Christians - Why We Are Failing

We don't fight against flesh and blood but rather principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places. Now if anyone is having a hard time understanding the first part of that scripture (and if we are, it is highly unlikely that we remotely understand the 2nd part) take a sharp object and insert it slightly into your arm or leg. The "flesh" will part and "blood" will come out. Is there anybody alive on earth that test will not produce the same result from? That is a very powerful concept because it just eliminated 7 billion potential enemies to fight and leaves only the second option as to who really is the enemy we should be battling furiously. But the truth is that we are hanging on to the first set of "foes" and failing miserably to defeat the second.

Islam is an ideology that is incompatable with not only the doctrines of the Messiah but the very Spirit of the Messiah. One is totally dependent upon the flesh and the other should be crucified to the flesh and completely dependent on the Spirit. But there is one somewhat common thing between the two as far as religions go:

One cannot say that all Muslims are violent extremists any more than one can say that ALL Christians are using their recreational time hanging out at graveyards raising the dead. But in the same way one CAN say that anyone who is a Muslim and is affected by the ruling spirit can at any time resort to violent religious actions just as any Christian can be moved by the Spirit and empowered to raise the dead. Now if we are not jumping in our cars to go to a graveyard right now perhaps we should humble ourselves and seek God's mind as to what may be more compatable with our level of faith.

So here is a spiritual principle: If we lump people together and identify them as a group or agenda in our mind and that is how we relate to them, we are actually empowering that ruling spirit and possibly maybe even likely creating a stronghold in our own mind that can make us useless to God. But if we allow God to instruct and empower us to see each and every human being as an individual that Jesus died for and refuse to lump people into "categories" of any kind then the the very premise on which a ruling spirit is functioning is defeated in us and whether we understand it or not in the people we are relating to. Every person then is observed based solely upon their individual behavior (which is exactly how God sees us). God is also then able to lead us to individuals and He in us to relate to them as such. If we approach an individual solely as one of a bunch or an agenda, we are already defeated because we are empowering the very thing that may be resisting God.

I don't think we realize how much of our lives (and prayer lives) are confined by not understanding this one principle. Human beings by fallen nature gravitate very powerfully to the security of group identification. That is true whether we identify ourselves and others politically, religiously, or even by our favorite sports teams. There is an endless list competing for our loyalty if we are not focused solely on indentifying with the Messiah and particularly in His death for us. What we choose to identify with personally is going to seriously affect our subsequent choices as to how we are going to relate to others.

MUSIC: SECULAR OR SACRED?

A brother posted a really nicely done worship song recently and I found myself posting this in the comments:

"Whatsoever things you do, do them with all your heart 

as unto the Lord and not as unto men."

Such a guideline for us who listen to and perform music that in all things we do them to glorify God and not for the admiration of men!

When the Lord touched me and saved me decades ago, I was a musician playing in clubs in the hotels in Hawaii. That was my life but it was also my emptiness because performing in the secular world (and unfortunately in the "modern christian pop world" is a barren life craving for the attention and admiration of men.

When I first started going to a gathering sometimes they would sing a song out of the old "hymn book" and I couldn't appreciate the words because I just couldn't stand the music. Three months later, I had no desire at all to play or to listen to secular songs (and never did again after almost 40 years.) BUT I started loving to play and sing those old hymns and worship choruses and it didn't matter if people cheered the music or admired my person, whether there was a whole crowd or just me before the Lord.

I discovered that the whole reason God placed that desire in us to sing and appreciate music was solely to express worship and to glorify God.

There was one song from my secular musical past that I used to sing with all my heart in my early years. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's "Find The Cost of Freedom." but I had changed the words to glorify God.

"Find the cost of freedom... 

Nailed upon the cross.. 

Jesus Christ has won it all. 

Laid my burden (of sin) down."

That is the only secular song I ever performed (besides "happy birthday to you".) in almost 40 years. Nobody influenced me or taught a "rule". It is just what God did from the beginning of my walk and I love Him for it.

It's funny because I have never shared that part of my testimony in words before today. I just found myself blessed with the living of it. Nobody ever taught on the subject. It was just pure grace and still is. It wasn't a "Thou shalt not." it was a "thou shalt." The work of God in us in that way can be expressed so beautifully in the scripture:

"Old things are passing away.Behold, all things are new!" 

