Good morning, Pastor John;

Some of Donna’s thoughts that our Lord gave her reminded me of some of the thoughts that I had while experiencing some of the worst physical, mental, and spiritual pain in my body than I ever had in my life. I have never had that kind of pain before and since that time during my cancer at the hospital in 2009. (https://www.pastorjohnshouse.com/pdfs/ingodsshadow.pdf)

Here are some of those thoughts (paraphrasing). 

      – Are you going to get mad over feeling this pain?

      – Are you going to get so angry that you punch the wall and hurt your hand?

      – Are you going to mistreat my servants that I have set in place to help you? 

      – Are you going to quit (on me)? 

My answer:

     No Lord, I’m not quitting, nor will I be angry. I won’t mistreat your servants and I’m   not getting mad at you or anyone. 

This was at about 2:45 PM talking with the Lord. At 2:55, I heard Dr. U singing in the hallway coming to my room, “I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day.”  Within a few minutes after 3:00 PM, my test for my soul was over. I asked the Lord, “Did I drink everything in my cup that you gave me to drink?” He said, “Yes son, not a drop left.” Then, the greatest peace and joy flooded my heart knowing that I was faithful during those trying times and above all, Jesus was pleased with me. It made all of the pain and suffering from my post operation worthwhile. 

I do believe in my soul, that my name was written in the book of life by God before creation.

     I do believe that he called me.

     I do believe that he gave me His spirit to feel His thoughts and His life. 

     I do believe that he hand-picked a little country girl named Judy to be my love and companion these past 45 years.

     I do believe that Jesus gave me a real, true family in God.

     I do believe that Jesus will use everything at His disposal to save me and teach me; pain, trials, misunderstanding, etc. All things are created by Him and are used by Him. 

I do believe that Jesus brought me here and will keep me here with my cooperation   and behaving myself. 

I do believe that I love Him and His body only because He loved me first. 

Love always,

Billy

 https://www.pastorjohnshouse.com/pdfs/ingodsshadow.pdf

Pastor John,

Whew!  In the Lessons from Isaiah manuscript that I am proof-reading, I have read Lesson 4, “Devilish Wisdom”, multiple times, and I keep going back to it.  Today I read Lesson 8, “Two Choices”, and it is so good!  It has struck me that when we struggle against doing it God’s way, we are just wanting our way.  Leaves me praying to “go limp” to do it God’s way!  This reading is so good that it leaves the feeling everyone should see this!  I am continue to read, but I can’t leave Lessons 4 and 8 yet.  I am not done chewing! 

RE: Jn. 8:44 – When God’s children choose not to do His will, and yet they continue to maintain an appearance of righteousness, they become “children of the devil” instead of children of God, for that is what the devil did.  He tries to look good, but he is no longer truly good.  The devil did not love the truth that God taught him; he loved himself more. Maintaining an appearance of righteousness without really doing the will of God is not the will of God, and if we do the devil’s will instead of God’s, then we will share in the devil’s coming judgment.

John 8:44 “You are of your father, the Accuser, and you want to carry out the desires of your father.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and he has not continued in the truth because truth isn’t in him. Whenever he tells a lie, he speaks from himself because he’s a liar and the father of it.”

Beth D.

 

Pastor John,

As I sat at my computer working today, these thoughts started coming.  They were for me, but I believe they are for us all:

Jesus asking: “What if I made sure you married the person you are married to?  What if it was all my idea?  What if I gave you that sickness you are dealing with?  Are you going to quit and run?  Are you going to blame everyone and everything else just because it’s not going according to your plan and your timeline?  Are you going to quit now?  Are you going to pout, get angry, throw a fit because it’s not going “smoothly”?

