July 12, 2004
(ML #3499, GN 1086)
FD/MM June 2004
(ML #249, DB 5)
1. GOD WILL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE HIM, NOT EVEN THE SANCTITY OF THE MARRIAGE GOD! God is God of marriage, too & the main thing is to be married to Him & His Work, & when a marriage is not according to His Will, He doesn't hesitate to break it up & form other unions to further His Work!
2. THE SPIRITUAL REALITY BEHIND SO-CALLED GROUP MARRIAGE is that of putting the larger family, the whole family, first‚ even above the last remaining vestige of private property, your husband or your wife!
3. WE DO NOT MINIMISE THE MARRIAGE TIES AS SUCH. We just consider our ties to the Lord & the larger Family greater & more important.—And when the PRIVATE marriage ties interfere with OUR FAMILY & GOD ties‚ they can be readily abandoned for the glory of God & the good of THE Family! We are not forsaking the marital unit.—We are adopting a greater & more important & far larger concept of marriage: The TOTALITY of the BRIDE & her marriage to THE BRIDEGROOM is THE Family!
4. WHAT DOES "UNIT" MEAN?—SOMETHING THAT IS UNITED!—Something that is ONE! So if God has to break up these little private twosomes in order to make us conscious of the greater unit of THE Family, He will do it! If He can trust you with the private unit for the glory of God‚ He will do it. But if you put that privacy first before the whole Family Unit, God will blow on it & destroy it if He has to! It would be worth it!—If that's what it took, if they weren't able to put God first any other way. We would keep right on rolling stronger than ever! When anything begins to HINDER more than it HELPS, it is time to ABOLISH it!
5. GOD HAS MADE ME CARRY OVER FROM MY SMALL LITTLE PRIVATE FAMILY INTO THE LARGER FAMILY, & to do so God has had to break up many little families of the World to make our kids all members of His Family. God is in the business of BREAKING UP many FAMILIES to make them all ONE Family!
6. WE HAVEN'T HESITATED TO BREAK UP WORLDLY FAMILIES BY [making disciples of] THEIR [legal-aged] KIDS FOR GOD'S FAMILY! What is the difference in that & breaking up HUSBAND & WIFE? Jesus said you're going to have to forsake ALL—mother, father, sister‚ brother, HUSBAND or WIFE! This is nothing NEW with the LORD!
7. GOD'S IN THE BUSINESS OF BREAKING UP LITTLE SELFISH PRIVATE FAMILIES TO MAKE OF THEIR YIELDED BROKEN PIECES A LARGER UNIT—ONE FAMILY! He's in the business of destroying the relationships of MANY wives in order to make them ONE Wife—THE Bride of CHRIST! God is not averse to breaking up selfish little families for HIS glory, to make of the pieces a much larger unselfish unit—the WHOLE Family—the ENTIRE Bride—ONE WIFE instead of MANY wives!
8. GOD HAS BROKEN UP THE MARRIAGES OF ALMOST OUR ENTIRE TOP LEADERSHIP AT SOME TIME OR OTHER. I've certainly seen a lot of good fruit in these since this has happened, & also it has borne good fruit amongst the kids. If you have not forsaken your husband or wife for the Lord at some time or other, you have not forsaken all!
9. THE PRIVATE FAMILY IS THE BASIS OF THE SELFISH CAPITALISTIC PRIVATE ENTERPRISE SYSTEM & all its selfish evils! The history of communes shows that the most successful communes either abolished all private relationships entirely & required total celibacy or abandoned the private marriage unit for group marriage!—Because they found that the PRIVATE family group was always a threat to the LARGER Family unit as a whole!
10. GOD IS TRYING TO TEACH US THE LESSON OF PUTTING HIM & HIS FAMILY FIRST. If you cannot be trusted with a PRIVATE relationship & keep it in its proper perspective—LAST—then God will break it up in order to ensure HE & HIS work get FIRST place! There can be no superior or selfish private ties which supercede our ties to GOD above ALL! And if you don't give God ALL, He will just TAKE them away & MAKE you forsake all! This is one of the most outstanding lessons God has taught us from the top right on down: These personal private husband-wife relationships are unedifying & unfruitful unless they are kept totally subordinate!
11. MARRIAGE IS GREAT!—REAL UNSELFISH LOVE! Only the utter unselfishness of genuine sacrificial love can ever make such things possible. So it's the very last vestige of forsaking all to forsake even your husband & wife to share with others. Marriage is not the supreme thing. This over-emphasis of the marital relationship is making a GOD & a FETISH of marriage‚ where they're not willing to forsake PRIVATE families to serve GOD & THE Family!
