A Message on Giving

In this season of Giving, I was inspired to write about giving. You see I believe that we have forgotten what true giving is. So if you will indulge me, I will tell you a story that I once was told that expresses closely the truth of giving….

            It was another steamy day in the jungle. Just another day of many for the men who had been patrolling that stretch of infernal heat and mosquito’s for weeks looking for the reported hideouts of Charlie (VietCong). This was supposed to be a VC strongpoint and our platoon had been chosen to recon this sector. We had been looking for their camps and rat holes for what seemed like weeks but was really only days with minimal contact. When we were about to finish up and return back to the patrol base, Jimmy spotted it…a hole. It didn’t seem like much, just a small hole in the ground. Yet Charlie loved to use those to make his home. Someone had to go in there to take a look see. Willy was the smallest and I was next. So Sarge gave Willy the nod. He dropped his pack and the rest of his gear pulled his 45 and flashlight and started into the hole. This is the worst time, Charlie loves to set up surprises for uninvited guests. But Willy got down into the hole without triggering anything. Then he started moving into the tunnel and gunshots immediately reverberated from the opening. Sarge shouted at me to go. And I jumped in after Willy. When I rounded the first corner Willy was already dead and bullets started ripping the dirt around me. I grabbed Willy’s body and started trying to drag him back. More bullets and a burning sensation in my shoulder and then a blinding pain in my back and numbness as I could not move my lower body. I was going to die. I was yelling for help. I could not save Willy, I could not move, and I was never going to see my family again. Then Sarge was beside me. He had jumped into the hole and in the hail of enemy fire he grabbed me and shoved me out of that hole. I passed out and did not awaken until on the medivac chopper. Sarge did not make it out of the hole. He traded his life for mine that day. His gift to me.

I was a student when I heard this story by the veteran who was the recipient of that gift. It was the gift he will never forget. It was real to him because he was there and experienced it in first person. When he told that story, there was not a dry eye in the crowd as they considered the person in the wheel chair in front of them. A miracle of personal sacrifice.

Yet each of us is also a miracle of personal sacrifice. For a loving Father, did the exact same thing for each one of us. He surrendered His own Son to be brutalized by the most merciless military on the planet. The Roman soldiers were cruel to their prisoners by any standards. Then Jesus would suffer an even crueler death of pain and suffocation upon the cross. All as a human being. Not as a Deity as some contend but as human as you and me. He felt everything anyone else would feel. Hence the cry to His Father of abandonment. What truth in giving our Father and Jesus gave to us.

Yet today, each of us is challenged by this world to give to our family or to ourselves. I am not opposed to this as our Father has directed us to care for our families. However, I am challenged by my Father in that I have not given to others during this season as I know that I should have. I have not taken care of my Neighbors. I have not looked after my Fathers widows and orphans. I have not taught my own children that it is better to give than to receive. I was appalled by a video on YouTube that my children thought was funny…it was about kids having fits over not getting the gift they were happy with. One even cursed at everyone. And that was funny? Why? Is this typical of today’s morality?

I will tell another story and perhaps then it will be enough for this message…

            A young boy wanted a rifle. That was all he wanted for Christmas. But his family was not rich and in the late 1800’s it was hard to earn enough to purchase a new rifle. The father had worked hard all year but things had been really difficult with family illness and a broken plough needing to be mended. The boy would just have to wait for another season. Mom had recovered from her illness and had worked at sewing and other odd jobs to help but that just seemed to help cover the bare necessities.

            On Christmas Eve, Dad arrived home a little early and told the boy to help him. They needed to load the trailer with wood to take to the widow’s house up the lane. The boy also noted that there was a box with a new pair of shoes the size to fit the widow’s daughter’s feet. You see it was coming on to winter and they had no wood to stay warm and the child had no shoes. Dad explained to the boy that it was up to them to take care of the widow and her daughter. No one else had been able to help them this year. The boy was upset because he knew that they did not have the money for all this and his rifle but he also knew that his father was right. Once they arrived and unloaded the wood, and then gave the widow’s daughter her new shoes, both were overcome by the show of generosity. The widow offered to feed them but she barely had enough to feed herself and her daughter so they said they were late for another delivery and left. The boy now understood the TRUTH to giving. It is giving with no expectation of receiving anything in return except the knowledge that you have served another.

