America's Wealth & God

I started this email writing about dreams, callings, and visions. I was going to encourage you all to follow them, step out in faith and let God bless you. Well, I somehow got off track and decided to throw that out. Instead, I am going to let you ponder over some quotes from a book I am currently reading entitled Revolution in World Missions written by K.P. Yohannan, a man from India. He grew up in dirt poor poverty. His mother prayed for him to be a pastor and at a very young age (younger than 18) he was led by the Spirit and began preaching in the street. He eventually was led to America. He was astonished at Christian's spirituality in America. I strongly encourage you all to find a copy and read it. I think we, as Americans, need to be pushed a little bit more in our Christianity than what we are. This book definitely does it.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The battle against hunger and poverty is really a spiritual battle, not a physical or social one as secularists would have us believe."

"Americans are more than just unaware of their affluence - they almost seem to despise it."

"I compared their clothing (Americans) to that of the native missionary evangelists whom I had left only a few weeks before. Many of them walk barefoot between villages or work in flimsy sandals. Their threadbare cotton garments would not be acceptable as cleaning rags in the United States. Then I discovered most Americans have closets full of clothing they wear only occasionally - and I remembered the years I traveled and worked with only the clothes on my back. And I had lived the normal lifestyle of most village evangelists."


"Sad to say, it appeared to me that for the most part they had absorbed the same humanistic and materialistic values that dominated the secular culture."

"In 1998, personal expenditures in the U.S. averaged $19,049 per person of which $1,276 (6.7%) went for food, leaving a comfortable $17,773 for other expenses. In India, the average person had only $276 to spend, of which $134 (48.4%) went for food, leaving a scant $142 for other needs for the entire year. I had lived with this reality every day, but Americans have real trouble thinking in these terms."

"I expected to see a bold witness. God's grace obviously has been poured out on this nation and Church in a way no other people have experienced. Instead I found a Church in spiritual decline."

"The secret of following God's will, I discovered, usually is wrapped up in rejecting the good for God's best.
God did not shower such great blessing on this nation for the Christians to live in extravagance, self-indulgence and spiritual weakness."


-------------------

All in all, we need to be challenged in our faith. We do not face persecution and tribulation like our brothers and sisters in other countries. Do not become locked in a place with Christ. We should all be racing after God. Spurring one another on for love and good deeds.


"O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirst for you;
my body longs for you,
in a dray and weary land
where there is no water."

(Psalm 63)