On September 1, 2013, we began Larry Stamm Ministries, marking our 12-year anniversary of ministry!  We praise and thank God for His faithfulness, His provision and the myriad opportunities He’s given us to exalt Jesus, proclaim the gospel and do ministry in His name!

We also thank God for each of you who have sown into this ministry work through your financial support, prayers and encouragement as we continue to exist to make the gospel of Jesus a confident topic of conversation for every Christian.

Your partnership is valuable and appreciated beyond what words can express, for it is you who help make all we do possible!

Stir Up Love And Good Works

In the Christian life no man or woman is an island. In fact, we are all connected and related to one another as God’s people.

In 1 Corinthians 12:12-21, the Apostle Paul wrote that all believers are part of the body of Christ, the Church. You and I, all members of the same body, represent different parts, and we all have an important part to play in the function of the body. While the body of Christ is diverse, it also has a unity of purpose, with one aspect of that purpose being our Great Commission mandate.

Jesus declared to His disciples in Matthew 28:19, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Two-thousand years later, that command of our Lord remains.

As Jesus’ followers, our evangelistic responsibilities are but one aspect of the Great Commission, yet an important one, because people need to hear the gospel and respond in faith to the message prior to learning how to walk with the Lord.

Hebrews 10:24 states, “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works.” The Greek word for “stir up” in this verse is paroxusmos and it carries the idea of provoking or stimulating someone to action.

The verse as a whole, when applied to our evangelistic endeavor as God’s people, points to our working together with the goal of sowing gospel seed and seeing people trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Therefore, let us consider how it is we stir up love and good works in each other, including the good work of evangelism.

First of all, we can pray for each other. Intercessory prayer is a critical and powerful part of a Christian witness. We can pray for each other’s witness and also pray the Lord would bring a ‘cloud of witnesses’ into an unbeliever’s life.

Another way to stir up is to encourage each other with words that edify, instruct and inspire through Scripture. For example, remember Jesus’ promise to both mold us, use us and be with us on our journey as His witnesses. Jesus say, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19) and “Go and make disciples of all nations and I will be with you always” (Matthew 28:19, 20).

Another example, like for overcoming fear in our witness, are Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

Finally, we can stir up one another by helping each other through sharing our own witnessing experiences, wisdom, and witnessing resources with a brother or sister. Over the last few weeks I’ve encouraged a number of ministry partners to share my Jewish Roots of Christianity book with Jewish people in their witness. I’ve also shared the One For Israel website (oneforisrael.org) along with the One For Israel and So Be It youtube channels, both excellent resources to help the Christian witness and serve as a testimony to Jewish seekers.

As God’s people, doing life together, may we stir up one another in love and good works in the area of our Christian witness, that many would be drawn by His Spirit and put their trust in Jesus. Amen.

“Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant” (2 Corinthians 3:5).