This is really something to take in.  This is us.  It didn’t have to be.  Verse 19 got me! I could have been condemned.  I could have loved sin.

Beth

John 3:

16. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that every one who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

17. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
18. He who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe has been condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the unique Son of God.
19. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.
20. For everyone who practices evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed.
21. But he who does the truth comes to the light so that his deeds may be made manifest, that they have been wrought in God.

https://youtu.be/M7Or025B0iI

This is so good! I listen to this and think, “What is wrong with this? Name one thing wrong with this! It’s so clean and pure!” 

If a heart is really wanting something from God, something real, that heart is going to love this! 

And if not, what is that heart hanging onto? 

The truth welcomes truth! And a lie welcomed lies! 

I’m so thankful Jesus made me love this!

Beth

Good morning,

I was thinking about how much I love watching our young men become God’s men. I could watch that forever! 

I thought about Jonathan’s testimony last night, and I remember asking Jesus how he feels about ” once a sinner, always a sinner?”  Jesus answered me in the most perfect way.  Jesus told me ” If I was ok with sin, I would have left you in it.”

The first thing Jesus did for me was to clean me up from the life of sin I was drowning in. 

Fast forward 9 years and my daughter asked me about that very thing. I was able to pass on the most perfect answer Jesus gave me, because it would clear it up for her too. She witnessed Jesus cleaning all that sin from her mama and was experiencing Jesus cleaning things up for her too, so it was her most perfect answer too. God is so good!

Before Jesus sent Jerry, my sister-in-law came to me hurting because of my dying condition and asked me to please come get baptized. I was so close to death and so miserable, I wanted anything that might make it stop. So, I went and said a prayer with them, and got dunked in a big tank, hoping I would come up different like they said. I can still feel the hopelessness I felt when I didn’t. 

Now, I got in that big tank because they told me it would wash my sins away, and I would be different. But after my family witnessed the real Jesus come and fix everything, change my whole nature, then they told me I would always be a sinner.  Well, what was the point of getting in that big ole tank of water then? Bless their hearts, they really are confused. They don’t know what they believe. It makes me very thankful for answers from Jesus. 

You said last night, “Come let us reason together.”  I love that. I took my question to Jesus and Jesus answered it. We reasoned together, and I didn’t even know we were doing that. What a wonderful God we serve. 

Isa. 1:18: “Come, I pray you, let us reason together, says Jehovah. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool.”

Love 

Beth

I was just listening to Sister Donna and Brother Aaron singing ‘Good morning, Mercy’, and it reminded me of something that happened yesterday early in the morning, around 3am, as I was getting ready to go to work. It was one of those mornings when, waking up, I didn’t really feel anything from God. I still praised Him, thanked Him for life and hope, and did my morning routine, part of which is sitting down in the kitchen, usually drinking a coffee, and reading something from the Bible. As I was sitting there, I started talking to God, and asked Him, “Please let me feel something from You. Please let me feel Your mercy”. Then I picked up my Bible, and started reading 2 Corinthians, which is where I’m at, going through the New Testament. And this is what I found:

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.”

And as I was reading these words, the mere fact that God had just put it in my heart to ask Him to feel His mercy, and then allowing me to read that He is “the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort” made me tear up, because I felt that it was Him telling me “I’m with you”, it was Him comforting me with His presence on an ordinary morning. He knew how I was feeling that morning, and He cared enough to give me a gentle touch, a moment of comfort, that really did last only for a few moments, but it meant a lot for my soul right then and there, and it gave me strength for that day at work.

So, I just want to thank Jesus for this touch, for his kindness. And I thank him that he reminded me of this through Sister Donna’s song, because this morning I was just thinking that I hadn’t written to y’all for a while, and I was contemplating if there was anything that had happened to me recently that would be worth sharing 🙂

God bless you all.
Zoli

Hi Pastor John,

Lee Ann’s response to Preacher Clark’s pearl about hiding your talent was exactly what the Holy Spirit was showing me recently.  I just want to share something that the Lord has allowed me to discover about myself.

In my wildest dreams and imaginations, I never would have thought I had a passion for dancing! Jesus really placed that desire in my heart to want to do it.  Dancing, in the flesh, surely was not my forte, as I was terrible and I knew it!  But when there’s a place in Christ, where you are liberated and free to dance in the spirit, it makes a huge difference!  Here, in our meetings, the Spirit is in our music, and we are so blessed to have great musicians.  I understand now that music, singing, and dancing, if in the Spirit, is the most beautiful thing because it’s holy!  It doesn’t even have to be perfect.  It’s another way to express our testimony.  When I dance, I’m dancing with the Spirit in the music, as it moves me in my body. The flow of the Spirit and feelings that the Spirit gives.  There is a flow of an ebb or tide in the Spirit, much like in water, and it’s beautiful.  Dancing, to me, is basically a testimony of the power and love that’s in me from God!  So, Jesus helped me discover for myself the talent of dance, which I never knew existed, and never would have known, had I not obeyed the Spirit.  