What if I did it?  What if I really did put you with the perfect person, the perfect pastor, the perfect body to perfect you, help you, and make you happier than you could ever imagine?  What if I gave you the perfect sickness at the perfect time to teach you to rely on me as you’ve never had to in your whole life? to teach you to slow down?  What if I planned every one of these things because I love you that much?  What if my love is so great for you, that I would do whatever it takes to save you?  What if I love you enough to make you humble? to slow you down? to teach you how to love?  What if I love you so much that I would give you boundless opportunities to learn and grow until you come home to be with me?  What if I planned the whole thing and it was all my plan to save you in the end and be with me forever?  And you’re mad, thinking I tricked you.  Well, I did it.  I did the whole thing.  Who are you really mad at, but me?  Who are you really discontent with, but me? 

It is just as you have said before, “God is FOR us!”  His love is, really, more than tongue can tell and more than our human minds can fathom.  I am so thankful to be here with you, with us, alive, learning, living.  

Donna

 

Pastor John,

I am writing this out while my heart is still pounding from tonight.  I love what Damien said about the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread both being a shadow of the sacrifice of Christ.

I have to start at the beginning of this testimony.  Jesus has been talking in the meetings lately.  One thing that has been said over and over is to keep your mind on Jesus and what he has done for us, and we will bubble up to the top and be who we are supposed to be.  

The other day I asked Jesus to stir my heart and help me just be so full of zeal that I cannot do anything but think of him.  That is my prayer, and I even prayed it on the way to the meeting.  I thought maybe he would use a song or something you would preach on tonight.  I never thought He would stir me up with Leviticus!

Funny thing is, I have always loved Leviticus because I love seeing the shadows of Jesus and the truth.  So it makes perfect sense Jesus would give my heart a stir with Leviticus.  

I have always had a question in my heart about fellowship.  I can’t even explain it.  I just stayed worried about if others feel fellowship with me.  And the more I thought about it, the stranger and more apart I felt.  It isn’t  a mind thing—it is a heart thing!

Well, when Damien pointed out tonight that Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are actually, together, part of the sacrifice of Christ—part of that beautiful shadow of what Jesus did, part of the greatest love story we can know—it hit my heart.  When Damien explained that part of the shadow was eating the bread, having fellowship, it stirred my heart.  

In my heart, Passover was the shadow of what Jesus did for us.  We did not play a part in that.  But the other part of that Passover is that we are supposed to eat.  And that is fellowship.  That is part of the sacrifice of Christ.  The Passover didn’t stop at the blood being put on our hearts.  The other part is that we are to eat of the fellowship of the body!  It did something in my heart tonight to see that part of the shadow.  

I think Damien started tonight by saying there was an open window for him to tell this.  I feel like Jesus opened a window for me to crawl through.  I had to write out how this feels while my heart is stirred.  

I love how Jesus does things.

Love, 

Beth

 

Pastor John,

I would like to share an experience I had today. My mom and I were in Budapest, as she had to go to the eye hospital for a minor procedure (which then did not happen, since the doctor who was supposed to do the procedure was not there, so we will have to go back again – but that’s a different story).

The train from Dunaújváros to Budapest now terminates at a different railway station than it used to, which is part of a larger transport hub (with the train station, a bus station and a metro station in it), and I’m not completely familiar with it. After Mom’s appointment, we had lunch at a nearby mall, and then headed back to the train station, but I miscalculated how much time we would need to get there in time, so we ended up missing the train. Thankfully the next one was leaving in an hour, but we still needed to figure out how to get to the railway tracks, because it really is not that simple, if you’re not traveling through there regularly. Once I realized that we had missed the earlier train, I had a passing thought of “I wonder if God has a reason for us spending an hour here with nothing to do” – but I quickly brushed it off thinking, not every single event has to have a “mystical” divine reason behind it.

