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  • Help on the Job

    Hey Pastor John,

    Just wanted to see if I could get some advise and prayer.

    I have worked in the medical field for almost 18 years now. I’ve worked front office, patient liaison, and marketing. My job I have now, I’m office manager. It’s a nice small pediatric office. A lot of the advertising I have been doing has really been paying off because we’re growing fast. Within the past several weeks we have gone from 5 employees to 10. Now running the business matters and patients and advertising I know and love, the manager part………….not so much. The manager that was there before me was very…. “I’m boss; you’re nothing. Do what I say or else.”

    When I was hired I’ve tried to take the time to get know the employees, their responsibilities, and how everything runs. Apparently, I have not been doing such a great job with the managing part because a couple of the employees have been at attempting to run everything and now getting into the doctors business. The doctor and I had a meeting, and she told me that I have her permission to take control and lead them back to where things need to be.

    I’m not one to be harsh or tough………….I’m a bit soft and mushy, so I’ve been asking the Lord to teach me to be a leader. I want to be able to manage my staff and be a godly woman at the same time. I hope this makes sense. I want to do right. Any advise you may give will be greatly appreciated. I’m starting evaluations Monday, please pray that I will do a good job and please God.

    Mary J

    ==============

    Hi Mary:

    You will do well if you stop trying to please those who are under you and start pleasing the one who is over you. King Saul lost his soul doing like that. He feared those he was supposed to be leading. You were not hired to make friends or make people like you. You were hired to do a job.

    If you know what the doctor wants you to do, then do it, and do not apologize for it. It has nothing to do with being harsh or unfriendly. Worrying about that is the flesh. It has everything to do with being trustworthy and competent. The employees will get along better and do a better job if you pay less attention to what they think and get in tune with what your boss thinks. How are you going to “reign with Christ” if you are so afraid of being thought of as mean that you cannot manage a few employees for somebody?

    Pastor John

    ===============

    Oh Pastor John, this is just everything that I’ve been thinking about how to manage things when I am put in charge. I will be in charge all this week so this is very timely for me, and just perfect. It just perfect timing. Thank you for sharing it.

    Mary

  • T&O

    G’day Sir,

    In your study guide there is a lot of preaching and not a lot of teaching.You have not convinced me that tithing is New Testament.
    Abraham gave Melchizedek one tenth of the spoils of a battle.This I believe was a freewill offering,not one that was required by any law or under any compulsion.He did not even keep the remaining.
    Jacob’s offer to tithe,I believe, was also a freewill offering.The problem I see here is that he wanted to trade.If God does such and such,then I will do so and so.
    I am certainly not against tithing.I have tithed in my local church(you may not approve)for some years.It seems to me now that I need to offer from a willing heart.This may or may not mean tithing.It could be less,it could be more.Because of the New Covenant,I am not under the Law.
    Have you something from the New Testament that helps me understand that my current thinking is wrong?

    Steve H

    ===========

    No, Steve, apparently I do not.

    God bless.

    Pastor John

  • 2004 CD

    Listened to the best cd today. Can’t remember the name of it, but it was from 2004 or so. You had just been to Sue’s mother’s funeral. You told a very touching story about Sue’s mother telling Sue that she had enjoyed every minute of taking care of Sue when she was little, and Sue told her mother she was enjoying every minute of taking care of her. The main part of the cd was about us getting to work and sowing good seeds, living each day with the attitude of a servant, etc. The cd could have just as easily been dated September of 2010. It was sooo good. I thought about you and wished you could hear it, too.

    I also thought about the good seeds that you have sown in us over the years. We should be covered with fruit!! It was a wonderful ride to school. Honestly, I’ve asked the Lord if he didn’t set this whole school thing up just to get me still and have this precious time with him to and from school. It’s putting something in me that wants to get to work more than ever. I want to pass this on! It’s too good! The first thing I did when I got to school this morning was to drop off a handful of “This is My Friend” tracts in the bathroom.

    I hope ya’ll are getting a lot accomplished so far. I’ll look forward to seeing you this weekend!

    Goodnight! Lee Ann

  • Solomon’s Wisdom

    http://www.goingtojesus.com/text/books/solomonswisdom.pdf

    Pastor John:

    I love what u wrote in Solomon’s Wisdom, chapter 7, “The Righteous and the Wicked”:

    “It is not necessary to try to be what one already is; it is the struggle to be what one is not that burdens the soul. Be good and you will do good. We are faithful to God only as we are faithful to good.”

    ==============

    Yes and the opposite is true: We are faithful to good only as we are faithful to God.

    te

    ==============

    Amen.
    jdc

  • Ephesians 4:20

    John, I have a greek question on Eph 4:20.

