http://pastorjohnshouse.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-world-hates-you.html

Mmmm… Pastor John, I feel so thankful for that “convicting presence of the holy spirit” you speak of in the blog I read today.  I feel so glad for it.  (Thank you Jesus.)  Over Christmas, I got distracted (again) and I began to feel far away from the Lord again, but to be home now (where I live) and feel that precious convicting presence letting me know I was getting too far away.  Well I just feel so glad for it – I want to be under the shadow of His wings.  I was going to go on back home for New Year’s too, but as soon as I got back here, I decided I will stay here alone and spend my time in the Lord because I want to be near the Lord.  I want to just seek Jesus here – read my bible, pray, do verse searches – stuff like that, and I’ll probably watch the fireworks on TV.  I love times like that.

The other thing about this that I’ve been thinking about is how others do not feel “that convicting presence” – I often feel surprised when I notice others do not feel that conviction.  In fact, I think it’s strange they do not feel that conviction that I (blessedly) do!  Praise God for His blessings!

Anyway, I feel encouraged and just wanted to tell you so. Thank you.

J H

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Hi JH

We are SO blessed to feel something when we do the right things, to let us know that it is right, and to feel something when we do the wrong thing so that we can change our course.  When I look around and see how many now seem to have no “conscience” when they do wickedly, I fear God all the more.  He has shown us very great mercy, just to let us feel what he feels about good and evil.  It is a precious blessing, not to be taken lightly.

Oh, may God continue to show us His marvelous His grace!  I am so happy that you value it!

Pastor John

http://www.goingtojesus.com/site/php/mastersnet.html

Dear Bro. John:

I just want to share my feelings that are still stirring from yesterday’s tract reading.

I have wept this morning reading in Genesis about Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael.  Something you said yesterday during reading the tract “The Master’s Net“, as you were talking about Ishmael being cast out and him being the firstborn of Abraham, really went into my heart and made me want to read again about them.  I may not quote it exactly, but what you said when you were talking about Ishmael, Abraham’s firstborn, being cast out was akin to this:  “The OT covenant was also first, and it was cast out!”  Whew!  That was so good!  So this morning as I read in Genesis, I really felt the mercy of God’s love not only for Ishmael but for God’s people who are still wandering out away from Him.

I noticed some things that really touched my heart concerning the relationship between God and Abraham.  When God told Abraham that Sarah would have Isaac, Abraham laughed and then said to God: “O that Ishmael might live before thee!”  Then God spoke with wonderful, loving authority.  And isn’t it wonderful to feel how God sets everything in order as it should be according to His plan?!  All that is left to do is walk in it.

Genesis 17: 19-21:

And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.
And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.
But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.

What love and mercy in what God told Abraham.  God had a purpose!  But, how like Abraham we are!  Only seeing what is right before our eyes but not what God has beyond that.  But when we cannot see, we must trust in God’s love for us.  God loved Abraham and heard his plea for Ishmael, but His covenant was with Isaac who had not even been born yet.  As I read on in Genesis, I came to the part where Ishmael was cast out and Abraham was grieved.  But God spoke to Abraham again: “Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad . . . . for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.”

As I continued reading where Hagar took her son and wandered in the wilderness and her supply of water ran out, I began to see what a merciful good God we have.  Hagar sat opposite her child “a good way off” because she could not bear to watch him die.  God’s heart even went with Hagar and Ishmael that day.

Genesis 21: 17-20:

And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.
Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation.
And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.
And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.”

Then, I got to the part where God said to Abraham: “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.”  Brother John, I wept through the reading of this whole scene.  But what I saw in reading this was very sobering to me.  God knew that Abraham had more than one son, He knew Ishmael existed, but He referred to Isaac as the ONLY son Abraham had.  To God, Isaac was the only son Abraham had because God’s covenant was established only with Isaac.

The story reminded me of when I searched for my birth certificate and ran into problems finding it.  I was giving my biological father’s name to the people who were looking for the certificate.  I was surprised to find that my biological father had been replaced on my birth certificate by the father who had adopted me.  In the eyes of the law, my adopting father was the only father I had ever had, and it was as if my biological father never existed.  Jesus taught me by that example who my real Father is; the day I received His Spirit and was adopted into the family of God, my New Birth certificate said I belonged to Him, and that He is the only Father I have ever had.  So it is today, the everlasting covenant: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”

Brother John, the story of God, Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, and Hagar and Ishmael is a beautiful story, full of heartache, encouragement, tenderness, mercy, love, and many more feelings of God than I am able to express here.  But isn’t that how it always is when God is the main character?  I am finding that God is a God of many feelings because He deals with many hearts.  This question came to mind as I read about Abraham and Isaac, “What made Abraham so willing to sacrifice Isaac, yet only a short time before, Abraham had grieved so to cast out Ishmael?”  Maybe it was that God conquered that part of his heart that did not believe the love of God.  But is the question what really matters?  The answer is to always do the will of God.