- (2nd Co. 5:17)

The Missing 12 Smooth Stones

I am reminded of when the children of Israel were exhorted in their crossing of the river Jordan into the promised land that they were to take from the river 12 smooth stones to remind them of all that God had done for them in bringing them through the wilderness and crossing the Jordan. (And they had many more difficulties to go through and overcome so would need those reminders to prevail.) Their instructions were to take those 12 smooth stones and tell those stories to subsequent generations.... And, they were commanded that for a reason.

Even though the Acts of the Apostles (Actually the Acts of God through and witnessed by the Believers at the time) ends where it ends in the scripture, the book of Acts in the Church is not intended to end until the Coming of the Lord. Throughout history there have been saints of God who have walked in incredible grace. When we leave all those smooth stones of God's moving through His people back in the Jordan river of History that the Church has passed through, when we have sentenced them to be forgotten by subsequent generations, we are doing a vast disservice to future generations of Christians. Christian converts who will accept a life in Christ far less than He has intended or is capable of working in us.

Much of the present generation of newer Christians lack a certain foundation of those smooth stones of the continuity of the LORD's work in and through His Church throughout history. I have never seen a generation like this that so much seems to need to be entertained to come to and remain in Christ as opposed to realizing the deep and constant need for conviction of sin and the need to submit out lives to Christ and bear our own cross. That our lives are no longer our own. We have been purchased with a price. Part of that reason is that we have all but erased the testimony of God in prior generations and by doing so have shortchanged ourselves and this generation....

And They Were One

From the heart and mouth of the Lord Jesus:

"and there shall be one flock and one shepherd (Jesus)." John 10:16
"I and my Father are one." - John 10:30
"And the glory which You gave me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one." - John 17:22
"And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father [GOD], keep through Your own name those whom You have given me, that they may be one, as we are."- John 17:11
"By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another." - John - 13:35

And affirmed by the Holy Spirit upon His outpouring on the disciples:

"And all that believed were together and had all things common" - Acts 2:44
"And the multitude of them that believed were of on heart and of one soul." - Acts 4:32

---

Is it wrong to desire such a thing if Jesus himself desired it to be so??? Do we dare to entertain such a thought that seemed so prominent on the mind of Jesus prior to his crucifixion??? That after Jesus ascended the promised Holy Spirit came upon them became so apparent???

That those who follow Jesus would be ONE.

What is it that hiders us? Is it the desire to rule our own kingdoms as in the world? How is it that there are endless splits within what is outwardly known as the "Church" to the point now that we have 10's of thousands of independent organizations all claiming our own identities.

Is identifying with Christ insufficient to our hearts that we find ourselves chasing after strange fruit to satisfy some carnal desire within our ranks and in our own hearts to "have our own?" Can we possibly see that desire as sin that Jesus died on the cross for? Something that needs repentance? What is the call to repentance that so many have heard and professed really about?

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." - 2nd Chronicles 7:14

It is not "America" (or any other country) that God is calling out to be saved. It is His Church splintered in spirit like a broken sheet of glass mirror, shattered into thousands of pieces all reflecting to some degree His image yet unable of it self to reflect that one quality of God that seems to have escaped our convictions: "Hear Oh Israel. The Lord your God is ONE God."

Jesus is not returning for the pieces of a shattered mirror but a perfect mirror image of his own likeness. We will either in our repentance finding ourselves being restored by Him or we will have to face the tremendous heat necessary to melt the shattered mirror that we have become to make us that perfect mirror image once again.

That day of extreme heat is fast coming upon us. Never underestimate the passion of a holy God for the purity of His Church. Individually, organizationally, locally or nationally...

No form of government either political or religious will save us from that day. We need to decide, each of us individually, organizationally, in our locality, nationally, to not break faith with one another other. To live in Christ as one. Rather than being puffed up about our differences to mourn before God over them until they are settled. To decide whom it is that we will truly serve, God or the shattered outward form. The failure of those in authority "above us" will be no excuse for us in that day.

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all." - Isaiah 53:6

I will leave you in this with a last thought to consider from Jeremiah 18:1-6

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, "Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause you to hear my words."

Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter?" saith the Lord. "Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel."

The day of denominationalism is over. 
"That which is highly esteemed in the sight of religious men is an abomination in the sight of God." - Luke 16:15

We need to be careful that after 2000 years of religious traditions we are not found "choking on a gnat" yet having been tricked into "swallowing a camel"...

The "Oneness" of Cooperation

And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul; neither said any of them that any of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. - Acts 4:32

Wikipedia is a non-profit effort formed to provide a knowledge forum where people can work together on any subject to enhance knowledge about it. The restriction is that they agree to allow others to use it freely and without restriction and that in passing that knowledge on they do not restrict others from using it or passing it on freely as well endlessly. The goal is to enable the passing on of knowledge not to profit financially from it and to insure that continues to be the case. It has always been upheld by that discipline and the contributions and financial donations of others whether small or large.

The same principle drives the working of the Free Software Foundation which cooperatively birthed the Linux operating system into existence worldwide as an alternative to Microsoft's which was produced solely on the basis of market control and financial gain. Microsoft shares nothing of it's advances unless it absolutely has to therefore it is often very slow or negligent to correct them. The free software and knowledge community shares with and cooperates on everything so that all benefit and can continue to develop and pass it on. We might be more familiar with the "Android" system, a somewhat derivative, that powers some phones and smaller computer devices as an alternative to Apple's potential monopoly.

Even though such efforts are prone to occasional error it is notable that correction or improvement of those errors can come by way of the most seemingly insignificant member/participant very often far quicker than those commercial systems can produce. It is inherent that because no one cooperating can claim exclusiveness in anything that there is tremendous openness to correction (rather than the hiding of errors and unwillingness to have them be corrected from the "outside" inherent in more commercial efforts.) The level of cooperation and selflessness is quite often astounding considering the dog eat dog world we live in.

When I built the software that powered the INCN site years ago, I learned what I needed to know from the freely available and correctable programing efforts of others in that cooperative world. In addition, the servers were running on Linux system created and maintained by the cooperative effort of others. The Christian news articles were all produced or passed on by various cooperative efforts. I only supplied (or at this juncture in my life prefer to say "funneled") the means to publish them efficiently on the web. I found myself cataloging them first and foremost according to country or locality rather than by organization, something that I partook of earlier in my walk and certainly not my own exclusively. How else could a carpenter with a GED and no experience accomplish something like that by himself. I can never say I did it or designed it because ultimately it was formed on the backs of others before me.

One day at my desk when I was finding myself overwhelmed by the awareness of all the cooperation that went before me, I was reminded of the scripture and warning from Jesus, 

"And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." - Luke 16:8"

What if the Church, the followers of Jesus in Christ was originally designed to function like that in utter selfless cooperation and willingness to be corrected. Where the greatest among us is as a servant. And, if so, is it possible that the Creator of the Universe who has His hands in every event that unfolds upon the earth, speaking to a Church which has fallen to the state of many independent Balaams that desire to prophesy for personal gain. Speaking to that Church through the very donkey that it is riding on? "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all." Isaiah 53:6

How about a revival of Holy Spirit led "oneness in cooperation" among all the believers in Jesus Christ?

Lessons From My Dad

I will give thanks unto thee 

for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are thy works and 

that my soul knoweth rightfully well.

Some people get what they need from the supermarkets and malls and some people are forced to get it from the garbage dumps. When I was a kid in Hawaii, the dumps (just like this picture) was a viable option. Think I'm going to borrow this picture from a friend. If nothing else to remember from whence I came.
(cont. below)

A child scraping out a living in the dumps - probably in Mexico

When I was very young, about the age of that young child in the picture above, my dad used to take me to the dumps where in addition to his regular job, he would collect scrap metal along with a host of other things. To be honest, I hated going there. It was humiliating and a nasty environment that if I described it in detail I could with utter certainty guarantee that you would lose your breakfast. I don't have to imagine much what that child's life is like.

My dad was the son of a sugar plantation worker who himself was the son of a sugar plantation worker. My dad probably hated that plantation culture as much as I hated being in those dumps. When he was in about the 8th grade (possibly earlier) he was pulled out of school to work in the plantation store to help support my grandfather's very large family. That was plantation life. It wasn't always very fair.

