Bro. John:

I had a beautiful dream last night.

I was in my natural birthplace of New Bern, NC. I needed to get back to my real home of Burlington, but somehow I had ended up without an automobile and the only way to get home was by foot. The trip by car was a three and a half hour drive but I had no car. So, I started my journey home on foot. It would have been a long and arduous journey, but for one thing. As I walked along, I recounted the faces and testimonies of each and every person in the Lord that I knew. It was a longer trip by foot, but I had experienced such joy along the way through those testimonies that it did not seem long or hard at all.

When I awoke, I thought of how that is the way it is as we journey through this life. Our testimonies in the Lord give us strength and keep us going until we reach our real home with the Father and the Son.

What a sweet feeling was in that dream.

Sandy

“And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” (Rev. 12:10-11)

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

Hi Sandy, Thank you for that. What a remarkable dream from the Lord! We may not know who needs to hear our testimony, but one thing is certain. That is, if Jesus gives us a testimony, somebody needs it!

jdc

Good morning John.

Today I was organizing and mailing out various tract and CD orders from the Isaiah 58 site that came in over the past couple of days.

When a person orders a CD from the site, Earl had given me, and I usually add one or two of extra old CD’s from the meeting room that went un-purchased to the order since it does not really add anything to the postage, and so that people can hear live meetings.

This morning as I reached into the box, of perhaps 50 to 100 CD’s the sweetest feeling came over me.  I could have picked any of the CD’s in that box!   We have things of value!  Things that go unclaimed among us just might be golden nuggets of life to someone who is hungry for reality in the Spirit.  They’ve never heard what is on a CD that we have hundreds of extras of.  Tears came to my eyes, to have such things of value!  Where would we be without them, without each other, without this truth?  It’s hard to even wonder.  I am thankful, after your wonderful message recently from 1 Corinthians,  for you, for the saints who came before you and paid the price, and for every child of God whom Jesus has put in my life right now.

And beyond that, I am thankful for soberness, for sanity, and for the readiness of mind and heart to want to get this truth to God’s wandering sheep.

Gary

hi pastor john,

i was reading in Malachi 2:17, where God’s people wore him out. They had to work hard to make him tired, after he created everything in 6 days. He never said he was tired and needed rest on the seventh day. I just started to think on this and it was like, wow, his breath made the stars and moon, and man was able to tire him out. I pray that God won’t have that kind of conversation with me. It scares me to even think it.

Thanks,

rick

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

Yes, Rick, I have noticed that. God’s people make Him weary with false doctrines. May we never to do that to our heavenly Father.

—
jdc

I am usually out riding my bike for my morning warm-up by 7a.m., nearly everyday of the week. Sometimes, I hike in the hills or jog on the all-weather baseball field. When I’m climbing in the hills, that’s where the solitude is, and I oftentimes spend more time thinking about Jesus on those hiking days, lingering in a private spot atop the ridge to pray through.

On Thursday morning, I felt that God wanted to “do something with me;” we needed some time together—and that meant a hike in the hills! So, off I ran, up through the little valley behind the park, past the cows and scurrying ground squirrels, and arrived at my new prayer spot. . . a fallen tree on the eastern crest of the hilltop, awash in early morning sun. The Spirit fell on me heavily, and I was speaking in tongues with a dramatic urgency. As Paul said, sometimes the Spirit speaks through us, making intercession with groanings. On this morning I was a real groaner! God was turning up the volume. Something in me wanted to cry, to sob, to moan and groan deeply. For a moment or so I even felt convulsive. (He can make you move!) I was on my knees but I fell over a couple times, jolted by the power of God. The words that began to come from inside of me, in English, were prayers of such lowliness of spirit, more humbling than I have ever felt; followed by pleas for God’s mercy and blessing.

These are some of the things I felt and said:
“Oh God, I am NOTHING! Nothing without you! I am not worthy of your love, and yet you love me still! I am so insignificant in this universe, yet so significant to you. Thank you for your Spirit! Thank you for your mercy, and your forgiveness. . . I do not deserve it. I am as worthless as this dirt! In my flesh I am more detestable than the cow manure on this ground!”

I was physically lower than I have ever been, in prayer. I couldn’t scrunch my body down low enough. I felt like I wanted to crawl under that dead tree, as if I wanted to get so low as to burrow underground. God made me feel like I had to come so LOW, as to be flattened in the grass. My face was literally on the ground —and that wasn’t low enough! I had never felt like this before, but I recalled brother Gary’s experience crawling around on the carpet at a meeting and I felt fortunate to be feeling something similar to what he had felt. Oddly enough, there was a comfort in it. It wasn’t as if I felt demeaned or berated by God. It was just so painfully, yet comfortably humble!

