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.

Encouragement for faithful prayer

This writing is for those Brothers and Sisters who pray for our Father to help them, but do not have faith that He will listen to their prayers.

Let’s start with the understanding that you are saved and a true child of our Father. It does not matter what you have done, God is faithful to forgive even the most grisly crimes. Do you doubt me? Let’s turn back to the Old Testament and read about a young man who loved God. He loved God with his whole being and was loved in return. Yet, he like us was human. He was so human that he stole a friend’s wife. First, he lusted after her, then he took her, and got her pregnant. Afterward, this Godly man tried to cover his sin and when his plans for covering up what he had done failed, he decided the only way out was to kill his friend. So he had him murdered. Now, I do not know about you but that covers a lot of the sins we still talk about today. Lust, desire, adultery, coveting, and murder, and yet this same man is known throughout the Bible as a man who loved God. He was called a man after God’s own Heart…King David had everything his heart could desire and more. Yet, he was human just as you and I are human. God punished David for what he had done to Uriah, but our Lord also forgave him when David repented and prayed for mercy and forgiveness. Please read again the whole story in 2 Samuel 11. It helped me to understand just how far we can fall and still return to our Father once he accepts us as children.

We are children of a mighty God who loves us as His children. He has adopted us and we are heirs in His house. So, why do we now doubt that our Father will answer us? Jesus told us in Mathew 21: 22, “You can pray for anything and if you have faith, you will receive it.” I submit that we have allowed Satan to insinuate into our religious beliefs that, “God does not answer prayers anymore because we do not need him to.” I was raised very strict religiously. My first impressions of my Father was that he was like unto Zeus, sitting up in heaven with a lightning bolt ready to strike me down for even the least of sins.  And is that not so, because the writer in Proverbs states,”FEAR of the Lord is the foundation of knowledge.” Prov 1:7 or how about Prov 15:33, “Fear of the Lord teaches wisdom.” I was taught to FEAR our Father. However, I have come to understand that this is not truly FEAR but RESPECT. He is a loving Father who disciplines His children, not abuses them.  For in that same verse Prov 15:33, it goes on to say that, “humility precedes honor.” When we submit and humble ourselves to our Father, we not only honor Him but He will also honor us in return. These teachings also included a healthy dose of 2 Peter 1:3, “Jesus has the power of God, by which he has given us everything we need to live and to serve God.” So Satan turns that into thoughts of, “God has already given us everything we need in this book. Therefore, He does not answer prayers directly anymore.” That is right, if we listen to Satan, our Master has given us everything we need to live correctly and dutifully within this book. So the Master would not have to spend time answering our prayers, or intervening in our lives. For years I actually bought that description of my Father. He did not need to intervene directly because we could read how to be his obedient child just by reading this book and doing what it says. Correct? It is the user’s manual for Christian Living. What else would I need to have? Satan will work to convince you that you need nothing else. Yet, why did Jesus spend so much time in prayer? Why would Jesus tell of the coming of the Holy Spirit?

My wife explained it beautifully when she said, “In the Old Testament, God spoke directly to His people through the prophets and He interacted with them directly. Then Jesus came and we had God with us, but once Jesus left there was a new need if God was not going to be acting directly with us and that is where the Holy Spirit fills in.” The Holy Spirit is how we can communicate with our Father in a more direct manner. Prayer is what we are communicating and the Spirit is our interpreter and petitioner. The Spirit takes our prayer, communication, and translates it into a petition that our Father understands, Romans 8:27.  So why would we need the Holy Spirit if our Father did not intend to talk with and answer our prayers? Surely, not just to guide us down the correct path to heaven.  Yet, there are Christians today, I was one, who believe that our Father does not “talk” with us directly as before. Again, why do we now have the Spirit if not to facilitate this communication? Jesus tells us to, “Ask our Father for anything and if we have faith we will receive it.” Jesus continually prays himself and directs his followers to do the same. If we had no expectation of God answering these prayers, why give us directions to do so? We have become a “People of little faith.” Paul tells the Thessalonians to never stop praying, in 1 Thess 5:17.  Therefore, I believe we need to relook at the purpose of the Spirit. It is to facilitate communications between our Father and his children so that we can gain understanding of what is pleasing to our Father. The Spirit helps us to understand what we read in the Bible. He interprets for us and I believe that He communicates with us directly when we take time to sit quietly and listen.

