[RE: A testimony by Sister Edna Murray recorded in a 1973 prayer meeting]:

Pastor John:

Amen to this!!  Oh!  I love Sister Edna!  I can’t wait to meet her one day!  I feel such a connection with her!  The Lord put us together in my dream years ago where Aunt Leatha handed me a small brown envelope that said, “Sister Edna’s Testimony” written in pretty cursive handwriting.  Aunt Leatha looked me straight in the eyes as she was handing me the envelope and said, “I want you to take good care of this.”  

When I found out from you later the next night that her testimony was my testimony, I was so overcome with feelings of love from Jesus, knowing that he had visited me in a dream and that he had connected the two of us that way, and that he even considered me worthy to carry on that faithful saint’s testimony!  (I don’t feel worthy, but I am encouraged and thankful!)  When I think about this, it feels just like a story straight out of the Bible!

I cannot look at her picture in your office without thinking about that dream.  I find myself standing at my kitchen sink doing dishes and thinking about her, and sometimes I tear up when I do!  She cleared a path for me, and her testimony has encouraged me more than she will ever know!

Like she said in her testimony, I’ve been “working on this thing” for almost 29 years, and it “just suits me”, too!:)  I know exactly how she feels when she says the truth is all that satisfies my soul, and I feel that with my whole heart!  So many people that were close to me (parents, husband, children, nephews, sisters) have disappointed me along the way, but Jesus has never disappointed me, and his truth is what has kept me going and given me joy when things around me weren’t so joyful!  He has put me under an anointed pastor and surrounded me with saints that love his truth, and that has kept me and strengthened me through the years!  

If I’m doing my math correctly, I’ll be 79 when I’ve been in the truth 49 years – just like her!  I was 30 when I received the Spirit in 1990, so 49 yrs later would make me 79, too! 🙂  We must have even been the same age when we received Holy Ghost!

I remember when I first started coming around and had Sunday lunch at Uncle Joe’s and Aunt Myrtle’s, Uncle Joe said several times that I reminded him of his mother.  I always assumed he meant there was a physical resemblance (and he may have meant just that), but I wonder now if he was feeling something else there!  

Sweet feelings thinking about this today!  Thank you for sending us the text from that meeting.  I have the CD now from that meeting, and I look for ward to hearing it!  

Lee Ann

 

Good morning John,

I just wanted to say how much Anna and I enjoyed being around this weekend, and how much we loved the gatherings.  Saturday night, when you where preaching about Pentecost, and how if you start to read in any book of the Bible, it all points to Pentecost, and how no matter where you start to read, it is about Jesus and receiving the sweet holy ghost at Pentecost.  That was so good, John!!  I love seeing and feeling the power of the holy Ghost on you when you tell about what God has given to and for his children.  It is so “exciting”!

What I love is that it is not in word, but it comes in power, power to change a soul and make it clean and whole.  There is victory in that power, and there is nothing on this earth that can alter or change what that power can do if we let it have its way in our lives.  That was so beautiful and encouraging to see and feel!

What an honor it is for our ears to hear and take in to our hearts the things you preached this weekend.  We both are truly blessed and thankful that you are our pastor and are a man after God’s own heart and follow his voice for us all.

Thank you, John

Stuart 

Bro John,

Recently, I’ve been going through some of the papers we’ve read during the meetings and there is so much good food to eat! I didn’t even realize that I had set up a separate folder labeled “Good Reading!” I had two favorites:

“Your Vision or God’s?”

You talked about getting out of college and how the world had used you up. You had no energy left to form a future image of yourself, nothing had to be the way you wanted it to be, you were desperate to be led, completely willing to do as you were told, a real follower of those over you in the Lord; those elders had a great love for the Bible so you followed them in that, humbled yourself to whatever the Bible said just as you humbled yourself to them.

After teaching the Old Testament class at the community college for several years, you realized that you had learned the Bible so well because God had pieced together “here a little and there a little” because you had surrendered your mind and soul to His mind and soul. You had no interfering self-visions, no opinion, no preference, hated your own thoughts and your own ways, afraid to have things your way because of what they had done to your life, so why want them any longer? 

Now, Bro John, this is getting really good to me! You asked this question: “Do you really know what your ways have done to you? If so you have trashed all your self-visions and prayed for God to grant you His vision for you instead. You will never know God or the Bible unless you are willing to let go of your self-vision and let God renew your mind.” 

You talked about the old saints that used to say, “you must come low.” You said we must have a heart to believe whatever He says – even it is contrary to what we’ve always thought or always wanted, or always judged to be right! The secret of God is with the humble, bruised, battered and with those who are so beaten down by this life that they are not just willing but begging God to have His way. and have discovered how desperately needy they are and are seeking Him and His will for them. 

Now this is great too! “When we bring nothing to God’s table, when we are completely willing to eat whatever Jesus puts on our plate, the holy truth that Jesus serves us will create understanding within us as we swallow it. It will give us the knowledge of God. The truth of Christ will shape our spirits; it will inform our attitudes and determine our choices. It will keep us from sin and make us perfect before God.” 

You told the story about Uzzah touching the ark and God’s judgment about kidnapping and instantly you thought the same thing and if we have an opinion about that after hearing God’s judgment of the matter, then we are fools, holding on to our own opinion. Then you said “I believed that whatever God said and did was right, and nothing He said or did displeased me. Displease me? Who was I to dare be displeased with God? I had no vision for myself, no dream, no plan, no desires for the future that interfered with His work in me. My Heart was soft in His hand, and He molded me. And I am persuaded that He will do the same for every moldable heart.” Wow, what a sermon that is!! My first thought after reading this was, we have no excuses, none!

