"AIM AT THE PAIN!"

Pastor Scott Bledsoe of Household of Faith, Gonzales, LA preached this morning about aiming the focus of our lives toward easing other peoples' pain.

Great message.

Then he backed up his words with a check to Children's Cup for $34,700 as "downpayment" on the $100,000 they are raising for Children's Cup's second Oasis of Life Church and CarePoint start-up in Zimbabwe. We are just days away from launching the project on the ground.

Zimbabwe is a risky and hurting place. The pain is deep for millions. (100,000 AIDS orphans in Masvingo province alone.)

Hundreds of lives will be saved and changed for eternity because of their focus on easing hurting peoples' pain.

Thank you, Pastor Scott and congregation--thank you in Jesus' name.

What a great church!

IT'S STILL ALL ABOUT THE BLOOD

Their blood. Our blood.
Spilled blood. Diseased blood.
His blood. Calvary's blood.
Covering blood. Cleansing blood.
Healing blood. Life-giving blood.
Jesus' blood.

The devil would have blood be the symbol for only disease and violent death. He hates the blood of Calvary. I'm convinced he knows he lost at Calvary, but I'm also sure he shakes his fist at God and says, "I'll make you pay every drop of the blood price."

But Calvary's blood--Jesus' blood--cleanses and heals and delivers.

Not cheap, this blood-bought victory!

Blood-borne AIDS has now become the single most disasterous calamity in all of history to attack the human race.

Yet, that blood-bought victory of Calvary's flow can never be staunched. It is bigger than AIDS, it is even bigger than sin and hate.

The Children's Cup Team pledge this: we will push deeper and deeper into hurting places in the power and under the covering of Jesus' redeeming blood.

It is an emotional journey, surely not without risk. But just as surely not without victory.

Do you want to take this journey with us?

HOPE:CAMBODIA

Right now 3o days of concentrated ministry and missions projects are underway in Cambodia.

Joyce Meyer Ministries, Healing Place Church of Baton Rouge, Celebration Church of Jacksonville, Florida, and other ministies are impacting the needy country of Cambodia.

This is special to me. It was on those Killing Fields of Cambodia that plans were started in my heart to create Children's Cup.

A couple hours after I left Nang Chan refugee camp of 26,000 people, enemy murderers destroyed the camp and killed thousands. Among the casualties were about a dozen little tots that had taken my hands--alternating one finger of my hand per child--and walked me to the huts where they lived and the church where they heard about Jesus.

Still every day I see the children and hear their giggles that turned to sobs. One of the girls became a logo 'Cup uses.

Thank you, teams, for helping keep my promise to see that country impacted by the Gospel.

THE EXQUISITE PAIN OF LOVE

“I love you so much it hurts.”

I was hugging one of our awesome grandchildren. I didn’t think the words, they just gushed out.

And I’ve thought about the words a lot since.

Love can bring soaring joys, immeasurable gratitude for such an unmerited blessing and at the same time a profound pain at the thought harm could come to the one we love so much or that we could lose them.

And then I remember the cross.

Jesus’ love for us took Him into a pain no other has ever known. Others had been crucified but none carried the weight of all the evil hell could imagine.

For God so loved the world…

And His pain at losing even one explodes with every whipman’s lash and every hammer’s blow at Golgatha.

Shouldn’t we at least tell everybody what He did on the cross?

NO EXCLUSIONS

When Jesus told us to "Go ye into all the world and preach the Godpel to every creature," He did not make exclusions if the place was too far or if it cost too much.

He just said, "Go."

CANDIDATE MARTYRS?

It never has been easy.
And it's getting harder.

I'm talking about interviewing missionary candidates.

Do they really understand what they are getting into? Is it just an exciting thing to do? Has God really called them?

Come with me to an interview. Look into their eyes, listen to their words, feel their hearts, let your heart receive their tears.

You won't see them but there is a crowd looking over my shoulder.

They are men and women I have known, wept and hugged necks with--great hearts that have layed down their lives for the same Jesus, the same message that these candidates want to take into the hard places of the world.

There have been more martyrs in my lifetime than in all the generations since Golgatha all added together.

About every three minutes another martyr dies for Jesus--perhaps one while you read this.

As I look into the candidates' eyes a fiery knot burns in my throat.

"Will this person be asked to die for Jesus?"

Dare I encourage the candidates to travel the road that will take them to that moment of ultimate sacrifice?

Worse, what guilt would crush my heart if I discourage their answer to the call?

I reaffirm this commitment to any who ask me about becoming a missionary.

I will want you to be sure God has called you.

I will be honest with you about the risks.

I will remind you that the devil knows if you have the spiritual authority to invade his strongholds.

I will also tell you that there is no greater joy than seeing God use your life to impact hurting people in hostile places.

Part of me will always be weeping as we talk.

HE NEVER LET HIS CAPTORS SEE HIM CRY

More about my hero friend Lt. Col. Paul Kari.

Paul was determined to never let his torturers see him cry. But, he told me, he cried a lot when he got back alone in his cell.

Yet, I have seen him cry twice.

Once was when he told me about his first days in captivity. When he ejected from his burning jet it broke his back. He was made to sit for days on a jagged pile of concrete blocks.

When they put him in a cell with others his body was violently ill from pain and bad water and he used it. When the captors saw the bucket they demanded to know who used it. Before Paul could answer one of the other prisoners said, “I did.”

Paul wept as he told me how that man was tortured in front of him.

The other time I saw him weep was when he was telling me how good God had been to him bringing him through the captivity and blessing him in his life after prison.

The goodness of a fellow prisoner and the mercy of God drew his tears.

Measure a man by what it takes to make him cry.

LT. COL. PAUL KARI--AMERICAN HERO

"Thanks for being a man in a world of wussy-wimps, Paul!"

I called my friend Paul yesterday--Independence Day--to let him know we are grateful. Paul spent eight years in the "Hanoi Hilton" prison in Hanoi, Vietnam after he was shot down.

He was doing what his government asked him to do. He never betrayed his government.

For eight years his captors tortured him trying to make him say things against America. He never did. He refused to be guilty of treason.

But now, our "wussy-wimp" politicians and media are saying those things he refused to say--and worse.

Treason is what it is.

I thank God for Paul and every other American that has served in my country's military.

They all deserve to be called heroes.