Pastor John,

Yesterday Beth and I were talking about how blessed we are.  We have been given, at any hour, any day, for whatever situation, a smorgasbord of wonderful healthy nutritious food to feast on – not only for us but for all God’s children!  We meet so many of God’s people throughout our days and, oh, how we wish they would eat what we can offer them – food that is not tainted, food that is full of nourishment for their souls, but they would not.

Reading the “Thought for the Morning*,“ today reminded me of our conversation yesterday.  My hope is to stay full so that, when that precious child that is ready and willing to consume God’s heavenly manna, I’m ready and where I need to be.  To stay full, fat and satisfied, that is a very sweet spot!

I’m so very thankful for us and for what we have be given.  Thank you, Jesus, for giving it, and thank you, Pastor John, for serving it to us!  We are truly blessed!

* https://goingtojesus.com/gtj_thoughts.html?tname=tfm09-18

Michelle

Pastor John,

I’ve been translating Proverbs to get it ready to go over together, and I had a verse that struck me last night.

Proverbs 15:10

Correction seems malignant to him who leaves the path; he who hates reproof will die.

It was frightening to me.  Once you leave the path, any correction people give you seems like it’s not right.  It doesn’t apply, or it doesn’t have your best interest at heart.  And in the end, “he who hates reproof will die”.  What a terrible trap to be in.

But then I remembered a verse I had just translated:

Proverbs 15:5

A fool spurns his father’s correction, but he who treasures reproof is prudent.

KJV has “…he that regardeth reproof is prudent.”, but that didn’t quite capture what it’s saying to me.  Someone who treasures reproof watches over it, remembers it, and keeps it in his heart.  

God help us treasure reproof!

Aaron

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Excellent, Aaron!

Keep up the good work in Proverbs, etc.  Jesus is guiding you.  I love this.

Pastor John

John,

I have been listening to your teaching in Matthew labeled “A Pampered Generation”.

For two weeks now, while working under houses, this teaching has been in my ears.  There are times my heart was turning flips on the inside.  I could feel something on the inside happening.  My heart was exploding with joy.  God bless you, John.  And thank you for being who God has made you.  You are so good to us.

Tim S.

(14) A Pampered Generation – Pastor John D. Clark, Sr. – YouTube

Hello Pastor John!

I pray you, Barbara and the whole family is on the mend!

I have been having the same message repeatedly on my morning walks.  It’s been about fellowship.   I have prayed for more fellowship recently and I believe this is my lesson.

Politics* WILL kill fellowship.  I sometimes watch the news feeds about politics, world issues and the antics used to sway the viewers back and forth while guiding the viewer’s beliefs.  Some happy, some not, ready to fight over the same message.  But none of it is true and none of it matters.  What my opinion of this politician or that one will change nothing.  Whether they appear good while doing bad, or evil while trying to do good. They are all instruments of God, and He doesn’t want me involved.  I may like a politician that someone else sitting next to me in a meeting does not like.  How can the Spirit flow freely?

Don’t be swayed by politics, neither form an opinion or thought about what is God’s business.  We cannot know the heart of it all, nor the end.  Me/us meddling in His business may cause me/us to stay in Egypt longer.  My vote will not matter in the political race; God will put in charge who He wants; but what has my vote done to my heart, my fellowship, and most importantly, my trust that God will do the right thing?!

I pray I conveyed what the holy Ghost has given me in a way that is acceptable to God.

Love
Mark

* https://www.goingtojesus.com/gtj_tracts.html?tname=tract-029-politicsandbelievers

Good morning, Pastor John.

I just left a customer, and I am feeling so thankful for you and for the truth.  I am so thankful for Jesus!

The man said he has taught bible study for over 20 years.  He is a Methodist.  I listened to him talk while I worked.  I didn’t talk, just listened.  He started off by telling me he went to Seminary, but then fell off.  He then told me how his wife had to hold him back recently when he was with a brother who questioned the need for a communion ceremony and the meaning of it, and then he said he stopped meeting with that brother because of it.  He says he is now listening to a Catholic priest every day online and that it is helping him teach his Methodist students.  He spent ten minutes selling this man to me and telling me that in the next six months I will see that the Methodist church is cracking.

As I listened to the pride and, truthfully, just the foolish and unlearned things this man was defending and holding so tightly to, my heart ached for him.  I did not feel angry, or put off, or puffed up by his wrong thoughts, or how sure he was that he was right.  I felt so sad for him.  I left there wanting Jesus to open his eyes and his heart to the truth.

We are so blessed Jesus has touched us that it hurts to see it when others are so lost.  I dont think I have ever felt it the way I did this morning.  It is like having a banquet table of food and seeing starving people standing nearby, but who are so determined to stick to their ways that they won’t eat.

It is humbling.
Beth D.

Bro. John:

The September 10th Pearl of the Day* says, “This world can’t hurt you so bad that God’s love can’t cover it.”

That reminds me of another Pearl that Preacher Clark once said:

“When the world gives you a cold shoulder, Jesus has a warm bosom”.

Yes he does!  I love how Jesus loves us so sweetly.

Sandy 🙂

* https://pjhpearls.blogspot.com/

Good morning, John.

