Posted in NetMail on November 30, 2020|
Allison and I just read (and listened to Damien’s fine narration of) The Way of Grace tract.
We were reminded of a phrase we heard a while ago from a Christian radio minister, and thought it apt.
“Grace is when God gives us what we don’t deserve.
Mercy is when God doesn’t give us what we do deserve.”
A very profound way of putting it, don’t you think?
Brad
Posted in NetMail on November 27, 2020|
Good morning,
I really loved the reading from your book on slander. Sometimes, it’s not about the words on the page as much as the feelings from the words on the page. I loved what I felt when we were reading those pages.
So many things stood out to me. The second paragraph on page 2 really packed a punch! (But the whole top half of page 2 is so good)! You wrote:
“The holy Spirit is God’s answer to everything human. It is the answer to all that is wrong with you and all that you think is right with you. The Spirit of God was not sent to us to take sides; it was sent to take over – completely! And all the options that Christianity provides to walking in the Spirit are slanderous lies against the One who sent it. That is why God’s children around the globe keep hearing a “still, small voice” whisper in their ear, “Come out of her, my people.” God is not calling His children out of the world; they are already out of the world. He is calling them out of the institutionalized slander they have joined, and into his pure, eternal life.”
That is so true! The holy Ghost is the answer to everything! Yet, slander against the One who sent the holy Ghost has tried to convince us that we don’t even need it! As a matter of fact, in all my years in Christianity, I never once heard that there was such a thing as being baptized with the holy Ghost! Many of us sat in congregations for years and were offered any and everything besides the joy and peace of being filled with the Holy Ghost and walking in that! We were told that baptism with water was the One baptism and that was all we needed. We were told that if we repeated a few scriptures and accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, then we were saved and not to dare let anyone make us doubt that! We were told that when we drank a little cup of grape juice and ate a small, dry cracker that we were having communion with the Father! We were told not to go by our feelings. We were taught that the Bible was the word of God! We were taught that the Father and His Son were part of a divine trinity wherein they were separate and they were one, all at the same time. It was total confusion! And it was all lies. It really was institutionalized slander! Slander that was intended to come between us and our Father! Those rituals and doctrines only served one purpose, and that was to take the place of the real relationship we can have with Jesus through the holy Ghost. The holy Ghost is everything! If that’s left out, then Jesus can be nothing more to us than an unattainable being who lives far away in the sky.
What if we had been satisfied with calling the crackers and grape juice our communion with Jesus? What if we had believed that sprinkling some water on a baby’s head or dunking someone in a dirty river was the One baptism that Paul talked about in Ephesians? What if we had remained in those pews for all those years like dead men walking?
But so many of us felt that there must be more to Jesus than the dead rituals and doctrines we were experiencing in Christianity. And with a sincere heart, we took this simple thought to Jesus, “There has to be more to You than this”. And little did we know that Jesus was just waiting for us to come to Him with that thought! By being open and sincere with Jesus, He was able to show us (through His Spirit), that there really is so much more to Him than the dead rituals and false doctrines of Christianity. He gave us the truth by leading us to a place where we could be fed good, clean food that leads to “pure, eternal life”.
Thank you for feeding us more good, clean food through this writing! I know it has taken hours and hours to get it all down, but I’m hoping a sincere heart who is still inside those walls of institutionalized slander will read these pages, and then feel free to go to Jesus with the questions he’s had in his heart. He’s waiting…
I’m looking forward to reading the next section (or rereading this one)!
Lee Ann
Posted in NetMail on November 18, 2020|
You know, today we watched the Sunday teaching again for the 3rd time. We just can’t get enough! Since I’m feeling better now, we rejoiced and prayed through, especially Darren’s final song, which we repeated again and again…. I felt a spirit of soaring, like I was a bird, flying freely, gliding through the sky. Glorious! Amazing! Such a blessing. Such gratefulness to read along with your notes, PJ, and listen to the deep meaning of each section.
