JOURNEY OF FAITH
Day Eighteen
You are good, Abba Father, and what You do is good! Teach me Your decrees! The Law from Your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold! Your hands made me and formed me, Father! You give me understanding to learn Your commands! I know that Your laws are righteous, and in faithfulness You have afflicted me! Your unfailing love is my comfort, according to Your promise to Your servant! Your compassion comes to me that I may live, for Your Law is my delight!
My soul faints with longing for Your salvation, Father; yet I have put my hope in Your Word! Your Word, Father, is Eternal; it stands firm in the heavens! Your faithfulness continues throughout all generations! You established the Earth, and it endures! Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve You! If Your Law had not been my delight, Father, I would have perished in my affliction! I will never forget Your precepts, for by them You have renewed my life! To all perfection I see a limit, but Your commands are boundless, Father!
TESTIMONY: GOD’S HOLY REMNANT
Before moving to Florida in May, 2004, I had a log cabin in the mountains of Upstate New York, in a sub-division comprised of thirty 5 acre lots cut into the woods. There was a private gravel road…branching off from a winding mountain road…that dead-ended at the end of the sub-division, and my cabin was about 500 feet in along the private road. There was no electricity in the sub-division; my cabin, however, was fully functional with a wood burning stove for heat, a propane cooking stove and refrigerator that I had gotten from the Amish community in Pennsylvania, oil lamps and chandeliers for lighting, a beautiful glass-enclosed fireplace in the center of the “great room,” antique furniture from the 1880s, and well water. It was peaceful and quiet; my most prized Earthly possession! I went there every weekend…a 3 hr and 15 minute trip from Brooklyn, where I lived and worked…looking forward to spending time alone with the Lord…just to be together with Him, sitting at His feet.
The cabin and all my antique lamps and furnishings were my idols. I had no problem denying that truth and justifying having my idols…just to be alone together with You, Lord, just sitting at Your feet for the entire weekend. But I was consumed with antiques, and spent many, many, hours acquiring them… spending precious and priceless time on things that have no eternal value or eternal worth whatsoever…just like everyone here and those watching are doing right now with the pet idol you have in your own heart. It’s amazing how our hearts are so deceitful and desperately wicked above all things…who really can know it…only You, Lord!
One winter evening, after having dinner in town with Vince…a brother whom I had just recently led to the Lord…and driving back up the mountain to the cabin, out of the clear blue the Lord spoke to me: “I want you to sell the cabin.” [These, and the following words spoken by the Lord, are literal quotes!] I was startled…just as if I was totally unaware someone had come up behind me and then began speaking to me! It was not an audible voice, but a voice speaking within me that was just as clear as if it were a friend speaking audibly to me! “Lord,” I said, “Sell the cabin?” “Yes…and with everything in it.” “Well…OK, Lord, I will do that.”
I have heard the voice of the Lord speak to me many times over the years, and that was always my response: “Well…OK, Lord, I will do that.”
As I began to think about how limited the market would be for a log cabin…the only building in a sub-division having no available electricity…three people came to mind whom I thought would potentially even be interested. The Lord interjected again, saying, “Sell it to Vince.”
Vince was one of the three persons I had thought to offer it to…but he was not the one I had in mind to ask first. I responded in my usual manner, “Well…OK, Lord, I will do that.”
I began thinking about the price I was going to offer the cabin to him for, with everything in it…all my precious antiques…as the Lord had instructed. In our human way of looking at things…there would be, of course, a nice profit. But the Lord startled me again, saying, “Sell it for $xxx.” I was really taken aback, because the price He named was quite a bit lower than what I was thinking. Nevertheless, I replied, “Well…OK, Lord.”
Vince was the brother I had dinner with earlier that evening. I called him in the morning, and invited him to come up to the cabin that evening just to spend some time together. I didn’t tell him what I had in mind to bring up. He had seen the cabin once before, and was really impressed; he thought it was “The cat’s meow!”
As we engaged in casual conversation, I found the right opportunity, and said, “I have to sell the cabin; the Lord told me I need to move to Florida to take care of my mother.” Vince immediately became super hyper-excited! “Sell the cabin?! Really?! What price are you asking?! I told him the price the Lord had given me…and with everything in it. He could hardly contain himself: “What?! You are selling it for $xxx?! I’ll take it!!”
I said, “Whoa, Vince…don’t make a hasty decision and just jump into this. Why don’t you spend some with the Lord and ask Him about it before making a decision.” He reluctantly agreed, and said he would. I assured him I would wait for his answer; he would have first preference if the Lord prompted him to go ahead with buying the cabin. Vince called me 8 AM the following morning…and excitedly informed me, “I spoke to the Lord about it; I’ll buy the cabin!”
