Hey John,
I had a couple things that I wanted to share. First, when I saw this Excerpt below from the Solomon’s Wisdom book, it got my attention because sometime during the last few weeks the words “self-indulgence” came to me, just out of the blue. I didn’t know if it was the Lord was saying this to me, but I do know I didn’t think up the words myself. And I’ve been praying for the Lord to help me do my part for fellowship or show me if there’s something I can do. So, I have been paying attention to my own “self-indulgence” and being more careful about that in everyday things such as eating. When I saw this excerpt, which associates self-indulgence with a lazy person and it killing him, it made me get up and get to work doing some extra cleaning (instead of lounging around). That felt good. And there’s a Thought for Today on the Carnal Mind (April 14), that I read recently where you talk about over-indulgence in carnal things and the carnal mind dividing us. So all those thoughts seem connected to me.
Then this morning, I decided to read a section of your Apostate Fathers book on Polycarp. When I was reading that, the Lord blessed me with a better understanding of the verse in 1John 4:3. Somehow I’ve always just read that verse as a verse, and not realizing the context of what John had been talking to the saints about. I don’t know why (and feel a little embarrassed about it), but that particular verse has always been a little fuzzy to me. But this morning when I was reading what you wrote on Polycarp’s misunderstanding of that verse, something started clicking for me, and I read in the Bible what John said, starting a couple of verses before that, at the end of chapter 3. Here is what stood out to me…(paraphrased): “Hereby we know he abideth in us – by his Spirit…but don’t believe every spirit because there are false prophets (men that lie)…hereby know the ye spirit…every spirit that confesses.” And then I read in the Polycarp section where you said that John knew better than to think that anyone is of God who said Jesus lived in a fleshly, human body…I thought, of course! It’s simple! The murderous men of John and Jesus’ time all would have said Jesus lived in a fleshly human body. And then you explained that John was warning the saints not to think the Spirit comes any other way than the way it first came. That was even better and more perfectly explained and confirmed what I was understanding in those verses. That really blessed me.
Thanks John, Love you!
Lyn
