In case you had forgotten…your life is part of an incredible story!
(And why you can’t afford to forget it.)
A message from Kevin Swanson
Are you one of these?
- You’re a dad with the responsibility of providing for and leading your family. You wouldn’t trade it for anything. But wish you could hit the “Pause” button for a minute. “Is life supposed to be this stressful?”
- You’re a mom caring for your husband and children. You love them. But the needs of your family seem to expand faster than you can meet them. That laundry basket seems to be overflowing again within 2 hours of empty. You frequently get to the end of the day and wonder if you accomplished anything. “I always said I wanted to live for God. Does what I’m doing count?”
- You’re a young adult trying to figure out what to do with your life, and unsure of what you should focus on right now.
- You’re going through a season of challenges. God seems distant. Your “faith gauge” is reading below ¼ tank. “Is the Christian life really supposed to be this hard? Is following Jesus really worth it?”
Forget yourself for a few minutes.
There is a bigger reality that you need to get a grip on. Join me on a quick journey into the past. I’d like to tell you a story, an unfinished story…a story you are part of.
The Story (let’s start…in the middle)
About the year AD 69, a group of Christians gathered secretly in the back room of a small house. A letter had come! They sat down and listened eagerly as one of their leaders began to read. If you had looked into their eyes, you would have seen worry and discouragement; maybe even doubts. They were facing persecution for their faith in the Messiah Jesus. Many of these men and women had been disowned by family and friends and publicly despised. Some had their property seized. Friends and leaders faced prison and even execution.
At first, they had accepted these persecutions with joy. But as the daily pressure carried on, and on, AND ON their faith began to grow weak. Their first excitement over their new life in Christ was now overshadowed by a nagging question…“Is following Jesus REALLY going to work out?”
Fast forward to the present
Over my years of ministry, I have looked into the eyes of many people: the eyes of Christian parents, children, singles, and the elderly. In some, I see hope, joy, and a sense of purpose. In others, I’ve seen the same kind of fear, discouragement, and doubts the 1st century Christians experienced. I’ve walked away asking, “Why the difference?”
I believe one of the major reasons why so many Christians struggle with these things comes back to this same question: Is following Jesus REALLY worth it?
Back to 69 A.D. and the letter
What was the letter? The Epistle to the Hebrews. A letter, written to convince these believers not to give up on their faith, but to keep on…because following Jesus IS truly worth it! The church leader who was writing knew that the faith of these persecuted Christians was going to have to be anchored deeply if they were going to survive the dark days of persecution ahead.
In Chapter 11 He gave them example after example of men and women who, in faith, saw God work powerfully on their behalf.
“By faith Abel…By faith Noah…Abraham…Moses…Gideon…David.” By faith in God they “…subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens….” (Hebrews 11:33-38)
What happened next?
Have you ever wished that the writer of Hebrews had kept writing and told more stories? I love Christian history! I’ve read story after story of how Jesus conquered through men and women of faith. These examples of faith have changed my life!”
So I decided to put these stories into a book so I could share them with children . . . and with you. It’s called Taking the World for Jesus. I trace God’s work through His people over the last 2000 years. From Judea to Rome, Ireland to Denmark, China to Japan, Uganda, New Zealand, and beyond, I sketch what nations were like before the Gospel, and how Jesus changed everything!
“And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.” (Daniel 2:44)
This happened! Watch this short video.
The Roman Empire? Gone. The Byzantine Empire? Gone. The Tang Dynasty? Gone. The Mongolian Empire? Gone. Stalin’s Communist Russia? Gone. The Kingdom of Jesus Christ? Taking over the entire world!
Read some of my favorite stories
Martin of Hungary (pp. 54-56): Preacher of the Gospel and Destroyer of Pagan Temples (Click to read)
Fourth Century Discipleship of the Nations in Gaul
Sometime around AD 330, a baby boy was born to a Roman officer occupying a fort in Pannonia, Hungary. His parents named him Martin, and he was himself inducted into the Roman army as a lad of fifteen years of age. Not long afterwards, he came to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. Several years later, Martin quit the military service and testified to his desire to be a “soldier of Christ.”
