Testimonies from Zambia

Sweeter Than Honey

A young man with an impressive name, Ernest Mukwekwe, was not satisfied with how the truths of the Bible were being taught in his church. Ernest was earnest to know the Lord. Someone handed him a Bible lesson from Light Bearers. This started his journey in a new direction, studying one lesson at a time. More and more he was losing interest in what he was taught from childhood. When asked why he was losing interest in his old beliefs, his reply was simple and deep: “You cannot enjoy a banana after eating honey.” The truth as it is in Christ was so sweet to him that he could no longer enjoy anything else. Ernest asked for more visits from the evangelist because he wanted his wife to taste the sweet truths of God’s Word. The visits continued until Ernest and his wife made the decision together to give their hearts to Christ.

A woman known as a witch was troubled by her granddaughter’s habit of reading some “spiritual papers.” She …
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The Purifier, Part 5: Deep Detox

Medical residents regularly exposed to chronic stress were found to have elevated white blood cell counts. White blood cells are a crucial part of the body’s defense against invasion, sickness, and disease. They search out and destroy invading pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria. Too many, however, can be a sign of disease.

Dr. Matthias Nahrendorf and his team at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School discovered this elevated immune cell state in the residents and investigated the cause by conducting animal experiments. Nahrendorf exposed mice to stressful situations for six weeks. Just like in the stressed doctors, increased levels of white blood cells were observed in the mouse blood after six weeks. The research team found that elevated levels of the stress hormone noradrenaline actually made its way into the bone marrow, where white blood cells are produced. There they bound to cell receptors on stem cells, altered the chemical environment of the bone marrow, and activated the stem cells, thus increasing the production of white blood cells.

A high white blood cell count is considered an indicator …
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Rooted and Grounded in Love

Paul prays, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love” (Ephesians 3:17). Rooted and grounded are agricultural and building terms that describe Paul’s desire for us to know God personally.

Ephesians 1-3 lays out the plan of salvation as fulfilled in the history of Jesus. Paul taught that our salvation is complete in the doing and dying of Jesus, not in our works (Ephesians 2:1-8). Our works are the result of accepting the salvation already won for us in Jesus (Ephesians 2:9-10). Paul confirms this by stating that the mystery of salvation is that it includes the Gentile world who do not yet know or believe in God (Ephesians 3:1-7).

Yet God cannot save us by simply excusing sin and making us better people (morality is good, but it’s not the gospel). That would make Him unjust. His law, the transcript of His character, says: “The Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes His name is vain,” that is he who violates God’s character of love, of which we are all guilty (Romans …
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When You Need to Know God’s Will but You’re Scared of Making the Wrong Choice

For my eighteenth birthday, my mom gave me a card that read, “I used to live each day as though it were my last. But people got tired of hearing me scream, ‘I’M GONNA DIE!!! I’M GONNA DIE!!!’ Hope your birthday’s a scream.” Funnily enough, that pretty much described the stress I was just beginning to feel as I reached the big 1-8. I was sad and scared and anxious because I suddenly realized that I wasn’t going to be in high school the next year and I was the one in charge of figuring out what I would be doing instead. And this role…

Freaked. Me. Out.

I didn’t know what God’s will was and I was scared of making a decision. Actually, for years, asking about God’s will made me want to curl up in the fetal position and eat refined sugar. What if I did the wrong thing? How was I supposed to know what the right thing was? How could I move forward when I didn’t see things coming together? What if I was just doing …
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East-Central Africa Division report

Each year Light Bearers Ministry sends containers of literature to developing countries all over the world. Each container holds about 2 million tracts and often includes Bibles and other inspired books like The Great Controversy and The Desire of Ages. The cost for these containers is covered by the large and small donations sent to us for this purpose. You, then, are the reason we are reaching millions of people with the message of the everlasting gospel. You give to God’s cause at Light Bearers and we print and ship the literature and then request a report from the field as to how the literature was used. Containers leave Light Bearers and travel for several weeks and even months to their final destination. Once there, the container is unloaded and stored in a safe location. It is then made available through the local division, union, conference, or supportive ministry for outreach. It may take months, or even a year, to utilize all the material sent. Then we often receive a full report noting how the literature was used to impact …
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The Purifier, Part 4

I was 19, ignorant, and trusting. A woman who lived near the college I was attending convinced me that I needed to go on a “seawater cleanse.” It lasted about 10 days. I don’t remember the particulars of the program, except that I fasted for many of those days and drank “seawater.” This created an internal tsunami that “cleansed” the bowels. Whew! I remember two things after the experience: how delicious steamed broccoli tasted after going without food and how baggy my jeans were.

