Update from Sri Lanka

Posted by Gertjan Goldschmeding in Missions, News | 1 comment

A short update on day three of our trip to Sri Lanka. We’ve been coming here for 8 years and this faithfulness has resulted in an awesome platform to impact the church and the nation. Yesterday pastor Powe kicked of the meeting with pastors of over 60 churches represented, challenging them to become strategic. I continued in my session to explain how we can influence an entire nation. God had shown me the danger of a conflict between Sri Lanka and the USA, and we ended the meeting taking authority over the spirit of strife and division. Half an hour later the news was released that the issue wad solved! This was just a confirmation of the strategic influence of the Church!

In the evening I met with a group of key leaders, that meets with pastor Dishan weekly. Today the program holds two leadership sessions with the pastors. Some have to travel an entire day by motor bike to attend these meetings. At night pastor Powe will do a meeting for influential business men in an exclusive hotel, while I will hold a miracle rally at the church. Will keep you updated!

Do you know where you’re going to?

Posted by Gertjan Goldschmeding in Business, Spiritual | 0 comments

The reason most of us do not reach our goals, is because we never took time to find them out and get them clear enough so we could see and communicate them. The vast majority of the people just live their lives by responding as best as they can to the opportunities (and threats) that come their way. The best way to describe the lives of most people, is like somebody going on a journey without determining the final destination. At every cross-road they he has to take time to think which way is best. At the same time these people wonder why they are never satisfied and why they feel they are not making any progress.

We should all learn to be like God. He thought everything through before He started the earth and before He created man. He even made a back up plan in case mankind would fail. The Bible tells us that God works backward; He starts at the end and calculates backwards. This is the best way to understand how vital your part in history is. Understanding that God needed you for the final outcome of His plans and purposes, realizing that that is the reason of your existence today, should liberate you from all thoughts of inferiority.

You too should live your life by calculating backwards. Start by determining your final destination, your ultimate goal. It is the key for making the right choices today. Michael Porter’s definition of strategy is “knowing what not to do”. When you know your ultimate goal and destination, it is easy to say no to the things that don’t contribute to you reaching your goal. Your life won’t be hard at every intersection; most of the choices are already made at the beginning of the journey.

It is time for you to become more strategic. Even if you know which way you want to go, take time to think things through. To be a doer of God’s Word doesn’t mean you should not take time to think things trough. God does not want you to just know what to do, but also to know why, how and to what purpose. This is not hard, it just takes slowing down your pace. But trust me, you will reach your destiny a lot faster!

True leaders have no followers!

Posted by Gertjan Goldschmeding in Business, Spiritual | 0 comments

Last week the pastor of the Amersfoort Church (Ben Schmidt) and I took a short mission trip to the Ukraine. Pastor Ben preached the second service in Kiev Good News Church (founded by Rick Renner, pastored by a wonderful Ukrainian pastor David) and I preached the first service. Prior to Kiev we flew to Odessa where the people were so excited and hungry that the pastor announced a spontaneous meeting for all leaders the following morning. Since I did not have time to prepare anything I just started to share about empowering leadership from my heart. I noticed what I shared made a lot of sense to the pastor but some of the Ukranian leaders openly rejected the message a first. During this time of confrontation God showed me how the Kingdom of God is directly opposite of the system of Communism. Unfortunately the so called democratic systems of government in the west are not in line with the Kingdom of God either. But since communism takes away the initiative from the people, it also takes away the responsibility from the people and people slowly die, while remaining alive. When you want to restore the initiative with the people they oppose it at first because the are afraid of the responsibility. When God allowed Adam to name all the animals he did not only give Adam tremendous freedom and room for creative expression, he also gave him an awesome responsibility.