There you have it! The Lord had told me all I was to do concerning the cabin, and it came to pass exactly as He had said!
That brings me to the high calling of God to each and every believer who names themself a child of the Most High God…a calling that only 1% of God’s children will embrace.
Abraham was called, “I want you to take your son, your only son, Isaac…the one whom you love…and offer him as a sacrifice on a mountain I will show you.”
Scripture does not describe the intense emotional agony that Abraham must have suffered that night…but he set his heart and arose early in the morning to obey the Lord’s command. He could have walked sadly away, unwilling to do this…but he set his heart to obey.
The rich young ruler had a hunger and a thirst for something more than what he already had when Jesus answered his question, “You know the commandments,” and he responded, saying, “All these I have kept since I was a boy. What do I still lack? There must be something more, something I am still missing.”
Jesus looked at him and loved him, and said, “Very well…If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven. Then come back, follow Me, and be My disciple.”
The rich young ruler walked sadly away, unwilling to embrace the Lord’s call. The cost was too great for him to part with his idol and become a true disciple…part of God’s 1% holy remnant. He wasn’t WILLING to sell everything he had.
In contrast, Scripture’s account of the merchant seeking fine pearls…when he found a magnificent pearl of great value…HE SOLD EVERYTHING HE HAD in order to have sufficient funds to buy it. It cost him EVERYTHING HE HAD…but HE WANTED IT above everything else.
Brethren…becoming a true disciple of Christ…part of God’s 1% holy remnant…will cost you everything you have! You will have to want it above everything else! It has to be the consuming desire of your heart! Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. [1 John 2:15]
Our Lord never told His Disciples we are going into Jerusalem today to watch the championship chariot races. He told them, “If anyone would come after Me, he must sacrifice and deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me. Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple.”
Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, never said to the Lord, “I am going with some friends today to the annual Boat Show in Galilee; I’ll catch up with You later.”
Our Lord will always put His finger on the idol in our heart, and take us to the Cross-roads of Decision: I know your deeds; you are neither hot nor cold, having a pretension and claim to My Name, yet having a love for the world and thereby unwilling to stand steadfast and immovable with Me. I wish you were one or the other. Make up your mind, would you please!
If you want to be perfect…
“I want you to sell the cabin…and with everything in it;”
“Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor. Then come back, follow Me, and be My Disciple;”
“I want you to take your son, your only son, Isaac…the one whom you love…”
Here is the Lord’s high calling to every child of God…to you, my brother, my sister:
if you want to be perfect, go…sell, give away, walk away from…the idol within your heart that you don’t want to part with. Choose this day whom you will serve. Then come back after you have done this, follow Me, and be My disciple.
Everyone here within the sound of my voice, and those watching, have heard this call of the Spirit…probably multiple times…but nearly all have walked sadly away, unwilling to embrace it. Only a very few will embrace this call…universally, only 1% of the children of God…and that will be true even now…this morning.
But for those few…your life will literally be transformed, and it will be your privilege to abide in God’s inner circle in the Holy of Holies! And He will show you His Glory! For those few.
“Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline. So, therefore, be earnest, and repent.”
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Closing Comment to Testimony Presented Above:
Our Lord told His disciples, “God’s holy remnant is called to a life of self-sacrifice and self-denial. You cannot become My holy remnant without being willing to sacrifice your desire for anything and everything you own.
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people. Therefore come out from among them and be separate,” says the Lord. “Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters,” says the Lord Almighty.
Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
[2 Cor 6:16-7:1] Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God! [Matt 5:8]
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WHY DO I EXIST
CHAPTER 53
ACCUSER OF THE BRETHREN
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the Power and the Kingdom of our God, and the Authority of His Christ. For the accuser of the brethren, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him…
by the Blood of the Lamb and
by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much as to shrink back from death…neither death to their self-life nor physical death if called to be a martyr.
Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the inhabitants of the Earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.” [Rev 12:10-13]
DESPERATE SEARCH FOR GOD
For so long…so many, many, years…I had sinned against God. I had sinned against Him so often…so very often, and so deeply…so very deeply. Up to that point in time, for the 13 years of my adult life, I had tried everything to fill that felt-sense of emptiness…a void, a relentless aching…in the depths of my soul for something…I knew not what…that was missing. Nothing satisfied that emptiness; nothing filled that void. Having been raised Catholic, I came to the conclusion that it must be God that I was missing. But how do I find God was the pressing question of my heart. I wondered, Who am I that God would care about me, or have any concern for me? I wasn’t somebody who was important or significant that God should have any thoughts about me. That was my mindset in those years.