He was discipled by a pastor in Poitiers, France by the name of Hilary (ca. 300-368), but his training was cut short due to the persecutions leveled against true Christians on account of the Arian heresy that controlled the Empire at that time. Martin wandered about Europe, and returned to Hungary where he shared the Gospel with his mother who received the faith. During these early ministry years, he also established a discipleship center for young men on an island off Italy called Gallinara, and another near Poitiers. Around AD 372, he was installed as a pastor of the church in Tours, replacing the previous pastor, Lidorius who had passed away of late.
Throughout the remainder of his life (AD 372 – AD 397), Martin canvassed the pagan villages about North-central France preaching the Gospel and destroying heathen temples. His biographer, Severus (who had made personal acquaintance with Martin), describes one such exploit of this courageous missionary:
“But in a village which was named Leprosum, when he too wished to overthrow a temple which had acquired great wealth through the superstitious ideas entertained of its sanctity, a multitude of the heathen resisted him to such a degree that he was driven back not without bodily injury. He, therefore, withdrew to a place in the vicinity, and there for three days, clothed in sackcloth and ashes fasting and praying the whole time, he besought the Lord, that, as he had not been able to overthrow that temple by human effort, Divine power might be exerted to destroy it. Then two angels, with spears and shields after the manner of heavenly warriors, suddenly presented themselves to him, saying that they were sent by the Lord to put to flight the rustic multitude, and to furnish protection to Martin, lest, while the temple was being destroyed, any one should offer resistance. They told him therefore to return, and complete the blessed work which he had begun. Accordingly Martin returned to the village; and while the crowds of heathen looked on in perfect quiet as he razed the pagan temple even to the foundations, he also reduced all the altars and images to dust. At this sight the rustics, when they perceived that they had been so astounded and terrified by an intervention of the Divine will, that they might not be found fighting against the bishop, almost all believed in the Lord Jesus. They then began to cry out openly and to confess that the God of Martin ought to be worshiped, and that the idols should be despised, which were not able to help them.”
Martin’s work during these years was attended by supernatural interventions, not unlike what we find later in the life of John G. Paton on the heathen island of Tanna (in the 1870s). In one village, he was surrounded by an angry mob of natives, and his biographer describes the attack:
“When one of them, bolder than the rest, made an attack upon him with a drawn sword, Martin, throwing back his cloak, offered his bare neck to the assassin. Nor did the heathen delay to strike, but in the very act of lifting up his right arm, he fell to the ground on his back, and being overwhelmed by the fear of God, he entreated for pardon. Not unlike this was that other event which happened to Martin, that when a certain man had resolved to wound him with a knife as he was destroying some idols, at the very moment of fetching the blow, the weapon was struck out of his hands and disappeared.”
Martin’s preaching also had a powerful effect upon the villagers as Christ’s Gospel found roots in modern-day France. Severus records that, “His holy discourse that, the light of truth having been revealed to them, they themselves overthrew their own temples.”
When accosted by a highwayman intent on beating his brains out with a hammer, Martin simply preached the Word to him. We read from Severus, “Entering on a discourse concerning Evangelical truth, he preached the word of God to the robber. Why should I delay stating the result? The robber believed; and, after expressing his respect for Martin, he restored him to the way, entreating him to pray the Lord for him. That same robber was afterwards seen leading a religious life; so that, in fact, the narrative I have given above is based upon an account furnished by himself.”
Evidently, these were times when God in His all wise providence determined to bless with miracles, and several are recorded by Severus, writing on the life of Martin. While preaching in a certain village, a woman entered the crowd brought her dead son to the evangelist and asked him to restore her “only son” to her. We read, “When, in the sight of all, he had fallen on his knees, and then arose, after his prayer was finished, he restored to its mother the child brought back to life. Then, truly, the whole multitude, raising a shout to heaven, acknowledged Christ as God, and fairly began to rush in crowds to the knees of this blessed man, sincerely imploring that he would make them Christians.”
