Stay Signed In
Do you want to access your site more quickly on this computer? Check this box, and your username and password will be remembered for two weeks. Click logout to turn this off.
Stay Safe
Do not check this box if you are using a public computer. You don't want anyone seeing your personal info or messing with your site.
Daniel 11:32
And such as violate the covenant he shall pervert and seduce with flatteries, but the people who know their God shall prove themselves strong and shall stand firm and do exploits [for God].
On this page, we are going to be studying some of the great men and women of God throughout history, who have done great exploits for God.
Earnestly Contending
Stories of Great Christians
Click picture Below
Dwight Moody
The Empowered Life
Dwight Moody was one of history's most influential and effective servants of God.
It is estimated that during Moody's lifetime, he traveled more than one million miles, spoke to more than 100 million people, and led hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Presidents Lincoln and Grant both attended his famous revival services. At the Chicago World's Exhibition in 1893, more than 130,000 people attended Moody's revival services in a single day.
Moody's zeal for Christ was not limited to preaching and teaching, though that was always his primary love. He founded educational institutions - the Northfield school for boys and girls that continue operating today and the Chicago Evangelism Society, later named the Moody Bible Institute.
Moody's tireless efforts also were catalyst for several Christian publishing ventures, one of which bears his name - Moody Publishing.
From an early age, Moody was a hard working entrepreneur. At age seventeen, he left his small home town for metropolitan Boston where he worked as a shoe salesman at his uncle's store. He was saved at eighteen through the influence of his Sunday school teacher.
Within a year, he moved to Chicago with a goal to earn $100,000. During the next four years, his industriousness and business sense helped him save the handsome sum of $7,000.
However, by age twenty-three Moody was led by Christ to minister to the poor Scandinavian and German immigrants in the inner city. Soon he left business completely to devote his life to Christ's service.
He used lecture halls and theaters as his pulpits, crossing over stubborn denominational lines. He was able to reach the masses who otherwise would not visit a church or listen to the claims of the gospel. His popularity grew quickly.
Discovering The Spirit's Power
Despite Moody's success in the ministry, he felt a pressing need to know more of the Holy Spirit's empowerment. Three events changed his life and preaching.
The first occurred in New York where he was invited to address a small Sunday school. As he got into his carriage to leave for yet another meeting, an elderly gentleman approached him with these words: "Young man, when you speak again, honor the Holy Ghost."
The second involved two godly women who attended Moody's services in Chicago.
"When I began to preach, I could tell by the expression of their faces they were praying for me," Moody later recalled. "At the close of the Sabbath evening services they would say to me, 'We have been praying for you.' I said, 'Why don't you pray for the people?' They answered. 'You need power,' 'I need power,' I said to myself. 'Why? I thought I had power.'"
Those incidents left Moody with a great hunger for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. After the Chicago fire that destroyed Moody's lecture hall and several institutions he had founded, he traveled to New York to raise funds for rebuilding. God had something else in mind.
"My heart was not in the work of begging," Moody recollected. "I could not appeal. I was crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York (on Wall Street) - oh, what a day! I cannot describe it. I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand."
"I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world - it would be as dust in the balance." The Spirit-Filled Life
The apostle Paul wrote: "be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18). He encouraged the Galatians to "walk by the Spirit" and bear the "fruit of the Spirit" (Galatians 5:16,22). He told the Corinthians that wisdom of God was available only through the Spirit of God. (1 Corinthians 2:6-16) Jesus told the disciples not to begin their ministry until they received power, "when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:8).
The believer has the full residence of the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit came not just to regenerate you but to restore your soul, renew your mind, and refresh your spirit.
The Holy Spirit desires to influence all you think, do, and say with the wisdom and power of God. He is your power source; and without Him, you can do nothing of eternal value.
The Greek tense Paul used with the Ephesians means to "always be being filled with the Holy Spirit." It is a conscious act of daily dependence upon the Spirit and a firm rejection to rely solely on your own ability.
