Good morning, Pastor John,

I was praying this morning for courage in the Lord.   The holy Ghost spoke to me and showed me that what the world, what I called courage, is just bravado. What we think is bravery is not that at all.  What Jesus has is courage!  To be humble, even when you know you are right.  To be humble towards people who do not deserve it. To be humble even when you are going to suffer death, knowing that you could stop it in an instant (by denying Jesus).  Now that I have a better understanding, I want Jesus’ kind of humility and his kind of courage even more!

This was too good for me not to share.

Love,

Mark W.

Hi Pastor John,

I had the opportunity to visit Aunt Song today during her chemotherapy session.  It impacted me greatly.  I wrote down my experience and wanted to share it with you. 

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I was able to get a pass to come and sit with her because of wearing my employee badge.  She sat in a corner next to a big window.  She was resting peacefully in the recliner, surrounded by pillows and a blanket, with a pretty scarf covering her now hairless head.  She seemed to glow in the soft sunlight that came through her window.  I sat down next to her, intending to stay only a few minutes while she rested.  She opened her eyes slightly, which seemed to smile, and she said she wanted to see who sat down.  She said it was nice to see a smiling face.  I stroked her forearm that was resting on the chair, but remembering that I should keep my distance, I removed my hand.  She said my cold hand felt good, so I stroked her arm again. For a moment, it looked like she had tears welling up in her closed eyes.  I closed my eyes too and felt the peace that seemed to emit from her, and the love God has for her. She slipped back to sleep under the influence of the Benadryl they pre-medicated her with.  She woke again when a nurse came by to drop off her meal tray.  She held Song’s hand and got close to her face and sweetly asked if she needed anything.  Later, Song needed to go to the bathroom, so I put her shoes on her feet, unplugged her IV pole and slowly walked beside her and her IV pole down the hall to the bathroom.  While walking back with her to her chair, I didn’t feel like I was in a hurry, but I felt that my pace was much too fast for her.  She had become more fragile, slow, and careful with her steps.  I had to be intentional about the speed of all of my movements, even putting the blanket over her feet. I didn’t feel like I was rushing, but in her state, it felt like slow, careful movements with pauses to allow her to regain her strength and catch her breath were not only required, but also were a sign of being thoughtful during this vulnerable time for her.  Once she got situated, I asked if she wanted to try to eat.  Walking to the bathroom and getting situated in the chair seemed to wear her out, and she said she wanted to close her eyes again.  I wasn’t sure if I should stay or go, so I sat down in the chair and waited for a moment. After a few seconds of resting, she started telling me how kind Gary had been to her. She told me that she told her granddaughter, Kate, to not get married to anyone unless they are like Pastor John, or Gary, or Uncle Earl, someone who has given their lives to God, and where everything else is second.  She said to be prepared if you do marry someone like that because you, too, must be that way, fully subdued to God. I told her that if I ever had cancer, I hoped I would go through it as gracefully as she has, and her response was, “you will.”  She spoke very slowly, with pauses, eyes closed most of the time as the toxin was injected in her body through her port.  She told me about watching the pre-trials of the Olympics and watching the swimmers, and how beautiful that was.  She saw the robust, strong, lively bodies of the swimmers, and admired that while her body had become more frail.  There was absolutely no bitterness in her. She spoke of her love for Gary, and how helpful and kind he has been to her.  She said she would have blood work and another scan after her third chemotherapy treatment to determine if she needed more.  She said, “I hope it’s enough.”

Things I took away from this visit.

1. Match the person you’re visiting. Don’t be in a hurry. Be slow with movements. Don’t have a timeframe or an agenda.

2. Marry someone who is devoted whole-heartedly to God

3. It was truly an honor to be in her presence. She had no bitterness; she voiced of her love and dependence on Gary and the gratitude she felt for his good care for her.

4. Our bodies are not our own. God will do whatever He wants to with them to get us closer to Him. We may have to endure hard things, but it will be worth it to keep a good attitude and trust him all the way through. It is the biggest blessing to have someone who cares for you when you’re going through hard things.

Being in the setting of oncology treatment was so much of a slower pace than I am used to in the clinic where I work. Patients were sitting around for hours, resting, sleeping, so fragile, and had to surrender to the poison that would hopefully treat the cancer. It was such a different speed of life and different outlook on life than where I come from in my clinic where everything is fast-paced and where there is room for bad attitudes for minor life inconveniences, whereas in oncology, those patients are fighting for their lives, and the simple things are most valued.

I left her feeling a stillness in me.

Anna 

Hey!

I just wanted to say how much I’ve been enjoying learning about Job.  At the beginning of the Job study, I was so impressed with how confident Job was of his righteousness!  I even prayed to have the confidence of Job in the things of the Spirit, but after Wednesday night, I prayed to not have Job’s confidence, but have whatever confidence the Lord wants me to have.  I have always loved not being 100%, just in case I’m not seeing it the way God sees a situation, so I’ll plan to stick to that.

I feel like the Job study is (hopefully) teaching me to keep it more in the middle – not a lack of confidence, but not too much confidence.  What is very interesting is usually in my professional work, I have already learned the lesson, and Jesus is teaching me how to translate that into how he wants me to handle a situation spiritually.  This is the first time I feel like I have learned (or am learning) how to handle confidence in the Spirit, and Jesus is using that to help me learn how to handle situations at work.

Thank you for all your hard work.  I loved how you said if our spirits are right, we can learn what God wants us to learn even if we cannot get it out.  But you are getting it out!  So, thank you!

