Pastor John,

I was thinking about the love and the wisdom of God on King David, the Apostle Paul, and others in the Bible who were moved to pray and speak on the importance of one’s heart:
• “Incline my heart unto thy testimonies” (Ps. 119:36)
• “And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God” (2Thess. 3:5)
• “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23)

Many times, and just recently, you described how, in your youth, you were determined to follow any path in life except the path of holiness mapped out by your father, Preacher Clark. Yet, you ended up precisely on that path. You even had a friend who pointed out, “You became what you said you never would be!”

The apostle Paul (Saul of Tarsus), as a young man seeking to imprison the disciples of Christ, never thought he would one day be a disciple, and even an apostle, of Christ himself.  We know from Paul’s writings that he was CERTAIN that would never happen.

Some saints who have left their walk with Jesus after many decades, who now openly speak against the truth they once thought they loved, would have assuredly said they would never be in the sin and false doctrine they now support.

So it goes both ways.  Some think they would never serve the Lord, but end up the most faithful believers in Christ.  Others think they would never go back into sin or support false doctrine after experiencing the truth and the goodness of God, but end up in the worst condition.

It is just as you have said, it is all “A matter of the heart.”  Where our heart is, we shall one day be – it is guaranteed if the Lord allows us to live on this earth long enough to see it through.
It makes me fall on my knees and ask God to incline my heart fully toward him.  I am going to follow my heart.  We all are.

Jerry

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Hi Pastor John,

A few thoughts and points you have made in sermons have been resonating with me this week after Sunday/Wednesdays’ meetings: 

1. How much God loves us and his people! The feelings from our last two times together continue to resonate with me.  Every testimony, every blessing validates how much He really does love us, to put us together and take care of each one of us.  We have been treated in a heavenly manner, we love God’s government and order because it’s so full of love! 
2. The power of our prayers. God puts it on our hearts to pray and, when we do it, He responds.  It may not be immediate, but He is listening, and we have seen the power of prayer in action over and over again.  God’s response is so much better than we ever could have anticipated.  He wants us to anticipate good things for our lives and a response to our prayers.  If we have an unanswered prayer, and if He hasn’t told us to stop praying about it, we need to keep knocking because we need to have the faith to anticipate an answer and be available to rejoice in that answer together.  It’s like you said before, we need to have patience because God is doing something. 
3. All the examples of God’s people who are lost without the knowledge of the truth. The more we learn, we love and hurt for them even more because the freedom we have is worth everything.  There was a thought for the evening recently: “There is no reason to quit God.”  But, I like to think about the opposite: “There is every reason to continue with God.”  It’s like you said, “Give me liberty. (End of story)”.  The truth is that you have liberty in the spirit or you put yourself at risk of death.  We can live!  Forever! 

Your father said in a sermon I recently listening to that there were five wise and five foolish virgins; so, half of God’s people may not enter in.  It is such a narrow way!  I think that as one learns more, it gets even narrower because you get closer to God and He expects more. But, He gives you the knowledge and tools with the Spirit to grow so you can do it with Him.  So, let’s grow and learn how to be wise together forever with Him!

-Wendy 

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Hey Pastor John,

Sunday morning when we were sitting around, we were talking about how each person had a different path for getting here, and how it is also different for people that grew up here.  Aunt Barbara asked me what it was for me that made me want to stay here instead of having something else.  I gave a simple answer, but I have been thinking about it and wanted to share more. 

All of my friends in Boone were Christians.  I was asked a few times if I wanted to go to church by some of them.  I went to a couple different churches to see what it was like.  I remember after the service, they always talked about what they liked and agreed with and what they didn’t like.  They were always comparing different churches in the area.  For them, that was just the norm, to go to church on Sunday mornings because “it was the right thing to do”, regardless of whether or not they would be satisfied with it.  I’ve been thinking about that, and how wonderful it is to be fully satisfied.  We don’t have to wonder if we’re going to enjoy the music, sermon, or testimonies because we know we already will!  I love being excited and being able to expect good things from a meeting without having to wonder if it will be confusing or not.  I’m thankful to feel satisfied with the Truth and that it satisfies us.  We are very blessed! 

Karlee 

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Pastor John,

This morning, you said something to the effect “Do people not know that I know where they are in the Lord when I lay hands on them?”