He managed to escape that life when he signed up for the army during WWII in the pacific for about 5 years. When he came back, his eyes were open to many new things and many new people. He got a job as a welding equipment repairman and later in sales. He also married my mom, a nurse from Nebraska who worked at the plantation dispensary - something that was not exactly looked upon with favor by some people. My mom could have had a place with the elite, the managers and doctors hired from the mainland US but she chose to marry a "local" instead, come what may. He could have ended up cutting cane and she could have ended up at the "Yacht Club" with the rest of the "haole" manager class from the mainland.

My dad wanted better for us kids and his job couldn't pay for that so he would spend every day after work and saturdays at the dumps gleaning for scrap metals. He got pretty good at it. Later in life the dumps people used to call him "the King of the Dumps." Out of that extra they managed to send us kids to private school. They wanted better for us. It costs money to send your kids there. Up until the 8th grade, I went to school with the children of parents who were much better off financially. When I was about the age of this little girl in the picture, my dad started taking me to the dumps with him on Saturdays and in the summer, sometimes on weekday afternoons.

I utterly resented it because I lived in the utter fear of the humiliation I would suffer if one of my friends from private school were to ever come down to dump their rubbish and see me there in the midst of it all. (Again I will spare you a graphic description.) There was a tremendous stigma attached to being among the dumps people - the extremely poor. I had no idea as a child that those dumps were paying for my education and exposure to the very friends I had come to know in my life. I honestly didn't realize that until I was a young man in my mid 20's. I was somewhat spared humiliation when for some reason when I had finished 7th grade my parents took us out of private school and put us into the public school closer to where we lived.

We humans can be very adaptable to circumstances given the time and consistency. My dad took me to the dumps until I was about 16. I did manage after a while to find some solace in it all. It's amazing what people throw away. As long as I was gleaning for scrap metal I was also free to pick up anything else I wanted. By the time I was barely a teenager I had amassed quite a collection of bicycle parts and had my own little bicycle shop in a little corner of my dad's garage/warehouse. I was pretty good at piecing parts together to make complete bicycles. I easily had over a dozen of them at one point in time. So, I started learning something my dad had been trying to teach me all that time. Oh the stench was still there. The humiliation was still there but I found out what most dumps gleaners find out at least at some point in their lives and learn to appreciate. "One man's junk is another man's treasure."

When I was about sixteen I was old enough to go out and get jobs to make any money I needed doing odd jobs and yard work. I never really went back to the dumps after that except to dump the rubbish. Honestly, I would have been happy to never have seen those dumps again. My dad continued to go there for most of the rest of his life. He loved finding those treasures that other people had discarded, taking them home and cleaning them up and placing them on the shelves in their living room. In my later years as an adult I had the pleasure of knowing him and I realized that he could look past the grim and filth covering something he had found and he could see past all that to see the treasure that was underneath. When anyone would visit, he would watch their eyes and if he saw them paying a particularly appreciative attention to one of his treasures, he would reach up on the shelf when they were leaving and say, "I want you to have this."

I would love to say that I saw all this right away but I still had a certain distaste for the dumps and almost an embarrassment of my dad. It wasn't until after my mid twenties that I was utterly delivered from that resentment and shame. When I became a Christian, after a few years I had gotten to know quite a few people who were well endowed with the gift of the Spirit. Among them I noticed with a certain internal respect was a pastoral couple (Mr. and Mrs. Day) of a small gathering that most people seemed to have nothing to do with. I seemed to always take note of them as being a little different.

To make the point, one night a friend of mine was working as a security guard in the Psyche ward. He had a particular anointing to walk into that ward and bring a certain calm to all the patients, so much so that the nurses hoped he would be on the same duty roster. A young man had been brought in a few days before and they misdiagnosed him and mismedicated him so he fell into a coma. Apparently there wasn't much they could do so they were just waiting for him to die. Suddenly, that night, the double doors to the ward burst open and Mrs. Day, like a battle axe, burst into the ward, motioned to my friend and immediately proceeded into the young man's room to pray for him along with my friend. That young man suddenly sat up in bed alive and well. To say that I was impressed would be an understatement.

