We
are hearing regularly that a city, town or area are cursed and control by the
devil and Christians must stand-up against these curses, but what does the Word
of God say about this:

• The
  earth is cursed from the time of Adam because of his sin.

Gen 3:17  Then to Adam He said,
“Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the
tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your
life. 

• God
  gave Adam dominium over earth and every thing on earth.

Gen 1:28  Then God blessed them, and God
said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it;
have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over
every living thing that moves on the earth.” 

• Adam
  however handed man’s dominium over to the devil when he sin in Eden and the
  devil became the ruler – prince of earth as we can see when the devil tempted
  Jesus in the wilderness.

Mat 4:8+9  Again, the devil took Him up on
an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and
their glory.  And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You
if You will fall down and worship me.” 

• The
  devil controls the unsaved who walk on earth.

Eph 2:1+2  And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in
which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,

• When
  we accepted Jesus as our Saviour, any curse on us are removed or delivered.

Gal
3:13  Christ
has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it
is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE”),

• God
  protected us now from the devil and any curse that can be send or placed on us.

Eph 6:12+13  For we do not wrestle against
flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers
of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you
may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 

• Nobody
  can put a curse on us, we us children of God are protected by God.

Num 23:8  “How shall I curse whom
God has not cursed? And how shall I denounce whom the LORD has not denounced? 

• We
  can only expect to be persecuted for being a Christian – follower of Jesus.

Luk 21:11-13  And there will be great
earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences; and there will be
fearful sights and great signs from heaven.  But before all these things,
they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you
up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers
for My name’s sake.  But it will turn out for you as an occasion for
testimony. 

• What
  did the Apostles do? They lived in a more hostile environment, but didn’t go
  out braking curses and fighting governments, they done what Jesus ordered them
  to do.

Mat 28:19+20  Go therefore and make disciples
of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have
commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” And

Mat
5:44  But I
say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who
hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 

What does these above tells us

• Nobody can place a curse on us when we
  are saved in Jesus.
• God will protect us from the evil of
  this world when we trust in Him alone.
• We can be persecuted because we are
  following Jesus.
• If we evangelise and love the people
  around us, we can change the world around us having peace.
• The world around us is full of evil
  and leaders stirring among other racial hate because of their own agendas,  but we can intercede through prayer to God
  asking that He work in the hearts of worldly leaders that they look after the
  people they represent in a Godly manner and further that more Godly people be
  appointed to leadership. This is why it is also important for us in going to
  vote for the correct people when elections came to pass.

We were privileged to visit Lesotho on a mission
trip from 1 to 7 October this year.

The best way to describe Lesotho is
to say it is a country of massive mountains that remind us of God’s majesty. We
drove over the mountains with the highest point of 3090m above sea level. As
high as the mountains are, so the deep are the gorges. The grass is dry now but
it is still beautiful and every house or hut has it’s own peach tree that is in
bloom and as the light changes with shadows and light before the sun disappear
behind the mountains, the pink blossoms of the peach trees are enhanced and it
is just breath taking beautiful. Adding to that the sound of the sheep and
cattle going home for the night, is awesome. Attached are some of the photos
about the beauty of Lesotho, more on the ministry will follow.

This was the first sermon I preached to a small congregation in the Lesotho mountains on 3 September 2017.
The sermon is in the form of a story with questions that they understood what was told, which is according to Lesotho’s people’s manner of communication. I enjoyed preaching for them and they freely participated in answering the questions. With the alter call we prayed for a number of people for healing and most were healed, these people are blatantly honest and tell you when they don’t feel better after you prayed for them.

Sermon on Free Will

I want to tell you a story about us having free will (choice) to choose what we want and if we choose one way it can bring good to us and if we choose the other way it can bring bad for us. The story is about the two big spirits in the world. Before this world was there, was there a Great Spirit with great power, we can’t understand how big it is. Gen1 This Great Spirit made other spirits and give them power to do work for him.

One of the spirits was very beautiful and he starts thinking too much of himself and he starts talking to some of the other spirits turning them against the Great Spirit. Isa 14:12 This bad spirit then try to take control over from the Great Spirit, The Great Spirit was too strong for the bad spirit and stop him and the other spirits that followed the bad spirit. The Great Spirit also took the power of the bad spirits away and they could do nothing. Luk 10:18

The Great Spirit decided to make the earth where we are staying now. When the Great Spirit made the earth, He made the mountains, rivers, animals, fish, birds, insects, plants, and man. Gen 1 The Great Spirit made man with a spirit living inside their body who talk with the Great Spirit. He also made man wiser than the animals and gave the man power and tell them they must rule over the earth and everything that is living on earth. Gen 1:26+28

