Have you ever read a passage of Scripture that you have read many times, but this time it speaks to you in a fresh way? In my devotions recently I had this experience. I read John 15:1-11 and I clearly heard God speak to my heart personally.  I have studied that passage before, preached from it, taught through it verse by verse, but this time I read it personally as to my own life, and God spoke powerfully.

I believe God is leading me to take some steps of faith in major ways, now it’s just up to me to be obedient and not let fear stop me. I know God loves me and my family, and I know He is faithful.

Perhaps God is leading you to do something for His glory, to expand His Kingdom, to take risks of faith and serve Him in fresh exciting ways. Go for it, be fruitful, bear much fruit, and God’s joy will be in you and your joy will be full.

Read: John 15:1-11 and believe it for yourself!

Please pray for me to follow God’s leading in my life too, and pray for fruitfulness to His glory.

Blessings,

Paul

I am back from Uganda, Africa, and 17 days of my life that I’ll never forget. It was a privilege to serve with my friend and evangelist Jose Zayas, and meeting the whole team from NC and Portland, Oregon. There is so much to share that I can’t possibly get it all into one blog. My life was changed by the wonderful people of Uganda and God. My intentions were to go and share the Good News of Jesus and see lives changed, which did happen by the way. Many people came to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior through the various outreaches we did, and especially from the festivals (crusades) in the evenings where Jose preached the gospel. Although my intentions were to see their lives changed, my life was impacted and changed as I never expected.

I had the honor of preaching in many schools and other areas such as speaking to people in the market  place, etc, and saw lots of people make public professions of receiving Christ myself, which is always an amazing work of the Holy Spirit and is exciting to be used by God.

Already one prayer has been answered for me by making contacts with some leaders in Uganda and we’re prayerfully planning on going back in February to take a team and do a mission trip and festival (crusade) myself. It will be interesting to see how God will provide the resources for this as it comes to pass.

One thing is for sure, my faith in God’s faithfulness to the mission has been increased enormously more than ever before, which makes Hebrews 11:6 come to mind.

A great highlight for me was the day I and Nick ( a young man from Portland) got to spend all day in a village with the bishop over multiple churches and pastors. I preached the gospel in a church where there were about 100 people and 7 received Christ, and it seemed the rest all came forward for healing prayers. What an experience. We also witnessed a baptism at the river, had communion, much much dancing and worshiping God, had dinner in the village (interesting and fun), prayers, and the dedication of a truck. Yes a truck; I laid hands on it and prayed: “God bless the truck.” We all prayed for it, at the same time.

Needless to say, I love Uganda and the people I met there. I will never forget them, and I can’t wait to go back. However, I miss my family when I’m gone, but it’s a great reunion when I come back home.

Serving and trusting Christ,
Paul

Have you ever read a person’s blog and think; “wow, that guy can really write.” This probably happens when a person challenges themselves to grow and studies up on writing, or at least blogging.

Not so much with me, as you can most likely tell if you’re reading this. I believe this is an area I need to bone up on per se. I need to be more consistence with my blog, change the look of it for sure, and write better posts. I hope to always share a verse of Scripture with what I’m saying as to make it applicable to life, however, then that would not be a blog, that would make it a devotion. Some guys use videos instead of writing it seems, perhaps I should try that too.

Oh well, more ramblings to come soon.

BTW, here’s the verse…

Colossians 3:17 (NLT)
And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.

This would apply to blogging also.

Jesus loves you, never doubt it, never forget it.

Paul