I could not sleep on Saturday night, so at 2 in the morning I got up and continued my study on Haggai. The Holy Spirit soon imparted to me something that made my spirit soar.
There is no doubt that the glory of the first temple was an awesome thing, indeed it was a wonder of the ancient world. Solomon's temple was a marvel and without equal. It housed the Ark of the Covenant, which represented God's presence here on earth. Often the shekinah glory of the Lord would rain down like fire and emanate in this glorious temple. Men from all over the known world would be drawn to this wonder and to the wisdom of its God ordained builder.
The Queen of Sheba crossed many different lands to come and see what was going on in Jerusalem. This Temple would last for almost 400 years before being allowed to be destroyed by the Lord who allowed judgment to fall on Israel.
After 70 years, the Lord would bring His people back and they would lay the foundations to rebuild the temple. This temple was very much smaller than the original and of course there were still people alive who would have remembered the glory of the original temple. The people were discouraged by this and many other factors and had to be encouraged by God to rebuild, after the building had lain dormant for 16 years, that's a lot of years of discouragement. There would be no ark of the Covenant, no shekinah glory for this temple, yet little did the builders know that into this structure would walk, in the flesh, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
This temple would hold the maker of heaven and earth and He would announce His mission to the world from this very spot, a great glory indeed. In this very temple, sin, desperately seeking for a hiding place , would be exposed by the light of the world. The bearers of this sin, the religious men of the day, were the last vestiges of a sin that had begun to be exposed by the Law and Moses. Now a greater than Moses would enter right into the temple, the last place any one would look for sin, and expose it in the very heart of the hypocrisy of the "moral ,' men of the day.
Seventy Years after Jesus was born, once again the temple was destroyed. This time the former marvel of the ancient world would never rise again. Yet, each time the Lord would destroy a magnificent building, and replace it with something less, the glory revealed in the reduced surroundings would increase. Now, in the final irony of this world, the temple would be rebuilt, but not with stones, not with bricks and mortar, not with inlaid gold, but with a people. And once again the Lord would increase the glory revealed.
We, as true Christians, are the living stones, we are the temple of the living God. The shekinah glory does not rain down now and then, Jesus does not walk into the temple every Sabbath, Jesus has come into this temple, not built by men, and has taken up residence. The heart of shekinah glory dwells in the center of each and every royal priest. His light, His love, His truth, His peace, His joy, His glory, His healing, His comfort, His power, His justice, His grace, His majesty, His deliverance and all that He is, burns at the very center of our being. This fire, the fire of the Holy Spirit, is housed in the temple of His choosing.
Maybe you have been discouraged, maybe even for years. Maybe you look in the mirror and you’re not that impressed with what is looking back. When you compare yourself to other Christians, great and small, you feel deeply lacking. Then the Lord would say to you my brothers and sisters....do not despise the temple of my choosing. I have chosen a royal priesthood that carries me aloft within their chest. The born again man or woman is the wonder of the modern world, far more so that the temple of the ancient one. The glory that Moses had, hidden by a covering over His face, has been revealed to a world in the form of new creatures. If you would let His light shine, if you would let His love flow, if you would stand upon His truth, if you would seek peace amongst men, if you would share the joy of the Lord, if you would reveal His glory, if you would share His healing and comfort those in need, if you would reveal His power, and exercise His justice with the grace that you yourself have been justified with, then the majesty of your deliverance would burn brightly for all men to see. If there is body and soul, then the world is the body and you are the soul of the world.
Be Christ like and display that which is within you, and you will shake the world, you will expose the enemy, just as our Lord did, and the enemy will have nowhere to hide, and will be defeated.
Friday, January 5, 2007
Cheap Grace
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in "The Cost of Discipleship," ................
Cheap Grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field, for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows Him.
Costly grace is the Gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ, it is costly because it costs a man his life and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.
When my oldest son was 2 years old, he was scolded by a full kettle of boiling water. He was burned over 60% of his body with 3rd degree burns. He survived the critical first few days. Every day they would bandage him, and every day the bandages from the previous day had to be removed. If his burns got infected, he would die. As Pastor Dave talked about salt this morning, it brought back memories of my sons treatment and what it took to remove the bandages every day. A nurse would take Christopher, with my help, to a prepared bath. The bath was full of salt water. I literally had to hold him down as he screamed, his eyes burning into mine with confusion, not understanding the process, only knowing that his father was part of this cruel torture.
I would have given my life to have taken his place. I would have given my life to spare him the agony, but, I was powerless. I know all you parents out there can identify with those feelings.
Our heavenly Father, watched His Son being mocked, being spat on, tortured and ridiculed and finally nailed to the cross. He listened to His Son cry out from the depths of His being "My God, My God, why have thou forsaken me." Oh the Fathers agony as He turned His head. How many know that our heavenly Father could have stopped it at any time? He was not powerless. What could have driven Him to allow this to unfold? John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whosoever shall believe in Him, will not perish...................."
This love of the Father for the lost is beyond what our earthly minds can even come close to grasping. What we can take from it this, the grace that flows to and from Calvary is no cheap grace. We will not be judged on how good or bad we are, but what we did with the sacrifice of Calvary.
Yes, Salvation is a finished and complete work, we can neither add to it, nor take anything from it, it was purchased for us at a terrible cost, but, to accept it fully and walk in the newness of life, it will cost us everything. For the sake of the kingly rule of Christ are we ready to sell everything we have for this treasure in the field? Will we pluck out our eye or cut of the hand that offends? To walk in the Spirit, are we ready to pick up our cross? Are we ready to die daily?
Cheap Grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field, for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows Him.
Costly grace is the Gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ, it is costly because it costs a man his life and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.
When my oldest son was 2 years old, he was scolded by a full kettle of boiling water. He was burned over 60% of his body with 3rd degree burns. He survived the critical first few days. Every day they would bandage him, and every day the bandages from the previous day had to be removed. If his burns got infected, he would die. As Pastor Dave talked about salt this morning, it brought back memories of my sons treatment and what it took to remove the bandages every day. A nurse would take Christopher, with my help, to a prepared bath. The bath was full of salt water. I literally had to hold him down as he screamed, his eyes burning into mine with confusion, not understanding the process, only knowing that his father was part of this cruel torture.
I would have given my life to have taken his place. I would have given my life to spare him the agony, but, I was powerless. I know all you parents out there can identify with those feelings.
Our heavenly Father, watched His Son being mocked, being spat on, tortured and ridiculed and finally nailed to the cross. He listened to His Son cry out from the depths of His being "My God, My God, why have thou forsaken me." Oh the Fathers agony as He turned His head. How many know that our heavenly Father could have stopped it at any time? He was not powerless. What could have driven Him to allow this to unfold? John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whosoever shall believe in Him, will not perish...................."
This love of the Father for the lost is beyond what our earthly minds can even come close to grasping. What we can take from it this, the grace that flows to and from Calvary is no cheap grace. We will not be judged on how good or bad we are, but what we did with the sacrifice of Calvary.
Yes, Salvation is a finished and complete work, we can neither add to it, nor take anything from it, it was purchased for us at a terrible cost, but, to accept it fully and walk in the newness of life, it will cost us everything. For the sake of the kingly rule of Christ are we ready to sell everything we have for this treasure in the field? Will we pluck out our eye or cut of the hand that offends? To walk in the Spirit, are we ready to pick up our cross? Are we ready to die daily?
Jesus and His Smooth Stones
On a Sunday morning the Lord gave me a vision right out of the blue. I was plunged beneath the waters of a fast flowing river. It took my breath away and fear gripped me.
I was flat on my back at the bottom of this river, looking up as the waters flowed over me. Right away the Lord gave me this Scripture
ISA 43:1-4 "Fear not , for I have redeemed you: I have called you by name: you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you: and through the rivers, they shall not overcome you."
I settled down and realized that I could survive and exist in this totally foreign place.
Before Sundays service, a brother and I fellowshipped. He asked me about Mount Horeb. He reminded me that Moses had encountered God in the form of a burning bush after spending 40 years in the desert. This desert was a place of preparation for Moses. Moses learned to forget his own dreams and visions and view of himself in the desert. In fact, he went too far, from thinking he was somebody to believing he was nobody. The vision was not his problem, he had to learn that only through God can the vision be fulfilled.
There is no doubt that the Lord prepares his vessels that He will use. He takes them into the desert places, and there, they are tried and tested. It is only those who endure, who are found to be faithful and thankful, that will survive the experience. Only then will a Christian enter into His rest and cease from his own works. The children of Israel failed the test miserably.
They grumbled and were extremely unthankful for all of the Lords provision and miracle of deliverance from Egypt. Romans 1:21 "Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened."
The moment their spiritual leader departed from them, the children of Israel lost faith and, thinking he would not return, abandoned God and made their own God, one of the very gods they had left behind in Egypt.
Before our Lord stepped into His public ministry, he too was drawn into the desert, not by the enemy it must be noted, but by the Holy Spirit. Jesus endured the hardships of the desert and fasting for 40 days. He would reenact the 40 years of Moses, the forty years of the children on Israel and He would not be found wanting.
We all know the temptations that He was tempted with. I was always struck by the temptation where Satan tempted Him to turn a stone into a piece of bread. I realize that this was after 40 days of fasting and that hunger undoubtedly was a factor. Yet, where was the sin for the Lord to indeed turn this stone into bread? First of all, we have to realize, that any direction or suggestion of the enemy is always for our destruction, Jesus knew this. Jesus of course replied with the Scripture that "Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." What was Jesus saying? No matter what our needs are, no matter how basic, these needs can and will be met by our Father in heaven. We then see that the angels came and ministered to the Lord soon after.
It is so vital for the Christian, in the desert, to wait upon the Lord. The temptation to meet your own needs will be overwhelming, but, since the desert is the precursor to the battle, we must remember that this place is the testing grounds where we will learn trust, obedience and discipline.
This is where true powerful faith is born into men and only those who pass the desert test will enter the promised land where they will engage and destroy the Giants that currently possess that which is not theirs. This is where we will cease from our own works and experience the walk of milk and honey. When a Christian enters this land, he will walk with power and peace and contentment. This is sweeter than milk and honey.
The world and the "church," will look at this Christian and perhaps feel sorry for him because of his many "trials and tribulations," never really guessing that this Christian has passed over the Jordan and is taking hold of his inheritance. Just as the Israelites had been promised the lands of Canaan and beyond, and it was theirs to possess, so the Christian has been promised the lands of peace and joy and abundant life and the knowledge that he can dwell in the Kingdom now. The Kingdom was and is and always has been. For some the Kingdom was, for they fall in the desert, for some the Kingdom is, for they have passed over the Jordan and are now possessing the land, and for some the Kingdom will be as they make their way through and out of the desert.
Those who dwell in the kingdom will dwell in a place that they will not be able to describe. Their hearts will be saddened when they hear other Christians talk about health and wealth and the significance they attach to these so called "blessings." The Christian who has passed through the desert and into the promised land will join with brother Job and say "Even if you kill me Lord, yet will I bless you."
Even if this Christian is impoverished and dwells in the gutter he will say "Glory to the Lord of my salvation." When he loses a loved one he will shout "Even so, it is well with my soul." When his body is racked with disease, he will cry "Glory to the name of Jesus who has redeemed me, body and soul, from the grave." "Even if I die, yet shall I live forever," will be his cry.
When the children of Israel passed over the Jordan into the Promised land, the Lord commanded Joshua to take twelve smooth stones from the river bed He had dried up. Each one representing each of the twelve tribes of Israel. These stones would be formed into a circle (Gilgal) a monument to the miraculous. In every age the Lord is looking for monuments to His miracle working power.
When people look at us, do they see monuments to the miraculous? These stones were smoothed by the River of Life, they could not be mistaken for other rocks and stones. Anyone seeing these stones would know that they came from the riverbed.
Have you allowed yourself to be smoothed by the River of life that flows from the Throne of God? Have you passed through the desert, over the river and into the promised land? Perhaps you are dancing in the desert, having fallen down to the idols of health and wealth?
"Choose you this day," the Lord says, may we all become recognizable monuments to the Living, miraculous God.
I was flat on my back at the bottom of this river, looking up as the waters flowed over me. Right away the Lord gave me this Scripture
ISA 43:1-4 "Fear not , for I have redeemed you: I have called you by name: you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you: and through the rivers, they shall not overcome you."
I settled down and realized that I could survive and exist in this totally foreign place.
Before Sundays service, a brother and I fellowshipped. He asked me about Mount Horeb. He reminded me that Moses had encountered God in the form of a burning bush after spending 40 years in the desert. This desert was a place of preparation for Moses. Moses learned to forget his own dreams and visions and view of himself in the desert. In fact, he went too far, from thinking he was somebody to believing he was nobody. The vision was not his problem, he had to learn that only through God can the vision be fulfilled.
There is no doubt that the Lord prepares his vessels that He will use. He takes them into the desert places, and there, they are tried and tested. It is only those who endure, who are found to be faithful and thankful, that will survive the experience. Only then will a Christian enter into His rest and cease from his own works. The children of Israel failed the test miserably.
They grumbled and were extremely unthankful for all of the Lords provision and miracle of deliverance from Egypt. Romans 1:21 "Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened."
The moment their spiritual leader departed from them, the children of Israel lost faith and, thinking he would not return, abandoned God and made their own God, one of the very gods they had left behind in Egypt.
Before our Lord stepped into His public ministry, he too was drawn into the desert, not by the enemy it must be noted, but by the Holy Spirit. Jesus endured the hardships of the desert and fasting for 40 days. He would reenact the 40 years of Moses, the forty years of the children on Israel and He would not be found wanting.
We all know the temptations that He was tempted with. I was always struck by the temptation where Satan tempted Him to turn a stone into a piece of bread. I realize that this was after 40 days of fasting and that hunger undoubtedly was a factor. Yet, where was the sin for the Lord to indeed turn this stone into bread? First of all, we have to realize, that any direction or suggestion of the enemy is always for our destruction, Jesus knew this. Jesus of course replied with the Scripture that "Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." What was Jesus saying? No matter what our needs are, no matter how basic, these needs can and will be met by our Father in heaven. We then see that the angels came and ministered to the Lord soon after.
It is so vital for the Christian, in the desert, to wait upon the Lord. The temptation to meet your own needs will be overwhelming, but, since the desert is the precursor to the battle, we must remember that this place is the testing grounds where we will learn trust, obedience and discipline.
This is where true powerful faith is born into men and only those who pass the desert test will enter the promised land where they will engage and destroy the Giants that currently possess that which is not theirs. This is where we will cease from our own works and experience the walk of milk and honey. When a Christian enters this land, he will walk with power and peace and contentment. This is sweeter than milk and honey.
The world and the "church," will look at this Christian and perhaps feel sorry for him because of his many "trials and tribulations," never really guessing that this Christian has passed over the Jordan and is taking hold of his inheritance. Just as the Israelites had been promised the lands of Canaan and beyond, and it was theirs to possess, so the Christian has been promised the lands of peace and joy and abundant life and the knowledge that he can dwell in the Kingdom now. The Kingdom was and is and always has been. For some the Kingdom was, for they fall in the desert, for some the Kingdom is, for they have passed over the Jordan and are now possessing the land, and for some the Kingdom will be as they make their way through and out of the desert.
Those who dwell in the kingdom will dwell in a place that they will not be able to describe. Their hearts will be saddened when they hear other Christians talk about health and wealth and the significance they attach to these so called "blessings." The Christian who has passed through the desert and into the promised land will join with brother Job and say "Even if you kill me Lord, yet will I bless you."
Even if this Christian is impoverished and dwells in the gutter he will say "Glory to the Lord of my salvation." When he loses a loved one he will shout "Even so, it is well with my soul." When his body is racked with disease, he will cry "Glory to the name of Jesus who has redeemed me, body and soul, from the grave." "Even if I die, yet shall I live forever," will be his cry.
When the children of Israel passed over the Jordan into the Promised land, the Lord commanded Joshua to take twelve smooth stones from the river bed He had dried up. Each one representing each of the twelve tribes of Israel. These stones would be formed into a circle (Gilgal) a monument to the miraculous. In every age the Lord is looking for monuments to His miracle working power.
When people look at us, do they see monuments to the miraculous? These stones were smoothed by the River of Life, they could not be mistaken for other rocks and stones. Anyone seeing these stones would know that they came from the riverbed.
Have you allowed yourself to be smoothed by the River of life that flows from the Throne of God? Have you passed through the desert, over the river and into the promised land? Perhaps you are dancing in the desert, having fallen down to the idols of health and wealth?
"Choose you this day," the Lord says, may we all become recognizable monuments to the Living, miraculous God.
A Spiritual Root Canal
"Pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God: lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble and by this many become defiled." (Heb 12:14-15)
Today I had a root canal done, and I will have it finished next week. In the middle of January I went to the dentist for my usual checkup and cleaning and was told that I had some decay. Now, I had no indications, pain or discomfort that would have alerted me to the fact that there was decay in process. So, the following week I went in and had the filling done. I was in the chair for almost two hours, for what was supposed to be a small filling.
From that time, until today, I have been in tremendous pain. Apparently the dentist went too deep and exposed a nerve, then put the filling right on top of the nerve. Not only did it make my tooth extremely painful and sensitive to hot and cold, it also caused great pain in my ear, the side of my head, and my shoulders. Apparently the nerve from this tooth, goes vertically down from the lower tooth and runs right into a main nerve which can affect many different parts of the body.
The solution to this problem is a root canal. This involves drilling out the filling which covers the exposed nerve, then taking out the whole nerve, the "root," is removed completely and finally when that is done and finished, then comes relief.
Last year my mother and father came to visit us from Scotland. Prior to coming to Jesus, my father was a violent alcoholic. I grew up witnessing violence and hatred. My father did not like me at all. I was interested in the things of Jesus as a boy and this made me an enemy to my father, as he had "lost," his wife to Christ. He only ever referred to me as "idiot,' or "hey you." I longed to be loved by this man. I longed to hear my name on his lips. Nothing was ever good enough, he was never impressed by anything that I did, and I did not hear one positive word out of his mouth for me my whole childhood. I simply gave up trying.
Now my father came to Christ 17 years ago. I came to Christ 13 years ago. I forgave my father, but there was never any words spoken about it. I do not believe I ever really had a real meaningful conversation with my dad. I still longed for affirmation from him, but it never came. I found my security and worth in Christ Jesus and He has dramatically turned my life around. Yet, in the back of my mind, in the deepest recesses, I guess I still longed to hear some words of affirmation from him.
Prior to my dad coming out last year, I asked Pastor Dan to pray for the situation. I told him that I had nothing to say to my dad, I had no unforgiveness in my heart and I loved him dearly, but that I longed to hear some things from him. My father is not a well man and the thought of him dying and leaving these things unsaid was a sad thought. The Lord had put this on my heart. One night, after our men's meeting, I asked Pastor Dave to pray for me in regard to my father. After that I prayed for a young man for a certain issue in his life. I told him that he had to see his situation as a battle and that he had to fight to gain victory. As I drove home that night, the Lord turned that prayer on me. He showed me that the enemy had planted a flag, right in the center of my heart, denoting that this was his territory. The Lord wanted me to go to battle, break through the lines and remove that flag. He gave me the exact words to say. I was to go home, find my father in the basement, turn the television of, look him straight in the eye, and tell him I was going to say something and I did not want him to interrupt. Then I was to say to him, "Dad, as far as I am concerned, there s no past between us, only now and the future and I love you so much."
Now that may sound simple to many of you, yet, this was one of the hardest things that I had ever contemplated. I instinctively said in my mind "that's not possible," and out of my mouth came this "It is possible." I had no idea where the words came from, but it was a rebuke from the Lord. As I drove home, I was involved in a battle. Fears and insecurities, fear of rejection all surrounded my mind. My root had been exposed. No matter how hard I had tried to cover up this exposed nerve, it had caused me pain and effected many areas of my life. Tonight was the night for my spiritual root canal. Driving home, the covering was ripped away and the nerve was exposed. I got home, went straight to the basement, trembling, turned the television of and told my dad that I had something to say and I did not want him to interrupt. I told him that as far as I was concerned, there was no past between us, only the present and the future and that I loved him so much. I wept, a forty year old man wept and hugged his dad like a child, my dad wept and told me that he loved me.
