Illustration results for converts
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Memorial Day 2013
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Greater Love Video Illustration »
Everlasting God Worship Music Video »
Sabbath
Sabbath Preaching Bundle »
1 Outta 7 Video Illustration »
Before The Throne… Worship Music Video »
Jackie Chan movie. This man is very innovative in the way that he makes fight scenes. Instead of just using normal karate chops and the like, he will use common every day items and create unbelievable fight scenes with them. In one scene, he fights off dozens of men with a common every day step ladder. I suppose some would be unimpressed with his action scenes. But when I saw that, I couldn’t believe how he orchestrated the action. In a sense, that’s what’s so amazing about God! But a hundred times more! He creates salvation through the birth of a boy - something that we see every day. He decides to save the world and bring life - through all things - an instrument of death - a cross! You would expect God - a powerful God - to use power to save the world. You would expect God to try and impress us with powerful miracles to convert us. But instead, He uses weakness! He uses the staff of His Word! With this simple tool - words - God converts us! He gets us to put our hands over our mouths - crawl on our knees before Him - and turn in fear to HIM for forgiveness. When we see God take us out of this sinful world and plant us into HIS kingdom - it brings us out of our dens of self righteousness and into the light of his SON! That’s exciting! If that doesn’t at least bring some joy to your heart - you’d best pinch yourself - because you must be dead!
At the end of Charles Dickens’ book “A Christmas Carol”, Scrooge has realised the error of his stingy, miserly ways. Scrooge gets converted!
At the end of the book Dickens wrote this: “Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he became a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city knew.”
God loves a cheerful giver. Scrooge was converted. Have our cheque books and wallets been converted?
Born into a captain’s family who traded at the East India Company, John Newton (July 24, 1725 – December 21, 1807) embarked on sea voyages at the young age of 11. He soon entered the prosperous slave trade until he nearly died on a voyage that would change his life forever. He proclaimed, “Only God’s amazing grace could and would take a rude, profane, slave-trading sailor and transform him into a child of God.” This would influence his famed hymn Amazing Grace, in which he declared he was once blind but now could see. Newton wrote the hymn after converting to Christianity in 1748 and abandoning his participation in the slave trade. In1764 he was ordained in the Church of England.
William Wilberforce first met John Newton when he (Wilberforce) was a child. Newton was the pastor at the church Wilberforce attended. He (Wilberforce) became reacquainted with Newton in his twenties when Wilberforce was on the brink of a career as a British MP (Member of Parliament). Wilberforce’s outspokenness on the abolition issue may well have also led Newton to make his first public confession of guilt over his past involvement in the slave trade. In the Amazing Grace, Wilberforce visits John Newton twice. The first time he asks Newton for advice about whether to leave politics and join the clergy. And, in hopes of using Newton’s testimony as a former slave trader, Wilberforce visits Newton for a second time, now at St. Mary Woolnoth Church in London. Here Wilberforce discovers that his former pastor is indeed blind.
He (Wilberforce) incorporated Newton’s confession into his plea for abolition. The vote to abolish the slave trade throughout the British Empire finally passed in 1807—the same year John Newton died. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the date when the abolition act first passed the vote of Parliament
Not limiting himself to just abolitionist work, Wilberforce dedicated his life to what he called his "two great objects:" abolishing slavery in the British Empire and what he called "the reformation of manners [society]." To this end, he advocated for child labour laws, campaigned for education of the blind and deaf, and founded organizations as diverse as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) and the National Gallery (of Art). He managed to get written into the chart of the East Indies Trading Company the right of missionary to also go to India. In short, he paved the way for Christian missionary work in India, but also in West African countries such as Sierra Leone.
FAITH LIKE A POTATO: DON'T GIVE UP HOPE
There is a movie called 'Faith Like a Potato'. It takes place in South Africa. Long story short a farmer w/an anger management issue is converted to a believer (follower) of the word. Needing to bring in money for his family, he decides to plant a crop of potatoes. The land is very dry. Most would think it was dead and no life could come from it. With no rain, he begins to question his decision to plant. So after a while of waiting, he and his farm hand decide to take a chance and dig, but first they pray.
As he begins to dig, what is revealed is astonishing. The seed yields crops twice the size of what is expected. How is that? He was looking for signs of rain, signs of growth above ground. All the while there was water running underneath the ground.
My point is this. In between seed time and harvest God is still doing his best work though you may not see it.
Don't give up on the harvest that is coming your way. Believe in God to meet your needs as Psalms 23 says. Believe he will multiply be he can do more than we ask or think. Continue to sow generously in all areas of your life where you want to see a harvest...