Even so, I set out on an intense, consuming search to find God…a relentless search that would continue over the next six years. I didn’t really know what “finding God” actually meant; I just knew that whatever it meant, I needed to find Him. I went to different priests and asked them, “How do I find God?” They weren’t much help; actually, they didn’t really know the answer. Sometimes they would point me to a book to read, written by a priest. I would read the book, and a number of times I made an appointment to meet with the author of the book… even traveling out of State to meet with him! Still…they had no answer. I diligently tried practicing different methods I had read about…“Centering on God” and other types of meditations and concepts…all to no avail. I became involved with pursuing several different philosophies concerning God…such as “The Power of Positive Thinking,” and even had sessions with Albert Ellis, a prominent psychologist who had written numerous books on a new theory he had developed called “Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.” All of my desperate searching came up completely empty.
Meanwhile, my life was spiraling downward at warp speed. By October 1981, in absolute desperation, I reluctantly accepted a suggestion to meet with a local Baptist minister. For a Catholic in those years, this was absolute rock bottom; a Catholic would not be caught dead talking to a Baptist minister, let alone meeting with one! But I was desperate.
On Saturday morning, October 17, 1981, I poured out my heart in Pastor Lester’s office concerning my desperate, yet fruitless, search to find God. He patiently listened, and when I had finished, presented so simply a child could understand… what I had spent six long, intense years searching for! He asked if I would like to follow him in a prayer to accept Jesus as Lord of my life and Savior of my soul, and enter into a personal relationship with Him. As we prayed, there were no flashing lights…no sound of bells and whistles…just a deep satisfying sense in the depths of my soul that now, at last, I had found God…or rather, more accurately, that God had found me. On that day the Scripture verse became true for me: You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. [Jer 29:13]
EYES OF COMPASSI0N
For those 38 years leading up to that momentous day October 17, 1981, I lay in the spiritual gutter of sin, wallowing in its muck and mire…utterly destitute, hopeless and helpless, without hope and without God. On that wondrous day, Blessed Jesus, You saw me lying there and, with eyes of compassion, reached out Your nail-pierced hand to me, inviting me, “My child…come with Me. I have prepared a place for you in My Father’s House.”
The moment I reached up and took hold of Your hand, You drew me to Your Bosom and embraced me. You removed the filthy rags of sin that clothed me, and immersed my body and my soul in Your Precious and Priceless Blood…to soak there in Your Blood. You soaked away all the filth that was caked up on my soul…all the sin, all the wretchedness, all the degradation. You bathed my body and my soul in Your Own Blood…washed me, cleansed me, and made me clean. Then You dressed me in the white robes of Your Own Righteousness, and presented me before the Father. As I stood there before the Father…washed in the Blood of the Lamb, dressed in the white robes of Your Own Righteousness, pure and holy now in His sight, without spot or wrinkle or blemish, accepted now in the Beloved…I heard, with ecstatic wonder, the Father say, “My child…this day I have adopted you…through birth and by Blood…into My Family. You are now and forevermore My child, and I am forevermore your Father and your God.”
A NEW CREATION
My life was never again the same…a wonderful journey into the depths of God ever since! This Scripture became a literal reality: Therefore, beloved, since you are now joined together in a living union of oneness with Christ Jesus My Son, you are a new creation. You are no longer the same person you formerly were…your previous moral and spiritual condition has passed away. Behold, a fresh, new life has begun!
OVERWHELMING GRATITUDE, ETERNAL THANKS
Abba Father…I owe my body and my soul to You. If it were not for You, my body would be in the grave, and my soul would be in Hell long ago…15 times I should have been dead that I am fully aware of and can testify to, and surely many more times that I am not aware of. Though I had sinned against You for so many years, so very often, and so very deeply…even so, You Personally, consciously, and deliberately intervened in my life to stay the hand of death! If it were not for You, Father, I would be in Hell right now…and I knew I full well deserved to be there. The angels of Heaven would have acknowledged Your righteous and just judgment. But in Your boundless mercy and infinite grace, You would not have it; You were not willing that I should perish. How many times Satan had come for me to claim my life and to claim my soul, but You would not permit it. No…You were my Shield and my Protector. You protected my soul, and You kept me safe, even from the very pit of Hell…until that wonderful day of my salvation!
TOKENS OF DIVINE LOVE
I don’t know whether in the depths of your heart you really believe there is a God in Heaven or not, but this I do know…for six years I desperately searched for God and did not find Him…until that momentous day He found me and revealed Himself to me!