Martin lacked the formal education received by most of the pastors of the day. He dressed in rough clothing, refused wine and fancy foods, and treated missionary work as a military man might accept hardship in the field. Yet, this was the sort of man it took to take the Gospel into the hinterlands of Gaul in the 4th century. Martin ministered to the districts of Vienne, Bordeaux, Trier, and Chartres over his 27-year tour of duty.
Only 300 years after the resurrection of Christ, His Gospel was impacting the outer reaches of civilization, and the prophecies of the Old Testament were coming to pass.
“Sing to the Lord, bless His name; Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples. For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.” (Psalm 96:2-5)
Ireland
The Roman Empire never quite conquered Ireland. It was a far-off primitive country, whose natives were considered the ultimate barbarians. The Irish fought their wars without clothes, and their Druid priests kept busy sacrificing humans to the gods. The Roman historian Tacitus reports that when the Romans came upon the sacred groves of the Irish, they found the altars covered with human blood and body parts. You can imagine how terrified travelers must have been when approaching these islands. The pre-Christian Irish families were also very weak. Divorce was common and easy to obtain, and children were often raised in foster homes.
Reconstruction of an ancient Irish farmer’s hut
Yet God raised up a man whose work would radically transform the Irish. Raised in a village on the west coast of Britain, young Succat’s grandfather and father were active in the Christian church. His life changed abruptly at age sixteen, when a raiding party kidnapped him from his home and sold him into slavery across the sea in Ireland. For six years, Succat slaved away for his master in Mayo County on the west side of the island. During this time, he returned to the faith of his fathers, and he would pray to God a hundred times a day. Succat wrote this of his spiritual salvation, “[I] was converted with my whole heart to the Lord my God, who regarded my low estate, had pity on my youth and ignorance, and consoled me as a father consoles his children.”
One night he had a dream in which he heard a voice say, “You have fasted well—soon you will be going home.” Days later, he heard a voice say “your ship is ready,” and was given instructions on where to find it. Soon after, Succat escaped his captors and made his way across Ireland to a ship port where he found a ship headed back to his native Britain.
After returning home, he had another dream in which he received a call from Ireland to come back and “walk among us.” You can imagine what his parents must have thought when he broke the news to them that he planned to return to the land of the barbarians to which he had been taken as a slave.
Assuming a new name—Patrick—he returned to Ireland around AD 431. He followed another missionary named Palladius who would straightway abandon the mission. One ancient biographer writes that, “The wild men of Ireland would not listen to [Palladius’] preaching nor did he himself wish to remain here in this foreign land.” However, Patrick remained steadfast in the mission for the rest of his life, and God used him in a mighty way to bring the great light of the Gospel to this dark land.
The Church Glendalough, one of the oldest churches in Ireland still standing from the 6th century.
Although the details of Patrick’s great work in Ireland are a little hard to discern due to numerous far-fetched legends that have arisen over time, the effects of this Christian mission are clear and profound. Jesus Christ overcame the devil’s grasp on this barbarian world. Within one hundred years after Patrick’s death, there was hardly a trace of the Druids left. Patrick built hundreds of churches and baptized thousands into the Christian faith. By AD 613, the great Irish missionary Columbanus would write, “We Irish who live at the ends of the earth are followers of Saints Peter and Paul and all those who wrote the Scriptures under the direction of the Holy Spirit. We teach nothing beyond the truth revealed in the Gospels and by the Apostles.”
Patrick called himself a “hunter and fisherman of souls” in a little booklet he wrote called Confessions. During his ministry in Ireland, he was particularly concerned with eliminating the slave trade. He wrote an important letter to a slave-trader from Britain named Corocticus, rebuking him for participating in this evil business. The emancipation of slaves has always been important work of the Christian Church throughout the centuries.
