Hey, I just loved tonight.  And I loved what John David was saying about Preacher Clark saying, “Are you going to let Jesus come through here and not touch him and let him cleanse you and change you?” So good! We have already gone back and listened to it.

I was working on the tract Holiness today, and there is a line in it that stands out to me every time I read it.  Today it was in bold when I read it and it felt so good.  Here is what it says:

You see, the Lord wants to cleanse us as well as forgive us.  And “If we confess our sins,” 1John 1:9 tells us, “he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins AND to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

That is so wonderful! To be forgiven and cleansed from all unrighteousness. Whew! Tonight was really good and encouraging. There is never a dead end in Jesus.  He meets us wherever we are. Even though we were not there, we were in Spirit, and we got pretty close to the tv!   Thank you! And love you all.  And by the way, that tract is good too. Coming soon……

Amy B

Pastor John,

I was thinking today that it is not as important to listen to what people are saying about God, as it is to look at what they are doing.  There are probably as many of God’s spirit-filled children calling themselves Christian, as there are sinners calling themselves members of the body of Christ.

Jerry

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That’s true, Jerry.  What difference does it make, what men say about anything, including themselves?

Pastor John

Pastor John,

During my lunch today I rewatched a Matthew Sermon (2nd in series).  It was so good!  Here are some things you said:

If we are in Christ, we have been made a new creature!  Old things are gone!

Your past is harder for you to get over than it is for God to get over.  Get over your old self, that thing is dead!  You can be happy if you’re really you in Christ. 

You are not a product of that physical union anymore!

I Peter

3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in His abundant mercy has caused us to be born anew into a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4. for an incorruptible and pure and permanent inheritance, reserved in heaven for you
5. who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.
6. In this you rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, you are distressed by various trials,
7. so that the trying of your faith, being much more precious than the trying of gold that perishes, though it be tried by fire, may be found worthy of praise and honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ
8. (whom having not seen, you love, and in whom, though not now seeing him, you believe, and you rejoice with joy inexpressible and filled with glory),
9. receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

He doesn’t want you to just have the holy Ghost, he wants you to have it abundantly!  That is when he is saving you!

Let’s humble ourselves and be blessed!  Give in and be happy!

Whew…. I’m happy and shouting all over my little apartment!  I love in verse 4 “incorruptible and pure and permanent inheritance, reserved in heaven for you” – amen!  A permanent inheritance reserved for us!  It just doesn’t get any better than that!

Michelle

Wow! We loved reading this testimony, it brought tears to my eyes. And some of the details I don’t remember hearing before! What a heartfelt testimony. I love that I could feel this!

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Good morning, Pastor John,

As I was working on my Old Testament assignments* this past week, I came across a page of my notes from February 1997, when we first took the Old Testament class with you, and my heart was overwhelmed with gratitude.  It brought back sweet memories and beautiful testimonies of how Jesus brought us out of Christianity and connected our hearts to you. 

Tim had met you and the Paynes in November 1995, about the time Jeremiah was born, and over the months, Tim would bring tracts, cassette series and books to read and listen to.  I would see them lying on the table, but I could not yet go there to open them because I didn’t want to be disappointed again with thinking I had found the truth, only to be hurt.  I was having my own time of searching for Jesus and had some very touching times with him.  As August, September and October came along, Tim and I started having conversations about Christianity and how things were not right there, and we were having questions about when a person was born again.  I started listening to the cassettes and reading some of the tracts.  I picked up the old blue and white Revelation book, and sincerely said to Jesus, “Who is this John Clark?  How does he know these things about you?”  One of my favorite things during that time was hearing you sing at the beginning of the cassette series, “He’s the fragrance of heaven, the manna unleavened, the song of the songbird, how sweetly he sings…”  Jesus let me love what I felt from you!  That’s about the time I found myself standing in my dark bedroom one night saying to Jesus that I was willing to put all my eggs in the basket one more time!  I was afraid but willing!

On December 25, 1996, Jesus clearly let us know we were done with the charismatic church we had been attending.  The pastor there, without actually mentioning our names, told the whole congregation from the pulpit that there were two people among them who didn’t believe in the Trinity; he ridiculed us and mocked us.  Whew!  Even though it was very hurtful to go through because everybody knew it was us (because of talk that had circulated), how grateful we were that Jesus had shut the door and we knew there was no going back there.  A few days later, I answered the phone (Tim was at work), and it was the assistant pastor telling me we were wrong to leave, and reminding me of what a traveling minister had said to Tim and me about a year earlier, that our place was beside our pastor.  I just got quiet and asked Jesus how to respond, and all I had to say was, “Ed T. is not our pastor.”  There was nothing else he could say, so we hung up.  

The first or second Sunday morning of January 1997, we turned the TV on and saw Kenneth Copeland preaching.  As I listened for a few minutes, I said aloud to Jesus, “Is it really true that Christianity is not from you?” and as the last syllable came from my mouth, there was a bright flash of lightning and a crash of thunder simultaneously that knocked our TV out!  I will never forget turning towards Tim and feeling the fear of God.  We both knew that God had just given us the answer to that heartfelt question. We sat very quietly and could not move for the longest time. 