I was blessed during our meeting Wednesday night to hear you pray for several brothers and sisters and each one received a message just for them.  It was remarkable and stood out to me more than it has in the past.

Your prayer for me was “Let Him in your heart” (or something close to that).  Intellectually I’ve been thinking on what that meant and then this morning happened.

After you talked about knowing where we are in the Lord, all I wanted to do was to get out there on the floor on my back and open my heart to Him. Instead, I stretched up and out on the love seat and spread my arms up and out so my chest cavity would be available to Him to come into my heart. I breathed in His Spirit not into my body but into my heart and could feel Him filling every inch of it.  I wanted nothing more than to stay right there and have Him fill every inch of me up. I was drunk in Him, and I was loving it.

As it was time for me to leave, I asked Jesus to not let the tasks of the world close my heart back up, and I felt His answer, “it doesn’t have to”. I can feel Him in me as I write; with every breath I take. He’s that close

Thank you, Jesus for your love. Thank you, Jesus for my family. Thank you, Jesus for my Pastor.

Allison C.

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Hi Pastor John,

Today during coffee morning, when you were talking about Daniel asking God to forgive us (as opposed to one person) and how Jesus takes on our suffering, I was reminded of that section of offerings in Leviticus. I remember that we have discussed how merciful it was for God to allow an offering for the sin of the nation, and it was basically the same offering as the sin of an individual.  But one thing that struck me today was that God wants us to think of the one body of Christ in this way.  One person’s sin/hurt/love/joy should be all of ours.

For instance, if one person is hurting, we’re all hurting until Jesus takes that burden.  He wants us to be so united that if there is a burden in the body, we each feel it, and then we can feel when it lifts, and rejoice in what God has done.  When Carrie was testifying today, I felt that burden lift off her as if it was my own.  It’s a wonderful thing to hear someone’s testimony and know that it is God, but this additional space is feeling the testimony together for what God has done for us.  We can know and feel it simultaneously…together!  And that’s how everything works with the body of Christ: right judgment, joy, happiness, understanding, etc. That’s really fellowship; it’s the immediate feedback of the feelings that unite us in the Spirit.  Because, as you have said before, the knowledge of God is in the feelings of the Spirit.  And that makes so much sense because the Spirit is the only thing alive on earth!

I feel like there have been situations in the body lately where God is trying to take all types of burdens: from burdens of biological family, earthly possessions, jobs, God’s people who are disobeying Him, from carnal thoughts, etc. It is an opportunity for each individual to be more in harmony with God and, thus, more united with each other.  We have to have faith that Jesus can and WILL take those burdens away from each person, then we as a body can rejoice together in what He is doing for any one of us.  And we can also be excited to anticipate what God will do for each of us so we can have more unity together.

Family is not about genealogy/biology anymore, as it was in the old covenant.  In this covenant, it’s all about spiritual unity.  What a wonderful family of God we have! 

Wendy

==========

That is true, Wendy.  It is our heavenly Father’s great desire is for us to see ourselves as He sees us, that is, as His family, and for us to be close enough to share in each other’s joys and sorrows.  I am ashamed of the divisions that exist in the family of God, the divisions, I should say, which exist among us who believe in Jesus.  We are all less than we could be in Christ, because of the divisions that exist among us.  We need the strength we get from one another’s testimonies and faith.

In Jesus’ prayer the night before he was crucified, he said that unity among those who believe in him would be a convincing testimony to the world that God had truly sent him:

John 17

20. I am not asking for these alone, but also for those who believe in me through their word,
21. that they all might be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be one in us, so that the world might believe that you sent me.

That being true, it follows that divisions in the family of God is a convincing testimony that God did not send Jesus.  It makes it harder for people to believe Jesus is Lord if those who call him Lord are themselves divided and confused.  That is why I am ashamed of the divisions among believers that I have known; it is a reproach on the holy name of Jesus.  He does not deserve that from the people he has rescued from sins and death.

If there is anything we can do to make peace in the family of God around us, may God grant us the grace to do it!

Matthew 5

9. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Pastor John

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Hey, Pastor John.

Last night’s meeting was really sweet for a few reasons! The minute I walked in I felt like I belonged. I felt like I did 24 years ago, that this is my family and everyone loves me and Jesus wants me here. I realized I was happy. When I got prayed for, this time it was, “Here’s me.” And that’s it. It was a blessing to me for Jesus to let me feel comfort and peace from him…for him to care enough about me!

