Face to Face with Jesus

I recently read Face to Face with Jesus: A Former Muslim's Extraordinary Journey to Heaven and Encounter with the God of Love. The author, Samaa Habib, was raised in a Muslin family in the Middle East. Her nation was in turmoil for much of her growing up years. As a teenager she began attending a tae kwon do class taught by a group of Christians who shared the love of Jesus with their students, she chose to follow Christ.

Samaa's book, written with Bodie Thoene, tells the story of her earnest faith and tireless pursuit of Jesus, even in the face of unrelenting difficulties. For example, her church, far from her home, held an all-night prayer service that began at 10 p.m. every Friday. But her country was in the midst of civil war and public transportation was unreliable. Besides, there was a curfew in the city, so every time she went to the prayer meeting she put her life on the line. Even to go to the bread line to get food for the family was hazardous. With danger lurking each time she left the house, she also faced danger in her own home. Her parents and many of her siblings opposed her conversion and threatened to take her life.

The pages of Face to Face with Jesus throb with the steadfast faith of this young woman and the steadfast faithfulness of God. Again and again He rescued her from difficulty, disaster, and death. Indeed, the title of the book comes from the moments in which she literally was face to face with Jesus in Heaven.

Many people today face perils similar to Samaa's. Strengthen them, Lord. Show Yourself strong on their behalf and may they live and die for Your glory.

Most of us in the West will never experience such dire circumstances. Lord, use Samaa's book to call us to Your heart so that we, too, will pursue You tirelessly and live for you joyously. Help us to abandon ourselves totally to the One who is faithful.

Matt Thomas, Bishop and Storyteller

We had the privilege of hearing Bishop Matt Thomas speak several times over the weekend. Not only did he give three messages at our church's annual Leadership Summit, he also was the presenter for a break-out session called "How to Cross Bridges You are Building," and he was our speaker at church Sunday morning.

Bishop Matt oversees the work of the western region of the Free Methodist Church as well as Asia. He and his family spent time in three different locations as missionaries. He is a man who seems comfortable with anybody, anywhere. And he is a storyteller.

His stories were amazing -- stories about encounters with folks in his travels, stories of how people came to know Christ, conversions stories that took place on airplanes and in Starbucks, stories of bold believers in places hostile to the gospel, and a story about a guy who broke into a church storage shed, stole all their groundskeeping tools, then tried to hawk them to a church member.

He told a marvelous story about being in a village somewhere in the world where no one spoke a word of English. He didn't know a word of the local language, and the interpreter was two-and-a-half hours late. An older man came up to him and began to talk -- in his own language -- and he talked and talked. This must be the man I was supposed to meet today, thought Bishop Matt, and he responded in English. The man showed him around the village, talking the whole time in his own language, and the Bishop followed him around, speaking English.

They went into a home, where a young couple lived with their baby. This must be where they want to start the church, he thought. They drew his attention to the baby, and he reached down and picked her up. And then he prayed for those gathered, for the baby, and for the Lord to bless the home and all that should happen there.

When the interpreter arrived the Bishop said, "Do you mind to tell me what happened here?" So the interpreter turned to the old gentleman and asked him about his time with the Bishop. Then he turned to Matt and said, "You took a tour of the village and went to the home where they would like to start a church. You met the family of the home and prayed a blessing on their home. Their baby has been sick and they wanted you to pray for her, so you did. You did everything they were hoping you would do on your visit today."

Bishop Matt said that he's never been in a more foreign environment in his life, but that he was never more at home. Home, he told us, is not a matter of soil; it is a matter of soul. Everybody wants a sense of home, but it's not so easy to identify a home these days. But when God makes his home in us, we're home.

People all around us are looking for home. If they haven't found it in Christ, they are not truly at home. He shared the simplicity of helping people find their true home. I'll pass on some of what he told us in my next post.

The Longing Season

I wasn't in the mood for a romance novel, not at all. I had no intention of reading this book. But before I put it in the go-back-to-the-library pile I thought I'd just thumb through it. Next thing you know, I was hooked!

The Longing Season by Christine Schaub is set in the mid-1700s. It tells an intricately woven tale of 20-year-old John Newton and the woman he loved, Mary Catlett.  Having just watched the film Amazing Grace, in which we meet and old and blind John Newton, I was curious to get a glimpse into his earlier life.

The story of John and Mary was beautifully told. They met when John was 17 and Mary 13, but they were separated by John's life at sea. The Longing Season focuses on the years in which John was both a seaman and a slave, from 1746 to 1748. With well developed characters and comfortable familiarity with such varied topics as 18th century England, herbal medicines, British military and the perils of life on the sea, the author draws you into John and Mary's love and the separation they must endure.

Not only was John far from Mary during these years; he was also far from God. A dissipated infidel, it was a storm at sea and the story of the prodigal son that drew him to God on March 21, 1748. Ever after he would mark that date as a day of humiliation and thanksgiving for his great deliverance.

I had often heard that John Newton was the captain of a slave ship, but that was not a part of this story. Could he, indeed, have participated in the slave trade after trusting in Christ? Schaub's story answered -- and raised -- enough questions to make me want to know more.

I discovered a sermon about John Newton that John Piper preached at a pastors' conference in 2001, in which he said:
"For six years after [Newton's conversion], he said he had no 'Christian friend or faithful minister to advise me.'[20] He became the captain of a slave-trading ship and went to sea again until December, 1749. In his mature years he came to feel intense remorse for his participation in the slave trade and joined William Wilberforce in opposing it. Thirty years after leaving the sea he wrote an essay, Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade, which closed with a reference to 'a commerce so iniquitous, so cruel, so oppressive, so destructive, as the African Slave Trade!'"


It is a great sadness to me that Newton should have participated in the sale of human beings even after his conversion, yet it is also a testimony to God's willingness to take us where we are, bring us to Himself, and, for the rest of our lives, complete His work in us. Conversion makes us a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), but that's just the beginning. By God's grace, mercy and power, we are "being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:15). And there will be many areas of our lives that God will put His finger on, saying, "I want this part of your life too." 


This is why John Newton could sing -- and we can join him:
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see!