That was several months ago. A few weeks ago I got a call from my dad. We talked some small talk, and then he said this to me "You made a fantastic job of the tile work in the bathroom." Again, many of you may not understand the significance of this, but it rocked my world. It may be the sweetest words I have ever heard. If my father died tomorrow, I will know that he was proud of me. This was the thing that I had asked Pastor Dan to pray for me about.
Once a nerve is removed, it can never hurt you again. Let me ask you this, do you have a nerve problem? Do you need a spiritual root canal? Perhaps it has been buried for so long that you believe it is dealt with. The thing about decay is that it is a process, it will not stop of its own accord. If it is covered up it will begin to spread and effect other areas of your life. It needs to be uncovered and dealt with. If there is someone in your life who has hurt you, or disappointed you, if their is a root then the word tells us to "peruse peace," and not to "fall short of the grace of God." This root will "cause trouble," and "defile you." Open up your heart to Him. Ask Him to try you and see if their is anything that is causing you to fall short of the grace of God. The root of your trouble may be very legitimate, you may have been wronged and wounded. Do not wait on the other person. Maybe its a brother or a sister, Mother of Father, perhaps a grown child. Maybe its been years since you have spoken and the nerve has been covered up by distance and time. The time is now to brake the power of the damaged nerve, it must be removed, and until it is, it has the power to control you and cause you pain and cause you to fall short of Gods grace.
Make the call, reach out to that person. I understand the potential is there for great pain, for more suffering, but I also know that the power of God is at work when we trust in Him and follow His word.
We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. Even if ten thousand come against us, we will slay them all by the power and victory of Christ Jesus. That night I spoke to my father, I slew the enemies that had came against me, I reached the center of my heart and I took the enemies flag, uprooted it, broke it in two over my knee and threw it to the ground. I had, by the power of the Spirit, reclaimed this territory for the glory of God. May His marvelous name be praised. Brothers and sisters, take back that which is yours, break the power of the enemy in your life. And your weapon? ...............................LOVE.......Jesus is LOVE!!!!
Today I had a root canal done, and I will have it finished next week. In the middle of January I went to the dentist for my usual checkup and cleaning and was told that I had some decay. Now, I had no indications, pain or discomfort that would have alerted me to the fact that there was decay in process. So, the following week I went in and had the filling done. I was in the chair for almost two hours, for what was supposed to be a small filling.
From that time, until today, I have been in tremendous pain. Apparently the dentist went too deep and exposed a nerve, then put the filling right on top of the nerve. Not only did it make my tooth extremely painful and sensitive to hot and cold, it also caused great pain in my ear, the side of my head, and my shoulders. Apparently the nerve from this tooth, goes vertically down from the lower tooth and runs right into a main nerve which can affect many different parts of the body.
The solution to this problem is a root canal. This involves drilling out the filling which covers the exposed nerve, then taking out the whole nerve, the "root," is removed completely and finally when that is done and finished, then comes relief.
Last year my mother and father came to visit us from Scotland. Prior to coming to Jesus, my father was a violent alcoholic. I grew up witnessing violence and hatred. My father did not like me at all. I was interested in the things of Jesus as a boy and this made me an enemy to my father, as he had "lost," his wife to Christ. He only ever referred to me as "idiot,' or "hey you." I longed to be loved by this man. I longed to hear my name on his lips. Nothing was ever good enough, he was never impressed by anything that I did, and I did not hear one positive word out of his mouth for me my whole childhood. I simply gave up trying.
Now my father came to Christ 17 years ago. I came to Christ 13 years ago. I forgave my father, but there was never any words spoken about it. I do not believe I ever really had a real meaningful conversation with my dad. I still longed for affirmation from him, but it never came. I found my security and worth in Christ Jesus and He has dramatically turned my life around. Yet, in the back of my mind, in the deepest recesses, I guess I still longed to hear some words of affirmation from him.
Prior to my dad coming out last year, I asked Pastor Dan to pray for the situation. I told him that I had nothing to say to my dad, I had no unforgiveness in my heart and I loved him dearly, but that I longed to hear some things from him. My father is not a well man and the thought of him dying and leaving these things unsaid was a sad thought. The Lord had put this on my heart. One night, after our men's meeting, I asked Pastor Dave to pray for me in regard to my father. After that I prayed for a young man for a certain issue in his life. I told him that he had to see his situation as a battle and that he had to fight to gain victory. As I drove home that night, the Lord turned that prayer on me. He showed me that the enemy had planted a flag, right in the center of my heart, denoting that this was his territory. The Lord wanted me to go to battle, break through the lines and remove that flag. He gave me the exact words to say. I was to go home, find my father in the basement, turn the television of, look him straight in the eye, and tell him I was going to say something and I did not want him to interrupt. Then I was to say to him, "Dad, as far as I am concerned, there s no past between us, only now and the future and I love you so much."
Now that may sound simple to many of you, yet, this was one of the hardest things that I had ever contemplated. I instinctively said in my mind "that's not possible," and out of my mouth came this "It is possible." I had no idea where the words came from, but it was a rebuke from the Lord. As I drove home, I was involved in a battle. Fears and insecurities, fear of rejection all surrounded my mind. My root had been exposed. No matter how hard I had tried to cover up this exposed nerve, it had caused me pain and effected many areas of my life. Tonight was the night for my spiritual root canal. Driving home, the covering was ripped away and the nerve was exposed. I got home, went straight to the basement, trembling, turned the television of and told my dad that I had something to say and I did not want him to interrupt. I told him that as far as I was concerned, there was no past between us, only the present and the future and that I loved him so much. I wept, a forty year old man wept and hugged his dad like a child, my dad wept and told me that he loved me.
That was several months ago. A few weeks ago I got a call from my dad. We talked some small talk, and then he said this to me "You made a fantastic job of the tile work in the bathroom." Again, many of you may not understand the significance of this, but it rocked my world. It may be the sweetest words I have ever heard. If my father died tomorrow, I will know that he was proud of me. This was the thing that I had asked Pastor Dan to pray for me about.
Once a nerve is removed, it can never hurt you again. Let me ask you this, do you have a nerve problem? Do you need a spiritual root canal? Perhaps it has been buried for so long that you believe it is dealt with. The thing about decay is that it is a process, it will not stop of its own accord. If it is covered up it will begin to spread and effect other areas of your life. It needs to be uncovered and dealt with. If there is someone in your life who has hurt you, or disappointed you, if their is a root then the word tells us to "peruse peace," and not to "fall short of the grace of God." This root will "cause trouble," and "defile you." Open up your heart to Him. Ask Him to try you and see if their is anything that is causing you to fall short of the grace of God. The root of your trouble may be very legitimate, you may have been wronged and wounded. Do not wait on the other person. Maybe its a brother or a sister, Mother of Father, perhaps a grown child. Maybe its been years since you have spoken and the nerve has been covered up by distance and time. The time is now to brake the power of the damaged nerve, it must be removed, and until it is, it has the power to control you and cause you pain and cause you to fall short of Gods grace.
Make the call, reach out to that person. I understand the potential is there for great pain, for more suffering, but I also know that the power of God is at work when we trust in Him and follow His word.
We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. Even if ten thousand come against us, we will slay them all by the power and victory of Christ Jesus. That night I spoke to my father, I slew the enemies that had came against me, I reached the center of my heart and I took the enemies flag, uprooted it, broke it in two over my knee and threw it to the ground. I had, by the power of the Spirit, reclaimed this territory for the glory of God. May His marvelous name be praised. Brothers and sisters, take back that which is yours, break the power of the enemy in your life. And your weapon? ...............................LOVE.......Jesus is LOVE!!!!
The Waters of Life
The Waters of Life
Pro 20:5 Wisdom in the heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.
Pro 21:1 The king's heart is in the hand of Jehovah as the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He will.
Isa 12:3 And with joy you shall draw water out of the wells of salvation.
Isa 41:17-18The poor and needy seek water, and there is none; their tongue fails for thirst, I Jehovah will hear them, I the God of Israel will not leave them.
Isa 41:18 I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
Hi Guys
How many of us know that water is the very source of life? God is often times referred to as water, the life that He gives us is supernatural water. When we receive this water then we never thirst again. There is river that flows from the Holy throne of God. It is the source of all life and it is in this source we must flow. This flow must come from the very center of who we are, the most secret parts of us, the secret gardens of our hearts, a place that is often times hidden away by the ravages of life. While this is the true source of life, the place that Jesus must reign over, too often is it guarded. Jesus will and has gone to enormous lengths to free us to be exactly who He wants us to be yet so many will miss out because the very core of who they are remains veiled and guarded.
Each one of us has been given a portion of the river of life. It is to be found at the very center of our hearts. When we discover Jesus, we discover the power to unlock the source of life itself, the river of life. Jesus is the key to unlocking this river and it must begin to flow from the hearts of man.
Several years ago I helped a friend go and move his stepson out of his college apartment. The stepson had lived there for two years with 3 other college boys. I have lived in some rough places in my life, but I do not believe I have ever seen squalor like this. We looked around at the mess, not believing anyone would want to live like this. The irony was that this boys mother was a "clean freak." Just when we thought we had seen it all, we noticed a curtain that was crossed. We looked behind the curtain, it was the kitchen. The first thing to hit us was the smell, it was so rancid that it almost had substance, a substance that just reached out and grabbed your nose and made your head recoil. The kitchen was desolate. Dirty plates stacked everywhere. Empty food cartons, some not so empty. Mold growing all over the plates. I am sure if penicillin had not yet been discovered, it may have been growing in this kitchen. When we questioned the boy and his cohorts they explained that the kitchen just got so bad that they pulled the curtain and "decided never to go in there again." This kitchen had been untouched for possibly a year, you can imagine the rest.
Someone famous once said, "Show me the boy when he is seven and I will show you the man." This is true of men and women, perhaps seven is not the right number, but there is no doubt that we are programmed as children by our experiences. Despite all that councilors and Fraud may say, this program cannot be changed by human efforts because it is the essence of the heart that is lost, the beauty and the majesty of Gods original plan is locked away in the stagnant pool at the very center of our being. When Jesus died on the cross, it is said that He went into the grave, hell itself to release the captives to preach the good news to the prisoners. Jesus descended to the depths of the human heart, He fought sin and death and arrived at the very core of who we are, and if you allow Him, he will pull the curtain back , kick down the door that has locked away the true essence of who you are and bring that person into the light of His love, into the flow of the river of life. And all things, all the struggles, all the lack of joy, contentment, all things lost in the fall, will be restored in the river of life as you are immersed and allow yourself to flow in the this river.
Can I suggest that at the very heart of many people, where their essence is, their portion of life, the water of God designed to flow in the river, has been isolated, they have pulled the curtain over the most intimate part of their heart and it has become a stagnant pool. The scriptures urge us to join the river, not up to our ankles, not up to our knees, not even up to our waist but to become fully immersed in the river of life. This is the river that flows from the foundations of the temple of God. God, in His mercy released this flow from Calvary. Everywhere this river touches, all that join the river of life are blessed and everything this river touches it heals. Do not imagine that the Lord does not know the pain of the covered heart. You see, many of us because of circumstances, perhaps abuse, sexual, or emotional retreated into the deepest recesses of their hearts and pulled the curtain shut. Sin compelled the true essence of who God wanted you to be to hide in the most hidden and intimate place.
Before Jesus came, God's presence was to be found in what was called "The Holy of Holy's." Behind the curtain, behind the veil the actual presence of the Lord was to be found. No man or woman could come into this presence and live. The sin in our lives would render us destroyed in the presence of perfection, akin to matter and anti-matter, the two cannot exist side by side. So why was God the Father behind the veil? Gods heart was broken by the sin of His creation. His longing to be reconciled to His children was a pain that would be impossible to understand. If we are even to get a glimpse of how much pain the Father felt because He loved us so much we have to look to Calvary and the sacrifice of His only begotten Son. At the very height of the agony of Calvary, when Jesus cries out to His Father "Father, why has thou forsaken me," the Fathers heart is broken in pain, the ultimate sacrifice has been accomplished, there is now nothing that can separate us from the river of life. The veil, the curtain in the temple was "torn," and our Fathers heart was torn. And in the pain of sacrifice and agony and love, a love we cannot possibly understand for our minds are so small, the presence of the Lord was released into the world from the very heart of His presence, no longer veiled behind the curtain of separation, but released to flow into a world darkened by separation, by a decision to shut God of by disobedience and sin.
If we are to be a light unto the world then we too must rip the veil of our heart and expose the very core of who we are to the light of the Lord Jesus. Only then can we allow our portion of the river to flow and to begin to heal everything that it touches, starting with ourselves and then reaching out to our families, friends and ultimately the world. This is a challenge that will strike fear into the hearts of many, for only you know the very intimate source of your pain, but you probably cannot even imagine how many areas of your life it has effected.
Only last year did I truly reconcile with my earthly father. I have been a Christian for fourteen years, he has been a Christian for seventeen. Before coming to Christ I was an addict. An addict of drugs, an addict of alcohol an addict of sex an addict of cigarettes. Coming to Jesus I was able, in His strength, to overcome all of these. For truly I was addicted to oblivion and anything that anesthetized my secret pain. The pain of a childhood raised by a violent alcoholic. The pain of rejection by a father. Coming to Jesus I had no further need of oblivion and all these things just fell away, or so I thought. You see, I was overweight, at least 50 pounds overweight. I ate when I was happy, I ate when I was sad, any excuse to eat.
This addiction had snuck under the radar. Last year, under instructions from the Lord, I was able to confront my father face to face. Not with anger or recrimination, but with love and forgiveness. Now I forgave my father fourteen years ago, but it had remained unspoken, My father had never asked for my forgiveness and I had never spoken about it. I still had never heard any affirming words from my dad. After facing some of my greatest fears, I spoke to him what the Lord had instructed to me to speak, words of love and forgiveness. I had never been more afraid, but urged on by the Spirit, I spoke vulnerable words to the man who had hurt me more than anyone on earth. The fear of rejection almost overwhelmed me, but I was obedient to the Spirit. Right into the heart of the secret veiled garden of my heart went the Lord to release that portion of the river of life. And ever since that day, a day that my father hugged me and embraced me, the river has been flowing. Months later he called to tell me what a great job I had made of some tile work , so simple, so enormous. The first words of affirmation I had ever heard from my father, and I am a forty year old man. I could tell how difficult it was for my father to say the words, but he was now flowing in his own river.
In the last several months since these incidents I have lost 50 pounds, the addiction of food, the final addiction has been swallowed up by the river of life that flows from the unveiled secret place of the heart, the source of who we truly are in Christ, who Christ made us to be.
I am not sure what it is that may lie at the center of your heart, but I know that the Lord desires to rule and reign over all of you, nothing held back that He may put into operation, the full victory of Calvary. When He cried out "It is finished," then down came the veil, and out poured the presence of God Himself into this world, the river of life that flows and heals everything that it touches. Open up your heart today, let the Lord lead you in healing the most secret parts of your heart and today life will flow through you, waters of life that will quench your deepest thirst and touch all that is in your life.
Pro 20:5 Wisdom in the heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.
Pro 21:1 The king's heart is in the hand of Jehovah as the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He will.
Isa 12:3 And with joy you shall draw water out of the wells of salvation.
Isa 41:17-18The poor and needy seek water, and there is none; their tongue fails for thirst, I Jehovah will hear them, I the God of Israel will not leave them.
Isa 41:18 I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
Hi Guys
How many of us know that water is the very source of life? God is often times referred to as water, the life that He gives us is supernatural water. When we receive this water then we never thirst again. There is river that flows from the Holy throne of God. It is the source of all life and it is in this source we must flow. This flow must come from the very center of who we are, the most secret parts of us, the secret gardens of our hearts, a place that is often times hidden away by the ravages of life. While this is the true source of life, the place that Jesus must reign over, too often is it guarded. Jesus will and has gone to enormous lengths to free us to be exactly who He wants us to be yet so many will miss out because the very core of who they are remains veiled and guarded.
Each one of us has been given a portion of the river of life. It is to be found at the very center of our hearts. When we discover Jesus, we discover the power to unlock the source of life itself, the river of life. Jesus is the key to unlocking this river and it must begin to flow from the hearts of man.
Several years ago I helped a friend go and move his stepson out of his college apartment. The stepson had lived there for two years with 3 other college boys. I have lived in some rough places in my life, but I do not believe I have ever seen squalor like this. We looked around at the mess, not believing anyone would want to live like this. The irony was that this boys mother was a "clean freak." Just when we thought we had seen it all, we noticed a curtain that was crossed. We looked behind the curtain, it was the kitchen. The first thing to hit us was the smell, it was so rancid that it almost had substance, a substance that just reached out and grabbed your nose and made your head recoil. The kitchen was desolate. Dirty plates stacked everywhere. Empty food cartons, some not so empty. Mold growing all over the plates. I am sure if penicillin had not yet been discovered, it may have been growing in this kitchen. When we questioned the boy and his cohorts they explained that the kitchen just got so bad that they pulled the curtain and "decided never to go in there again." This kitchen had been untouched for possibly a year, you can imagine the rest.
Someone famous once said, "Show me the boy when he is seven and I will show you the man." This is true of men and women, perhaps seven is not the right number, but there is no doubt that we are programmed as children by our experiences. Despite all that councilors and Fraud may say, this program cannot be changed by human efforts because it is the essence of the heart that is lost, the beauty and the majesty of Gods original plan is locked away in the stagnant pool at the very center of our being. When Jesus died on the cross, it is said that He went into the grave, hell itself to release the captives to preach the good news to the prisoners. Jesus descended to the depths of the human heart, He fought sin and death and arrived at the very core of who we are, and if you allow Him, he will pull the curtain back , kick down the door that has locked away the true essence of who you are and bring that person into the light of His love, into the flow of the river of life. And all things, all the struggles, all the lack of joy, contentment, all things lost in the fall, will be restored in the river of life as you are immersed and allow yourself to flow in the this river.
Can I suggest that at the very heart of many people, where their essence is, their portion of life, the water of God designed to flow in the river, has been isolated, they have pulled the curtain over the most intimate part of their heart and it has become a stagnant pool. The scriptures urge us to join the river, not up to our ankles, not up to our knees, not even up to our waist but to become fully immersed in the river of life. This is the river that flows from the foundations of the temple of God. God, in His mercy released this flow from Calvary. Everywhere this river touches, all that join the river of life are blessed and everything this river touches it heals. Do not imagine that the Lord does not know the pain of the covered heart. You see, many of us because of circumstances, perhaps abuse, sexual, or emotional retreated into the deepest recesses of their hearts and pulled the curtain shut. Sin compelled the true essence of who God wanted you to be to hide in the most hidden and intimate place.
Before Jesus came, God's presence was to be found in what was called "The Holy of Holy's." Behind the curtain, behind the veil the actual presence of the Lord was to be found. No man or woman could come into this presence and live. The sin in our lives would render us destroyed in the presence of perfection, akin to matter and anti-matter, the two cannot exist side by side. So why was God the Father behind the veil? Gods heart was broken by the sin of His creation. His longing to be reconciled to His children was a pain that would be impossible to understand. If we are even to get a glimpse of how much pain the Father felt because He loved us so much we have to look to Calvary and the sacrifice of His only begotten Son. At the very height of the agony of Calvary, when Jesus cries out to His Father "Father, why has thou forsaken me," the Fathers heart is broken in pain, the ultimate sacrifice has been accomplished, there is now nothing that can separate us from the river of life. The veil, the curtain in the temple was "torn," and our Fathers heart was torn. And in the pain of sacrifice and agony and love, a love we cannot possibly understand for our minds are so small, the presence of the Lord was released into the world from the very heart of His presence, no longer veiled behind the curtain of separation, but released to flow into a world darkened by separation, by a decision to shut God of by disobedience and sin.
If we are to be a light unto the world then we too must rip the veil of our heart and expose the very core of who we are to the light of the Lord Jesus. Only then can we allow our portion of the river to flow and to begin to heal everything that it touches, starting with ourselves and then reaching out to our families, friends and ultimately the world. This is a challenge that will strike fear into the hearts of many, for only you know the very intimate source of your pain, but you probably cannot even imagine how many areas of your life it has effected.
Only last year did I truly reconcile with my earthly father. I have been a Christian for fourteen years, he has been a Christian for seventeen. Before coming to Christ I was an addict. An addict of drugs, an addict of alcohol an addict of sex an addict of cigarettes. Coming to Jesus I was able, in His strength, to overcome all of these. For truly I was addicted to oblivion and anything that anesthetized my secret pain. The pain of a childhood raised by a violent alcoholic. The pain of rejection by a father. Coming to Jesus I had no further need of oblivion and all these things just fell away, or so I thought. You see, I was overweight, at least 50 pounds overweight. I ate when I was happy, I ate when I was sad, any excuse to eat.