You said so many good things that I wish I would have written them down during the meeting. One thing that stood out that I loved is when you said that “God had our names written down since before the foundation of the world, and he waited all this time for us. Let’s make Him happy that He waited” (paraphrased and maybe I added some, but that’s how it felt). That’s my heart’s desire! 

In my Bible time with Clara’s class this morning, we got to the part of the 10 commandments and we wrote in easier words what they mean. When we were done, I told them, “Wow, God really made things easy for us. All He said to do was love Him and treat people right.” There was nothing (and is nothing) that He has asked people to do that is too hard. He knows how weak we are and that we can’t do anything much without Him anyway, but He wanted us to have at least something that our little selves could strive for and feel like we were doing. 🙂 

Even the smallest bit of direction is helpful, even if we still need His help to do it! I’m thankful this morning for those feelings last night and wanted to share. 

Leah

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Hey John,

I had an experience with God last night when I got into bed.  Our Father spoke to me and said, “Jesus didn’t sacrifice Himself.”  Immediately, my spiritual ears perked up!  And all of these thoughts started coming to me. 

Jesus was God’s Lamb!  When John the Baptist saw Jesus walking along the Jordan River, he said “Behold the Lamb of God”!  He didn’t say “Behold the Lamb of Jesus” or “Behold the Lamb of Christ”! He was God’s Lamb!  Abraham prophesied of that on Mt Moriah when he said that “God will provide Himself a Lamb.”

The Father was the One that nailed Jesus to that cross just as surely as He blotted out the handwriting of ordinances when He nailed them to the cross!  God nailed Jesus to that cross using a Roman soldier with a hammer and nails, just as surely as David slew Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Ammonites!

Jesus was the sacrifice, but He didn’t sacrifice Himself.  God made the sacrifice. Jesus was as a Lamb, led to the slaughter, yet He opened not His mouth!  But because He was faithful unto death, even the death of the cross, God has given Him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord! 

Oh, so many wonderful thoughts were coming to me lying there in my bed!  And I know that you know all these things.  But it was so good to me that I was going to tell it at the fireside this morning, but the Spirit wasn’t in it, so I kept it to myself until I felt an unction from the Spirit to tell it.

I felt that unction when I listened and read the Conclusion (IK4 Conclusion PDF) of the Iron Kingdom book 4 that y’all read around the fire yesterday. 

At the top of page 1, at the beginning of the second sentence, you wrote “Paul’s gospel proclaimed that Christ’s sacrifice was intended…”  When I read that, it felt like you were saying that Christ was the One making the sacrifice, even though I am confident that it wasn’t your intention to do so.  And, except for my experience last night, I probably would not have noticed it.  But I did have that experience last night, and I did notice it.  So I felt that I should write to you and ask if perhaps you could change that sentence to “Paul’s gospel proclaimed that the sacrifice of Christ was intended….?

Thank you for all of the labor that you do for us!

Billy H.

==========

Hi Billy,

Thank you for writing.  That is an interesting point.  I believe that to God belongs the eventual credit for everything the Son accomplished.  After all, Jesus did say once that “of myself, I can do nothing.”

But there is another side of the issue that we cannot ignore.  That is, even though it is the grace of God in anyone that enables that person to accomplish God’s will in his life, God gives that person the credit for doing it and rewards him accordingly.  The Bible says that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,” which goes along with your testimony from last night.  But it also says these things concerning what Jesus did after he ascended back to the Father in heaven:

Ephesians 5

2. Live in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a fragrant aroma.

Hebrews 7

26. It was fitting that we should have such a High Priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens,
27. who does not need, as those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for their own sins and then for those of the people, for this he did once for all when he offered up himself.

Hebrews 9

24. Christ did not enter into holy places made by hands, the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us,
25. not to offer himself over and over again, as the high priest entered into the sanctuary year after year with the blood of others,
26. for then, he would have had to suffer many times from the foundation of the world.  But now, once for all, at the close of the ages, he has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Hebrews 10

10. We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.
11. Moreover, every priest stands daily, ministering and offering the same sacrifices, time after time, which can never take away sins,
12. but he, having offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, sat down at the right hand of God

Jesus was himself the sacrifice because he was, as you pointed out, God’s Lamb.  And as you know, according to the law that God gave to Israel, the owner of the sacrificial animal was the one who had to kill it.  That means that God was the one who had to kill His Lamb.