The Great Spirit also gives the man a free will (choice) to decided themselves what they want to do or not to do or how to do something. But then the bad spirit came to the first man and his wife, the Great Spirit made and tell them a lie about the Great Spirit which they believed and with their free will (choice) they give their power to this bad spirit. Remember the Great Spirit gives the man power to rule over the earth and animals. Gen 3 When this happens this bad spirit became the prince of the earth with the power the Great Spirit had given to the man. Eph 2:1+2

The Great Spirit then move away from the man and all his children, we are part of the children, by stop talking to the spirits in the man and say they will die and not live forever as He had planned for the man. Gen 3 The Great Spirit is a good Spirit and He love the man, but the bad spirit makes people sick, he let a man kill another, he let a man take another mans cow, he goes into a man making him mad/crazy and he let a man put bad things on another. John 5:15 +10:10

Then many years later the Great Spirit send His Son to earth because He loves the people very much. John 3:16 The Son of the Great Spirit came as a human baby to earth and grow up to become a normal man. Mat 1 The Son of the Great Spirit had grown up, he walks on earth for three years doing good for the people. He told the people that the Great Spirit is good and love all the people on the earth. Mat 3-25 The Son of the Great Spirit make sick people healthy, He told bad spirits to go out of people and He also makes people who died, came back to life. The people from that time became very angry, because the bad spirit lives in them, to the Son of the Great Spirit because He did not do anything wrong against the Great Spirit as they did. Mat 26+27 They then kill the Son of the Great Spirit by hanging Him on a cross and after He died He was put in a cave which was His grave.

But 3 days after He was killed, the Great Spirit raised Him from the dead. Mat 28 The Son of the Great Spirit also told the man that because He did no sin when He was on earth but was still killed, He died for the man sin. The Great Spirit loves man and will now forgive man their sin if they choose to believe that He – the Son of the Great Spirit – died for their sin and was made alive again. They have a free will to believe this or not. The Great Spirit will also then start talking to the spirit living in the man again and He will give them the same power that the Son of the Great Spirit had when He was on earth, making people healthy and controlling bad spirits.

Who is the Great Spirit? – the Almighty God who love us. John 04:23-24 Who is the Son of the Great Spirit? – Jesus Who is talking to our spirits who live in us and give us the same power as the Son of the Great Spirit had? – the Holy Spirit of God Who is the bad spirits? – the devil and his demons. God love us so much that He send Jesus to earth and die for our sin on the cross. John 3:16 God give to us a free will to choose if we want to believe and accept in our hearts, that Jesus came to earth and died for our sin. If you choose and accept Jesus as your saviour, you will start living a better life here on earth and when your body dies your spirit will go and live with God and Jesus in the beautiful heaven. Mark 16:16 Luk 23:46 Act 7:59 If you choose not to accept Jesus as your saviour, you will not have a good life here on earth and when your body die your spirit will go to the place of the big fire. Mark 16:16

If you choose that you believe and accept in your heart, that Jesus came to earth and died for your sin, you must pray the following: “Almighty God I ask forgiveness for my sin I did before and I believe that Jesus is my Lord and Saviour, that You God love me and is the only Spirit in my life who I shall serve and listen to”.

You are now saved and as an act of thanking God you ask that you must be baptised in water. Mark 16:16 Acts 2:38 You also ask that God fill you with His Holy Spirit and that it will flow out of you so that you can heal people and clean them from bad spirits. Act 8:14-17

After you were saved and your sin – do what God doesn’t like – you shall move away from God and give the devil again a chance to attack you by making you sick but if you see you are doing wrong and stop that and ask God’s forgiveness and healing in the name of Jesus, God will forgive you and you will move back under God’s protection and received healing. 1 John 1:6-10 If you don’t ask for forgiveness you will die quicker but your spirit will still go to God and Jesus in heaven. 1 Cor 5:5 Eph 1:13

• When you get to the point of total dejection – discouragement and you are empty, not worth anything, and totally drained.
• Depressed, seeing no use to continue with your obligations – don’t want to continue. Your tired, don’t want to get up in the morning.
• You recover halfway for a couple of days and then you go down again. A roller-coaster life.

Reaching this point is an indicator that you should start with a total overview on your walk with Christ.

Remember when you were saved and born again, how did you feel and what did it mean to you?
You felt a peace came over you, you felt different.

2Cor 5:17-21 (ESV) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

What does it mean? You are a new creation, old has passed away and the new has come.

What happened when you took Jesus as your savior?

Eph 1:13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,

You have a spirit, soul and body (1Thes.5:23) and Eph 1:13 say your spirit is sealed with the Holy Spirit and you can’t corrupt your spirit anymore and that is what God sees when He looks at you through Jesus.

At the same time, we received the fruit of the Spirit:

Gal 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control;

This also means you don’t want to sin anymore, but your soul and body are still tempted by the devil.