This addiction had snuck under the radar. Last year, under instructions from the Lord, I was able to confront my father face to face. Not with anger or recrimination, but with love and forgiveness. Now I forgave my father fourteen years ago, but it had remained unspoken, My father had never asked for my forgiveness and I had never spoken about it. I still had never heard any affirming words from my dad. After facing some of my greatest fears, I spoke to him what the Lord had instructed to me to speak, words of love and forgiveness. I had never been more afraid, but urged on by the Spirit, I spoke vulnerable words to the man who had hurt me more than anyone on earth. The fear of rejection almost overwhelmed me, but I was obedient to the Spirit. Right into the heart of the secret veiled garden of my heart went the Lord to release that portion of the river of life. And ever since that day, a day that my father hugged me and embraced me, the river has been flowing. Months later he called to tell me what a great job I had made of some tile work , so simple, so enormous. The first words of affirmation I had ever heard from my father, and I am a forty year old man. I could tell how difficult it was for my father to say the words, but he was now flowing in his own river.
In the last several months since these incidents I have lost 50 pounds, the addiction of food, the final addiction has been swallowed up by the river of life that flows from the unveiled secret place of the heart, the source of who we truly are in Christ, who Christ made us to be.
I am not sure what it is that may lie at the center of your heart, but I know that the Lord desires to rule and reign over all of you, nothing held back that He may put into operation, the full victory of Calvary. When He cried out "It is finished," then down came the veil, and out poured the presence of God Himself into this world, the river of life that flows and heals everything that it touches. Open up your heart today, let the Lord lead you in healing the most secret parts of your heart and today life will flow through you, waters of life that will quench your deepest thirst and touch all that is in your life.
My Testimony
THE VALLEY OF ACHOR
I would like to take the readers of this book on a spiritual journey. It is my wish and earnest desire and prayer, that this story will glorify the Lord Jesus and bring comfort and hope to all who read it. Through poetry and stories I hope to touch the hearts of many, and bring comfort to all those who hurt, whether physically or spiritually. I have found through experience that our Lord Jesus will certainly lift up the head that hangs down, will bring hope to a hopeless situation.
I come from a small working class shipbuilding town in Scotland. It is situated on the River Clyde and the area is extraordinarily beautiful. When the sun did shine, and I admit that was not too often, it would bask our valley in magnificent warmth and splendor. The hills rise dramatically on either side and are shadowed by the mountains behind. Most often the mountains would be shrouded in mist and one could see very little of anything. It gave a very claustrophobic feeling and I always remember feeling trapped.
The river ran through the center of everything. It dominated our whole lives. From nearly every Government house, one had a magnificent view of the Firth of Clyde. It is almost three miles wide , but to a young Greenock boy, it might have well been the Atlantic. How mysterious was “the other side.”
The town of Greenock stood in stark contrast to the surrounding beauty. It was a dirty little industrial town from the Victorian area. Mostly red or gray sandstone buildings, blackened by generations of smoke that would billow from a thousand chimney pots.The slate covered roofs would glisten in the rain ,and the moon , when it appeared from behind its almost constant cover, would illuminate these roofs. Many slums still existed and most people lived in “Tenements,” high rise sandstone buildings that mostly consisted of one bedroom apartments. In a typical tenement there would be maybe fifteen families up one “close.” There was five of us in a one bedroom apartment. The three children slept in the bedroom while my mom and dad slept in the living room which was the dining room and also we would bath in the sink. My mom and dad had a bed that fit into a recess in the wall and after they got up in the morning they would simply pull a curtain over the space. Since it rained so much in Scotland, we would dry our clothes by hanging them from a line attached to two pulleys or small wheels in the ceiling.
My father had came from a working class family. His father of course ,was an alcoholic. He worked at a local distillery, making whiskey. My grandfather would steal this whiskey and it would be hidden around his apartment. When it was found, it would be poured down the sink by my grandmother who was a staunch Catholic and made a living by cleaning stairs in the tenements. I never knew my grandfather, he died at the age of 58 through his alcoholism, my father was 19.
He had left school at 14 and entered the shipyards. This was a very tough working environment where drinking was the measure of a man, that and violence. My father followed his father in the path of alcoholism.
My mother came from a working class family also. Her father also worked in the shipyards. My grandmother had given birth to ten children and collapsed and died at the age of 60, my mother being 16. My mother was advised not to marry my father, and like so many others before her, she would ignore this advice and perhaps find comfort in him.
My father “wore the pants” in our house. Like most Scottish working class women, my mother did what she was told. As long as she did, there were little problems, apart from the usual struggle to survive and pay bills. Frequently men’s wages would be drunk before they returned home on a Friday night. Often one could see anxious women waiting outside the “yards” to catch their husbands and at least get some money for food before it was lost to the bars or the Bookmakers. My mother, like many women in the sixties and seventies in Scotland, lived on the edge of her nerves, trying to put food in their children’s mouths and avoid the debtors. Silence had to be observed many times when the familiar knock on the door would come on a Friday night. The “Provvy,” woman had come to collect her money. A lot of working class and welfare families clothed their children with “Provident,” checks. Provident was a company that supplied credit to poor families. It was not cash, it was a voucher, it could only be used in stores that had the Provident sign in their windows. This carried a stigma with it, but hey, we lived in a world of stigmas.
The “agents,” would come around every Friday night to collect a payment. If you had no money to give, you kept quiet, often times with your hand over the younger children’s mouths who had no clue what was going on, they just thought we were trying to suffocate them for no particular reason, much like when your trying to give a dog a pill and force its mouth shut, the poor dog thinks its being killed, and wonders what it has done to deserve such a cruel end, then after an eternity spits out the pill anyway. Valium was a tremendous friend to a great number of women , my mother being one of them.
My story really starts when I was seven. My mother came home and announced she had found Jesus. She went out that night because my father, in a drunken fit, was screaming at something that was not there and said that "The devil wanted him." My mum, as if speaking prophetically and not even saved said "he will not have you Frank." She went out and found herself in a Salvation Army hall and she responded to an alter call.
As a Catholic boy, I knew who Jesus was, He was the Son of God. He had died on the cross, everybody knew that. One day, probably after ten thousand years in purgatory, most of us would get to see Him. In fact , Purgatory was the place to “shoot for.” No-one was good enough to say they were going to heaven, avoiding Hell was my main concern. I once heard a Priest describe Hell. He said that we were to imagine a giant metal ball, the size of the earth. Every thousand years, a dove would come by and brush its wings against the ball. When that ball was totally rubbed away by the dove’s wings, we would still be in Hell.
My mother was completely different. The smoking was gone, the valium too. My father went nuts when he heard. Although he did not really know what being “born-again” meant, he knew they were whacko’s , fanatics. And although he was a non-practicing Catholic, he firmly believed that everything outside of Catholicism was ungodly. And yet, I am sure , in the back of his mind, he knew that he was no longer in control of this woman, and that he was no longer the center of her universe.
There was no situation that was not turned to the glory of God. Many times our electricity was cut of. One time it was of for three months. And every night for three months there was a brilliant star that seem to light up our living room. I would sit and stare at "my," star. My Mom told me that the Lord had sent a star to light up the darkness of our room, I believed it. When there was no food on the table, she told us that we had to believe and that the Lord would provide, and then we would hear a letter dropping. We would rush to the door and there would be an envelope with money in it. We found out years later that a wonderful woman in Christ would often be led by Jesus to put her tithe in an envelope and drop it through our door. No name, just obedience to the Holy Spirit's leading.
As a child, I would walk down the road, and my mother would stop and talk to the "bum's." down and outs, rejected by society, foul smelling men, foul talking men, but never in front of my mother. She would tell them about Jesus, how He loved them, how He died for them. One night one of these men responded to my mothers invitation to come to church, a small Assemblies of God church. He was dressed very badly and smelled worse. As they took their seat somewhere near the back, some people moved. The man realized and began to weep, telling my mother that he was not dressed "properly." My Mom told him "don't you worry about how your dressed, Jesus doesn't care how your dressed.” Just then the men of the church came back and led this man to the front of the church and sat him down in the front aisle.
This is the Jesus that I encountered as a small boy of seven. This Jesus who looked at the worse of sinners, the rejected of "moral," society and embraced them. He reached out across the divide of decent society and said " Oh how I love you." The light of Jesus shined into the darkest corners of hell with a glorious love that cannot be comprehended by an enemy whose only design is to divide and destroy. He embraces the "untouchables," with a love that cannot be comprehended by an enemy who knows only division, strife, fear, hatred and suspicion.
After my mother came to know Jesus, our family was plunged into a world of violence and intense hatred. My mother suffered many beatings for simply loving Jesus and going to church. She suffered a broken jaw and a thousand black eyes. My father would constantly call me an idiot. I never heard my name on his lips. Often he would put a knife in my hand in drunkenness and try have me stab him, of course I would not. He would slap me on the side of the head and tell me that I "did not have it in me." Or suggest that I was gay. Oh how I longed to be loved by this man but he had my heart in his hand and was slowly squeezing the life out of it. Little did I know that Satan had planted his flag of ownership at the very core of my heart, and that this would shape me and enslave me for years to come.
THE PROCESS
My heart is shredded, it lies in pieces
Think, I must think
Here comes the hammer, it cannot miss
The blow, and now I shrink
The shrinking ends , I am no more
One chance to survive, I take it
And now I am no more
Only one choice , I thought, and I took it
And walked on through the door
The blows are coming now
But I feel a little less
Surely my heart grows stronger
Ah, but no caress
I now reside in this world of mine
And the blows keep raining down
Stronger , even stronger now
No more thinking, the sun has gone down
My heart, my heart, it is no more
It is completely encased in steel
My God, My God, Oh help me Lord
My God I cannot feel.
I look down in horror
No heart, no flesh , just bone
I look around in horror
My God, I’m all alone
Where is this place I thought I knew
It’s dark, it’s dimly lit
My God, My God, I’m almost at the bottom
Of the bottomless pit.
And in that moment, right where I was
My God He came to me
My son, my son, my son He cried
I have come to set you free.
Oh my God, Oh my Lord
Is it true, can I be free
Oh please dear Jesus, please dear God
Please don’t look on me
My son, my son, you are my son
And I will put you on the Rock
Be quiet now, be quiet son
Shh, do not talk
I have a Son, My only Son
He died upon a tree
He is My Son, He is your Lord
He’s the Rock that will set you free.
And so it was, and so it is
My Father took me in His Hand
Onward , ever upward
Out of the pit, into the Promised land
He set me on the Rock and I looked down
No longer a heart of steel
I could see and I could touch
I had flesh and I could feel
So come to the Rock, come to Christ
And He will set you free
If you will just open your eyes
He will let you see.
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This next poem is much the same, I would like to include it anyway as it gives a different angle of the same process.
SHADOWS IN THE DARKLAND
Into the shadows of the dark land
Where the roaring lion roams free
Never to return to the world of innocence
This cynical dimension has forever trapped me
For years I wandered in the twilight
Voices of the world echo unclear
This is a place of abandoned desolation
Forever ruled by shame and fear
How is it that these world’s CO-exist in time
A child in one, a slave to the other
Surviving daily in a colorless jungle
Yet sentenced forever to continually suffer
A childless child in a demanding world
Longing to return to a different time
To a place of warmth and sweet embrace
Oh to laugh again, how sublime
There were times when I thought I had found the way
I could almost feel the sun on my face
But just at that time, the lion did pounce
And I ran screaming back into that place
And so I walked on, chains pulling me down
Seemingly going nowhere
Yet I was being pulled towards an enormous pit
And I did not have the strength to care
And before I knew it I was falling
Having finally gone over the edge
I was grasping and scraping and calling out
Before I came to a stop on a ledge
I looked down and I could see the bottom
It was the bottom of the bottomless pit
I looked at myself, I was covered in slime
And I said to myself, this is it
I looked up and I could see no light
And I cried out , oh God help me
And in an instant, His Hand came down
And before I knew it I was free
I was out of the pit and standing on the Rock
I could feel the sun on my face
Never again to walk in the shadows of the Dark land
But to live forever in a continual embrace.
In these lastcouple of poems I have tried to describe the downward journey of a heart. A retreat into a place where one cannot be hurt. A flag had been planted at the very center of my heart, the very core. The flag was planted by the enemy to denote that this was now his territory. It has been said, "show me the boy when he is seven and I will show you the man." I am not sure if seven is the age, but I know that the true essence of who I was, who the Lord wanted me to be, was lost. The core of my heart was covered, it would not be truly uncovered until years after coming to Jesus. Every one of us has a core, a pool of water at the very center of the garden of our heart, the secret place. This water should flow in the rivers of life that flows from the throne of God, but inevitably it gets cut off, isolated, through sin in its many forms, whether abuse, neglect, rebellion and so on. Many times children will isolate their pool, not consciously, but in a mode of survival. Yet, inevitably, this pool will grow stagnant until it is uncovered by the light of Christ and rejoined in the rivers of life that flows from the holy throne. Have you uncovered who you truly are? Is there a secret pain that has shaped you? How does it manifest itself? Are you overweight, depressed, lacking in joy, peace and contentment. Do you have to medicate yourself? These are all the signs of a pool hidden behind a secret curtain of pain.
My first ever encounter with the living Christ was when I was twelve. This would eventually, as an adult, be the saving of me although I could never have guessed it at the time. There was a particularly violent episode in my house one evening. Now, I had witnessed a thousand acts of violence by this time by a man who was losing his battle against God. One time my father even nailed our front door shut from the inside with six inch nails to stop my mother from going to church, my sister and I lowered her out the window, quite a drop for a woman who was a quarter inch shy of five feet. What my dad did not realize, and would not until he came to Christ himself, was that my mother had discovered the power of the universe. This is the power that men had searched for down through the centuries, the answer to life itself and nothing nor anyone would every persuade her to let go of Jesus.
This night was different, I believe the enemy planned to kill my mother this night. My father had her by the back of the head and was punching her. She kept crying out that Jesus loved him but this only seemed to enrage him all the more. One minute he was laughing hysterically, the next he was crying. My sister was in the corner of the room screaming and I stood , frozen with fear, behind him. The atmosphere in the room was almost tangible, it was like the air had a substance, not that you could see, but that you could slice through. At that moment, I felt something come into me, from the very top of my head. It slowly passed down through my whole body and as it did, the fear left me until it reached my toes and there was no fear left at all.
I reached up and put my hand on my fathers shoulder. His head snapped around, he still had my mother by the hair, and I found myself looking into the blackest eyes I had ever saw. In an instant, as I stared into these eyes, I saw past them and into his soul, and there was my real father, the man that God had designed him to be, bound, chained and gagged, lying on his side. I heard myself say this to my bound and chained father "Dad, I love you." In a second I was back looking at his eyes again and I heard this voice from his mouth "I cannot argue with that." The atmosphere was gone, my father released my mother, and sat down in his chair looking shell-shocked. Now, the violence returned days later, but this encounter with the living God would help save me later in my life, for this reality could not be denied.
Of course there are stages and turning points and defining moments in everyone’s’ lives. A central defining moment in my life was meeting Angie. She was extremely pretty and walked into my life when we were both 15. I loved her the moment I saw her. She was petite with coal black hair , very slim and really different from other Greenock girls.
Her mother had married an American sailor who was based on the “other side” of the water. Many local women had married Americans, although there was a stigma to this. Most of these girls were considered to be “sluts.’ This of course was not true in most cases. What most of the girls did have in common was that they came from the “lower working class.” Growing up in Scotland, America was a dream , out of reach for most Scottish people. You could actually make something of yourself in America. Apparently it did not matter how you spoke or with what accent you spoke it with.
Angie’s mother had dared to dream and followed her sweetheart, after marrying him, back to America and small town Kansas. She was considered by her husbands family, who were wealthy, to be a gold digger and beneath him. It seems that America had a class system too, just not so defined or rigid. Angie and her two brothers were born and lived in Suburbia, a life only dreamt of by my fellow townsfolk. It was the late sixties and Angie was 7. Her father had become caught up in the New Age movement and had begun smoking pot.He decided that he had to go to California and find himself, but the family would hamper the search. So they were duly divorced and sent back to Scotland. Mom believed, even as she waited for the plane at the airport, that her husband would come and get them, but to no avail. She was a broken woman and lived in the worst of the projects on her return to Scotland. Even now it is hard for me to imagine the culture shock for the American kids. They were bullied and beaten constantly for being different, and mum chose one boyfriend after another who would treat her the way she felt.
After one beating too many, Angies’ mom suffered an aneurysm. She was in a state much like Terry Shivo. She could not walk or talk or leave the bed apart form a wheelchair. Somehow, in this state, the man that had been living with her got her pregnant. Amidst the screams of the mother, and the helplessness of the children, the baby was born premature and in the breach position in the apartment. The baby died, and mom died shortly afterwards. In order for my wife and her brothers to avoid the orphanage, they chose to stay with the last tormentor their mother had lived with, their father never came and got them
Children of the night
As the Lord looked down
On a cold winter’ night
Two children he beheld
In his merciful sight
They each cried tears
Of pain and distress
Please help me oh God
From this horrible mess
Each cried for their mother
Please release them, they said
One lay broken on the floor
The other lay dying in her bed
And the tears they cried
were caught in His Hand
Now forever united
Before God they would stand
The world wrote them off
Before they began
Yet the Lord had seen their pain
They were now in His Hand.
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ENDLESS RAIN
The wind it blew
And the rain it fell
Even when the sun shines brightly
It’s still raining in hell
The days were too short
The nights, too long
Please let the morning come
Let the birds sing their song
I looked out my window
Sweet virginal snow
Let me lie beneath the blanket
May it never go
The snow soon melts
And once again
The wind starts to howl
And it begins to rain
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At 16, we found out that Angie was pregnant. We were not as upset as we might have been. As long as we were together, everything would be OK. We both wanted desperately to escape our home lives. We would be great parents. We would love this child and never do what our parents had done. This was our chance. We were married just after our 17th Birthdays. We had no home, so we went to the Salvation Army’s shelter for battered women. They told us that we were their first ever “Honeymoon couple.” After a couple of months in there, we were given an apartment in the same place that Angie had came from. I was drinking heavily by now, which was of course normal. This was my right of passage. Oh how I admired those men who could drink endlessly and not fall over, perhaps only stopping to throw up, then returning to their business. I wanted to be just like them, and it would impress my dad of course.
The baby was born 3 months premature. The chord had been around his neck and we were told he had went possibly 6 minutes without oxygen before he could be delivered by emergency c-section. He was now on a life support machine and it was the finest opinion of the staff, that it would be better to turn of the machine, but, it was our decision. Two children stared at each other, no words spoken, then stared at this tiny 2 pound , perfectly formed child, “Whatever you think is best..........OK.” Plugs were pulled right away. “Would you like to hold the baby ,” I heard in the mist. Another defining moment had arrived. I looked at this helpless child, behind his glass cage, my heart lay there with a ridiculously large diaper on. I would not touch this child, I would not hold him, no-one would ever touch this child again, no one would touch my heart again.
My sons name was Stephen. He died almost exactly twenty four hours after he was born. I now look back and consider the irony of naming him Stephen (he was Baptized by a Catholic priest)Stephen was the first martyr of the Church and my Stephen was a martyr too. I was living a life, even at the age of sixteen, which I knew to be outside of Gods will. I had gave my heart to the Lord as a eight year old boy. Because of my circumsatnces and the years that it went on for, I gave up on God and started to live my life any way I pleased. I did everything in my power to block out the Lord and the world, including drink and sex and drugs, I had become addicted to oblivion. I had even tried to block out my sons death. If I turned around and walked away then I could leave the pain behind. My plan almost worked. Even as I sat in the hearse, with the tiny white coffin on my knees, I chose not to think about it. This would have worked but for the hearse driver driving a little to fast around a corner and I "felt," the body of my son move with the motion inside the coffin. The reality of my dead son was inescapable. My need for oblivion increased.