12. GOD IS TRYING TO SHOW US HE WILL NOT FIT IN SECOND PLACE! IF He allows you any nice cozy little PRIVATE relationship, you can be very thankful for it! It is, in a sense, a PRIVILEGE, a special little dispensation of grace to feel that only TWO of you belong to each other in PARTICULAR. But He will ONLY allow that provided you make it very clear to EACH OTHER & the LORD & the OTHERS that you belong to GOD MOST OF ALL & your private relationship doesn't interfere with your WORK & your relationship with the LORD & others!
13. WE DON'T PUT SO MUCH EMPHASIS ON THE PRIVATE LITTLE INDIVIDUAL MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIP‚ because WE take OUR relationship with GOD & the WHOLE Family MUCH more seriously!
14. BUT LOVE OF GOD & HIS FAMILY IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT TO HIM than these little PRIVATE interpersonal relationships, including marriage! Either He wants you to love Him so much you don't even WANT a mate, or that you love Him so much that you would be willing to share them with Him! Maybe we're learning something about marriage & its UNimportance!
15. WE ARE REVOLUTIONARY! If the church has OVER–emphasized marriage, we are going to go to the opposite extreme of UNDER-emphasizing & almost BELITTLING marriage & not even hesitating to destroy marriages that don't glorify God! What GOD has put together don't let MAN put asunder: But if GOD didn't put them together, He won't hesitate to break them up for HIS glory & the welfare of His Family!
16. DON'T FORGET THIS MEANS YOUR CHILDREN ALSO! Special favoritism & partiality is selfish private property interest! If you love your flesh-&-blood children more than you love GOD'S children of GOD'S Family, then you really haven't come to the realization of what God's Family is all about! If you're kinder to your own flesh-&-blood children & give them things you don't give the others or see that they have more comfort than the other children, then you are being PARTIAL & SELFISH & PRIVATE! With your selfishness & lack of sacrificiality you are striking at the very foundation of God's Family & that kind of selfishness will destroy & undermine the unity of THE Family as a whole.
17. IN OTHER WORDS, PARTIALITY TOWARD YOUR OWN WIFE OR HUSBAND OR CHILDREN STRIKES AT THE VERY FOUNDATION OF COMMUNAL LIVING—against the unity & supremacy of God's Family & its oneness & wholeness! What you're doing when you do that is whittling away little chips & bits of THE Family to separate them in SPIRIT & even sometimes in actuality, from the rest of THE Family, just because they're "YOURS"!
18. I DON'T LIKE THAT EXPRESSION "YOUR CHILDREN"!—THEY'RE ALL "OUR" CHILDREN! Now naturally you have a little more feeling of personal attachment to the children you have borne & there is bound to be a peculiar relationship of special personal interest there. But if you were perfect in spirit before God, there would be no difference! If your spirit was perfect before God, EVERYBODY in the Revolution would be your brother & your sister just as much as your flesh-&–blood, & EVERY child you would feel just as responsible for & love just as much as GOD loves!
19. NOW IF THERE IS ANY REASON FOR WHICH GOD MAY ALLOW YOU TO GIVE YOUR NATURAL CHILDREN A LITTLE MORE PERSONAL ATTENTION, it's because God knows that all children need individual attention & tender loving care. But ANYBODY could give them that. Anybody could be a mother or father to them! As far as He & His Family are concerned, there is no difference!—God & His Family come FIRST. Any private relationships are neither here nor there, if they in any way hinder or interfere with GOD & HIS Family.
20. "WHATSOEVER YOU DO IN WORD OR IN DEED, DO ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD," & whatever glorifies God, that's what's right! Does your marriage glorify God? Does your separation glorify God MORE? Does your relationship with your children glorify God? Does your separation from your children glorify God MORE? Whatever's BEST for GOD & HIS Family is what's RIGHT!—Amen? (All say: "By the grace of God, I'm going to put Him & His Family first!")
11/7/7DFO 727DB 1
1. YOU NEVER HAVE A VICTORY WITHOUT A BATTLE, and their are some battles you have to fight your whole life until your dying day!
2. But you have to keep getting the victory! Once the Lord humbles you, He has to keep humbling you—He's gotta keep you humble. You can't just "forsake all" once and for all. (See Luke 14:33.)
3. You've got to keep "forsaking all" every day! You can't just be a martyr one day, you're a martyr all your life! You have to keep leaving Egypt every day, or you're going to build up a new Egypt. It's something you have to do almost every day—"die daily." (1Cor.15:31)
4. LIFE FOR THE LORD IS NOT SOMETHING ABOUT WHICH YOU JUST SAY, "WELL, HALLELUJAH! I MADE THAT VICTORY! I got over that, now I'm free! I don't have to forsake all anymore, I don't have to hurt anymore!
5. "I don't have to suffer anymore! I've got the victory! I've won the battle and war is over, and now I'm going to settle down and be selfish and unsacrificial and enjoy life!" But David said,
6. "I will not give unto the Lord of that which hath cost me nothing!" (2Sam.24:24) He was saying, "It's got to hurt to be worth something! It's got to be a sacrifice!" What is a sacrifice? It's something you lay on the altar! It's something you kill! But you have got to keep doing it every day!