From a document called “The First Synod of St. Patrick,” we find a good summary of the teachings and practices of the Irish Church from this collection of official church decisions originating in the early years:
- Pastor’s wives were to wear head coverings over their hair.
- Christians who murdered, or practiced witchcraft, or committed sexual sin like the pagans were encouraged to repent, and they could be restored to the church after a year’s time.
- Christians convicted of stealing were encouraged to repent, and they could be restored to the church after six months’ time.
- A pastor could buy a slave’s freedom, but he was not to deliver a slave by kidnapping.
- The churches were to sing from the Book of Psalms found in the Old Testament.
- A pastor who involved himself in armed combat with a pagan would be excommunicated (or removed from the Church).
To this day, Northern Ireland remains one of the very last Western countries that has not returned to infanticide or the killing of babies in their mother’s wombs. As of 2017, this nation has not offered official approval of gross sexual sin (and homosexual marriage) as most of the other Western nations have done. The Christian roots in Ireland run very deep. Much of this was due to the influence of Patrick, the great missionary who introduced the faith to these barbarians over 1,500 years ago.
The pioneering labors for Christ’s Church initiated by Patrick in Ireland had a far-reaching effect in the decades and centuries that followed his life. As representatives from Rome retreated from the British Isles, native-born Christians advanced the faith in this western corner of Europe. During a period when Rome was in steady decline, Celtic Christianity flourished.
The remains of Columcille’s Church in Donegal, Ireland
Biblical literacy also advanced, as numerous new learning centers were established in Ireland. These learning centers would then send forth bold missionaries to Scotland, Britain, and beyond, where yet more Christian centers were built for the further advancement of the Gospel.
Among the key distinctives that came to characterize the Celtic Church was independence from Rome. The Celtic pastors and leaders viewed Christ as the head of the Church, in contradistinction with the Bishop of Rome who would come to be seen as the earthly Head of the Church and vicar of Christ on earth.
The Celtic abbots also considered themselves as holding the position of presbyter or elder in the Church. Their monks were effectively disciples under the teaching abbot, and they were not required to take a vow of celibacy, as the Roman Catholic monks were. Though some Celtic presbyters chose to be celibate, many married and had children who accompanied them in their missionary endeavors. The Celtic Church also celebrated Easter on a different day than did the Roman Church.
While God saw fit to humble wayward Rome in the 5th century, He raised up a beacon of Gospel hope on this island of barbarians, a light that would continue to shine brightly for centuries to come.
Canada
Newfoundland and the Labrador Coast
There were several remarkable and fruitful elements to the Moravian missions, particularly evident in their mission to the Eskimos on the Labrador coast in the province of Newfoundland. They were humble and honest in their dealings, quickly winning the hearts of the natives. In 1763, a short, stocky missionary named Jens Haven made contact with the Eskimos and was warmly received. Dressed in Eskimo style, Jens looked a lot like the Labradorians. He promised honest trade and asked that they cease from murdering each other, a habit all too common at that time. He promised that he would tell them of the Creator who came to die Newfoundland and the Labrador Coast for their sins. On his second trip, Jens brought nine other missionaries with him and approval from the English governance to purchase 144,000 acres from the natives. This they did by contract, being sure that each head of household signed the agreement before they took possession of the land. They bought a boat and opened up trade with the Eskimos, and this helped them to be a self-supporting mission. The Moravian community was a ready-made church fellowship, that included two preachers (including Jens Haven), one doctor, seven carpenters (to build houses), and three ladies who could cook and sew for the party.