JERICHO IS BURNING
Why do the tears that belong to you
Fall down from upon my face
Why does your heart, so cold and blue
Refuse to move from that solitary place
It is safe but cold behind that wall
And you will never know what it is to love
To run, to leap, to stumble to fall
To soar with the eagles high above
The walls are high and thick and strong
They are built with tears and pain
I will shout and listen to the trumpet’s song
They will tumble and fall and never be again
Your heart is touched by the burning flame
It is touched by the one from above
Your heart it fades, and will never be the same
It is engulfed and consumed in the furnace of love
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Christopher was born a year and a half later. A stunningly beautiful child, peaceful and full of joy. When no-one was looking, I raised him high and dedicated him to God, even although I did not follow Him. My mother had told me that the Holy Spirit said I had “Gone into the world.” I had and I was going to survive, whatever it took. I was strong and I would not be brought down. Christopher touched at something deep within, I loved my son dearly. Perhaps...............
Angie and I walked in and Christopher was screaming. Granddad was watching him while we had gone for the groceries(and a few drinks) He was peeling what seemed like Swiss cheese from his chest. Seconds before, a full kettle of boiling water had fallen and had engulfed him.
He was 60% burned. He managed to survive the first couple of days and now the treatment. Because of a lack of resources, instead of being covered by a certain cream, he was bandaged every day, and every day the bandages had to come off. It was my job to aid the nurse in holding him down as they placed him in a bath of salt water every day for the 10,000 years of purgatory. No point in trying to explain to him the necessity of this. His eyes burned into mine as he screamed obscenities at me.
THE HUMAN SPIRIT
Oh brightest of the brightest stars
You shine out greatly in the darkest night
And all around the darkness falls
Yet you do not, you stand and fight
Time and again, wave after wave
The darkness assaults your soul
Threatening to smash to a thousand pieces
Yet you still stand tall and whole
Relentlessly the scorching fire rains down
And you are battered from every side
Weaker now, to your knees you fall
Desperately seeking for a place to hide
For one who once stood tall and strong
Now forsaken and lost and no more fight
Surrounded by darkness on every side
You must now flee into the darkest night
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A dark night had undoubtedly engulfed me. Reality was my full-time enemy. Only when drinking or taking drugs would I find any relief. Looking back, Christopher being burned propelled me towards Jesus. On the outside one would have thought the opposite. Each time I got stoned or drunk or both, I was losing myself, piece by piece. Any goodness that may have been in me was surely and steadily disappearing. I was being eaten from the inside out. I had a desperate need for oblivion, I was addicted to oblivion and whatever got me there was good enough.
I had no idea where my life was going. I moved my family to London. This was the worse year of my life. To make matters worse, the people next door were born-again Christians.
One would have to know the state of Christianity in Britain to realize just what a miracle that was. It is reckoned that only 1% of British people now attend church on a regular basis. What was the odds of moving to a house in London, with its ten million people, and moving next door to born-again Christians? We serve a big God. Often they would talk to me about the Lord. The only way I could drown out the calling of the Lord was to drink more and remain high. Every day of the year we spent in London , I got high.
I had a plan. We were going to America. This was the big one. This move would fulfill this aching and longing in my heart. Surely there I could find peace and contentment and rest for a soul that could not be satisfied. Within two weeks of arriving in America, I realized that I could not out run my problems. Life was very different, but my soul was just the same. I longed to love my wife and son. The problem was, I could not give them what I did not have. I watched other dads play with their sons, hug them, tell them they loved them and they were proud of them . So simple to many people, so beyond what I was capable of.
One day, completely out of the blue, the Lord opened my eyes. For the first time in my life, I could see clearly that I was treating my son, exactly the same way I had been treated. He was only seven, yet was already saying how useless he was. No matter what he did of course, he could not please his dad and had gave up trying. I was horrified to see my father in myself. The deepest horror though was the realization that I had no power over this. The problem had been identified, but how can a man love if he is incapable of it? Can one truly get blood from a stone? Of course not and that was my problem. The hopelessness of the situation led me to think about suicide, but since I believed in God, it was not an option for me. Finally, at the age of 26, having seemed to have lived a full life already, I found a church and submitted my life, my will, my everything, such as it was , to the Lord.
INSPIRATION
You are the inspiration of my life
When I laugh, it is because you have placed a joy deep within my soul
When I cry tears of joy and sadness
It is because you have created rivers in the desert
When I am thirsty in the place of testing
I fall upon the Rock and am engulfed
In the sweet flowing waters of life.
--------------------------
I had a new heart indeed. I was alive and I could not believe how it felt. I could take my son in my arms and tell him how much I loved him. For the first time in my life I genuinely cared for my wife and son.
VICTORY
Jesus Christ, you gave me victory
Before you came, all was lost , my battle was done
Yet in the depths of my despair, your light shone as if from nowhere
And now the darkness is light and your battles won
So I lift up your name and I lift it on high
I no longer scream and I no longer cry
The battle is done, the victory’s ours
We shall stand firm, until the final hour
----------------------------
JESUS
Your love is the fire in my heart
Your love is the consuming furnace of my soul
Forever my heart shall burn and glow in your majestic presence
I shall never forsake you, and from you I shall never part
You are the air that I breathe, every step that I take
Every thought , every act, every deed
You are the reason that I live, and shall forever more
There is simply nothing more that I need.
-----------------------
My new life was now completely different. It took me three days to realize that I did not curse any more. The drink and drugs were gone , overnight. The real miracle was being able to take my son in my arms and tell him I loved him. To look at my wife, and see a person with feelings and needs, was all new to me. Now I walked away from arguments with Angie, and she did not like it. Before, we would go toe to toe and see who could be the nastiest, of course I would always “win,” because the one who cares least , “wins.” Now I was happy to walk away because the Lord had taken the hatred out of my heart and I could see the futility of it. My wife completly ignored my Christianity for the first couple of months, until one day she screamed at me in the kitchen "You are completely obsessed with Jesus Christ." I was so happy to hear that :) I think she thought I was going through a phase, although she did know what it meant to be sold out to Jesus as she had spent much time with my mother. She had even warned me that if I ever became a Christian she would leave me.
A couple of years passed and Angie fell pregnant at 29. I had persuaded her to come of the pill. I am not sure if it was because I wanted another child or because I thought it was wrong . One week before my youngest, who has down syndrome, was born(we had no idea there was anything wrong) I came home from church and was so full of the Lord, I sat down and wrote this letter to my mum and dad. I had no idea why I was writing this or what the content would be but the Holy Spirit urged me to write.
Dear mum and dad
A blessing to you in the name of Jesus , Jesus is the mighty king ,He is the Lion of Judah . There are many voices in this world who would say that He is weak or dead and that we are alone, that is a lie from hell itself. We serve a mighty God who has authority over kings and presidents , over nations and empires. Satan and the mighty demons tremble in the presence of Jesus. There is not a hair on your head that He does not know. The Lord Himself, in the garden of Gethsemane was tried to His very core, even His closest friends had fallen asleep on Him. And in His agony, in His despair, He cried out to His Father , “Father, take this cup from me", at that very second we see the Lords humanity, He is so able to understand our situations. Sometimes we would question ,"why Lord", but there is always a reason.
The lord cried from the cross “ my God ,my God, why has thou forsaken me", at that very point He touched man's lowest ebb, despair, hell itself. I do not know, but I imagine that this was the hardest moment for our Father as He watched His Son hang from that cross and withdraw His presence. The Father in His infinite wisdom and mercy and love for us ,sacrificed His Son , Oh the agony the Father felt, but now the perfect wisdom of our Father is shown. There is nothing now His Son does not know, His dying and rising, formed in perfection, is now the hope of mankind. Our Jesus is alive and He knows us inside out. He will never abandon us.
And when our time comes to come into the very presence of the living God, when we kneel before the precious lamb of God , when we become one with our Lord, then we will know all that the Lord has done for us. It is an honor and a privilege to serve the Christ. I tremble at the very thought of coming into the very presence of Almighty God. We simply can't imagine, our minds are totally inadequate to realize the Glory of our Lord.
May the Lord strengthen you and fill you with His glory . The victory is already won, let us wait upon the Lord.
Well, two weeks after Daniel was born, this letter arrived back at my house. My mother informed me that this letter was not for her, but was for me. I sat down and read the letter and wept and sobbed to realize that the Almighty God of the universe had not only "sent me a letter", but that He was sharing His pain as a Father with me. Not only was He healing me at this point, but my mind snapped back to the time my older son had been very badly burned, 60% of his body, third degree burns, and I had to, as part of the treatment in hospital, hold him down in salt baths every day. He was only two years old at that time and would scream and look at me. His eye's were saying “why are you doing this to me', your supposed to be protecting me". I would have given my very life at this point to spare him from the pain and suffering. It was so traumatic, my hair started falling out. Now all these years later I was finally realizing , as much as any human being can ,the full extent of our heavenly Fathers sacrifice. Our mind cannot comprehend the pain our Father suffered. And at any point He could have stopped it, but He loved us so much He let it happen. To reject this sacrifice is what separates the saved from the unsaved. This is what we will be judged upon. Not how good we are, or how Holy we are, but have we accepted Jesus as God's Holy and only way to heaven. To be born-again means that the old Frank has given his whole life to Jesus. The old person is dead and behold, all things are new. We have become new creatures in Christ and we ever live to serve our God. Jesus says “ all who seek to gain their life shall lose it, all who lose their life for my sake shall gain everlasting life.” He also says we shall know them by their fruit, those who do the will of my Father are my disciples, and you shall know them by their love for their brothers and sisters in Christ. We must love, above all else.
Six weeks after Daniel was born, I went to the DR to check out some problems I had been having. After many tests and a lung biopsy the Doctor told me that I had a disease called Pulmonary Fibrosis (Sarcoidosis)and that it was chronic and in its third stage . They did not know where it comes from and there was no cure, but with treatment I could perhaps avoid a lung transplant. If I did not take the medicine my lungs would shrivel up and I would die.
Just after finding this out, and also trying to cope with the birth of Daniel, my wife asked me while we were lying in bed one evening "Have you ever been unfaithful to me?" Now, having been a Christian for three years, I was not one of those people who felt the need to "unburden," myself. Yet, here, in the midst of dealing with a newly born mentally handicapped child with a life threatening condition, and my own life now overshadowed by this disease, I confessed to my wife that I had been unfaithful, more than once. These were three bombshells that threatened to finally blow our marriage to pieces. Yet , by the grace of God, and Him alone, forgiveness was found that night. And even although my wife was not a believer, she had witnessed the radical change in me over the previous three years. She trusted the new Frank, what she really trusted was the Lord Jesus Christ who had changed me, we shed many tears, and before the dawn had broken, forgiveness and light shone onto this, the darkest secret of our marriage. When the enemy came in like a flood, the Lord Jesus had raised up a standard, and the standard was love and forgiveness and what the enemy had designed for our destruction, the Lord Jesus used this as a foundation that would not be shaken.
After just a few weeks of taking the steroids, that small still, beautiful, precious voice spoke into my spirit. "Frank, come away with me, I am your life, I am your stillness, I am your peace when all around you is falling apart, trust in me....trust in me." I stopped taking the pills. The world rose up against this simple act of obedience and there were many voices, so many voices but the small still voice said................"Trust in me.......trust in me."
Several weeks passed, and the many voices seemed to be right. My ability to breathe declined. It is imperative to notice that the small still voice made me no promises, my only command was to "trust." A well known man of God from the last century said this "Lord, may I be an ox on the alter or an ox in the field." None of is really know our purpose here in life, what we do know is that we have been called to bring honor to the name of Jesus, regardless of our situation.
There will be a time, or times, in every Christians life, when He will "Make you lie down in green pastures." You may think to yourself, what is so "Green Pastures," about a diagnosis of incurability or possible death. Let me tell you something brothers and sisters in Christ, when we have complete dependence upon God, even although we did not chose it(He makes you lie down) you will be in a place that is almost beyond description. The windows of heaven will open, you will hear heavenly choirs of angels, you will feel the sun on your face and it will feel so good, you will mount up with wings as eagles and soar high above the things of earth. From down through the centuries the martyr's will call out to you and the same Spirit that comforted them in their greatest trials and allowed them to sing psalms of glory, even as the flames began to consume their temporal bodies, that same Spirit will burn like a mighty furnace in your chest, and if men could look into your situation, they would say "there is one like the son of man with Him," and they would be right.
Ten weeks after coming of the pills, I heard the phone ring at 5.30 on a Monday morning. How many of us know that when the phone rings at late hours or the "wee small hours of the morning," that it is usually significant, much like a loud knock on the door in the middle of the night. This phone call would be perhaps the most significant phone call of my life. It was my mother calling from five thousand miles away. She apologized for calling so early, but she had been compelled by the Holy Spirit. She very simply stated "The Lord told me that He was going to heal you." "The Lord has instructed me to attend a certain prayer meeting this week and to pray for you and He is going to heal you." I find it significant that my mom was instructed to call and tell me beforehand. This was an act of faith, trust, obedience, this was a "stepping out,"
As she spoke, I was overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit, I fell to my knees and in my spirit I knew that I was to healed, I had no doubt whatsoever. I went for an x-ray two days later. The Doctor called me into his office, he seemed subdued. I had shared with him all those weeks before that I was putting my life in the hands of the Lord. He flicked the light of the x-ray board on and pointed to my lungs, they were completely clear. Apparently the Lord does not know the meaning of the word ,"irreversible." That was ten years ago, and, as many of my friend could testify, my lungs are in good shape :)
The Lord is so good, no matter what your situation is today, if you will trust Him, not even so much for healing, just trust Him, then you will fly where the eagles fly and you will venture into the realm of the miraculous, into the land of the dynamic, for trust is the gateway to the kingdom of God. This kingdom is here and it is now, since we have to walk through this life, let us walk together in the kingdom that was, and is, and is to come and the night will shine like the day.
His Rest
I have been to a glorious land
That is far beyond what I had planned
Beyond this world and all it’s dreams
That lies in the shadow of His Holy wings
I followed Him and we took flight
And He carried me on beyond the night
Through a Vail of darkness , pain and fear
My sweet Jesus was oh so near
Majesty , glory, praise to our King
There are no words that I can sing
That would fully express what He is to me
As He carried me across a majestic sea
Mountainous waves rose up to fight
Yet in His hand I was held so tight
Farther, farther, farther along
In an ocean of praise , and on the wings of a song
He took me to the promised land
And I lay down in the palm of His Hand
At the top of the mountain, at the bottom of the sea
In the darkest dungeon, no matter, for I am free
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In our Christian lives we will face many struggles. Some will be harder than others. One of the key elements in our Christian walk is obedience and trust in the Lord . Circumstances will come and test our faith. Some will seem insurmountable, but of course ‘We can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” In the book of Genesis, Joseph is an excellent example of how we should act in the midst of calamity and injustice. Even in the darkest moments we have to hold on to the fact that we are His, there is a purpose for things that we suffer and go through. It is in the darkest moments when the light of Christ is so sweet.
Storm
Can I walk upon this water
In the midst of this mighty sea
Surely I will stumble, surely I will drown
Oh Lord how can this be
The waves are high and the wind it howls
And the rain it lashes down
Yet you are there, I see you Lord
Now I know I shall not drown
Then the thunder roars and the lightening flashes
High above in the angry skies
Dark clouds rising, set on fire
To them do I lift my eyes
Heavier now the rain is falling
The noise so loud I cannot think
The lightening fractures the sky above
And my legs, they begin to sink
I look around , eyes wide with terror
As all this madness does unfold
I look once more, there , it’s Jesus
In the midst of the storm , standing bold
I am your peace when all hell breaks loose
Devils and demons flee
In the storm, in the night, when all breaks down
Remember , keep your eyes upon me.
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Shelter
Give me shelter from the storm
I’m so cold please keep me warm
Let me cry, cry upon
Cry upon your shoulder
Wipe these tears from upon my face
In your arms a warm embrace
Take me to that Holy place
To cry upon your shoulder
Give me strength when I am down
When there’s no-one else around
In your arms I shall be found
My head upon your shoulder
Oh sweet Jesus comfort me
For your love shall always be
I was bound but now I’m free
To cry upon your shoulder.
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This poem also belongs in this section, although I did think of this as I flew into Glasgow Airport in Scotland . My family and I returned there in 1995 for a year, to share the good news of Jesus. We took a step of faith and the Lord was so good and I was privileged to see souls won for Christ. My thinking was as we were just about to descend, hey, even although there is mostly clouds in the sky in Scotland, here I was above the clouds in a place that was perpetually blue. And just because you could not see it, did not mean that it was not there. When darkness covers our lives, it is a comforting thought to know that the Lord is always there, and that these clouds will pass.
Ever Present
Beyond every cloud I know it’s true
The sun shines bright and the sky is blue
If we only had eyes that could truly see
That despite human chains, we are surely free
So do not stand still, frozen to the ground
Let your spirit fly, in the air to be found
And when the dark clouds threaten to consume
Always remember that there’s an empty tomb
And that Jesus our Lord, reigns on high
An eternal Son, an eternal blue sky
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A Table Before Me
When all seems lost and
darkness covers your land
The man that praises God,
He’s the man that will stand
I lift up my eyes
Where does my help come from
I look out my door
And still there’s a raging storm
My help comes from the Lord
Maker of Heaven and earth
No matter how fierce the storm
My Lord I will always serve
So praise God in the day
Praise God also in the night
And you will find the strength my child
To go on in the fight
Day by day and week by week
The Lord has watched you toil
I have planted you right where you are
I have planted you in Holy soil.
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These are some poems that describe a time when I could not hear from the Lord . It was a very confusing time , yet also a learning time . My wife bought me a flying lesson for Christmas and the pilot was very informative , telling me what was required to become a fully licensed pilot. One of the most important tests was the instruments test . This was done at night when the pilot had absolutely no visual aids to help him reach his final destination . He had to rely completely on the CO-ordinates that were given to him . There are times in out life when we will not "feel' the Lords presence . And yet we have the scriptures which will be a lamp unto our feet and a reminder of God's promises , regardless of how or what we "feel". I have personally found these times the hardest times in my walk with the Lord. When a great trial comes upon us, often times we are compelled to fall into the Lord’s arms and that is a great place to be. Yet it is the times when our lives are going smoothly, just everyday living, that can be the most challenging. That is why it is so important to keep our relationship with the Lord as our number one priority.
We must remember that there are many reason for not hearing the Lord, to often in the last few years people have begun to seek the Lord in all the wrong places because of a desperate dryness and lack of communication. Many times the problem can be found by looking in the mirror, but just as many times the Lord is teaching us faith. Trying to figure out which of these it is can almost drive you mad and I have tried to capture some of my own struggles in this area. Let me assure all who read this and know the Lord, you will not wander in the desert forever. There are many “Golden calves” out there who would be worshipped, do not be fooled, your party will not be in the desert, your party will come when by obedience and patience and long-suffering, you enter into the promised land.
Take heart and know that David himself at times thought the Lord had fallen asleep on him. Perhaps some of your , “deserts,” have lasted for years, perhaps every so often you find an oasis and think the desert is over, and then only to discover you are back again. God is looking for faithful servants who will seek the giver and not the gift. Lift up your eyes and know that our Lord has seen the afflictions of His people and has not forgotten any of us. Long-suffering and despair is not something you hear much about today, but it will come against the “Body,” and we will overcome. St. John of the Cross wrote hundreds of years ago about “The dark night of the soul.” If you are going through this right now, be encouraged , there is a light at the end of your tunnel and many others are with you in this “darkness.”