Humbly ask God to daily fill you with His Spirit, and then thank Him for it. He will do it. And like Moody
In Touch Ministries
Great Christians
Click Picture Below
Wholesome words
Christian Bios of Great Christians
Click Picture Below
Life Examples
Dawson Trotman
The Discipled Life
The Reverend Billy Graham preached the funeral of Dawson Trotman in 1956 after Trotman died while rescuing a swimmer at an upstate New York lake.
I think Dawson Trotman has personally touched more lives [for Christ's sake] than anybody that I have ever known," Graham said.
Graham knew Trotman and the ministry he founded—The Navigators—quite well, using material Trotman developed as follow-up instruction for his crusades.
The Navigators' influence has since grown to worldwide proportions with about 3,600 staff representing 60 nationalities working in 101 countries.
Trotman founded The Navigators in 1934. He originated its Bible teaching material and led it through its formative years as it expanded from an initial emphasis on discipling military personnel to reaching college students and laymen.
At the heart of Trotman and the ministry he founded was and is the discipleship of believers—grounding Christians in the spiritual disciplines of prayer, worship, Bible study, and service.
The Conversion
Trotman's high school years featured impressive credentials. He was class valedictorian, student body president, chairman of the student council, and captain of the basketball team.
However, the next several years saw Trotman's life drift dangerously. He gambled. He drank. He became a noted pool shark. However, a late night encounter with a local policeman was the catalyst for a spiritual encounter with Jesus Christ.
Drunk and unable to find his car, Trotman was arrested at an amusement park. Fortunately, the officer saw a deeper problem than alcohol.
"Son, do you like this kind of life?" the officer questioned. "Sir, I hate it," Trotman replied. The policeman returned Trotman's keys and encouraged him to change his lifestyle.
Two days later, Trotman attended a youth gathering at a local church where contests were conducted for Scripture memorization.
Given ten verses on salvation, Trotman was the only person in the group who memorized them for the next week's meeting. Given ten more verses to memorize on spiritual growth for the next week, Trotman quickly grasped them as well.
Several weeks later, one of the Scripture verses on salvation flashed through his mind. And it was then that he asked for Christ to change his life. "Oh God," he said, "whatever it means to receive Jesus, I want to do it right now."
The Beginning Of Ministry
Trotman spent the next several years engaging in intensive personal evangelism while committing himself to a disciplined life of prayer. As usual, his focus was on the intake and absorption of God's Word.
In 1934, Trotman was asked to visit a sailor, Les Spencer, and share God's Word with him. Betty Skinner, the author of Trotman's biography Daws, described the scene: "Parked by a schoolhouse, they were pouring over the Scriptures when a security guard approached and asked what they were doing. 'Reading the Bible,' Trotman answered and seized the opportunity to witness . . . Dawson turned from one passage to another to explain the Gospel and answer all the defenses of the hapless guard.
"On the way back to the landing [Spencer] said, 'Boy, I'd give my right arm to know how to use the Word like that.'
It marked the beginning of The Navigators ministry, so named for its nautical origins. Spencer led another to Christ who in turn led still others to salvation. The discipleship ministry of The Navigators was birthed, and the process of winning and discipling men and women for Christ continues throughout the world today.
Memorization And Meditation
Trotman's conversion experience centered on memorization and meditation on God's Word. He was a discipler of men because he himself was first discipled by God through the Scriptures. His emphasis on memorizing Scriptures, arranged on topical themes, continues to be part of the core curriculum of The Navigators today.
Memorization was not approached in legalistic fashion by Trotman, who understood that God's Spirit must create the desire and will to mine the treasures of His Word.
Regular Scripture memorization and meditation are fundamental to experiencing an abundant Christian life. The psalmist "treasured" God's Word in his heart (Psalm 119:11) and meditated on the Scriptures "day and night." (Psalm 1:2)
As you write God's Word on the tablet of your heart, you will find your mind renewed and ready to face temptations, challenges, and adversity from God's perspective of truth.
It is truth that sets you free; and the more Scripture you store in your heart, the more like Christ you will become.
Graham summed up Trotman's life this way: "Dawson loved the Word of God. I think more than anybody else he taught me to love it. He always carried his Bible around and always had it marked. The Word of God was sweetness to him."
