Pastor John,

You said something Sunday I have never before heard (taken in). I’m paraphrasing a bit:

“Paul was preaching to people who had the holy Ghost (the mind of Christ). They could understand what Paul was saying.” 

You also pointed out that Jesus told the disciples, “I have things to tell you that you cannot yet bear.” 

Jesus said that because the disciples did not have the mind of Christ to understand Him.

Jesus had absolutely no one on earth who had the mind of Christ to understand him or who could really receive him and what he was doing.

It made me think of John 14:12 (KJV pasted at the bottom)

No wonder Jesus said he would go away but his disciples would do even greater things than him. 

Jesus was constrained (no doubt in his love for Israel) by everyone’s inability to understand him or even bear what He had to say/do without being derailed. 

He had to hold back.

I never considered that verse from John to possibly be pointing to that fact. 

Wow!

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John 14:12:

(King James Version)

12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

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We might could continue that last sentence from v14 with “…because I go unto my Father so that He can pour out our glorious kind of life onto you human beings so they can receive what you are about to do!”

Jesus knew he could never do all the good on earth that his faithful followers would do once the sacrifice was completed in heaven and the Spirit of God was poured out on men. 

What an interesting thought.

Jerry

Hi Pastor John,

I had a sweet experience with Jesus yesterday, and I wanted to share it. 

I had been mowing some of the leaves that have fallen and saw some garbage in the ditch.  I stopped the mower and got off to pick up the garbage.  There were two glass whiskey bottles and two beer cans lying near each other, and as I bent down to pick them up, I felt frustrated. 

I began to tell Jesus how much it bothered me that some people just threw their alcohol bottles in the ditch as they drove or walked by.  Actually, I told him that those people get on my nerves, and I didn’t want to have to pick up after their bad habits.  When I said that, Jesus started talking to me.  Jesus asked me which condition would I rather be in, the condition of the poor soul carrying around that bottle or the condition of being clean and sober, and cleaning up the ditch? I know what condition I was in before Jesus came into the ditch and carried me out.  It changed me as soon as he said that.  I am just overwhelmed with thankfulness for what condition I am in.

I have been picking up garbage out of that ditch for five years now, and I don’t think I will ever feel the same about it.  I thought about it all day, and the same overwhelming thankfulness hits me.  Jesus cleans up ditches all the time! 

When Jesus talks to you it changes things.  I love how true that is! 

Beth D.

Wow! I started this email early this morning. These were my thoughts when I woke up and this is what y’all are saying right now in the meeting! I love it!

I went back and read this email I wrote to you when we were further back in Job:

“Ever have a thought, and then been scared you had it?  I read that and thought, Job would have said he wanted a heart like mine, recreated by Jesus. A new heart!”

I know how much God loved Job, so it’s scary to even have that thought.  But Job couldn’t have had a recreated heart because Jesus had to die for us to have a heart like God’s.

Beth D.

Hi Pastor John,

I want to write about our Job readings.  This reading of Job has been so good; really transformative.  Once, the story of Job seemed unreal, but I feel like we’ve dug deeper than ever and made the story of Job so deeply real.  Reading back on the Job notes, and reading what was said, I was struck by how very real Job felt.  Reading his words, I found myself imagining how he must have felt going through his ordeal.

Also, I love so very much when God began to speak to Job.  How terrifying it would have been, but also, I could see nothing but love and correction in what God said to Job.  Then to see Job’s humble response – “I have no understanding of things too wondrous for me.”  This has been one of my all-time favorite verses, but now I love it more because it’s more real.

Then I also think of Elihu.  I was cheering for him all along and was so happy to find he was a good guy!  I loved when he says, “I will fetch knowledge from afar and to my Maker will I ascribe righteousness.”  Oh, my soul loves this!  I love Elihu. I love that he looked to God’s righteousness and withheld any judgment when God had not spoken.

Finally, I think of Job’s three friends.  I’m reminded how when we started Job, you really made sure we knew they were not the bad guys.  And they’re not.  But I think I forgot that along the way, and I will have to work on that a bit in my heart. Job’s three friends really were doing the best of what they knew in that time period about righteousness – God was showing something new, but they were just not aware yet.

But then, when God finally spoke and told Job’s three friends to go to Job and Job would pray for them, and they made offerings and God accepted the offerings and prayers of Job for his friends – I loved that, too.  What love of God all around! And the love of Job for his friends, and they for him!  What a good story!  It makes me look at righteousness differently – it’s all the righteousness of GOD.

My only wish is that at the conclusion, God would have said something about Elihu.  I wish I knew what God’s words for Elihu would have been.

