Join Cherry Campbell in this enlightening episode as she delves into the profound meaning of grace and its manifestation as God’s free gift to us. Through real-life experiences on the mission field, Cherry shares the testimonies of her journey, exploring how grace acts as God’s extended arm, offering salvation, righteousness, and the fulfillment of our needs. Cherry takes listeners on a heartfelt journey to the island nation of Vanuatu. With anecdotes from her mission work, she discusses the physical and emotional challenges faced and how the grace of God provided strength and wisdom to persevere. The episode not only
Good morning. Praise the Lord. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Welcome to Victoria’s Faith. I’m Cherry Campbell. This week, the Lord wants me to share with you some of the testimonies of my experiences on the mission field. The Lord is leading me to call this Adventures with Jesus. These are testimonies of experiences and the things that he taught me, as well as the testimonies of his goodness and favor and faithfulness. And one of the things that I want to start with to share with you is about the grace of God, the grace of God. The grace of God is so real. And first of all, what is the grace of God? The word grace in its most basic definition and translation means free gift, free gift. So the grace of God is the free gifts of God. And more explanation of that is that the grace of God is God’s eager desire and willingness to to give you everything you need and want. Well, that goes back to the picture in Luke chapter 15 about the two sons and the father. And at the end of Luke 15, the father said to the older son, my son, everything I have is yours. Everything I have is yours. That is a beautiful picture of our Father God. Our God holds nothing back from us. He gives us everything he has, which supplies everything we need and even our deepest desires. And so the grace of God, well, the grace of God spiritually is God giving you salvation, giving you righteousness. It is by grace through faith we are saved. The Lord gave me this example one time that the grace of God is God’s arm and hand extended out to you to give you what you need. And faith is our spiritual arm extended to God to take hold and receive from God what we need. So grace is God’s arm extended to give. And faith is our spiritual arm extended to God to receive from God. Let me say that again. Grace is God’s arm extended to you to give to you what you need. And faith is your spiritual arm that reaches out to God and takes hold of what he gives to you. That’s why we are saved by grace through faith. So it is by grace because it is by free gift. And I encourage you, whenever you see the word grace in the New Testament, translate that word to free gift. Or if it’s a noun, it’s free gift. If it’s a verb, it’s freely given. Freely given. As a verb or free gift as a noun. So whenever you see the word grace, translate it as a noun to free gift. So we are saved by grace through faith. You could say we are saved by free gift, the free gifts of God. Through faith. So God gives it by free gift. We receive it by faith. So we receive by faith everything God gives by grace. And so grace means free gift, the free gifts of God. It is God’s eager willingness and desire to give you everything he has and everything he is. Hallelujah. That’s why when you read in Hebrews 4, 16, it says, come boldly to the throne of grace. Translate that word grace as free gifts. Come boldly to the throne of free gifts. In other words, come boldly to where you can receive whatever you need. And that’s what it says when it goes on. Come boldly to the throne of grace or the throne of free gifts of God. So that you may obtain mercy and receive grace to help in time of need. Grace to help in time of need. That grace to help in your time of need is whatever you need in the time of need. It is whatever help that you need. At the moment. So it can be financial. It can be physical healing. It can also be empowerment and ability and strength. It can be the wisdom that you need to get through a situation. It can be knowledge and know-how to do something. Whatever it is you need in your life today to do what you need to do. It is available to you by grace. It is a free gift from God to you and you can receive it through faith. Hallelujah. And so grace, it’s also called the empowerment of God because it is God giving you everything you need in a situation. to get the job done. If you need money, it’s the money to do the job. If you need strength, it’s the strength. If you need wisdom and knowledge, it’s the wisdom and knowledge. If you need ability to do it, it’s the ability you need to do it. So grace is available to each and every one of us. And grace is available to you today. for whatever you need today. What are you doing? What is set before you? What’s the task that is before you? There is grace for you in that situation to get through it. If it’s a hardship to overcome it, It is the grace and empowerment to do it. If it’s a hard job, God’s grace is available to you today. Hallelujah. And so when I went to the mission field, the first place the Lord sent me was to Vanuatu. That’s in the South Pacific. Vanuatu, it’s an island nation just north of New Zealand. Well, back in the early 90s, I had gone on a mission trip to the Darien Jungle. It’s in Central America, the Darien Jungle. And I did not like it. We were way, way, way, way back in the jungle. We had to walk back for a great distance into the deep jungle. And the discomfort and the hardships of being there, I told the Lord, Lord, God, I want to be a city missionary. Don’t send me into the jungle. Well, where did he first send me? Into the bush in the South Pacific Islands. And so it was very hard. And And the struggles that I faced when I got there was the great… Now, Vanuatu as a place is very, very beautiful. And the people are very, very beautiful people. They have smiling, loving faces. They are very, very precious, beautiful people. But it’s a very hot place and very humid. I found that difficult. It wasn’t what I expected. I thought that I would be living in town where there was electricity and running water. However, the day I arrived… I was told that the Bible school was on a different island, a little island that was about a 30 to 40 minute boat, small boat ride from the bigger island. And that little island had no electricity and no running water. It is just taking bucket sponge baths. It is out there without any electricity, so there’s no electric fan even, let alone air conditioning. Forget about air conditioning. There’s not even an electric fan. And so in those days, I got in the habit of using my hand fan constantly. Even as I slept, my hand was constantly using a little hand fan to cool myself. So there was the challenge of the climate, the great heat. and humidity. There was, of course, culture shock. There was climate shock, language shock, food shock. And then as I was there, there was a loneliness that set in. And when I first arrived, actually, when I found out that I was going to that other island, I cried out to the Lord and said, Oh God, I can’t do this. Help me. And the Lord spoke to me and showed me that I was called there. And as a matter of fact, the pastor said to me, we’ll see how you do here at the Bible school. And then we’ll see about sending you to some other places. Well, I heard that and, even as though it was God speaking. And God was saying, we’re going to see how you do here before we send you anywhere else. And I knew at that moment that my entire future as a missionary hung on my persisting and persevering and overcoming in that situation in the Bible school there. And so as I continued on there, and like I said, the relationships there were precious. The people were precious. They were spiritually hungry for the word. They knew how to worship God in spirit and in truth. But it was the physical elements and it was the emotional elements. And the spiritual elements that I really had a strong battle with. As a matter of fact, I wrote in my journal in the sixth week. I wrote in my journal that the first five weeks were a period of adjusting. And the Lord showed me that it was another boot camp. And I had not expected another boot camp. When I reached the mission field and I wrote that that boot camp was harder than any that I had ever been through before until that time. And the hardships that were there physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. And I realized I wrote down in my notes that it’s true. New level, new devil, new level, new devil. Now, what does that mean? That just simply means that all, When you take new ground, when you are going into new territory, there are always new things to overcome. New things to overcome. And that’s true whether you’re starting a new job. You may think it’s the best job of your dreams. And you’ve been believing for this job and you’ve been praying for it and now you’ve got it. Well, yeah, there are going to be some wonderful things about that job, but you can be sure there will also be some difficulties there. In that new territory, there will be new things to overcome. And the same with moving into a new neighborhood, right? a new city, a new state. Yeah, you might be going into a nice place, a nice home, but in that new territory, there will always be new things for you to overcome. And so that’s what that means is that whenever you take new ground, There are new things for you to face and overcome. There will always be giants in the land and you need to learn to overcome them. And one of the things that you have to have to overcome is the grace of God. Well, I’m out of time today and I want you to join me again tomorrow. And remember, God loves you. You are blessed and highly favored by the Lord.
