{"id":562,"date":"2009-10-12T12:54:05","date_gmt":"2009-10-12T16:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/Correspondence\/?p=562"},"modified":"2009-10-12T12:54:05","modified_gmt":"2009-10-12T16:54:05","slug":"tft-the-gospel-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/562\/tft-the-gospel-part-three\/","title":{"rendered":"TFT “The Gospel Part Three”"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.goingtojesus.com\/site\/php\/thoughts.php?tname=tfe10-09<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Good Morning!<\/span><\/p>\n

I guess this would be a real quick testimony to share…cause I had to grin as I read the Thought of the Day this morning.\u00a0 The Gospel Part Three.<\/em> The grin came at this statement;<\/span><\/p>\n

“Satan is afraid of this Gospel.\u00a0 He gets nervous when God’s people get close to it.\u00a0 In just about every case I know of, when God starts revealing to one of His children the truth of the Gospel, Satan’s ministers start offering them prestigious titles and responsibilities”.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Yep.\u00a0 I can remember something similar… When I finally gathered the strength & made the meeting w\/my pastor to share all these truths that the Spirit had been revealing\u00a0to me.\u00a0\u00a0There we were,\u00a0at that big conference table,\u00a0doing a little chit-chat, and before I could even begin with the real reason I came … the pastor\u00a0basically began\u00a0offering me a position that I cared about deeply.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember thinking “what in the world?”, and almost feeling bad … because there he\u00a0was, placing a trust of me in this position … and I was about to drop an unannounced\u00a0BIG bomb!!\u00a0 I was so uncomfortable…and within myself began doubting if\u00a0that was the time to tell him what I came to tell!<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, I hung on & stuck to it.\u00a0 I did respectfully listened to all he had to say, and etc. about what he was asking of me.\u00a0\u00a0But when it came my turn, I\u00a0honestly told\u00a0him that after all he said, he probably may change his mind, once he hears what I came to talk about.<\/span><\/p>\n

I shared truth, and he listened…but when it was all over with, he hadn’t changed his mind. He still wanted me to take that position.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was\u00a0doing my best to\u00a0be led by the Spirit, and\u00a0somewhat alone, try to figure that whole thing out!\u00a0 But it didn’t change his mind a bit…and I ended up being in that role for 5 more months…before making that decision to leave earlier this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, here is a question.\u00a0 Now I know that Satan does not know ALL things like God does!<\/span><\/p>\n

But what is your take?\u00a0 Could Satan\u00a0have been\u00a0aware in advance of what I went to do (and how) … and beat me to the punch (since the offer came before I shared truth)?\u00a0 Or maybe could it had been a test to see I would back off…or stay strong and still speak?\u00a0 Makes one wonder.<\/span><\/p>\n

Melissa<\/span><\/p>\n

===================<\/p>\n

Hi Melissa.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As I said in that Thought for the Day, this is a fairly common occurrence.\u00a0 It is God, giving you the opportunity to spurn the vain offers of man bound in darkness in order to attain to “the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

It is a spiritual matter, Melissa, not an intelligence issue.\u00a0 The spirits of Christian ministers, as well as Satan, can feel it when they are loosing their grip on a good member of their sect.\u00a0 They don’t have to know a thing.\u00a0 Their response is often to try to please that member with extra honor. or load him with extra responsibilities, so he\/she will feel obligated to stay there and not to follow Christ out of Babylon.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The difference between that scenario and the way of Christ is that when people begin to walk away from Jesus, he first thanks God that for relieving him of the burden of dealing with those foolish people, and then he invites others who are still with him to leave with them. Consider this scene from John 6:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

66. \u00a0From that time, many of his disciples turned back to former things and no longer walked with him.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

67.\u00a0 Then Jesus said to the twelve, \u201cDo you want to leave, too?\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Melissa, seeing this is the way Jesus is, I have never called or written a soul who has chosen to leave me and go some other way.\u00a0 Everyone here knows very well that they are free to walk away — without me chasing them.\u00a0 They know they will never be bothered by me again.\u00a0 Now, as long as they are here, they will be fed the word of God and protected from evil influences, to the extent that Jesus equips me to do that.\u00a0 I will, as Paul told Timothy, “Preach the word . . reprove, rebuke, exhort with all patience and doctrine.”\u00a0 But if anyone wants to leave, and if I have done my part according to the will of God, then their leaving can only be that to be a part of my work is not given to them by Jesus.\u00a0 So, I rejoice in that judgment of God as much as any other.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This precious light that we see is too wonderful for us to have to beg or try to bribe people to be faithful to it.\u00a0 The truth judges us, Melissa; we cannot judge it.\u00a0 And if the truth judges someone unworthy to participate in this holy and good work, then I rejoice, not complain about it.\u00a0 And then, I will invite you and everyone else here to leave, too.\u00a0 I only want the ones God sends me.\u00a0 They are precious souls, both to me and to the Lord.\u00a0 The merely interested, the half-committed, and those who think of this as just another Christian sect are all dead weight, and its just a matter of time before they are offended at something I do or say.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Pastor John<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.goingtojesus.com\/site\/php\/thoughts.php?tname=tfe10-09   Good Morning! I guess this would be a real quick testimony to share…cause I had to grin as I read the Thought of the Day this morning.\u00a0 The Gospel Part Three. The grin came at this statement; “Satan is afraid of this Gospel.\u00a0 He gets nervous when God’s people get close to it.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}