Wonder Of Your Grace

WONDER OF YOUR GRACE

© Words by Stephen Verner - Wed. 8/29/01 – 2:54pm

Verse 1:

Just like Adam and Eve,

I’ve pulled the apple from the tree.

I thought it would taste so sweet.

Instead I found sin’s (its) bitterness.

Now I long for tenderness,

That only You can give.

Chorus:

I’ve walked my own way,

Said the wrong thing.

Oh, how could I forget?

I want the Lord’s way.

It’s a new day.

Don’t know how I got this far,

Without knowing who you are.

But here I stand amazed,

At the wonder of Your grace.

My Love Song To You

MY LOVE SONG TO YOU

© Words by Stephen Verner - Wed. 9/3/08 10:06pm

VERSE 1:

The world and all its trinkets can’t compare to you.

For you see me through and through, and yet you love me.

For too long I have chased other lovers, real or imaginary,

But none could give me what I find in Your sanctuary.

Chorus:

Now I am content.

In you all my needs are met.

So how could I forget,

To sing my love song to you?

Song Of The Nations

SONG OF THE NATIONS

© Words by Stephen D. Verner - Thursday, January 14, 2010 – 9:00am-9:40am

VERSE 1:

From different places in many nations,

With different faces from all the races,

We all join together in God’s song;

To love what’s right, and hate what’s wrong.

Come fill our hearts God with your light,

So we can love LIKE You and not by sight.

CHORUS:

Fill us up Lord, Fill us up!

Fill us up Lord, with Your Love!

Fill our hearts Lord with Your fire!

Let our lives burn with desire!

For the nations, we cry to You!

Let them know Lord, You are True! OR Let our hunger be for Your Truth!

VERSE 2:

From all the tones and shades, hues and colors,

You have called us together as sisters and brothers.

We all join together in God’s song;

To lift up the weak and make them strong.

Come fill our hearts Lord with Your revelation,

So we can take it to every nation.

CHORUS:

Fill us up Lord, Fill us up!

Fill us up Lord, with Your Love!

Fill our hearts Lord with Your fire!

Let our lives burn with desire!

For the nations, we cry to You!

Let them know Lord, You are True! OR Let our hunger be for Your Truth!

Reach Out & Touch Someone

Have you ever been desperate for anything? I know I have been before. There's something about people in a desperate state; they don't give a rip what people think of them. Jesus came across many people who were desperate. On one such occasion, Jesus encountered this scenario:

Mark 1:40-41

⁴⁰A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean."

⁴¹Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" ⁴²Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.

Leprosy? Yuck! How could you touch someone with a disease like leprosy? Just to emphasize the gross factor of the disease a little, here are some facts about it.

Its symptoms start in the skin and peripheral nervous system (outside the brain and spinal cord), then spread to other parts, such as the hands, feet, face, and earlobes. Patients with leprosy experience disfigurement of the skin and bones, twisting of the limbs, and curling of the fingers to form the characteristic claw hand. Facial changes include thickening of the outer ear and collapsing of the nose.

Jesus freely touched people with leprosy. While people with leprosy traditionally suffered banishment from family and neighbors, Jesus broke from the tradition. He treated lepers with compassion, touching and healing them. - From an article entitled " Biblical Leprosy: Shedding Light on the Disease that Shuns by Dr. Alan Gillen, a biology professor at Liberty University as found on http://www.answersingenesis.org

Jesus reached beyond the social norm, and touched lepers anyway, regardless of their disfigurement or social stigma. So it begs the questions who has God placed in your path that you've deemed "untouchable"?

It's time for all of us who call ourselves Christian to start following the pattern of Christ in a very visible and tangible way, so that others who are searching will see more than just a 1 day a week religion.

What are we afraid of? Once we were untouchable, unlovable because of our sin. Thank you God that you sent Jesus to touch and love me anyway! It's time to touch the untouchables.

My Manifesto To Hell

Written Thursday 7-15-10

To all the demons in hell and their leader Lucifer,

For far too long you have manipulated me, using my mind as the garden to grow your evil schemes, using my spirit to express your wicked emotions and using my body to carry out your bidding.

You've tempted me, lied to me, tricked me, sold me down the river, blinded me to the truth, isolated me, given me a gang beat down and left me for dead. Every time my Saviour Jesus has rescued me, cleaned me up and put me back on the straight and narrow, only to watch me fall again and again.

Tonight, I am happy to inform you that because of your treachery, we can no longer be friends (as if we ever were). You see, as you've probably known all along my Father, God has a better plan for me, and I've bought into it hook, line and sinker. Every time I sold Jesus out, betrayed him, lied to him, walked out on him, broke my promises to him, pledged my whole-hearted allegiance only to 180. He decided that I was worth saving.

Can you believe that a lying, cheating, adulterating, bitter, angry, mistrustful, unreliable, selfish human being like me could and has been chosen to proclaim his name as a missionary? If I were God, never in a million years, would I have picked me for the job.

However, now that it's mine, I want to tell you Satan, that I'm coming after you with every fiber in my being. I refuse to be some weak, push over Christian who falls for your schemes. If you knock me down, it only strengthens my resolve. Inside me lives a Rocky heart waiting to kick you all the way back to hell.

I'm not afraid of you, because I have a kamikaze attitude. So you can sit behind your walls, but I'm telling you they are gonna fall. I'm the lead man on the battering ram to hell. I'm gonna be the first one through when the wall breaks. I'm gonna knock down your gates with the Prince of Heaven as my lead. I'm stealing back the souls of Man, giving them back, never to be taken back again.

