May I Introduce Myself And Make Myself Your Servant?
I would like to take a brief moment and introduce myself for those who do not personally know me. My name is Bert Craft, born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, on January 7, 1964, to Berton R. and Karen K. Craft. Thirteen months after my birth, my only blood sister was born, Tracey L. Craft. I grew up in the Dauphin and Lancaster counties of Pennsylvania. I attended the Lower Dauphin High School in Hummelstown, PA, where I graduated in 1982.The Lord in His infinite mercy and matchless grace saved me in my middle teenage years from a life of heinous sin: blasphemy, theft, fornication, lying, rebellion, dishonor of my parents, and much pride. Some years prior, seeing the course of my life, some family members predicted that I would surely end up in jail. But for the grace of God, that "prophecy" almost came to pass. I was nearly placed in a teenage correctional center after I was caught robbing a grocery store. Sin was my master and I was its slave. I was dead in my trespasses and sins.
Through an invitation to attend the Calvary Baptist Church in Harrisburg, PA, and through private Bible reading, the Lord revealed to me the utter depravity of my heart that it was desperately wicked and deceitful. Sin had invaded my whole being: my thoughts, my affections, my will, and every one of its members. I had broken every commandment of God, either in action and deed, or in thought and intent. I was vile and contaminated from head to toe. I needed a Saviour, a Redeemer, a Mediator to reconcile me to God because my sins separated me from my Creator. I was spiritually dead and hell-bound. I was a fit vessel for destruction. I was a deserving candidate of the wrath and fiery indignation of a perfectly holy and righteous God. To this day, the ONLY thing that I deserve is eternal condemnation because of the multitude of sins and offenses I have committed against the Sovereign One of the universe.
"But GOD, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved...that in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:4-9).
Though completely ignorant of Gospel truth for many years, I now understand that God by His grace set His love and affection on me from eternity past; by His grace, He chose me and purposed to save me from before the foundation of the world for His own eternal glory; in His grace, He sent His beloved Son who lived a life entirely free from sin and in perfect obedience to all the laws of God; by His grace, Jesus Christ as a substitute for His people, tasted both physical and spiritual death on the old rugged cross; by His grace, Jesus the Lamb of God effectually atoned for all of my sins, satisfied the justice of God the Father, and reconciled me unto the Father in His own body on the tree; by His grace, Jesus secured forever my salvation having finished the redeeming work that the Father sent Him to do; by His grace and in His perfect time, the Holy Spirit came to me to illumine my darkened heart in His regenerating power making me a new creature in Christ and a child of God; by His grace, He so kindly granted me repentance to loathe and turn from the sins that I once loved, and at the same time, He granted me faith to embrace and love the One who I once hated--my Creator, my Sustainer, My Lord, my God and my Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ; by His grace He has taught, guided, and instructed me, yea, He has preserved me and caused me to persevere in His truth, in His Gospel, in His Son, and in holiness, and that despite many weaknesses and personal failings, trials, tribulations, and even persecution. Surely, the Lord has taught me that I am what I am only by and because of His glorious grace. To Him be all the glory!
Also, in His grace, the Lord led me into "church truth" whereby I understood from the Scriptures that not all those who call themselves churches are really true churches of the Lord Jesus Christ. In His earthly ministry, Jesus Christ started His church with regenerated, believing disciples who were Scripturally baptized (Scriptural baptism is baptism that satisfies the four Biblical requirements for it to be recognized by God as valid....the Scriptures require a Biblical candidate, a Biblical mode, a Biblical motive, and a Biblical authority). To this Christ-started church, her divine Lord and Head promised that the gates of hell would never prevail against her, that is, she would be divinely preserved and protected throughout all ages and all persecutions without her light and testimony ever being snuffed out. True, church history--not Catholic or Protestant history--testifies to the reality of a continual, uninterrupted existence of faithful, persecuted, despised, and sometimes underground churches that have been zealous to embrace and propagate the Gospel of grace, to teach sound, Bible doctrine, to live holy and separated lives from the world unto God, to obediently observe the two church ordinances (baptism and the Lord´s Supper) just as they were instituted by God without change or modification, and to always seek energetically to carry out her Lord´s Great Commission of carrying God´s truth unto the ends of the earth. Under this conviction, I was baptized and added to the Lord´s church.
In my late teen years, the Lord called me to preach. I immediately began to prepare myself for a life of service unto my Lord and Master. While attending three different Bible Schools and Seminaries (I was actually dismissed from one of them as a heretic!), the Lord in His grace revealed to me His purpose for my life to carry the message of His glory and salvation to places and peoples where Christ has not been named. Also, during the same time, the Lord blessed me with the privilege to marry the former Heather J. Williams of Winona Lake, Indiana, a pastor´s daughter and the second of nine children. We married December 27, 1990. The Lord has blessed Heather and me with six living children whom we treasure and love. We homeschool them and desire to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. If you would like to know more about the Craft family, please click on this link: www.bertcraftfamily.com.
At present, and since 1993, my wife, family and I have served as pioneering, evangelizing, church-planting missionaries in Southern Mexico. We presently live in the State of Oaxaca, the birthplace of all, but one, of our physical children, and the birthplace of numerous spiritual children. We are not freelance missionaries, rather we are church-sponsored, church-authorized, church-supported, and church-supervised missionaries out of the Faith Missionary Baptist Church of Paducah, Kentucky. If you would like to learn more about the mission work that the Craft Family is doing for God´s glory, please click on this link: www.bertcraftmissionwork.com.
Lastly, I would like to ask you to subscribe RIGHT NOW to this blog page. By subscribing, you will receive an email only when there is a new post added to my blog. I would like to be your servant and bless you through the Word of God and the things that Lord graciously teaches me. To subscribe right now, please enter your email address in the appropriate space in the left hand column and then click on the SUBSCRIBE button. Thank you for taking the time to allow me to introduce myself. I would love to hear from you and if there is any way that we could be a blessing to you, I trust that you will not hesitate to ask.
You are all in our thoughts and prayers.
the huffman family (wmbc)
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