My Journey With Cancer, Part 42 By David Maddox
Last week was the week following chemo so over the weekend I made the final assent up the mount of side effects and started down reaching the valley of reasonable normalcy Friday and Saturday. Nothing new or unusual – Praise God! Monday we met with our cancer doctor and the miracle continues. The cancer is stable – has not spread – and we were given the gift of an additional week of feeling good (four weeks between treatments rather than three). We discussed long term effects of the chemo which includes numbness in the hands and feet which increases over time until it can become an issue. I have had this for some time now and since there is an alternative drug that does not have this side effect the issue is when to change. Fortunately the numbness is not permanent. So one prayer request is wisdom on when to change chemo drugs? Obviously since the combination of three drugs is working (something the doctor cannot explain – a miracle in answer to your prayers) we don’t want to change until we have to or God reveals it is time or better yet He heals outright. We next see the chemo doctor in June.
Last week was a wonderful ministry week. We had a significant Spiritual discussion with our chemo doctor who just sat down and talked for about 30 minutes. Later during the week we got to share the Gospel with a worker at a local fast food place and hopefully she will be joining our small group for continued discipleship. Over the weekend we got to be part of the Heart to Heart Conference in Flagstaff – lead a breakout group – and take a team out to share the Gospel on the NAU campus. That was a miracle because normally I would not have had the physical strength that close to coming off chemo to go from dawn to dusk literally. But I asked for prayer – you prayed – and God answered. Sunday – Valentine’s Day – was special as the church we attended in Sedona offered the opportunity for married couples to renew their vows. Janet and I did again for probably the fifth time, but every time we remember the commitments made to God and each other and the joys of the years together. God has been so good to us and we can’t do anything but thank Him for the miracle of our lives together.
The main speaker at last week’s conference was Rev. Kwang Su Ryu, the South Korean Pastor who began a church in a small room of a home and God has grown that church into where it now has 300,000 members (that it not a typo – 300,000). He shared with Pastors and other leaders in a private meeting how God did that – and the answer is so obvious that it is almost silly to even ask how. There are two paradigms in Scripture – the Old Testament Pharisee Model and the New Testament Acts Model. In the Old Testament Model it is church only in a particular place – on a particular day – led by a professional clergy. In the New Testament Acts Model it is church everyday – everywhere a Believer may be becomes a church – lay centered. We for the most part still adhere to the Old Testament Model which simply does not work today. The Korean church adopted the New Testament Acts Model and the rest as they say – “is history”. Rev. Ryu asked a simple question which made the point – “If Sunday is the Lord’s Day – whose day is Monday?”
To the larger group of attendees the message affirmed exactly what God has been showing us for the last seven years – America is today’s Rome – there is no hope short of a New Age of Evangelism in which the church becomes the church of the Book of Acts and takes the Gospel into America first and then the world – making disciples – all Believers ministering daily everywhere they are – homes becoming houses of God to be used by God as God wills. That is all his church did – and God responded even as He did in the Book of Acts – and He will here as well if we are willing and obedient.
What is missing was then revealed as we took out a couple of teams after the conference to share the Gospel on the NAU campus. I say only a couple of teams for though the crowd said “Amen” and emphatically appeared to receive the message – not a single attendee beyond those already connected to Revive Arizona was willing to put what they heard into practice and go out and share the Gospel. Sing, listen and sit – that is the modern church. That formula is what is destroying the Church in America. God gave us another example as Gary Bohn’s team encounter a group of students who he learned were Believers. In fact six of them went to the same church in Flagstaff yet none of them knew how to share the Gospel. Gary was able to show them the simple method the Lord has shown us to use to share in about fifteen minutes and soon there after one of the six was sharing the Gospel with another student they encountered – invited her to a Bible study – and to a social event that night.
Shame on any church that does not teach, enable and encourage all their members to share the Gospel and make disciples! Such a class should be a part of every new member orientation program and should be done church wide on a regular basis. The staff should lead by example taking people out to share. If a church is not going to enable its members to conduct lifestyle evangelism then I honestly question whether Jesus has or will remove their lampstand as He threatened the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:5. That church had lost its first love as has any church that does not love Jesus enough to teach its people and encourage them to share Jesus with others. That may sound harsh but I sincerely believe it is the teaching of the New Testament taken as a whole. Jesus commanded us to go and make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20) and “teach them to obey all I commanded you.” He made it clear that if you love Me you will obey My commandments (John 14:23). There it is from His own lips. We don’t love if we don’t obey. If the Apostles did church as we do church (I understand there are some few exceptions) – the Christian faith would have died with that generation or when persecution began because the people would not have been prepared to go about preaching the word (Acts 8:1-4). We face the same threat. The decreasing numbers in America don’t lie. We must change and become obedient servants of the Lord Jesus Christ who commanded us to go and make disciples and teach obedience because we truly love Him and want to tell others about the one we love.
Probably the best evidence that I really believe what I have written is that we do this – and through Revive Arizona we seek to equip any church or group willing to be equipped. That I believe is why God has spared my life thus far. He has this work for me to be a part of right here in Arizona – and elsewhere.
Thank you for your prayers and partnership along this journey. Please pray for the Church that we become like the church of Acts.
About David Maddox – After a legal career in both Texas and Arizona that spanned over 40 years as a civil litigator, God called David to leave his law practice and work full time as Discipleship Director for Time to Revive. That call is really the fruit of decades of prayer for revival and teaching God’s Word, writing discipleship materials and seeking to make disciples. David married Janet Whitehead in 1976 and they minister together from their Phoenix home. God has blessed them with four children and thus far seven grandchildren.
