July 9

If You Seek Him, He Will Be Found

And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.

1 Chronicles 28:9

Gipsy Smith, the well-known evangelist of a generation ago, was fortunate to be reared by a father who was determined to search for God, fearing that if he forsook God, he would be rejected forever. Gypsy tradition confirmed this because they believe they are descended from Judas Iscariot and are thus cursed.

For Cornelius Smith, that search began just before his wife died, leaving him with four little children to raise. He had one time asked his wife if she ever thought about God and if she ever prayed. “I try,” she responded. “But a black hand comes before me and reminds me of all the wrongs I have done, and something says that there is no mercy for me.”

Just before she died, however, he heard her singing in the tent where they lived. It was an old chorus she had learned as a child: “I have a father in the promised land, and I must go to meet him in the promised land.” That song reminded him of a gospel message he had heard while he had been imprisoned, and after she died, he vowed he would find God.

He did not forget that vow despite the sorrow and turmoil surrounding her death. “The authorities would permit the funeral to be held only at night. Cornelius was the sole mourner . . . Earlier that day their tent had caught fire . . . It was a dark day, indeed.”

Cornelius inquired of various people about God, and finally was told that there was a meeting that would be held that very night at a city mission. “I will not come home again,” he warned his children as he left for the meeting, “until I am converted.”

The children were fearful, not knowing what he meant nor whether they would ever see him again. There at the meeting, while a hymn was being sung, Cornelius fell to the floor in agony before God. Little Rodney, who later became known as "Gipsy,” feared his father was dying. He had followed his father to the meeting and was distressed by what he saw.

Up from the floor, Cornelius jumped and shouted, “I am converted.” His brother was also converted at that meeting, and later that night his brother’s wife also professed her faith in Christ. The following morning the two brothers began sharing their witness to the other gypsies at the camp, and fourteen of them were converted.

They also witnessed to their other brother, and he too was converted. “They became evangelists,” writes David Lazell, “and you always had to take three—as long as they were all alive . . . Many were brought to Christ through that ministry.” Cornelius had searched for God, found him, and served him with wholehearted devotion. ⁹

July 8

I Bring You Down, Declares The Lord

The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, Who can bring me down to the ground? Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord . . . All your allies will force you to the border; your friends will deceive and overpower you; those who eat your bread will set a trap for you, but you will not detect it.

Obadiah 3-4 and 7

It was the peak of the hippie era in the 1960s when Tom Mahairas was soaring high in New York City as the leader of a rock band. “By the time I was eighteen,” he recalls, “I had cut some records and was ready to sign a recording contract. Some people would say I had everything, but deep down I was not happy.” Like so many around him, he was deep into the drug scene.

“If I wasn’t high, I wasn’t happy”—but his highs only brought more lows, and his friends became his enemies. He lived with his girlfriend, Vicky, but his thinking had become so distorted that he became convinced she was the devil trying to trick him. Finally, he realized how low he actually was as he pondered his situation one summer day in Central Park.

"I was sitting by Bethesda Fountain high on LSD. In front of me were a group of Hare Krishnas chanting. To the left some hippies were tossing a Frisbee, and on my right an Indian guru sat surrounded by his followers. I looked at the scene like I was in the future; I disassociated myself from it. I watched and thought, ‘Man, I’m not going to do this for the rest of my life!’ So I walked over to the West Side Highway and hitched a ride upstate to Lake George. By this time, I thought I was the reincarnation of Christ, and I wanted to be in touch with something higher.”

After Tom arrived at Lake George, he met a young man on an evangelism outing from Word of Life Island in nearby Schroon Lake, who invited him to visit that youth retreat and to meet with its founder Jack Wyrtzen.

That memorable day in July of 1966 was the beginning of a new life for him. He committed his life to Christ and immediately called Vicky to share the news with her. She was initially skeptical “because under the influence of LSD he had already seen Krishna, Buddha and Allah” but as soon as he poured out his testimony she knew he was sincere and she too believed.

In 1971, he and Vicky were married, and in the years since they have pioneered a far-reaching ministry in New York City. Their ministry is associated with the church they founded, the Manhattan Bible Church, which began in their living room and has since grown to over seven hundred people.

Reaching out into the largely Hispanic neighborhoods, the ministry sponsors a Christian Academy, a Gospel Outreach program, a Love Kitchen offering meals to the homeless five days a week, and a Transformation Life Center, a drug rehabilitation program that ministers to young men, many of whom, like Tom, go on to lead productive Christian lives. ⁸

July 7

The Spirit Of The Lord Came Upon Gideon

But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar. So that day they called Gideon “Jerub-Baal,” saying, Let Baal contend with him, because he broke down Baal’s altar.

Now all the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him.