When I first came to the meetings, earlier this year, I didn’t really know what to expect.  Well, let’s just say, it was way beyond my expectations and glorious!  Full of love, and overwhelming joy flooded my soul!  When you started playing the song, “Finding Glory All Along the Way”, I started to have feelings in my spirit to dance.  But at first, my flesh was holding me back out of fear, saying to myself, I can’t dance and I’m going to look like a fool!  Well, my flesh was telling the truth, as I can’t dance.  But in the Spirit, all things are possible!  There was a real battle between my flesh and the Spirit.  But eventually the Spirit in me compelled me so much that I had to break out of my comfort zone!  I had to “break through the roof”, as Gary’s song says, in order to get what I truly wanted from Jesus!  As I was coming out of my fleshly shell, I heard Gary say out loud, “He’s moving out!” or something like that.  When I heard Gary say that, that’s all it took for me to go out there on that floor and dance.  I finally felt free and became myself that Jesus created me to be!  The Spirit is always in motion and is fluid!  He wanted to give me this gift or talent of dance so I can be made available for Him!  I learned that we’re valuable to the Spirit only if we are willing to be made available to Him.  I don’t want to hide my talent inside of me and bury it.  It has to be put in operation or motion, just like the Spirit.  It’s only profitable when it’s in use, and for the benefit of the body.  When it’s not in motion, it dies, and we eventually become an unprofitable servant. Being given talents bring with it a responsibility to Him that gives them.  I need to be fully yielded, and be led by His Spirit so I can be of some use to this body that He placed me in.  

Jesus also has shown me that there are many that are hiding their talents or have not discovered them yet due to fear; just like me.  The only way to combat that old man (our flesh) is to stay so full of His Spirit.  That’s our weapon.  Amen!  My desire and prayer for all of us is just to be available, and we will all discover our talents and use them!

Love in Christ,

David

I thank Jesus and I praise Him for a blessed day at work. Early in the morning, after waking up, I asked Jesus to bless my day, that He would give me, as well as to the inmates working under me the right heart and the right attitude; I also asked Him that we would “produce” a lot of milk today. And that is exactly what happened! Throughout the day I felt Jesus being with me, I felt His favor through my colleagues, through the inmates (they did work well, even the more rebellious ones had a good attitude); the weather was better than in recent days, and we ended up milking well above the average amount.

Then, as I was walking home, I knew I would walk past a grocery store that is open even on holidays, and I knew they usually have cakes, and I was thinking how I would really enjoy a piece of cake now. But Jesus has been speaking to me about self-control, as well as being a good steward of the money at my disposal, so I decided to skip this opportunity, and I was fine with it, I felt it was the right call. Even before I got home though, I had the thought that God might just bless me for doing the right thing – and He did 🙂 Getting home I found out that my mother, about an hour earlier, decided to walk to that same grocery store, and she bought two pieces of chocolate cake; one for herself and one for me. I was smiling, and told her about what I was thinking and praying about on my way home, and I could tell that my testimony blessed her.

So, after taking heed to the gentle voice of the Spirit, I was not only surprised with a piece of (very delicious) chocolate cake, but it was much more than just that. It was a kind gesture, a simple blessing from Jesus AND, through that, it was an opportunity to testify of Him to my mother.

This is how Jesus blessed me today. I’m looking forward to a good day of rest tomorrow.
I hope y’all are doing well.

Zoli

Pastor John,

I think I failed to see during the last reading (in the beginning for sure, but I don’t believe I ever fully got it) how it wasn’t “right vs. wrong” or “good vs. bad” as much as it was “good vs. better” or “good vs. holy”.  Or even, “where God was vs. where God is.”

Which is so different!

These were God’s old men vs. God’s new men, and I recall portraying my character (God’s old man) as an obviously bad man for the first half of the reading.

I think many who would have opposed Paul at the Jerusalem Council,*  would have been sincere, and earnest in their pleadings (of course), without malice. It might have been difficult for onlookers, even those with the spirit baptism, to judge between the two opposing sides, at least for a while.  But then, whatever was keeping God’s old men from loving the truth from God that was delivered to Paul would have started to come out later.  The shell would have cracked, perhaps, and a wrong spirit would have begun showing itself.  Their tone and attitude would have changed, maybe even to the surprise of the men behaving that way.

The “right vs. right” dilemma in the Jerusalem Council kind of reminds me of watching/listening to the parents of some young folks who have recently come to the truth.  It is old love vs. new love; or the world’s love vs. God’s love.  And the first of these is seemingly the best love for a time, for it is the only love available to men.  It is the love that kept their children safe, and it never intends to be evil, as far as the one wielding it is concerned.

No wonder God was so slow and merciful and kind when transferring his people from the Old Testament way of loving God to the new way of loving God.

And how kind should we be when seeing people misunderstand God’s love, especially for their children.

There is a sweetness and gentleness in that, and not a battle of wills, it seems.

Jerry

* Going to Jesus.com – The Jerusalem Council