7. Every day He'll probably have you sacrifice a little more to see if He can trust you with more responsibility, if you can become stronger and tougher and a better fighter. He'll give you more, and He'll trust you with more if He finds out you can give up more, if He finds out you wont get so attached to it that you won't give it up.
8. And when you give up something for the Lord, and then if later it is good for you‚ the Lord will return it again some day when He can trust you with it.
9. But if you are stubborn and rebellious‚ He's apt to take it away from you entirely and forever, if you're selfish and wont give it up. If you are not willing to make it a free-will offering to the Lord, then God will take a collection and take it away from you.
10. YOU HAVE TO FIGHT THE DEVIL AND YOUR OLD SELF EVERY DAY! You are a new creature‚ yes!—But boy, how that old self likes to try to pop up again!
11. It's a battle every day—especially with your besetting sins—"the weights and the sins that so easily beset you" (Heb.12:1), like your selfishness and laziness and jealousy.
12. You never stop battling, you never stop winning victories, you never stop progressing or you'll backslide! You can never stand still. You don't just get the victory once and for all over some besetting sin, you have to keep fighting it. But the more you win, the easier it gets, with His help.—On that one!
13. Either you are growing or you are dying! It's all or nothing at all! Once you've started on this road, there is no turning back‚ or you'll turn into a pillar of salt‚ solidify and die! (Gen.19:26) "Remember Lots wife!" (Luke 17:32)
14. You gotta keep going, you gotta keep sacrificing, you gotta keep forsaking, gotta keep fighting everyday!
15. (Maria: Well, what's the end purpose that the Lord's trying to bring about by making you sacrifice more and more every day? What's that supposed to do?)
16. IT COMES DOWN TO THIS WHOLE THING OF LIFE: IT IS TO PREPARE YOU FOR THE NEXT LIFE, when in the Millennium you are going to have to learn how to run the whole world over a bunch of wicked, stubborn‚ rebellious people!
17. We're just like little children spiritually. Every day a child has to eat a little more. Yesterday's food is not enough for today. Yesterday's exercise and play and work is not enough for today.
18. He's trying to make you stronger every day and make you able to give a little more, sacrifice a little more, suffer little more‚ fight a little more, grow a little more!
19. He wants you to grow into the full stature of a full-grown mature Christian that is a real fighter for the Lord and a real soldier and able to really stand a lot of responsibility, a lot of suffering, a lot of giving, and can do a big job, not just little ones.
20. SO FOR GOD'S SAKE, LET'S LEARN OUR LESSON TODAY and get it down pat so we don't have to learn this one over again tomorrow! Amen? Praise the Lord!
21. But don't get me wrong! Some things do get easier! You don't usually have to fight the same battles over again if you get the victory! Otherwise it would be too hard and a losing game!
22. God bless you and help you gain greater victories every day! It's really thrilling to look back and see your own progress!—To look back down that rugged mountain road you've just come over and to see you're really getting somewhere!
23. But it's even more to look forward and up to heights you're soon to attain and views you're soon to thrill to if you keep fighting, climbing, winning and don't quit!
—The Lukewarm Backslider!
DFO 16529/83
1. THE VERSE I GOT AFTER I READ THIS BOY'S LETTER REJECTING OUR OFFER OF A [SPECIAL] JOB was, "Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world" (2Tim.4:10). He's like Esau. He's going to realize one of these days what he missed, how he sold his birthright for a mess of pottage! (Gen.25:34) And he's going to seek a place of repentance & find it not‚ even though he seeks it carefully with tears! (Heb.12:17) "He that having put his hand to the plow & looking back is not worthy of Me." (Luk.9:62)
2. THE SADDEST STORIES IN THE BIBLE ARE OF THE MEN WHO WERE DISAPPOINTMENTS TO GOD, the ones He gave every chance & opportunity to make good & they flubbed it & went back on it, forsook Him or their job & the Work because they weren't willing to forsake something else—their wives or their family or their home or their wealth or their pride or their "freedom"! There are so many stories about the guys who almost made it but didn't. They tried to do the Master's Work without the Master's power!—And they chose to do their own thing in their own way.
3. HE REALLY HARDENED HIS HEART. He really rejected God's will, & he said it was a relief to have made the decision even if it was the wrong one! Think of that! Well I'll tell you, you may have temporary relief when making a decision even if it's the wrong one, but you'll have hell to pay in the long run! The wrong decision will only give temporary relief from the strain & stress of the battle & having to make a decision.
4. THE THING ABOUT THOSE GUYS IS THE LORD NEVER SEEMS TO EVER GIVE THEM ANOTHER CHANCE, at the same opportunity. He might use them somewhere somehow in some lesser capacity. But if God offers them much & they're unfaithful in that, He can hardly even trust them with that which is least after that!
