Hi Pastor John! 

Sure miss y’all. Yesterday while driving home listening to the radio, I heard someone testifying about God having them help a stranger. It really touched me. Then my daughter called (same drive home) and told me about an experience my mom had. She had folded a $20 bill and put it in her pocket. She was at Kroger and lost the bill. She then went to Walmart and a woman approached her. The woman said ” excuse me ma’am. God told me to do this and I always do what God says to do”. She then handed my mom a $20 bill folded exactly like the lost bill. This really moved my mom. 

Well I loved this. I asked Jesus to let me help someone. This morning I was at McDonalds in Lexington and a gentleman approached me. He was old and worn looking. He had tattoos on his hands. He looked a little scary really. He had a beautiful carved staff with him.

He asked me if there was anyway I could get him something to eat. I instantly thought of earlier when I asked Jesus to let me help someone. I bought him breakfast. The man then asked if he could pray with me. We took hands and prayed at the counter. I know some would say, “Be careful doing this” and I will, but it felt wonderful.

I just wanted to share.

Beth

 

http://pjhphotooftheday.blogspot.com/

Pastor John,

I read this today wh​ile working on ​the Photos of the ​D​ay.  Jesus knows.  No matter what we ​think about it, he is going to reward us according to what we do, not what we say.

Proverbs 24​:12:

If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not, doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?​”​

​Amy B.

 

Good evening Pastor John, 

This morning on the way to work I thought of the song “Who Am I?”:

“Who am I that a king would bleed and die for? Who am I that he would say, ‘Not   my will thine, Lord’?
The answer I may never know,  why he ever loved me so, but to an old rugged  cross he would go, for who am I?”

After singing these words a couple of times I had to stop. A question came to my mind when I got to “why he ever loved me so but to an old rugged cross he would go for who am I” The question was: Is Jesus happy that he went to the cross for me and would he want to go back to the cross if it was only for me?  It made me ask “who am I?”  Am I making Jesus happy?  Am I pleasing him? 

To make Jesus happy will be worth it all.

Jim G

http://www.goingtojesus.com/site/php/thoughts.php?tname=tfe11-10

Pastor John:

This is from the Thoughts for the Evening 11-10.

“In an Instant”

“Pay attention now. I will tell you a secret. We shall not sleep, but we

shall all be changed, in an instant, at the twinkling of an eye” 1Cor. 15:51.

“Because God does everything with a whole heart, and because of His mighty power, when He determines to do anything, it doesn’t take Him long to do it.  I think this shows us that if we are like our heavenly Father and whole-heartedly set our minds to the task of living a godly life, we will quickly overcome the world.  Not only is there no power that can stop us; there is no power that can even delay our victory over the world and everything in it.”

I love this!!!! God quickly changes the things that need to be changed in us when we are whole-hearted about changing our ways!!!!

Diane

Hey John,

I listened to an old sermon of yours recently.  The title was  “Your Choices Determine Your Future”.   I felt as though it was going to be good.  It was!  Here are some things that really touched me that you preached.

(1) Our lives, right now, are the result of the decisions we have made in the past.

(2)  After Adam made his decision, after the deed was done, he had no more choice. He could only reap what he had sown.  You are going to reap what you have sown!

(3)  Whether we want it this way or not, our choices determine our future.  Adam lost his happy life.  He ate sorrow the rest of his time on earth.  He had no choice about that because he had made the wrong choice.

You then asked a question John, you asked, “Do you have any good thing in your life that you want to keep?”  Do you really want to keep your blessings?  The key is to live like you want to keep them.  You have to have thankfulness for what God has giving you – health, wealth, the people in your life – treat those people land things like you value them because things can change, and will change.

(4) God had told Adam, “In the day you eat thereof, you will die.”  But Adam didn’t believe it, and he didn’t value his happy life, so God gave him another one.  And in time, he died.

(5) Don’t play around with your blessings.  You may wake up one day to find them gone, and there may not be a way to get them back.  Value them!

(6) God has blessed us with the freedom to make choices, but once our choice has been made and the deed done, the results are entirely up to God.  You have no say-so in that.  We have to take advantage of the opportunity to make the right choices!

This was just the first four tracks of the cd.  It made me consider the times, today.  God is so good!  Let’s choose God first.

Thanks,

Paul

 

Pastor John,

I have been listening to an Old Testament teaching CD this morning.  You were describing how Eli knew it wasn’t right for his sons to use the ark the way they did, but he wouldn’t stop them.  He just couldn’t tell his children no.  He was afraid of his own children’s displeasure, pouting, and anger.  So he let them go to hell.  That’s some kinda love, isn’t it?

Then you went on to tell how Eli honored his sons above God because he let them take the chiefest of the offerings, which was the fat that belonged only to God.  This is on cd 5 of the Old Testament CD #2032.

Natalie

Pastor John,

Shortly after reading the email about a scientist saying faith in God will be completely gone in a generation, I read the following in the “Suffering and the Saints” book.

Michelle

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Suffering and the Saints

Judah’s patient and merciful God was infuriated by Judah’s ingratitude and ignorance.  Even the greatest revival in Judah’s entire history, twenty years after Manasseh’s death, would fall short of quenching the hot displeasure that now burned in the Almighty’s bosom.  So very far from righteousness had Manasseh led Judah that the copy of Moses’ law which was kept in Jerusalem’s temple was laid aside and eventually lost.  God’s precepts were at first ignored, and then forgotten.  It is possible that thee was a fifty-year period, or longer, when God’s law was never read or practiced at the temple which Solomon built.  There may have lived and died an entire generation of Judean Israelites to whom, in large measure, the stories of Abraham, Joseph, and Moses were unknown.  Manasseh’s reign and the few years that followed were without question the darkest time in Judah’s history.  At Manasseh’s death, this little kingdom was entirely given to the worship of heathen gods.  

