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The Harding Newsletter Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:4-6) When I think of God’s sovereign grace in saving us and then enabling us to serve Him all I can say is, “Thank you Lord! I don’t know why you chose me but you did! WOW!” We can have confidence as servants of our Lord. That confidence however is in no way in ourselves but through Christ toward God. Left to ourselves we are utterly useless. We would not understand spiritual things; we would not seek after God; and we could do absolutely nothing that would be pleasing in His sight. “But our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant.” Thank you Lord! This new covenant, of course, speaks of our great High Priest which is the Lord Jesus Christ who shed His perfect blood on the cross, died, was buried and rose again the third day. It’s the promise of the forgiveness of sins through the death of Christ! A majority of the readers of this newsletter are certainly dispensational such as I am. (Although some may not know that they are.) I’ve found that a temptation exists at times amongst us who are dispensational. That is to look at the old covenant, which is the Mosaic Law, with a bit of disdain, as if it were kind of a bad thing. Not so! We in no way want to down size it. It was a glorious covenant (2 Cor. 3:7-11) but it was temporary. It was certainly temporary! (Hebrews 8:13) The old covenant was a shadow; it pictured the coming of the Messiah who would offer the perfect sacrifice once and for all! Therefore we do not live in the shadows or picture but in the substance which is Christ. (Col. 2:16-17) As wonderful and as glorious as the old covenant was, the new covenant is even more glorious and is superior in every way! Amen & Amen!!! What a privilege to be made adequate by God as servants of a new covenant! It has been a privilege to me lately to be able to share these precious truths with the people of Kasule Community Bible Church here in Kenya. I get a full hour each Sunday morning for teaching, preaching, question and answer. At the present time I’m expositing the book of 2 Corinthians. This is one of the main ministries I’m currently involved in on the field. You can start to see the, “light come on” for some of these dear people. Augustine is quoted as saying, “Recognize the distinctions, and the scriptures harmonize.” And, right he was. Yet, as I get to know many people here in Kenya it becomes immediately apparent that there is little to no recognition of any distinctions in the Bible. This has lead to more than a few unfortunate mishaps. Yet praise be to God who works all things after the counsel of His will and makes us adequate to serve Him! In other news, Van is doing very well with the pregnancy. We have just under two months left until the anticipated arrival of our first child. The Lord has been so kind to the both of us during this exciting process. She has also been very diligent in doing chores around the house and is actively involved with the Ladies’ Bible study on Thursday afternoons. They are going through the book of Ephesians. Also, we want to say, “Thank you,” to everyone who has been praying for our work permits. Good News! The immigration office has given us 2 years. There will be no more need to run back and forth to Nairobi for awhile. The process is finally over. Everything is cleared. They say that when your 2 years are expired, you can easily reapply and get more. (As I’m told.) So hopefully reapplying is in fact easier than trying to get into the country initially. Now that we have our work permits secured this gives us access not only to all of Kenya, but we can easily cross the borders of Tanzania and Uganda as well. This is exciting because this month (March) one of our TBM board members, Pastor Jeff Anderson, is doing a pastors’ conference in Uganda. 10,000 pastors are expected to attend this year’s event which has been held annually. For a relatively small fee these pastors will be able to stay there for 3 days, be fed, experience 3 solid days of expository preaching, be given a study Bible and a couple of other great books. Van and I are planning to attend along with Pastor Samson from our church. Please keep this item in prayer. It is hard for you to imagine how excited we all are for this! |
