James & Tess Arendt
THE LORD DOES RETURN and REWARD and COMPENSATE FOR ANY SACRIFICES YOU MAKE FOR OTHERS IN TRYING TO HELP THEM. You see, if we are willing to do His will and carry on His work, He never fails. As Martin Luther said when somebody complained that he was taking too many people into his home and he had about 25 people living with him then: "Never fear, with every additional mouth, God will supply!" And so it's been, amen? He's not only supplied but He has ABUNDANTLY supplied and lavished on us many blessings because we have obeyed His commandments and obeyed His example in living simply and humbly and sharing what we have with others.
SO IT HAS BEEN BY STARTING OUT WITH BEING KIND TO A FEW, the Lord has been kind to us in return and caused many others to be kind to us and to care for us in our needs as we have endeavoured to bring happiness to others and to you.
I WANT YOU TO REMEMBER THAT YOU CAN NEVER OUTGIVE GOD. We have tried to give and to share and to sacrifice but as David Livingstone, the great pioneer missionary to Africa said when he was even facing death in the heart of so-called darkest Africa, when asked by the newspaper man, "Hasn't it been a terrible sacrifice for you to leave a Baronial mansion in England and the wealth of a fine home and family to come to this dark land amongst strangers and savages, enduring hardships and privations and malaria and all of these things?" And Livingstone answered, "I have enjoyed life, I have been happy, I have been healthy, I have done a great work for the Lord and I HAVE NEVER MADE A SACRIFICE!" What he was saying was that he couldn't possibly outgive God! The more you give, the more He gives back in return.
IF THE DEVIL CAN JUST SCARE YOU OUT BEFORE YOU BEGIN, then you'll never even get started and you'll never accomplish what God wants you to do. So for God's sake and the sake of others and your own sake, don't let the Devil frighten you or bluff you out of what the Lord wants you to do before you even get started. That's when he attacks you the worst and that's when the Lord ALLOWS him to attack you the worst because the Lord is TESTING you to see if you really mean business and if you're really willing to even die trying.
I'VE FOUND ALMOST ALWAYS THAT THE LORD GIVES ME THE MOST SEVERE TEST AT THE VERY BEGINNING.--Just as it was with some of you when you first joined, you had your worst test then, because God was putting you through an entrance exam to see if you had what it takes and to see if you were really willing to die to self and cry out to Him, because otherwise what's the use of even wasting anything on you?--Any time or any of His goods or the strength of His leaders on you at all if you just haven't got what it takes.
SO I FOUND THAT GOD USUALLY ALLOWS THE ENEMY TO TEMPT and TEST ME THE WORST JUST AS I'M CONSIDERING OR ABOUT TO BEGIN A NEW TASK for Him or a new project. We have the most difficult times and trials and the most severe testings because God wants to know if you're really going to go through with it, live or die, sink or swim, whether you really mean business, whether you're really going to trust Him or not and whether you have really got what it takes to see it through, because usually if you pass those first severe hard tests the Lord stamps your passport with HIS stamp and says, "OK, buddy, go to it, you're free to go on into the Promised Land that I have offered you if you're willing to forsake all and to follow and to die if need be to do the job I want you to do!"
AFTER THAT IT'S NOT NEARLY AS HARD AS WE WERE AFRAID IT WAS GOING TO BE, as Mark Twain said, "I'm an old man and I've had many troubles, most of which never happened!"
MOST OF THE THINGS WHICH WE FEAR, MOST OF THE THINGS WHICH WE WORRY ABOUT, most of the problems that we thought we were going to encounter never even happened, God didn't let them happen. But the Lord allowed the Enemy to make us think they MIGHT happen and to even worry about them a little bit and even be willing to go ahead thinking that it's possible that they might happen to see if we were willing to go at any cost, pay any price, make any sacrifice, to die any death in order to obey Him!