I continued. . . “God, I am more worthless than this dirt, but even this dirt brings forth grass! Things grow out of this dirt! This earth under me brings forth “fruit” . . . it produces trees and shrubs and flowers—-in abundance! Please subdue me so thoroughly in my flesh that I might be worthy to be used by you, to produce fruit—of the Spirit!” Ohhhh, I went on and on. . . and then there was a peace that washed over me when it was finished. I laid on my back, staring at the blue sky, and feeling thankful for this powerful, liberating experience.

I think that only a child of God can appreciate something like this—in fact—we welcome it, don’t we?! It brings a refreshing to the soul, a realization that God has done something with us, and hopefully taught us a new thing, helped us to see our place, recognize our weakness, our fragility, . . . our need for Him. .. our dependence on Him, . . . and how helpless we are, apart from Him.

Oh, Praise God!!!!

Brother Brad

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

Brother Brad,

Thank you for this! Your testimony about this experience is precious! May God grant every person associated with me the grace to experience such conviction for righteousness.

Pastor John

Pastor John,

Jesus did something else for me this week that I wanted to tell you about because it has really encouraged me.

During the night on Sunday, a dog woke me. It sounded like a hound, howling right outside our bedroom window. I didn’t see a dog on Monday, but I did see evidence that one had been here. That night, I woke up again, twice, to a howling dog. Some sort of emergency vehicle with a siren was going along the highway just before 6am on Tuesday morning and that dog went to howling again. It woke Haskell and me. When Haskell went off to work that morning, we found the dog on our back porch, on the mat up against the door. It was a huge red and white husky with light blue eyes. Haskell had to push the door open to get out, and the dog seemed to cower. It did not seem like an aggressive dog. Later that morning, when I opened the front door to let in the sunshine, I saw a spot of blood on the porch. The dog was still around at the back deck and did not seem to be hurt. I didn’t know if it had killed something or why that blood was there. The dog smelled really bad and was shedding hair. It had left a big fur ball on the mat at the back door. I didn’t want to sweep it up yet, because I knew it would just leave more hair. The dog did not seem to want to leave here either. When the kids woke up and saw it, they liked it. I didn’t want to teach them to hate or fear dogs, so I told them that we didn’t know that dog and it needed to go to his home. It stayed on the deck when the kids left with Haskell’s parents for the day and I was glad that it didn’t try to get friendly with them. It was a HUGE dog, and it really did smell bad. I called the animal shelter to see if they would pick it up and they referred me to the sherriff’s office. The sherriff’s office said that they didn’t have anyone doing animal control that day and to call back tomorrow……… 🙂 I went upstairs and did my work hoping it would leave. I heard it howl a couple of times and knew it was still outside. When I came down for lunch, it was still hanging around. And that big fur ball was still on the mat. I heated up some food in the microwave and walked over to the back door. I would normally go outside and walk around to get some fresh air and maybe eat on the steps. But that dog was there! It had come up to the door when it smelled my food I had heated. Then, I felt like the Lord invited me to tell him what I wanted. So, while I was chewing and looking at that dog, I said, “Lord, I want it to leave.” The dog went to the steps, hesitated for just a second, then slowly walked down the steps. It was walking away slowly and looking around like it didn’t know what it wanted to do. Then I said, “I don’t want it to come back.” It began walking faster, like it knew what it wanted to do, and went out of my sight. I felt hopeful and excited inside. Then I saw that hair on the mat again. Now I felt like sweeping it. I went to get the broom from the closet and heard these words, “full assurance.” I felt like the Lord was saying, “Sweep with ‘full assurance’ that the dog will not be back.” While I was sweeping, I remembered Uncle Joe’s testimony about forbidding Aunt Myrtle to hang out the laundry because he was praying for rain because he didn’t want anything to hinder his faith that God would answer his prayers.

We haven’t seen or heard that dog since. 🙂 And I am very thankful for that experience.
Love you,
Cris

Pastor John,

Hey, just wanted to say hello and say thanks to everybody for the work put forth on the live listenings on the skype. It’s great! I have thought on one particular part all day. That is when you spoke on being the happiest in the Lord, was it the day you received the New Birth, or Today? If it was the first, then something is off. I seemed to have enjoyed my day so much better today with those things on my mind.

Be good to see you this weekend….
Thanks alot!
Paul

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

Hi Paul.

John David got the skype thing going for people. It has blessed a bunch of folk so far, it seems. I am glad for that. John David is doing what I exhort all these young people to do: make your life valuable to others.

It’s good to be happier today than when you were born again. If it is true that “of the INCREASE of his government (the Son’s government) there shall be no end”, then we ought to have more joy, more knowledge, and more love, than we did when we first submitted to his government, shouldn’t we?

Thanks for writing, Paul. Greetings to Jammie and the boys, until we see you again.

Pastor John