Yet we ask for intervention in our lives and never truly believe that our Master will respond. Another manipulation by the evil one.  He will tell you that God is too busy and you are not worthy. He will say that the silence you hear means that God is not going to answer you. I know because, I bought all those lies for most of my life. And I wear the name of Christian. For example, I would pray for healing for someone at church, as we are instructed to do in James 5. Yet, I had no expectation that God would truly intervene. Why, because the same ones who taught me that God does not communicate with his children anymore also taught me that there are no longer miracles. We live and we die. The Bible says that there is a time for everything, and when it is your turn, petitioning God would not change that. Those words were never spoken so directly but those are the words that I came to understand.  Yet, Hezekiah prayed for a longer life and was granted 15 more years to his life, Isaiah 38. We are told in James 5 that if someone is sick, gather men together and pray over that brother or sister and they will be healed. I am not sure what others classify as a miracle but to me this would be a miracle. So we of little faith get together and pray, and always tell our Father we have no faith because, we always tell him to comfort the family if the sick person dies. Wait, where is the faith that our God is BIG enough to add more time to someone’s life if He chooses to? I still doubted and so would add the “caveat”. Now comes the most telling of our lack of faith…when someone is healed, we do not give God the credit. It is always the Doctor or some other reason…such as the wrong diagnosis in the first place. What? Recently, we have had members who were sick with cancers, and heart issues that were healed after we prayed for their healing. Yet, we always say, “just human error.” Wait, our Father answers a prayer for healing and we say, it was human error, or some other reason for the healing? Why? Did we not just ask? Were we not answered? Yet, I too often did not acknowledge the healing as our Father’s intervention as we asked. You see if Satan can convince us that it was our own mistake then we will never acknowledge that our Father actually does still take an active role in our lives. That our prayer is meaningless and that we have to do this on our own through struggling with the book that was given to us as a guide. Wow! I bought that whole story for years. Yet, I know that our Father truly does still intercede in our lives when asked. He does answer prayer. It is not “just human error” when a diagnosis is changed after prayer. I know this because, our Father was once petitioned by a group of men who prayed that my migraine would be taken from me. These were men of faith and believed that it would happen. It did, and I did not have another headache of any type for 3 weeks. For me, that was miraculous. I get migraines weekly or every 2 weeks. I live with headaches continually. Yet, a group of men believing that our Father still listens, showed me that we do still have open communications with our Father when we ask and believe. All we need to do is “wait upon the Lord”, in other words sit quietly and listen for the Spirit to answer. It may not happen today or tomorrow, but our Father is faithful.  So, when you pray from now on, ask your Father in heaven with faith that He will answer; then sit quietly and watch for the response. When it comes, as it will, do not be amazed or bewildered. Just give praise to our Father who hears his children’s cries for aid and gives to them in abundance. He promised to do so…and our Father is faithful.

Another Call for Sexual Puity

Our Father has given me to write this letter to again emphasize the need to abstain from sexual immorality. all throughout the Bible we are warned that God holds our sexual purity to be a priority in our christian walk. And why shouldn't it be? Paul tells us in 1 Cor 6: 15, that our body is a part of Christ's and then again in verse 19: Paul tell us that our body is a temple for the Holy Spirit, who lives within us. That is why we are told that we no longer belong to ourselves. Yet, we commit sexually immoral acts as though we were free to do whatever we choose with our physical selves.
In Jude verse 7: he warns us "not to forget about Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns, which were filled with immorality and every kind of sexual perversion. Those cities were destroyed by fire and serve as a warning of the eternal fire of God's judgment." (also discussed in Lev 18:22) Father took a more direct role in dealing with humans disobedience. Only one family survived but even the wife was punished when she disobeyed. In the written Law, Exodus 20: 14 God told his people "You must not commit Adultry." then in verse 17: He says, "You must not covet your neighbor's wife, male or female servant." Even then our Father knew that we were stiff necked and would not listen. We would not be satisfied with what we were given. We would want more. We would LUST with our eyes and allow them to fill our hearts and minds with desires until all reason left us. But our Father did not create us this way. In the beginning, he created us man and woman. He took a part of each man and created for him a perfect helpmate. His Eve. His daughter of God. This is why it is written in Genesis 2:24 that, " a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife , and the two are united into one." Our Father understood that when he made us with our free will to choose, we would also have many temptations to overcome. One of them would be the temptations of the eyes and flesh to join with others sexually. Job understood this and made a covenant with his eyes. This ensured that he never strayed from his vows to his wife and God. Paul tells the Corinthians in 1 Cor 7:2, " because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband." This is not a gender specific sin. All Father's children are tempted to some degree or another by this. Only by seeking our Father's help through prayer and praying for the Spirits guidance can we hope to overcome the temptation of the Siren's call. Remember Battle Brothers and Sisters, Father calls us to, "Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage." Heb 13:4
I pray that those who struggle with sexual immorality of any sort will turn to our Father for aid in overcoming these trials. I will attest to his strength and faithfulness in response to pleas for aid. Our God is faithful to those who seek him with a repentant heart.

