Open the Church Doors and Let Me Out!

Copyright © 2012 by Simon and Marie-Anne Petelo.

Cover design and image copyright by Simon and Marie-Anne Petelo

Library of Congress Control Number:     2012908093

ISBN:          Hardcover          978-1-4771-0720-1

                    Softcover            978-1-4771-0719-5

                    eBook                 978-1-4771-0721-8

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References to Voice of the Martyr’s Servants of the Persecuted Church used by written permission.

Rev. date: 09/27/2014

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Contents

Authors’ Word

Part I Observation

Chapter 1   The Greatest Commandment

Chapter 2   Do Unto Others

Chapter 3   Speak to the Mountain

Chapter 4   Letters from the Throne

Chapter 5   Faith

Chapter 6   Letters from the Heart

Part II Behind the Closed Doors

Chapter 7   Peace I Give You

Chapter 8   Cows and Spices

Chapter 9   False Love

Chapter 10 Communion with the Devil

Chapter 11 My Church

Chapter 12 Restore Unto Me the Joy of My Salvation

Dedication

We dedicate this book to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who saved us from religion and gave us an intimate relationship with God.

To the precious gift He gave us, our daughter Elisha Joy, who has given us much love, laughter, and joy.

To the many Christian men and women who have stepped out of the norm to glorify God in their lives and have been persecuted for it.

And to all those people who are tired of seeing the Church of Christ dominated by hypocrisy instead of dominated by God’s love.

Authors’ Word

Open the Church Doors and Let Me Out! is the story of our journey into the emerging Evangelical global church movement, reported to be the fastest growing Christian movement in modern time.

The Evangelical church has 90 million followers in the United States and covers millions more in North America, South America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Africa. Described as charismatic, modern, reformed, refined, emerging, innovative and contemporary, this post-Protestant movement has dominated Christian circles since the 1970s and has gained rapid momentum around the world.

From our Catholic heritage that was sacred, reverential, traditional and intimate we found ourselves journeying into this radical, outlandish, contemporary Christian movement that dominates peoples lifestyles, and decidedly shapes individuals into an active faith.

As the children of deacons within the Catholic church, we also served God’s vocation in a peaceful manner. Years later we ventured into this emerging church missionary field where we discovered a different brand of gospel.

It was a gospel of enlargement, promotion, prosperity and wealth, a gospel that even Jesus Christ warned the Jewish people about. A gospel that excites the business owner, but burdens the missionary.

In our quest to seek more of God within the walls of the emerging church, we inherited a teaching that taught a freedom in Christ, but an incarceration of genuine independence.

We observed Evangelical Christians being bombarded by unbiblical laws and regulations that confined them through denominational charismatic techniques. It drew Christ’s spirit of righteousness and truth out of them and drew in a spirit of self-gratification and corporate business principles, that lead to competitiveness, worldliness, materialism, pride and disillusion.

This radical journey of outspoken faith has been undertaken by millions of unsuspecting people who are leaving their more traditional mainstream churches to join this innovative solution for their faith. Its teachings have become the most listened to gospel in modern time, fuelled by extravagant international televangelists with the ability to pay for its large digital footprint.

After many years of missionary work our convicting revelations were brought to light through God’s Word and our experiences. This allowed us to identify where the trickery, deceit and compromise of these flamboyant Evangelical preachers subtly, but aggressively, manipulate Scriptures to support their sermons and incarcerate Christians.

The New Testament enforces Scriptures to all believers that counteract this type of teaching, however, Christians are becoming ensnared by the hype and the magnitude of its following.

Our journey led us to discover this movement has increased the division within churches and even more so, within Christian families, dividing the saved and the lost. It has created a falsehood in the Christian community and an unashamed anxiety, distorting Jesus Christ’s Gospel truth. It is laced with promises, expectations and a price tag only of a wealthy servant.

The emerging global Evangelical church resembles a global corporate business, and the Christian lifestyle of ‘love for God and love for one another’ is now just a sermon.

