entanglement. Before you realize what has happened you wake up one day years down the road with your life hanging by a thread. That is how the enemy destroys large ministries. When your sin reaches a panicle and becomes public, your ministry has grown and the sin not only hurts you and your family but everyone that looks to you as a leader.
My commitment is a daily one. Die to my own selfish desires and ambitions and live in the Spirit. Too God be the glory forever.
Sincerely,
A dead man walking