This grounded us. This set us free from so many things that have been hindering us in the flesh. Jesus is worthy to be worshipped and glorified in the Spirit by His people, not merely worshipped in “form” or rituals. Absurd! Made me hate that religion even more, with a righteous indignation! What an amazingly successful lie on the public! So many souls lost in that mess!
The feelings of soaring and flying along the California coast to Darren’s liberating song were far more rewarding than any church ceremony could ever be. Makes me want to live only to please Him, and let go of my fleshly ambitions in every corner of my life, if they can’t honor Jesus in some way.
Brad
Posted in NetMail on November 15, 2020|
Hey John,
Thank you for this morning! What a blessing it is for Jesus to let us understand the things you talked about this morning, like what God’s kingdom is and why we don’t have to pray for it to come any longer. And that the prayer for God’s will to be done down here as it was in heaven at that time is something that actually happened, when Satan was cast out and is now down here. And, wow, what a way to bring it to an end with Darren’s amazing song!
Jesus is still talking to us, and teaching us that he really was our example of living in this world with the holy ghost dwelling in us. And it comes with the whole package – the joy and the persecution, if we are following Jesus. God help us to live worthy of those things.
Vince
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Hi, Pastor John!
I was lying awake and couldn’t sleep, thinking about the things we were taught and the feelings of the Spirit from Sunday’s Mathew reading. Tom’ song was timeless! Truth is truth in a song if it was sung yesterday or fresh today. It brought back sweet feelings of singing with him over the years. I do believe Donna’s voice is getting sweeter over the years. Her voice and the feelings in her song today, soothed my heart like balm. What a way to start the morning.
The first few plucks that Darren played on his guitar melted my heart instantly! Aaron, saw me and handed my tissues; I knew and I guess Aaron knew what was coming in Darren’s song. I was praying, “this has the most familiar feelings . . .I have felt this before”. It had the same feelings in the song as, Rest Oh My Child, when you played it for the first time at my kitchen table in 2001. The Spirit spoke to me then at my table, “I got you”. Today, while listening to Darren’s song I heard softly again, “I still got you”. I had to hide my face from what I was hearing and feeling and let it soak in as deep as it would go.
Stuart’s testimony touched me greatly. He may not know this, but a lot of us were in the tree stand with him. It was an honor to be in the same room (and tree) with Stuart. I could take in and felt the feelings with which Stuart was testifying about. They were truly special.
Listening to your sermon and teaching today was meat for my soul!. The message concerning, “On Earth as it is in Heaven”, was amazing to me. I never heard it before like that–It was new and fresh, and made me hungry for more. It’s like eating a meal that was cooked perfectly, looked appetizing, and cooked at the right temperature. And when you put the fork in your mouth, you knew from the first bite that it was going to be a good meal. It was so satisfying. Thank you, Jesus!
As we were leaving to go home after the meeting, I don’t think I ever felt so honored, humbled, and grateful as I was today for what we had from Jesus’ table. Sometimes, it takes faith to believe that God really truly loves us. I’m sitting here in awe just thinking about it all. The love we felt for Jesus and each other is a gift to and from Jesus. It is what he died for so that we can experience what the Father & Son have for each other, and now for His body. True love is when it flows out and it is returned. That is what we had today.
Thank you to everybody! And thank you Pastor John, I am still full.
Billy M.
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Pastor John,
I just wanted to say hey, and say I have thinking about what you preached yesterday. It was out of this world GOOD to Me! Things I have never heard before! My sincere hope is that everyone, including me, is taking it all in.
I feel like Jesus is taking us somewhere we have never been before! It’s so exciting!! I LOVE it. I LOVE it!!
Jimmy T
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Me:
If Jesus is trying to take us somewhere, God give us the humility to go with him! I want it!
Pastor John
Posted in NetMail on November 8, 2020|
John,
Debbie and I just listened again to the preaching from this morning. It is the best I have heard in a good while. Really good on repenting and confessing of the power of the HOLY GHOST, and TRUTH!! 
Jimmy T.
*See Post: Notes from Today’s Reading, Nov. 8, 2020
Posted in NetMail on November 8, 2020|
Thank you for the notes on Matthew 6, John.