They are determined to be the forerunners of modern Christianity by undertaking the belief that their spiritual revelations are far superior than those of their rival denominations. These preachers come with a different message each year, laced with their cunningness and craftiness and supposed wisdom, but condoned with their reputations.

They hold a measuring stick against Christians faith and proclaim a higher commitment. They disregard the sanctity of any individual’s spiritual commitment yet they strongly promote their message of salvation through grace alone, discarding God’s sovereignty in salvation.

The aftermath of all this is that everyday Christians who love the Lord are being slaughtered by the wolves that hold centre stage. Their casualties are increasing and causing people to re-evaluate their commitment to the emerging Evangelical movement.

This testimony will not only challenge your ideas of this radical, fundamental, church movement but will also challenge your own understanding of a corporate religious relationship with God as opposed to a true intimate relationship with Jesus Christ that no church can substitute.

This book is to encourage Christians to maintain and guard their personal relationship with Jesus Christ alone and not allow these innovative, new ideas and corrupted teachings to pollute their sacred relationship with God.

Who in their right mind would take on the church except the God who died for it?

Part I

Observation

Chapter 1

The Greatest Commandment

Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’

(Matthew 22: 37–39)

God Stands Alone!

When Jesus Christ returns, what would He say about Christians today and what He sees happening in His church? Would He be pleased, happy, sad, or perhaps disappointed? Would He be impressed with the structure or about the church initiatives? Would He be pleased with the unity in your church? How about the kindness of love towards others? How eager would we be to reveal to Him with what we have done with the church He entrusted us with? That is a question all Christian followers will one day have to answer.

In order to identify God, you have to appreciate His enormity and His scale. The breadth, the width, and the height of His measure cannot be comprehended by any human being or human mind.

As people, we have tried to measure God’s greatness through our own intellect, education, knowledge and experience, and data, except the God that we are speaking of is beyond the discoveries of mere mortals. Through issues such as climate change, human existence, human discoveries, religion, and morality and immorality, we as human beings are constantly bombarded with the thought of a God.

We seldom think that there is one God that rules heaven and earth, the galaxies, and the universe; however, within the parameters of our limited mind, we like to gravitate to a God equal to the measure of our own understanding. Are we making the biggest mistake by allowing our human mind, technology, research, and opinions to underestimate the God of infinity?

God does not have to convince humanity of His existence. You just have to look at the complex and intricate make-up of the human body to know that God’s intelligent design exists. He is a Creator, and He is not restricted to a region or a continent. He does not come from a single culture, from science, a dream, a hallucination, a theory, or even a formula. He was not even articulated by man. His enormity cannot be fathomed by our intellect.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1: 1)

The Scripture continues by teaching us that God created the earth and all its creatures including man and woman after six days of work; God rested on the seventh day. (Genesis 1: 1–31).

In the Old Testament, the Prophet Isaiah writes,

‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.

‘As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.’ (Isaiah 55: 8–9)

God is not a god of science; He created science. God is not a god of culture; He created culture. God is not a god of theories; He created theories. He is not a god of energy; He created energy. He is not a god of economics; He created economics. God is not a god of time; He created time. God is not a god of money; He created money. God is not a god of the elements; He created the elements. God is not a god of knowledge; He created knowledge. God is not a god of intelligence; He is intelligence. He is not a god of astronomy; He created astronomy. He is not a god of animals; He created the animals. He is not a god of the sun; He created the sun. He is not a god of the universe; He created the universe. He is not a god of the spiritual; He created spirituality. God is not a god of the supernatural; He is supernatural. God also created love and He is love.

The character of this God that we refer to is the same God that ‘so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son (Jesus Christ) that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3: 16).

In the Old Testament, the Prophet Isaiah continues by saying,

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,

or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?

Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,

or weighed the mountains on scales and the hills in a balance?