5. GOD HATES TO SEE PEOPLE'S BACKS! (Heb.10:38) THEY MAKE GOD SICK AT HIS STOMACH! He said, "I wish you were hot or cold, but because ye are lukewarm I will spew you out of My mouth." (Rev.3:16) It doesn't mean you're not saved, it just means He can't use you. He can't stomach you, He can't swallow you, He can't use you, so He spits you out! So you've become nothing but God's vomit!
6. THERE ARE TIMES WITH CERTAIN DECISIONS THAT GOD DOESN'T GIVE YOU A SECOND CHANCE! In the case of a few outstanding cases of backsliding in the Scriptures & in church history where there was a tremendously great repentance, there was a great forgiveness!—But usually at the same time there was also a great punishment. David lost his son, he lost his kingdom, he lost another son, his favorite son, & he nearly lost everything! God let him lose everything until he saw the error of his ways & finally really repented. He was really, really sorry. Then the Lord gave him one of those rare second chances. But it's very rare.
7. HE HAS JUST TOPPLED FROM THE TOP TO THE BOTTOM THROUGH HIS SAD, RIDICULOUS DECISION! Imagine‚ after all he knows & has read & been taught!—To choose his family over the Lord & God's Work, when he knows all about forsaking all & forsaking wife & children & home & all these things for the Lord.—And he's deliberately choosing them instead. He's deliberately disobeying‚ failing God, forsaking the job God was about to give him to do‚ so he knows he's wrong‚ he knows it. If we sin after we have the knowledge of the truth‚ if we sin willfully, God's Word says‚ then we have nothing but a fearful looking forward to judgment, punishment in other words. (Heb.10:26-27)
8. THE MINUTE PEOPLE MAKE THAT DECISION, YOU DON'T WAIT A MINUTE FOR A BACKSLIDER, YOU GET THEM OUT QUICK! I found out that the safest & best way to do it was to just be nice to them‚ take them down to the bus & buy'm a ticket, put'm on a bus & ship'm hopefully as far away as possible to get rid of them! The very first thing, once they make their decision, you should get them out instantly! When they make a decision like that I wouldn't want them to spend another night in the house! I'd be afraid to have the Devil's territory in my house overnight!—And a backslider is the Devil's own territory! The quicker you get rid of a backslider the better off you are!
9. AND I'D WARN OTHERS NOT TO USE HIM IN ANY KIND OF LEADERSHIP WHATSOEVER. I certainly would not want to put him in any kind of responsibility. The minute a man has turned his back on his job, he can't be trusted with any kind of leadership, nothing, absolutely nothing! I wouldn't trust him to lead anything, he's hardly worthy of leading his own family.
10. WHEN THEY FAIL THE LORD & THEY FAIL US, THEY APPARENTLY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT A BIG FAILURE THAT IS & how bad it is & how far they are on their way down! Anybody who chooses [anything] over a job for the Lord is a backslider! God's Word says "It shall be impossible to renew them to repentance." (Heb.6:4-6) They'll never be sorry enough to be trusted with another similar chance. They're the lukewarm, & the Lord would rather you're hot & on fire for the Lord or a cold dead sinner!
11. GOD HAVE MERCY & PROTECT US FROM BACKSLIDERS! They're the worst enemies of all & the worst reproach to God's Work & the worst possible testimony! But there are going to be those in Heaven who are going to be suffering everlasting shame & contempt. They're almost going to be sorry they were saved! Lord deliver us from backsliders, God's vomit!—In Jesus' name, amen.—What are you?
DFO 16539/83GN Book 17/DB 2
1. SOLDIERS DO IT FOR YEARS‚ BUSINESSMEN DO IT FOR MONTHS, I DID IT FOR WEEKS, FOR ABOUT TWO OR THREE WEEKS OUT OF EVERY MONTH, & I DID THAT FOR YEARS! I was on the road two or three weeks out of the month all by myself, except for when I could find some woman to travel with me, or pick up one. But I was usually alone & worked very hard with lots of business to take care of. I kept myself very very occupied with my work & was able to devote my full time & attention to the work with virtually no other distractions except a little woman-chasing at night sometimes, or a movie or night club or girlie show or something to satisfy my needs.
2. ON THE ROAD ON BUSINESS FOR TELEVISION, I WAS ON THAT AT LEAST 10 FULL YEARS constantly without a break except when Fred called me out to California for a business conference or to help with some rally or whatnot, & then I'd be off again right there in California, touring the West Coast clear up to Seattle & Vancouver & back & forth & back & forth all over the place. Usually when I went to the West Coast, because it was so far & impractical to take trips back to Miami every month, I usually stayed out there two or three months.
