Part 9: Growing in Christ

By Andrew McChesney

After Mother’s baptism, Father faced a severe spiritual struggle. Evil spirits possessed him at night, and he struggled to sleep. Whenever he was possessed and saw Mother, the spirits spewed hatred at her.

Father and Mother strengthened their faith by praying and studying the Sabbath School lesson every day. Father learned to pray on his knees and to have personal time with God. The couple made it a habit to pray, have personal devotions, and study the Sabbath School lesson daily.

Mother trusted God, and she felt His constant care. She found faith and assurance in the Bible, and several verses especially helped her during Father’s struggle with evil spirits. “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you,” she read in James 4:7. “But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one,” she read in 2 Thessalonians 3:3. She claimed the promise of Jesus in John 10:10: “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” When she found a Bible verse that helped or gave hope, she copied it into a special journal and prayed those verses to God during her 5 a.m. prayer time.

Mother also wrote a special prayer for Father that she prayed every morning for a year. She prayed, “Lord, I ask You for my husband, Eduardo, and for him to turn to You with all his heart. Help me to love him and to renew my love for him. I surrender to You, Lord, and ask You to bless him as he seeks to honor You. Discipline him when needed. Transform him into a man who will desire to follow You. Help me to encourage him and to respect him. Help me to love him. I pray this in the name of Jesus, Amen.”

Father, meanwhile, started Bible studies in preparation for baptism. He wanted to be baptized on Oct. 29, exactly a year to the day after Junior’s baptism.

As Father studied the Bible, he curiously watched YouTube sermons by preachers from the Adventist Church. He also watched sermons from other Christian denominations, wanting to test their teachings against the Bible. To his shock, evil spirits taunted him as he listened to the other preachers, saying that they would have sent him to one of their churches rather than the Adventist Church if they had known that he was interested in those preachers.

Father stopped watching the other sermons. “Now I know that I’m in the right church!” he thought.

Your Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will help open eight churches in the South American Division, including four in Brazil, where Father (Eduardo Ferreira dos Santos) and his family live.

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

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Further Thought:

Read Ellen G. White, “Jehoshaphat,” Pages 190-203, in Prophets and Kings; “The Fall of Jericho,” Pages 487-498, in Patriarchs and Prophets.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

“Then let us educate our hearts and lips to speak the praise of God for His matchless love. Let us educate our souls to be hopeful and to abide in the light shining from the cross of Calvary. Never should we forget that we are children of the heavenly King, sons and daughters of the Lord of hosts. It is our privilege to maintain a calm repose in God.” — Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing, p. 253.

“And while I adore and magnify Him, I want you to magnify Him with me. Praise the Lord even when you fall into darkness. Praise Him even in temptation. ’Rejoice in the Lord alway,’ says the apostle; ’and again I say, Rejoice.’ Will that bring gloom and darkness into your families? No, indeed; it will bring a sunbeam. You will thus gather rays of eternal light from the throne of glory and scatter them around you. Let me exhort you to engage in this work, scatter this light and life around you, not only in your own path, but in the paths of those with whom you associate. Let it be your object to make those around you better, to elevate them, to point them to heaven and glory, and lead them to seek, above all earthly things, the eternal substance, the immortal inheritance, the riches which are imperishable.” — Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 2, Pages 593, 594.

Discussion Questions:

<–Thursday

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