Who has understood the mind of the LORD,

or instructed him as his counsellor?

Whom did the LORD consult to enlighten him,

and who taught him the right way?

Who was it that taught him knowledge

or showed him the path of understanding?

Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;

they are regarded as dust on the scales;

he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.

Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires,

nor its animals enough for burnt offerings.

Before him all the nations are as nothing;

they are regarded by him as worthless

and less than nothing.

To whom, then, will you compare God?

What image will you compare him to?

As for an idol, a craftsman casts it,

and a goldsmith overlays it with gold

and fashions silver chains for it.

A man too poor to present such an offering

selects wood that will not rot.

He looks for a skilled craftsman

to set up an idol that will not topple.

Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood since the earth was founded?

He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,

and its people are like grasshoppers.

He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,

and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

He brings princes to naught

and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.

No sooner are they planted,

no sooner are they sown,

no sooner do they take root in the ground,

than he blows on them and they wither,

and a whirlwind sweeps them away like a chaff.

‘To whom will you compare me?

Or who is my equal?’ says the Holy One.

Lift your eyes and look to the heavens:

Who created all these?

He who brings out the starry host one by one,

and calls them each by name.

Because of his great power and mighty strength,

not one of them is missing. (Isaiah 40: 12–26)

As the Prophet Isaiah writes, God cannot be fathomed to the comprehension of our human understanding, nor can the depth of His love be explained and expressed. God stands alone. This same God, with all his might, power, and glory, spoke to us one day and told us to go to Canada as missionaries.

Leaving Sydney

The following were the exact words declared by our church pastor in front of our entire church when he commissioned us out from his missions church, surrounded by family and friends on 18 February 2007, and was taken from a DVD we still have of that day. It was also the day of our daughter’s baby dedication.

This is going to be the first set of missionaries, I will say, that we are going to be sending out in this church, and I really need to let you know that as a church, we are going to be part and parcel to what God is doing in their lives. We are committing ourselves. How many of you know that as church planters we also encompass what? World missions – that’s a part of us, and I believe they are going to be people that God is going to use in this area.

These were the last encouraging words we were to hear from our pastors and his church. Nine months later, all hell was to break loose. This is our true story.

In February 2007, six weeks after the birth of our daughter, we left our home in Sydney, Australia, to go on a mission trip to Vancouver Island, Canada. It was our first mission trip as a family, and the Lord simply said, ‘Go and serve Me!’’ After many years of seeking God in prayer and His Word (Bible), this was God’s plan for us to become missionaries to the nations.

Arriving at Sydney Airport, we began to say our farewells to our family and friends and church members. No one in that entire airport knew what we were really thinking, except our Lord Jesus. For years, we would sit in prayer and fasting waiting on the Lord for His instructions, and now was God’s moment of glory, sending us His servants into His service.

By the time we boarded the aeroplane, we just flopped into our seats, feeling emotionally drained and physically exhausted. In preparing for the journey, we had spent the last three months packing our home and getting ready to move into fulltime ministry. It was the most unorthodox method of preparation for ministry. God instructed us to give away all our belongings to our church members and the needy. This seemed crazy, but the Lord’s instructions to us were very clear.

We would go to the Word of God for confirmation for everything the Lord would say to us, and His Word gave us His authorisation and the upmost peace. We always knew God was speaking to us when our carnal being was always challenged not to obey. Our driving desire to please our Saviour was greater than any logic and fear.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3: 5–6)

‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. (Isaiah 55: 8)

We settled our daughter into her crib on the aeroplane. The aeroplane was full, and as usual, passengers were in a hurry to be seated. We could not believe that we had just committed ourselves to the plan that God had for us. We had just given away our entire livelihood; we no longer had a home to live in or any possessions.

Our whole livelihood was packed into the luggage we were carrying, and before us lay our bundle of joy; our daughter who was fast asleep was unaware of the emotions of her parents. We had a barrage of mixed emotions running through us, and it seemed like everything was racing ahead so fast and we had little control over it. The Lord, knowing our thoughts, began to comfort us with His unmistakable peace as we sat in silence pondering what lay ahead.

