Good Morning Pastor John!

I just want to drop you a line and let you know how I feel this morning.  Thankful!  I have not been able to stop thanking God and Jesus.  I don’t know why, but it feels different.   I feel the thankfulness like never before.  I better understand Sister Willie now with a mouth full of thankful.   I have been thanking God and Jesus for all things, even the things that I have been through that at one time brought unhappiness.   I thank Him in all things.

My job has been going well.  I was having a hard time finding my way around.  Last week after being lost for the third time in a morning, as I was exiting the shop I started talking to Jesus and asked Him to guide me.  I took a little different route and ended up where I wanted to go quickly.   Ever since, I have been getting around much better.   I continually thank Him for His guidance while at work and everything has gotten easier.   He is still showing me things I need to do.

[Name omitted] has been listening to the Job teachings and she is amazed.  Me too.  The devil has been her biggest fear for years, and she has text me about how you’re teaching about him she actually believes and seems to understand.  If Jesus puts it on your heart to pray for her, please do.  Only Jesus would be able to change her life-long perception of anything that quickly.

Thank you for all you do!

Love,
Mark

Pastor John,

I love learning more of who Job was and understanding what kind of hearts were involved.  I left last night in awe of what Job was going through and his heart about it.  I am grateful to feel all of this.

Tonight, as I read the emails coming through from others about Job, all I could think of was his heart. Job wanted God more than anything else.  I can see why God could use a heart like that.  I can see why God chose Job.  Oh, how God must love him.  I do.  This put a love in my heart for Job–a love for his heart.

We just started Kings in the Old Testament class* and I put on a CD today and heard you saying this: “You’re going to ask for advice throughout your life until you get the advice you want.  You’re going to seek for the kind of life you want to live until you find it.  If you don’t want to live right and you seek for a kind of life that makes you feel right (in spite of your sin), but you find a place where people are living right, it’s not going to satisfy you.  You are going to go right past God’s answer to get what you want.  It takes a wise person to ask a right question at the right time, and the right time is before you make up your mind what you want.”

It’s a matter of the heart.  You are going to end up with what your heart really wants. 

Beth D.

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

Good morning, John,

Last night was so good.  Jesus has given you a real understanding of Job’s heart, and his righteous friends’ hearts, and you are passing that understanding on to us.  But more importantly, I feel we are learning God’s heart and the importance of waiting on Him before we pass judgment on anyone, including ourselves.

One thing you emphasized last night was that we can not know anything about ourselves or others, and why we may be going through something, unless God lets us know.   That is a simple truth, but it’s such an important lesson:  Don’t make any kind of judgment unless you hear from God.  We don’t know any situation unless the holy Ghost reveals it.  You taught us that part of Job’s patience was that he was determined not to make any judgment or assumption about why he had been so afflicted until he heard from God!   Job’s friends thought that they knew why God was afflicting Job, but without hearing from God, they were only adding to his affliction, and making him feel worse.

Second important lesson from last night: “Knowing God’s voice is knowing God”.   We learned the reason Job knew the difference between what his friends were telling him and what God had revealed to him was because he knew his Shepherd’s voice, and that was not the same voice he heard speaking through his friends.  Even though the things his friends told him were said with the best intentions, and were mostly true, Job knew they were not from God.   He knew the difference between his friends’ good thoughts, and what the Lord had revealed to him from heaven.

Knowing God’s voice is what saved Job, and it will save us!  I am thankful just to know that God is still speaking to us, just as he spoke to Job.  When you are teaching us wonderful lessons like you did last night, I am thankful that I recognize my shepherd’s voice coming through those teachings, and my heart can take in those wonderful lessons.

I am thankful for having a true minister that is teaching us how to know God’s voice, and for the pureness and cleanness of the good food we’ve been given.  No bones to pick through!  Last night’s lessons have left a clean feeling in my heart this morning.

Lee Ann

Pastor John:

The studies in Job have been wonderful. I feel I have been transported back in time to learn about him. Here are a few points from Job 3:

1.  How Job held fast to God through all his infirmities was only part of the story.  I loved Timothy 3:12: “All who are willing to live Godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”

2.  Also, I was reminded that in this world, evil sometimes wins.  We need to know and be reminded of that in our walk through this life.  Whew!

3.  Another big one for me was Job’s patience, in waiting for God to speak!   One should not make any judgment about someone or a situation until God speaks.  (I have been guilty of that.)  Wait on the Lord.  That was another good reminder!  All of the ones who tried to get Job to admit he had done something wrong, and he remained steadfast, waiting on God.

I am looking forward to our next Job reading.  Thank you for our food and your time you have put into this!  You make Job “come alive” (as you have made the Bible stories come alive before). 

Diane K.

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John,

I feel like I understand Job and his friends a whole lot better after last night.  And how in the world did Job endure the way he did, and with such wisdom and love of God, without the holy Ghost?  My, what excuse do we have, especially considering what you said at the end, the Lord has given and he hasn’t taken away (yet)… blessed be the name of the Lord!

What a story. Looking forward to what’s next.
Vince

Hey Pastor John,

I know we’re just getting started on Job but it has already blessed me so much!  Two things that I went to bed thinking on after last night:

1. Getting to know who Job really was, not only to go through all that he did, but also to have such confidence in God and who God made him to be.  Makes me love him even more.

2. I’ve always thought Job’s friends were condemning him out of hatred or maybe jealousy.  To learn, to take it in, that their heart truly was in the right place and what they were saying was right and out of love, but their timing was off, they didn’t wait for God.  That is a wonderfully huge lesson.  It puts each scene in a different perspective when reading this story.  It makes these conversations hurt even more to realize these accusations came from people who really loved Job and Job really loved them.  When someone you love hurts your heart, that wound goes much deeper and hurts much more.  It takes God to get through it.

