LOOKING UNTO JESUS!               DO 126                   11/71
(--READ NOW: Heb.12:1-13)
(--READ ALSO 1Cor.8:9-13; Gal.2:4; 1:6; 1:20; 3:1-4; 4:9; 5:1,7,13,16,18,22,23; 2Peter 2:19-20; Romans 12,13,14--all three Chapters!)

         1. THIS LETTER WON'T DO YOU ANY GOOD--UNLESS YOU READ IT! And it must be read with these Scriptures preceding, unitedly, together & in prayer, in a Leadership Meeting--not just privately or individually, for it is a Call to General Repentance for much of our leadership around the World!--And if you don't read it, you are the guilty ones it speaks of!
         2. WE HAVE DISCOVERED SEVERAL HOMES LATELY WHO SEEM TO THINK THEY CAN GET ALONG WITHOUT GOD! They seem to think that all they need to take care of them is their Provisioners, Prayer Letters & New Disciples! They didn't need Leadership Meetings, Daily Prayer Meetings or even Mo Letters! They didn't need to counsel together, pray together or seek the Will of God together! In one of our largest Homes, leaders were all going each their own way & doing their own thing-what was right in their own eyes! .
         3. IN A FEW SHORT WEEKS, under changing & weak leadership, they had gotten into the same condition that it took the Early Church about two hundred years to get into! They had strayed so far from the Lord that they had become virtually like the churches that they themselves have condemned: Each going his own way most of the time, not desperately seeking the Lord or His Will, & depending on the arm of the flesh to save them & keep them going instead of the power of God!
         4. THEY'VE BEEN DOING EXACTLY WHAT THE OTHER CHURCHES HAVE BEEN DOING now for hundreds of years: They thought they had such a nice little organisation, such a good plan & method & such cute little schemes & it was all so Scriptural that now they could do without the Lord!
         5. IT TOOK THE CHURCHES YEARS TO FIGURE OUT WAYS OF GETTING ALONG WITHOUT GOD--a lot of organisation, a lot of education, a lot of training, a lot of building, a lot of experience, a lot of money, a tremendous number of people & a lot of political power & influence, so they could lean on Man instead of the Lord! It takes quite a bit of doing of your own works in your own flesh to figure out how to get along without God, & they've finally learned how to survive without Him!--But entirely & completely out of His Will!
         6. THEY WIST NOT EVEN THAT THE SPIRIT HATH DEPARTED FROM THEM, LIKE SAUL, & that an evil spirit from the Lord now inhabits them & torments them, they're so sound asleep! Like this former major Home, they didn't even know anything was wrong, until the Lord began to withdraw His provision & protection & let them suffer some attacks of the Enemy, not necessarily for their own righteousness' sake but because of their own stupidity, independence, self-confidence & spiritual lethargy!
         7. NOT ALL PERSECUTION IS THE ENEMY'S FAULT! SOME OF IT IS YOUR OWN FAULT, for your own stupid mistakes, your own lack of prayer, unity & dependence on God in spite of all that we have warned you! Some still think they can get along without God, without desperate united prayer together & heeding God's voice!
         8. WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY THE MICE WILL PLAY! That's one way you tell the difference between cats & mice, who the real cool cats are, the genuine leaders with serious concern for the sheep & God's Work or the mere mice who goof off as soon as nobody's looking!--Who either don't attend the meetings that are held or don't care if the meetings aren't called, who couldn't care less when the last Mo Letter was read, the last united prayer meeting was held or the last serious discussion of needs & problems! They've just gone to sleep & left the engine running! And you know what happens when you do that?--The engine soon runs out of steam, out of fuel, the power of God & the oil of His Spirit, & overheats from friction, slows & stops!
         9. OR IT BECOMES SO DISORGANISED, SO INCOHERENT & UNCOORDINATED WITHOUT A GOOD DRIVER & without proper maintenance that it just goes to pieces or completely crashes to a near total standstill, with no direction, no guidance, no plan, no purpose, no awareness, no repairs, no power, no lubrication, no attention & pretty soon no useful motion, fit only for God's junk pile!
         10. THIS SAME HOME COULDN'T EVEN REMEMBER WHEN IT HAD READ THE LAST MO LETTER together or had a prayer meeting of any kind, it had been so many weeks! I'll grant you they were labouring under a difficult situation with scattered & inadequate facilities & poor leadership, but this is no excuse for prayerlessness, disobedience & unconcern! Somebody could have stood up & tried to jolt the conscience of the community, but nobody did--not one--not even a little one--because nobody really CARED!
         11. "THE GOOD SHEPHERD CARETH FOR THE SHEEP, BUT THE HIRELING FLEETH", caring only for himself! He's not concerned about the condition of the sheep or the threat of the wolves or the lack of pastorage or the shortage of water! He's content as long as he has his own! Sometimes the hireling is not even conscious of the danger, due to his lack of watchfulness, prayerfulness & his own lack of concern about the Shepherd's instructions. This Home was not getting its leadership together for either Mo Letters or prayer! They only ate together--that's all! No wonder they fell apart! The family that prays together stays together! This one didn't!
         12. NOW LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING! The huge governments, corporations, colleges & systems of this World spend years & years educating, developing, organising, training & preparing their personnel for leadership & highly technical jobs, be cause they have to depend on themselves & not the Lord! But the Lord is able to take a group out of all walks of life & levels of education or no education, with little or no training or experience & inadequate leadership, & throw them together from everywhere & make a well-organised team out of them, if they will just seek & listen to His leadership & obey, since they don't know anything themselves & have never done it before!