Amy B. reminded me that 21 years ago today, we were on the phone together as the World Trade Center was being destroyed by terrorists on 9-11.

That was the one and only time I have ever felt my knees literally knocking together with the fear of God.  Amy told me she went in the bathroom at work and threw up, and the Lord told her, “I did it.”

For a while, America was humbled and it was a good thing. There was a refreshing that blew through, which felt to good for all.  But it did not last long.  Today, this country and or society is the worst it’s ever been.  We didn’t learn anything, we are just as wicked, proud, and perverse as we’ve ever been.. rejecting God, and prosperity, has blinded us…. We have forgotten what God can do, and did.

My thought today was, “God don’t let me forget what you have done.”  He has healed, and blessed, and corrected, and prospered, and encouraged, and sent his words to us over and over again. thank you Jesus!  Keep us alive!  We can make it, but ONLY with you!  I want to always remember!

Where will we be 21 years from now?  Many of us will literally be in another world.  What sober thoughts.   What will come next in this country… and what is next for us?  Jesus is always good.  He was on 9-11-2001.  It’s worth remembering.

Gary

Bro. John:

I was awakened a few days ago with the Spirit speaking these words in my ears: 

“If you keep rubbing a dog’s nose in his mess, he’ll never lift his head up.”

As I pondered what I had just heard from the Lord, the words seemed a little odd, but then, we are God’s peculiar people, so who am I to second guess anything or any way God wants to speak to us?  I knew it was from him.  It felt like a true proverb – a door of opportunity being opened to learn more from Jesus. Then your dream and message came a few days later, and it came together for me.  I’d like to share how he opened it up to my heart.

In your email sermon you said, “We are stuck on repenting, and can’t get past it!  Constant repenting is an irritating, grating sound to God’s ears.  Jesus wants us to stop this repenting.  He wants us to just repent, get over it, and move on!”

Constant repenting and rubbing our noses in our own messes of our own making both keep us from lifting up our heads and being the child of God he has made us to be and wants us to be!  He knows who we are and where we are before we even know.  But it’s not God who keeps rubbing our noses in our messes — it’s us!  And he wants us to lift our heads up and do what we were created to do as a child of God in this beautiful kingdom he has put us in.  If we need to repent, he will let us know, if we keep our hearts true to him.  Then, as you said, repent, get over it, and move on!  How in the world can we worship him in Spirit and in Truth if we are always walking around with our heads down!  We should be the most thankful people on earth that he has given us His Spirit, made us his children, and given us a NEW PAST!  I know it and believe it because he told me so!  We are not products of our earthly union anymore!  We are strangers and pilgrims on this earth, waiting to get home to our Father and His Son, Jesus!  It’s time to let it go, repent, and move on.  It’s time to get our noses out of our messes, lift up our heads in praise to Jesus, worship him the way he desires — in Spirit and in Truth!

I have been so blessed with what the Spirit told me and your message on repentance, Bro. John!  I really am trying to keep this short, but I must say that reading about the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 added to my joy.  When Jesus told her to go and get her husband, he already knew she didn’t have a husband, but had in the past had 5 husbands!  He did not win her heart over to him by rubbing her nose in her past.  He just let her know that he knew her and had something better for her — living water!  She didn’t pout or get angry at what he said about her husbands, she just went excitedly into the city to tell her experience with the man “which told me all things that I ever did.”  What a beautiful story!  Jesus knows everything about us and he knows how to get our hearts to repentance.  And if we are heart-seeking when he does, repentance comes easy and joy comes in the morning!  It doesn’t take grinding and struggling and hard-seeking.  He mercifully taught me that in 2006.

This has been so very good to me today.  I have felt the joy of that “water springing up into everlasting life!”  Let’s lift our heads up and be the children of God he has made us to be!  Let us stop rubbing our noses in the old past of our messes and rejoice that we are no longer there!  Praise Jesus forever!  He is worthy!  He is good!  He is faithful to his Word!  And HE is the Lifter Up of our heads!

Love,

Sandy  🙂

Hey Pastor John,

I hope you and Barbara are feeling better.  This has been really something with all the sickness the past couple of weeks.  I wanted to tell you what Jesus did for me.

When we first started getting messages about everyone testing positive it was so sad.  It broke my heart to read each message.  When things like this happen everything in me worries, and I began asking Jesus, “oh know, what have I done wrong?”  Then the worry just takes over.  

The other day I was talking to Jesus about all the sickness, and he flipped something inside for me.  Instead of feeling worry and dread I began feeling so much love.  I would read messages of someone testing positive but right behind it I would see messages of someone asking, how can I help?  The love we have for each other just flooded my heart.  I hated to see all who were sick but something about the sweet, gentle love I was feeling was special and was from Jesus.

I know that we should “check ourselves”, that is a good thing.  But the love that I have felt and seen goes beyond this world.  I’m so thankful to be a part of this family.  I really do feel like Jesus has put us here together.  Through good and bad, through sickness and health, we have been joined together!

I’m looking forward to being together again!

Michelle

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I have felt the same love that Michelle talks about. I also felt the positive, glad feeling that “we’re in this boat together”! If our fellowship causes us to become ill so be it! I’ll take fellowship with illness over no fellowship any day!

Allison