Having Done All To Stand

I've never really shared this except for a few people because it was so personal.

Years ago we had a christian newspaper in rural Oregon, USA and even though we weren't remotely qualified it was taking off in the entire area of towns and was welcomed by the different gatherings. There was a Billy Graham crusade coming up in Portland, OR so we decided to promote that in the paper. Any time the entire body gathers together the Lord is not far off.

One day a sister who lived with us came out of prayer and was weeping because she had just heard a word from the Lord. "Having done all to stand."... We already knew what it was like to suffer and deny ourselves when obeying God was concerned but when she said that word I heard it deep inside me and I literally gulped.

Having done all to stand. 
(suffering the loss of all things).

That issue took everything we had in the way of energy, faith and finance to produce and distribute. There was suddenly a strange deep unexplainable resistance. Even the christian radio station was strangely uncooperative. My wife and family had to visit clear across the USA in Michigan cause her mom was dying. The sister that was also our secretary got called away and I was left to finish that issue and deliver it myself. It took everything. After the issue went out, everything started falling apart. I had to move out of our small office. Then there was no rent for our house and I needed to move out. There was suddenly no donations. There was this terrible silence in spirit.

One day I heard something from the Lord I did not want to hear and later I went over to an old brother's house on a prompt and he turned to me suddenly and said the same thing, "You have to wipe off your feet and leave. You are the third ministry like this that this town has rejected." I did not want to hear that. We loved that town. A brother later called and although he didn't know what was going on, offered to rent us a large house in another town 20 miles away for very cheap. I went to the PO box the next morning and there was surprisingly some donations there that were just enough to rent a truck to move. A brother suddenly was given the day off that day and he offered to help me move. I didn't have the money to rent the house yet so we put it all in the garage on the property of that new location.

I was homeless living in my car for three weeks and took a job roofing a brother's large house by myself only to find that a lower back injury from a work injury suffered before flared up and it was sheer agony to finish that job (which was on the hill above the town I had come from). I sold my car one day and hitchhiked to the town to finish the job and stopped by a brother's house on the way. He told me he was confused because he knew I had a car but the Lord had told him to give me their older car so when he saw me and knew that I had sold my car he was so delighted to know it was God who spoken to him. (The same brother who helped me move out of the other house.) I finished that job in such agony that I was crying out to God the whole time. I needed that money to rent that house and pay the deposits on elect. etc. When the owner of the house I was roofing came home, I was just finishing up and I went into their house. He looked at me kind of shocked. So much so that I went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. It didn't even look like me. Between the pain and crying out to God my face was transformed. (It's no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me.)

I finally had enough to secure that house and moved the living room furniture in from the garage. I really hadn't had any chance to sift through all that had gone on yet. The paper was out there by the thousands with the crusade on the front page and the call for the believers to gather but I had no phone so I had no clue as to what was happening. That first night I finally sat in my overstuffed chair and had time to think. I was financially broke. I had no phone to communicate with anyone. My family was stuck thousands of miles away in a place I had never been to. I was very alone. I felt deeply the sense of utter failure. It began to crush me. Overwhelm me. It was the first night of the crusade but it was over a hundred miles away in Portland and I didn't even have the gas to get there. I was so ashamed I'm not sure I wanted to. I don't know why but I went across the room and turned the christian radio station on. They had refused to cover the crusade earlier. To my utter shock the first song of the crusade was live on the air. A christian business person had apparently funded the whole thing at the last moment. When I heard the crowd singing in worship I sat in my chair again and broke down in deep heaving sobs crying out to God, "I have failed You. I have utterly failed You." Over and over again. There was no comforting me. That was all I could speak. Broken. Humiliated. Alone. I lost the newspaper. I had no income. No family and at that time I really wondered if I had any real friends I could trust.

Then something amazing happened. I sensed the presence of the Lord as I had many times but this time it was different. It didn't stop at a "presence" it got stronger and clearer. So much so that I dared not open my eyes for fear of seeing Him. He was sitting on the arm of my chair and I was sobbing beyond control. He reached over and pulled me into His bosom and held me and comforted me. It was Jesus. I was safe with Him. Nothing else mattered. Then He spoke to me something I crave for now and hope for in all eternity,

"Well Done!"

It didn't matter at that moment what anyone thought, or even what I thought. All that mattered was what He said. I was suddenly whisked in the spirit to the very top bleacher overlooking the Colosseum (?) in Portland, OR over a hundred miles away and as I viewed the massive gathering of believers without regard to "what church they belonged to" worshiping together, a cloud descended with Jesus on it and He poured out His utter pleasure on the gathering. Then I found myself back in my chair but I knew I wasn't alone and His words filled my heart.

I didn't know until later that hundreds from Central Oregon had gone up to the crusade. That someone had even rented buses to transport people. But I knew that He had poured out His pleasure on that gathering and that in that moment in my life He said two things to me. "Having done all to stand." and "Well Done."


There is a lesson in this and many other unheard testimonies which this generation needs to hear and learn from. There are thousands of people who follow Christ who are in prison, tortured for their true faith. Many of them go hungry. Many more suffer true persecution. Their testimonies are gold refined in the fire. (Jesus councils us to purchase that gold refined in the fire.) God is speaking to His Church. He is presenting opportunities to build His Kingdom. Not your church, not your denomination but His Kingdom, His Church, the assembly of those called out of darkness into His marvelous light. Those opportunities are calling to this generation. They are not easy. They rarely are. But we have to hear God's voice calling to us. And, we need to answer that call.

We cannot have the "Well Done" unless we are also willing to hear and walk in  the "Having done all to stand." We have to pick up our cross and follow Him in order to have His pleasure over us. And in that final and eternal moment, Jesus will say to us one of two things (and no one will be there to defend us in that day) :

Well done my good and faithful servant, enter into your rest
OR
Depart from me you worker of iniquity...

There is nothing on earth that can equal Jesus telling us, "Well Done." I would trade the approval of all mankind to hear Him speak those words again....