Will He Find One?

By Paul Norcross

Dear Beloved,

God bless you wonderfully and abundantly in the name that is mighty today, mighty tomorrow, and will be mighty for you each time that you use His name in faith -- Jesus Christ our King! How good our heavenly Father is to allow us to live and move and have our being in Him!

Yesterday I was talking with some dear friends, wonderful saints in our church who are French/American. They had just returned from a vacation with their relatives in France , and they went there with a yearning to share Jesus Christ with all whom they would meet. God did so many wonderful things while they were there, including connecting them with a couple of churches that move in the manifestations and power of the Holy Spirit. They had a delightful time sharing the Word of God with many friends and relatives -- God opened many doors!

At the same time, they noticed that there was a huge missing piece. Most everywhere they went, praying for open doors of utterance, they also encountered a very pervasive rejection of God that was reasoned, intellectual, and argumentative. We've all witnessed to many folks over the years who have had their minds made up against God, who blame Him for all sorts of things, and who lump God in with numbing religious traditions and worldly opinions. It really does take the love of God and the Spirit of the Lord to reach through people's "stuff." In the midst of all this, God opened doors supernaturally for this precious couple to sow many seeds for the Kingdom. Like people everywhere, there were various reactions to hearing the Good News of Christ, and some of them received. Hallelujah!

Some of the things I heard about this trip made my heart ache. I saw once again how lost people can be in their reasonings that are so contrary to God. One of the reasonings that my friends encountered often during their trip was a widely held belief that God is somehow responsible for the evil in the earth. Another, often from orthodox and other such traditional faiths that emphasize church tradition over the Scriptures, leads to the doctrinal thinking that the written Word of God is just written by men, not inspired by the Holy Spirit. Hearing these kinds of things made my heart ache for these people!

You have certainly heard these kinds of things many times before. They are not unique to France or to any particular religion. They are instead doctrinal errors emanating from the source of all evil and error, the devil. He spends eons developing false doctrines which capture the minds of men, and which become building blocks of false faith.

In the midst of the vacation visit, my friends shared with one young lady who volunteered that she did not believe that God was responsible for all the evil in the earth (unlike the many others they had talked to). Certainly, understanding this concept is a "given," an obvious thing to a believer. But this was a monumental and wonderful thing to hear from an unbeliever!

As I listened to how this witnessing to the young lady had progressed, I thought about some of the simple building blocks of faith -- simple things like: God really does exist, or the salvation message that Jesus came and died to take away our sins, or that the Bible is God's love letter to all those who desire to get to know Him, or that God is not responsible for evil. I was reminded how each building block of faith must be put in place for a foundation to get constructed. It happens block by block -- a process I realized that I've taken for granted. So I have a particular appreciation and thankfulness at this time for the truth of Isaiah 28:9-10...

Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:

God is so good! We have so much to be thankful for, even the "little" precepts and lines that have helped build our faith, and which we often take for granted.

As I close this letter to you, I want to ask for your remembering to keep praying for the Lord to send laborers into the harvest. And please read Ezekiel chapter 22, which shares how corrupted the prophets, priests, princes (how about some senators, congressmen, judges, etc?), and finally -- how corrupt the common people had become in Israel . After going through these groups of people, the Lord sought for a man (any man or woman!) among them who could stand in the gap.

But -- here's the real heart breaker. The Lord declares in this passage, "I found none."

Will the Lord find you praying for the lost today? Will He find you going into His throne room on your knees today asking for your assignment from Him to you today?

I love you and I praise God for you. In this e-mail I have attached two sets of notes from a couple of teachings done recently at our church, and which I thought would bless you. One is on dealing with the spirit of error and the spirit of whoredoms -- how they impact God's people adversely and how to deal with them. The other is a teaching on the joy of the five crowns that believers will receive for their obedience, love, and faithfulness in the body of Christ. Hallelujah!

All glory to our First Love, Jesus Christ,

--Paul and Rita Norcross