By: Laurina Driesse

Just outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls is the beautiful and very tranquil Garden Tomb.

Leading us into the sweet presence of the Lord were anointed Worship leaders Trevor Sampson, from South Africa, the Sounds of the Nations coming from Fiji, plus Saeid Miryaghoobi and Peyman Mojtahedi, two Iranian-born worship leaders performing in Persian. Meanwhile, Communion was shared by Arab pastor Naim Khoury from Bethlehem and Jewish pastor Avraham Ben Hod from Israel.

As our Feast pilgrims gathered around the visibly empty tomb, our hearts were fully focused on the Lord’s crucifixion, death, burial, and powerful resurrection as we partook of the Communion elements, who gave insights into living a holy life and the symbolism of the bread and wine.

The morning’s message was given by Andrew Brunson from the USA. He is a pastor who was living and ministering in Turkey for 23 years. His ministry is focused on the Muslim world, the persecuted Church and preparing believers to stand in difficult times. He spoke on his sufferings and struggles while imprisoned for two years in Turkey under false charges of terrorism, when in reality he was jailed for sharing the Gospel with the Turkish people.

In 2007 he prayed a prayer that would change his life. ‘Father God, draw me so close to your heart that you will be able to trust me with the authority to start waves.’ This prayer eventually led him on the path to prison but was also the prayer that prepared him to stand under the pressures of being imprisoned.

As he continued to pray this prayer, his focus was on the first part of the prayer ‘draw me so close to your heart’.  “There began a different kind of pursuit, a much more intense pursuit. We started to pursue intimacy in a new way, to go after God’s presence,” shared Andrew. “’Make us hungry, make us thirsty for your presence.’ Then He did it. We started to long for His presence. It is the running after Him that shapes us,” he continued.

Andrew Brunson explained how in the first year of imprisonment, he was very broken: “I became suicidal, I broke emotionally, spiritually. I went into a great spiritual crisis with God and I almost failed.” He shared how he believed that at his lowest point, God knew that he would still turn towards Him and run not away from Him. “I would still turn my eyes toward Him, and not away. Even in confusion, even in my disappointment with Him, and He knew this because of my pursuit of His heart over the years, because of the love that had grown, so rooted inside of me for Him,” said Andrew.

“Love fuels endurance. Love fuels perseverance. It is what makes us willing to take risks. To undergo hardship. To carry heavy burdens. Love doesn’t quit. Love drives you on,” Andrew added.

He also encouraged the Feast pilgrims to determine to be ‘lovers of God’; people who will choose to run after His heart. He recounted how this love for God fueled his faithfulness toward Him in prison.

He also shared how he was eventually allowed to have a Bible in prison, and as he was reading Philippians, he received deep revelation from the passage where Paul encourages us to look out for not only your own interests, but those of others, and especially of Jesus (see Philippians 2:3-11).

Reading the verses with tears, he recognized that this is how he was reacting to being in prison. “I’m looking out for my own interest, not thinking to the interest of Jesus. My interests are ‘I want to be with my wife and children’…. But what if the interest of Jesus is best served by my remaining here in prison,” shared Andrew.

He realised what victory would look like for him and began to fight his battle of daily surrender. “God, I don’t want to be in prison. I cannot embrace being in prison, but I can embrace serving your purposes, serving your interests and if it best serves your interests for me to remain here, then I say I’m willing to stay. But then give me the strength, so that I can endure and be faithful because I am too weak but I’m willing,” explained Andrew.

He shared how for many months he could not worship. He tried to sing and declare “Great is your faithfulness”, but struggled with expressing these words as he often felt that God had not been faithful to him and had abandoned him, leaving his heart crushed.  

But God began rebuilding Andrew in the second year.

Despite his discouragement, he became determined to worship and began setting time aside each day. “This worship was very precious to God, because it was a declaration of my love for Him, even in my confusion and in the darkness,” Andrew noted that these times of worship became the sweetest times for him. “Loving Him, even though I didn’t sense His presence or see His love for me,” he explained.

He recalled how in the second year, he also disciplined himself to dance before the Lord as an act of joy, despite not always feeling joyful. He recalled how Jesus commanded us to rejoice when we are suffering because of Him, so Andrew began to praise the Lord with dancing and in doing so he expressed: “I rejoice because I’m suffering for you. I rejoice because I’m in prison for you. I rejoice because I’m separated from my family.” It was his love for the Lord that drove him to do this, to obey His commandments.

“I discovered that there is an intimacy that only comes with testing, an intimacy that only comes with hardship and suffering,” expressed Andrew. “I came out of that terrible ordeal with a deeper intimacy, a stronger intimacy, a different kind of intimacy than I had before…. I would call it confident intimacy. There’s a level of confidence that comes because I proved my love, because I was faithful in hardship. It is not a boastful confidence that I’m unbreakable, because I am very aware that I can break again. God trusted me with a difficult assignment and now I know He can trust me at a different level.”    

In the evening, Pastor Stephen Mirpuri from the Philippines led a special Healing Service where God’s powerful anointing was present for miracles and those needing a special touch from the Lord.  

We do hope that you are enjoying our special Feast Gallery which is updated daily with colorful photos and the highlight videos of the Feast. Visit feastgallery.icej.org

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