We have forgotten this TRUTH in our celebration of Christmas. We spend lavishly upon ourselves and our families yet forget to care for those who have no way to care for themselves. I know that in this one season if all believers came together and donated the cost of one gift for each of their family members to an orphanage or to a widow that most of our Father’s children would be cared for throughout the whole of the year without the need of governmental aid. For your edification, the boy did awaken on Christmas and find that his father had purchased him a rifle. You see like our own loving Father, his father wanted him to have good things but he wanted him to understand the value of the gifts.

Given Writing on Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit has always been a part of me. He is a part of the Great I AM. I have used my Spirit to communicate and walk among you for centuries. He is and was and will always be a part of my being. The essence of Holiness. Truth incarnate. I divined to send my Son to the earth to save you from your sins but it was My gift of My Spirit that would follow who would assist you in the achievement of my directives and commands. For it is He who resides within you and guides you. It has always been this way.

When I sent my Son to this earth as a man, he walked as a man and lived as a man. When He went to John to be baptized, and began his march toward the sacrificial alter of the cross, I sent him the Holy Spirit to infuse him with power and strength. He was the conduit through which all the miraculous signs and wonders would eventually happen. It is by my Spirit that communion was maintained between us. Even when my Son spent 40 days wondering in the desert without food. A normal man would not have survived that long without support but my Son was not alone. He had the Spirit within him to maintain him and to ensure that he could survive.

Yet today, you tell each other that the Holy Spirit is not active within you. You baptize one another in the NAME of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Yet you do not understand why you are doing this. So those of you who would learn, listen then to what I would tell you. Return to my teachings…my word, and search anew with open eyes for my Spirit truly does still reside within you. I am still active within your lives today. I do still speak to those who will listen. Yet, you have allowed men, false teachers to twist and turn the meanings of my words.

Where in my words did I say that I would leave you after baptism? I gave you the gift of the Holy Spirit for discernment and to communicate with you so that I could talk with you more clearly. Yet you have turned away from me. You no longer listen when I am talking to you. You say that it is just a voice in your head…or that he is crazy for hearing voices. Why then do you ask for me to talk with you? Why do you beseech me in prayer? Do you not call me Father? If I am your Father, why would I not answer you when you call? I tell you that you no longer are listening for me. You are the ones who have turned away. You have pushed my Spirit into a small corner of your soul and keep him closed there until you desperately NEED me. My Spirit is so quieted that it sounds no more than a tiny faint voice echoing from a distant shore in the fog of your memories. Listen to it again and it will grow louder and become clear again. Then you will understand the truth of the lies you have come to accept. I have given you everything you need to live a godly life of virtue and love toward one another and I have given you the guide to assist you in doing this, my Spirit.

Where in my words did I say that I would not heal you or give you the miracle of healing again? I gave you my Spirit, which is the same Spirit as the Spirit that came upon the Apostles and disciples of my Son. Those men and women were powerful when the Spirit came upon them, and the question is why? Was it because they were more deserving? Did the Spirit work more powerfully within them? Or is there another reason? I tell you it is faith. My Son told you that if you had but the faith of a mustard seed that you could tell this mountain to fall into the sea and it would happen. Yet still you doubt. Today, when you pray, you ask me to heal but you have no faith that I will do so. Why? Did I not heal Hezekiah? Where will you turn for a miracle of healing if not to me? Am I the Great I AM or do you not have faith in me? In my word I tell you to gather a group of believing men together to pray over the sick anointing him with oil and he will be healed. Do I lie? Test me in this.

Prayer is a gift of my Spirit. He intercedes for you. He communicates your words and desires for you. And he will give you my answers when I tell him. So when you pray, pray with confidence and knowledge that my Spirit is with you, helping you to ensure that what you are saying is said so that all your needs and cares are placed before me. I am your Father and I will always be your Father. I have told you to ask and it shall be given, seek and you shall find, knock and it will be opened for you. The way for this to occur is through the knowledge and wisdom imparted by the Holy Spirit. He is a gift. Do not abuse or neglect this gift as it is singly one of the most precious gifts you will have ever received.

Spiritually weak lately

I apologize for not blogging lately. for the past 2-3 weeks I have been under extreme 'stress' due to outside issues and distractions. I have not been feeling particularly connected to my Father and so have not responded well to His urgings to write. I admit that I did write a given message approximately 2 weeks ago...and when I attempted to post it, it immediately disappeared. Father gave me a message on the Spirit which I penned and when I attempted to post it...it went into cyber space and was lost. I have asked for Him to give it back to me so that I may pen it again and have been given bits and pieces of it but not the whole thing. I will attempt to piece the message together again as it was truly important for us to have as most of us, myself included, do not truly listen to the Spirit within.

Please do not give up on me. I will get back to writing faithfully.