Feet on the mountains

"And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" Romans 10:15 (NIV).

How beautiful are the feet. This text from Romans 10:15 is a widely known text. Here Paul makes reference to the prophet Isaiah, as we read:

"How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!" " Isaiah 52:7 (NIV).

There is a slight difference, however, between the two texts, and this difference has caught my attention. Isaiah says: "on the mountains". So are beautiful the feet, but when they are stepping over the mountains, when they are printing their footprint, their mark.

The text from Isaiah suggests that the feet are beautiful when they are in the full exercise of proclaiming the good news. The mountains were here, in historical context, the places where the people were, since they could not return to Jerusalem. The text speaks of someone who decided to leave, and decided to go where those who were lost and isolated were located. Someone that not only remained in a place of peace, in the City of Peace, enjoying what the Lord conquered for him, but decided to leave and go to the place where those that need to hear about good news are.

Let this be our heart and our attitude. Let us that not only wait for the lost come to us, but let us be the light in an active way, and let us seek those who need the Gospel of Peace so they come back to the City of Peace.

In the peace of Jesus Christ!
Saulo.

Just turn on the light

“[...] Don't discuss – shine! You cannot conquer the darkness by arguing with them. Just turn on the light. The gospel is power, power to give light. Preach it. Then you'll connected to the power lines and the light will come.
The electrical lines that lead to the Calvary, the Resurrection, the Throne, 'The Gospel of Christ, ... which is the power of God', as wrote Paul the apostle in Romans 1:16. He knew it. He experienced it. The world in the days of Paul couldn't be worst: cruel, corrupt and cynical. However the Gospel has transformed it. Today, the Gospel can do it again. [...]“
(BONNKE, Reinhard – Evangelismo por Fogo, 2003, Full Flame, página 90; translated from portuguese version.)

Stay in the peace of Jesus Christ!
Saulo.

I know nothing, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified

1 Corinthians 2:1-5. “And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power.”.

Preaching the Gospel has nothing to do with personality. Preaching the Gospel has nothing to do with methods. Preaching the Gospel has nothing to do with individual talents. Preaching the Gospel has to do with only one thing: Jesus Christ, and him crucified.


Paul, one of the greatest evangelists of all time, didn't use any evangelization method of those we consider the fundamental ones. Paul didn't mask the message with emotional appeals. Paul did preach the one thing that was scandal: Christ, and him crucified. Paul experienced the cross, and about that cross he spoke; crucified with Christ, he allowed the life of Jesus to flow through him.

Stay in the peace of Jesus Christ!
Saulo Oliveira Santos.

Not called?

Salvation army bell

'Not called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters, and servants and masters not to come there. And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world. (William Booth)


Stay in the peace of Jesus Christ.
Saulo Oliveira Santos.

There is only one Gospel

"There is only one Gospel, not two, not three or half dozen, but only one. Not one for this organization and another for that other, not one for the primitive Church and another for today, not one for the preacher and another for the church member, but one Gospel that doesn't change, from a God that doesn't change.

Paul the apostle said: "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God's curse!" (Galatians 1:8).

The text says: "He makes (…) his servants flames of fire“ (Hebrews 1:7 NIV), nnot an imitation, not merely a promoter of religious theories, but a flame of fire, which returns to men the things that God had to be the most precious things for which he paid such a great price. The cold intellectual discourses that demand the respect of the world will never serve to address the needs of this critical hour.

(...)

The non-inspired theology with his pale orthodoxy says, "Yes, I know the Bible says so, but look at the failures around us."

The inspired men cry, "Let God be true, and every human being a liar" (Romans 3:4).

The Word is true, all that is needed for it to be fulfilled is someone who believes in it. Men may be saved, they can be filled with the Spirit, they can be healed as the days in the past.

He is the same today, yesterday and for ever."

From the book "Este poder puede ser suyo", Tommy Hicks, www.peniel.com, pages 20 and 21.

Stay in the peace of Jesus Christ!

Saulo Oliveira Santos

Try to be weak, while He is strong

Hello friends and brothers!

Today I inaugurate this blog with the objective of helping the christians to fulfill the calling of the Church of Jesus Christ, which is to preach the gospel, and make disciples.

This is an actual and urgent calling. While you read this blog, it is certain that there are people from  our relationship living in sadness, distress, without hope and salvation. It is time for us to preach the message of salvation.

In these days God is awakening the Church with a revival like no one has seen before. The glory of the Lord is being poured over the Earth like the waters cover the sea. I want to be part of it! I want to  be part of the movement of the Holy Spirit in these days, and I know that this is a longing that permeates the whole Church.

One of the major impediments somebody that one can have for the preaching of the gospel is to consider his/her own person as the limiter. We all know our strengths and weaknesses. We all know our limits and weaknesses. We could say, for example, that we could never speak in public. Or we could say that we don't have the profile of an evangelist. We could say that we could never learn an instrument, or a foreign language. You could maybe say that you may never forgive someone. And we get too conformed by being "this way".

Paul, the apostle, however, writes in 2 Corinthians 12:9 saying: "(...) Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses". The things we often say that makes us sad and stops us, Paul claimed to be the reason for his joy.

You can ask: How is that? How can I be joyful when I'm weak in something? However, this is the will of God. That you and I recognize that we are weak; that we finally admit it. Because if I move in the things that I know, who moves: me or God? Certainly I do. This way, all the fruits that I gather is of my own glory. And if I cease to move because I don't know something, who cease to move: me or God? Certainly I do too.

(NIV) John 3

6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

This way, if I move or cease to move based on what I know or what I don't know, I do it based on my own strengths and weaknesses. Look that the human strength is illusion. All strength of the man is weakness before God. So... to move or not to move based on me, will always be based in the weakness of man.

Reading again 2 Corinthians 12.

(NIV) 2 Corinthians 12

9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.
10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 

How can I do? What must I do? I must recognize, every day, before God that I am weak and give up to be strong, so that He might be strong in me. Our joy is based on the fact the only way we may the power of God fully manifested is if we let Him live in us, if we let Him be the strength in us.

This is delivering, because we don't need pre-requisites to preach the gospel. None, but being in the presence of God. What we do need is to hold a relationship with the Holy Spirit. The only way we may have extraordinary results is to do extraordinary things, and this things are impossible for us to do! So, the only way we could live extraordinarily is living by the Spirit of God.

So my brothers, while considering witnessing about Jesus, make sure that your central concern is to depend on the Holy Spirit of God. Of course we must know God, and the Word of God, but the Holy Spirit of God is the center of evangelism. What His presence does, no man can do.

Stay in the peace of Christ Jesus!

Saulo Oliveira Santos.