    Eph 4:20 But ye have not so learned Christ;
    Eph 4:21 If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:

    Greek:

    ὑμεῖς δὲ οὐχ οὕτως ἐμάθετε τὸν Χριστόν, εἴγε αὐτὸν ἠκούσατε καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ ἐδιδάχθητε, καθώς ἐστιν ἀλήθεια ἐν τῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ,

    Not that it’s a big deal, but could this potentially be translated:

    “But ye have not so learned the anointing (the anointed); If so be that ye have heard it, and have been taught by it, as the truth is in Jesus: “

    Gary

    =============

    Hi Gary:

    That is not the word for “anointing”. The word for “anointing” is “krisis”, not “kristos”. “Kristos” is the word for Christ, or the “anointed one”. So, no, that translation will not fly.

    jdc

  • Lincoln

    Hey… I had to read a biography of Lincoln for class. From this biography, he doesn’t seem to have been a particularly religious man, but I thought this passage was interesting:

    Lincoln’s companions on the circuit also noticed his unpredictable moodiness. Henry Clay Whitney, who began traveling Judge Davis’ circuit after 1854, reported that Lincoln was afflicted by nightmares. One night, when they were sharing a room, Whitney woke to see his companion “sitting up in bed, his figure dimly visible by the ghostly firelight, and talking the wildest and most incoherent nonsense all to himself.”

    “A stranger to Lincoln would have supposed he had suddenly gone insane,” Whitney added. Awakening suddenly, Lincoln jumped out of bed, “put some wood on the fire, and then sat in front of it, moodily, dejectedly, in a most sombre and gloomy spell, til the breakfast bell rang.”

    Coming through the lens of a biographer who is working through the lens of a who-knows-how-biased onlooker, I just wonder what this scene was really about. Maybe he was just having a bad dream, but you never know. Anyhow, it grabbed my attention and I thought I’d share!

    ~ Bekah

    ==========

    That makes me wonder if Mr Lincoln woke up that night speaking in tongues. Maybe not, but I know it is possible. A lot of people receive the Spirit and do not know what they have received. I have heard a number of stories over the years of people like that. Paul said that “we receive the Spirit through faith,” not by knowledge. For one example, while I was in the seminary, I spoke with a brother in Roanoke, VA, who met a man in the same town whose family had took him to a mental institution for examination after he began to speak in tongues while watching Ernest Angelely heal people on his television program.

    It is going to be a sad day for those who grow weak and forsake the truth because they think so few people have the Spirit, when they see just how many people have actually received God’s Spirit.

    jdc

  • On Humility

    Hey Dad,

    By random I was reading Wikipedia’s definition of humility (below), and the part about self-abasing caught my attention. I don’t know really how self-abasement fits with a lack of humility, but that sure does ring true.

    Humility is the quality of being modest, reverential, even politely submissive, and never being arrogant, contemptuous, rude or even self-abasing.

    This seemed to fit very well with XXXXX. Since I first was able to recognize it as wrong, I’ve never liked his talk about being chastised “down to the bone”. I’ll take the innoculating shot please.

    ==============

    Wow, that is very good John. I love it when God talks to our children like this – they are having experiences… it’s great.

    I used to think it was really humble to put myself down. A few months ago, the Lord stopped me and said, “would you do that to _______? (named a brother, meaning would I run them to the ground like I was doing to myself). You are doing that to MY child (meaning myself)… and it’s pride. Stop it.”

    Since then, I have caught myself doing it, more often than I thought I did – I did not even realize just HOW often I did that. It’s pride, it’s phony. But it’s going, thank you Jesus.

    I have never seen that definition of humble, but it’s good and encouraging that God showed John David that. And it’s encouraging to me, because it helps me better understand my little experience and why.

    Gary

    ===============

    The flesh really can become proud of how much it can make itself suffer. We see it all the time. Paul called it “will-worship”, and we are blessed if we escape it. Genuine humility does not glory in living like a monk and abusing oneself; all that kind of thing is a self-willed show. Real humility is doing the will of God from the heart.

    Jesus said, “I am meek and lowly,” but he had no problem chasing people out of his Father’s temple, or letting his disciples call him “Lord”, telling his accusers that they were sons of the devil.

    Moses was “the meekest man on earth”, but he smashed that golden calf to pieces and made Israel drink it.

    We don’t know what real humility unless we know God.

    jdc

  • Genesis 6

    Hey Uncle John,

    The topic came up in my Biblical Hebrew class today of the first section of Genesis 6. I had a couple of questions about it.

    1) Who are the “sons of God”? I thought that they were just men, but in 6:4 it makes it seem like they were not just men.

    2) At the beginning of verse 4 the word that’s translated as ‘giants’ in the KJV is from naphal – to fall. Dr. XXX seemed to think that these, literally, “fallen ones” were the offspring it then talked about who came from the son of God who went in unto the daughters of men. He brought up Achilles, Gilgamesh, etc, who were part god as examples. Is there even a chance that before the flood heavenly beings were allowed to go in unto the daughters of men?

    Hope that came across right,
    Atn.

    =========

    Hi Aaron!

    How’s college treating you? No, wait… You just told me.

    Yes, at first glance, it does seem to be the way your professor said, but “it ain’t necessarily so.” The “giants” were only extra-sized men, such as Goliath, who lived much later but was 10-12 feet tall, and very muscular. He was no “bean-pole” basketball player. The myth-makers of the ancient world, such as Homer, made use of their knowledge of pre-diluvian “giants” and “mighty men”, and devised fables of mighty men such as Hector. You may recall that we read about Hector, who in the battle for ancient Troy, lifted and threw huge stones which, Homer tells us, “ten(?) strong men could not now lift.”

