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Mentor - "teach them" - Raising Up Other Radicals
Writing, Speaking, Talking, Listening

"And the things which you have heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. 2:2)
MOBILIZING OTHERS

People respect authority backed with truth and love. A lot of young people today have been hurt by authority based on force and fear, deceit and falseness. God needs people to demonstrate what true authority is like. You ought to have authority in your life because you know the Lord Jesus; and He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. You know who you are. You know why you are here. You know where you are going. You do what you say you are going to do. Sometimes God will give us a latent leadership ability that we can develop for His glory. If you are put in charge of a group of people, follow these guidelines for leadership:

(1) Gain and earn their CONFIDENCE. Be the kind of person people can trust. Treat them like the valued and significant persons they are. Be "boss" but don't be bossy. Be firm without being hard. "You don't push string you pull it. You don't push people, you lead them" (Ed Cole)

(2) CONVINCE them they are needed. Don't do everything yourself, even if you think you can do it better. If you have a team, let them do something worthwhile.

(3) Give them RESPONSIBILITY. Be SPECIFIC and DETAILED. Don't leave anything to just "happen." Tell them exactly what needs to be done, how to do it, and when to do it. Never overlook little details that are important. Don't leave anything to chance. Let them make suggestions sometimes; they may come up with better ways of doing it.

(4) COMMEND them on a job well done. Find something nice to say about them before you do any form of constructive criticism. You will never, of course, criticize without love. Make all critiques out of a loving choice for that person's highest good.

(5) As they learn to handle smaller tasks well, increase their responsibilities. This is the Christian way to grow in both faith and life. "He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much . . ." (Luke 16:10) This is WORK, but it is well worth it.

TAKING OVER A SCHOOL FOR CHRIST

(a) Begin an early-morning prayer meeting with all that really want to see God move on your campus. From here students will find at least one person who cares about them - and that person is a Christian. In your prayer meetings, ask God for the hearts of the worst kids in school. If they turn, their change will make a great impact in your school, and your revolution is on.

(b) Make available the best Christian books you can lay your hands on for your task force. The Youth Aflame Manual, Handbook For Followers Of Jesus and The Daniel Files will all be of help. Cartoon tracts will be helpful for evangelism and for witness. Have your team buy out of their own pockets the best follow-up material and tracts for new Christians they can get so they will use them wisely. Challenge them to TITHE their TIME -- 2.4 hours a day for study, reading, prayer and witness in the will of God. You are only a teenager for seven years; a tenth of your life if you live to be at least 70. Tithe your teenage years to God and He will give you an open heaven for the rest of your life.

(c) Love the kids in your school so much that you are willing to DIE for them. They will feel it, and deep down it will make them respect your stand and listen. It will make you tender when you warn; put tears in your reproof. But do not hedge on the conditions of true discipleship. Lay it out straight with those who show interest in following Jesus. Let them know to become a Christian means that they must GIVE EVERYTHING. Do not try to make it easier than Jesus did. He promised life only on HIS conditions: to be totally honest; to see, hate, and forsake sin and selfishness; to give Him all we have and are.

Don't be soft here, or your revolution will die. One person who makes an easy "decision" that does not work will turn off perhaps six others by his false testimony. Every kid must give to God all they have, and are, or make it plain that they cannot call themselves a Christian. He calls us first not to a party but an execution. (Luke 14:25-33)

(d) Make sure all you do flows out of a REAL CARE for the hurt God feels in His heart over the sin of the kids in your school. No matter what your methods are, no matter how good your message, unless you have GOD'S motives, He will not bless your work.
Why should you take your school for God? Is it because kids are overdosing on drugs, or tripping out so badly that they are committing suicide and we must do something? Is it because it's time that Christians woke up and really witnessed before the church becomes pushed aside and ignored; because both teachers and students are agnostic and unbelieving? Is it because Jesus is coming soon; because the bad guys may soon take over the world? All of these may be true, but none of them are the REASON why you should take over your school for God. The reason is this: GOD IS BEING DISHONORED by the sin of your school! When you let your heart break with the things that break God's heart, you will see a spiritual revolution in your campus.

You can take your school for Christ! Of course, not everyone will give in to God. Yet you can know that the vast majority of your school has not only had a chance to hear about Him, but a chance to give their lives to Him. Many more than you would dream will turn their backs on their past and sell out to the Lord Jesus. It can happen--in your school. It can happen now.

There will be a cost. The best things always have a price, and spiritual revolution is no different. Remember young Lenin, who "thought and dreamed revolution twenty-four hours a day." So must the Christian revolutionary. Every thought must be brought into captivity for Christ. Every class must be an opportunity for a word in the name of Jesus. Every talent must be bent towards spiritual awakening; every sport made the vehicle of Christian witness; every leadership position the target for takeover by a disciple of Jesus!

Nothing less than wholehearted commitment to this task will suffice. We must "seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness." (Matthew 6:33) God begins His revolutions with His kind of people. It must begin with YOU. It must begin NOW. In the Name of Jesus, go and DO IT!




WISDOM FROM THE UNDERGROUND CHURCH.