Looking around the aircraft, we came to realise that everyone on that flight had a plan and purpose in their mind as to why they were travelling. For many passengers it was a holiday, some returning back to their loved ones, others for business and even for some it was their first flight. However, they all had one thing in common; they knew where they were heading and what lay ahead for them. All except us.

To be honest, our emotions were questioning if we were ready for this journey. We closed our eyes and tried to rest.

We had grown up in the Catholic Church in the 1970s, and for as long as we could remember, we would always see our parents serving wholeheartedly in the church. As Christians, we knew from a very young age that God existed and was real, and it was important to have Him in our life. Our parents taught us the value of going to church and serving God, and we cherished that very much. We both came from nations that were founded on God, so it was easy to see the importance of our faith. We accepted our faith and respected our church life, especially those people who choose to serve God in church.

As Christians, we knew about our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His ministry on earth, His stories, and His love. However, we shared a corporate community church relationship, which at times hindered a true personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Many years later as adults, we realised the emptiness of this corporate relationship would not help us grow into a stronger faith. Going to church weekly was now not enough. Our faith in God was always there; however, we struggled to maintain a connection with His love.

Then one day we cried out to God in our deepest need, and He answered us, through God’s divine grace. He gave us His complete and unconditional love that we had been longing for, a true peace and wholeness that was unmistakable and divine. Through His love and mercy, we began a new search for God’s true purpose in our lives.

We had not encountered a personal one on one relationship with the Almighty Father; it was so foreign to us. His eternal grace and His salvation for all men was the beginning of our true Christian life journey (Ephesians 2: 8–9).

We certainly did not know that we could enjoy an intimate and personal relationship with God outside of church walls and have Him speak to us through His Holy Word and His Holy Spirit. We did not really know the power of the Holy Spirit in operation in our lives, and we did not know the living power of the Word of God being the final authority in a Christian follower’s life. All we knew was church life, and we discovered this divine relationship was something very different.

Our current church in Sydney was a church planting ministry with hundreds of mission churches planted worldwide; our church was fairly young and new in town. Our senior pastor prioritised the church planting vision, and he would always promote this mandate in his sermons weekly.

This amazing journey did not start when we set foot on the aeroplane; in fact, it was the culmination of hundreds of hours of seeking God’s character years prior to obeying this challenge. Day after day, God would remind us of the love of His Son, Jesus Christ, and the love that we must show to others daily. With His amazing grace and acceptance of all people, the Lord would constantly put people in our path that He wanted us to help. He was continually reinforcing to us His message – to ‘follow Him’. Day after day, week after week, He began to teach us that if we wanted to work for Him, then we must learn to love as He loves.

With the nature of this type of teaching in church, many Christians are encouraged to make a stand for their faith and go on mission adventures overseas. It is seen as popular and often romanticised by church members but in reality, true missionary work, as the Apostle Paul describes, was persecution.

We had travelled many times before, but this time was different—we had a newborn baby. As much as we had prepared spiritually, you can never truly say that ‘you are ready to go’. Not too many people knew the desire that we had to serve our Lord Jesus Christ except God himself.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28: 19)

The Forgotten Voice

We had now been on our flight for a couple of hours, and Marie-Anne reached into her bag for some reading. She pulled out a Christian magazine, Voice of the Martyrs – Servants of the Persecuted Church Since 1967, and began to read. The cabin was dim except for a small reading light that shone above her.

Imagine that as a child you grew up and were taught nothing but hatred. You did not know love and were only taught about hatred, how to hate and whom to hate. You knew nothing else, and that message of hatred became your lifestyle and your only reality. That is the story of a young Nigerian boy. Marie-Anne continued to read with much interest because 90 per cent of our church family back in Sydney was Nigerian, including our pastors.