Now that I am His and He is mine, my Father’s ear is attentive to the voice of His child, and He loves to give His child little tokens of His Divine Love whenever my requests are within the framework of His plans, His purposes, His will. Scripture tells me, “You have not because you ask not…or you ask with wrong, selfish motives.” My Father loves to show His child His Glory…that I may see it with my own eyes, and thereby have occasion to testify to His great Name and mighty Power! I have testified to it, and I will do so again…continually: https://preservechristianfamily.org/category/testimonies/
HOW GREAT THOU ART
That is my motive…to proclaim Your Glory. I do not have a selfish motive, a self-serving agenda, something I want to gain for myself. I want the people of the world to know how great You are, Abba Father! Show me Your Glory; bring Glory to Your Name, and bring Your blessings and Your salvation before the souls of Men!
I have gazed attentively into the Sanctuary and I have beheld Your Power and Your Glory many, many times! Formerly, my ears had only heard of You; but now my eyes have seen You and have seen Your Glory! In the presence of the congregation, I will proclaim Your Great Name and Your Mighty Power according to all that my eyes shall see!
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DIVINE MANIFEST PRESENCE OF CHRIST
A few years later, on that late February, 1984, winter night on Long Island, I lay on my bed crying out to God…immersed in deep sadness and sorrow, intense crying and pain, overwhelming grief, loneliness, and broken-heartedness over a deep sense of loss that had just blind-sided my life. I had only just become the bride of Christ 28 months prior, on October 17, 1981. And now this was the third night of intense emotional agony. I remember thinking that if Hell were like this…and I knew instinctively it was ten thousand times worse, infinitely worse…I couldn’t bear it. The emotional pain I was experiencing was entirely debilitating…I don’t know how I made it through the work day. I felt hopeless and helpless…crushed and immobilized by a consuming sense of loss. When I got home in the evening, all I could do was collapse on my bed, crying out to the Lord in utter despair. A whole array of verses from Psalms went through my mind as I just poured out my broken heart to Him.
AWE-FILLED PRESENCE OF GOD
Quite suddenly…out of nowhere…the Lord walked into my room! I didn’t visibly see Him; my room was just as dark as it was before. But I was so filled with His Presence entering into my room and into me I felt like I was going to literally explode! My physical body could not contain His in-dwelling Presence! I remember exclaiming in awe, “Oh Lord…I can’t bear any more! I feel like I am going to burst!” Not that I wanted Him to leave; I was just expressing how I literally felt…that my human body just could not contain Him for any longer and live! At that moment, it didn’t matter to me whether I lived or died…I was experiencing an eternal weight of Glory beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent Glory and blessedness in His Presence!
The inaccessible Light [although there was no literal light] of the Glory of His Presence lasted maybe five or six seconds…but that experience is just as fresh in my memory today as it was in reality those 40 years ago! At that moment…the heretofore unbearable, debilitating emotional pain I had been feeling did not diminish in intensity, nor was it removed. It just became so insignificant and so meaningless in the light of what I had just experienced, that I literally thought, “Who cares!” And from that point on, though the source of the pain was never removed or resolved, it never again mattered to me, nor bothered me. I had seen the Lord; with my own spiritual eyes, I had seen Him! I would never again be the same!
Just one second in the inaccessible Light of the Glory of His Presence…a foretaste of Heaven itself…even now here on Earth is more than enough to wipe every tear from our eyes…all of our sadness and sorrow, crying and pain, grief and loneliness and broken-heartedness! And in that glorious coming Day, the ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. [Isa 35:10]
Beloved…don’t become discouraged and lose heart! For your light and momentary troubles during this life are achieving for you an eternal glory beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness nevermore to cease! [Cor 4:16-18]
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AS A DEER PANTS FOR WATER-BROOKS
Not long after that incredulous experience, I began to hunger and thirst for a continual felt sense of the Presence of God. As I read through Psalms, I knew in my mind that I wanted to have the cry of David’s heart: As the deer, in the heat of summer, pants for water-brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God! My soul thirsts for You, my body longs for You…as for streams of water in a dry sun-scorched land where there is no water! My soul thirsts for You, Lord…for the One True Living God! When, Lord, shall I come into Your Presence and behold Your Face, the Face of my God? When will You speak to me face to Face, as a man speaks with his friend?
I realized, though, that I didn’t long for God in that way. I didn’t feel a longing for God as a heart-cry; I didn’t feel a yearning for God from the depths of my soul… yet I wanted to. It was the most intense desire of my heart. And so my continual prayer was, “Lord, I don’t long for You in the way David did…but I want to. I long to long for You in that way. My heart is inflamed with yearning to long for You with a consuming desire for the felt-sense of Your Presence.”