You may yet live to see the Church forced to hide as it has in many centuries and lands that let the forces of evil gain a foothold in the land. There have been more martyrs for Christ in this century than all other centuries put together. "The Church Underground is the Church of one-third of the world, men who never thought before they would have to belong to it." Richard Wurmbrand, author of Tortured For Christ shares some of his secrets of aggressive survival in preparing for suffering and persecution:

(1) You will not be a member of the Underground Church unless you know how to suffer. You can have the mightiest faith, but if you are not prepared to suffer you will be taken by the police. You will get two slaps and you will declare anything. Preparation for suffering is one of the essentials ... A Christian does not panic if put in prison ... prison is a new place to witness for Christ. For a pastor, prison is a new parish .. with no income but great opportunities. Morse code is part of this training ... through this you can preach the Gospel to those on your right and on your left. ... Do not fear the prison. Look on it as a new assignment from God.

(2) Truth about the Truth. How much each can suffer depends on how much we are bound up to a cause, how dear to us and how much it means to you. Gifted preachers and writers of Christian books have become traitors. Everything depends on whether we have remained in the sphere of words or if we are merged with Divine reality. God is the Truth. The Bible is the truth about the Truth. Theology is the truth about the truth about the Truth. ... The Truth is God alone. ...

Words, theologies, exposition: None of these is of any help in time of suffering. It is only the Truth Himself Who is of help. When you pass through suffering you realize it was never meant by God that Psalm 23 should strengthen you. It is the Lord Who can strengthen you, not the Psalm which speaks of Him .. It is not enough to have the Psalm. You must have the One about Whom the Psalm speaks. .. Holy words are only the means to arrive at the Reality expressed by them. If you only have the words of the Lord, you can very easily be broken. If you are united with the Reality, the Lord Almighty, evil loses its power over you; it cannot break the Lord Almighty.

(3) Spiritual Exercises: Preparation for underground work is deep spiritualization. As we peel an onion, God must peel from use what are mere words, sensations of enjoyment in religion, to arrive at the reality of our faith. ... We not only have our prayer, but moments of meditation and contemplation. We can read of those sawn asunder, burned at stakes, thrown to wild beasts, but we must also visualize them. My last Sunday School class before I left for Romania, I took not to a church, but a zoo. Before the cage of lions I told them: "Your forefathers in faith were thrown before such wild beasts for their faith. Know that you also will suffer. You will not be thrown to lions, but you will have to suffer at the hands of men who will be much worse than lions. Decide here and now if you wish to pledge allegiance to Christ."

In prison you lose everything. Nobody resists who has not renounced the pleasures of life beforehand. The Christian who prepares himself for this now will not suffer the loss in prison. Do not allow doubts about the essential doctrines of the Bible. Every theological or philosophical doubt makes you a potential traitor. Don't live with doubt; seek a solution.

Tests Of Torture: Torture has a moment of explosion and the torturer waits for this critical moment. Learn how to conquer doubts and to think thoroughly. There is always one moment of crisis when you are ready to write or say the name ...you have been tortured so much nothing counts any more. The fact that I should not have pain also does not count. Draw this last conclusion at the moment of crisis; it gives you an intense inner joy. You will feel Christ with you in that decisive moment. Jailers today are trained and refined in awareness of crisis. If they cannot get anything from you in that moment then they abandon torturing; they know its continuation will be useless. Read Foxes Book of Martyrs; learn how others overcame the moment of crisis.

It is important to understand what Jesus said "Take no thought for the morrow..". It seems impossible to bear long years of prison. You are not asked to bear it all at once. Do not bear even one day at a time - bear one hour at a time. One hour of pain everybody can bear. What amplifies pain is the memory that I have been beaten and tortured so many times and tomorrow they will take me again. Tomorrow I or they may not be alive. At first torture is a terrible shock and pain; it does not continue to be so. ... You forget - you become absolutely indifferent to everything. This is the critical moment when you need to breathe rightly.

Practice breathing right - it is one of the means of resisting torture. Try once to quarrel with someone while breathing quietly, rhythmically and deeply. You will find you cannot. Under torture, breathe as a traitor cannot. The oxygenation gives a resistance to the whole body which balances your reaction and gives you a poised attitude.

An underground worker should know not only with his head but to his fingertips that he belongs to a Body which has been flogged for 2,000 years, a mocked body, a body spat upon and one crowned with many thorns with nails driven into hands and into feet. I will never think of Jesus Christ as only having been crucified 2,000 years ago. The sufferings of Jesus in His mystical Body must become a reality with me.

LOVE CHRIST MORE THAN YOUR FAMILY. Your heart may break, but your answer should be "I love God." Learn to be silent. A Christian is a man who speaks little but with great weight. In the Underground Church every superfluous word can do harm. If you have believed in the past you are blessed. I do not know how sound the theology is, but we did not live on theology at the time. We lived on past memories. The Bible teaches we should "bless the Lord and not forget His past blessings". Remember the past even if you pass through the dark night of the soul. Deal with solitude by traveling the world in prayer. READ THE BIBLE from memory. Every night I composed a sermon and delivered it; I memorized three hundred and fifty of them. I composed books, poems, jokes. Your mind must be continually exercised. It must be alert, it must think."

Excerpted and adapted from: Preparing For the Underground Church: Richard Wurmbrand
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