Pastor John,
I’m sitting here considering and enjoying all that we felt Wednesday night, and the wonderful things that we heard. The message Wednesday was, “The only part that God’s children play, in true religion, is to respond to God. He acts, and we react – that is all that real religion is; everything else is just man’s ‘good’ idea, an idea that has nothing to do with the holiness of God or the mind of Christ.”
My, that is a lot! It encompasses a lot – everything, really!
To consider how incredible every one of our lives is, every one of us! To think how God has completely remade every one of us and our circumstances. And then realize that all of that, all of the growing that we have ever done in Christ, all of the changes, all of the building up and the tearing down, all of the rearranging and recreating that has occurred – every bit of it – was just us responding in faith to something that God did first!
We didn’t do a thing. We didn’t even “come to Christ”; we don’t know the way! He bid us to come, and we said yes.
The truth carries us. Our only part is to just say yes in faith when He sends us the next choice to make. We just go left, or we go right when the Spirit bids “turn”. We have been reacting to the love of God and His intricate management of our lives and circumstances since the day we were born. We didn’t initiate a bit of this, and at no time since that first day have we (successfully) taken off under our own direction toward the Lord, because we still don’t know the way.
What a testament to the love of God, if we can’t do anything during this entire journey but respond to the Lord, and He constantly gives us guidance to which we can respond!
This way is like a moving sidewalk. We don’t walk forward and outrun it; we don’t know where to go. We stay on the sidewalk, let it carry us, and then turn when God says “choose”. And we don’t know the way even then, but the Spirit in us does! And those who do the will of God along the way, they turn the right direction when the choice comes. “These are the sons of God”, as Paul said, and they will end up at home with Jesus, standing right at God’s front door at the end of this life.
Wonderful!
Jerry D.
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Pastor John,
I am so overwhelmed with God’s love right now. For days, Jesus has been talking to me, drawing near and teaching me. I love these times with Jesus. The meeting Wednesday night was so good to me! It brought such a peace! “Just respond” 
I felt like I could breathe again. Like everything slowed down and the stillness of Jesus took over. It has not left me since.
For some time now Jesus has been talking to Michelle and me with these old prayer meeting CDs. I wish someone else could see it, just to witness him working. We do not plan which CD we listen to, or in which order. The years vary, yet Jesus has so perfectly timed it for us to hear lesson after lesson, in sync. There are lessons about spirits that divide, lessons about hearts and how he made them into what we see today.
Oh, to have a heart like sister Lou. A heart that sees a scar on her flesh as what God is doing for her heart. I want that heart. It’s beautiful, pastor John. There are also lessons about you. It did something in my heart Wed. night, when you spoke of wanting what your father had, as he gave his testimony that night long ago. It does something to me when Lou says, “We need to know who John Clark is.” Oh I pray I cherish you. I pray I value and honor my gift from Jesus.
Reading Jerry’s email, and Michelle’s email, and spending so much time with Jesus learning what he has done to each heart, each child, to get them ready to come home, lets me feel that holy anchor even more. We have a beautiful family history that Jesus has so intimately loved and formed. I am so in love with his love for us!
I love you Pastor John
Beth