Heidi Baker - Compelled by Love: How to Change the World Through the Simple Power of Love in Action

T HE SERMON ON THE MOUNT IS INTIMIDATING Scripture and a standard of perfection I usually saw as unrealistic and unattainable. Probably like most believers, I never expected to see very much fulfillment of it in the lives of leaders and ministers, much less in my own circle of experience. In fact, it was discouraging to ask teachers I knew too many questions concerning the Sermon as I was so often told to be practical and that these teachings dont quite mean what I thought they meant. Perhaps no scriptures have been watered down as much as these, so grand and glorious is the picture they paint of righteousness in the power of the Holy Spirit, sustained by the unquenchable, everlasting, burning flame of the life of God Himself.

I had often been exposed to glimpses of this level of life in God in the record of the many revivals of church history around the world. Because of my missionary heritage and background growing up in Asia, I was aware of revival in China and the testimonies of the great saints who persevered under unspeakable persecution. I was especially influenced by my own grandfather, whose book Visions Beyond the Veil recorded Gods own gracious choice to reveal Himself radically to the very least of these beggar children from the streets of Kunming, China, where I was born. Truly He demonstrates His grace most clearly by reaching down to the unlikely, forgotten, and noninfluential and creating in them the qualities of His own character to teach the rest of the world the riches of His kindness.

Still, in my own experience, the lofty flights of spirituality I had heard and dreamed of seemed out of reach. And even years of academic specialization in biblical studies and theology did not seem to bring me much closer to a hope of walking in the glorious liberty of life in the Spirit as Jesus described in the Gospels. In my case, I needed encouragement. I needed a real-life example of Jesus living in someone to such an extent that I would be inspired and motivated to consider living the Sermon as not only realistic but also the only viable way to approach life and ministry in the Lord.

I know that our Lord has many such monuments of His grace among His people who are often hidden in the far corners of the world, but for me that encouragement came during the late 1970s when I met Heidi in a small charismatic church in Dana Point, California. She had a privileged upbringing, living on a private beach, and lacked for nothing in education, comforts, and opportunity. But even as a small girl growing up, she pulsed and radiated with a consuming hunger for God. Radically influenced by her sixth-grade teacher who had been a missionary, Heidis heart turned toward the poor and suffering of other cultures. That teacher turned out to be my mother, and so our families became interlinked.

When I met her, she was a pure, idealistic flower child in the Spirit, a teenager who at sixteen had already been mystically taken to heaven and commissioned by Jesus to be a missionary and a minister to Asia, England, and Africa. She never looked back, and in sheer delight, she began a life of trusting her perfect Savior as she has since preached and ministered at every possible opportunity. As I listened by the hour to her testimonies, she was to me a living fulfillment of the Sermon on the Mount, and especially the Beatitudes.

On her mission trips, she trusted Jesus for everything, always and without question expecting Him to lead and provide. She worshiped for hours at a time with her beautiful voice, most often hearing His voice when lost in His presence. She longed without measure for more of Him. Her love for people, and especially the unlovely, flowed naturally and without effort. She had her cynical critics, her times of discouragement, and her heartbreaks, but with a pure heart she has pursued her Jesus like no one I have ever known.

I realized immediately that here was a person with whom I could actually live the Sermon on the Mount as I had always dreamed, to a degree I never could have considered with anyone else. Here was someone who could take no thought for tomorrow, seek first His kingdom and His righteousness under any circumstance anywhere in the world, and in the most childlike simplicity pursue heaven on earthin spite of all opposition and discouragement. And in harmony with the desires of my heart, Jesus put Heidi and me together. We left for the mission field two weeks after we were married, with simple instructions from Him, one-way tickets, and thirty dollars in our pockets.

Now, twenty-seven years later, we have seen a fulfillment of the Beatitudes in our lives among the poorest and most unlikely people we could find on Earth. And in these years, we found that, for the most part, we were not the teachers. Instead, all this time, God has been teaching us what we still lacked, and He has done so through the meek and humble vessels He prepared for this purpose. Finally, at this stage of her calling in Him, Heidi has gathered, preached, and written the stories of how, by His Spirit, God has incarnated the perfections and beauties of the Beatitudes among the people He has chosen for her callingthe destitute of Africa. These stories will prove the reality of His kingdom here on Earth and show the way forward for all who long for His world, His perfection, His relief, His answers, His love, His companionship, and His life. His ways are a complete contrast to this world, and all who long for another world entirely where righteousness reigns and we partake of the divine naturewill find in Heidis book a brilliant light illuminating the way.

May we, along with the poor and desperate of the world whom He has chosen, take nothing for granted but take heart, strengthen ourselves in Him, and call on Him for a dimension of heavenly life on Earth that vastly exceeds all previous expectations. Let our present sufferings produce within us an appetite for the glory that is to be revealed to us and carry us safely along the path into His heart and kingdom.

ROLLAND BAKER

I VE NEVER MET ANYONE WHO HAS HAD AN EFFECT on a nation the way Rolland and Heidi Baker have on Mozambique; that effect continues and is increasing. Humility, love, and power are demonstrated at every turn in the road. For this reason, people flock to the conferences where they speak and fly halfway around the world to be with them at their missionary base. People are desperate to learn how the Bakers do missions. As a result, their influence is spreading to nation after nation as the people of God hunger for the authentic gospel they demonstrate.

A friend of mine went to Mozambique to spend a couple of weeks helping the Bakers in their ministry. When he returned home, he found himself breaking down and weeping for no apparent reason. He then realized he was crying because he missed Jesus. His days of being with Heidi and her ministry were so overwhelmingly like the days when Jesus walked on the earth that he was forever ruined for any other lifestyle. The realization that he was no longer in that atmosphere made him weep for what he was missing. Oh, that there would be more tears of desperation for what could be.