One day, the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, "Go to the dumps." To be honest, as I said before, I wanted nothing to do with the dumps for quite a few years but because it was so clear, I reluctantly got in my car and went there. When I got there, I parked the car wondering why I was sent there because I had no urge to get out of the car. As I looked around, out there quite a ways was an older couple standing facing each other and holding hands and praying before they began to glean the fields. It was Mr. and Mrs. Day! There was a certain aura around them as they prayed. They were there to pick through used clothes to take home, clean and likely give them away the same way my dad used to do all those years.

I never looked at the dumps or my dad the same way again.

So in closing I would have to say something having lived some years on this earth. That there are some things that God wants to speak to us about. He wants to speak to us about the dumps and discarded treasures hidden in human filth. The same human treasures that He sent His Son Jesus to die for. He wants to gift us to see past all the human filth and recognize the treasure being concealed by it. To take them home, clean them up and treasure them.

He also wants us to see that underneath all the imperfections of our life long before we actually are aware of Him that He has hidden His treasures all along the way in our lives. Before we were ever born, He knew us in our mother's womb.

Above it all perhaps even warning us that we need to be more careful who and what we discard and toss in the trash heap. After all, somebody may just come along and see the treasure that we rejected. Just how will we feel then? God's greatest treasure, Jesus the Messiah, was also rejected of men.

If we feel like Jesus is strangely missing from our lives or our fellowship, it may very well be that He has gone dumpster diving for the lost and discarded treasures of humanity. If you really want to find Him, you may very well have to go to the dumps as well...

The Love Of God

This story was relayed to a group of us assembled together to hear our Jewish brother Art Katz speak many years ago. Art was a different sort of brother. He was very Jewish yet as convicted of Christ as any of us if not more so. He definitely brought a certain Jewish flavor of gospel with him. He NEVER spoke unless there was something God wanted to impart into us.

He had traveled to Japan to meet with a Japanese brother who went by the name of Professor Tashima. During WWII, the Christians particularly in leadership roles had to hide up in the mountains for the duration of the war. It was a dangerous time for them and as a result spent much time in earnest prayer. Many times God was Professor Tashima's only companion. After the war was over, Professor Tashima returned to ministry but there was something about him that made others uncomfortable around him so he could not find a pastoral position open for him. He was later assigned to the leper colony because nobody wanted the assignment.

During his first day at preaching there, he stood at the pulpit which was quite high above the gathering of lepers to keep the speaker from "contamination." He began to preach to them about the Love of God. He looked down upon the crowd of lepers below him and his heart was filled with the love of God for them. So much so that he was compelled to leap down off that high platform and went about hugging tightly each one of them telling them that God loved them. As he hugged each one of them with the Love of God in him for them, each one of those lepers was completely healed. Leprosy in the scriptures is a symbol of sin, of uncleanness. Those lepers had been set free by the Love of God in Christ to go about their lives free from the restrictions of the leper colony, free to live their lives in the freedom and gratitude of the Love of God.

After that Professor Tashima would go about street preaching and telling people of the Love of God always miracles accompanying his preaching. As he would go about preaching a woman who had been used by the Japanese soldiers for sex against her will during the war would stand in the back and cry out with a loud voice, "Where is the love of this God? I was used sexually all these years and I have sexual diseases that have disfigured me and my beauty and ruined my life. Who is going to love me? Tell me how can you preach the "love of God" when I have to live with such a thing? (This was before antibiotics were available for those diseases) She was very disruptive at all his meetings and would cry out each time so he prayed and prayed to God about how he could show this pitiful and bitter woman the Love of God. The Lord finally spoke to him. "I want you to marry her to show her my love..." So he went to her and married her to show her the love that God had for her. He never caught those sexual diseases.

When Art Katz was visiting and spending some time with them years later, he noticed that she was radiantly beautiful, almost embarrassingly so. He went behind a pillar so he could observe her better to understand how she could be so radiant (It was troubling him). To his surprise, her face was still very disfigured. Her radiance was the Love that she had received from God. She was literally radiating with the Love of God.

A simple message with such powerful results: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life." "Of a truth, Jesus Christ died for All sin, for All mankind, for All time."