HUNGER AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS
During that same period of time, I also began to hunger and thirst to live a holy and righteous life in my everyday manner of living. I had only become a born-again Christian a few years prior [October 17, 1981, at the age of 38], and I was struggling with several besetting sins from my past unsaved life. I made a conscious decision to fully embrace the words of Jesus, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be completely satisfied.” [Matt 5:6]
I began to hunger and thirst for a purity, holiness, and righteousness of my own that comes from obedience to the Law of God in living out my everyday life…not to be good enough to earn salvation, but because I was already saved…by virtue of the Eternal Power and the Eternal Worth of the Blood of Jesus, which He poured out on my behalf on that cross at Calvary for the forgiveness of my sins. I just wanted to be like my Father and my God as the apostle Peter exhorted me to be: As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as He Who called you is Holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am Holy.” [1 Peter 1:14-16]
HE WHO HONORS ME, HIM WILL I HONOR
Well…the Lord so wonderfully answered those two prayers not long afterward! One day I became aware…and actually remarked to myself, “Whoa, Lord! I no longer feel the least bit tempted by those besetting sins that used to plague me and torment me…that I had been struggling with for much of my prior life! I can’t believe it! Hallelujah!”
Not only that, but I was filled with the joy of the Lord! I would wake up in the morning singing to the Lord, and fall asleep at night singing softly to the Lord! All throughout the day I felt an unclouded child-like carefree joy, and was resting in Him with an unruffled child-like rest! I was continually experiencing the fullness of joy in the felt-sense of the Presence of the Lord!
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ALONE TOGETHER WITH MY FATHER
My life had been so wondrously changed! The Spirit of God then led me to a book written by Hudson Taylor [missionary to China, latter 1800s] entitled, “Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret.” I read how it was his habit to get up early in the morning, well before dawn, and spend time alone with the Lord. And then I remembered that Jesus Himself often did the same thing to be alone with the Father…well before dawn, while it was still dark. I found myself wanting with all my heart to do that also…just as they had done.
I began setting my alarm clock for 4 AM every morning…seven days a week. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I just reached over and shut off the alarm when it went off…only to awaken later in the morning feeling so sorry I had failed once more! It only reignited my determination to try again…to plead with the Lord to help me be able to do this which had now become the most intense desire of my heart!
The Lord heard my heart-cry, and answered my prayer…and after a lengthy period of successes and failures, I finally acquired the habit of rising at 4 AM every morning to meet alone together with the Lord in our designated trysting place! It is a wonderful place of blessing, just sitting at His feet, to be alone together with Him, just to commune with Him! It is there where He continually pours more and more of His Blessedness and His Goodness into me, where we have intimate fellowship together, where He reveals to me something of the rich eternal treasures of the spiritual realm, where I become ever more one with Him in our sacred Covenant relationship…mirroring as They are with One Another in Their Blessed Holy Trinity! A number of years ago I moved my time to be alone together with the Lord back to 3 AM, so we could have more time alone together before breakfast!
For 40 years now, I continually look forward with a joyful expectation, an excited expectation, to our meeting alone together in those early morning hours just to commune face to Face, as a man speaks with his friend! I guard that time jealously, so that nothing would ever interfere with it; I wouldn’t miss it for anything!
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DIVINE HEALING
Abba Father…I have gazed attentively into the Sanctuary, and I have beheld Your Power and Your Glory! With my own eyes, I have seen Your Glory!…and in the presence of the congregation, I will proclaim Your Great Name and Your Mighty Power according to all that my eyes have seen!
Above is a link to a video presentation of my testimonies of those 9 1/2 years of miraculous events during my ministry to my Mother after the Lord raised her off her death-bed, presented at my mother’s Memorial Service on January 25, 2014… testimonies of how obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit brings the blessings of God; testimonies of how prayer in accordance with the will of God moves the Hand of God. You will be greatly blessed! [please note: the Church and the Denomination identified at the beginning of this video are Apostate and no longer belong to Christ. I have since…in 2015…confronted Leadership with their apostasy, and have no longer thereafter been associated with them].
CHRISTOPHANY!
audio message: 130615_002
Incredible! On Wednesday evening, May 2nd, 2019, at 9:19 PM, our Lord Jesus Christ showed Himself in visible form to a woman in our Condominium complex!
Louise is on our Condominium Board of Directors along with myself, and so we are in touch on a daily basis; I know her well. Our 2 three story Condo buildings are arranged in a semi-horseshoe, and we both live on the 3rd floor opposite one another. Her kitchen window and my kitchen window are directly across an atrium garden facing one another, about 50 feet apart.