Drought
Through the window of my soul
I see that the drought continues
I am walking through a dry and dusty land
And my bones are indeed growing old
I am in the midst of the hottest summer
And the humidity has sapped my soul
I look out upon the horizon of my Spirit
The is not a cloud in sight
I shall stand upon the Holy mountain
And shout out to the Lord my God
I shall dash my idols on the Rock
And declare the wondrous works of the almighty
And from beyond the mountain , a cloud appears
Thick and heavy with the rain
I am totally dependent on the Lord
And I am drenched with His life once again
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Silence In The Darkness
Only silence in the darkness
I lift my voice and cry
Has thou oh Lord forgotten me
If so, then I must die
Everyday I come before thee
And shout out to thee so loud
I offer sacrifice, my very life
And still I’m covered by a cloud
Lord how long will this continue
There is no-where left that I can go
I walk through the valley of dry bones
Where is the Spirit, in the river I must flow
Oh land of milk and honey
It seems that I have lost my way
Shall I forever wander in this desert
Let it not be oh Lord I pray
I shall come to the Rock of testing
And discover the meaning of grace
I cannot attain my own righteousness
Only the waters that flow from this place
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Fog
I cannot see the road ahead
And yet I know it’s there
I cannot always feel your presence
Yet I continue in my prayer
You will never leave me Lord
This I know is true
The storm has come and done it’s worse
Now the sky above is blue
The sun is shining , the birds are singing
The tree’s sway gently in the breeze
And once again I found out that
I’ll find you on my knee’s
Thank you Lord for your presence
It is so sweet to me
I marvel at your love and Mercy
I’m so glad that your grace is free
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Call Upon His Name
Oh precious Lord I call on you
Call upon your Holy name
Oh precious Lord send your Spirit now
Come and light your Holy flame
Oh precious Lord in times of need
When there’s no-one else around
Oh precious Lord it seems like your not there
And there’s no help to be found
Oh precious Lord , will I never learn
Whether hills or depths of seas
That I will always find you Lord
When I get upon my knees
Oh precious Lord, I call on you
And exalt your Holy name
I praise you Lord and I worship you
And I praise your Holy flame
Oh precious Lord, I call on you
Call upon your Holy name
Yesterday , today , and forever Lord
You will always be the same
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Just as surely as you entered that dark place, with faith and trust, you will endure and come out the other side. And when your faith has been tried and tested, you will walk in quiet confidence. You will have learned what is truly important. No matter what trial that would beset you, because of Him you can endure all things. The very purpose in your sufferings is the hope that carries you through. To be able to see the world for what it truly is , to see the bigger picture, to look at life through the eyes of Jesus , this is our strength.
His presence , His beauty , His Will, His Love , His plans, these are the things that the Royal Priest concerns himself with. The world will be amazed when you have contentment, despite the circumstances. In order to achieve contentment, we must check our attitude and our perspective. Once we realize why we are here and for what a short time we are here for, it will help us focus on the end result. If we can focus on Jesus and His sufferings and what He did for us, then we can overcome, just as He overcame, with contentment . If we focus on what we have and who we are in Christ Jesus, then the old Hymn is correct in saying “ Cast you eyes upon Jesus, look full into his wonderful face, and the things of this world will grow strangely dim, in the light of His Glory and Grace .”
Jesus
He is the Alpha and Omega
The beginning and the end
He is my Master and my Savior
He is the Christ and he’s my friend
When I’ve lost my way , and darkness falls
And the way ahead’s not clear
He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords
His love casteth out all fear
When I have no strength to carry on
And I call into the night
The Anointed one, The Prince of peace
Gives me grace to carry on the fight
So call Him now, He is the Lord
He’s the God that healeth thee
He loved you so, He died for you
His blood flowed from Calvary
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Lord
Love without ceasing
It has no end
Your my Lord and my Savior
My Master, my friend
I could travel to a distant planet
And I would find you there
I could sail the seven sea’s
And know that you are everywhere
The deepest depths, the Highest heights
No matter where I go
You are there in all your glory
And in your Spirit I must flow.
You are the Morning star, The rising sun
You set my heart ablaze
I can do nothing more but stand in awe
And sing of your glory and Grace
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The Candle
Oh hallelujah, who lit the candle
Oh hallelujah my Savior it be
Oh hallelujah may this candle forever
Burn gloriously and brightly deep within me
For I was a sinner, so cold and rejected
No light in my tunnel that I could see
Then the candle was lit and the darkness was vanquished
And now and forever in His arms I will be
The things of this world no longer enthrall
I’m walking and talking and living with He
The one from above, my Savior , my Jesus
He died in my place that I may be free
Though the wind is still blowing, often times howling
And the storm clouds gather to come against me
I’ll stand on the Rock, my eyes towards heaven
And the candle , yes the candle’s still burning in me
So we praise you for the candle, most Holy Father
Glorious Jesus , forever you’ll be
Higher than the heavens , enthroned in your glory
For you are the candle that burns brightly in me
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When we do come through many trials and the Lord has lifted us up, many times there is a tendency to take some of that glory that belongs to the Lord. Spiritual pride is deadly. Nothing will stop us more in our tracks than this. Satan knows all about this one and he uses it to great effect. The outcome is self-righteousness and alienation. Not only will we be alienated from the world around us, we will also burn bridges . It is no wonder that the scriptures tell us to humble ourselves in His sight and He will exalt us. It also tells us that God resists the proud. Pride is a master of deception and also a master of disguise. Often times the remedy will be very painful as the Lord humbles us and enables us to come back into His presence.
The main problem for Christians seems to be that there is no apparent neutral ground in scripture. We are either walking in humility or we are walking in its opposite, pride. This is why the Bible attaches so much importance to humility, for if in the secular world one is proud, it may not have any significant consequences for one’s life. However, Christians who fall into the trap of pride separate themselves from God. 1st Pet 5:5 “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” So we see that if we want to draw close to God, it must be in humility. In James 4:7,8 it says, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee form you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” We have already seen that we must approach God in humility, so therefore James teaches that we must resist the temptation of pride if we are to remain humble.
Paul says in Romans 12:3 “For I say, through the grace of God given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. But to think soberly as God has dealt each one a measure of Faith.”
I remember watching a documentary called “The Killing Room.” It was secretly filmed in a Chinese State orphanage. Most of the children were girls or mentally handicapped. This was due in part to cultural attitudes but more specifically the “One child policy.” The killing room is where they would leave a baby to die. Periodically, a four or five year old would go in and check the “progress” of the dying child. The eyes of the little baby girl was so distressing. It reminded me of my son’s eyes when he was treated for his burns, fear confusion and so much pain. She died and I wept with relief that her suffering was over. The older child would inform the adult when the child was dead.
This was horrifying to me and raised such contempt and anger in my Spirit. The treatment of the mentally handicapped was very rough and uncaring, they were often tied to “Potty chairs” for ten or twelve hours at a time. They had taken to rocking back and forward in a kind of madness. I have a down syndrome child and so my contempt for these state workers was great, perhaps even verging on hatred. As well as having Down Syndrome, my son also has what is called “Hirschbrungs disease” which is a disease of the bowel. Consequently, at the age of almost seven he is still not potty trained. This can be very tiring, especially when he would decide to be artistic with the contents of his diaper. One morning he was covered from head to toe in excrement. I pulled him roughly from his bedroom and pushed him into the toilet. As I angrily tried to clean him, shouting something about “I don’t know why you do this” and feeling very sorry for myself, I caught a glimpse of his scared face. In that instant, the Lord reminded me of the feelings I had felt towards those state workers. Just as I was thinking of this, Daniel reached forward and kissed me and put his arms around me and patted my back. Prideful haughty thoughts were painfully ripped from my spirit as I cried tears of humility and sorrow.
There is no one incident in my battles against pride. My striving for humility through sanctification is a lifelong concern. The more I focus on Jesus and who He is and compare myself to Him, then the easier this task is. This is a discipline and not a natural inclination. As human beings it is so tempting to compare ourselves to others, but this never produces humility. And so, as it seems to be with everything we do, we must keep our eyes firmly fixed on Jesus. This is not only the way to overcome pride and walk in humility, it is the way to overcome, period.
The Killing Room(an unknown baby girl dies in China alone)
Who cries for the children
Who cries when they weep
Her cries are lost in the darkness
How is it we can sleep
In the dark of the night
When I lay in my bed
When the light goes out
She is still in my head
An unheld child who knows no touch
The pain is intense, it is too much
Thinner now, eyes growing dim
Soon she will know the touch of Him
She lies in a room not knowing why
The pain is intense, and she has to die
At last ,at last her eyes shut tight
No more crying , no more pain , and with her wings she takes flight
And people say, if there’s a God , how can this be
But they refuse to open up and so they cannot see
That it is man’s greed, his lust for more
That continues to keep the poor man poor
Now she lies in our Saviors arm
At last free from pain and this world’s harm
So the pain must stop and the hurting cease
Only through Jesus will this world find peace.
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Humble Thyself
Hey, this is my world of pride
Don’t you know that I am dying here inside
This is a world where I am never wrong
The silence has overwhelmed me and the night has lost it’s song
I am an Island in an ocean of people
Strong and unmovable , like an old church steeple
There was a time when there were many bridges here
That time is gone, never to return I fear
And the air is filled with the smell of burning embers
One by one the bridges fall and no-one cares or even remembers
The days I walked and laughed with Him
There was a beauty, a peace that came from deep within.
And I cared for people and they cared for me
And all because of Him that hung upon that tree
Now I care no more and there’s one bridge left to burn
And I hold the match because there’s nowhere else to turn
And Satan says, burn it now
And Jesus says, listen here to me
The time has come to give this up
To come across the bridge on bended knee
And I will show you how to live
And soar with the eagles high above
The beam is gone and now I see
That His banner over me is love.
It is important never to judge yourself according to other men, this is a tactic of a self-righteous heart and draws us away from the Lord in pride and self-righteousness, we must keep our eyes upon Jesus and see how we measure up to His standard and His word, this will surely keep us humble.
There is not a book big enough to tell of all the things that the Lord has done in my life. The Lord has taken me from the slums of Scotland, to live in one of the wealthiest counties in America. Most importantly He has transformed my heart. He has sustained me through the deserts of life, humbled me when I got too big for my boots, withdrew His presence from me for various reasons. I have been a Christian for fourteen years now and can safely say that the Lord has never left me nor forsaken me. I have found out the hard way that the most important aspect of my life is my relationship with the Lord.
As Christians, we can go through anything this life can throw at us when we are walking with the Lord. If we neglect our relationship, or put other things before the Lord, if we have our priorities mixed up, then we can be in a world of trouble. When trouble strikes and we have drifted from the Lord, then there can be no greater fear. It is the lone sheep that gets picked of by the wolf. It is vital that we stay close to the shepherd. He is our guide, He protects us and keeps us from harm. He leads us to rich pastures even if it is many miles away. Often times we have to negotiate low valley’s and high mountain passes to get to where we need to go, but the shepherd knows the road, for He has walked it before. When we join the Lord’s flock, listen to Him. At all costs follow His direction, even when it makes no sense. If He says go, then you must go. The Holy Spirit will lead us and guide us into all truth, it is so important that you listen when He calls, for the consequences of doing things our own way can be severe.
Jesus is our flowing river of love. I would like to finish this book by looking at exactly who Jesus is. Of course He is known by many name and untold stories have been written about our Lord. From life and from the scriptures, this is who I have discovered Jesus to be.
There is no doubt that Jesus is God eternal. The Gospel of John, right at the start states “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) This is a clear statement of the preexistence of Christ who is the Divine Word. Throughout His life and ministry, the question would be asked over and over again, who is this man? Was He simply a “good teacher,” as the rich young ruler referred to Him? Jesus refutes that (Mk15:2). He certainly was a good teacher but He was so much more. Jesus’ life and ministry would gradually reveal who He was. Although it should have been clear from the outset of His ministry who He was, His life and ministry and His resurrection would confirm His identity.
His authority over the Temple was revealed (Mk11:15-19). His power over demons(Mk1:27, 32-34), His power over sickness and disease(Mk4:35-41), His power over the Sabbath(Mk2:23-28), and even over death itself (Mk5:21-43) was made known. All of these actions point to the fact that God had come down and was walking with men. The disciples would finally understand exactly who Jesus was, but it took some time. Near the beginning of His ministry, Jesus, on the Sabbath day, read from the Prophet Isaiah: “ The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. To proclaim liberty to the captives. And recovery of sight to the blind. To set at liberty those who are oppressed. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (ISA 61:12) He closed the book and told them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
He was pronouncing Himself the Savior, sent from God. And yet this was rejected by the people saying, “Is this not Joseph’s son” (LK4:22) There would be many times Jesus’ words and actions clearly revealed who He was, whether he was answering a question from John the Baptist, or teaching the crowd as in John 6. His person, who He was, always affirmed. Peter says, “You have the Words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”(Jn6:68-69)
Jesus was who He said He was. His disciples and followers would all come to recognize this fact. Even though Jesus would authenticate Himself through His Words and actions, His characteristics would be plainly seen as He went about the work His father had set before Him. One of Jesus’ main traits, which we as believers must develop, was His dependency on God The Father. Jesus’ life was a remarkable example of one who was not dependent on His own resources, but completely dependent on His Father in Heaven (JN5:19,20). If we are to be like Him, we must follow His example. Every work that we do, if we want to succeed, must be a work of God through us. Everything else is vanity and will not produce eternal fruit. After Jesus had fasted for forty days in the desert, it is clear that He had the power to turn the stones into loaves of bread (MT4:4). What would be the sin in that? Jesus certainly had the power and the resources to feed Himself. First of all, He would not be led by Satan in anything. Secondly and most importantly, He would rely on God the Father to feed Him. His dependency would be on His Father for all things, including His daily bread (MT4:11). This dependency would continue all the way to the cross.
Another characteristic we see in Jesus, and perhaps the most important, is obedience and submission to the Will of God. The very fact that out Lord came to earth was an act of submission and obedience. Only when we are truly submitted can we see genuine obedience like Jesus. People can be obedient for all sorts of reasons and can comply with a grudging heart and a whole range of different motives. Jesus’ motivation for obedience was His love and honor of His Father. The culmination of His submission and obedience was seen clearly at Gethsemane and ultimately the cross. For it was clearly the Will of God the Father that the Son shall come (JN3:16,17). In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus cries, “Oh My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will but as you will” (MT 26:39). This is the clearest example in scripture of the obedience and submission of Jesus to His Father. This should be the cry of all Jesus’ followers. By following in Jesus footsteps we should always seek God’s will, not our own.
Jesus was also full of compassion. In His life He suffered much abuse, hatred, torture, rejection and so on. He is well aquatinted with all of our human sufferings and many times displayed His compassion. When Jesus saw the multitudes, He had compassion for them because they were wondering in sin like lost sheep and had no shepherd who would teach them the truth (Mt9:36). And so we see that Jesus was not coldly or robotically carrying out set tasks. His combination of obedience, submission, dependency, and compassion would lead Him all the way to the cross.
Our Savior is not a dispassionate God, merely proving Himself worthy, although He did certainly do that. He is a God that knows His people intimately and hurts when they hurt. We see this clearly when His friend Lazarus dies. “Jesus wept” (Jn 11:35). How comforting to know that Jesus can mourn with us in our times of loss, when we lose a loved one. Yes we know that our saved loved ones will be in Heaven, and I am sure Jesus knew where His friend would go when He died, yet he wept with compassion for the suffering of those who were left behind. Jesus taught in “The Sermon on the Mount,” that those who mourn would be blessed and comforted. Little did the people who mourned for Lazarus realize just how, in this particular incident, Jesus planned to comfort them. It clearly says that Jesus “groaned in His Spirit and was troubled.” Again, it is comforting to know that Jesus knows every facet of human suffering and that our “High Priest,” is well able to intercede intimately on our behalf. And Lazarus was raised to the Glory of God.
Jesus was also full of passion. When He saw the state of the Temple, His Father’s house, He was filled with righteous indignation and anger. Here was the temple of the Living God, considered one of the wonders of the ancient world, transformed into a “Den of thieves.” Livestock everywhere, undoubtedly messing where they stood, creating a horrendous smell, and all for the sake of making money, money the changers could undoubtedly help you with as they ripped off unsuspecting pilgrims. This must have resembled a bizarre rather than the house of God. One can only imagine the confusion and the scene as an angry Jesus began to drive these defiler’s out of the temple, overturning the tables and crying out, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations but you have made it a den of thieves” (MT 11:17).
This part of Jesus’ character is really only seen in this passage. When we consider the characteristics of God, it would be foolish to ignore certain ones and focus on the ones we are comfortable with. Our God is a God of justice and His anger can be aroused, although slowly. When we consider all the things that Jesus had to listen to and witness, it is remarkable, and a testimony to His meekness and patience and obedience, that we do not see more displays of anger. It surely surprised His followers to see Him so upset. And yet Jesus’ character had always been uncompromising. No one would ever accuse Jesus of sugar coating anything. No matter who the person was or how important they were, Jesus spoke without fear of man. When the Pharisees plotted against Him and sent the Herodians out to test Him , He says to then plainly, “Why do you test me you Hypocrites” (Mt22:18). In Matthew 23 Jesus confront the scribes and Pharisees and exposes them as nothing more than hypocrites. These were all powerful men, leaders of the community. Jesus spoke the truth, regardless of the consequences.
Jesus was so full of love and compassion. While He healed as part of His authentication, Jesus also healed because He cared deeply about people. This care can be seen in His dealings with the lepers. They were the untouchables of Jesus’ day. Their fate was a horrifying one. Not only would they suffer horrendously and ultimately die, they were completely shunned by society. They were not allowed to enter towns and had to shout, “unclean” if they came near anyone. Often townsfolk would throw rocks at them and jeer. Perhaps one of the most touching moments in the ministry of Jesus was when a Leper shouted to Him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean” (Mt8:5). Jesus then did the unthinkable. He touched this man (how men today still desperately need a touch from Jesus). Now Jesus could have easily healed this man without touching him. All He had to do was speak the word and it would be done, for as we know the Lord has all authority, including over diseases. “Jesus put out His hand and touched him saying, I am willing, be cleansed” (Mt8:3). Jesus touched the untouchable with compassion and love and healing. Jesus has been doing that every day since then.
His compassion reached into the gutters of life. He is no respecter of persons. He will accept anyone who comes to Him just as they are. Man-made god’s have always been out of the reach of common men. A line from a famous hymn says, “If salvation was a thing that money could buy, then the rich would live and the poor would die.” Every man-made deity that has came forth from man’s imagination had no time for the poor and the afflicted and the downtrodden. The true and living God is intimately involved with people from every walk of life. Our God came and walked amongst us.
He laughed and cried, wept, He hungered and labored hard for food. He did not live in a palace, but lived amongst ordinary men. He was not robed in purple and gold. He was not carried aloft on men’s shoulders and did not ride a magnificent stallion. Our Jesus walked and suffered the heat of the day. He knew hunger and He knew thirst. He knew what it was to work very hard and undoubtedly had callused hands. His hands would not be soft and gentle like the hands of the gentile kings and men of great wealth. His did not live in an ivory castle. In fact the Son of Man had no-where to lay His head. Our God walked this earth and the words that He spoke would not be the word’s of a philosopher or men who spent their time on Mars Hill. He did not sit around all day and dazzle men with His brilliance. In every way he lived life as a man.
Yes He was the Son of God and performed mighty miracles, but He would be spared nothing, under God the Father. He lived as other men lived and knew the sufferings of the ordinary man. He had a path before Him and it was His to walk. This path had been formed before the foundations of the earth was laid. Before the stars in the heavens above were placed, Jesus’ destiny was known. He would walk this earth and be a man aquatinted with grief. His life would culminate in betrayal, mockery, abandonment and torture. The very flesh would be ripped from His back and His beard pulled out. Little men would spit in the face of the Almighty.
They would beat a crown of thorns in His head and drag Him to a hill and hang Him from a cross amongst thieves. And all that would be the easy part. He would then drink fully the cup that had been prepared for Him. All the sins of the world would be laid upon Him. And in the darkest moment of history, one that cannot be imagined, the Father turned His head and looked away. The full horror of hell , now visited upon The one who was one with the Father ,and He would suffer our punishment in our place. And in the most agonizing cry ever uttered, Jesus cried out, “My God , My God, why has thou forsaken me.” Only when one comes before God for judgment, and then cast away from His presence, will that one even begin to imagine the horror Jesus suffered for each and every one of us.