A Call to Arms and Prayer

This will not be a given writing. I am writing a call to my Battle Brothers and Sisters. This is a call that I am sending out to all the Christians of this nation. To all who wear the name of Christ our Lord and Master, hear my plea, that you would join me in praying for our once great nation. We are in the midst of a Great Spiritual War for the very Soul of our Nation. With that soul goes the moral and ethical fiber that makes up our freedoms. God gave us freedom when he sent his son, Jesus, to become a man. A human being who would suffer in every way that you and I suffer. He experienced every temptation that we experience, to include lust, greed, gossip, etc. Everything! It was no coincidence that Satan showed up after Jesus had been fasting for 40 days, to temp him. He was physically weak and dilerious. Yet, even in that state Jesus, as a man, overcame his weakness and persevered. He knew the scriptures so well that he quoted them even at that most weakest of moments. Satan also quoted scriptures to him you might notice...remember he is the king of lies and the great deciever. Our King was greater! He overcame every trick that Satan threw at him to show us how to defeat him. I ask you to stand beside me now and pray that our Father in heaven will support our petition to bring this nation back onto the path of being One Nation Under God, Indivisible, With Liberty and Justice For All. For to many in this nation, these words have no meaning. Yet, there are still many citizens who remember who they are and whose they are. They remember that the founding fathers referred to the Bible when looking for a book of authority to author our Constitution. They looked to the Bible when sitting on the bench and deciding how to judge a case in a Court of Law to include the Supreme Court of our Nation. The Seperation of Church and State was not about keeping God out of the Nation but about not mandating a national religion such as had been done in France and England. We were to have Freedom to Worship by not having a mandated State Religion. Yet, we have allowed others to take away our freedoms altogether. I believe the time for silence has long past. I ask you Battle Brothers and Sisters, please stand with me and pray. Pray that God would ordain a man of faith to come forward. That we would have someone of true character such as David or Job. That we could vote for a man who would bring us back onto the path of righteousness. We need these type of men to step forward for all the congressional and senatorial seats as well. Any open Judicial seat...
God will answer in accordance to our faith...we must pray with faith and conviction that he will answer our prayers as he did for Nehemiah and Elijah. If someone does not have faith, then let them ask that God "will help their unbelief", it is nothing to be ashamed of. We all doubt from time to time. Speak it out and let the Lord bless you with faith through his answer. He has promised that if you ask, he will answer. So pray hard.

Call for Sexual Morality

To MY sons, I made you with a wild and carefree heart. A heart for challenging nature and overcoming all dangers. You have always been and will be like a wild stallion roaming the range. Running free and taking on all challengers. Proving your might and testing your strength against each other and against all my creation. For did I not give you that heart. It is like unto mine and makes me proud to watch you.
Yet, I did not create in you a simple mind. I gave to you the mind greater than that of a stallion or any other beast of this earth. I did this so that you could gain dominion over all things. You are capable of thought. You have wisdom and knowledge. You can learn. Have you not developed medicines and science. What animal has progressed like this? I tell you none. Yet, you still refuse to rise above base animal instincts and reactions in areas of your lives. No greater example of this exists than your endless appetite for sex. I would approve of it and looked upon it with favor if you had stayed faithful to your partner yet you have not. You are like a wild stallion running from one mare to another. Yet Paul told you  that this was a sin against your body, not just against your soul. For I told you from the beginning that the man and the woman were to join and to become one. When you join with another woman, you have become one with her. Did you want to be one with a whore of Babylon? Solomon warned you of these lewd women in Proverbs,yet you will not listen to wisdom. I sent plagues as a warning for abstinance, yet still you refuse to abstain. Oh, you proud and obstinate sons. How shall I gain your attention? Must I destroy the proud heart that I gave to you in the beginning? Why do you not look with favor upon the beautiful Daughters that I pulled from your body and created to be your helpmates? Yet you scorn and abandon them for Jezebels. You leave your own sons and daughters to be orphans, to chase after Delilah. Is this true servanthood? Is this the image of MANHOOD that MY SON gave to you as he DIED upon the TREE of shame for YOUR SINS?
Soon I will send another to put a bit in your mouths. Your freedoms will be gone and your pride of manhood will only be a memory. If you do not remember your VOWs to my daughters to honor and cherish them. If you do not honor the VOW that YOU made before ME, then I will know that you no longer follow my path and are my sons. I will take back the piece of My heart that I gave to you and leave you to your own destiny. Return to me now My sons. Stand before me and remember your vows. Honor them. Honor your wives and children. Live the life that I directed you to live of sexual puity with your helpmate so that the Spirit will have a place of honor inside you and can give you guidance in the path to salvation.