Eighth Meeting
Sunday, November 8, 2020
The Sermon on the Mount Continued
Matthew 6
¶1. “Beware not to do your alms before men, to be seen by them; otherwise, you have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
* Jesus did not say (v. 1), “Do not do alms.” Nor did he only say, “Do not do your alms before men.”
* What he said was (v. 1), “Do not do your alms before men to be seen by them,” that is, do not do good things for the purpose of winning men’s admiration.
2a. So, whenever you give alms, don’t sound a trumpet before you the way the hypocrites do in the synagogues and streets so that they might be honored by men.
* The word “hypocrite” means “actor”. The Greeks had been using that word for centuries, so it was nothing new to Jesus’ disciples.
* But the disciples were probably puzzled as to what Jesus was getting at by calling those very devout men “actors” because everybody under the law of Moses was an actor. They had no choice. Everybody who kept God’s law was only doing and saying what the law commanded Israel to do and say.
* This is why the word “hypocrite” is not found in the Hebrew Old Testament books, nor the word “actor”, or even the word “pretend”. To act as the law of Moses demanded was all that Old Testament saints could do.
* When Moses built the tabernacle at Mount Sinai that God told him to build, he was only building a stage for the high priest to act on.
The high priest didn’t know it, but when he made intercession to God for Israel he was pretending to be Jesus. He was acting out what the Son of God would really do when he came. And God accepted that act at that time.
When Israel slaughtered the Passover lamb, they didn’t know it, but they were acting out what some of them who despised him would really do to the Lamb of God when he came.
And when Israel ate the flesh of that Passover lamb, they didn’t know it, but they were acting act what some of them who believed would really do after Lamb of God suffered and died for them. Paul said,
1Corinthians 5
7b. Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us,
* This is what Jesus was hinting at when he said this:
John 6
53b. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
. . . .
* Jesus lost a lot of disciples when he said that. They thought he was trying to add another act for them to perform of eating his human flesh and drinking his human blood. But he wasn’t talking about pretending to eat his flesh and blood, but to really eat his flesh and blood.
John 6
. . . .
. . . .
* We’re not acting when we eat and drink in Christ. It’s the real thing! It is life.
1Corinthians 12
* And.…
1Corinthians 10
* Now, spiritually, an actor is someone who plays a religious role, someone who says the words he is expected to say and does the deeds he is expected to do, and some people are excellent at it
* Uncle Joe never was good at saying or doing the expected thing. And he always struggled with that. He wanted to say and do what good Christians expected of him, but he was too alive in the holy Ghost to do it. It was a great relief to him to learned that Christianity is not of God, and that he did not have to conform to Christians, but Christians needed to conform to him and walk with him in the Spirit.
* Nothing an actor says or does is spontaneous; nothing is from the heart. * No ceremony is alive. They are all scripted; they are all pretend!
* This is another aspect on the greatest lesson of the New Testament; there is no ceremony, no acting, in the righteousness of God.
2b. Truly, I tell you, they have their reward.
* Every actor performs his act in hope of receiving some kind of reward. The actors Jesus was talking about wanted the reward of men’s admiration, and Jesus said that they had it. They were being paid for their acting ability, not with money, but with the being praise of men.
* Someone may ask, “What if the actor’s hope is to be rewarded by God for his ceremonial worship? The answer is that in this covenant of life, God does not accept ceremonial worship because it does not honor the sacrifice of His Son!
* Paul counted all his acting ability, every ceremony and holy day, every title and position, every tradition of the elders, as dung, just to know Christ.
* The son of God said he came to bring us life (Jn. 10:10), and Paul said that the Spirit is life.
Romans 8
10b. The Spirit is life . . .,
* No ceremony is going to raise you from the dead.
* Jesus was made God’s real “high priest by the power of an endless life”. He really preached by that same power, and he was really raised from the dead by that power. The whole kingdom of God, Paul said, “is in power” (1Cor. 4:20). And to practice ceremonies now is to pretend that the Son of God has not come to see us free from them.