The Character of Jesus is higher than the highest heavens. His love and compassion and mercy and obedience are beyond what our feeble minds can comprehend. And since we can only compare with what we know, we can say with full assurance, and still fall pitifully short, that our Savior’s love would render the deepest ocean to but a single tear from the Masters eye. The sun that blazes brilliantly in the sky, but a spark compared to our Lord’s burning passion. The universe and all others combined, smaller than the smallest chambers of His heart. This is the God we serve; this is the Jesus of the Gospels; this is Jesus, God amongst us:
He is The Bread of Life and The True vine, He is the Good shepherd, the Light of the World, The way, the Truth and the Life, He is The Gate for the sheep, He is Yahweh and Victorious Champion, He is our Master, our Lord our King of Kings and Lord of Lords, He is the Resurrection and the Life, the Lamb of God, and He is Worthy to be praised, He is the Hope of mankind, He is Every breath that I take, He is the Mighty councilor and the Almighty, He is The Christ, My Savior, The Anointed One, The Prince of Peace, He is The Alpha and the Omega, The Beginning and the End, He is The Author and the Finisher of our faith, He is the Messiah, The Potter, The Comforter, The Conqueror, the Creator, He is the Ancient of Days, The Living Waters, He is Majestic, He is Omnipotent, The King Eternal, The Everlasting Father, The Exalted One, He is forever Faithful and True, A Father to the fatherless, He is the Fire that burns within my soul, He is my Rock and my Fortress, He is The Foundation of the world and The Fountain of Life, He is higher than the heavens and He is the God that healeth thee, He is Incorruptible, He is Infallible, He is my Keeper, The Lion of Judah, My Righteousness, My Strength, He is Merciful and He is The mighty One of Israel. He is Perfect................He is the Lord my God and He is one God. I shall love the Lord my God with all of heart. I shall praise the Lord my God with all of my soul.............Let Jesus be praised! He is all these things and so much more. But most importantly, He is alive!
I would like to take the readers of this book on a spiritual journey. It is my wish and earnest desire and prayer, that this story will glorify the Lord Jesus and bring comfort and hope to all who read it. Through poetry and stories I hope to touch the hearts of many, and bring comfort to all those who hurt, whether physically or spiritually. I have found through experience that our Lord Jesus will certainly lift up the head that hangs down, will bring hope to a hopeless situation.
I come from a small working class shipbuilding town in Scotland. It is situated on the River Clyde and the area is extraordinarily beautiful. When the sun did shine, and I admit that was not too often, it would bask our valley in magnificent warmth and splendor. The hills rise dramatically on either side and are shadowed by the mountains behind. Most often the mountains would be shrouded in mist and one could see very little of anything. It gave a very claustrophobic feeling and I always remember feeling trapped.
The river ran through the center of everything. It dominated our whole lives. From nearly every Government house, one had a magnificent view of the Firth of Clyde. It is almost three miles wide , but to a young Greenock boy, it might have well been the Atlantic. How mysterious was “the other side.”
The town of Greenock stood in stark contrast to the surrounding beauty. It was a dirty little industrial town from the Victorian area. Mostly red or gray sandstone buildings, blackened by generations of smoke that would billow from a thousand chimney pots.The slate covered roofs would glisten in the rain ,and the moon , when it appeared from behind its almost constant cover, would illuminate these roofs. Many slums still existed and most people lived in “Tenements,” high rise sandstone buildings that mostly consisted of one bedroom apartments. In a typical tenement there would be maybe fifteen families up one “close.” There was five of us in a one bedroom apartment. The three children slept in the bedroom while my mom and dad slept in the living room which was the dining room and also we would bath in the sink. My mom and dad had a bed that fit into a recess in the wall and after they got up in the morning they would simply pull a curtain over the space. Since it rained so much in Scotland, we would dry our clothes by hanging them from a line attached to two pulleys or small wheels in the ceiling.
My father had came from a working class family. His father of course ,was an alcoholic. He worked at a local distillery, making whiskey. My grandfather would steal this whiskey and it would be hidden around his apartment. When it was found, it would be poured down the sink by my grandmother who was a staunch Catholic and made a living by cleaning stairs in the tenements. I never knew my grandfather, he died at the age of 58 through his alcoholism, my father was 19.
He had left school at 14 and entered the shipyards. This was a very tough working environment where drinking was the measure of a man, that and violence. My father followed his father in the path of alcoholism.
My mother came from a working class family also. Her father also worked in the shipyards. My grandmother had given birth to ten children and collapsed and died at the age of 60, my mother being 16. My mother was advised not to marry my father, and like so many others before her, she would ignore this advice and perhaps find comfort in him.
My father “wore the pants” in our house. Like most Scottish working class women, my mother did what she was told. As long as she did, there were little problems, apart from the usual struggle to survive and pay bills. Frequently men’s wages would be drunk before they returned home on a Friday night. Often one could see anxious women waiting outside the “yards” to catch their husbands and at least get some money for food before it was lost to the bars or the Bookmakers. My mother, like many women in the sixties and seventies in Scotland, lived on the edge of her nerves, trying to put food in their children’s mouths and avoid the debtors. Silence had to be observed many times when the familiar knock on the door would come on a Friday night. The “Provvy,” woman had come to collect her money. A lot of working class and welfare families clothed their children with “Provident,” checks. Provident was a company that supplied credit to poor families. It was not cash, it was a voucher, it could only be used in stores that had the Provident sign in their windows. This carried a stigma with it, but hey, we lived in a world of stigmas.
The “agents,” would come around every Friday night to collect a payment. If you had no money to give, you kept quiet, often times with your hand over the younger children’s mouths who had no clue what was going on, they just thought we were trying to suffocate them for no particular reason, much like when your trying to give a dog a pill and force its mouth shut, the poor dog thinks its being killed, and wonders what it has done to deserve such a cruel end, then after an eternity spits out the pill anyway. Valium was a tremendous friend to a great number of women , my mother being one of them.
My story really starts when I was seven. My mother came home and announced she had found Jesus. She went out that night because my father, in a drunken fit, was screaming at something that was not there and said that "The devil wanted him." My mum, as if speaking prophetically and not even saved said "he will not have you Frank." She went out and found herself in a Salvation Army hall and she responded to an alter call.
As a Catholic boy, I knew who Jesus was, He was the Son of God. He had died on the cross, everybody knew that. One day, probably after ten thousand years in purgatory, most of us would get to see Him. In fact , Purgatory was the place to “shoot for.” No-one was good enough to say they were going to heaven, avoiding Hell was my main concern. I once heard a Priest describe Hell. He said that we were to imagine a giant metal ball, the size of the earth. Every thousand years, a dove would come by and brush its wings against the ball. When that ball was totally rubbed away by the dove’s wings, we would still be in Hell.
My mother was completely different. The smoking was gone, the valium too. My father went nuts when he heard. Although he did not really know what being “born-again” meant, he knew they were whacko’s , fanatics. And although he was a non-practicing Catholic, he firmly believed that everything outside of Catholicism was ungodly. And yet, I am sure , in the back of his mind, he knew that he was no longer in control of this woman, and that he was no longer the center of her universe.
There was no situation that was not turned to the glory of God. Many times our electricity was cut of. One time it was of for three months. And every night for three months there was a brilliant star that seem to light up our living room. I would sit and stare at "my," star. My Mom told me that the Lord had sent a star to light up the darkness of our room, I believed it. When there was no food on the table, she told us that we had to believe and that the Lord would provide, and then we would hear a letter dropping. We would rush to the door and there would be an envelope with money in it. We found out years later that a wonderful woman in Christ would often be led by Jesus to put her tithe in an envelope and drop it through our door. No name, just obedience to the Holy Spirit's leading.
As a child, I would walk down the road, and my mother would stop and talk to the "bum's." down and outs, rejected by society, foul smelling men, foul talking men, but never in front of my mother. She would tell them about Jesus, how He loved them, how He died for them. One night one of these men responded to my mothers invitation to come to church, a small Assemblies of God church. He was dressed very badly and smelled worse. As they took their seat somewhere near the back, some people moved. The man realized and began to weep, telling my mother that he was not dressed "properly." My Mom told him "don't you worry about how your dressed, Jesus doesn't care how your dressed.” Just then the men of the church came back and led this man to the front of the church and sat him down in the front aisle.
This is the Jesus that I encountered as a small boy of seven. This Jesus who looked at the worse of sinners, the rejected of "moral," society and embraced them. He reached out across the divide of decent society and said " Oh how I love you." The light of Jesus shined into the darkest corners of hell with a glorious love that cannot be comprehended by an enemy whose only design is to divide and destroy. He embraces the "untouchables," with a love that cannot be comprehended by an enemy who knows only division, strife, fear, hatred and suspicion.
After my mother came to know Jesus, our family was plunged into a world of violence and intense hatred. My mother suffered many beatings for simply loving Jesus and going to church. She suffered a broken jaw and a thousand black eyes. My father would constantly call me an idiot. I never heard my name on his lips. Often he would put a knife in my hand in drunkenness and try have me stab him, of course I would not. He would slap me on the side of the head and tell me that I "did not have it in me." Or suggest that I was gay. Oh how I longed to be loved by this man but he had my heart in his hand and was slowly squeezing the life out of it. Little did I know that Satan had planted his flag of ownership at the very core of my heart, and that this would shape me and enslave me for years to come.
THE PROCESS
My heart is shredded, it lies in pieces
Think, I must think
Here comes the hammer, it cannot miss
The blow, and now I shrink
The shrinking ends , I am no more
One chance to survive, I take it
And now I am no more
Only one choice , I thought, and I took it
And walked on through the door
The blows are coming now
But I feel a little less
Surely my heart grows stronger
Ah, but no caress
I now reside in this world of mine
And the blows keep raining down
Stronger , even stronger now
No more thinking, the sun has gone down
My heart, my heart, it is no more
It is completely encased in steel
My God, My God, Oh help me Lord
My God I cannot feel.
I look down in horror
No heart, no flesh , just bone
I look around in horror
My God, I’m all alone
Where is this place I thought I knew
It’s dark, it’s dimly lit
My God, My God, I’m almost at the bottom
Of the bottomless pit.
And in that moment, right where I was
My God He came to me
My son, my son, my son He cried
I have come to set you free.
Oh my God, Oh my Lord
Is it true, can I be free
Oh please dear Jesus, please dear God
Please don’t look on me
My son, my son, you are my son
And I will put you on the Rock
Be quiet now, be quiet son
Shh, do not talk
I have a Son, My only Son
He died upon a tree
He is My Son, He is your Lord
He’s the Rock that will set you free.
And so it was, and so it is
My Father took me in His Hand
Onward , ever upward
Out of the pit, into the Promised land
He set me on the Rock and I looked down
No longer a heart of steel
I could see and I could touch
I had flesh and I could feel
So come to the Rock, come to Christ
And He will set you free
If you will just open your eyes
He will let you see.
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This next poem is much the same, I would like to include it anyway as it gives a different angle of the same process.
SHADOWS IN THE DARKLAND
Into the shadows of the dark land
Where the roaring lion roams free
Never to return to the world of innocence
This cynical dimension has forever trapped me
For years I wandered in the twilight
Voices of the world echo unclear
This is a place of abandoned desolation
Forever ruled by shame and fear
How is it that these world’s CO-exist in time
A child in one, a slave to the other
Surviving daily in a colorless jungle
Yet sentenced forever to continually suffer
A childless child in a demanding world
Longing to return to a different time
To a place of warmth and sweet embrace
Oh to laugh again, how sublime
There were times when I thought I had found the way
I could almost feel the sun on my face
But just at that time, the lion did pounce
And I ran screaming back into that place
And so I walked on, chains pulling me down
Seemingly going nowhere
Yet I was being pulled towards an enormous pit
And I did not have the strength to care
And before I knew it I was falling
Having finally gone over the edge
I was grasping and scraping and calling out
Before I came to a stop on a ledge
I looked down and I could see the bottom
It was the bottom of the bottomless pit
I looked at myself, I was covered in slime
And I said to myself, this is it
I looked up and I could see no light
And I cried out , oh God help me
And in an instant, His Hand came down
And before I knew it I was free
I was out of the pit and standing on the Rock
I could feel the sun on my face
Never again to walk in the shadows of the Dark land
But to live forever in a continual embrace.
In these lastcouple of poems I have tried to describe the downward journey of a heart. A retreat into a place where one cannot be hurt. A flag had been planted at the very center of my heart, the very core. The flag was planted by the enemy to denote that this was now his territory. It has been said, "show me the boy when he is seven and I will show you the man." I am not sure if seven is the age, but I know that the true essence of who I was, who the Lord wanted me to be, was lost. The core of my heart was covered, it would not be truly uncovered until years after coming to Jesus. Every one of us has a core, a pool of water at the very center of the garden of our heart, the secret place. This water should flow in the rivers of life that flows from the throne of God, but inevitably it gets cut off, isolated, through sin in its many forms, whether abuse, neglect, rebellion and so on. Many times children will isolate their pool, not consciously, but in a mode of survival. Yet, inevitably, this pool will grow stagnant until it is uncovered by the light of Christ and rejoined in the rivers of life that flows from the holy throne. Have you uncovered who you truly are? Is there a secret pain that has shaped you? How does it manifest itself? Are you overweight, depressed, lacking in joy, peace and contentment. Do you have to medicate yourself? These are all the signs of a pool hidden behind a secret curtain of pain.
My first ever encounter with the living Christ was when I was twelve. This would eventually, as an adult, be the saving of me although I could never have guessed it at the time. There was a particularly violent episode in my house one evening. Now, I had witnessed a thousand acts of violence by this time by a man who was losing his battle against God. One time my father even nailed our front door shut from the inside with six inch nails to stop my mother from going to church, my sister and I lowered her out the window, quite a drop for a woman who was a quarter inch shy of five feet. What my dad did not realize, and would not until he came to Christ himself, was that my mother had discovered the power of the universe. This is the power that men had searched for down through the centuries, the answer to life itself and nothing nor anyone would every persuade her to let go of Jesus.
This night was different, I believe the enemy planned to kill my mother this night. My father had her by the back of the head and was punching her. She kept crying out that Jesus loved him but this only seemed to enrage him all the more. One minute he was laughing hysterically, the next he was crying. My sister was in the corner of the room screaming and I stood , frozen with fear, behind him. The atmosphere in the room was almost tangible, it was like the air had a substance, not that you could see, but that you could slice through. At that moment, I felt something come into me, from the very top of my head. It slowly passed down through my whole body and as it did, the fear left me until it reached my toes and there was no fear left at all.
I reached up and put my hand on my fathers shoulder. His head snapped around, he still had my mother by the hair, and I found myself looking into the blackest eyes I had ever saw. In an instant, as I stared into these eyes, I saw past them and into his soul, and there was my real father, the man that God had designed him to be, bound, chained and gagged, lying on his side. I heard myself say this to my bound and chained father "Dad, I love you." In a second I was back looking at his eyes again and I heard this voice from his mouth "I cannot argue with that." The atmosphere was gone, my father released my mother, and sat down in his chair looking shell-shocked. Now, the violence returned days later, but this encounter with the living God would help save me later in my life, for this reality could not be denied.
Of course there are stages and turning points and defining moments in everyone’s’ lives. A central defining moment in my life was meeting Angie. She was extremely pretty and walked into my life when we were both 15. I loved her the moment I saw her. She was petite with coal black hair , very slim and really different from other Greenock girls.
Her mother had married an American sailor who was based on the “other side” of the water. Many local women had married Americans, although there was a stigma to this. Most of these girls were considered to be “sluts.’ This of course was not true in most cases. What most of the girls did have in common was that they came from the “lower working class.” Growing up in Scotland, America was a dream , out of reach for most Scottish people. You could actually make something of yourself in America. Apparently it did not matter how you spoke or with what accent you spoke it with.
Angie’s mother had dared to dream and followed her sweetheart, after marrying him, back to America and small town Kansas. She was considered by her husbands family, who were wealthy, to be a gold digger and beneath him. It seems that America had a class system too, just not so defined or rigid. Angie and her two brothers were born and lived in Suburbia, a life only dreamt of by my fellow townsfolk. It was the late sixties and Angie was 7. Her father had become caught up in the New Age movement and had begun smoking pot.He decided that he had to go to California and find himself, but the family would hamper the search. So they were duly divorced and sent back to Scotland. Mom believed, even as she waited for the plane at the airport, that her husband would come and get them, but to no avail. She was a broken woman and lived in the worst of the projects on her return to Scotland. Even now it is hard for me to imagine the culture shock for the American kids. They were bullied and beaten constantly for being different, and mum chose one boyfriend after another who would treat her the way she felt.
After one beating too many, Angies’ mom suffered an aneurysm. She was in a state much like Terry Shivo. She could not walk or talk or leave the bed apart form a wheelchair. Somehow, in this state, the man that had been living with her got her pregnant. Amidst the screams of the mother, and the helplessness of the children, the baby was born premature and in the breach position in the apartment. The baby died, and mom died shortly afterwards. In order for my wife and her brothers to avoid the orphanage, they chose to stay with the last tormentor their mother had lived with, their father never came and got them
Children of the night
As the Lord looked down
On a cold winter’ night
Two children he beheld
In his merciful sight
They each cried tears
Of pain and distress
Please help me oh God
From this horrible mess
Each cried for their mother
Please release them, they said
One lay broken on the floor
The other lay dying in her bed
And the tears they cried
were caught in His Hand
Now forever united
Before God they would stand
The world wrote them off
Before they began
Yet the Lord had seen their pain
They were now in His Hand.
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ENDLESS RAIN
The wind it blew
And the rain it fell
Even when the sun shines brightly
It’s still raining in hell
The days were too short
The nights, too long
Please let the morning come
Let the birds sing their song
I looked out my window
Sweet virginal snow
Let me lie beneath the blanket
May it never go
The snow soon melts
And once again
The wind starts to howl
And it begins to rain
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At 16, we found out that Angie was pregnant. We were not as upset as we might have been. As long as we were together, everything would be OK. We both wanted desperately to escape our home lives. We would be great parents. We would love this child and never do what our parents had done. This was our chance. We were married just after our 17th Birthdays. We had no home, so we went to the Salvation Army’s shelter for battered women. They told us that we were their first ever “Honeymoon couple.” After a couple of months in there, we were given an apartment in the same place that Angie had came from. I was drinking heavily by now, which was of course normal. This was my right of passage. Oh how I admired those men who could drink endlessly and not fall over, perhaps only stopping to throw up, then returning to their business. I wanted to be just like them, and it would impress my dad of course.
The baby was born 3 months premature. The chord had been around his neck and we were told he had went possibly 6 minutes without oxygen before he could be delivered by emergency c-section. He was now on a life support machine and it was the finest opinion of the staff, that it would be better to turn of the machine, but, it was our decision. Two children stared at each other, no words spoken, then stared at this tiny 2 pound , perfectly formed child, “Whatever you think is best..........OK.” Plugs were pulled right away. “Would you like to hold the baby ,” I heard in the mist. Another defining moment had arrived. I looked at this helpless child, behind his glass cage, my heart lay there with a ridiculously large diaper on. I would not touch this child, I would not hold him, no-one would ever touch this child again, no one would touch my heart again.
My sons name was Stephen. He died almost exactly twenty four hours after he was born. I now look back and consider the irony of naming him Stephen (he was Baptized by a Catholic priest)Stephen was the first martyr of the Church and my Stephen was a martyr too. I was living a life, even at the age of sixteen, which I knew to be outside of Gods will. I had gave my heart to the Lord as a eight year old boy. Because of my circumsatnces and the years that it went on for, I gave up on God and started to live my life any way I pleased. I did everything in my power to block out the Lord and the world, including drink and sex and drugs, I had become addicted to oblivion. I had even tried to block out my sons death. If I turned around and walked away then I could leave the pain behind. My plan almost worked. Even as I sat in the hearse, with the tiny white coffin on my knees, I chose not to think about it. This would have worked but for the hearse driver driving a little to fast around a corner and I "felt," the body of my son move with the motion inside the coffin. The reality of my dead son was inescapable. My need for oblivion increased.
JERICHO IS BURNING
Why do the tears that belong to you
Fall down from upon my face
Why does your heart, so cold and blue
Refuse to move from that solitary place
It is safe but cold behind that wall
And you will never know what it is to love
To run, to leap, to stumble to fall
To soar with the eagles high above
The walls are high and thick and strong
They are built with tears and pain
I will shout and listen to the trumpet’s song
They will tumble and fall and never be again
Your heart is touched by the burning flame
It is touched by the one from above
Your heart it fades, and will never be the same
It is engulfed and consumed in the furnace of love
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Christopher was born a year and a half later. A stunningly beautiful child, peaceful and full of joy. When no-one was looking, I raised him high and dedicated him to God, even although I did not follow Him. My mother had told me that the Holy Spirit said I had “Gone into the world.” I had and I was going to survive, whatever it took. I was strong and I would not be brought down. Christopher touched at something deep within, I loved my son dearly. Perhaps...............
Angie and I walked in and Christopher was screaming. Granddad was watching him while we had gone for the groceries(and a few drinks) He was peeling what seemed like Swiss cheese from his chest. Seconds before, a full kettle of boiling water had fallen and had engulfed him.