• 1Jn 1:8-9 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
• 1Co 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

It doesn’t matter what we do, God still loves us.

1Jn 4:8-11 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Through God’s grace, will you not lose you salvation, except if you renounce Jesus (Heb 6:4-6).

Heb 10:10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

1Co 3:10-15 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

Your work for Jesus, out of gratefulness for what He has done for you, will be rewarded.

Following your salvation, you were also been baptize in the Holy Spirit when you asked Jesus.

• Mat 3:11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
• Act 8:14-17 Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

How do you overcome your feeling of unworthiness, depression, and so on?
God know you personally, He made you

Psa 139:14-15 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Spent time with the Lord

Climb on His lab and talk to Him, tell Him about your feeling, He does know it all, but you shall feel better.

• Jer 15:16 Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.
• 1Th 2:13 And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.
• Pro 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Spending time in the Word strengthens your faith, the stronger your faith the more you can do in the Name of Jesus.

Rom 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Cut the things of the world out, the devil uses his work here on earth to make you negative and draw your attention away from God.

• 1Co 15:33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”
• Pro 4:23 Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

The way you think is the way you are, only seeing the bad in life or looking up to God and think positively.

• Rom 8:6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
• Rom 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Constantly rebuilding the power of Holy Spirit you has in you, he is your comforter

• Joh 14:16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
• 1Jn 4:4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
• 2Ti 1:7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

With the death and resurrection of Jesus, He gave us authority over the devil and his demons.

• Mar 16:17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons;
• Jas 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
• Php 4:13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

You are here in ministry for God – working just for God and his children – glorifying God with it

• Mat 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth,
• Mat 5:14 “You are the light of the world.
• Mat 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
• 1Co 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

When you experience the peace of God in you, you know you can do anything

• Php 4:6-7 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
• Col 3:15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.

One last practical thing. Use Facebook or a blog and only post positive experiences in it – with this you kept a record of the good things you seen or done or experience, where you can go back too when you are down, which will also encourage you that you are successful in and through Jesus. This will also encourage the world outside who read it.

We want to bless you with the words of 2Th 3:16 “may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all”.

The Charis Bible College and Langeberg Christian
Followship church held a 4 day crusade this past week.

There were also a group of students from CBC UK
who were part of the crusade. The people attended it very well even if it were
colder the last 2 days. Many gave their heart to God and several were healed.

• Zimpeto is een van Iris Ministries se uitreike. Hier gaan dit om wees-, verwaardelose-, mishandelde- en  arm kinders. Daar is 250 kinders in die sentrum en ook ‘n skool vir 1000 kinders wat voorsien in die omgewing. Verder is daar ook ‘n kerk-gedeelte wat uitreike na die omgewing doen.
• Zimpeto is aan die noordekant van en steeds in Maputo.
• Ons was September 2012 by Zimpeto Iris om te kyk wat daar gebeur. Hulle was ook op soek na ‘n bestuurder vir onderhoud.
• 04 Oktober 2012 het ons hulle laat weet ons sal graag daar wil betrokke raak.
• Daarna moes ons baie inligting voorsien en op 6 Desember 2012 het hulle ons laat weet ons moet kom enige tyd na 7 Januarie 2013.
• Daar word ooreengekom dat ons 10 Januarie 2013 daar sal wees.
• 6 Januarie 2013 laat weet hulle ons die goeie nuus dat daar ‘n 3 slaapkamer huis, waarvan daar net so 4 of 5 is op die sentrum, vir ons beskikbaar is. Verder gaan ek moet help met die voertuie en ‘n groep kinders. Alta moet help met ontvangs van gaste en die dogters leer naaldwerk doen. Ma Nellie moes ook help met die ontvang van besoekers.

Die res van gebeure na ons aankoms volg.

We were involved at Iris Global Ministries Children Centre, Zimpeto, Maputo in Mozambique from 2013 till 2015.

We were assisting in the technical side of the centre and were also, for us the most important part, dorm parents for 23 boys (8-11 years) and 4 teenage boys. Our purpose as dorm parents were to keep them clothed, mostly form a donation room, providing supplement for their stomachs (time between meals were always too long), help with school work and additional education, discipline, assisting supervisors staying with them in the dorm, additional Biblical education (we found things which we think are general knowledge, like love one another, that they don’t understand what is love) and just love them, by holding them when they get hurt, stick a plaster on or just give them a hug and individual attention.

There is a blog (Mosambiek Blog) which we kept for our own children for following what we did and experience in Mozambique but it is written in Afrikaans.

Ons word gegroet en hierdie is die laaste blog inskrywing oor Mosambiek.

En so kom ons werk by Iris Zimpeto ten einde. 

Begin van selgroepe en voorbereiding om sentrum te verlaat.

Probleme met van die kinders en gebraaide hoender op die strand