Yesterday’s reading of the tract “The Master’s Net” was wonderful, and I continue to be blessed by it today.  I also read the TFE’s (2-12-05 and 2-13-05) “Two Mothers, Part One and Two” and again loved what was written!  Father Abraham (and Sarah, too) would love these feelings that come with the New Covenant!  Jesus said so: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.”  I am glad, too!

Sandy

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Yes, Sandy, yesterday was a special time together with the Lord.  I am sorry our Skype listeners missed it because of technical difficulties, but I think that is permanently fixed now.  We had our computer guy here today, running a direct line into the meeting room so that John David will no longer have to depend on a wireless connection for Skype.   I hope that will solve the problem of the signal being dropped.  Yesterday’s meeting was just too good to miss!

jdc

Hi pastor John,

I have been really enjoying the things I have been learning and feeling over the last couple of weeks.  When I think of some of the things that have been said, the words “sobering”, “peace”, “safety” and “order” come to mind.  This seems to be the overall theme of what I have been feeling from you and others lately.  I don’t really know how to put what I have been thinking & feeling into words, but it feels clean and right.  Your messages on “Just one plural ‘you’”, on being free to be either a wise or foolish virgin (but not free to sin), on eating & drinking unworthily; and the songs and dreams people have had about pride (Token, Amy); and the corrections and reproving that some have been receiving.  Just to name a few – there is so much bread from Jesus I feel like I’m not able to eat it all!

I listened to the Tithes and Offerings CD the other day, and after I was finished, I had such strong thoughts of “clean”, and “pure”, and “authority”, and feelings of thankfulness, that I had to jump up and shout and dance.  After a few minutes I felt drunk!  It felt so good, and sobering at the same time.  I spent most of my teen and early adult years trying to be a rebel, and scoffing at authority, and despising government..but Jesus has begun to show me that I was really just rebelling against who he really created me to be.  I’m finding out that I actually like being under authority, and that it brings such a feeling of peace and safety.  It was so much work trying to be that person!

Another thing – about a week ago I had a good conversation with sister Margaret on the phone.  I was updating her on the previous Skype meetings and she was telling me how things were going with her.  We were talking about eating & drinking unworthily and she said something that I felt like was a word from the Lord for me.  I had just been praying for God to speak to me in some way – to teach me something new or let me know something – when Margaret called.  She said something like, “You know, when we show up for the meetings on Skype, it’s the same as showing up for the meeting in person.  You have to have a clean heart and be living clean with a clear conscience to be worthy to be there.  They can feel us in the Spirit when we are there.”  This was so good to me.  “Sin will not be allowed in that place” doesn’t mean a physical place – it’s a spiritual place.  There had been some things in my life that I just wasn’t sure about, like having a wrong attitude towards people (such as my wife & kids) who have not come to understand the changes that God has made (and is making) in me.  What Margaret said made me step back and examine myself and my attitude.  I have just enough knowledge from God to be dangerous or hurtful to someone, if I have the wrong attitude.

And speaking of having a wrong attitude, I have had at least two dreams lately that were sort of similar to brother Tim’s dream of having a wrong attitude towards Christians and others who have not come to know/understand the truth.  I wish I had written them down, because I forget the specifics now.  Basically, there were several instances in my dreams in which I was mistreating a person whenever they were opening up to me.  They were being honest with me and sharing their thoughts and feelings, and I would scoff, or sneer, or roll my eyes, or ignore them and walk away, or something like that, to show my disapproval of the things they believed.  I can remember waking up and having such a bad feeling after treating them that way.  It was as if I was “slapping them in the face” for what they believed, and Jesus was letting me feel the hurt that they felt for my attitude towards them.

Sorry for the book, but I wanted to share some of what I’ve been thinking and feeling lately.  I am so very thankful that Jesus rescued me and led me to a man who teaches things that feel right and clean and holy.  This work and this group of people that God has put under your care is a HUGE thing.  It is the tiniest little thing on the planet (when you think of the billions of people out there worshiping God in thousands of different ways), and yet, because of what God has done, it is the BIGGEST thing on the planet from what I have seen!  He truly has chosen the “foolish” and “base” and “weak” and “despised” things of the world to confound the wise and the things which are mighty.  Praise God!

