Obedience: Trusting in Gods Faithfulness: Issue 2

“Lets go deeper”
 By: Daniel Whitson

       Lately, I have been thinking about modern day Christians. We as Christians are being influenced by the world way too much. We are always trying not to offend people. We care a lot more about the opinion of man than the fear of the Lord. If we want to see the world reached, we must take our eyes off of it and focus on Jesus and what He is saying. He is what is drawing people to Himself. We are just a vessel for Him. We can try to do things for God out of our will, but it is all in vain if we do not have the Spirit. Only God grows the seed. We can come up with as many church planting strategies as we want, but if they are not what God is saying, it is in vain. We are, as a church, in need of the Holy Spirit. We are in desperate need of the spirit because our man made strategies are failing. Church is boring, our programs are boring, and our evangelism is lifeless without the Spirit.  We need to stop being nice.
         I can’t tell you how many times I have heard nice Christians say, “Oh, well these non-Christians act like better Christians than actual Christians.” It makes me really angry when people talk like this. If we are trying to draw others to God by how nice we are or how giving we are, that’s wrong. If all we are looking for in Christianity is behavior modification, and that’s what it does for us, than we are just like any other cult, religion, or creed. We might as well become Mormon, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or a Muslim. If nice people are what we are looking for, then we should just become one of those religions or just be a nice person, do whatever we want and die. It’s not worth all the crap we get for being Christians. IF that is all God wants us to be, than screw it. I’m done. I’ll move to Kauai, get stoned, and live in a hut walk around naked all day. I’ll be a nice naked guy.

So what does it mean to be a Christian?

       Think about the apostles, they were Jews coming from a religion of nice people. They didn’t need to change their religion to become nice caring people. Jews took care of the poor and the sick.  Look at Jesus, He wasn’t making any friends among the Jews, it seemed to me that He pushed them away. Yes, He loved people. Yes, He loved the sick and wounded. He fed the poor and He was compassionate, but it didn’t seem like he was trying to draw people in by being really nice. It seems to me that he drew people by His power and the Apostles seemed to have moved in the power of the Holy Spirit. When I read 1 Corinthians 2, Paul says,  he didn’t try to use nice words or deep wisdom, he said that it was the spirit and power moving in him, so that our faith wouldn’t rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Moreover Jesus said, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you cannot follow me” (John 6:53). He also said, “Unless you curse your father and mother you cannot follow me” (Matthew 10:37) I am tired of trying to be really nice so that people will come to know Jesus and I don’t think it works. I think that people are looking for a Christian that is not nice, but a Christian who is real. People need something real to place their faith in because there are so many fake things the world puts in their way. A real Christian truly believes that God is here and now, and not only must a real Christian believe that God is real, but, he or she must have faith in the power of the one TRUE God. 

       God is here and now. God is powerful.  The only thing that is holding us back from a God that is active in our lives is obedience. Are you willing to move further into obedience with Him? The more we lean on Him the more we will see Him move in our lives.  Is our focus on God, or is our focus on our comfort? For most of us, it is our comfort. If we really cared about God and the nations, we would live far more radical than we do now.

       Let’s get crazy about Jesus, lets lean on Him, and watch Him do things that we couldn’t think or imagine.

How things are going…

By: Daniel Whitson

       My main job at YWAM Honolulu is to recruit, train, and write the curriculum. This job is getting more intense by the week. We need more students and are currently looking for teachers, and a classroom.  So please be praying for that. We start very soon, so pray that God will provide all we need so that we can train the best missionaries possible.  Every day, I get a little bit more stressed about the school. We currently have 8 students but are hoping for 15-20. We have a few confirmed speakers, but there is still so much we need to get done by September!