Amanda

Job was so good last night, John!

The comforters talking to Job, and Job talking to them, telling his heart.  They didn’t know his heart, but when you said that Satan agreed with God about Job being righteous, well, that was a new thought for me.  Satan knew Job was a righteous man; therefore, he agreed with God.  I never thought about Satan agreeing with God about anything until now.

Thank you for teaching us how to feel about Job and his comforters.  Getting the right understanding in a matter is very important.

Betty

Pastor John,

Last night was wonderful!  It just keeps getting better and better!

I have been reading through Psalms. Last night I read Psalm 22; however, this time, there was a different feeling when I read.  Reading the Son speaking through the Psalmist made me think about what we had just heard about Job and his sufferings.  I felt so much love in what God was doing for Job through his sufferings and his persecution.  The excitement of knowing that God was taking Job to a different place in Him!  A different kind of righteousness, a different kind of life!   It was breathtaking to feel that same love of God for us through the suffering and persecution of his precious Son!  He gave us His life!  My heart was overwhelmed as I fell asleep last night.

Michelle

Good morning, John,

I wanted to thank you for the Job reading again last night.  There were so many things brought out last night that left me feeling thankful to have been there for “the confusion”. Haha.  I say confusion, but you explain it understandably.  A teacher has to bring all that out.  I’m thankful that you are willing and able.

Well, one thing you said that I wrote down to hold on to, was: “hearing from God is more important than (physical) life”. 

But the thoughts of Jobs friends, and even Job. – What a whirlwind.  There were some right thoughts, some wrong.  Who could know, without having the mind of God?  But we have been given the mind Christ.  We can know.  Not by intellect, but by the feelings of it.  And then, the end where Job is holding on to his righteousness, and you were saying  “No, let go, Job!”  Oh man, I could really feel that.  Who could know where God was taking Job? Who could know that it was the love of God for him, and not something else?  I think only someone who has the Holy Ghost could have an inkling where Job was being taken.  To a place that’s only possible BY God through the Holy Ghost doing something beyond us.  And knowing that Job was a type of Jesus as you brought out helps solidify the fact that the whole Bible is about Him (the Son).  Anyway these were some of the things that were said last night that I was thinking on this morning.  Thank you for investing the time in this and sharing it all with us.

I have never understood the book of Job.  But you’ve been able to bring these things out.  It’s not possible to understand Job without the Holy Ghost, and a teacher.

Thanks again.
Eliphaz (Gary)

Pastor John,

On the way home this evening from the book of Job study, Beth and I considered the other-worldly call of God that was on Job to move beyond what Job knew to be perfection. God was calling Job out of what existed into a place that did not exist—for men.

While the book of Job does not tell us that explicitly, we understand that God was calling Job’s heart to Himself when He apparently “punished” Job for being perfect in the earthly sense.  By God not accepting the best that Job had to offer (what God Himself had ordained to be acceptable), Job was being told in his heart that God’s approval lay further down the road with Him.  God was calling Job, but to what?  To where was God calling him?  Nothing existed on the other side of that call as far as Job knew.  Nothing beyond the experience of being perfectly obedient had ever been revealed to men!

Whew!  What a leap of faith for Job then to say, after receiving a pummeling from God for no reason that he could see, that God would ultimately find him faultless and be pleased with him.  That response from Job (that faith in more than Job could see) was Job answering in the affirmative God’s call upon him to “come on,” though Job could not possibly perceive where he was going!

Brother John, that unearthly situation makes me think of your testimony about the Spirit of the Lord calling on you many times when you were younger to “come on” when you were down praying, only for you to respond, “Come to where, Lord?  I’m here!”  Now we know that the call from Jesus was a call to Him—and out of the religious system of Christianity.  But at the time, you described it much like Job must have been experiencing in his heart all those years ago— a call to a place that seemingly did not exist!

Wow! What an opportunity (and invitation) that may lie on the other side of God’s dissatisfaction, should we ever feel it in response to our best efforts.

Jerry

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I like Jerry’s comments here.  I believe that happened to me when I asked God for truth (before I got your tracts).  I believed there was something right out there, and I presently did not have it, but had no clue what I was asking for at the time. The truth lay far beyond my understanding. — Gary

Pastor John,

I listened to you weeks ago (online) describe what it means to be “profane” in the sight of the Lord.  You said it is to esteem carnal (earthly) things on a par with holy things of God.

I was also listening to your Old Testament Genesis teaching* and saw how Esau was profane before the Lord to say, “What good is my God-given birthright if I have no food and then ultimately starve?”  Esau counted his life and survival on earth equally important with what God in heaven had done.  Esau was profane.

Since then, I have considered how the coming generations of saints may be called to suffer being ostracized for having the witness and testimony of the spirit of God inside.  They may be asked to deny the Spirit that bought them, just to carry on daily business such as working, or buying food, or traveling, or escaping death.  It will be a test from God to not succumb to being profane. For one may say during such times, “What good is my life in the Spirit if I die here in the street from starvation?”

Today, I realized there is another risk of being profane before the Lord.  It is to hear from God and have clear instruction from Him, but to say in our heart, “How can I obey God if it disrupts an earthly peace, or it damages earthly connections with friends or relatives?”

When we have heard from God, life for us freezes.  There is no going forward without obeying.  And there is no going around His word to us.  Life for us stops until we obey.

It is a privilege and a terrible and fearful thing to be forever in the hand of God.  I am so thankful He has been so patient and so loving.  And He has!

Jerry

*  Old Testament Course (Pt. 1) – Going to Jesus.com