3. MY WIFE WAS YOUNG, MY CHILDREN WERE SMALL, I had four of them, four small children who grew from so high to teenagers & were full-grown teenagers before I quit the job. I think they did pretty well, don't you? Eve never would have turned out any better if I'd stayed home, she probably would have gotten worse, & I sure would have gotten worse! We never did get along very well. Almost from the first time I brought her home & found out what she was really like I realized I had made what looked like a mistake, & that's when I prayed for Maria & ordered her, & the Lord began to make her to order.
4. I WAS SUPPOSED TO STAY HOME AT LEAST A WEEK OUT OF THE MONTH‚ but by tacking on two weekends, a weekend on both ends, I stretched it out to 10 days‚ & sometimes by leaving a little late & getting home a little early I stretched it out to almost two weeks. But I was gone at least half the time to two–thirds of the time.
5. AS I SAY, I DON'T THINK EVE WOULD HAVE TURNED OUT ANY BETTER IF I HAD STAYED HOME. I don't think the kids really would have turned out any better either, because she was pretty good with kids & teaching & training them & she was very interested in them as far as their training & Scripture memorization & singing, & she wanted to have a ministry all her own in fact, with the kids busking & going around. She did real well with them & trained & prepared them. That was the will of God for what they were going to do. She actually did that just as well without me as with me. She did it independently of me anyway. In fact maybe she did even better because I wasn't there to interfere, I wasn't there to take up her time or strength with sex or bother her with anything. She had the coast clear to devote her full time to the kids half to two-thirds of the time.
6. SO I DON'T THINK MY ABSENCES DID THEM ANY HARM. They all loved the Lord & believed in the Lord & were serving the Lord & trained to serve the Lord‚ memorizing Scriptures‚ singing‚ active both in church work & out of church work. They kept very busy, & during that time we usually also were running a school, which is something similar to one of our usual Homes or Colonies.—Some kind of big home with several other helpers & workers etc., so she didn't even have to do all of the work. She had, just like we have, childcare workers to help teach & train the kids & take care of them & watch them & spank them & everything else when they were small‚ from when they were small right on up. In other words, I'm saying I put my work first which I considered the most important work I had to do, & it's a good thing I did because that was really my preparation for this work too. And it's a good thing she put the children first, which she always did, not me, because that was their preparation for what they had to do.
7. NONE OF US REALISED THAT OUR WORK WAS GOING TO JOIN FORCES EVENTUALLY & FIT TOGETHER IN A WORLDWIDE WORK FOR THE LORD. They were getting the perfect training they needed & she was devoting her full time to them & I was getting the perfect training I needed in every respect for the work I was going to do. I'd already had a lot of it, but that road training, experience on the road in dealing with radio & television & Fred Jordan & audience response & mailing lists & computers & all the rest‚ I can't think of a thing the Lord had me learn but what I have used sooner or later somehow.
8. BUT I PUT THE LORD'S WORK FIRST & I did that wholeheartedly & I did it two or three weeks out of the month & gave it my fulltime. Then when I came home for a week or 10 days or sometimes two weeks I devoted my fulltime to my children & my family & my co-workers & my little schools—my own little work at home that I had, my own little project which I enjoyed. But I was able to give them my full time then when I was home.
9. NOW I THINK IF YOU'D AVERAGE UP who rushes off to the office early in the morning, comes home late, maybe he had to work late & is tired & doesn't want to be bothered with the children or anything else, I figured I spent more time with my kids than most people, because when I was home I was home & it was fulltime. I was with them all the time except when they were having school.
10. NOW IF I WAS WILLING TO PUT THE LORD'S WORK FIRST in those days that way, in what was for me the Lord's work—it wasn't the greatest work I was going to do but it was preparation for it—if I was willing to spend half to two-thirds, even sometimes three-quarters of my time out in fulltime service for the Lord away from my family & children & home & everybody but strangers, except once in awhile, as I say, when I got somebody to travel with me, why shouldn't others be willing to do it in this great Endtime work for the Lord! My wife was home with four children & a whole bunch of other people besides & giving that her fulltime, I mean she didn't even pay much attention to me when I did come home, she still gave it her fulltime, that was her ministry & I'm sure that was of the Lord. It was preparing the children for their eventual ministry. Without them we never could have started a revolution amongst teenagers, because they were teenagers.
11. NOW THE QUESTION I WANT TO ASK IS: When you consider that soldiers go away for months & years at a time to fight their nation's battles in far-off fields & even get killed for it‚ suffer injury, sickness, all kinds of dangers away from home & family just for the sake of patriotism or their country, or even the draft because they have to, they're forced to go, & businessmen spend most of their time away from home at the office & come home too worried about business affairs to pay attention to the kids or hardly anything except maybe on weekends, I'd like to know why some of our people are so reluctant to be willing to go out & leave home & family & wife & children & forsake all, as many used to do to serve the Lord now in this Family & for this Family & for the Lord & for souls & in extremely important & urgent work that they have to do which can't be done at home, that they have to do in the field?