As we were walking through this hallway, looking at the signs, trying to find out which way the railway tracks were, we walked past a young man who was standing to the side, playing his guitar, singing a song about God; and then we walked past him again, until finally I asked a man for directions to the railway tracks. I now knew which way we had to go, but we still had about 45 minutes before departure, and that moment I started feeling the tug of the Spirit to walk up to the young man with the guitar and engage in a conversation with him. So I did, and we ended up talking for about 15 minutes. As I found out, he belonged to the biggest charismatic church in Hungary, and when I asked him if he had received the baptism of the holy Ghost, he said he had. He asked me what congregation I belonged to, and I told him I belonged to the body of Christ, and that God had called me out of Christianity. Then he started talking about the importance of the church, how God gives the anointing exclusively to the church… and this part of our conversation gave me one of the big takeaways. Namely, how the way this young man (who I believe is our brother) talked about the church was hardly any different from the way Catholics talk about the Catholic Church. At one point he even called his congregation “my holy mother church” that he would never leave. I think I had never seen for myself, so clearly, how much the spirit of Christianity (regardless of which branch we’re looking at) is really the spirit of Catholicism.

I had the feeling that the young man felt something from the Spirit, and his reaction to it was that he just kept talking, not really wanting to hear what I had to say. I didn’t want to argue with him, I mostly just listened to what he had to say, even praying for him in my heart, but I felt that it would still be good to drop a few seeds of truth, if I had the opportunity. So, I ended up mentioning to him 1 Corinthians 12:13, Jesus’ words to Nicodemus about the new birth and the sound of the wind, and Revelation 18. In fact, I only had to refer to Revelation 18, because he knew immediately what I was trying to say. When I mentioned the Bible reference, he interjected saying “Oh that’s old news, that’s old news” – meaning he had already heard the interpretation of that scripture that I was going to tell him. I ended up giving him a card with the quote “You must be born again” on one side, and links to websites on the other side where he can find gospel tracts, short videos and longer teaching videos translated into Hungarian – which he accepted. 

My other big takeaway from our conversation was that the truth “works”. You don’t have to add anything to it, or take away from it (nor should you) for it to have an effect. The truth (when Jesus is the one sending you to share it) is going to do its job, whether you’re an eloquent speaker, or not, or whether you feel like you did a good job explaining it, or not. You just need to obey the Spirit and open your mouth, and God will do the rest. I knew in my heart that me walking up to this young man was not in vain, because the Spirit spoke to him through those few sentences that I was able to say – not because of me, but because I got out of the way, and let the truth speak for itself. 

Even though on the surface nothing major happened, I still know that our encounter was an extraordinary event, because the Spirit of truth touched this young man. Maybe months or years from now, he will remember the feelings he felt while talking to me, or he will remember the truth that he heard about the new birth, and he will start digging. I hope he will, but regardless of his response, I know that God did something for him today. 

Zoli

 

Pastor John,

I sure appreciate Gary’s articulate, insightful, and brutally honest explanation of his experience in Laying it Down: laying down the need to prove one’s rightness.

I am fortunate (very blessed) to finally have a wife who is so self-aware and honest and correctable that we seldom have major disagreements.  And I have grown to be the same; very open and willing to admit my wrong viewpoint.  If/when we do have a quarrel; we resolve them quickly with full transparency and forgiveness.  

Laying down my “factual” arguments has been a step in the right direction for averting strife in our relationship.  I know I might be “right” based on my research or influenced perhaps by the algorithms I see continually that support my point of view.  But lately, she and I have realized it’s just a bunch of opinions out there, and whether or not she sees a more Liberal perspective and I a more conservative one, it isn’t worth getting in the flesh and arguing about it.  Most things we do agree on, and for that, we’re both grateful to God for our companionship.  I thank God that Allison is a very communicative woman.

It feels GOOD to lay down our “arms” and ammunition and just LIVE in the SPIRIT of LOVE.  

There is, indeed, healing in that, as Gary said.

Your lesson last night was thrilling by the points that you emphasized!  I want to listen to it again and again.

Brad

 

Pastor John,

I loved Gary’s email today!  Man, God has been building such faith in me with what I’m going through right now. 