    Remember, Aaron, the pre-diluvian world was of a different order from the world that exists now, after the Flood. What God did to this earth, and to heaven, made it seem like a different planet to Noah when he and his family disembarked from the Ark. Before the Flood, men really did live hundreds of years, and there is no reason to doubt that some of them grew to an extraordinary size.

    Secondly, we know that “the sons of God” were not fallen angels (as many ancient Hebrew and many early Christian teachers taught) because Jesus said plainly that the angels “neither marry nor are given in marriage.” The “sons of God”, then, must have been humans who were upright but were led astray by “the daughters of men”. That is the story of God’s people throughout the Bible. Nothing unusual there at all.

    Finally, I can tell you that you will be wasting your time if you try to convince a college Professor of those simple truths. But if you just want to start a controversy for the fun of it, have at it! And please let me know how it goes. What your professor told you about Genesis 6 is standard fare among the intelligentsia, especially the those of the theological ilk.

    But what they are missing, and what you will need if you are going to survive “the craftiness of men”, is experience with the power of God. The first time I really felt the creative power of God, understanding was created within me, which nothing else can put in a heart, that it was nothing to God to create this universe, destroy it, and redesign it. The real knowledge of God comes from experience with His power, not from the Bible or even from receiving the holy Spirit at conversion. Pursue that power, Aaron, and you will live. If you fail to pursue it, you will become a proud fool just like others who have received a few blessings and gifts from God and began to admire themselves.

    Pastor John

    PS By the way — and you might want to double check me on this — but I believe that Hebrew word nephalim (from naphal) is used in reference to extra-sized men later in the Bible, and not just here in Genesis 6.

    ==================

    Hey… just to challenge you in a way that some might… and using your reasoning — why couldn’t God have decided that angels cannot marry AFTER the flood. I mean, maybe that was one of the big changes from before the flood to after the flood!

    Also, since angels aren’t the only heavenly beings, maybe it was another type of heavenly being?

    Bekah

    ===============

    (1) Maybe you’re right.
    (2) Maybe you’re right.

    But do you really think so? I know you don’t. It just doesn’t have that witness which the Spirit gives to all truth. As you have learned (I see), being in the seminary atmosphere where you are, some of the simplest truths about God can be made to appear complex, and even wrong, by the strict use of fallen man’s logic.

    jdc

    =============

    Thanks, simple sure is good. I’m really missing the Hebrew classes you did with Damien, Gary, and I. There was such a pure, clean, simple feeling as we went through the Hebrew and talked about it. After almost every one of these Hebrew classes, I have to go home and take a bath to feel right again.

    Goodness. Oh, also today he also was giving examples of how Israel had gone astray from God over and over again, and he said something like, “And Hosea even married a harlot!” Like Hosea had really sinned by doing what God had told him to…geez. I’m so glad I have a pretty good knowledge of the Old Testament. If I didn’t, I would be completely lost as they brought up all their weird gobbly-goop.

    Whew,
    Atn.

  • Questions?

    Hey Pastor John,

    I just wanted to tell you some things i have been thinking on. Yesterday Jacob came to Paul with some questions about somethings little boys at his school were saying and doing. I was so glad he felt like he could go to his daddy with any question he had. Paul was too. Later on, Paul was telling me about their conversation and how he wished he could shelter him from things, but the only thing we can do is be there to show him what is a right thought or feeling.

    After I dropped him off at school, I was praying for him. I had this thought: “THERE IS WISDOM ALL AROUND YOU. YOU DON’T HAVE TO A FOOL. YOU JUST HAVE TO KNOW WHO TO ASK.”

    As I was driving, I was thinking about how Jacob felt he could trust his daddy and ask him anything. It just hit me how that’s how it is here. We have all this wisdom. The answer is here. Just ask.

    Love Jammie

  • Still A Child?

    Dear John David Clark, Sr.

    Hi and God Bless You,

    I had to stop reading your book Speaking in Tongues at Spirit Baptism just to say thank you sooo much. Page 11, 12 and 13 — I experienced this when I was about 30 years old. [But in time], I ran back into the world. Before then, I was reading and obeying everything in the Bible. My question to you is once we receive the Spirit (God’s breath of life blowing on us), and the voice of the spirit heard, can it ever be taken away? I’d like to know that I am still a child of GOD even-though I went back out into the world.

    ==========

    You are still a child of God even if you turned away from His righteousness. However, if you continue in sin, you will be disinherited at the Final Judgment. No one but God can take away God’s gift to you.

    ==================

    I have been reading my Bible a lot and praying for the last 7 years. Also I am trying to learn how to fight evil spirits. Any suggestions on that?

    Love, Peace and Joy
    Marie L

    =========

    Sister Marie,

    Just stay filled with the Spirit, and nothing else can enter in.

    God bless,
    Pastor John

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