Judges 6:31-34    

Samuel Chadwick was one of England’s great Methodist preachers. His success, he was convinced, was due to his dependence on the Holy Spirit. Early in his ministry, when he was serving as a lay evangelist, he preached fifteen sermons with no spiritual response from the people. They were unmoved by what he said.

Was it them, or was it him? Samuel concluded that the problem lay with him. “He realized that God must be in control of everything. Then came surrender which brought him a realization of Christ’s full salvation, a fresh vision of the Almighty, and a heart-felt yearning to see people saved. By the next day God had given him the joy of leading seven people to Christ. Peace, joy, and power were now his through the Spirit.”

This prompted Chadwick to seek the Spirit’s power even more. He was persuaded that the Holy Spirit was the key to any spiritual victories—a conviction that was reinforced one day when he was reading from the book of Judges about Gideon’s power from above.

It was the Spirit of the Lord that came upon him, and on further examination of the marginal notes, Chadwick learned that, “The Spirit of the Lord clothed itself with Gideon.” It was a pivotal discovery in Chadwick’s life. “My eyes were opened,” he later wrote. “With great daring I crossed out Gideon’s name and put in my own.”

When he accepted a pastorate in Leeds, this Spirit power became evident immediately: “What a time we had!” he wrote. “The revival began on the first Sunday and by the end of September the chapel was full half an hour before the time to begin, and police regulated the crowd.” He filled the coliseum with three thousand people during the two or three winters he preached there. Conversions took place almost every Sunday in or out of the chapel. Chadwick claimed there was hardly a room in his house in which someone had not accepted Christ.

He organized converts into classes, and before he left Leeds, about two thousand people were meeting in those groups. “Whole classes were organized for converted alcoholics. Street urchins were saved; some were to become preachers . . . The great secret of his ministry was the Holy Spirit” ⁷

July 6

Genesis 42:6 and 8-13, Heidi and David Coombs, Cruz Landa of the Quechua people in Peru,

Stories That Don’t Tire The Head

Now Joseph was the governor of the land, the one who sold grain to all its people. So when Joseph’s brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground . . . Although Joseph recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him. Then he remembered his dreams about them and said to them, You are spies! You have come to see where our land is unprotected?

No, my lord, they answered. Your servants have come to buy food. We are all the sons of one man. Your servants are honest men, not spies.

No! he said to them. You have come to see where our land is unprotected? But they replied, Your servants were twelve brothers, the sons of one man, who lives in the land of Canaan. The youngest is now with our father, and one is no more.

Genesis 42:6 and 8-13

The story of Joseph and his brothers is a simple story to follow. It is simple, that is, if it is told in one’s own language, but very difficult, like other Bible stories, if it is told in a language that is not well-known. This was true for the Quechua people in Peru. Heidi and David Coombs worked closely with Cruz Landa, their language helper, in translating Bible stories for the people, so that they can understand and enjoy them.

Reading Bible stories in the Quechua language was a delight for Cruz because it allowed him to better understand how he ought to live the Christian life. But most of the Quechua believers did not benefit from God’s Word in their own language.

On one occasion when he was attending a baptismal service in a nearby town, he became acutely aware that the people were not fully understanding the meaning of what was being spoken and read in Spanish. He was troubled by the persistence of the churches to continue the use of a “foreign” language. As usual, he had brought along his Quechua Bible story books, and he offered to read from them. He began reading the story of Joseph and his brothers, which was one of the more lengthy Bible stories.

Halfway through, Cruz hesitated, wondering aloud if he should continue on, promising that he would complete the story later. But the people insisted he go on. “‘Our heads aren’t tired! We want to hear to the end.’

“So Cruz went on. Soon he arrived at the part where Joseph’s brothers, not recognizing him as the ruler of Egypt said to him, ‘Our brother died many years ago.’ The crowd burst into laughter. They loved the irony. And when Cruz finished, no one wanted him to leave. He stayed until the next day, teaching Quechua choruses to the people and reading more Scripture.”

For them it was a pleasure not to have to strain to understand, and to be able to catch the more subtle aspects of the stories that had been lost when read in a language that was not their own. ⁶

July 5

She Opens Her Arms To The Poor

She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks. She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night. In her hand she holds the distaff and grasps the spindle with her fingers. She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy.

Proverbs 31:17-20      

For Rosalind Goforth and her husband Jonathan, Presbyterian missionaries to China during the early decades of the twentieth century, reaching out to the poor was an everyday matter. Much of their time was spent in itinerant evangelistic work, and everywhere they went they saw poverty. But during the famine of 1920-1921, they suddenly confronted poverty on a massive scale like they had never seen before. Rosalind later described the situation.