He was 60% burned. He managed to survive the first couple of days and now the treatment. Because of a lack of resources, instead of being covered by a certain cream, he was bandaged every day, and every day the bandages had to come off. It was my job to aid the nurse in holding him down as they placed him in a bath of salt water every day for the 10,000 years of purgatory. No point in trying to explain to him the necessity of this. His eyes burned into mine as he screamed obscenities at me.
THE HUMAN SPIRIT
Oh brightest of the brightest stars
You shine out greatly in the darkest night
And all around the darkness falls
Yet you do not, you stand and fight
Time and again, wave after wave
The darkness assaults your soul
Threatening to smash to a thousand pieces
Yet you still stand tall and whole
Relentlessly the scorching fire rains down
And you are battered from every side
Weaker now, to your knees you fall
Desperately seeking for a place to hide
For one who once stood tall and strong
Now forsaken and lost and no more fight
Surrounded by darkness on every side
You must now flee into the darkest night
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A dark night had undoubtedly engulfed me. Reality was my full-time enemy. Only when drinking or taking drugs would I find any relief. Looking back, Christopher being burned propelled me towards Jesus. On the outside one would have thought the opposite. Each time I got stoned or drunk or both, I was losing myself, piece by piece. Any goodness that may have been in me was surely and steadily disappearing. I was being eaten from the inside out. I had a desperate need for oblivion, I was addicted to oblivion and whatever got me there was good enough.
I had no idea where my life was going. I moved my family to London. This was the worse year of my life. To make matters worse, the people next door were born-again Christians.
One would have to know the state of Christianity in Britain to realize just what a miracle that was. It is reckoned that only 1% of British people now attend church on a regular basis. What was the odds of moving to a house in London, with its ten million people, and moving next door to born-again Christians? We serve a big God. Often they would talk to me about the Lord. The only way I could drown out the calling of the Lord was to drink more and remain high. Every day of the year we spent in London , I got high.
I had a plan. We were going to America. This was the big one. This move would fulfill this aching and longing in my heart. Surely there I could find peace and contentment and rest for a soul that could not be satisfied. Within two weeks of arriving in America, I realized that I could not out run my problems. Life was very different, but my soul was just the same. I longed to love my wife and son. The problem was, I could not give them what I did not have. I watched other dads play with their sons, hug them, tell them they loved them and they were proud of them . So simple to many people, so beyond what I was capable of.
One day, completely out of the blue, the Lord opened my eyes. For the first time in my life, I could see clearly that I was treating my son, exactly the same way I had been treated. He was only seven, yet was already saying how useless he was. No matter what he did of course, he could not please his dad and had gave up trying. I was horrified to see my father in myself. The deepest horror though was the realization that I had no power over this. The problem had been identified, but how can a man love if he is incapable of it? Can one truly get blood from a stone? Of course not and that was my problem. The hopelessness of the situation led me to think about suicide, but since I believed in God, it was not an option for me. Finally, at the age of 26, having seemed to have lived a full life already, I found a church and submitted my life, my will, my everything, such as it was , to the Lord.
INSPIRATION
You are the inspiration of my life
When I laugh, it is because you have placed a joy deep within my soul
When I cry tears of joy and sadness
It is because you have created rivers in the desert
When I am thirsty in the place of testing
I fall upon the Rock and am engulfed
In the sweet flowing waters of life.
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I had a new heart indeed. I was alive and I could not believe how it felt. I could take my son in my arms and tell him how much I loved him. For the first time in my life I genuinely cared for my wife and son.
VICTORY
Jesus Christ, you gave me victory
Before you came, all was lost , my battle was done
Yet in the depths of my despair, your light shone as if from nowhere
And now the darkness is light and your battles won
So I lift up your name and I lift it on high
I no longer scream and I no longer cry
The battle is done, the victory’s ours
We shall stand firm, until the final hour
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JESUS
Your love is the fire in my heart
Your love is the consuming furnace of my soul
Forever my heart shall burn and glow in your majestic presence
I shall never forsake you, and from you I shall never part
You are the air that I breathe, every step that I take
Every thought , every act, every deed
You are the reason that I live, and shall forever more
There is simply nothing more that I need.
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My new life was now completely different. It took me three days to realize that I did not curse any more. The drink and drugs were gone , overnight. The real miracle was being able to take my son in my arms and tell him I loved him. To look at my wife, and see a person with feelings and needs, was all new to me. Now I walked away from arguments with Angie, and she did not like it. Before, we would go toe to toe and see who could be the nastiest, of course I would always “win,” because the one who cares least , “wins.” Now I was happy to walk away because the Lord had taken the hatred out of my heart and I could see the futility of it. My wife completly ignored my Christianity for the first couple of months, until one day she screamed at me in the kitchen "You are completely obsessed with Jesus Christ." I was so happy to hear that :) I think she thought I was going through a phase, although she did know what it meant to be sold out to Jesus as she had spent much time with my mother. She had even warned me that if I ever became a Christian she would leave me.
A couple of years passed and Angie fell pregnant at 29. I had persuaded her to come of the pill. I am not sure if it was because I wanted another child or because I thought it was wrong . One week before my youngest, who has down syndrome, was born(we had no idea there was anything wrong) I came home from church and was so full of the Lord, I sat down and wrote this letter to my mum and dad. I had no idea why I was writing this or what the content would be but the Holy Spirit urged me to write.
Dear mum and dad
A blessing to you in the name of Jesus , Jesus is the mighty king ,He is the Lion of Judah . There are many voices in this world who would say that He is weak or dead and that we are alone, that is a lie from hell itself. We serve a mighty God who has authority over kings and presidents , over nations and empires. Satan and the mighty demons tremble in the presence of Jesus. There is not a hair on your head that He does not know. The Lord Himself, in the garden of Gethsemane was tried to His very core, even His closest friends had fallen asleep on Him. And in His agony, in His despair, He cried out to His Father , “Father, take this cup from me", at that very second we see the Lords humanity, He is so able to understand our situations. Sometimes we would question ,"why Lord", but there is always a reason.
The lord cried from the cross “ my God ,my God, why has thou forsaken me", at that very point He touched man's lowest ebb, despair, hell itself. I do not know, but I imagine that this was the hardest moment for our Father as He watched His Son hang from that cross and withdraw His presence. The Father in His infinite wisdom and mercy and love for us ,sacrificed His Son , Oh the agony the Father felt, but now the perfect wisdom of our Father is shown. There is nothing now His Son does not know, His dying and rising, formed in perfection, is now the hope of mankind. Our Jesus is alive and He knows us inside out. He will never abandon us.
And when our time comes to come into the very presence of the living God, when we kneel before the precious lamb of God , when we become one with our Lord, then we will know all that the Lord has done for us. It is an honor and a privilege to serve the Christ. I tremble at the very thought of coming into the very presence of Almighty God. We simply can't imagine, our minds are totally inadequate to realize the Glory of our Lord.
May the Lord strengthen you and fill you with His glory . The victory is already won, let us wait upon the Lord.
Well, two weeks after Daniel was born, this letter arrived back at my house. My mother informed me that this letter was not for her, but was for me. I sat down and read the letter and wept and sobbed to realize that the Almighty God of the universe had not only "sent me a letter", but that He was sharing His pain as a Father with me. Not only was He healing me at this point, but my mind snapped back to the time my older son had been very badly burned, 60% of his body, third degree burns, and I had to, as part of the treatment in hospital, hold him down in salt baths every day. He was only two years old at that time and would scream and look at me. His eye's were saying “why are you doing this to me', your supposed to be protecting me". I would have given my very life at this point to spare him from the pain and suffering. It was so traumatic, my hair started falling out. Now all these years later I was finally realizing , as much as any human being can ,the full extent of our heavenly Fathers sacrifice. Our mind cannot comprehend the pain our Father suffered. And at any point He could have stopped it, but He loved us so much He let it happen. To reject this sacrifice is what separates the saved from the unsaved. This is what we will be judged upon. Not how good we are, or how Holy we are, but have we accepted Jesus as God's Holy and only way to heaven. To be born-again means that the old Frank has given his whole life to Jesus. The old person is dead and behold, all things are new. We have become new creatures in Christ and we ever live to serve our God. Jesus says “ all who seek to gain their life shall lose it, all who lose their life for my sake shall gain everlasting life.” He also says we shall know them by their fruit, those who do the will of my Father are my disciples, and you shall know them by their love for their brothers and sisters in Christ. We must love, above all else.
Six weeks after Daniel was born, I went to the DR to check out some problems I had been having. After many tests and a lung biopsy the Doctor told me that I had a disease called Pulmonary Fibrosis (Sarcoidosis)and that it was chronic and in its third stage . They did not know where it comes from and there was no cure, but with treatment I could perhaps avoid a lung transplant. If I did not take the medicine my lungs would shrivel up and I would die.
Just after finding this out, and also trying to cope with the birth of Daniel, my wife asked me while we were lying in bed one evening "Have you ever been unfaithful to me?" Now, having been a Christian for three years, I was not one of those people who felt the need to "unburden," myself. Yet, here, in the midst of dealing with a newly born mentally handicapped child with a life threatening condition, and my own life now overshadowed by this disease, I confessed to my wife that I had been unfaithful, more than once. These were three bombshells that threatened to finally blow our marriage to pieces. Yet , by the grace of God, and Him alone, forgiveness was found that night. And even although my wife was not a believer, she had witnessed the radical change in me over the previous three years. She trusted the new Frank, what she really trusted was the Lord Jesus Christ who had changed me, we shed many tears, and before the dawn had broken, forgiveness and light shone onto this, the darkest secret of our marriage. When the enemy came in like a flood, the Lord Jesus had raised up a standard, and the standard was love and forgiveness and what the enemy had designed for our destruction, the Lord Jesus used this as a foundation that would not be shaken.
After just a few weeks of taking the steroids, that small still, beautiful, precious voice spoke into my spirit. "Frank, come away with me, I am your life, I am your stillness, I am your peace when all around you is falling apart, trust in me....trust in me." I stopped taking the pills. The world rose up against this simple act of obedience and there were many voices, so many voices but the small still voice said................"Trust in me.......trust in me."
Several weeks passed, and the many voices seemed to be right. My ability to breathe declined. It is imperative to notice that the small still voice made me no promises, my only command was to "trust." A well known man of God from the last century said this "Lord, may I be an ox on the alter or an ox in the field." None of is really know our purpose here in life, what we do know is that we have been called to bring honor to the name of Jesus, regardless of our situation.
There will be a time, or times, in every Christians life, when He will "Make you lie down in green pastures." You may think to yourself, what is so "Green Pastures," about a diagnosis of incurability or possible death. Let me tell you something brothers and sisters in Christ, when we have complete dependence upon God, even although we did not chose it(He makes you lie down) you will be in a place that is almost beyond description. The windows of heaven will open, you will hear heavenly choirs of angels, you will feel the sun on your face and it will feel so good, you will mount up with wings as eagles and soar high above the things of earth. From down through the centuries the martyr's will call out to you and the same Spirit that comforted them in their greatest trials and allowed them to sing psalms of glory, even as the flames began to consume their temporal bodies, that same Spirit will burn like a mighty furnace in your chest, and if men could look into your situation, they would say "there is one like the son of man with Him," and they would be right.
Ten weeks after coming of the pills, I heard the phone ring at 5.30 on a Monday morning. How many of us know that when the phone rings at late hours or the "wee small hours of the morning," that it is usually significant, much like a loud knock on the door in the middle of the night. This phone call would be perhaps the most significant phone call of my life. It was my mother calling from five thousand miles away. She apologized for calling so early, but she had been compelled by the Holy Spirit. She very simply stated "The Lord told me that He was going to heal you." "The Lord has instructed me to attend a certain prayer meeting this week and to pray for you and He is going to heal you." I find it significant that my mom was instructed to call and tell me beforehand. This was an act of faith, trust, obedience, this was a "stepping out,"
As she spoke, I was overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit, I fell to my knees and in my spirit I knew that I was to healed, I had no doubt whatsoever. I went for an x-ray two days later. The Doctor called me into his office, he seemed subdued. I had shared with him all those weeks before that I was putting my life in the hands of the Lord. He flicked the light of the x-ray board on and pointed to my lungs, they were completely clear. Apparently the Lord does not know the meaning of the word ,"irreversible." That was ten years ago, and, as many of my friend could testify, my lungs are in good shape :)
The Lord is so good, no matter what your situation is today, if you will trust Him, not even so much for healing, just trust Him, then you will fly where the eagles fly and you will venture into the realm of the miraculous, into the land of the dynamic, for trust is the gateway to the kingdom of God. This kingdom is here and it is now, since we have to walk through this life, let us walk together in the kingdom that was, and is, and is to come and the night will shine like the day.
His Rest
I have been to a glorious land
That is far beyond what I had planned
Beyond this world and all it’s dreams
That lies in the shadow of His Holy wings
I followed Him and we took flight
And He carried me on beyond the night
Through a Vail of darkness , pain and fear
My sweet Jesus was oh so near
Majesty , glory, praise to our King
There are no words that I can sing
That would fully express what He is to me
As He carried me across a majestic sea
Mountainous waves rose up to fight
Yet in His hand I was held so tight
Farther, farther, farther along
In an ocean of praise , and on the wings of a song
He took me to the promised land
And I lay down in the palm of His Hand
At the top of the mountain, at the bottom of the sea
In the darkest dungeon, no matter, for I am free
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In our Christian lives we will face many struggles. Some will be harder than others. One of the key elements in our Christian walk is obedience and trust in the Lord . Circumstances will come and test our faith. Some will seem insurmountable, but of course ‘We can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” In the book of Genesis, Joseph is an excellent example of how we should act in the midst of calamity and injustice. Even in the darkest moments we have to hold on to the fact that we are His, there is a purpose for things that we suffer and go through. It is in the darkest moments when the light of Christ is so sweet.
Storm
Can I walk upon this water
In the midst of this mighty sea
Surely I will stumble, surely I will drown
Oh Lord how can this be
The waves are high and the wind it howls
And the rain it lashes down
Yet you are there, I see you Lord
Now I know I shall not drown
Then the thunder roars and the lightening flashes
High above in the angry skies
Dark clouds rising, set on fire
To them do I lift my eyes
Heavier now the rain is falling
The noise so loud I cannot think
The lightening fractures the sky above
And my legs, they begin to sink
I look around , eyes wide with terror
As all this madness does unfold
I look once more, there , it’s Jesus
In the midst of the storm , standing bold
I am your peace when all hell breaks loose
Devils and demons flee
In the storm, in the night, when all breaks down
Remember , keep your eyes upon me.
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Shelter
Give me shelter from the storm
I’m so cold please keep me warm
Let me cry, cry upon
Cry upon your shoulder
Wipe these tears from upon my face
In your arms a warm embrace
Take me to that Holy place
To cry upon your shoulder
Give me strength when I am down
When there’s no-one else around
In your arms I shall be found
My head upon your shoulder
Oh sweet Jesus comfort me
For your love shall always be
I was bound but now I’m free
To cry upon your shoulder.
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This poem also belongs in this section, although I did think of this as I flew into Glasgow Airport in Scotland . My family and I returned there in 1995 for a year, to share the good news of Jesus. We took a step of faith and the Lord was so good and I was privileged to see souls won for Christ. My thinking was as we were just about to descend, hey, even although there is mostly clouds in the sky in Scotland, here I was above the clouds in a place that was perpetually blue. And just because you could not see it, did not mean that it was not there. When darkness covers our lives, it is a comforting thought to know that the Lord is always there, and that these clouds will pass.
Ever Present
Beyond every cloud I know it’s true
The sun shines bright and the sky is blue
If we only had eyes that could truly see
That despite human chains, we are surely free
So do not stand still, frozen to the ground
Let your spirit fly, in the air to be found
And when the dark clouds threaten to consume
Always remember that there’s an empty tomb
And that Jesus our Lord, reigns on high
An eternal Son, an eternal blue sky
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A Table Before Me
When all seems lost and
darkness covers your land
The man that praises God,
He’s the man that will stand
I lift up my eyes
Where does my help come from
I look out my door
And still there’s a raging storm
My help comes from the Lord
Maker of Heaven and earth
No matter how fierce the storm
My Lord I will always serve
So praise God in the day
Praise God also in the night
And you will find the strength my child
To go on in the fight
Day by day and week by week
The Lord has watched you toil
I have planted you right where you are
I have planted you in Holy soil.
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These are some poems that describe a time when I could not hear from the Lord . It was a very confusing time , yet also a learning time . My wife bought me a flying lesson for Christmas and the pilot was very informative , telling me what was required to become a fully licensed pilot. One of the most important tests was the instruments test . This was done at night when the pilot had absolutely no visual aids to help him reach his final destination . He had to rely completely on the CO-ordinates that were given to him . There are times in out life when we will not "feel' the Lords presence . And yet we have the scriptures which will be a lamp unto our feet and a reminder of God's promises , regardless of how or what we "feel". I have personally found these times the hardest times in my walk with the Lord. When a great trial comes upon us, often times we are compelled to fall into the Lord’s arms and that is a great place to be. Yet it is the times when our lives are going smoothly, just everyday living, that can be the most challenging. That is why it is so important to keep our relationship with the Lord as our number one priority.
We must remember that there are many reason for not hearing the Lord, to often in the last few years people have begun to seek the Lord in all the wrong places because of a desperate dryness and lack of communication. Many times the problem can be found by looking in the mirror, but just as many times the Lord is teaching us faith. Trying to figure out which of these it is can almost drive you mad and I have tried to capture some of my own struggles in this area. Let me assure all who read this and know the Lord, you will not wander in the desert forever. There are many “Golden calves” out there who would be worshipped, do not be fooled, your party will not be in the desert, your party will come when by obedience and patience and long-suffering, you enter into the promised land.
Take heart and know that David himself at times thought the Lord had fallen asleep on him. Perhaps some of your , “deserts,” have lasted for years, perhaps every so often you find an oasis and think the desert is over, and then only to discover you are back again. God is looking for faithful servants who will seek the giver and not the gift. Lift up your eyes and know that our Lord has seen the afflictions of His people and has not forgotten any of us. Long-suffering and despair is not something you hear much about today, but it will come against the “Body,” and we will overcome. St. John of the Cross wrote hundreds of years ago about “The dark night of the soul.” If you are going through this right now, be encouraged , there is a light at the end of your tunnel and many others are with you in this “darkness.”
Drought
Through the window of my soul
I see that the drought continues
I am walking through a dry and dusty land
And my bones are indeed growing old
I am in the midst of the hottest summer
And the humidity has sapped my soul
I look out upon the horizon of my Spirit
The is not a cloud in sight
I shall stand upon the Holy mountain
And shout out to the Lord my God
I shall dash my idols on the Rock
And declare the wondrous works of the almighty
And from beyond the mountain , a cloud appears
Thick and heavy with the rain
I am totally dependent on the Lord
And I am drenched with His life once again
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Silence In The Darkness
Only silence in the darkness
I lift my voice and cry
Has thou oh Lord forgotten me
If so, then I must die
Everyday I come before thee
And shout out to thee so loud
I offer sacrifice, my very life
And still I’m covered by a cloud
Lord how long will this continue
There is no-where left that I can go
I walk through the valley of dry bones
Where is the Spirit, in the river I must flow
Oh land of milk and honey
It seems that I have lost my way
Shall I forever wander in this desert
Let it not be oh Lord I pray
I shall come to the Rock of testing
And discover the meaning of grace
I cannot attain my own righteousness
Only the waters that flow from this place
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Fog
I cannot see the road ahead
And yet I know it’s there
I cannot always feel your presence
Yet I continue in my prayer
You will never leave me Lord
This I know is true
The storm has come and done it’s worse
Now the sky above is blue
The sun is shining , the birds are singing
The tree’s sway gently in the breeze
And once again I found out that
I’ll find you on my knee’s
Thank you Lord for your presence
It is so sweet to me
I marvel at your love and Mercy
I’m so glad that your grace is free
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Call Upon His Name
Oh precious Lord I call on you
Call upon your Holy name
Oh precious Lord send your Spirit now
Come and light your Holy flame
Oh precious Lord in times of need
When there’s no-one else around
Oh precious Lord it seems like your not there
And there’s no help to be found
Oh precious Lord , will I never learn
Whether hills or depths of seas
That I will always find you Lord
When I get upon my knees
Oh precious Lord, I call on you
And exalt your Holy name
I praise you Lord and I worship you
And I praise your Holy flame
Oh precious Lord, I call on you
Call upon your Holy name
Yesterday , today , and forever Lord
You will always be the same
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Just as surely as you entered that dark place, with faith and trust, you will endure and come out the other side. And when your faith has been tried and tested, you will walk in quiet confidence. You will have learned what is truly important. No matter what trial that would beset you, because of Him you can endure all things. The very purpose in your sufferings is the hope that carries you through. To be able to see the world for what it truly is , to see the bigger picture, to look at life through the eyes of Jesus , this is our strength.