I love what you teach us!  These are not just stories, but these things really did happen, and we are getting to know our brothers and sisters.  It makes each one of their testimonies mean so much more to me. 

Just think, we have over 30 more chapters!  Looking forward to our time together again! 

Michelle

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Oh my! Thank you, Pastor John. I am really enjoying Job, and I am understanding more and more. I love how you put it that Job was waiting on God for an answer and how his comforters were not.  They thought they knew what was going on with him. It goes back to what we have been learning: we don’t know anything until Jesus shows up, then we know. That’s what we wait for. 

I also marvel at Job. He knew himself, and he knew God. He never wavered from that fact.  It came across last night in his complaint to God how he went back and forth in his mind “why”, but the end conclusion was always… I will rejoice, O Lord, in you. . .  no matter what.
Amy B. 

John,

The Job study last night was very good. I went away with a better understanding of why Job’s friends spoke to Job as they did.  They really were sincere in their effort to help Job, but as you said, because they had not heard from God, their speech was ineffective. 

Another point that stood out to me was Job’s determination to wait until he had heard from God.  He refused to accept his friends’ accusations, knowing that they had not heard from God either. 

I liked what you said about Job knowing God and His voice well enough to know God had not spoken to him.  That is good. 

It’s hard to imagine how many accusing spirits he had to deal with, even in his own mind. 

Thank you, John, for all your time and effort you have put into this study.  There are many valuable lessons we can benefit from. 

I’m already looking forward to the next section. 

Tom

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Last night’s Job #3 teaching was so good and rich!  It feels like you have us right there with Job and his friends, hearing and feeling FOR THE FIRST TIME EXACTLY how God saw and heard it.  It’s even better than what we have felt in translating Job!  I love who Jesus has made you, and how you are dishing out this wonderful rich food to us!  It is rich and sobering.  It feels like every part of me was “tweaked” last night, and I love it.   My, what a feast!  Thank you!

Donna N

Pastor John,

The “pearl” from preacher Clark that was posted a few days ago was sobering, regarding being balanced enough in the Lord so that there’s no difference between your needs and your wants.

Here in this bizarre city of Las Vegas, I’m fascinated (and vexed) by the attraction that people have for embracing extravagance, excess, and sin on so many levels.  Everything here is designed to provoke the “wow” factor.  Technology has made it so that everywhere your eyes glance, there’s media and advertisements and videos, most of them displaying ostentatious indulgence.  And everyone takes it in stride, as if it’s normal and harmless.  The city is a vast and bustling playground for those who are seeking to have “fun”.   Not everything here is sinful, in and of itself, but I’d presume that most who indulge have sinful intentions and habits.

The seduction of gambling isn’t the only enticement (the enormous rooms with game tables and slot machines are overwhelming).  Everything else is intentionally designed to lure all of the five senses as well.  Absurdly fancy food, expensive dining and drinking, high fashion attire, diverse and perverse entertainments, and palatial architecture and decor to tantalize the eyes and amaze our spirits.  What is it that drives human beings to “desire” these things without considering whether they actually “need” them?

It’s all about the deceptive “wow” factor.

In the midst of observing all of this, standing in the lobby of the hotel, I’m smitten by the “wow factor” of God.  Grateful for and humbled by the gift of knowing God—and loving God— so thoroughly that all of these distractions are “of none effect”, as it is written.  My spirit is not phased nor attracted to any of these indulgences.  It almost makes me want to cry out loud and shout to all the passersby, “There is something REAL and TRUE that can bring you joy, peace and contentment!”… It’s something they’re all looking for, but their carnal minds are grasping for it in all the wrong venues.  Nothing in this world can satisfy us, because it’s all temporal… temporary…ultimately unsatisfying.

I am blessed, blessed, blessed to be satisfied by the living holy spirit of God, and content in that.  None of these temptations have any pull on my heart, and there’s such a relaxed satisfaction in that.  That, too, is fascinating to me…to realize how much I’ve been changed from my former self.

All it took was a touch from Jesus!   Nearly 30 years ago, he put in my heart and my mind a desire to put aside sin and step away from the clandestine behavior that had become so familiar to me.  He convicted me, and drew me with an intense curiosity to be born anew, and relinquish the attractions that had held me in bondage for most of my life.

To be clear, I never cared for the things Las Vegas had to offer even when I was a sinner, with the exception of an occasional theatrical entertainment.  It’s a godless, artificial place, and I always felt that, in my spirit.  God protected me from its deceptive allure.  Now, it’s safe to visit, as an observer, unmoved by anything it presents; clean and holy in my spirit…and genuinely happy.

I’m asking God for more balance in my life so that my wants and my needs are the same, with nothing excessive or impure competing for my attention.  Gary’s advice to the young people yesterday in the meeting can be effectively applied to us all: devote more time to knowing our wonderful God, while we are able!

We owe Him everything for what He’s given to us.

Brad

I believe madness and insanity was one of the things God promised His Old Testament people if they forsook Him and His law (Dt. 28:28).  For New Testament believers, this means forsaking the holy Ghost, which they have done.  I think the world is just getting the trickle-down effect… There’s no light for them from God’s people if there is no holy Ghost leading.

Gary

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I agree, Gary.

Paul could see the bleak future that lay ahead for God’s dear people when they began to reject him and the astonishing gospel Jesus revealed to him (cf. 2Tim. 1:15; 3:1–8).  When John foresaw the curse with which God would curse His New Testament people, the religious system of Christianity, he said “I marveled with great wonder” (Rev. 18:6b).  And it is an astonishing thing to behold, so astonishing, in fact, that it cannot be believed without help from God.

May God continue to help us!

Pastor John