Then the third week in January, I told Tim I would go with him to the Elderwood Lane house Bible study.  I had never met you before.  I was very nervous and on guard because I didn’t know what to expect.  I had opened my heart to folks in Christianity only to have it hurt very badly after years of trying to have real relationships and fellowship with others there.  I just wanted Jesus to let me know if this was where he really wanted us to be.  After the meeting was over, everybody had left except for you, Barbara, Bob, Ellen and us.  Barbara and Ellen were asking me about myself, and all of a sudden, I remember these big tears starting to roll down my face, and I told them I just wanted to know what was right concerning Jesus.  John, you came over and put your arm around my shoulder, spoke in tongues and prayed for me that Jesus would show me who was telling the truth.  I had never, ever felt such a love from any preacher or Christian minister for me as I did from you at that moment.  There was a peace that fell on me that I had never experienced in the twelve years I had had the holy Ghost.  It is hard to put into words what Jesus did for me that night and what he let me feel, but the best way I can say it is that for the first time in my whole life, I felt safe spiritually and that I had found home.  That was Jesus letting me know that you are a pastor after God’s own heart, and that I could trust you.  Every time I remember this testimony, my heart just melts because this was the fork in the road for me, and Jesus let me choose life!!  Just a few weeks later in February, you told us you were teaching an Old Testament class at ACC and that we could join in, and what a life-changing event that was for us!  I remember the feeling of sitting in your class and thinking how much I loved being able to learn about the God I had always wanted to know!  I still feel the same way today as I hear you teach and preach about our Jesus!

I was reading in Proverbs yesterday and I came across this verse that touched me (Prov. 18:4):  “The words of a man’s mouth are as deep waters, and the wellspring of wisdom as a flowing brook.”

John, Jesus has anointed you as a wellspring of wisdom to teach us the way of life in the Spirit.  I am so thankful Jesus let me find you, and I want to hold on to you and Jesus the whole way home.

Love,

Bess

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Hi Bess!

I love your testimony, Bess.  It is real and pure.  And I remember praying that prayer for you at my house that day so long ago now.  I even remember where you were standing when I came over to you.  It is a very great joy that Jesus answered our prayer and opened your heart to him and his wonderful truth.  How thankful I am for the fellowship Jesus created for us!

Pastor John

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

Just seeing the holy wisdom versus thoughts and ways of man in those Old Meeting notes from 1968 is so good to me!  I am attaching a pearl that is a memory on my Facebook today.  It goes perfectly with how the notes made me feel.

It makes me pray to be delivered from my opinions. And makes me thank God because that prayer just keeps coming back around, over and over again!  It’s not going away! Jesus isn’t forgetting about it, and I don’t want to either. I love it! I might just get that holy lobotomy I asked him for!

Hey Pastor John,

Last night I was listening to an Old Testament cd.*  You started talking about how Rob cleans up our music, layer by layer, and comparing that with getting the junk that Christianity has left behind in our hearts.  It was so good, you said:

“Christianity not only doesn’t take out the things that God doesn’t like, they make noise.  It interferes with the song God’s trying to get your heart to sing with Him.  It adds clutter; it tells them to forgive when God doesn’t say to forgive.  That’s clutter!  It confuses.  It can add so much to the heart that you don’t even hear the song of God anymore; you hear something different.  You can’t even tell what Jesus is singing about in your soul.  That’s why to know good and evil belongs to “those who are full of age” (Heb. 5).

“By reason of use,” it says, one layer then another layer is cleansed, as you pursue the righteousness of God.  Submitting to the hand of Jesus as he works the knobs, fading in this and fading out that, deleting this, taking care of that, smoothing that out, adding a little echo there –whatever!  To know good and evil belongs to “those who, by reason of use, have exercised their senses to discern good and evil.”  You have to exercise your spiritual senses.

When you try to tell one of God’s children some of your level of truth, and they’ve got all this other stuff in their system, not yet removed, it means that they haven’t used their senses in God enough.  They haven’t let Jesus readjust the volume.  You’re talking nonsense to them; they can’t get what you are saying.  “Hate Christianity?!? What are you talking about?”

I’m talking about down here, where Jesus is singing a song and you can hear the notes.  There are no squeaks on his heart- on my heart-they’ve been taken out!  Praise God!  I can hear Jesus singing a song of hating Christianity and asking people to dance with him!  Praise God!  When you dance with Jesus, the choir is singing a song about how glorious he is and how rotten Christianity is.  It’s on the record!  You have to use your senses in the spirit of God to pick up on it, though.  You have to submit to what is God, and turn away what is not God, in order to hear the music I’m hearing!  There is too much static on that level where Christianity is mixed in.  You cannot hear what I’m hearing living where that thing is; you can’t hear it.  Glory to God!  You can have ears and not hear, you can have eyes and not see!”

Whew… It left me asking Jesus to take the whistle out of my S’s!  I want to dance with Jesus in the clean simple truth!  Amen!

Michelle 

* https://goingtojesus.com/gtj_otcourse-1010.html