12. I'D LIKE TO KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH OUR FAMILY & SOME OF OUR FOLKS WHO CAN'T MAKE THE SAME SACRIFICE for the Lord & for the Work & for souls that I made for the Lord when my job was only radio & television for a King Saul!—Not nearly as important work as we're doing now. Why can't they do at least the same thing I did & why can't they at least make the sacrifice that soldiers & sailors & marines & businessmen make for their jobs & their work? Why are we so reluctant to make such sacrifices? I'm not talking to you, Son. You're living it right now. But I want to know what's wrong with the rest of these people? We've got several people in this house that are living that‚ they've forsaken mates‚ wives‚ children & homes fulltime for the sake of the Lord.
13. WE'RE RUNNING INTO THIS SELFISH SITUATION ALL THE TIME & HAVE RUN INTO IT. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH OUR OWN PEOPLE? We're supposed to know all about the Word & forsaking all & wives & children & houses & lands & relatives & all the rest. What's the matter with them that they can't do it at least part time for the Lord? There's hardly anybody except the rare exceptional few like you & one or two others in this house that have been asked to forsake them permanently, although you still have lots of contact with them. And at least it means that they've got a good job & they've got some place to serve the Lord & we help support'm.
14. A LOT OF GUYS HAVE TO DO THAT, STAY OUT IN THE FIELD, OIL WORKERS FOR MONTHS AT A TIME & BUSINESSMEN & whatnot, just to support their families at home. So you're not at all that much different, except that your separation is pretty permanent. I would just like to know why some of our other people can't make the sacrifice for even better reasons?—Would you?
—The Reason for Sacrifice: Love for Jesus & Others!
—By MariaMaria Letter No.449/85
1. MOST OF US WHO JOINED IN THE BEGINNING OF THE FAMILY HAD FEW IF ANY OF THE BENEFITS & EXTRAS THAT WE HAVE NOW! We didn't have any videos, any TVs, hardly any tape recorders‚ no wine & no sex! Most of us slept together communally on the floor in sleeping bags‚ boys in one room‚ girls in another. All we had was the Word! But that was enough, because it was satisfying & fulfilling! We didn't need anything else, we didn't even think about it or want it! We gave it all up!
2. NOBODY HAD ANY MONEY BACK THEN FOR ANYTHING! Sometimes the food wasn't so good! We hardly even had any clothes, just somebody's old castoffs. Nobody worried about those things & I think most everyone turned out pretty well. It didn't damage us permanently for life just because we ate donated left–over donuts & white bread sandwiches day after day. Nobody got hurt from it & the Lord kept us. TTL!
3. IT WAS A HARD LIFE, IT WAS RIGOROUS, IT WAS AN ARMY! Our mornings were spent in Bible classes & then we went out witnessing for 4-6 hours, then we brought visitors home & continued to witness into the night! It was hard! It was rough! It was a sacrifice! But today, most of our Family is not required to sacrifice in this way, and, in fact, have not even experienced this kind of sacrifice. You sacrifice in a way, by working hard out in the field witnessing, but in most ways you have all you need & even much of what you want.
4. AS DAD SAID ONCE, "IT IS ONLY THE FIRST GENERATION WHO FOUGHT & BLED & DIED FOR FREEDOM WHO REALLY APPRECIATE IT! The next generation didn't have to pay anything for it! They got it free, so they weren't interested in fighting & bleeding & dying for it! All they wanted to do was enjoy it! The second generation didn't have to pay as much for it, so they couldn't possibly appreciate its value." (ML#42:11)
5. WE DON'T WANT TO BE GUILTY OF THIS ATTITUDE. WE ALL NEED TO REALISE THAT IT STILL COSTS EACH OF US SOMETHING TO BE IN THIS FAMILY! How revolutionary are you? Do you even know what it means to be "revolutionary"? Have you ever even read the "Revolutionary Rules", much less lived them? Or are you just here in the Family living for Jesus because your parents are, or because you have nowhere else to go, or maybe because it's a pretty good way of life with a lot of blessings & benefits.
6. THE WAY WE LIVE IN MANY WAYS IS MUCH LIKE THE SYSTEM. We have all the System conveniences & money & we even look like the System because we've had to shape up & clean up for PR. Sometimes we look so similar to the System that you kids are probably tempted to think, "What's the difference?" You really do start to feel unrevolutionary after awhile if you can't sing or praise the Lord out loud or if you can't practice some of our more radical doctrines openly, & if you have to dress & live like the System & in many ways act like the System. Outwardly you've got to be like everybody else. The days for being weirdy beardy Jesus freaks are over, & as Dad says, a real revolutionary must be revolutionary enough to pretend not to be a revolutionary when dealing with the System. We do need to look somewhat System on the outside in order to make it possible to continue to witness underground in the days to come—and even now.