His presence , His beauty , His Will, His Love , His plans, these are the things that the Royal Priest concerns himself with. The world will be amazed when you have contentment, despite the circumstances. In order to achieve contentment, we must check our attitude and our perspective. Once we realize why we are here and for what a short time we are here for, it will help us focus on the end result. If we can focus on Jesus and His sufferings and what He did for us, then we can overcome, just as He overcame, with contentment . If we focus on what we have and who we are in Christ Jesus, then the old Hymn is correct in saying “ Cast you eyes upon Jesus, look full into his wonderful face, and the things of this world will grow strangely dim, in the light of His Glory and Grace .”
Jesus
He is the Alpha and Omega
The beginning and the end
He is my Master and my Savior
He is the Christ and he’s my friend
When I’ve lost my way , and darkness falls
And the way ahead’s not clear
He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords
His love casteth out all fear
When I have no strength to carry on
And I call into the night
The Anointed one, The Prince of peace
Gives me grace to carry on the fight
So call Him now, He is the Lord
He’s the God that healeth thee
He loved you so, He died for you
His blood flowed from Calvary
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Lord
Love without ceasing
It has no end
Your my Lord and my Savior
My Master, my friend
I could travel to a distant planet
And I would find you there
I could sail the seven sea’s
And know that you are everywhere
The deepest depths, the Highest heights
No matter where I go
You are there in all your glory
And in your Spirit I must flow.
You are the Morning star, The rising sun
You set my heart ablaze
I can do nothing more but stand in awe
And sing of your glory and Grace
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The Candle
Oh hallelujah, who lit the candle
Oh hallelujah my Savior it be
Oh hallelujah may this candle forever
Burn gloriously and brightly deep within me
For I was a sinner, so cold and rejected
No light in my tunnel that I could see
Then the candle was lit and the darkness was vanquished
And now and forever in His arms I will be
The things of this world no longer enthrall
I’m walking and talking and living with He
The one from above, my Savior , my Jesus
He died in my place that I may be free
Though the wind is still blowing, often times howling
And the storm clouds gather to come against me
I’ll stand on the Rock, my eyes towards heaven
And the candle , yes the candle’s still burning in me
So we praise you for the candle, most Holy Father
Glorious Jesus , forever you’ll be
Higher than the heavens , enthroned in your glory
For you are the candle that burns brightly in me
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When we do come through many trials and the Lord has lifted us up, many times there is a tendency to take some of that glory that belongs to the Lord. Spiritual pride is deadly. Nothing will stop us more in our tracks than this. Satan knows all about this one and he uses it to great effect. The outcome is self-righteousness and alienation. Not only will we be alienated from the world around us, we will also burn bridges . It is no wonder that the scriptures tell us to humble ourselves in His sight and He will exalt us. It also tells us that God resists the proud. Pride is a master of deception and also a master of disguise. Often times the remedy will be very painful as the Lord humbles us and enables us to come back into His presence.
The main problem for Christians seems to be that there is no apparent neutral ground in scripture. We are either walking in humility or we are walking in its opposite, pride. This is why the Bible attaches so much importance to humility, for if in the secular world one is proud, it may not have any significant consequences for one’s life. However, Christians who fall into the trap of pride separate themselves from God. 1st Pet 5:5 “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” So we see that if we want to draw close to God, it must be in humility. In James 4:7,8 it says, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee form you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” We have already seen that we must approach God in humility, so therefore James teaches that we must resist the temptation of pride if we are to remain humble.
Paul says in Romans 12:3 “For I say, through the grace of God given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. But to think soberly as God has dealt each one a measure of Faith.”
I remember watching a documentary called “The Killing Room.” It was secretly filmed in a Chinese State orphanage. Most of the children were girls or mentally handicapped. This was due in part to cultural attitudes but more specifically the “One child policy.” The killing room is where they would leave a baby to die. Periodically, a four or five year old would go in and check the “progress” of the dying child. The eyes of the little baby girl was so distressing. It reminded me of my son’s eyes when he was treated for his burns, fear confusion and so much pain. She died and I wept with relief that her suffering was over. The older child would inform the adult when the child was dead.
This was horrifying to me and raised such contempt and anger in my Spirit. The treatment of the mentally handicapped was very rough and uncaring, they were often tied to “Potty chairs” for ten or twelve hours at a time. They had taken to rocking back and forward in a kind of madness. I have a down syndrome child and so my contempt for these state workers was great, perhaps even verging on hatred. As well as having Down Syndrome, my son also has what is called “Hirschbrungs disease” which is a disease of the bowel. Consequently, at the age of almost seven he is still not potty trained. This can be very tiring, especially when he would decide to be artistic with the contents of his diaper. One morning he was covered from head to toe in excrement. I pulled him roughly from his bedroom and pushed him into the toilet. As I angrily tried to clean him, shouting something about “I don’t know why you do this” and feeling very sorry for myself, I caught a glimpse of his scared face. In that instant, the Lord reminded me of the feelings I had felt towards those state workers. Just as I was thinking of this, Daniel reached forward and kissed me and put his arms around me and patted my back. Prideful haughty thoughts were painfully ripped from my spirit as I cried tears of humility and sorrow.
There is no one incident in my battles against pride. My striving for humility through sanctification is a lifelong concern. The more I focus on Jesus and who He is and compare myself to Him, then the easier this task is. This is a discipline and not a natural inclination. As human beings it is so tempting to compare ourselves to others, but this never produces humility. And so, as it seems to be with everything we do, we must keep our eyes firmly fixed on Jesus. This is not only the way to overcome pride and walk in humility, it is the way to overcome, period.
The Killing Room(an unknown baby girl dies in China alone)
Who cries for the children
Who cries when they weep
Her cries are lost in the darkness
How is it we can sleep
In the dark of the night
When I lay in my bed
When the light goes out
She is still in my head
An unheld child who knows no touch
The pain is intense, it is too much
Thinner now, eyes growing dim
Soon she will know the touch of Him
She lies in a room not knowing why
The pain is intense, and she has to die
At last ,at last her eyes shut tight
No more crying , no more pain , and with her wings she takes flight
And people say, if there’s a God , how can this be
But they refuse to open up and so they cannot see
That it is man’s greed, his lust for more
That continues to keep the poor man poor
Now she lies in our Saviors arm
At last free from pain and this world’s harm
So the pain must stop and the hurting cease
Only through Jesus will this world find peace.
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Humble Thyself
Hey, this is my world of pride
Don’t you know that I am dying here inside
This is a world where I am never wrong
The silence has overwhelmed me and the night has lost it’s song
I am an Island in an ocean of people
Strong and unmovable , like an old church steeple
There was a time when there were many bridges here
That time is gone, never to return I fear
And the air is filled with the smell of burning embers
One by one the bridges fall and no-one cares or even remembers
The days I walked and laughed with Him
There was a beauty, a peace that came from deep within.
And I cared for people and they cared for me
And all because of Him that hung upon that tree
Now I care no more and there’s one bridge left to burn
And I hold the match because there’s nowhere else to turn
And Satan says, burn it now
And Jesus says, listen here to me
The time has come to give this up
To come across the bridge on bended knee
And I will show you how to live
And soar with the eagles high above
The beam is gone and now I see
That His banner over me is love.
It is important never to judge yourself according to other men, this is a tactic of a self-righteous heart and draws us away from the Lord in pride and self-righteousness, we must keep our eyes upon Jesus and see how we measure up to His standard and His word, this will surely keep us humble.
There is not a book big enough to tell of all the things that the Lord has done in my life. The Lord has taken me from the slums of Scotland, to live in one of the wealthiest counties in America. Most importantly He has transformed my heart. He has sustained me through the deserts of life, humbled me when I got too big for my boots, withdrew His presence from me for various reasons. I have been a Christian for fourteen years now and can safely say that the Lord has never left me nor forsaken me. I have found out the hard way that the most important aspect of my life is my relationship with the Lord.
As Christians, we can go through anything this life can throw at us when we are walking with the Lord. If we neglect our relationship, or put other things before the Lord, if we have our priorities mixed up, then we can be in a world of trouble. When trouble strikes and we have drifted from the Lord, then there can be no greater fear. It is the lone sheep that gets picked of by the wolf. It is vital that we stay close to the shepherd. He is our guide, He protects us and keeps us from harm. He leads us to rich pastures even if it is many miles away. Often times we have to negotiate low valley’s and high mountain passes to get to where we need to go, but the shepherd knows the road, for He has walked it before. When we join the Lord’s flock, listen to Him. At all costs follow His direction, even when it makes no sense. If He says go, then you must go. The Holy Spirit will lead us and guide us into all truth, it is so important that you listen when He calls, for the consequences of doing things our own way can be severe.
Jesus is our flowing river of love. I would like to finish this book by looking at exactly who Jesus is. Of course He is known by many name and untold stories have been written about our Lord. From life and from the scriptures, this is who I have discovered Jesus to be.
There is no doubt that Jesus is God eternal. The Gospel of John, right at the start states “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) This is a clear statement of the preexistence of Christ who is the Divine Word. Throughout His life and ministry, the question would be asked over and over again, who is this man? Was He simply a “good teacher,” as the rich young ruler referred to Him? Jesus refutes that (Mk15:2). He certainly was a good teacher but He was so much more. Jesus’ life and ministry would gradually reveal who He was. Although it should have been clear from the outset of His ministry who He was, His life and ministry and His resurrection would confirm His identity.
His authority over the Temple was revealed (Mk11:15-19). His power over demons(Mk1:27, 32-34), His power over sickness and disease(Mk4:35-41), His power over the Sabbath(Mk2:23-28), and even over death itself (Mk5:21-43) was made known. All of these actions point to the fact that God had come down and was walking with men. The disciples would finally understand exactly who Jesus was, but it took some time. Near the beginning of His ministry, Jesus, on the Sabbath day, read from the Prophet Isaiah: “ The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. To proclaim liberty to the captives. And recovery of sight to the blind. To set at liberty those who are oppressed. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (ISA 61:12) He closed the book and told them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
He was pronouncing Himself the Savior, sent from God. And yet this was rejected by the people saying, “Is this not Joseph’s son” (LK4:22) There would be many times Jesus’ words and actions clearly revealed who He was, whether he was answering a question from John the Baptist, or teaching the crowd as in John 6. His person, who He was, always affirmed. Peter says, “You have the Words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”(Jn6:68-69)
Jesus was who He said He was. His disciples and followers would all come to recognize this fact. Even though Jesus would authenticate Himself through His Words and actions, His characteristics would be plainly seen as He went about the work His father had set before Him. One of Jesus’ main traits, which we as believers must develop, was His dependency on God The Father. Jesus’ life was a remarkable example of one who was not dependent on His own resources, but completely dependent on His Father in Heaven (JN5:19,20). If we are to be like Him, we must follow His example. Every work that we do, if we want to succeed, must be a work of God through us. Everything else is vanity and will not produce eternal fruit. After Jesus had fasted for forty days in the desert, it is clear that He had the power to turn the stones into loaves of bread (MT4:4). What would be the sin in that? Jesus certainly had the power and the resources to feed Himself. First of all, He would not be led by Satan in anything. Secondly and most importantly, He would rely on God the Father to feed Him. His dependency would be on His Father for all things, including His daily bread (MT4:11). This dependency would continue all the way to the cross.
Another characteristic we see in Jesus, and perhaps the most important, is obedience and submission to the Will of God. The very fact that out Lord came to earth was an act of submission and obedience. Only when we are truly submitted can we see genuine obedience like Jesus. People can be obedient for all sorts of reasons and can comply with a grudging heart and a whole range of different motives. Jesus’ motivation for obedience was His love and honor of His Father. The culmination of His submission and obedience was seen clearly at Gethsemane and ultimately the cross. For it was clearly the Will of God the Father that the Son shall come (JN3:16,17). In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus cries, “Oh My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will but as you will” (MT 26:39). This is the clearest example in scripture of the obedience and submission of Jesus to His Father. This should be the cry of all Jesus’ followers. By following in Jesus footsteps we should always seek God’s will, not our own.
Jesus was also full of compassion. In His life He suffered much abuse, hatred, torture, rejection and so on. He is well aquatinted with all of our human sufferings and many times displayed His compassion. When Jesus saw the multitudes, He had compassion for them because they were wondering in sin like lost sheep and had no shepherd who would teach them the truth (Mt9:36). And so we see that Jesus was not coldly or robotically carrying out set tasks. His combination of obedience, submission, dependency, and compassion would lead Him all the way to the cross.
Our Savior is not a dispassionate God, merely proving Himself worthy, although He did certainly do that. He is a God that knows His people intimately and hurts when they hurt. We see this clearly when His friend Lazarus dies. “Jesus wept” (Jn 11:35). How comforting to know that Jesus can mourn with us in our times of loss, when we lose a loved one. Yes we know that our saved loved ones will be in Heaven, and I am sure Jesus knew where His friend would go when He died, yet he wept with compassion for the suffering of those who were left behind. Jesus taught in “The Sermon on the Mount,” that those who mourn would be blessed and comforted. Little did the people who mourned for Lazarus realize just how, in this particular incident, Jesus planned to comfort them. It clearly says that Jesus “groaned in His Spirit and was troubled.” Again, it is comforting to know that Jesus knows every facet of human suffering and that our “High Priest,” is well able to intercede intimately on our behalf. And Lazarus was raised to the Glory of God.
Jesus was also full of passion. When He saw the state of the Temple, His Father’s house, He was filled with righteous indignation and anger. Here was the temple of the Living God, considered one of the wonders of the ancient world, transformed into a “Den of thieves.” Livestock everywhere, undoubtedly messing where they stood, creating a horrendous smell, and all for the sake of making money, money the changers could undoubtedly help you with as they ripped off unsuspecting pilgrims. This must have resembled a bizarre rather than the house of God. One can only imagine the confusion and the scene as an angry Jesus began to drive these defiler’s out of the temple, overturning the tables and crying out, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations but you have made it a den of thieves” (MT 11:17).
This part of Jesus’ character is really only seen in this passage. When we consider the characteristics of God, it would be foolish to ignore certain ones and focus on the ones we are comfortable with. Our God is a God of justice and His anger can be aroused, although slowly. When we consider all the things that Jesus had to listen to and witness, it is remarkable, and a testimony to His meekness and patience and obedience, that we do not see more displays of anger. It surely surprised His followers to see Him so upset. And yet Jesus’ character had always been uncompromising. No one would ever accuse Jesus of sugar coating anything. No matter who the person was or how important they were, Jesus spoke without fear of man. When the Pharisees plotted against Him and sent the Herodians out to test Him , He says to then plainly, “Why do you test me you Hypocrites” (Mt22:18). In Matthew 23 Jesus confront the scribes and Pharisees and exposes them as nothing more than hypocrites. These were all powerful men, leaders of the community. Jesus spoke the truth, regardless of the consequences.
Jesus was so full of love and compassion. While He healed as part of His authentication, Jesus also healed because He cared deeply about people. This care can be seen in His dealings with the lepers. They were the untouchables of Jesus’ day. Their fate was a horrifying one. Not only would they suffer horrendously and ultimately die, they were completely shunned by society. They were not allowed to enter towns and had to shout, “unclean” if they came near anyone. Often townsfolk would throw rocks at them and jeer. Perhaps one of the most touching moments in the ministry of Jesus was when a Leper shouted to Him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean” (Mt8:5). Jesus then did the unthinkable. He touched this man (how men today still desperately need a touch from Jesus). Now Jesus could have easily healed this man without touching him. All He had to do was speak the word and it would be done, for as we know the Lord has all authority, including over diseases. “Jesus put out His hand and touched him saying, I am willing, be cleansed” (Mt8:3). Jesus touched the untouchable with compassion and love and healing. Jesus has been doing that every day since then.
His compassion reached into the gutters of life. He is no respecter of persons. He will accept anyone who comes to Him just as they are. Man-made god’s have always been out of the reach of common men. A line from a famous hymn says, “If salvation was a thing that money could buy, then the rich would live and the poor would die.” Every man-made deity that has came forth from man’s imagination had no time for the poor and the afflicted and the downtrodden. The true and living God is intimately involved with people from every walk of life. Our God came and walked amongst us.
He laughed and cried, wept, He hungered and labored hard for food. He did not live in a palace, but lived amongst ordinary men. He was not robed in purple and gold. He was not carried aloft on men’s shoulders and did not ride a magnificent stallion. Our Jesus walked and suffered the heat of the day. He knew hunger and He knew thirst. He knew what it was to work very hard and undoubtedly had callused hands. His hands would not be soft and gentle like the hands of the gentile kings and men of great wealth. His did not live in an ivory castle. In fact the Son of Man had no-where to lay His head. Our God walked this earth and the words that He spoke would not be the word’s of a philosopher or men who spent their time on Mars Hill. He did not sit around all day and dazzle men with His brilliance. In every way he lived life as a man.
Yes He was the Son of God and performed mighty miracles, but He would be spared nothing, under God the Father. He lived as other men lived and knew the sufferings of the ordinary man. He had a path before Him and it was His to walk. This path had been formed before the foundations of the earth was laid. Before the stars in the heavens above were placed, Jesus’ destiny was known. He would walk this earth and be a man aquatinted with grief. His life would culminate in betrayal, mockery, abandonment and torture. The very flesh would be ripped from His back and His beard pulled out. Little men would spit in the face of the Almighty.
They would beat a crown of thorns in His head and drag Him to a hill and hang Him from a cross amongst thieves. And all that would be the easy part. He would then drink fully the cup that had been prepared for Him. All the sins of the world would be laid upon Him. And in the darkest moment of history, one that cannot be imagined, the Father turned His head and looked away. The full horror of hell , now visited upon The one who was one with the Father ,and He would suffer our punishment in our place. And in the most agonizing cry ever uttered, Jesus cried out, “My God , My God, why has thou forsaken me.” Only when one comes before God for judgment, and then cast away from His presence, will that one even begin to imagine the horror Jesus suffered for each and every one of us.
The Character of Jesus is higher than the highest heavens. His love and compassion and mercy and obedience are beyond what our feeble minds can comprehend. And since we can only compare with what we know, we can say with full assurance, and still fall pitifully short, that our Savior’s love would render the deepest ocean to but a single tear from the Masters eye. The sun that blazes brilliantly in the sky, but a spark compared to our Lord’s burning passion. The universe and all others combined, smaller than the smallest chambers of His heart. This is the God we serve; this is the Jesus of the Gospels; this is Jesus, God amongst us:
He is The Bread of Life and The True vine, He is the Good shepherd, the Light of the World, The way, the Truth and the Life, He is The Gate for the sheep, He is Yahweh and Victorious Champion, He is our Master, our Lord our King of Kings and Lord of Lords, He is the Resurrection and the Life, the Lamb of God, and He is Worthy to be praised, He is the Hope of mankind, He is Every breath that I take, He is the Mighty councilor and the Almighty, He is The Christ, My Savior, The Anointed One, The Prince of Peace, He is The Alpha and the Omega, The Beginning and the End, He is The Author and the Finisher of our faith, He is the Messiah, The Potter, The Comforter, The Conqueror, the Creator, He is the Ancient of Days, The Living Waters, He is Majestic, He is Omnipotent, The King Eternal, The Everlasting Father, The Exalted One, He is forever Faithful and True, A Father to the fatherless, He is the Fire that burns within my soul, He is my Rock and my Fortress, He is The Foundation of the world and The Fountain of Life, He is higher than the heavens and He is the God that healeth thee, He is Incorruptible, He is Infallible, He is my Keeper, The Lion of Judah, My Righteousness, My Strength, He is Merciful and He is The mighty One of Israel. He is Perfect................He is the Lord my God and He is one God. I shall love the Lord my God with all of heart. I shall praise the Lord my God with all of my soul.............Let Jesus be praised! He is all these things and so much more. But most importantly, He is alive!
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