Eskimos in Canada Engraving from 1818
The work in Labrador was slow, however. For almost twenty-five years the missionaries worked for only 102 professing converts, most of whom turned out to be false. After many years, they discovered that the Eskimos were kept under the iron hand of the chieftain, a high priest named Tuglavina. The natives lived in fear of this man who murdered them at will and forced them into sexual sin and drunkenness. Sometimes he would lead the new converts back into sin, and at other times he would just murder them. Tuglavina was the only mediator to their god, so the Eskimos were greatly beholden to him. For a long time, he deceived the Moravian brethren. Moreover, the missionaries eventually discovered that the Eskimos were given to the sin of sodomy (homosexuality, such as was practiced at Sodom in Genesis 19). This too became a hindrance to the reception of the Gospel, according to these early Moravian missionaries.
At last God, who is powerful over all evil, intervened in this terrible state of darkness, deceit, and bondage. Tuglavina himself was saved, and became an evangelist for the Gospel of Jesus Christ! In 1804, there was a revival among these Eskimos similar to the one first experienced by the disciples at Pentecost. Other of the pagan priests, who were called “angekoks,” were saved. Thousands were converted in this great awakening brought by the Holy Spirit of God in Newfoundland, forty-one years after Jens Haven first made contact with the people.
The Boxer Rebellion
At the turn of the 20th century, the missionary movement in China claimed 80,000 communicant members and a half a million adherents, with a total of 1,500 missionaries, husbands and wives included. That is when the dragon flicked his tail, and the persecutions began.
Political and popular attitudes towards foreigners in China turned sour between 1890 and 1900, and the missionaries were not exempted from the push back. The resistance movement started with an organization called the “I Ho Ch’uan,” or the “Righteous Harmony Fists,” a secret society that promoted spirit possession (or what we would call “demon possession”) as their primary religious practice. The group boasted of supernatural invulnerability to knives, gun shots, and cannon shot. On November 1, 1897, representatives of this secret society burst into a home of a German missionary, killing two Christians. Leading the Chinese government at the time was the Empress Dowager, Cixi, and as tensions increased between nations over these initial acts of violence, she was stirred up to support the violence against the foreigners. On June 24, 1900, Cixi issued the imperial decree ordering the killing of all foreigners. At least 188 missionaries died in the massacre, including 53 children.
Boxer Warriors claimed supernatural spiritual possession
Especially egregious was the massacre conducted by Governor Yu Hsien in Shansi district where 44 Christian missionaries lost their lives. The details of the martyrdoms of Thomas and Jessie Pigott and their twelve-year-old son Wellesley are worth recounting. Here was a family of great faith who came to a glorious and noble ending together. Arrested by the authorities, Thomas Pigott preached his way from his mission at Shou Yang to Tai Yuan, his wife and son in company. At one point, one bystander warned him, “You are to be killed for preaching, and yet go on doing so!” Detained in the prison in Tai Yuan, Jessie Pigott continued witnessing to a woman accused of murdering her husband, “telling her about Jesus.” In their last moments, as they stood stripped to their waists before the Chinese Nero, Yu Hsien, Thomas “preached to the people till the very last, when he was beheaded with one blow. . . Mrs. Pigott held the hand of her son, even when she was beheaded, and he was killed immediately after her.” Young Wellesley had written hopefully to relatives in England, “We can’t be martyrs in England, but my father and mother and I might be in China.” His aspirations were met in the end.
Thirty-year-old Edith Anna Coombs of Edinburgh operated the mission girls school in Tai Yuan. When the Boxers surrounded the compound, she attempted an escape carrying a lame girl with her. She stumbled and the mob attacked. Edith threw her body over the crippled student, and whispered into her ear, “Don’t be afraid, we shall soon be where there is no more pain or sorrow. We shall soon see Jesus.” She begged the crowd to spare the girl’s life. They complied, and then they threw Edith into the bonfire, where she prayed until she saw Jesus. Historian and Journalist Nat Brandt called the Shansi massacre, “the greatest single tragedy in the history of Christian evangelicalism.”
Foreign powers eventually crushed the ill-conceived revolution, and demanded reparations of the Chinese. But Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission refused to receive any compensation from the people they served, so as to demonstrate for the Chinese people the meekness and gentleness of Christ.