* You cannot add a ceremony without adding strife. Quarrels about when, who, where, and how often the ceremony should be performed will always arise. When a woman in Samaria wanted to quarrel with Jesus about the right place to perform acts of worship,
John 4
* The Son of God was sent here to earth to pay the price for it, and he paid it, and that sacrifice is precious to God, and to everyone who knows Him.
* But Jesus also encouraged us earlier in this same sermon to do good deeds that people can see:
Matthew 5
* So, how can we know when to obey what Jesus said in Matthew 5:16 and when to obey what he said in Matthew 6:3?
* This is just one example of the conundrums that arise whenever men try to live by a set of rules. Life is too complicated for any set of rules to be able to cover every situation we face.
* Another example of such a conundrum is the occasional conflict that existed in Israel between keeping God’s commandment to do no work on the Sabbath and God’s commandment to circumcise male children on the eighth day after birth. Any male infant not circumcised on the eighth day was cut off from Israel:
Genesis 17 (God to Abraham)
. . .
* Anyone who did work on the Sabbath was cut off from Israel:
Exodus 31
* But what if the eighth day after the birth of a son fell on a Sabbath day?
* The right thing to do was to go ahead and break the Sabbath and circumcise the child, and God let the elders of Israel feel that was acceptable. The need to circumcise trumped the prohibition of doing work on the Sabbath day.
* Jesus pointed this out to those who criticized him for healing on the Sabbath day:
John 7
* But without God’s help, no one can know which commandment to choose to keep when there is a conflict.
* That is why God sent His Son, to help us know what to do by putting God’s law within us so that we can feel God’s will (which is His law) in every situation. * The Spirit can be with us in every situation, everywhere we go, and let us know what is right in God’s eyes.
¶5. “And when you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites, for they like standing up to pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly, I tell you, they have their reward.
* Prayer in this covenant, being part of worship, must be “in spirit and in truth”. It must be inspired “by the power of an endless life”.
* To read a prescribed prayer from a piece of paper, to repeat a traditional prayer (e.g., “the Lord’s prayer” or the rosary) is a useless ritual, a dead religious work. * It wasn’t always like that, though. Before the Son came, dead ceremonial acts
were all man had, and the dead ceremonies that God gave Israel were glorious because, unknown to Israel, they were acts that foretold of God’s Son.
* That is how glorious the Son is. Even the shadows of his coming were holy.
2Corinthians 3
¶9. “So then, you pray like this:
* First, this is not “the Lord’s prayer”. The Bible never calls it that; Christians do. This is the disciples’ prayer. Jesus told them to pray it.
* Second, telling his disciples what they should pray is the best Jesus could do for them as until after he died, for until the day of Pentecost, they didn’t yet have “the power of an endless life” to inspire their prayers.
* Lastly, Jesus said only that they should pray “like this”. They did not have to use these specific words. Jesus was not giving them another ceremony to perform.
9b. ‘Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name.
* BREAKDOWN OF THE DISCIPLES’ PRAYER: “Our Father who is in heaven”
* The first thing a Jew with a right heart would do is to confess his (and Israel’s) exclusive relationship with God. This was not a claim; this was a confession of God’s love for Israel.
* No Gentile could call God his Father, and it be true.
* Nehemiah confessed, like Jesus with the Samaritan woman, his and Israel’s exclusive relationship with God when he told the scoffing Gentiles, “You have no portion, or righteousness, or memorial in Jerusalem.”
Nehemiah 2
* God humbled His people to confess His exclusive relationship with Israel.
Amos 3
1a. Hear this word which Jehovah has spoken about you, O children of Israel … 2a. “Of all the families of the earth, I have known only you.”
* God only asked Israel to humble themselves to do the same.
* For Jews at that time, to confess that God is “our Father” was to testify that God was not the Father of those who outside of Israel – though the door was open for any Gentile on earth to submit to the law and be numbered among God’s people.
NOTE!