Since then, I have learned that rather than being a singular event, detoxification is a continuous operation in the body. It is an ongoing process to deal with our continual exposure, incessant internal production, and stored accumulation of toxins. While lemonade fasts, tea-toxing, juice cleanses, and even seawater cleanses exist, these don’t adequately support this valuable, multi-step process. So here are some basic guidelines to support balanced detox.

Reduce Exposure

Minimizing exposure to environmental toxins can lighten the body’s workload, allowing it to focus on house cleaning. Consuming foods least contaminated with pesticides and herbicides and …
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To Be His

“David, I’m so judgmental. I’m just so judgmental of others. I need Jesus. I love Jesus. He can change my heart, because I’m very judgmental of those who are not like me.”

And there were tears that ran down the cheeks into a beautiful smile. Those tears and that smile belonged to Judith. Judith is one of my church members here in Kingscliff. She has four sons who are named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I’m not kidding. And these boys are lovely, wonderful, and polite young men. They are a credit to their mom and dad and to their God.

I know I’m probably not supposed to have “favorite” church members, but Judith is one of my favorites. The sincerity, joy, and genuine love that flows from this woman are both an inspiration and a rebuke to me. Judith is a woman who knows Jesus, and it shows.

I had just finished preaching a particularly challenging sermon. I knew that many in the congregation would struggle to hear and apply what I’d said. But I’d said it anyway. I …
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My Battle Standard

If you were to walk into my office, one of the first things you would see as you enter is the large flag that hangs on my wall. My flag travels with me when I move to a new place or achieve something significant. I have a photo somewhere of me flying it at the top of Mount Kenya in Africa. Now that I live in Oregon, USA, I proudly hang my Australian flag in my office to be seen every day. It serves as a reminder to me, and to those who visit, that I was born and raised under the Southern Cross, a cross-shaped constellation visible in the Southern Hemisphere’s night skies and prominent on our flag.

At home in Australia, if you were to walk into my parents’ home office, you may notice the Lindsay family crest hanging on a small shield on the left. I have one of those too, in the form of a rubber stamp for the books in my library. I even have a scarf with the pattern of the Lindsay tartan—a unique …
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Enmity in the Air

One time when I was in the fifth grade a fight broke out during recess. All the kids were gathered around yelling as two boys were punching and kicking one another. What I remember most is feeling nervous and sick to my stomach. That’s what the world looks like right now—a schoolyard fight—but on a much larger and more brutal scale. And that same nervousness and nausea I felt back then sometimes floods my body as I watch the national and international events of each day unfold.

One of the words the Bible uses to describe the fallen human condition is “enmity” (Genesis 3:15; Romans 8:5-7). At its deepest, darkest core, sin is enmity against God and others. Apart from the subduing effect of God’s grace upon our hearts, we humans are in constant internal turmoil that boils over into hostility toward some chosen enemy. There is a deep-seated psychology to our enmity: we suppress and evade our own guilt by blaming, accusing, and hating others (Romans 2:1-4). The practice of diminishing others allows us to maintain an inflated sense …
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The Purifier, Part 3

In 1984, Michael Jordan received the NBA Rookie of the Year Award and an Olympic gold medal. It was a good year. He wore a pair of pinkish Converse tennis shoes at some point that year, supposedly even in the Los Angeles Olympic games. Decades later, when the shoes went up for auction, they were expected to sell for $100,000. Amazingly, someone paid $190,373 for them! We are willing to invest time, effort, and money in that which we think is highly valuable. Obviously, someone found a lot of value in a worn-out pair of pink Converse tennis shoes because of who wore them.

How valuable do you think detoxification is? While you can’t purchase the detox process, it’s extremely valuable and worthy of time and effort to keep it in full function. Detoxification could be considered costly, as it requires significant energy and nutrients. It is complex, as many steps and reactions are essential. Furthermore, as we age it becomes even more valuable to our health.

Last month we began to look at the initial steps and necessary nutrients needed …
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