“I was unable, because of illness, to accompany my husband as he left our home on Kikungshan Mountain in the late summer of 1920. The news of the great famine reached me there in a letter from a coworker in Changte. The letter described vividly some of the awful conditions prevailing throughout our whole field, which was in the center of a vast area affecting, it was said, from thirty to forty millions of people . . .

“Crushed at the thought of what hundreds of those who looked upon us as mother and father were passing through, I cried aloud in agony of soul, ‘O God, is there not something I can do? Oh, show me!’” The answer to her plea was direct and simple: “Use your pen!”

She hastened to her desk and began to write, praying as she wrote, “Lord use my pen!” In a letter describing the anguish of these famine-stricken people, she poured out her heart. Then she went around the compound to other missionaries from various countries, and had her letter translated into their languages. “Within twenty-four hours of the writing of the appeal it was translated into several languages and on its way throughout the world!”

Her next step was to obtain permission from authorities to collect famine relief, and in the months that followed she collected more than one hundred and twenty thousand dollars and distributed it where it was most needed. “I kept close touch with several relief centers, and to these I sent checks as needed. Many were the thrills that came that winter as appeals reached me, and I was able to write checks off the Famine Relief Fund for amounts of $5,000 or even $10,000.”

The following year Rosalind was able to leave the compound and accompany her husband on his revival tour to the famine-stricken area. “The experience was wonderful,” she later recalled. “Everywhere hearts were opened to the Gospel message as a result of the splendidly organized famine relief carried on all through the previous winter by the hand of faithful missionaries in Changte, often at the risk of their lives.” ⁵

July 4

The Cords Of The Grave Coiled Around Me

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior—from violent men you save me. I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies.

The waves of death swirled about me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called to the Lord; I called out to my God. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came to his ears.

2 Samuel 22:2-7

Life often takes on new meaning after near-death encounters. There is a sense of urgency to live life to the fullest. For believers, it is often a time of recommitment to God and a time for reassessment and redirection of ministry. This was true in the life of Dr. V. Raymond Edman, who is remembered most for his twenty-five years as president of Wheaton College.

In 1923, Edman began what he thought would be lifelong missionary service with the Christian and Missionary Alliance to work among Ecuador’s Quechua Indians. His fiancée joined him the following year, and after their wedding they set out on a two-day ride on horseback to their mission outpost. Their ministry, however, was suddenly interrupted the following summer. Edman was stricken with typhoid fever. “He eventually sank into a coma and was deemed to be dead. A coffin draped in black was ordered, and the funeral service announced for Saturday afternoon, July 4, 1925. Mrs. Edman had her wedding dress dyed black for the service.

“At that very time, far away in Attleboro, Massachusetts, the people attending the Alliance’s Camp Hebron, without any knowledge of the situation, felt a compelling urge to go to prayer for Edman. After two hours of burdened praying, the day’s schedule of services was resumed.” Edman recovered from that near-death encounter, and after a time of recuperation back in the United States, returned to Ecuador to serve as the director of a training school which is today Guayaquil Seminary of the Alliance. His missionary service, however, came to an end in 1928, when he was faced with a second near-fatal illness.

Back home in Massachusetts, Edman served as the pastor of an Alliance church while he took graduate studies culminating in a doctoral degree in American History. He lived a disciplined life. “He never rose later than 5 am . . . for reading the Bible and prayer.” He was a scholar and a writer, and “a man who could converse, teach and preach in Swedish, German, Spanish, French, and Quechua.” His mind was “saturated with reams of memorized Scripture” and with names of students.

After three more close encounters with death, Edman died following a Wheaton chapel message in 1967, entitled “In the Presence of the King.” ⁴

July 3

Taking Up The Cross Of Christ

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.

Mark 8:34-38

A life centered around religion can be a frustrating one for a young person, especially if it involves lengthy daily rituals that become boring and meaningless. That was the attitude of A. Stephen as he grew up in a devout Hindu home in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu State, India. Religious faith was everything to his family—so much so that his father built his own temple in the village where they lived.

But young Stephen began to have doubts. “My parents taught me how to do ‘pujas’ and offer sacrifices to the idol gods,” he later recalled. “We made many pilgrimages and performed many good works, but still my life was empty.”

At fifteen, Stephen rebelled. He stole money from the temple and ran away from home. For three months he visited temples and talked with gurus, but still he had no peace. Finally he returned home and there attempted suicide, convinced that there were no answers and that life was not worth living. As he “sat in his room with a rope tied around his neck,” he began to call out for God. “Just then,” he writes, “I heard a voice saying, ‘My son, there is a peace for you . . . my son, there is a peace for you.’

“I went out and started walking along the street. A happy-looking young man came out of the night. He stopped and asked me why I was so sad. He said, “I want to help you.” In the minutes that followed, Stephen heard the gospel for the first time and professed faith in Christ.