* It was Israel’s failure to confess their exclusive relationship with God that caused all their greatest problems. Only a few in Israel’s history were like Nehemiah. And every serious problem Israel ever faced stemmed from that one failure.
* If you have the holy Ghost, you have an exclusive relationship with God. * God humbled Himself greatly confessed you when that relationship began. His Spirit cried out through you, declaring Him to be your Father.
Romans 8
15b. You received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry out, “Abba!” (that is, “Father!”) 16. The Spirit itself bears witness, together with our spirit, that we are children of God.
* Now, our part is to confess our exclusive relationship with God before men. If we do that at the right time and in the right spirit, people will hear the Spirit of God say, even if we do not, “You have no portion, or righteousness, or memorial in the body of Christ.”
* Some will hate us for that, as if it is our doing and our plan, but God’s lost sheep will not. It will be the sound they have been waiting to hear.
* It is our purpose on earth to “confess Christ”. Jesus said,
Matthew 10
* To be a part of God’s family is such as great honor that one would think that confessing it would be an easy and exciting thing to do. But in this world, there is constant and great pressure against it.
* Confessing the truth of Christ is to confess that HE is the only way to God, the only truth about God, and the only life that comes from God.
* Men will approve of you if you tell them, “My personal way to God is through Jesus.” But you do not have a personal way to God. Christ is the way to God, the only way, and we confess him truly only when we confess that.
* When we confess that Jesus is THE way (not a way), we are testifying to others that they don’t have a personal way to God, either.
* To confess Christ truthfully to confess that those with the Spirit belong to the only family God has and that He is THEIR Father and nobody else’s, though the door is open for any sinner on earth to submit to Christ and become a child of God.
* In other words, to confess Christ before men is to testify to them, “Without the Spirit of God, you have no portion, or righteousness, or memorial in the body of Christ.”
* Isn’t that what Paul said?
Romans 8
9b. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.” * To confess Christ is to testify, as Peter did, that
Or, “confesses in me”, or “by me”. Also, Luke 12:8. 26
Acts 4
* Confessing Christ truthfully is the real reason Paul was so hated, and it is the real reason that I and some of you have been so hated.
* And the failure to do that is the real reason some others are not so hated. * It is also the root of every problem the body of Christ has ever had in this world. * It is also the root of whatever problem you have in this world.
* Hear this! Every circumstance on this earth is determined by God based on His relationship with His people. Every circumstance on earth in ancient time was dependent on God’s relationship with His people. God shaped world history based on what His people needed, ands He is still shaping history based on what His people need. Stay out of politics and stay out of God’s way before He runs you over. He is doing the right thing! Whatever God is doing, He has something wonderful in mind for His children, and they will get to it if they do not get in His way, “thinking to do God service”.
* If you will live in “the power of an endless life”, if you will serve God “in spirit and in truth”, the only problems you will have will be somebody else’s, not yours,a nd you’ll be able to help them.
* To confess Christ is to testify that the only thing that we did, and the only thing that can be done, to enter the kingdom of God’s is repent and be baptized with His Spirit, which God gives in the name of His Son to every soul who obeys Him! * Peter and the other apostles paid the price for confessing Christ like that:
Acts 5
* If we confess Christ as Peter did, it may be that we suffer as he did, if that is God’s plan for us, but then, as Paul said,
Romans 8
* May God give us the love of Christ that produces the boldness to confess him before men.
GoingtoJesus.com – PastorJohnsHouse.com – SongsofRest.com – isaiah58.com – PioneerTract.com
Posted in NetMail on November 8, 2020|
Pastor John,
I woke up last night at 2:30, and as I lay there I felt to pray for President Trump and his family and this country. As soon as I finished, I heard a voice say, “The axe is laid to the tree.” It was a stern and sober voice. It made me feel like the process has now really officially started for God to destroy this country. It made me feel humble and prayerful.
Betty P.
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Yes. We are just waiting for God to send an anointed man to pick up the axe and start swinging it. Let’s stay under God’s wing!