In the 1970s, when radical Muslims wanted to get rid of Christians, they usually called one man – Abdulmasi (not his real name). An expert in car bombs, riot planning, and infiltrating Christian organisations, Abdulmasi was the James Bond of Islamic terrorism. ‘I was called Mr Insecticide,’ he said. ‘When you are looking for someone to get rid of insects, then you call me, then I arrange and plan an attack against Christians. This was my life.’

At age five, Abdulmasi was forced into almajiri, an antiquated Islamic practice popular in West Africa. His story is like that of millions of young Islamic boys who are currently being educated in Koranic schools around the world, especially in Nigeria and other West African countries. Many of those schools are training grounds for Islamic militants fuelling hatred for Christianity.

A boy doing almajiri may join forty or fifty other boys in the imam’s care. The boys live in poverty, without parental love or guidance. In the morning, the boys recite the Koran. It is in Arabic, a language they do not understand. They recite for hours, for years, until they memorise the Koran. Around 1 p.m. each day, the boys walk the streets and beg for food. Whatever food or money they get, they must share first with the imam. By 2 p.m., they are back reciting and learning the Ahadith.

The Ahadith is a collection of sayings ascribed to the Prophet Mohammed written by Islamic scholars starting in the ninth century. In fundamentalist sectors around the world, the Ahadith is where young boys learn the concepts of jihad, paradise, and killing the enemies of Allah.

‘It’s teaching of hatred, and hatred and nothing more than hatred,’ Abdulmasi said. ‘If there is any evil in society… they relate it as a result of the Christians.’

For more than ten years, this message of hate was Abdulmasi’s only consistency in a world filled with poverty, illiteracy, and child abuse.

At age seventeen, seeking desperately to escape his life of poverty, Abdulmasi participated in his first jihad against Christians near the city of Bauchi. During the attack, he coordinated his first killing. ‘I’m sorry to say, but a seventeen-year-old boy was the one that slaughtered the man,’ he said.

After the killing, Abdulmasi rejoiced. ‘You see when you do this,’ he said clapping his hands together, ‘and you kill a mosquito, you have achieved something. You smile even though you see blood on your hands. This is the same way of expressing how I feel that time. I feel that I have gotten rid of the enemy of God, my enemy too.’

Abdulmasi joined Jama’atu Nasril Islam, which he calls a fanatical group. It was here he gained his reputation as Mr Insecticide. After bombing a church, he liked to go back to the church to see the effect of his handiwork. On one visit, he found the church members worshipping in the ashes of the destroyed building. ‘This made my mind bitter!’ Abdulmasi said. ‘I would go back to the mosque and say, These people are rejoicing! They are happier.’

Abdulmasi was frustrated that the Christians would not leave. He decided the only way to eradicate Christians was to infiltrate the church.

Abdulmasi went to a church and spoke to the pastor. He flattered him, telling the pastor how he loved his preaching, and then he said, ‘I’m a Muslim, but I want to become a Christian.’

‘Wow! They loved me,’ Abdulmasi said. ‘Everybody gave me gifts. Some called me for lunch. They really embraced me so much. The love I was shown surprised me.’

Abdulmasi began to attend church like a believer. He joined the young adult group and was baptised, but he was still secretly going to the mosque to pray and fast. For six years Abdulmasi lived this double life, a life that left little time for anything more than pursuing jihad.

‘I was blinded,’ he said. ‘I don’t really feel anything because all my sense of feeling is gone. My conscience has been sealed. I did not know much about God. I was thinking he could never forgive me or forget what I had done.’

Abdulmasi was elected to be the young adult leader at his church. Shortly afterwards, the church planned a huge conference and invited a prominent speaker. Abdulmasi was angry. He was the young adult leader, so why didn’t they ask him to speak? Abdulmasi went to the conference and sat among 2,000 other young adults listening to the pastor speak, all the while hoping they would ask him to take over.

