Pastor John,
There are a lot of thoughts floating around my home, thoughts about emails, Pearls of the Day, and the like. They have been building one on another for days.
It sure feels like Jesus.
Things for me just keep coming back to the place that you spoke of a month ago, the “neither this nor that” place, that you described. That place where you don’t choose between good and evil, the place where you just are and what you are is holy. When you described it for us pastor John, you described it, that evening, as the place where we could properly love God’s children. The place above drawing sides, which always forces others to do the same. The place above choosing between one or the other of anything. The place above the division caused by choosing good over evil. Pastor John, when I awoke this morning, I never once made the choice to be a human being, and I have been a human being all day. That, to me, is what this place is like, that you described to us. It’s where you are a holy creature, by God’s design, and whatever you do, whatever you think and whatever you say is holy. It’s a place where you are free to function and be of service to God, without carnal worries. You would have to leave the place of holiness to make a choice to be good. You would have to become carnally minded to choose the good. You would have to backslide from Holy… to be good.
That old Pearl from last year, posted this week on FB, by TE, was such a reinforcement of what you described to us that evening in your home. Preacher Clark explained, in that Pearl, the promise of perfect peace, described by Jesus, when our minds are stayed on Him. That perfect peace only exists in that place above decision that you described to us. That place of liberty, liberty to just live as a holy creature, free from worry of wrong decisions and free from worry for our own well being, which is without fail a full-time job for the carnal mind. In that place that you described, we are free to be perfect. We are above the law, above reproach, above the judgment of men, and for all that, we are most beneficial to all men. We are this world’s help because what God is perfect.
Preacher Clark pointed out that we insult God with hand-wringing prayers of fear and doubt. You have to leave that place of holiness that you described, pastor John, to have those fears and that doubt…and then to pray about them. They don’t exist in that place above decision-making. Prayers of faith come from the place you described to us. You have to backslide from being holy to pray for food, clothes and shelter. I believe Jesus told us not to do it.
In the place that we are to be, our abode, where the Power is, praise, thanksgiving, and prayers from God’s heart erupt, you can feel them. There is never fear or uncertainty there. That is our home.
We cannot yield ourselves to God and perform God’s work if we are worried for our survival. It would be like one of us setting down and trying to teach our young son or daughter something, and that child interrupting us to tell us how worried they were about where they were going to get food for their lunch, when WE, their parents, have provided every meal they have ever eaten. It was important to God, so much so that Israel was required to take one day’s rations every morning. They did not have that spiritual place, that you described, available to them then. But God made them live like they trusted Him. He was trying to teach them then that all their needs were met by Him, daily, and not their storing up of manna or anything else.
Pastor John, if we are nervous when our bank account is lean, we do not trust Jesus. There is a place of perfect peace and rest, where prayers are made of power and where we live for the glory and service of God.
I have failed God so much in my life that knowing this place exists thrills my soul. I want to go there. The old Preacher Clark recordings make me think of this place.
You have been describing holiness for as long as I know of. I have just begun to see. We love you brother John.
Jerry