I was not available to take her phone call when she saw Jesus in my kitchen window, and so when she called, she left the message you can play for yourself [above]. What is so unusual…and incredible…is that she was absolutely awe-struck, gazing at Jesus in my kitchen window while she was leaving the message!!
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DIVINE MANIFEST PRESENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
At 5:00 PM on a Friday afternoon in the mid 1980s, I left Brooklyn with a 15 passenger van filled with 5-12 year old inner-city kids on our way to a weekend retreat at a Christian Retreat Center in the mountains of Pennsylvania. I was their Youth Leader. The Conference Center Director told me that the Prayer Band from the Brooklyn Tabernacle was going to be there for the entire week…and they had been praying for us every day! I was deeply impressed hearing they were praying for us, because they certainly did not know us, and at that time I had never even heard of the Brooklyn Tabernacle!
It was winter and it was cold as we began our 3 hour trip, but everything seemed OK…until we got into the mountains of Pennsylvania. The van was being pelted with an ongoing mixture of wind-driven snow and freezing rain, and the narrow mountain roads winding along precipices and cliffs were becoming slippery and treacherous! I was in a cold sweat, continually pleading with the Lord to watch over us, protect us, and keep us safe! With a heart of thanksgiving, we finally arrived at the Retreat Center at 9 PM…and the gracious staff was there waiting for us, with a wonderful dinner they had prepared for the kids!
Saturday was spent involved with our kids program, and then we joined the Prayer Band in the early evening to have dinner together in the Conference Center’s large dining hall. After dinner, our kids went over to the beautiful stone fireplace ablaze with a warm, mellow, fire at the other end of the dining hall, to sing kids praise and worship songs along with the tracks I would play on our boom box.
We always sang these songs, everywhere we went. They knew at least 100 songs, all by heart! We had been invited to sing at a number of churches over the past year; it was our particular God-ordained ministry. The kids were enthusiastic and all lit up when they sang; they thoroughly enjoyed pouring out their little hearts in these songs! Invariably, they would “bring the house down” wherever we went! We were supposed to sing 2 songs, but congregations wouldn’t let us leave; we would end up singing 5 or 6 songs, and everyone in the church joined in, the entire congregation immersed in worship and praise!
I selected a track as we sat by the crackling fire, and the singing began. I never had to tell them which song I was going to play; they knew the song in just a few seconds into the opening music! Members of the Prayer Band began wandering over and joining in, and soon we were all immersed in singing kids praise and worship songs!
Suddenly, out of the clear blue, the Spirit of God swept over and fell upon our group! Kids and adults alike were weeping with joy, and then break out into another song! Kids and adults began joyfully weeping and embracing one another, breaking out yet again into another praise song! Everyone was filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit! And so the inaccessible Light of the Glory of the awesome Presence of God just kept going on and on! No one would ever be able to forget that evening when God poured out a Divine token of Love on our little group as we were immersed in praise and worship by the fireplace! Hallelujah!
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DIVINE ANOINTING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
Whenever a born-again child of God places their entire life on the altar of sacrifice…wholly surrendered unto God, wholly given for the blessings and salvation of souls…and walks in the Power of the indwelling Holy Spirit the path that our Blessed Christ Personally walked and dedicated for us…a new and living way to God through the veil, that is to say, through the veil of His flesh…the path of obedience and suffering, self-sacrifice and self-denial, death to sin and death to self…you can be sure you will become a target of Satan’s fury! All Hell will break loose against you!
Quite suddenly, out of the clear blue beginning in June, 2020, the Lord allowed Hell’s onslaught to take place in my life. I was tormented and terrorized with overwhelming evil thoughts, images, and imaginations in my heart over continual stretches of time, day and night…beyond anything I had ever experienced before! It became clear that Satan’s intent was to destroy me!
I had known in my mind, and written about, that in my physical life, maturity is growth from the utter dependence of a baby to the complete independence and self-reliance of an adult. In my spiritual life, however, maturity is growth from independence and self-reliance to utter dependency upon God. He is most spiritually mature who lives a life of unreserved child-like dependence upon God.
Just as a baby opens its mouth and cries whenever it has physical needs, so I open my mouth and cry whenever I have spiritual needs. Just as a baby is utterly and hopelessly helpless to satisfy its physical needs…and will surely physically die if no one hears its cry and comes to satisfy its needs…just so am I utterly and hopelessly helpless to satisfy my spiritual needs…and will surely spiritually die if God my Father does not hear my cry and come to satisfy His child’s spiritual needs.