On the last day of the conference, the pastor spoke from 1 Kings 18, on Elijah’s challenge to the prophets of Baal. ‘How long are you going to waver between two opinions?’ the pastor thundered. ‘If God is God, worship Him. If Baal is god, worship him.’ Abdulmasi’s ears perked up. He looked at the speaker’s face.

‘Who are you deceiving?’ the pastor shouted. ‘How long now since that day you said you have accepted Christ and you have not been serious? Why are you playing a double game?’

Abdulmasi began to panic. ‘This man knows about me,’ he thought. ‘Who told him about me? Soon he will call my name.’

The pastor continued. ‘Just humble yourself,’ he said. ‘Just stand up. Let me pray for you, and the Lord will forgive you for all you have been doing. Forget that you are an armed robber, forget that you are a killer, forget all those things. Stand up!’

Abdulmasi does not remember walking up to the pastor, but he does remember kneeling down. For six years, Abdulmasi had been pretending to be a Christian, and in one moment, God changed his heart and he actually became one.

‘I had finally found him,’ he said. ‘He knew the person I was and yet he wanted me. Now, I know God is a merciful and loving God. I really had found a loving Father.’

The instant he left the conference, one of the almajiri boys met him outside. ‘Don’t go near the mosque,’ the boy warned. The group was ready to kill him.

‘The minute my heart changed,’ Abdulmasi said, ‘the persecution started that very day.’

Abdulmasi went to the church elders and confessed that he had been living a lie and told his true story. They could not believe a man they had loved and taken in had deceived them, but they prayed and after three days told Abdulmasi they would hide him to save his life. ‘My son,’ the pastor said, ‘God is going to use you mightily.’

Abdulmasi went to live with another pastor, and even though he was in hiding, Abdulmasi found he could not stop preaching to Muslims about Jesus. ‘I couldn’t hold my peace,’ he said. ‘People are seeing me share my real heart now. I would say to them, Look, I have killed. If it were not for the grace of God, I would not be who I am.’

Abdulmasi became an expert at witnessing to Muslims about Christ, but it came at a cost – persecution. He is still persecuted to this day, thirty years after beginning his ministry.

On 9 February 2004, a mob surrounded his home. They began throwing stones at the iron front gates. They showered the home with rocks and smashed the windows. When Abdulmasi ran out to lock the gate, they screamed, ‘Kill him! Even flies in his house should not be left alive.’

Abdulmasi’s downstairs neighbour walked outside the gate to restore peace, and they struck him with a machete, killing him. The man’s wife shouted and ran to her husband. They caught her and killed her too. Abdulmasi’s children screamed, ‘Daddy, Daddy, see what they’re doing!’

‘Our turn is coming, so just be prepared for the worst,’ he told them.

Abdulmasi’s wife motioned to their children and whispered to them, ‘If they are killing you, hold your Bibles like this, around your chest. You know it’s difficult for you to claim Jesus as they are beating you. When they are killing you, just hold your Bible – that is a sign you are telling them we have never changed.’

Someone shouted, ‘They have gone out the back.’ When the mob shifted to the back of the house, Abdulmasi grabbed his family and ran to the car. They drove through the gate and went straight to the state governor’s home, narrowly escaping death.

Three years later, Abdulmasi’s eldest son was at university when three Muslim radicals armed with machetes killed him. ‘It was very difficult,’ Abdulmasi said. ‘But there is no sacrifice that is too big for God.’

Abdulmasi continues to minister to Muslims and secretly counsels Koranic teachers, mullahs, and sheiks who want to become Christians. A major focus of his ministry is witnessing to persecutors, and he even visited the man who planned his son’s killing, offering him forgiveness. Abdulmasi said, ‘If you want to win Muslims, you have to love them, not with the human type of love, but the love you yourself have experienced through Christ. Instead of treating them as enemies, pity them. Because when I was there I did not know what I was doing. I was once a persecutor. Now through His grace He has forgiven me. This is God’s love. And though we have been persecuted, we are not crushed. We die so that others will live.’