By God’s good providence, these cruel machinations of the Evil One backfired. In the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion, the Chinese people became even more receptive to the Gospel and the numbers of missionaries increased four-fold by 1920. However, the dragon could not be content with this expansion of the Kingdom of Christ into China, and he would respond with even more vehemence during the latter half of the 20th century.
Reaching Darkest Fiji with the Light of the Gospel
Of all the dark places on earth, Fiji may very well have been the darkest of all. When the Methodist mission workers, John and Mary Hunt, arrived in AD 1838, not many would have risked approaching these islands. Fijian Chief Ratu Udre Udre boasted that he had eaten 900 humans. According to one estimate, twothirds of all of the children born on Fiji were eaten before the Gospel arrived on these shores. Also, aged parents were killed and eaten by their own children. This was the state of affairs in the South Pacific before the missionaries came.
At first, John Hunt’s preaching produced little visible effect. The local king threatened him when he refused to endorse the pagan cannibalism. He ordered cannibal sacrifices made in front of the mission station. And sixteen women were slaughtered at one time and were buried just sixty feet away from the Hunt’s home. The evil seemed to be closing in upon the missionaries during the first few years of the work. Hunt described the islanders as stronger, prouder, more intelligent, and therefore more adept at their perversions than other islanders.
Fijian houses in the village of Navala
Seven years after their first contact with the islands, a tremendous event occurred that shall never be forgotten. John Hunt spoke for a while at an evangelistic meeting in the village, and then he turned it over to one of the very first converts, a gentle old man who prayed. That was when everything changed on Fiji. John Hunt’s biographer, George Rowe, records what happened:
“The Spirit of life moved upon those prostrate hearts. There was a general heaving, and then a sound of quiet weeping and emotion that could hardly be repressed. Neither could it be checked long. A deep groan burst out, and a bitter cry answered it; and one after another sobbed, and called on Jesus for mercy, until many voices joined in prayer and weeping before God. . . . The meeting closed early, but the work went on. The penitents went to weep at home, and continued all night in prayer. And now the ingathering began, and God’s servants rejoiced before him ‘according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.’
“For several days ordinary business was almost suspended. . . and from the chief ’s house most of all, could be heard far off the sound of those who mourned and cried for mercy, mingling with the songs of those who rejoiced in the Lord. . . . ‘Righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost’ followed this agony of soul.”
Mr. Hunt commented in his journals on the impact this movement of the Holy Spirit had upon the people:
“There was nothing silly or wild in what they said; indeed, we were astonished at the manner in which they expressed themselves, both in prayer and praise, and in their exhortations to others, after they found peace. Generally, after they obtained the favor of God and became a little calm, they would begin to exhort those about them with amazing power and fluency. . . . Some of the cases were the most remarkable I have ever seen, heard of, or read of; yet only such as one might expect the conversion of such dreadful murderers and cannibals would be.”
In the first public worship services, the excitement continued. Rowe relates:
“Tears of joy or sorrow flowed everywhere, the preacher and people sometimes joining together in overwhelming emotion. . . . dark faces quivered with joy as they answered one another in that heathen land, saying, ‘We praise thee, O God! We acknowledge thee to be the Lord.’ But when they reached the words, ‘Thou art the king of glory, O Christ!’ voices failed; and streaming eyes, and broken cries of ‘Jesu! Jesu!’ lifted a more eloquent praise to God.”
During that first week, nearly one hundred persons professed faith, and the happiness was indescribable. What used to be a hell on earth had become something closer to heaven on earth. Rivers of living water flowed in Fiji. John Hunt could only ascribe the work to the power of God:
“[This] is the way of saving souls which lays the pride of man in the dust. We like to have souls saved in connection with the gradual use of means so that we can philosophically trace the event to its cause. But the blessed God goes out of our ordinary way, pours contempt on our philosophy, and by means we should never have thought of, accomplishes his own purposes. So be it, blessed Savior! . . . We. . . hail the day which has dawned upon us, the day of His power.”
