God’s Operation Needs Man’s Cooperation (sharing from 2024 EYPC)

This year was my first time attending the Poland Young People’s Conference, and it was the best conference that I have been to so far.

If I’m being honest, before going I was very unsure if I wanted to go or not as there were not a lot of people from my locality going, but praise the Lord I did go as this conference has really unveiled my face and opened my eyes to see the lord.

It was peaceful living in Male Ciche and also very encouraging to see hundreds of young people from all over the world who came to pursue the Lord with an open heart.

This was such a surreal place to be as all kinds of people with different backgrounds and ethnicities all came to a small village in Poland to just enjoy the Lord.

I believe that if you have the opportunity to attend the Poland conference as a YP, serving one or a parent you should definitely attend as it is a great place to redeem the time.

The topic for the week was about salvation, and the messages were split into two sections: The four pillars in the Lord’s recovery – truth, life, the church, and the gospel and crucial aspects of God’s economy portrayed in Exodus.

I really enjoyed the messages about the Truth and one of my favourite points throughout all the messages is that the Truth sets us free.

John 8:32 says “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”.

Praise the Lord that we can know the truth. In one of the messages there was a picture created about how the world is Egypt, satan is pharaoh and we are like the people of Israel.

Despite the events of Egypt and Pharaoh enslaving the people of Israel happening thousands of years ago, it is clear to see that in the world situation today we are still very much in Egypt under the world’s enslavement.

However in the world today it is much worse as there are so many things we are enslaved to and some we may not even know we are slaves to. For many, they are slaves to their phone, friends and their own minds.

Personally, one thing that I have been a slave to for a while is basketball, and although I’ve known this I haven’t been willing to accept it because I love it too much.

However I have realised, that basketball has so much control over me to the point where it can control my thoughts, emotions and will for the day, even for the week. In turn, this really affected my time with the lord.

Although there is nothing wrong with playing basketball itself and there may be nothing wrong with the things that you love, we should never allow it to get to a point where it has full control of our mind and body, because at that point you are fully under Satan’s usurpation.

This is why we need the truth above all things, this is the only thing that can set us free from our enslavement. Praise the Lord that He is the truth and his word is Truth. His truth comforts us and can satisfy all our needs and give us rest from the world. In this case, Colossians 1:11-14 was very encouraging.

Another point I enjoyed was that God is calling the prepared ones and that God’s operation needs man’s cooperation.

Firstly we need to be able to understand what God’s operation is, then We need to be those who are willing to cooperate with the Lord.

I came to realise that God’s operation actually does not require us to do anything out of the ordinary, but the only thing the Lord wants is our time, that we may give some time to build a personal, affectionate and loving relationship with him.

Through this relationship with Him, the Lord can use us and reveal to us what is on His heart, and in that way, we can cooperate with Him.

A story from the bible that I am always touched by was shared in this message.

That is the story of the woman who had a severe disease that touched the Lord’s garment amongst a crowd of people leaning on the Lord, but only she received the Lord’s power and was cured from her disease.

This story always reminds me that we do not want to be those carelessly leaning on the lord and disregarding him as a person, but we should understand that the Lord is a living person seeking nothing more than a personal relationship and that even though he is not alive in the flesh, He is living inside of us today as the holy spirit and through the spirit we can touch Him and get life.

Hebrews 11:6 says “But without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to Him, for he who comes forward to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

This conference I also had the experience of a verse in the bible empowering me.

That verse is 2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sobermindedness.”

This verse really helped me to overcome my fear of sharing. Before the conference started I knew that I wanted to share as much as I was touched by as this is my last conference as a YP.

I didn’t want to have another conference where I would genuinely enjoy the lord but would not be able to speak for him.

My fear of sharing didn’t just magically disappear because I told myself that I would share and this was my last conference, but it was this verse (2 Tim. 1:7) that became so real to me and gave me the strength to go up and share.

Especially the part of the verse about love, the Lord has given us a Spirit of love, so my sharing should be out of my love for Him and the saints, and not my own outward view of how people will see me and think about me. Praise the Lord for his love!

One final thing I wanted to mention is that it was so refreshing to live a week without my phone. Having no phone gave me so much freedom.

During the week I felt like I was not constrained by time and I was definitely not constrained by the endless scrolling on social media. It felt like what I gained in that one week was worth a month’s worth of time. Amen.

This is a sharing by brother Alan B. (London, UK) from his top enjoyment in the 2024 European Young People’s Conference. If you were there and want to share what you enjoyed the most during this wonderful conference, email your sharing at enjoyingthelord@gmail.com.