Thank you for the wonderful journey through Job!

Love,

Jenny

Pastor John,

I talked to Jacob this weekend about his progress at his new electrical school. During the conversation he ended up telling me about his very first year in the electrical training program, and the experience he had watching an apparently normal young man leave his wife/fiance, grow his hair out long, and start wearing dresses to class.

He said everyone there had to just act like it wasn’t happening. I was shocked as he told me this, and I felt mortified for him.

But I feel like the Lord taught me something important tonight, as I recalled the conversation:

When this world tries to force a young person to accept and normalize that awful behavior as it sits down beside them, they are not just demanding that the kids hold still and be quiet PHYSICALLY as it gets close to them. They are training the kids spiritually to hold still and not to resist when those spirits come knocking on their heart’s door. The kids are being conditioned not to resist an attack on their hearts. They are being taught to not push those spirits away and speak out.

That is so much more wicked than I had ever imagined.

You told us years ago we better teach our kids who they are, because if we don’t, the spirits of this age are going to. That poor young man in Jacob’s class lost his mind, and Jacob witnessed it. That was a good lesson from Jesus, for Jacob, to guard the hearts of all those God may put in his charge.

Jerry

Pastor John,

Yesterday I had the chance to watch the video of the Sunday morning meeting. It’s hard, if not impossible, to put into words what I felt as I was watching y’all dancing, shouting, being moved by the holy Ghost while the Bro Band was playing.

The words of Uncle Joe came to my mind (which, when I first read this Daily Thought, almost word for word echoed my thoughts at the time):

Peter said on Pentecost morning, “This is that.”  He said, “This is that which was shed forth; this is that which was poured out from heaven.”  This IS that.  If this, that we have received from God, is not that, then what is that, that Peter had, and what is this?  I want to know, where is “that” if this is not that?  If this is not that, then I wanna go where that is.  All my life, I’d been looking for it.  I’ve been to all these different churches, and I get invited every week to go somewhere.  But I’ve already been, and I found this, which is that.  And if this is not “that”, then I want to know what this is.  Peter said, “This is that which was shed forth” . . . Yes we’ve found it!

https://goingtojesus.com/gtj_thoughts.html?tname=rdt10-08

Zoli

PJ:

Thank you for your notes from your message Saturday night.  I don’t know when I have felt such a pull in my heart to want more of/from God.  And I know it’s there if we want it.  Reading your notes tonight, I just felt such a Presence of the Lord.  As he once told me, “it is not hard-seeking, but heart-seeking” that lets Jesus into the chambers of our hearts that need more of him.  Your message and notes meant so much to me tonight as I read them, that I just wanted to share some of the ones that really flooded me with feelings.  Reading some of them even made me weep knowing how much God is calling to us to know him and his righteousness, and to know who he has made us.  Thank you so much for being such a faithful servant for us and feeding us what God has given you.  There are so many more feelings in my heart tonight from this message, but I have tried to keep it as brief as I could right now. This message makes it clear that God has given us what we need to live beyond this world and man’s righteousness.   Sandy 

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Excerpts from your sobering and encouraging notes:

The unborn infant is formed in the mother, but after it is born, the mother must be formed in the child, her knowledge and her abilities. So, we are formed in the womb of the body of Christ, as Christ convicts us, encourages us, and nourishes us until we come to the hour of birth. And after the birth, Christ must be formed in us.

Any person who has received the Spirit of God is in a much better spiritual condition than John the Baptist because he is a new kind of creature, a creature that has a divine nature – God’s – in a fleshly body. And that divine nature is filled with a divine kind of righteousness.

When someone is born of God, God⁷ shares His divine nature, His Spirit, with that person. The holy Ghost is God’s free gift to you, given because He wants you to know Him and be blessed.

Before Jesus paid the price for mankind to have God’s nature, with its right thoughts and holy feelings, God put up with man’s ignorance of Him. But things changed with Jesus.

In this covenant, God is pleased –– and well pleased –– only when His children live as righteously as they can with His nature instead of their own.

God lives from the heart, not by a set of rules. It is His nature to think right thoughts and to do good things. And the entire reason God sent His Son to earth was to make the way for us to live that way, not being against rules; they are needed in this world, but being above rules, being ruled by the love and peace of God. That holy nature is in the Spirit, and Jesus paid the price for us to have it.

If we have been born of God and received His holy nature, we are in a far better spiritual state than Job, Abraham, or John the Baptist ever were. – if you want it. You can neglect that gift and retain your carnal mind. But if you do, you will never find out how much better a place you are in than anyone who lived before the Son came, like Job.

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Whew!  We are so blessed!

Sandy