7. SO IT'S NOT THAT WE WANT TO TAKE EVERYTHING AWAY FROM YOU NOW & MAKE YOU START SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR WITH 50 OTHERS IN A COLD UNHEATED WAREHOUSE, but you young people & more recent arrivals need to be conscious that our Family did sacrifice & that if the time comes for you to do the same, you shouldn't murmur & complain about sacrificing! We won't suggest that everybody throw away everything & go back to the way things were 17 years ago, but we should remember that that's a distinct possibility & that we probably will need to do it again someday!
8. AN ARMY OF SOLDIERS ON THE MOVE IN THE MIDST OF A BATTLE HAS TO FORGO LUXURIES & EVEN MANY OF WHAT ARE USUALLY CONSIDERED NECESSITIES. They have to lay aside all the weights that would hinder them from gaining the victory. Sacrificial, revolutionary living shouldn't be something that's completely foreign to our people. Our attitude shouldn't be, "Why should we have to give all this up? We deserve these things‚ we're Christians & the Lord should be good to us & provide for us!"
9. PHYSICALLY & MATERIALLY THE LORD HAS MADE THINGS EASIER FOR OUR FAMILY IN THE PAST FEW YEARS FOR SEVERAL REASONS. One, so we could multiply rapidly & have many children & better conditions under which to raise them. Another reason He's allowed us to benefit of more comfort & convenience is His Love & mercy upon us parents who are now reaching middle age & are not teens any longer, even though we may still feel young in Spirit. Maybe you can think of some other reasons, like so we'd have money for special tools for a greater outreach like videos, TVs, tape recorders etc.
10. WITH WORSENING WORLD ECONOMIC CONDITIONS & PERSECUTION, WE MAY BE REQUIRED TO GO BACK TO OUR EARLY LIFE OF SACRIFICE! You young people have never even had a taste of it, but you need to see that there are some sacrifices that will have to be made & you need to be prepared for it! You need to learn a bit about sacrifice & about having to do without things if necessary.
11. TO REFLECT ON OUR BASICS & THE BEGINNING DAYS OF OUR REVOLUTION FOR JESUS IS REALLY A HELP IN GIVING US BACK A VISION‚ even if we can't exactly live in the same style now as before. We can't go back to those days, but if we'll just reflect on the dedication & sacrifice of our first teens we'll be challenged to be willing to do the same if we're called upon to do it. It keeps the vision before us & the goal a little bit closer, otherwise we may tend to drift away from the real reasons that we are in this Family.
12. WE WANT TO CHALLENGE YOU YOUNG PEOPLE WITH THAT SAME VISION OF 100% FORSAKE ALL & SACRIFICE. Are you willing to do the same? Even though we're not asking you to sleep on the floor & to live such an austere life, are you willing to live that way without murmuring & complaining? Are you willing to fight & die & suffer & do whatever it takes to carry on this war of the Spirit against the System & its evil? Are you willing to be totally married to Jesus‚ forsaking all other people & things that would keep you apart from Him? In spirit are you living that way now?—With the same willingness, the same dedication, the same desire to serve Jesus with all your heart & soul & mind & spirit no matter what?
13. (SARA: IT'S LIKE ASKING YOU, ARE YOU WILLING TO DROP OUT? Even in the Family right now you have to drop out of wanting to do things your own way & wanting things that may not be good or edifying. You may be hung up in a lot of things like girl/boy talk & dieting & free time.—When you have to learn to live Luke 14:33!)
14. NOBODY HAD ANY FREE TIME BACK THEN, we didn't have any coffee‚ we didn't have any wine, & we loved it! Those early teens had many more System hang-ups to forsake than you present teens do! Most had been in the System for 14‚ 16‚ 19 years! But they had to stop all those Worldly habits immediately, no questions asked‚ no complaints, no nothing! They had to drop out from doing their own thing into a completely different life!
15. YOU YOUNG PEOPLE HAVE TO DO THE SAME. You have to drop in to wanting Jesus & the Word & souls above all else. "Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face, & the things of this World will become very dim in the Light of His glory & grace." So if we ask you young people to give up a few of your old habits & hang-ups (it's really the Lord that asks you), that's nothing to what the early teens did!
16. (PETER: ONE BIG DIFFERENCE IS THAT WE HAD TO MAKE A DEFINITE DECISION TO LEAVE OUR OLD LIVES & OUR OLD WAYS OF DOING THINGS & OUR OLD THINGS TO FOLLOW GOD & FOLLOW THE FAMILY‚ whereas you kids were born into it. But you have to make a decision also: "This is it, I'm going to follow, not just because my parents are in the Family, but because I want to follow the Lord! I want to be a disciple of Jesus! I want to forsake whatever I need to, whether my things or my ideas or my bad habits or my time or my loved ones! I want to fight & die for the Truth!") That's right!
