The George Müller Memorial Sermons (GMMS) are a series of sermons honouring the Prussian evangelist Georg Müller who founded orphanages by complete faith and dependency on Elohim (God). These sermons highlight the principles that George Müller so successfully and inspirationally lived by.

Shabbat shalom chaverim. As it now takes me considerably longer to type, as well as being very painful, I am forced to be economical with words, so this will only be a short message which is directed toward new and young believers, and those who may have started out wrong, who are venturing out into witnessing.

There is no one way to witness of Messiah, because every unsaved sinner must be approached uniquely and therefore, since we are not omniscient, with the help of divine inspiration. Yahweh alone knows what each unsaved soul needs to either jumpstart his search, mature it or complete it in making his final commitment.

More important, perhaps, from the point-of-view of the witness, is having the right foundations. It takes a lifetime to get to know the Besorah (Gospel) in depth, and even then our searching and growing never actually ends, because Elohim (God) is infinite. So having a miniature version of the Besorah (Gospel), on which to build, is, I think, very important. That foundation will colour, direct and propel your witnessing in the future...for the rest of your life.

Have you ever met a witness who was very aggressive and repelling? I met one the other day. He was very disagreeable, and though he seemed to know a lot about the Besorah (Gospel), there was something fundamentally missing. He did not love people. He was at war with error (as he understood it to be), before being in love with people.

For that reason, I choose as my own 'mini-Besorah (Gospel)', the well-known passage at John 3:16, which though often flogged to death to the point of becoming a cliché in the mouths of some people (who like to quote it because everyone else likes to quote it), is nevertheless a wonderful place to start:

"For Elohim (God) so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting chayim (life)" (John 3:16, NKJV).

Why is this verse so important? Because if you can grasp it, then you have understood the whole philosophy, if you like, of the Creator and His Creation. This is the moving principle behind everything. In it is laid out the whole Plan of Salvation, simply and succinctly. It tells us the 'how' and 'why' the Master Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) bore our sins in His own body on the cross as our vicarious Subtitute and suffering Surety, and how His sufferings in Gethsemane and Golgotha made it forever needless that the penitent believing sinner should bear his own iniquity and die for it.

If we have understood this, if we have grasped these words - and there are altogether far too many believers who have not - then it means, quite simply, that we have arrived at a true and living emunah (faith). This is what the Ruach (Spirit) calles "laying hold" (KJV) or "taking hold". He who believes and knows that Elohim (God) so loved him first, long before he knew how to love Him, then finds himself loving Elohim (God) in return, and so his emunah (faith) works by ahavah (love) to purify the heart, transform the life, and overcome the world.

The greatest and the most important fact that a believer can - must - have, in order himself to be properly saved and in order himself to be an effective witness imparting chayim (life) and not death (however theologically correct he may be) to people, is the ahavah (love) of Elohim (God) in Messiah (Christ) in his heart. Without it, his knowledge of the Bible - his excellence in theology - is useless both to him and his witness. Such would do better to throw out his knowledge and theology and start out again as a little child, bathed in this heavenly ahavah (love). He can then recover his theology later.

But - and this is critical - this 'first action' does not involve feelings at all. Feelings cannot drive it. Upon the fact of John 3:16, your emunah (faith) may have a firm and glorious foundation. And the first thing you must do is not to go seeking for a 'feeling' before you will trust or believe! Waiting for a feeling in confirmation of the scripural passage is not how biblical emunah (faith) works. What you are required to do, in order to approach Yahweh in the correct way, is to "take hold" of the words as a statement from Elohim (God) and choose to trust in them. If you have taken hold of these words, sincerely, nothing doubting, with real intent, saying to yourself, 'This I choose, of my own will, to believe!', then any feelings or existential experience of this Divine Ahavah (Love) will come afterwards! However, those feelings will come naturally without being waited for or sought after.

When this ahavah (love) from Heaven thus begins to move in the heart of the one who has chosen to trust (believe), the receiver will become aware of a totally new and incomparible dimension in life hitherto never experienced as one who chose not to believe or trust. Thereafter, you will 'see' Elohim (God) in a totally new way. The words of Scripture, once dead, become imbued with chayim (life). With this right foundation in emet (truth), whether we are seeking pardon for sin or power over sin, we will know, then, that the sole source and secret are in Yah'shua's (Jesus') work for us. And then we will know what true ahavah (love) actually is.

May you be blessed, either in the continuation of your good walk, or in starting afresh from a right perspective, is my prayer in Yah'shua's (Jesus') Name. Amen.