Pastor John,

I’ve been listening to you preach on “Form versus Life” from a sermon on 4-4-09. Man, you said some amazing things on that cd. I felt like it was going deep in my heart. When you were talking about Paul saying that he was an apostle by the grace of God, something hit my heart! Oh Jesus I am just a Child of God by that same Grace!

I just had to stop and go hug another child of god. I stopped by and hugged Bess. I saw Donna and hugged her. I went by your house, but no one was home. 🙁

I had this thought about our children. Maybe they should go out and visit Christian churches, where all that’s there is form. I don’t think they, or maybe even some of us, understand sometimes what it is that the Father really hates. The ceremonial form is leaving out his son! I want to hate that thing with all my heart and life!

Jammie C
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Hi Jammie.

The closer we get to God, the more we will love what He loves (His Son, most of all), and the more we will hate what He hates. Your feelings are being created within you by the God we serve. Live them! Our heavenly Father is shaping your heart to be like His!

Pastor John

Good morning John,

I had to work late Friday night; I got home in time to hear you all read the last 4 pages. But I did read it all.  I feel like it is one of best summaries of the divided kingdom and the prophets that you have written.  It may be the clarity that God has given us about his Son that makes the words jump off the pages and penetrate my heart more.

I feel I understand more now how evil Jeroboam’s sin really was for God’s people. To be given the true and only way God has chosen for his people to worship him, and then to turn and go another way – that is evil!  And then to teach others to do so, and claim it is from God and the right way he should be served, that hurts my heart.  And it is so good to understand that God, not the Devil, sent the suffering that came on his rebellious people. 

What does that say about us today? The ones he has given the truth to and who have sat under the anointing and power of the holy ghost, and then walk away and go try serve God another way!  That is evil; and then to teach others to do so as well!  God help us hold fast to the truth and love it.

I pray, God let me feel the way you feel about everything. Let me love what you are doing and the anointing you have put around us, to love the truth and to walk in it with all my heart and live it every day.  If we don’t, we will end up doing the very thing that we hate right now.  God help us!!!  Thanks John

Stuart

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Hi, Pastor John.

The reading of chapter seven in the Suffering and the Saints book was very sobering but very wonderful to me.  I told Judy how refreshing it is to read about the things of God. We read hundreds of years of history, even thousands of years, in just a couple of hours, but it put me in tears with the love, grace, and above all the patience of God for Israel. It’s the same thing that is happening today with the way God feels towards his people in Christianity.  He still is very loving, caring, and patient for hid children.  Just like he destroyed Israel (and Judah) because they turned to idols and false worship and “sinned after the manner of Jeroboam”, the end will be the same.   He will destroy that filthy whore that is defiling God’s people today.  The call is still the same, “Come out of her my people” (and serve the true, loving, patient, & graceful God).

Thank you, John!!!

Billy

 

Hi Bro John,

It’s been such a cold day but I have very much enjoyed keeping the fireplace going this afternoon. I wanted the house to be very warm when Sammy gets home from work. So just now, I put in a really big piece of wood and that very thankful feeling (one that we all have experienced) came over me and I said out loud, I am so thankful that I am strong enough and able to lift this piece of wood and know how to put it in the fireplace properly.

Being thankful for a lot of little things each day sure does add up and make us very rich people.

Sheila

Bro. John:

I’ve been thinking a lot about your Pearl from a few weeks ago:

“It doesn’t matter how cold their (children of God who have fallen away) hearts are, it matters how warm God’s heart is.”  Oh, how encouraging!  Then the Lord reminded me of these verses this morning in Isaiah 55: 8-9:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.”

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

So good!  Just made me realize that whatever I am thinking right now about anything, His thoughts are higher!  I love that!

And then in Jeremiah 29:11:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

These verses speak of God’s warm heart towards His children.  His thoughts and ways are not just “higher” because He is God (though that would be reason enough) but His “higher” is full of righteousness and holiness, sprinkled with His mercy, grace, and love, and His overwhelming goodness!  He wants us to have that expected end that ends with Him! 

I have just feasted on these thoughts today.  How good God is and how He wants good for His children. 

Sandy  🙂

Hi John,
Amy and I have been listening to the tape series you recorded on the Law of Moses years ago.

Last night we started the part where you break down the 3 different types of commandments given by God in the Law (Moral, Civil, and Ceremonial), as well as the 3 different “time zones” (before the Law, during the Law, and after the Law). I remember learning about these things several years ago, and how clear, and simple, and how perfectly it made sense the way God has dealt with mankind through the ages.

One of the things that stood out to me last night went right along with what you were telling the parents on Christmas Eve – to spend time with their children, teaching them the Bible and talking about the stories in the Bible – not just once or twice, but continually, until they LEARN them and understand them. One of the examples you gave in your teaching series on the law was how teaching your children the ways of the Lord is a MORAL COMMANDMENT. And then you demonstrated how we know this by giving the scripture references for this commandment before the Law was given, during the Law, and after. They are:

Genesis 18:17-19 And the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

Deuteronomy 6:7 And thou shalt teach them [God’s commandments] diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

Ephesians 6:4 And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.“

I have really been enjoying listening to th e Law Series again, and reading through the Law. I love it when, like you said recently in a meeting, you come across a commandment of God in the Law, and it just FEELS right, even if you don’t know the details of exactly why God commanded certain things.

Vince

Hi Pastor John,

I feel really good.  The past 2 mornings I’ve just sat in my chair and told Jesus over and over Thank you, thank you, thank you for how I feel: full of confidence and growing faith.   I think of all the things He has done for me – especially in getting me out of Christianity – but what it really comes down to is keeping my way clear, keeping clean hands and a pure heart and not having condemnation, so that I can keep having confidence in him.  I have just loved how I’ve been feeling.

OK, back to study for me. I think my exam is going to be tough.

Jenny

I don’t know if I understand this Pearl, exactly. What if nobody you ever tell about Jesus follows after it? Or will that not happen over a lifetime of serving God, if you’re doing your part?

RJC
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Hi.

If you are helping bear the burden of winning souls, or if you are encouraging a righteous soul to be faithful to Jesus, you are “carrying somebody with you into eternal life”. Jesus promised that whoever is a blessing to one of his disciples will receive a disciple’s reward.

Of course, the opposite is true, also. If we are a stumbling block for those seeking for eternal life, we will be damned. Jesus said that it would be better for a person never to be born than to cause one of his little ones to stumble in their walk with him.

Pastor John