I refuse to sit back in my comfortable Christian bubble, lulled to sleep by silver-tongued preachers who promise my "best life now." I'm a casino better who's laying it all on the table, for I count my life as lost for the sake of God and the advancement of his kingdom. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I'm coming to expose your lies with the truth of God's word and rescue all who are willing to hear, and to those who turn a deaf ear now; I am raising my son and daughter to take my place when I am gone.

I've been marked by heaven for this task, and I don't know why, but I guess there's nothing else to say but goodbye.

Not Just Another Hand Out

Last Tuesday (6-15-10), I got to thinking about how people go about helping other people, and the reasons and ways that they do it. Here's the epiphany like conclusion that I came to...

I think too much "ministry" is done with a hand "down" instead of a hand "out". The sad thing is most of us are not even aware of the difference and why it matters. It's subtle, but so important.

A hand "down" puts the helper in a position of arrogance, and the one being helped in a position of unspoken judgement and condemnation. A hand "out" puts both the helper and the helped on level ground before God; with the helper showing humility and the helped feeling a sense of acceptance that can only be a product of the grace of God being modeled to them in the moment they needed it the most.

The world doesn't need to see us as perfect. That's unattainable in their eyes; a goal that only brings more shame and unworthiness. However they need to see us being perfected by the Perfect One; the grace of God in motion. Now a life being changed from the inside out is something that's incredibly attractive to a lost and dying world.

When we approach people with humility instead of arrogance, we open lines of communication like never before.

DRAWING A CROWD OR MAKING DISCIPLES

It's been 3 days since my feet touched back on American soil, but my head is still spinning. Better yet, my heart is still longing for the place and people that I just left. Brandy and I spent April 1-11 in northern Italy. No not for vacation, but for a surveying of the walls. We wanted to see Italy first hand - observe the spiritual climate, see the good work that missionaries are engaged in, and then ask God to show us where we might serve him best advancing his kingdom in the hearts of Italians.

We traveled about 10,000 miles by plane, train, bus, car and yes by foot from the extreme northeast corner in Trieste on the Slovenian border, through 9 other cities before we flew out of Rome last Sunday. It's hard to put into words all that we saw and experienced in the last week and a half.

Italy was in many ways everything we anticipated it would be, and nothing at all what we thought all at the same time. We expected indifference to the gospel, the exultation of Mary, good food, breath taking landscapes, warm & friendly people, etc. In these ways our expectations were on the mark. However, in every way we were taken back at the level to which all those things came to life.

There's so much work to be done in Italy, especially in the north to bring the gospel forward to Italians. Many of the missionaries we met have been on the field 15-almost 30 years. They have labored hard and brought forth fruit that remains. They in essence have been the battering ram against the gates of hell. Progress has been slow, but sure. The battle has given them scars, but their hearts are steadfast, and full of renewed hope as they see new missionaries such as us being raised up to carry the gospel forward to the next generation.

There's a palpable sense that God is stirring more in the hearts and minds of Italians. The missionary work in Italy of the last 20-30 years is equivalent to taking ground from the Nazis on the beaches of Normandy. The landing had great costs, and the progress was sometimes slow, but the result was ultimately the beginning of a surge and momentum shift for the Allies that ultimately spelled demise for Hitler.

The walls that have long held back the gospel from penetrating are breaching now. Thank you God for those who have gone before us. The success we will see and experience is a direct result of their faithful service.

Since our visit to Italy we feel a greater focus to the ministry that God has called us to, and a greater sense of urgency to get there and get started. Once we are through the 1st year that will be spent in the University for Foreigners in Perugia learning the language and culture, we would like to intern and eventually begin our ministry in a suburb of Bologna, a city of over 500,000 and home to the oldest university in the world. The university has over 90,000 students, and many people move to nearby towns to live and commute to work in Bologna. This is a growing area with far reaching influence not just in Italy, but all over Europe.

The evangelistic ministry areas we would like to engage in will include sports ministry through baseball, soccer, etc., as well as media training in audio, video as well as music. We will lead small group Bible studies and engage in 1 on 1 discipleship, too. Teaching English is a huge need and desire of most Italians, so much of our ministry efforts will include teaching English. As always, all of our efforts will be to lead Italians to a relationship with Jesus, involvement in a local evangelical church and training and discipleship that will prepare them for leadership in those churches.

Some of you may of thought that up until this point that I am crazy, maybe not even that serious about going, or maybe your looking at me and saying well you don't have a seminary degree, you've never preached, and so on and so on.

You are all right. I AM CRAZY. I could serve in my position and enjoy the blessings of a great church, but I would be ignoring the call of God. I AM SERIOUS. This call to foreign missions came in 2002, was defined in 2008, has been pursued faithfully through prayer, fasting, seeking of wisdom from godly advisers in authority over us who have confirmed the call and giftings necessary for service in long term overseas missions. Yes, I don't have a degree in theology, (one day I hope to get one), but more importantly, I have 29 years of growing and learning and walking with the Holy Spirit, engaging in ministry and Bible study and know that that is more than most Italians have seen or heard in a thousand lifetimes.

Maybe I can't draw a crowd, but that's okay with me. Jesus can draw them for me. Maybe I can't get people to follow me, but that's okay with me. Jesus can make them follow Him. Maybe I can't do a lot of things, but I know how to make disciples, and for now that's the last commandment I remember getting from Jesus before he left the Earth. So I guess I'll just keep doing that until He gives me something better to do.

We may be the first out of the Victory staff and congregation to commit to full time missions work in Europe, but we don't want to be the last. We hope that our pioneering spirit and obedience to God will inspire others around us to follow the call He has for them. We pray that God will call out others from among us to missions.

Ciao for now!