It is one thing to know this truth in your mind, but it is quite another to know this truth experientially! My Father allowed me to experience in my soul the inexpressible horror of realizing that unless He came to rescue me…I was surely going to spiritually die! There was absolutely no chance, no hope, not the remotest possibility of my being able to stand against Satan’s onslaught! And I was frightened, horror-stricken, and terrified experiencing this reality in the depths of my being for the first time in my life…continually crying out for my Father like a little child!
I was experiencing something of the emotional agony that our Lord Jesus Himself experienced in the Garden that night when He began to be deeply distressed and troubled at the overwhelming prospect of the cross. The Greek verbs used in the Biblical text describing what took place that night in the Garden described an extremely acute emotion…a compound of bewilderment, fear, uncertainty and anxiety…nowhere else portrayed in such vivid terms as here: shuddering awe; deep distress; overpowering mental distress; full of terror and distress; surprised and terrified; fright and anguish.
It was Thursday evening, July 23, 2020, when the Spirit of God led our weekly Home Disciple Group Meeting into a discussion on Adam’s sin of disobedience against God concerning the one command given him to test his obedience. The result of his disobedience was the expulsion of Adam and his wife Eve from the Garden of Eden, and the heretofore undefiled human nature as created by God now becoming a sin-enslaved human nature. As our discussion continued along that evening under the guidance of the Holy Spirit’s leading, we were discussing Scriptures concerning how the Lord Jesus sets a believer free from the bondage of sin…that all human beings by nature have a sin-enslaved human nature, and can only be set free from both the penalty of sin and the power of sin by Christ through His atonement for sin, by virtue of His death on a cross on our behalf. When I am born again, it is as literal and real a birth as was my physical birth… and I become a new creation…a new person, whereby my former moral and spiritual condition has passed away, and all things have become new. I no longer live my life out of my sin-enslaved human nature, but now live my new life out of the Divine nature of God’s Holy Spirit dwelling within me by virtue of being born again. That is why only those born-again can know, and have, and experience, the indwelling Holy Spirit.
During our discussion, the Holy Spirit swept over one of our group members and so opened up his mind and heart to this truth…in a depth he had never seen before…that he literally, visibly, was filled with a fullness of joy! He could hardly contain himself! He was wired in the Spirit, and began to testify with power about what God had done, and was continually doing, in his life! He testified that when he is tormented and terrorized with overwhelming evil thoughts, images, and imaginations in his heart [and he knew nothing about what I was going through], his God and Father reaches down and plucks His child out of Satan’s grasp and into safety, declaring with determined purpose, “No! You can’t have My child; he belongs to Me!” He was anointed…and continued to testify about the utter weakness of his flesh and how helpless he was to resist by his own efforts and strength, and that if he tried to do so it would only guarantee his failure! He testified how the Power of the Holy Spirit in his life was the source of his strength, and apart from Him he could do nothing! He just went on and on, carried away in the Spirit into the heavenly realms for the remainder of our meeting, continually praising God, proclaiming the Word of God with boldness, freedom, and confidence; with spiritual power and authority!
I just sat there and listened, thanking God for how He was so deeply touching this brother whom He was calling, and using, as the “pastor of Walmart!” And it brought to his mind a song that had so touched him…a powerful song with a powerful message…so he pulled it up on his phone and played it for us. The link is below, if you want to hear it. It is not my particular choice in Christian music… but I put myself in his place, and could embrace its powerful message as we all listened to it! The song is by CASTING CROWNS, entitled SET ME FREE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2HwtWLokSc
I myself was so blessed by the manifest Presence of the Holy Spirit in our meeting that evening that I never realized that God had quietly touched and anointed me as well with the “anointing of promise” that I had been desperately crying out to Him for!
Over the past several weeks [actually, for a number of years…but now with an intense desperation] I had been pleading with Him for this anointing that I had been granted once before, in the Fall 1984 when I was just 3 years old in the Lord as a child of God…an anointing that I had lost because I had carelessly let it slip away, not appreciating in my spiritual babyhood how precious this treasure really was. I was pleading with my Father…that I could not live without it…that I could not serve as His messenger, His ministering spirit, His watchman, His emissary, with boldness, freedom, and confidence, with spiritual power and authority, unless I had this anointing of promise. I wasn’t asking for an anointing of privilege; that is God’s prerogative. No; I was asking for the anointing that was promised…that I had been granted once before. I knew what it was; and I knew I no longer had it.
The anointing of promise is the full blessing of Pentecost…and it is only granted to those who hunger and thirst for it…to those who are wholly surrendered unto God, wholly given for the blessing and salvation of souls…to those who by faith abide in the Holy of Holies in the inaccessible Light of the Glory of the unclouded Presence of the Father.