         13. IT'S LIKE YOU'D TAKE 2000 UNSKILLED LABOURERS & throw them all into an automobile factory suddenly & say: "Make cars!" Without training & experience this would be impossible, of course, especially without guidance or instructions! It would be nothing but chaos, every man with his own ideas, going his own way & doing his own thing. It might even be a very elaborate, intricate & complicated machine, but without coordination, purpose or guidance, it would get nowhere, like this Home with no prayer nor Mo Letters!
         14. BUT IF YOU WOULD TELL THESE FACTORY WORKERS: "Now, see here! You don't know anything & you never made a car before, but if you'll just listen to the instructions of our Central Computer on your little radio sets through your earphones, each one of you will know exactly what to do & when & how to do it! Just LISTEN & OBEY instructions!"--And they might actually be able to make a car with a little time, patience & experience!--For the COMPUTER knows how!
         15. BUT IF THE WORKERS DECIDED THEY DIDN'T NEED THE COMPUTER, they'd rather figure it out for themselves, so they turned off their radios & laid aside their headsets, because they were so busy & didn't want to be bothered with having to listen, they would soon have nothing but confusion, frustration & failure--like this Home! So beware!
         16. HERE WE ARE, A BUNCH OF YOUNG KIDS THROWN TOGETHER with no previous training in our field, yet we're the Lord's Army, with this huge job thrown in our laps! Only God can synchronise us into anything at all effective, & unless the leadership meets together every day for desperate prayer, they'll fall flat on their faces, because they're not getting God's instructions! They're not listening to the Lord or their leader or even to each other! They're bound to fail!
         17. THESE PEOPLE WHO LOOK ONLY TO NEW DISCIPLES, BETTER PRAYER LETTERS OR MORE PROVISIONING to meet their needs instead of looking to the LORD are going to fall flat on their faces! If you think you can get by leaning entirely on the arm of flesh instead of the Lord, you're going to fail! You'll get just like the churches: "Let's work harder, get more sheep, think up new schemes of raising money so we can do without the Lord! Then we won't have to stay in His Will or listen or obey! We can get along on our own without God! We'll depend on Man instead of the Lord!" You'd better get your eyes off Man & back on God or you're going to fail! But Jesus NEVER fails! Look to JESUS!
         18. GOD USUALLY USES PEOPLE TO HELP US, but if you start getting your eyes on Man, the gift & the giver instead of the One Who inspires him to give--the Lord--your givers may soon lose their inspiration & you'll be doomed to disappointment! God wants you to look to HIM, ask Him, follow Him & obey Him! THEN He'll bless your means of supply! But if you lean mostly on the means & the man instead of the Maker, you'll soon be in a mess!
         19. GOD SAYS, "I THE LORD THY GOD AM A JEALOUS GOD & I WILL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME!" He doesn't want you getting your eyes on anything else more than Him! And God doesn't have to have anything to begin on! Some of you say, "Now, we can't go to that town because the conditions there are not right, the Provisioning is no good or it's too dangerous!" But if God says "Go!" & it's His Will, you'd better go, no matter what, & He'll take care of you! Don't look at the waves! Keep your eyes on Jesus! Obey Him!
         20. BUT TO DO THIS, YOU HAVE TO KEEP IN TOUCH WITH HIM, KEEP YOUR SPIRITUAL RADIO ON & FOLLOW HIS DIRECTIONS! He's not limited by many or by few! He doesn't have to have anything to begin on! He made the World out of nothing.--Pretty good old World, isn't it? He hung it on nothing.--Hangs pretty good, doesn't it? And He can make something out of nothing--even YOU, if you'll LISTEN, TRUST & OBEY, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust & obey! Are you doing both? The one cannot go without the other! You can't obey without trusting & you can't trust without obeying! It's a two-way street! And you've got to LISTEN to do both!
         21. AND AS FAR AS MO LETTERS ARE CONCERNED, YOU DON'T HAVE TO READ THEM or listen to them, if you're not interested in the score or winning! You can let them stack up on your desk & put them aside until you have time, because you'll never have time! You have to MAKE time to both pray & to read Mo Letters! You've got to MAKE time to listen! You've got to set a definite time every day for your leadership prayer meetings & conferences & Mo Letters!
         22. LET ME TELL YOU RIGHT NOW, IF YOU DON'T READ THOSE MO LETTERS TOGETHER with the people for whom they're addressed, you're going to be sorry! You're going to be like the guy who dropped his pencil during an Army crash course in Mathematics & missed a whole year of Calculus!--Or the battlefield general who's still going by last year's Battle Plan or even last month's or last week's--or even yesterday's!
         23. THE LORD INSPIRES ME TO WRITE YOU, much of the time, what you need at the moment--& if you don't use it today, like God's manna, it may be no good for tomorrow! If you let them stack up on your desk instead of sharing them with the shepherds &/or the sheep, you might as well forget it, & even forget being a Home Shepherd too, & even forget being a Home! You'll wind up like the one we've been talking about, because that's what they did!
         24. WHEN WE SEE THESE CONSTANT QUESTIONS CROPPING UP IN YOUR REPORTS WHICH HAVE ALREADY BEEN DEALT WITH IN THE MO LETTERS, again we know you're not reading them, not studying them, not absorbing them, not paying any attention to them & certainly not following their advice!
         25. HERE AGAIN, THE SMALL HOMES ALWAYS DO BEST, appreciate the Letters the most, talk the most about them & how they helped them & are so thankful for them, because the small Homes KNOW they don't know anything & KNOW they need leadership, guidance, counsel, help & advice! So they listen & try to obey & God blesses them! But when they get big & powerful, they think they know everything & don't have to be told anything & can get along without me OR the Lord! They know it all!--And fall flat on their faces & disappear! How about YOU?

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family