Hi Pastor John,
Sitting there this morning reading Chapter 9 of your Revelation book, my heart was pounding. It just came to life!
I love when Jesus lets you feel it.
This is what struck me the most.
God could not have given us a simpler way to please Him. Follow, just follow. We have been given everything we need to follow. I thought of little children when playing “follow the leader”; they usually are so closely and blindly following that person in front, that they will even bump into each other when a sudden change is made. They are not trying to figure out the next, best move for the leader to make or anticipating where they are gonna end up; they just follow. God must shake His head at us. I thought about this, going all the way back to Eve’s “good idea” and Adam following the wrong one.
This jumped out at me.
Page 14 under “Renewed Expectations” – He said to them (Acts 1:7), “It isn’t for you to know times or seasons which the Father has reserved to His own authority.”
I love that! It isn’t our business; it’s God’s business. All we have to do is follow. What true peace that is! If we are truly just following, then we don’t think we ought to have health, long life, meetings praising God together, and we don’t think we won’t; we don’t think, we just follow. I think I love it so much because it is what Jesus has been teaching me. I had ideas of how things should be ,but very gently Jesus has been teaching me, those were my ideas.
I had an idea I would get the holy Ghost, live among God’s people, and we would praise God together in your basement until I leave this world! I had an idea Natalie would be old and white-haired, sitting in the basement with us. I had an idea if we obeyed God and did well, we may suffer a little, but just enough to burn some dross off. But who has said that? I was putting ornaments on the tree this year, thinking about how hard I have found it to just live in the still time. I haven’t known what to do with myself. I know I want meetings, and your teaching, and seeing each other all the time. I want movement. Jesus hasn’t said to me it would be that way, and he didn’t say it wouldn’t. As I stood there, thinking about that, I knew I needed to hear that thought. When I did, I felt peace.
“The purging of the heart from imperfect thoughts yields perfect peace.” – the elder, Daniel, in The Jerusalem Council book.
You posted this on FB, and it was so good. It’s even better after this morning. I wish I could write you some educated, well thought-out feelings about how wonderful and clear this is, for the ones I pray Jesus lets see it, ( I do find it so wonderful), but I am just swimming in awe at how long humans have had their own ideas: which tree to eat off of, building calves, striking rocks, moving to Sodom, picking kings, who to kill, who not to kill…
It just makes the fact that God gives us the holy ghost and everything we need to just follow so much sweeter. Don’t design, don’t map out, don’t plan, don’t think…just follow Jesus home.
“But what makes any truth hard to understand is a heart dulled by what it thinks it knows!”
(This is just stamped on my heart!)
Beth Durham