Much of the Church world, including all the new charismatic movements, have had insecure leadership that led to a system where all the initiative and control remained with the leadership. Leaders needed to be respected, honored and submitted to. While all of of that is true and essential in a church, the heart of a true leader should be to give room and responsibility to those he leads. Jesus is not a king of subjects, but a king of kings. We should not be a leader over followers, but a leader over leaders. We should desire, empower and allow our leaders to go beyond where we have gone, to take things to a higher level. Just like God empowered Adam and Jesus empowered His disciples. Remember Jesus told us that we will do greater works than He did? Most leaders are afraid that people under them will do greater works than they. It’s time for the Church to get serious about servant leadership. It is time to really adopt the leadership system of the Kingdom of God! It will require much of leaders and those following leaders. But there is no alternative! His Kingdom will advance, whether you cooperate or not! Become a true leader today, become a leader of leaders!

View a short video of our trip to Ukraine here:

Are you resting or running?

Posted by Gertjan Goldschmeding in Spiritual | 0 comments

Entering into the rest always seems to be a complicated issue. Grace people focus on resting, faith people on running and pressing in. Who is right and who is wrong? Many will say, it all has to do with “balance”. But somehow balance doesn’t seem to work. If we try to balance resting with pressing in, we become spiritually schizophrenic. It is not so much balance, but a deeper understanding of the concept of rest. Rest is not a condition of inactivity, but rather a state of heart and mind. Resting does not mean that you live without working, pressing and running, but that you live and even press without any stress.

Let’s break it down even further. Jesus urges us to come to Him when we are stressed, so He can give us rest. He continues to explain that we will be yoked with Him. We know that a yoke is something that was used for oxen. Oxen work hard, they press in, they plough and pull. So Jesus is not saying we should refrain from hard work. We should work with the right motive, expectation and state of heart. The key word in everything is: responsibility. If you are yoked with Jesus, you partner with Him but ultimately He will be responsible. You can now work with a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light, because you don’t carry the stress.

There are two areas to determine whether or not you have entered into the rest. The first one is happiness with where you are now. Dissatisfaction is one of the major stress factors in one’s life. If you learn to be content with where you are now, stress will flee from your life and only then do you qualify for a better life. It was Joyce Meyer who said it like this, “If you are not happy where you are now, you won’t be happy where you are going.”

The second area is your concern for approval, praise and credit. Remember God says He is not going to share His glory with no one, not even with you. So get used to the idea that you’ll get to enjoy lots of fruit and success, but you won’t be able to take any credit for it. But as long as you are trying to build a reputation, stress is an inevitable by-product. Once you have your impeccable reputation, you’ll have to maintain it. This is where Hollywood and all the other celebrities in the world suffer from enormous stress. Since the tabloids are dedicated to hurt and damage reputations, as long as you try to keep your reputation up, you will suffer. I am happy I have found the key to be stress free, no matter what people say or think: Like Jesus, become of no reputation. That is true liberty. That is entering the rest.

For reference:
Hebrews 4:11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest,
Matthew 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
1 Timothy 6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.
Philippians 2:7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men

The Person and the Principles of Jesus

Posted by Gertjan Goldschmeding in Spiritual | 0 comments

Galatians 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

When I start to teach on a topic and a wave of criticism hits the ministry or me, I always know that I am on the right track. Some years ago I started to teach on the Person and the principles of God. I announced that we would spend a lot of time teaching the principles of the Kingdom of God, so people would learn how to operate by them and be successful. The criticism that arose sounded very pious and religious: “We want you to preach Jesus, not the principles; the principles take us away from the Person”. Well, this statement could not be further from the truth, because God and His principles are one. When we read about sowing and reaping, a principle of the Kingdom, we find out that God identifies Himself with this principle. Mocking the principle equals mocking the Person. Jesus said, “If you love Me (the Person) you will keep my words (principles)”. Embracing the Person will qualify you to enter heaven, embracing the principles will equip you to have dominion on the earth. Seeking the Kingdom principles pleases the King!

I am convinced that if we embrace the principles and let them propel our lives into prosperity and abundance, people will be eager to know Who taught us those principles. We can take Jesus to the world by preaching to them, but why not communicate Jesus to the world by showing them that it works! The gospel is the power! A salesman won’t sell much by just screaming the name of the product, he might sell some by talking about the unique qualities of the product, but once he is able to demonstrate the advantages of the product, people will be convinced that this is what they need and want. Let’s show the world Jesus. Like Francis of Assisi said: “Preach Jesus always, and if necessary, use words!”