Vince

Hey Pastor John,
 
I remember when I began to understand more of the truth and how I had started looking at christians the wrong way.  My attitude was all wrong.  One night I was so upset about an individual who thought they were right about a particular doctrine, but the Lord had not open their eyes to the truth yet.  That night as I was thinking on this situation before falling asleep, the Lord gave me a dream.
 
In the dream I was at school and new kids were coming in the class one at a time.  Then entered this one kid who started preaching while holding his Bible over his head.  He started preaching that you had to “get saved”.  I think he was quoting scriptures and saying you need to repeat [a prayer or scripture] after him.
 
I thought to myself if, he comes over here I will give him some truth (this was a wrong thought motivated by a wrong attitude).  As he got closer to me, I began to get ready to let him have it with both barrels.  He started to preach at me, when I stopped him and I began correcting him.  As this started to take place in my dream, I was taken up by the Lord in spirit to sit beside him and watch this scene.  There, I could feel what the Lord was feeling.  Every word that I was saying to this kid was like my open hand slapping him in the face.  Each time I did this, the kid got physically smaller.  Then I began to feel the anger of the Lord toward me for that attitude.  At that moment, I started to tremble at His correction for me.
 
As I begin to awake from the dream, I could feel myself getting lower and asking God, “How do you know when to speak the truth to someone?”  At that very moment of my awaking, my alarm clock came on with the radio blasting with these words from a Beatle’s song: “All you need is LOVE”.  From that moment on, I’ve tried to remember to speak to those I meet with a godly attitude.  If they say anything about the Lord, I try to get them to tell me about my experience with Him.  That is safe ground to start with.
 
Shortly after my correction, you started instructing us about good manners in the Lord and how important it is to show respect to our elders.

I thank God for you and for all the elders that are in my life.  They are treasures to the Body.
 
Sincerely,
Brother Tim

Dear Bro. John:

The Lord leaves such a depth of satisfaction in the soul when he visits.

This morning, I had a dream of people of all cultures getting married in all sorts of different ways and different ceremonies all around the world.  As the dream ended and I was awakening, it was as though an angel of the Lord and I had just observed all that was happening in these scenes, and he immediately began teaching me why what we had just seen was so wrong.  This is what I heard in the Spirit from the conversation the angel was having with me:

“That’s why this marriage issue is so important to God.  It represents who HE is.  Heaven is not full of ceremonies.  It is full of LIFE!  When God puts two living beings together that’s who He is — LIFE!  Dead people celebrate death with dead ceremonies; God celebrates LIFE with two LIVING beings and NO ceremonies.  That’s who He is – – LIFE!”

I knew that “living beings” meant those who had God’s Spirit, and that “dead people” were those without His Spirit.  As I thought on the richness of what I had just heard, the Lord kept sending wonderful thoughts my way.

When God gave His Son to die and then sent back His Spirit, Jesus was the end of all symbols God used.  Jesus was the last of the sacrificial lambs used by God on earth to atone for the sins of mankind.  By his death, Jesus put all other symbols to death.  As the Lord once told me:  “Symbolism is NOT Me!”  I understood what he said to me better today than I did when he spoke it the first time!  Jesus was the last sacrificial sign of earthly ceremony.  It was not Jesus who spoke that day when I heard, “Symbolism is NOT Me!”  Those words came from the Son of God who represents Life, not symbol nor ceremony.  Whatever does not represent Life does not represent God nor His Son.

It has been good to my soul all day long to think this one thought:  Jesus was the end of all symbols and his sacrifice put all symbols to death.

See you soon,
Sandy

For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”  Romans 10: 3,4

“Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”  Galatians 3:24

http://pastorjohnshouse.blogspot.com/2009_12_08_archive.html

Hi Pastor John,

I have been thinking about the blog you did on 12/08/09 Part One: Restrained Wrath.  I got to thinking about why it is that way.  We all know that it is simply because God chose it to be that way.  This is from Deut. 32:9-10:  “For the LORD’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.  He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.”

We are the apple of his eye.  When I say that, I feel humbled because I did not choose to be the apple of his eye; he choose me, and all of us, to be the apple of his eye.  David prayed (Ps. 17:8), “Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings.”

That is my prayer as well, to stay the apple of his eye and not to become an irritation that he has to deal with and maybe even get rid of.

As the Lord said, (Zech. 2:8) “After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you, for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.”  God’s people are very precious in his sight, and it matters to God how we are treated by other people and how we ourselves treat one another.

I pray that we all realize what God has done for each one of us.  He took us out of a wasteland and put us into a land flowing with milk and honey, and made us the apple of his eye.  How valuable is that to our hearts?  Only as much as we keep his commandments and follow his spirit when he leads us.

God help us to take it all in.
Stuart