Then you spoke about having visions for others and that was good too. 

My second favorite was this:

Chapter 8, The Revelation of the Father *

You talked about Jesus telling his disciples that their Father was very pleased to give them the kingdom and they didn’t even know what the kingdom of God was or how God planned to give it to them, but that it would make the Father very happy to share with them His kind of life and to bring them into His family. “And though the Bible does not explicitly say so, we can be sure that when the disciples entered into God’s kingdom on Pentecost morning, the happiest participant in that event was the Father Himself. Since He was in heaven, His great joy is not recorded in the Bible the way the ecstatic joy of the disciples is recorded. Overwhelmed with the power of God’s kind of life, they staggered down from the upper room where they had gathered, into the streets of Jerusalem, drunk with joy and proclaiming God’s greatness in languages they did not understand. But the Father in heaven was having a glorious time as well, In fact, it was His joy that those disciples were feeling.”

That is so sweet to me. God fills us up so many times with an overflowing joy and we rejoice in the spirit, speaking in tongues, dancing, shouting, jumping, rolling, laughing, crying or whatever else is in the spirit and God is in heaven loving it, enjoying it, having a glorious time too with us because it is His joy that we are feeling, He’s sending it down to us to enjoy along with Him. Even though we can’t actually see Him, we sure can see and love watching our brothers and sisters enjoy the feelings of the spirit. My heart is saying more, more, more, God. My prayer is for me/us to be in a condition to be blessed like that and to make God very happy!!

I have very much enjoyed my reading this week and I thank you so much for working so diligently to provide all this for us. 

Sheila

* From Pastor John’s book, God had a Son before Mary Did.

http://goingtojesus.com/gtjr_text/books/pdfs/fatherandson.pdf

 

Pastor John, 

Something God told me years ago,  came up today in conversation. It blessed me again to experience it. I believe it came from the Lord, so I want to share it:

God will never meet you in the flesh. If He did, even one time, you would never leave there.

Jerry

==========

That is true, Jerry.  That’s what made it so hard for the Jews to understand Paul’s gospel. God HAD met with them, so to speak, in the fleshly works of the law which He gave them.

Pastor John

I love this (below).  Especially as a scientist, this provides such clarity.  This is how I’ve been explaining to others how I can easily reconcile “the laws of science” with my beliefs.  I mean, OK, yes gravity exists, and when you drop a ball from a roof it falls at whatever the rate is (96 ft/sec?? Damien, help me out on that–I’m probably way off).  But who put those laws in place?  And when a cell needs to divide, you get all these reactions associated with DNA replication.  My goodness, what a ton of reactions that have to occur for this not to result in mutations!  Who created all these processes?  And natural selection occurs and can easily be observed.  Well, who came up with that process?  Exactly, God did all this!  Wow!!  God created it all.  If there is life in another solar system, God made it happen.  Remarkable.  This all provides such strength to me!  As always, thanks for these bits of wisdom! 

Bill

God’s Laws

“The day is yours, the night also is yours.  You made the light and the sun.

You set all the boundaries of the earth.  You made summer and winter.”

Psalm 74:16–17

       The “law of Moses” was God’s law, not Moses’.  God gave it to Moses; Moses did not write a single line of it, and Israel was preserved in peace when they obeyed that law.  Likewise, the “laws of physics” and “laws of the universe” are God’s laws.  God created this universe and the laws that are in it; the universe did not make its own laws.  And it is held together by the laws He instituted for it.

Good morning Pastor John!

I love our life.  I love Jesus molding us and shaping us into what we he wants us to be. 

I was reading some of the things Jesus has given to you for the body.  One morsel after another.  As I read a Thought for the Day that was posted on Facebook, it was so rich and thick with God’s Truth, I felt like it was dripping off the page like honey.  I posted it, praying to the Lord that some broken soul read that and take it in.  Praying the sweet mercy of God, dripping off that page, would cover their heart.  It is so thick with the answer they need.  I needed it.  I was dying in sin and I had no idea God was real.  I had no idea I could cry out to Jesus and that he would answer.  Oh Pastor John, it is on my heart this morning to cry out for them. Lord cover them like honey, let your truth drip into their hearts!  That is all I see as I write you, thick golden honey.

I have often asked Jesus why His children are not rich like Solomon. Sometimes it seems like life is so hard just getting through the daily grind of making a living.

Lord, forgive me for ever asking such a foolish question.  I feel so rich and so privileged to be part of the body, to even get to eat of the food Jesus has provided.  Jesus has spread out a table of gold for us.  I read one after another this morning.  I don’t even have anymore words.  It is just so good and true and rich.

I had to share it with you.  The sweet mercy of God was too sweet to keep to myself.  It’s like winning the lottery and wanting to take care of all those you love. I feel like I won the lottery and just want to give it to the whole body.

Beth 

Pastor John,

I love this, from a testimony by Uncle Joe, many, many years ago! I have never heard this before. Things like this from Jesus do something to me. Uncle Joe said:

“[The scriptures say that Jesus] ‘did no sin, neither was any guile found in his mouth.’ No bitterness! That’s why they say a dove is like the holy Spirit; there is no bitterness in him. He can’t eat the things that other birds can eat because he doesn’t have any gall to digest it with.”

Beth