John Harper was born to a pair of solid Christian parents on May 29th, 1872. It was on the last Sunday of March 1886, when he was thirteen years old that he received Jesus as the Lord of his life. He never knew what it was to "sow his wild oats." He began to preach about four years later at the ripe old age of 17 years old by going down to the streets of his village and pouring out his soul in earnest entreaty for men to be reconciled to God.
As John Harper's life unfolded, one thing was apparent...he was consumed by the word of God. When asked by various ministers what his doctrine consisted of, he was known to reply "The Word of God!" After five or six years of toiling on street corners preaching the gospel and working in the mill during the day, Harper was taken in by Rev. E. A. Carter of Baptist Pioneer Mission in London, England. This set Harper free to devote his whole time of energy to the work so dear to his heart. Soon, John Harper started his own church in September of 1896. (Now known as the Harper Memorial Church.) This church which John Harper had started with just 25 members, had grown to over 500 members when he left 13 years later. During this time he had gotten married, but was shortly thereafter widowed. However brief the marriage, God did bless John Harper with a beautiful little girl named Nana.
Ironically, John Harper almost drowned several times during his life. When he was two and a half years of age, he almost drowned when he fell into a well but was resuscitated by his mother. At the age of twenty-six, he was swept out to sea by a reverse current and barely survived, and at thirty-two he faced death on a leaking ship in the Mediterranean. Perhaps, God used these experiences to prepare this servant for what he faced next...
It was the night of April 14, 1912. The RMS Titanic sailed swiftly on the bitterly cold ocean waters heading unknowingly into the pages of history. On board this luxurious ocean liner were many rich and famous people. At the time of the ship's launch, it was the world's largest man-made moveable object. At 11:40 p.m. on that fateful night, an iceberg scraped the ship's starboard side, showering the decks with ice and ripping open six watertight compartments. The sea poured in.
On board the ship that night was John Harper and his much-beloved six-year-old daughter Nana. According to documented reports, as soon as it was apparent that the ship was going to sink, John Harper immediately took his daughter to a lifeboat. It is reasonable to assume that this widowed preacher could have easily gotten on board this boat to safety; however, it never seems to have crossed his mind. He bent down and kissed his precious little girl; looking into her eyes he told her that she would see him again someday. The flares going off in the dark sky above reflected the tears on his face as he turned and headed towards the crowd of desperate humanity on the sinking ocean liner.
As the rear of the huge ship began to lurch upwards, it was reported that Harper was seen making his way up the deck yelling, "Women, children and unsaved into the lifeboats!" It was only minutes later that the Titanic began to rumble deep within. Most people thought it was an explosion; actually the gargantuan ship was literally breaking in half. At this point, many people jumped off the decks and into the icy, dark waters below. John Harper was one of these people.
That night 1528 people went into the frigid waters. John Harper was seen swimming frantically to people in the water leading them to Jesus before the hypothermia became fatal. Mr. Harper swam up to one young man who had climbed up on a piece of debris. Rev. Harper asked him between breaths, "Are you saved?" The young man replied that he was not.
Harper then tried to lead him to Christ only to have the young man who was near shock, reply no. John Harper then took off his life jacket and threw it to the man and said, "Here then, you need this more than I do..." and swam away to other people. A few minutes later Harper swam back to the young man and succeeded in leading him to salvation. Of the 1528 people that went into the water that night, six were rescued by the lifeboats. One of them was this young man on the debris.
Four years later, at a survivors meeting, this young man stood up and in tears recounted how that after John Harper had led him to Christ. Mr. Harper had tried to swim back to help other people,yet because of the intense cold, had grown too weak to swim. His last words before going under in the frigid waters were, "Believe on the Name of the Lord Jesus and you will be saved." Does Hollywood remember this man? No. Oh well, no matter. This servant of God did what he had to do. While other people were trying to buy their way onto the lifeboats and selfishly trying to save their own lives, John Harper gave up his life so that others could be saved.
"Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends..." John Harper was truly the hero of the Titanic!
Author Unknown. Sources for this article: "The Titanic's Last Hero" by Moody Press 1997," John Climie, George Harper, & Bill Guthrie from "Jesus Our Jubilee Ministries" in Dallas, Oregon
Home Page