Pastor John
Posted in NetMail on November 8, 2020|
Pastor John,
Brad and I listened to Amy’s testimony again about not having headaches anymore and I realized I no longer have an old affliction as well – the attachment to my old identity as a black woman. Praise God!
Watching my worldly Facebook friends celebrate the election of Biden, and with him Kamala Harris, I was detached from all their emotions. The memory of how I felt when Obama was elected for his 1st term came back to me. Then, my feelings were just like how my Facebook friends are feeling now. I remembered shedding tears of joy for having a black man elected president and having a heart filled with hope that he would change society. Many people are now feeling that same way about Kamala.
That memory was just that… a memory. Jesus and his Holy Ghost have removed that identification and false hope and replaced it with His wisdom of knowing it’s all a bunch of worthless junk. It’s all vanity! I will pray for the president and vice president as I would for anyone in that position. No more. No less. No attachment. Thank you Jesus for healing me of that disease.
Another layer, and what may be my thickest layer, has been peeled by the grace of God! Praise God! Thank you Jesus!
Allison
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Beautiful testimony, Allison!
Paul said that in Christ, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). We could add to that, “there is neither black nor white.”
Men are striving all the time to “be equal” or “demand their rights”, but without Christ, there are no rights, only wrongs. And Jesus alone can give people true peace and “the same love” for one another.
Thank you so much for that testimony! And may God have mercy on and protect whoever He chooses to curse with the office of President of this debauched country!
Pastor John
Posted in NetMail on November 7, 2020|
Pastor John,
The Lord taught me something a couple of weeks ago, and I wrote it down at the time. I wanted to send it to you.
Jerry D.
God can use the disobedient to bless the obedient.
If a child of God is foolish with his money and buys what he can’t afford, those who are prudent with their money may be blessed by buying those things later at a discount when the foolish must try to [sell it and] recoup those needed funds.
If a spouse works himself into the ground for wages he doesn’t need, or wages to replace money ill-spent, those extra wages may serve to bless the godly in his home who didn’t work so hard, but instead kept their mind and efforts toward the Lord.
You told us a story once where a foolish child of God was spending too much time fishing. The young man was admonished; his pastor told him such time didn’t exist in his life for constantly fishing when God’s work remained undone. But he did not listen and went fishing anyway. Then, the young man scoffed at his pastor (who didn’t have time for fishing) behind his back because his pastor later ate and enjoyed the fish the young man had caught.
I tell you it is scary. God will bless a faithful to enjoy the fruit of a foolish believer’s disobedient and self-willed labors.
God uses the foolish in His house to bless the wise – all the time.
Jerry
Posted in NetMail on November 5, 2020|
This was so fun and effortless to write. Glad our lyrics blessed everyone. – Brad and Allison
Raindrops on roses
And whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles
And warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with string
These are a few of my favorite things.
Speaking in tongues when the Spirit baptizes
Learning old hymns that have lots of reprises.
Falling in love with the songs Darren sings.
These are a few of our favorite things!
Those poor Catholics!
And those Christians,
They must feel so sad.
If only they’d learn to love our favorite things,
We know they would feel so glad!
Pastor John’s sermons and
Gary’s songs bless us.
Fire-side mornings with scriptures to discuss
We are so grateful for what Jesus brings,
That’s why we sing of our favorite things.
North Carolina and all of its seasons,
Someday we’ll live here for all the right reasons.
We enjoy marriage and our wedding rings,
These are just more of our favorite things!
If we’re sinful,
Not repenting,
That makes us feel bad,
We fall on our face and cry out to our King,
And then we don’t feel so sad
More great musicians like Donna and Billy,
Make us shout praises like dear sister Willie,
Keeping us safe under God’s loving wing
We are so thankful for these precious things.
Betty and Earl tell their great testimonies
Young people also have their holy stories,
Jesus provides us with feelings He brings
Praise God we’re loving His favorite things!
When we’re lonely,
Missing family,
Sometimes feeling sad,
We simply rejoice in our favorite things,
And thank God for all we have
Pastor John's House Mail Bag 