This we discover to be yet another day of Pentecost on this far off island in the Pacific. At least three thousand natives were saved and continued in the faith. John Hunt labored for ten years, and at 36 years of age went to be with the Lord. Hunt’s last words included this poignant testimony: “Lord, bless Fiji! Save Fiji. Thou knowest my soul has loved Fiji!” Before he died, the young missionary had translated the New Testament into the Fijian language, laying the foundation for further Gospel outreach.
John Hunt’s dying prayers were answered. His close compatriot, James Calvert, continued the work in Fiji. In the providence of God, the islands were unified under King Seru Epenisa Cakobau who was profoundly impacted by the Gospel preaching of Calvert. In AD 1854, the king was radically converted, he renounced polygamy and cannibalism, and he openly submitted to the rule of Jesus Christ—a glorious example of the transformation that comes through Christ’s conquering Gospel.
“The kings of Tarshish and of the isles will bring presents; The kings of Sheba and Seba will offer gifts. Yes, all kings shall fall down before Him; All nations shall serve Him.” (Ps. 72:10-11)
My prayer for this book
My prayer is that Taking the World for Jesus will help you:
- See God’s power at work in history right now: While we see the kingdoms of men rising and falling, the kingdom of Jesus Christ is forever. That will change your perspective on the news, won’t it?!
- Strengthen your faith: If God has been taking ordinary, sinful men and women over the last 2000 years and using them to change nations, don’t you think He can empower you to live a faith-filled life yourself?
- Gain purpose in what you are doing right now: In Taking the World for Jesus, you’ll read stories of how God used the faithfulness of men and women in often unglamorous work, to accomplish incredible things for His kingdom (read Jens Haven’s story).
- Overcome pessimism and discouragement with hope: You can’t read a 2000-year history of what God has done, and not come away with a deep sense of hope.
- Conquer sin: You will see how your sins, the sins that so many others have committed before you, have already been conquered by the death and resurrection of Christ.
- Pass on the faith to your children: This book is not only a great read-aloud, but it’s full of encouraging stories to strengthen your family and inspire them to live for Christ.
Order a copy of Taking the World for Jesus
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Use Taking the World for Jesus and Adventures of Missionary Heroism as part of your homeschool or Christian school history curriculum. This one-year course places the Lord Jesus Christ squarely at the center of human history, covering every century from AD 33 to the present. Recommended for 7th-9th grade level, or family, church group, and Sunday Schools.
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The story isn’t over
The apostle writing to the Hebrews in A.D. 69 wound up his letter by calling them to live in a bigger reality:
“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)
Your part in the story
You are being watched. The “great cloud of witnesses, the men and women who “took the world for Jesus” are watching. Your children are watching. The unsaved are watching. Your fellow Christians are watching. The hosts of angels, Satan, and his demons…they’re all watching as your Heavenly Father and your Lord Jesus unfold their master plan THROUGH YOUR LIFE!
I’m encouraging you to order a copy of Taking the World for Jesus. Read it. Etch these stories into your soul, teach them to your children, and run your race in faith. Run your race so that you can join the heroes, the “great cloud of witnesses” cheering on those who have yet to run!
The kingdom of Jesus Christ will conquer all kingdoms and will stand forever. Stay true to the winning team!
For Christ and His kingdom,
Kevin Swanson
Kevin Swanson
Director at Generations
Homeschooled himself in the 1960’s and 70’s, Kevin Swanson and his wife, Brenda, are now homeschooling their five children. Since graduating from his homeschool, he has gone on to other leadership positions in corporate management, church, and various non-profits. Kevin has 43 years of experience in the homeschooling movement and serves as the Director of Generations – a ministry he founded to strengthen homeschool families around the country. As a father who wants to leave a godly heritage for his own five children, Kevin’s passion is to strengthen and encourage the homeschooling movement all over the world, and to cast a vision for generations to come.
