April Leader's Letter by Lynn Green

But what an impact he made! Here is an account of a message he preached in Carnegie Hall in 1900:

The subject of Hudson Taylor's address had been billed as "The Source of
Power for Foreign Missionary Work". The Mayor of New York and the
President of the United States attended the event along with all the most
senior missionary leaders. Taylor stepped forward, characteristically stood
a moment in silent prayer, then raised his head and smiled briefly.

"Power belongeth unto God," he began...

"We have tried to do, many of us, as much good as we felt we could easily
do, or conveniently do, but there is a wonderful power when the love of
God in the heart raises us to this point that we are ready to suffer, and with
Paul we desire to know Him in the power of His resurrection (which
implies the death of self), and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made
comformable to his death. It is ever true that what costs little is worth
little..."

That message, delivered in a voice so quiet that people had to strain to hear, impacted the
crowd to such a depth that hundreds would testify some thirty years later that their lives
were forever changed that morning in New York City.

I wonder how many YWAMers can identify with Hudson Taylor's message? I have known seasons where the power of God was mightily at work in me and through me, accomplishing more than I could imagine. But I have also known times when I "tried to do as much good as I felt I could easily do" and the results have been very limited and temporary. Having experienced both modes of ministry, I really don't want to waste another day living within the limits of my power to do good. I want to see the power of the Holy Spirit mightily at work in me! I know I speak for us all.

As we approach this fourth day of prayer together, we are still using Joshua 5 as our framework. The Israelites obeyed God and circumcised themselves before attempting to take the land that God had promised to them. We are on the verge of new growth, a huge vision to see expressions of the Kingdom of God in every sphere of society and in every Omega Zone. But that will not happen except by the power of God working mightily in us. To do that, we need to remove every hindrance in our lives. I have previously written about the importance of ongoing repentance and I want to emphasize that again. We often think of repentance as something that we do when we come to Christ and then, perhaps if we really mess up we might need to do it again. But repentance is a gift of God to nurture growth daily.

Jesus called us to be just like him. "As the Father sent me, so I send you." He is the model for our lives. He is the standard by which we judge ourselves. Whenever I fall short of His standard, I want to repent and keep trusting the Holy Spirit to make me more like Him. He is normal; I am not. When we look at it this way (and it is the scriptural way) we see that repentance is a gift from God to enable us to keep growing.

On our path to becoming normal like Jesus, we must mature. Part of repentance is asking God to reveal to us the lies of the enemy that we have believed about ourselves and about others--that is, anything that stands in opposition to God's truth in any part of our lives. Please read on to find out how "strongholds" develop and how they can be broken through God's power and our cooperation with Him. As we deal with sin in our lives and any resulting strongholds, we clear the way for the power of God to work mightily through us. May all of us in YWAM discover the Source of Power that marked Hudson Taylor's life and bear more fruit than we could ever imagine!

In His Peace,

Lynn Green
International Chairman, YWAM