Now days there are so many people seeking after the "power of God" and the conviction of others when we should be seeking Him for His Love for ourselves and for others. Conviction will follow, miracles will follow but what good is it if we don't have the Love of God in our hearts for others? Jesus went about preaching the Love of God but He was driven in compassion to demonstrate it...

The Testimony of Jesus

"Greater love has no man than this, than to lay down his life for his friends." - Jesus

One of the greatest news stories I have ever had the privilege of publishing at INCN (Inter-National Christian News) will probably never make it to the "Christian News" that we have today. Oh I could tell you stories of dramatic healings (some that I have witnessed personally) and even resurrections from the dead in Jesus name. But of all those reports, this one stands out the most in my memory because, of all of the stories I have been privileged to publish  in those "Newsie" days or even witnessed, this one perhaps expresses the Love that God has for us the most. It demonstrates the definition of a "Christian," a follower of Jesus that by it's nature humbles us before Him.

I believe it was in Iran where it is the death penalty to convert to Christianity. A relatively newer Christian had converted and was charged and sentenced to death. Another man who had become a Christian years before very quietly maintained his relationship to God. He was a fairly highly placed government official. It was extremely dangerous for him to witness to anyone. Even though he wanted to share the love of God that he had discovered in his own life for years, there was very little he could do to share it because of his position.

There is (or at least was at the time) a law in that country that said that a man's guilt and sentence could be absolved if someone else were to take his place. It was the greatest witness of that high ranking official to show the love of God in Christ that he presented himself as the legal substitution for that newer convert's life. He took the death penalty upon himself so the other man would be set free. Of all the years of his life as a Christian, his greatest witness of the Love of Jesus and faith in the promises of Jesus to everyone around him was in his death.

If his final testimony doesn't grab our hearts and humble us to our knees before God, then we are yet spiritually dead in our sins.

ps that was in the days when news articles actually had to be fully confirmed by reliable witnesses...

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....

Is God Just?

God is Who He Is. He is the Creator of the Universe. The reason we can't (or won't) wrap our head around that reality is because there is something in us that does not want to believe that someone exists who is far superior. Who is capable of ruling over us. Who has the right and the power to do so at will.

"He curses whom He will curse and He blesses whom He will bless."

When God created man, He did so to have someone to share with, to share all that He is. His love, His power, His wisdom. His very nature revolves around and is reflected in His desire to benefit man and His creation. He loves us. He wants us to share in that nature. To become like Him. God can choose... He gave us the ability to choose as well.

And man early on made a choice. A fatal choice. Man was tempted by, and gave into a lie that challenged God's command and authority. That lie was originated by a fallen, rebellious , self centered, self serving, self worshiping evil being. Man chose to believe that lie and because of that choice became separated from God and His nature, and partook of that fallen being's very nature. Man's choice resulted in a transition from living under God's blessing to living under God's curse. A curse that was never intended for Man.

There is something in the heart of man as a result of that Fall. Man's love for God's love turned into a fear of His superiority.  A deeper fear of anyone else's superiority or even potential superiority began to develop in man. That deeper, yet more subtle fear has affected the world we live in and our personal lives in a multitude of ways. The entire world system is built on it. That fear drives our need to be superior. It drives our internal need to "compete." To survive at the expense of another. It is the anti-type of God's nature and plan for man and we are all guilty of participating in it whether we want to believe that or not. That is the price of the Fall of man and it ends up in our death. (and in the world system - corruption and eventual destruction)

That's a hard pill to swallow. If we can, for a minute, take a hard, honest look at the world we live in and our own lives. Our national identity, our "church" or religious identity, our racial or ethnic perceptions, our personal relationships, work relationships, even our marital relationships, even our own opinions of ourselves, etc are affected if not ruled by that rebellion and resultant fear and the dominance of the world system that has been built around it.

So, "What's the answer to all this?" you are asking? There is an answer but it's not the one we want to hear. The answer is that God, the Creator of the Universe (and everything and everyone in it) has the answer. It's not "WHAT is the answer?" It's "WHO is the answer?" The answer is to return to the ONE who created it all in the first place....

"God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life..." John 3:16