{"id":9901,"date":"2017-10-06T23:39:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T23:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=9901"},"modified":"2017-10-06T23:39:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-06T23:39:00","slug":"life-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/9901\/life-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Support"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Pastor John,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today I was in the car and I was listening to a brother testify.\u00a0 This brother said, “I know I can sit here in this chair (at the prayer meetings) and die.\u201d\u00a0 That struck my heart when he said that, and almost immediately Jesus said, “I am life support.\u201d\u00a0 Jesus will keep us alive when our spirits are tired and need help to keep going. Jesus will bring us into the \u201cemergency room\u201d, as Sister Willie says, and plug us into the body where we can get nutrients and be fed.\u00a0 There really is nothing new in this world.\u00a0 Jesus is the original life support!\u00a0 That is so good to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, just as in the world, a body cannot stay on life support.\u00a0 Almost immediately the muscles weaken causing atrophy.\u00a0 I was in a coma for seven days once, and after I woke up, I remember not being able to sit up without help.\u00a0 I remember wanting to stand, and my mind was ready to get up and walk, but my muscles could not function like they were supposed to.\u00a0 The lack of circulation and blood flow had an almost immediate effect.\u00a0 I could not eat or swallow after only seven days.\u00a0 The muscles were too weak.\u00a0 I had to do daily exercises to even take a drink of water.\u00a0 I was so thirsty, yet I could not have a sip of water, for the doctors feared\u00a0I would choke on it.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can overcome the atrophy and get strong again, but it is not without work, and it is not without pain.\u00a0 The longer the body is on life support, the harder it is to regain strength and function.<\/span><\/p>\n

I love the mercy in this, and I love His wisdom.\u00a0 We can rest when our spirits are tired.\u00a0 Jesus will keep us alive.\u00a0 But we have to get up and use our spiritual muscles!\u00a0 We have to move and let the blood flow, or everything vital begins to die.\u00a0 We do not want to get to the point where we cannot take a sip of water from Jesus.\u00a0 Imagine being so thirsty for a drink, and having the water available, but no longer having the strength to swallow.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also while I was in a coma, the hospital sent two men from local churches, on separate occasions, to anoint my head with oil because the odds were high that I was going to die, and that was supposed to ensure I made it to Heaven.\u00a0 I am so very thankful for the oil that will really get me home.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I found this definition of atrophy:<\/span><\/p>\n

Atrophy<\/b>\u00a0is the partial or complete wasting<\/a> away of a part of the body.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Beth<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Pastor John,\u00a0 Today I was in the car and I was listening to a brother testify.\u00a0 This brother said, “I know I can sit here in this chair (at the prayer meetings) and die.\u201d\u00a0 That struck my heart when he said that, and almost immediately Jesus said, “I am life support.\u201d\u00a0 Jesus will keep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9901"}],"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=9901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}