This was a powerful story, and Marie-Anne handed it to me to read also. Upon reading it, we both began to pray for God’s protection over our journey. We knew that we were going to be safe in Canada, but we still prayed for safety on this trip, especially since we had our daughter. By now, the emotion of leaving our home had left, and our minds became focused on the task ahead.

The word the Lord continued to give us was observe, and we asked God questions on what He wanted us to observe in Canada on our arrival. We sat willingly as the Lord began to show us the concerns of His heart for His church. It was almost like a Bible study in midair; the Holy Spirit began to show us Scripture after Scripture, revealing deep revelations. We knew that the Lord’s heart was grieved about the condition and function of His global church. The Scriptures that the Holy Spirit kept revealing were God’s principles and warnings to His church, and they were especially intended for the church leaders (Ezekiel 34:1-31). Nevertheless, the Lord began to show us about His tremendous love for the Body of Christ.

Do you truly love me?

In reflecting on Abdulmasi’s story, we could not comprehend the magnitude of his testimony. It was humbling and convicting but also encouraging. In the back of our minds, we knew that there were many Christians across the world who were being persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ, especially in developing nations. But, what about Christians in developed nations who are not under persecution for their faith. How can they compare in showing their love for God? The Lord taught us this principle over many years; it was through obeying Him in the small things that mattered to Him.

Before this mission trip, the Lord was taking us through a series of testing of our love walk for Him. One day the Lord asked me, ‘Simon, do you love me?’

I responded just as the Apostle Peter did in John 21:16, ‘Yes, Lord, I love you.’

Then the Lord said, ‘I want you to leave your job and take care of your sick father-in-law.’ Marie-Anne’s dad was elderly and a stroke victim and needed full-time care. I had only known my father-in-law as a sick man. I did as the Lord had asked me to and left my job and began to look after my father-in-law. In my love for Christ, I obeyed Him and followed His instructions, and God blessed me in ways that I will always be grateful for.

Many times when I Simon sat alone with my father-in-law and spoke to him, it was precious and divine. Because he had become mute, I would share many of my stories growing up in New Zealand, talking to him about what I was like as a younger man, my likes and dislikes, my family upbringing, even including the bar room brawls; he would laugh and laugh as if he could speak. I shared the experience of how life completely changed for me when I met my Saviour Jesus Christ, and he would light up and just smile. I knew he approved of it for he was a man of God, and I knew that he loved the Lord as much as I did.

After my father-in-law went to be with the Lord, I realised again that there is much more to walking with Christ than just attending church. Christianity is about Christ, not the church. It’s about Jesus Christ’s Gospel not any gospel. I knew that the Lord truly blessed me with this experience to show me this. He owned my life because He brought it with a price, and now He would require me to do tasks that always answered the same question – do you truly love me?

God would often test us in many ways. One morning He asked me, ‘Marie-Anne, do you love me?’

I replied, ‘Yes, Lord, I do love you.’

Then he said, ‘Feed my lambs, take care of my sheep, and feed my sheep.’ Just as He said to the Apostle Peter in John 21:15-19. The Lord continued, ‘I want you to start a prayer group at your school so my children can meet with me.’

At the time, I was working as a teacher at a Christian high school in Sydney. Immediately, when I raised the idea of a student prayer room it was met with opposition as some teachers voiced their disapproval of it, including prominent school leaders. All I could remember was God’s instructions to me, and so I found a space and began to feed His children by providing Bibles, and I began to teach them Scripture.

Nevertheless, amongst the division, God would send students into the room who were seeking Him and desired to know more about Him. I would share with them about God’s amazing and unconditional love and remembered His words, to ‘feed my lambs’. God would then send Christian children who were struggling with the pressures of life and needed encouragement and prayer and I would ‘take care of them’, pray for them, and encourage them to stay strong in Christ. All the