At the same time, it would be wrong to ignore the fact that Jesus performed the sacrifice for sin which God demanded.  The very reason that God made Jesus our high priest was to offer an eternal sacrifice for our sin—himself.  And he did.

It was all God’s plan, and it was only by God’s power and wisdom that Jesus was able to accomplish his mission.  The Father gets the glory for it all, of course.  Jesus would certainly say so.  Even so, if by God’s grace we would “rightly divide” the information provided for us in Scripture, we must conclude that Jesus offered himself to God as a sacrifice for sin.  God certainly gave him credit for doing so,  and we cannot be wrong to agree with God.

Thank you for the thought-provoking testimony.

Pastor John

========== 

Wow! Thank you John! That was some response! I agree with everything that you said! I got blessed last night while I was receiving all of those thoughts. And I was blessed again today when I wrote them out. And now I have been blessed again after reading your response. Feeling so blessed for being able to know and understand these things that are higher than I am.

Thank you for your help!

Billy H.

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Good morning John,

Ben and I read the first half of the edited section in your Iron Kingdom book on “Paul’s Gospel” last night, and it was really good.  I love everything you added.  The Shakespearean opening was perfect!  You got Billy H’s wonderful new thought in there about God giving the law and God taking it away.  One of my favorite lines from Sunday was still there about Moses’ law being robbed of its glory by the surpassing glory of the Son of God who was exalted above the heavens themselves.  I especially love that verse you included from Galatians 5:5 when Paul says, “For we await the hope of righteousness by faith in the SPIRIT!“ (Not by faith in ceremonies).  I remember that was the verse that triggered my testimony the night we were putting the Montanaus book (Going to Jesus.com – Montanus: Prophet to an Apostate Body of Christ) mailing together.

I love that all of Paul’s faith was in the Spirit alone!  I stopped reading last night and told Ben, “THAT’S the basket where you want to put all your eggs.  That is, the Spirit of God basket!” Putting your eggs anywhere else dishonors the sacrifice of Christ!!  I saw my own relatives who have walked away and are now worshipping in ceremonies without any regard for the Spirit of God that He so mercifully gave them, when I read from Paul, “You are estranged from Christ…you have fallen from grace” (Gal 5:4).

And I love that you included that amazing prophecy from Jeremiah about God making a new covenant with us.  The prophecy that God would write His law on our hearts and He would be our God and we would be his people is now our reality!  Praise God!  I love having his law written on my heart and being one of His people!!  To be one of His people is everything!

After we finished reading, I wanted to find something I transcribed several years ago from Sis Edna testifying in a meeting in her farmhouse about her love of the doctrine!  It’s so good!  Here it is:

“There used to be a scripture; they’d teach me it was [talking about] tobacco, and it said, “Taste not, handle not, with the using all are to perish.”  That’s [talking about] the doctrine and commandments of men.  Well, I’m glad I found God’s doctrine!  D-O-C-T-R-I-N-E.  Not doctors.  I thank the Lord for the doctrine of God, and because I love it, and I don’t care who knows it.  And I want you to know that I been a-standing for it for 50 years!  The doctrine of Christ is gonna live on!  It never dies!  This is something that doesn’t die.  The doctrine is just as fresh today as the day when I got it!  It ain’t gone dead, and it never will die!  Praise God!  I’m so glad of it, I don’t know what to do!  This thing is living now!  I’m so glad of it!  My Father is rich! They’re fussin over their inheritance down here, well I’ll tell you one thing!  My father is rich!  It’s all in his hands.”

Sis Edna testified this in a meeting at least fifty years ago, and I still feel it today because the doctrine she loved so much is still just as fresh today as it was when she said it!  The reason I love this section in the Iron Kingdom book on “Paul’s Gospel” so much is because it’s not some boring history about Paul.   It’s alive!  I told Ben I know exactly why Jesus put Sister Edna and me together in a dream.  We have the same testimony, and that one paragraph about her love for the doctrine is part of our testimony!!  I felt my spirit stirring while reading her testimony out loud to Ben the same way I felt it stirring while reading this section on Paul’s Gospel!  I love it!  Thank you for writing it!

My Father is rich!!

Lee Ann

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