       I continue to go down to china town weekly. I have made friends with a few homeless men in Chinatown.  One in particular, Chuck, has been breaking my heart. Every week, I meet him across the street from where we do prayer and worship. He is usually drunk. He usually tells me the same stories and asks me the same questions.  Every week, he tells me that he is going be out of downtown the next week. He cannot walk because he has been sleeping on the street so much his legs can’t take it any longer. He gets drunk because it takes the pain away and he doesn’t want to take drugs. At first, I thought it was my job to try to get him off the street and save him, but it doesn’t seem that he wants to get off the street or change his situation. In Hawaii the homeless situation is the biggest problem for tourism, so they throw millions of dollars at programs and housing programs to get them off of the street. Most of the time in Hawaii, when people are homeless it is by choice, not because they can’t get off of the street. Now I realize that all I can do is pray that God will change his heart and love him like Jesus would love him. I love doing homeless ministry, it is one my favorite times of the week. I get blessed by blessing other people.  We as Christians have the greatest gift to give others, the love of God. The greatest injustice in the world, is that people don’t hear about Jesus, his love, and forgiveness toward us. It is up to the church to share the greatest message. We as Christians should burn to tell the world about Jesus, because he really is the only way that we live.

       My other job on the base is to cook in our kitchen, I cook breakfast and lunch for the base every day. Lately, I have genuinely enjoyed working in it. I like learning to cook and serve people, it truly is service.  Since I don’t get paid to work on this base, it challenges my heart everyday to view this as service. Learning to serve is the greatest thing that I can learn

       There are a couple of other things I do on the side. First, I lead worship at the base several times a month. Also, every Thursday, I play the bass guitar in the new worship band, for our weekly community meeting.  I feel so blessed that God has blessed me with a little bit of musical talent to where I can lead worship. It’s amazing. Furthermore, I am on a team where we try to take care of the people YWAM has sent out long term to Asia. Every week, I share about their ministry and what they are doing in Asia .Then we pray for them and take an offering. YWAM Honolulu is trying to take better care of our long term missionaries. Moreover, this is a way that I can practically help to encourage them, pray for them, and take care of their needs. Our base is currently running two schools. One is called Discipleship Training School (DTS), and the other is Chronological  School of Biblical Studies(SBS). Our  Korean DTS has  8 students they are in the first weeks of DTS. The DTS is a great program that  radically changes the lives of people who do it.  We have one DTS team that is currently in Bangladesh, they are seeing people come to the lord and are going to unreached areas to preach the Gospel all over Bangladesh.  We are so proud of all of them and are stoked that they are bringing the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. Our SBS is studying the bible chronologically, which is one of the next steps in being trained at our base. Also, in this program, the students study the Bible inductively trying to see from the eyes of the original readers, see how they would have viewed it, and taking that and applying it to their lives now. These school are the way we train our missionaries, so that when they go out to do long-term missions they will be as equipped as possible.

How you can help…

     In order that I may continue to help equipping future missionaries and continue my mission work, the last thing that I am trying to do is reach a goal of support for the summer. I want to raise enough money to pay for my staff fees, car bills, gas, and bills for the summer. $4050 will cover all of my expenses for the summer. This doesn’t include spending money or savings. I hope that you will pray about sending me a onetime gift to support me through the summer! I have gotten 10% of my goal. Pray that God will provide the rest of the funds I need!

Your gifts are tax deductible                        

You can send your support to:

 Daniel Whitson, YWAM OAHU, P.O. Box  61700, Honolulu, HI 96839

Checks made out to “YWAM ”  and put my name on the “For” line

Let me know if you want to use a CC.

     Even if you can’t afford to send me support this summer, I would ask that you:

Pray for our school:

·       That God would send a lot of students that are passionate about frontier missions

·       For more staff because we are expecting our school to be pretty big and we need six more staff

·       For the right location for our school because we are out growing our YWAM base and are in need of another location to run the school

·        That God would raise me up to be the best most effective leader I can be for the school

Pray for this ministry:

·       That YWAM would have a permanent effective presence

·       That Hawaii would come up with greater solutions in getting people off the street, into permanent housing, and bringing people to know Jesus

·       That God would bring solution to addiction to meth in Hawaii

·       That there would be revival in Chinatown in Hawaii

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Contact Info:

Email: danielwhitson@gmail.com

Cell - 443-289-4517