New Years greetings from the Fredericks! In reading your Christmas newsletters we saw anew the struggle and pain so evident throughout the Body of Christ. We pray 1996 will be a year of recovery of all that has been lost, a year of God's favor and healing presence a year of His glory. How badly we need Him!

Some dear friends from Gospel for Asia gave me permission to share this amazing account of a national missionary Brother Issako who works in Andhra Pradesh in India. "I am working in the hilly and jungle areas. Here there are no medical facilities. Tribals do not go to hospitals, which are very far from here. Often epidemic diseases like cholera, malaria and tuberculosis spread over all the villages. If any become sick, they depend upon witch doctors or sorcerers. When they hear about the great Healer, Jesus, many come to me for prayer. My gracious Lord always heals their sickness through my prayer. When I started the ministry here, they refused to hear the gospel. But seeing the mighty power of Jesus by healing the sick, they are listening with interest to the Lord's Word.

"One day a woman was suffering with labor pain. But due to the influence of evil spirits, she became unconscious. The villagers were much worried about the mother and the baby. They approached a witch doctor, but he could not do anything. At last they came to me and begged me to do something. I went with them and prayed for her in Jesus' name, and gave them oil to anoint her body. As I prayed for her, the devils left her. Soon she gave birth to a baby boy. All the villagers jumped up with joy, and they realized the power of Jesus. The whole family committed their lives to Christ, and this also led 10 other families to the Lord. Thus these illiterate tribals were touched by the powerful hand of God."

Like Brother Issako we have found it is not enough to speak the truth we must be a living demonstration of it! I believe we are about to see God glorified in ways we've never experienced in our day. I want to be ready and I know you do too. Christmas reminded us that God gave His greatest gift in His Son Jesus. Yet, in John 17:24 Jesus called us God's love gift to Him and expressed His desire for us to see His glory. I started writing this letter about something else but God completely redirected me to share some things He'd opened up to me about His glory back in 1993 to encourage and challenge you about what is coming.

God impressed on me that while Jesus' death was to make us sons, His resurrection was to bring sons to glory. He said we would do the works He did and even greater because He goes to the Father. (John 14:12) We would lay hands on the sick and they would recover (Mark 16:18), we would ask anything in His Name and He would do it so that the Father would be glorified in the Son. (John 14:13)

To be ready for this, there are some things it is very important to understand. We do not rob God of His glory by doing His works but by our failure to believe Him to do His works through us. Jesus said, "I am glorified in and through them they have done Me honor, in them My glory is achieved." (John 17:10) Most men are aware of pride thinking self can do it or taking credit for what God does as an act of self. Actually this is not robbing Him of his glory as we often think, so much as it is losing one's own reward. But what most men fail to recognize is "false" humility which keeps God from manifesting His glory through us at all. This is really inverted pride. Its focus is also self it sees it's own weakness as greater than God's strength and therefore produces a blocked channel. We must be free of this by understanding God's purpose for us in Christ Jesus.

When He rose, He left us His Name, the keys to the Kingdom, His authority and His Spirit. He was to be multiplied on earth through His death and resurrection because the same anointing that was on Him was to be on us. He performed many signs and wonders through the hands of the apostles. No, we must never worship men, but God dwells in man in all His fullness (Eph. 1:23) and to expect anything less than His works through us is to focus on ourselves, not Him. If we truly die to self, our expectation is of Him alone our frailty is nothing. We are meant to be vessels to contain His glory and to do great exploits, not for our own fame, but to prove His resurrection and that His Spirit is in us. It is not robbing Him, but proving Him to be all He said He is. This is true humility.

That the works of God are done through men is perhaps the greatest manifestation of His glory. Jesus always came with demonstration and power telling men that everything He said and did was not of His own accord but from the Father Who lives continually in Him and does the works. He urged men to believe, if not by what He said, then for the works themselves. (John 14:10 11) And He told us "Just as the Father has sent Me forth, so I am sending you". (John 20:21) This was to be accomplished through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Our hands were to become His Hands extended. Yes, God intended to be seen and known in us that is His glory. Satan fears this more than anything. No wonder he makes us think we will rob God of His glory if we do this or takes away our expectation of what God will do through us these are lies and we must cast them down and honor the Lord.

And so our prayer for 1996 is for God to motivate, equip and send us forth to do His works that men may see His glory in our day. Bring recovery Lord to your church in America. Free us from our bondage that we may be free to do the same for others in Your Name. Let us be like Jesus in this ever darkening world so that just like Him because of the works we do, they will know You have sent us! Let it be Lord for the sake of Your Kingdom. Amen. God bless you we love you!