Blessed Jesus, You assured me: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…a purity, holiness, and righteousness of my own in living out my everyday life. You assured me that I will be filled…that my longing will be completely satisfied, and I will be filled up to the measure of all the fullness of God, to the richest measure of Your unclouded Presence, a soul wholly filled and flooded with God Himself! [Mt 5:6] That is the anointing of promise!
And even more beyond that…You will show me Your Glory; I will see Your Glory with my own eyes: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. [Mt 5:8] Hallelujah!
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EPILOGUE
Abba Father…it is literally true, and I really know and believe that it is literally true: my body would be in the grave and my soul would be in Hell right now…and many times over during the course of my life since birth…had You not Personally, consciously, and deliberately intervened in my life to stay the hand of death.
Words can never sufficiently express the depth of gratitude due You as I begin to fully realize that I literally owe my soul’s eternal destiny of Heaven solely, only, wholly, to You…to Your boundless Mercy, Your infinite Grace, Your fathomless Love. How could I ever possibly give You sufficient thanks for such an incomprehensible eternal blessing…a River of unceasing glorious and rich eternal pleasures at Your right hand… eternal pleasures at Your right hand beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations…rich eternal treasures that no eye has ever seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of Man to ever begin to imagine, what wondrous things God has prepared for those who love Him…a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness nevermore to cease!
RICH ETERNAL TREASURES GRANTED TO GOD’S CHILD
Friends & neighbors; brothers and sisters…
I don’t know whether in the depths of your heart you really believe there is a God in Heaven or not, but this I do know…the accuser of God’s children, who accuses us before our God day and night, has been hurled down. We have overcome him by the Blood of the Lamb, and by the word of our testimony, and by the fact that we do not love our life so much as to shrink back from death…neither death to self-life, nor physical death if that should become necessary. [Rev 12:10-11]
It is my prayer that you will feel the leading of the Spirit to seek these rich eternal blessings with all your heart. You will most assuredly experience these same blessings for yourself, and will have this same testimony to share:
I proclaim to you Christ Jesus…the One Who existed from the beginning, from Eternity Past, Whom I have heard with the ears of my own inner being, and have seen with my own spiritual eyes. I have gazed upon Him and have spiritually touched Him with my own hands. He is the Word of Life. His Life is continually being revealed to me; I have seen it and testify to it, and I proclaim to you that He is the One Who is Eternal Life. He always existed with the Father, and is now continually being manifested afresh and anew to me. I proclaim to you what I have personally seen and heard in the depths of my soul, so that you also may enjoy this same fellowship together with us. The fellowship I continually enjoy is with the Father and with His Son, Christ Jesus. I am writing these things so that you also may fully share together with me in this fullness of joy! [1 John 1:1-4]
This is our birth-right as children of the Most High God! Hallelujah!
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Arise My bride, and prepare to see My Face
Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done.
Then the angel said to me, “Write this down: Blessed are those summoned to the marriage banquet of the Lamb…all true believers who are members of His Universal Church. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with Power and great Glory. And He will send His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect…God’s holy people…from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” And he said to me further, “These are the True Words of God.” [Rev 19:9]
Blessed Jesus…I rejoice and shout triumphantly for joy! I celebrate and ascribe to You glory and honor, for the marriage of the Lamb draws near, and Your bride, the Universal Church and each of her members, has been preparing herself and has made herself ready! [Rev 19:7] Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! For our Lord God, Sovereign All-Ruler, reigns! Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him Glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready. The finest linen, dazzling and white, was given her to wear. Then the angel said to me, “Write: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage banquet of the Lamb!” [John…Rev 19:6-9; Luke 14:15-23]
The washing of one’s robes and the keeping of one’s garments relates to this very attitude and habit of looking for the return of Christ as an imminent event. Brethren, as you hope to walk those golden streets, and eat of those immortal fruits, see to it that you have your garments clean and your loins girded about like unto men waiting for their Lord. [Seiss…Rev 21:9-22:5]
Then the king said to his servants, “The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.” So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding garment. “Friend,” he asked, “How did you come in here without putting on the appropriate wedding garment?” The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, “Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are invited and summoned, but few are chosen.” [Matt 22:8-14]
ENDURE TO THE END
Behold, I am coming quickly. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will deprive you of your crown. Everyone who overcomes by means of their faith…I will make a pillar in the Sanctuary of My God. Never again will you leave it. I will write on you the name of My God and you will be a citizen in the city of My God…the new Jerusalem…which will come down out of Heaven from My God; I will also write on you My Own new name.
Holy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcx2O9WXvn8&feature=youtu.be
Preserve Christian Family 