The news of his conversion was upsetting to his family. “His brothers rejected him. His sister was so overwhelmed by shame at his new faith that she killed herself. And his father finally disavowed him and sent him away.” For the next years Stephen wandered without a home with the Bible as his only real friend. He had taken up his cross to follow Christ and willingly suffered the consequences.

But as he wandered, he began sharing his faith, and in 1971, at the age of twenty, he founded Cornerstone World Challenge. In the years that followed he established more than fifteen churches, and recruited other workers to join with him in an itinerant ministry of distributing tracts and showing Christian films. Through it all he shares his own testimony of how through losing his life he saved it. ³

July 2

In My Distress I Called To The Lord

From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said: In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.

Jonah 2:1 -4 

Jonah’s story is not uncommon; his experience has been replayed in many situations and many cultures throughout the world. After hearing God’s call, he ran away, thinking he could escape the obligation he knew was his. That obligation was to reach out to others with the gospel.

Roy Ahmaogak ran away from the call of God in 1936. Roy’s story begins when he was born in Barrow, Alaska in 1898. His mother was an unmarried Inupiat Eskimo and his father a Portuguese whaler, a man Roy never knew. His mother gave birth, as was the custom, in very trying circumstances: “When I was born,” he later reflected, “our people thought a woman was unclean when she gave birth. So when the time came for my mother to deliver me, she was taken out of her warm sod house and put inside a small snow igloo.”

During the next four days, food and water were handed in through a tiny opening. It was a precarious way to enter the world. Roy’s nine older brothers and sisters had all died very young, so, in his mother’s eyes, Roy was very special.

Presbyterian missionaries had come to Barrow when Roy was a young child and his mother and adoptive father were among the first believers. His mother was a sincere Christian and was certain that God was calling her young son into ministry. Roy recognized this call, but he was far more interested in going on exciting hunts with his dogs.

When an invitation came from a missionary medical doctor for Roy to accompany him and preach the gospel on his distant rounds, Roy shrunk from what he knew to be the voice of the Lord. He “fled to an isolated fish camp on the Beaufort Sea.” Here he could hide from God and enjoy the excitement of an Alaskan seal hunt with his friend. Their dogs carried them far out on the ice, and they were successful in their hunt.

As evening approached they headed home, and suddenly they realized that the wind had changed directions. They were headed into a blinding blizzard, facing the most dreaded terror of all; being caught on an island of ice. Late the next day, “they reached the landward edge of the ice island and found what Roy had feared—open sea.” For the next three days their lives hung in the balance.

Would they drift at sea and freeze to death, or would the wind change direction and bring them to land? It was there on the ice that Roy committed his life to God. The wind changed direction and their lives were spared. Roy went on to be a great preacher among his people and a translator of the Inupiat New Testament. ²

July 1

Unless They Are Sent

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

Romans 10:14-15

The apostle Paul’s list of four rhetorical questions in this passage has been a powerful basis for the world-wide missionary movement. Without faith in Christ, there is no hope of eternal life, and the only way to faith is to hear the gospel that is conveyed by a “sent one”—a missionary.

Helen Roseveare, a missionary medical doctor to Zaire with the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade, tells a story that powerfully illustrates this message. She briefly left her medical post to transport another missionary on emergency leave to Uganda. She made the three hundred mile drive in one day and was exhausted when she arrived late that night. Before daybreak the next morning she began the long trip home and was enjoying the flat, well-paved road, which was a luxury not known in Zaire. But as she sped along the empty highway, she began to nod and knew she must stop to stretch and drink some coffee.

There was no sign of life—no villages for miles around—as she pulled off the road near a bush. But then, out of nowhere, appeared an African man. From where he came she could not imagine, but he was the last person she wanted to see at that hour and at that place. She was savoring her moments alone and she was not in the mood for conversation. Besides, she knew she must be on her way.

She had medical work piling up for her back at the mission station. She could not ignore him, however, and she knew it was her duty to go through the usual African greetings. With that accomplished, he stood silently until she asked him what he wanted. “Are you a sent one?” he asked. She was taken aback. Of course she was, that is what a missionary is, but she asked him what he meant. “Are you a sent one by a great God to tell me about something called Jesus?”

Here she was, out in the middle of nowhere, and an illiterate herdsman had appeared from behind a bush and asked if she was a sent one? Though he spoke East African Swahili and she West African Swahili, she explained the gospel to him through simple terms, and he accepted it by faith.

Then he explained that some days earlier his brother, a teacher, had come home from school early because classes had been dismissed to let a man speak. The brother was not interested. All he knew was that this man claimed to be sent by a great God to tell about something called Jesus. He had gone out drinking rather than hear the message, but this herdsman could not forget what had been said. The words kept ringing over and over in his mind, and he knew he could not be at peace until he found a “sent one” to tell him about the great God and Jesus. ¹