I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t sleep so I decided to read some more in the Suffering and the Saints book.  It was really sweet, I remember reading this a few years ago and it really encouraged me.  This is the flip side of this article.  This is after Shaphan found “the book” and they read it all night.  How King Josiah was filled with joy and terror.

And the King sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.  And the King went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the Levites, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great.  And he read in their ears of all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD….  And the King stood in his place, and he made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep His commandments, and His testimonies, and His statutes, with all his heart and with all his soul, to preform the words of the covenant which are written in this book.  And he caused all that were present in Jerusalem….to stand to it.

 excerpts from 2Kings 23 and 2Chrionicles 34

King Josiah would not live long enough to see the powerful, lingering effect which his display of devotion to Jehovah would have on the lives of certain of Judah’s children who were made to stand before the LORD that day.  But standing in wide-eyed wonder amid the multitude, or possibly being held in the arms of their parents, were children whose names would, after Josiah’s death, become synonymous with righteousness and faith.  It is well within the borders of reason to assume that a little boy named Daniel was there, with Buzi the priest, holding his infant son, Ezekiel, who twenty-eight years later in a distant land would be anointed to be a prophet to the children of God in captivity.  A young pauper names Mordecai may have fidgeted about the fringes of the crowd for a better view of the king, but his beautiful cousin, who would become Queen Ester, was still years from being born.  And three Hebrew children, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael, probably heard the words of the law read aloud that day, not knowing that in fifteen short years, they would stand as captives before Babylonian lords and be given new names, their more famous Babylonian names of Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego.

This is not about just “us”.  Our testimonies, our lives are for a purpose.  When we humble ourselves to God and obey His voice, His commandments, it will not only help “us” now, but will also help generations after.  They need our testimonies; they need the light that Jesus has given us.  Now more than ever our light should shine bright and our testimonies should be told with boldness to each other, to our children and to their children.

I never met your father but his life and his testimonies touch me, encourage me and increase my faith every time I hear or read them!

For the past several days/nights I keep hearing myself pray, “Jesus please humble me; please help me to hear what the spirit is saying, and please give me the strength and wisdom to obey it!”  

We are truly blessed because God has given us you, Pastor John, an anointed man of God, who like King Josiah is teaching us the truth and the standards of God.  I hope we please Him.

Michelle

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John,

Yes. I was just thinking about how the opposite of pride is thankfulness.  My! Pride says look what I know, look what I did.  Thankfulness cannot take credit for anything!  Not a single thing! You feel thankful for your teachers, thankful for your pain, thankful for those whom God uses to push you, thankful for those God uses to pull you, thankful in affliction, thankful for every blessing because Jesus has done it all!  My!  We have so much to be thankful for. I can’t think of a single thing NOT to be thankful for!

Donna

 

Pastor John, 

A king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.  And a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” (Isaiah, 32:1-2)

 Reading this, Thought for the Evening is wonderful!!!!!

“’The shadow of the rock’ is nothing more than a poetic way of referring to a man who is anointed by Christ for the blessing of his people.  Whenever God anoints a man, that man becomes a place of refreshing for the saints because he is where the anointing of God is.  A faithful, anointed man of God is a refuge for God’s saints from the spirits of this age.  An anointed man of God is like a watered fountain in a dry land (Isa. 58:11), a shadow of a huge Rock in a burning, hot desert.” (This is all from the Thought for the Evening, 11-08)

And we have that, and I am so thankful for you, Pastor John.   You are that man that acts as a shadow of that great Rock. How blessed we are!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I LOVE it!

Diane

http://www.goingtojesus.com/suffering-and-the-saints.html

 

Hi John,

I just finished reading chapter 1 of the Suffering and the Saints book.  What a testament to the love of God for his people!  As I read about the suffering that Joseph endured by the hand of God, it brought tears to my eyes, not for the suffering but for the love and the great reward that his real father (God) bestowed upon him.

What an honor and a privilege it was for Joseph, for God to use him the way He did, for the purpose of saving his family and a whole nation from famine. Joseph learned the lesson; he understood who was in control of his life. Granted, it was no short or easy lesson.  I am sure he poured out his heart to God and shed many tears over the course of years, but he got it!

I pondered on my own life.  Have I gotten what God wants me to have and understand from the things I have suffered?  Did I complain?  Did I mistreat the ones it was brought by?  Do I hold anything against them?  If I do, then I missed the mark.

John, I am so thankful and grateful that my eyes can read such things and my ears can hear such things as God has given to you for His people. And God has done it. We may not know just why, but He has done it!!  

O God, let us take it in and walk worthy of such knowledge!  He has given it to us for a purpose.  What a wonderful book!  Thank you, John. 

Stuart

 

Humility makes our blessings and good qualities secure. There are many who are blessed and who have good qualities, but our good qualities and blessings will be lost in time if we are polluted with pride.  Without humility, there is no gratitude for our good qualities or blessings, and without gratitude, we cannot retain the good things we have.

jdc