BUT THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT PART OF THE WHOLE THING, THE PREPARATION, GETTING A START, because if you can get started, that's what the Devil attacks the most. If you get over that hump, then you can usually make the rest of the journey! None of the other trials ever seem as great as those in the beginning, isn't that what you've usually found? Haven't you had greater strength, haven't you had greater victory as you went along, and even though perhaps the trials in some ways might have actually later been more severe and bigger problems, bigger trials and greater testings, you were much stronger to meet them and they were not nearly as difficult to overcome as even those little trials in the beginning? How true that is. PTL!
"THE COWARD DIES A THOUSAND DEATHS, THE BRAVE, BUT ONE!" I'm afraid most of us are cowards, because most of us seem to have to die a thousand deaths before the one real one, and many deaths that we think we're going to die, and we go through all the hell and the agony of dying them before they even happen and worry about them and fear them even to the point of making us sick, as it did me that night.
WORRY CAN KILL YOU! "Fear hath torment," His Word says, and lack of faith is a terrible frightening thing, but I thank God He brought me through that terrible test the Enemy put me through that night in which he almost killed me. I'm telling you, I nearly died and I believe it was mostly spiritual, not even physical due to fear that the Enemy tried to place upon me.
WE RESISTED IT IN JESUS' NAME, WE RESISTED THE OPPRESSION, the horrible pressure that came down upon us, the darkness that enveloped us, the sinking feeling, the pain in our heart, the gasping for breath. I mean it was horrible! I've never been through it so severe in almost my whole life and the Enemy was trying to knock me out for a complete loop before we even got started, but thank God for loved ones who will stand by you in prayer and hold on and pray earnestly and desperately as they did that night, and it was wonderful! We kept the victory, I survived and in fact I've hardly been sick at all since.
I WONDER HOW MANY TIMES YOU'VE PUT OUT A FLEECE? YOU PUT OUT A CONDITION TO THE LORD for something, kind of hoping maybe HE wouldn't do it so YOU wouldn't have to do it and the Lord just knocked the props out from under you and jerked the rug out from under you and took away all your excuses and did all the miracles and everything so that the decision still had to be up to you and you had no excuses and no reasons for not going on with the Lord because He'd opened the door, He'd provided the way and made everything possible!
THE REASON I'M TELLING YOU THESE LITTLE THINGS IS BECAUSE IT'S SO WONDERFUL TO ME! You can expect that of course God is going to do the big things that have to be done, but the little tiny thoughtfulnesses of the Lord--a market that's open, to find a bathroom scale, to find that your bags weigh just the right weight--it is so wonderful how the Lord thinks of every little thing!
THERE'S NOTHING TOO SMALL FOR THE LORD OR TOO HARD FOR HIM! Why do you worry, why do you fret? God's going to take care of every little detail! Each time I thought, "Well, maybe this is it, maybe we just can't make it because surely this is going to be the door that's going to be closed, this is going to be the impossible situation. Well yes, Lord, You brought us this far but now here's where we can't make it any further, it's impossible." But everything I asked God to do, the Lord did every little thing! PTL!
My name is James Arendt. I was raised in the Hegewisch neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, served in the USAF from 1970 to 1974, and became a full-time missionary for Christ living 40 years in Japan, 3.5 years in Russia, and a few months in other countries such as Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, South Korea, Taiwan and mainland China where I also served the King of Kings, Jesus, as an Ambassador for His Kingdom. My full bio.
If you like this website, you can show your appreciation by sending me a gift toward my support. My wife Tess and I moved from the island of Guam USA in June 2023 to the city of Allen in the province of Northern Samar, one of the poorer provinces in the Philippines. My only work is maintaining my websites, Deep Truths, and James Japan which costs me $300 per year now. And Tess is ministering to the local people giving them regular Bible Studies in three groups, children, teenagers and adults.
You may like my James Japan site as well because it covers subjects that are not covered in Deep Truths such as things like the Climate Change Hoax and the COVID-19 death-jabs.
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