I was reading what Gary wrote, and thinking about the song Jacob sings, “Bring It All To The Table”.  There is a line that says, “There’s nothing He ain’t seen before.”  It reminds me of the scripture about the man that came to Jesus that said his name was “Legion” because of the many demons that he was possessed with.  It’s in Mark 5.  Our translation says this:

6. And seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell down before him,
7. and crying with a loud voice, he said, “What have I to do with you, O Jesus, Son of the highest God? I adjure you by God, don’t torment me!”

There really is NOTHING He hasn’t seen before!  All it took was that man humbling himself and laying it all down at Jesus’ feet!  And all of those demons were cast out.  There is not a one among us that possesses something as bad and as tormenting as those demons were to that man, and Jesus took it all away from him the moment he was willing.

Jesus can do it, we just have to lay it at his feet!  Just give it to Him!

Julie A.

 

Hi John,

I want to thank you again for your message last night; it was so good and it really touched my heart, and stirred up the holy Ghost in me.  I didn’t want to forget what it was that was so good, so late last night I  watched the meeting again and listened to your whole message again.  I love what you said about hearing the voice of God and how that’s going to save us, and to stay right with the things we know came from Him. 

Less than an hour before the meeting last night, I felt the Lord speaking to MY heart, and telling me to go grab the music for “Here Comes Jesus”, and to start with a particular verse.  So, I had it ready, and when the time felt right, I sang it.  I think it was appropriate for the moment, and I thanked the Lord that I was ready with it.  (I had a different song in mind, and it would’ve been fine, I believe, but it would not have been as good as listening to Jesus.)

Last week, last night, and today, I keep hearing these words: “lay it down”.  I don’t believe they apply just to me, (but they do apply to me.) A week or so ago, Song and I got into a sharp disagreement about something.  (Our disagreements over the course of 40+ years have been few, thankfully).  But I could feel this disagreement was deep. I don’t know why; it was no big deal.  But I knew I was right; I had all the reasons, and I had all the explanations.  That night of the disagreement, we went to bed without resolving things, which I almost never do, as that has been one of my inner rules to follow when there’s something between us. 

As I tried to go to sleep that night, I ruminated over all the things I could say, and all the reasons I had to justify my position.  That went on for a while, until I heard the voice of the Lord.  The words were clear and short:  “lay it down”.  But, I started to fight with God about that a little, planning how I would try to end the disagreement,  and prove my point, etc. and after that, I heard the words again: “lay it down.”

In my heart, I said, “Lord, help me lay it down.”  And although I did not hear the actual words, the feeling was, to lay it down completely and remember it no more.  Not every disagreement needs to resolve this way, but this one would because the Spirit said so, and I knew it.  Right after that, I fell asleep. 

When I woke up in the morning, I made the point to not say a word about anything, and to act normally.  And when I did, I realized Song did not buck or have an attitude; it was gone, and we would not have to discuss it at all.  It was over.  Our hearts were one again. What a relief!

There is a spirit of strife in the world today, and without God‘s help, it’s bound to affect us.  You have been saying several times now, “Are you willing to be healed?”  If we have to be made “willing”, that means there’s something in the way. (And usually the thing in the way is ourselves.)

I do believe the spirit is saying to some, “Lay it down.”   “Are you willing to be healed?  Or are you going to hang onto how right you are, and remain in your affliction?  Lay it down.  Lay it DOWN!”

I just wanted to share that experience because it made a difference for us.  And it had to do with what you were talking about last night.  There may be strife in our world right now, but for us, there is healing right now.  I pray that we will be the ones to take advantage of what Jesus offers us, and to follow his voice.  It’s OK.  Just go hug the person you’re in conflict with, and lay it down.

Thank you, John.  Your messages are always so very timely for us.  When we got home, Song told me. “John always has what we need to get excited in Jesus.”  I’m paraphrasing it, but that’s what she meant!  And I agreed.

Gary

Scriptures used by Pastor John during his message:

Hold On to What God Gives You

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