17. I THINK WE ALL NEED TO RENEW OUR VISION FOR SACRIFICIAL & REVOLUTIONARY LIVING, BECAUSE WE HAVE IT PRETTY GOOD! These days, for new disciples to drop out of their System home & into a Family Home does not make such a drastic difference. This is especially true on poor fields! In fact, in many cases it's a real step upward for babes who join. When they join, they no longer have to slave away anymore at a daily job for hours & hours with very little pay. Many are from poor countries & they are actually getting up in the World to join one of our Family Homes, & therefore not really required to make much of a sacrifice. But if the time comes when they have to give it all up, it may be hard for a lot of them because they've advanced their social status in some ways. They are living with "rich foreigners!"
18. IT'S GOING TO BE A BIG SHOCK FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE TO EVENTUALLY HAVE TO MAKE SOME SACRIFICES & TO LIVE WITH A LOT LESS. Of course it's not only going to be the Family that has to suffer deprivation & sacrifice material things!—The whole World is going to be in that condition! There's going to come a time when it's going to get worse & when the Lord's people are going to have to flee, & conditions are going to be a lot rougher for the Family than other people, especially in the End. So we're all going to have to somehow be prepared for some sacrifices!
19. WE'RE PRETTY RICH & INCREASED IN GOODS COMPARED TO WHAT WE USED TO BE & I'M NOT SO SURE IT'S SO GOOD FOR US SPIRITUALLY! Of course, in some ways it's necessary for the reasons we brought out before, & also because we're winning a different class of people than we did in the Early Days. The hippies were glad to join an "any old pad" type of life. But there are some advantages to having a little more "respectability" for PR & FFing & for reaching the top & their children. The Lord seems to be blessing us materially so we can appeal more to System people who look so much on the outward appearance.
20. OF COURSE THERE'S A DANGER IN LOOKING TOO GOOD, because here you're supposed to have forsaken everything to live for the Lord, & your friends & fish & kings & queens may wonder how you could have done that & still have so much. There has to be some kind of balance. If you can take them into your house & say, "Look, we provisioned this & the Lord sent us this & we also provisioned that & our other king gave us this, & the Lord supplied this by a miracle," that's different. You should show them that the Lord really did provide it, that you gave up everything in order to live for Jesus & He blessed you & provided for you & gave you back much more in return. But if you look too rich & you have even more than they do, they're not going to feel much like helping you! The balance is to not be greedy or overly mindful of material things to where you try to collect them just for themselves or for your own carnal desires.
21. YOUR MOTIVE SHOULDN'T BE TO GET THESE THINGS JUST FOR THE COMFORT OR THE LUXURY OF MATERIAL THINGS OR FOR WHAT OTHER PEOPLE MIGHT THINK OF YOU! If your motive is really for the ministry's sake & the sake of the Lord's work & accomplishing your job, then the Lord will bless & give you just what you need, & not too much & not too little. PTL!
22. JUST DON'T LET THE MATERIAL BLESSINGS THE LORD BESTOWS ON YOU BECOME SO IMPORTANT to you that you can't give them up if He asks you to. Don't let the "cares of this World & the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word" (Mat.13:22) so that you become unfruitful! Make sure that you have the right attitude about those blessings & that you instill that attitude into others by your good example! The Word & Jesus must always have first place in your heart & your thoughts & your time.
23. SACRIFICE IN OUR LIVES SHOULD NOT BE MERELY AN EXERCISE TO PROVE TO OURSELVES‚ OTHERS OR THE LORD HOW SELF-DENYING WE ARE & how righteous we are. We don't want to sacrifice merely for the sake of sacrifice or try to earn merit with the Lord. For us sacrifice & forsaking all & denying ourselves & taking up our cross are just part of the requirements for being a dedicated revolutionary for Jesus‚ something we do when called upon & necessary in the line of duty in our life as a Christian soldier in the Lord's Army.
24. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN OUR LIFE FOR JESUS IS NOT SACRIFICE, ALTHOUGH WE'LL BE HAPPY TO SACRIFICE IF NECESSARY. THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS ARE LOVE FOR HIM & OTHERS, resulting in our obedience‚ submission‚ yieldedness & a willing spirit. If we have these, we will be a true revolutionary for Jesus. We won't have to worry about sacrificing, because sacrifice will just come as a matter of course in our life for Him, & when we are called upon to sacrifice we'll do it because we love Him. If we're willing‚ yielded & obedient we'll be good soldiers who aren't going to be entangled with the things of this World or dragged down by them, neither with material wealth nor the personal weights of our own selfish desires & attitudes. (Gal.5:1; 1Jn.2:15)
25. OUR GOAL IS TO BE TRUE REVOLUTIONARIES FOR JESUS, 100% DEDICATED TO HIS CAUSE of exposing & destroying evil & bringing in God's Kingdom right here & now. If we're willing & yielded, submitted to Him & obedient‚ all the other qualities & qualifications of a revolutionary will follow: We'll be looking for a City Whose Builder & Maker is God. We won't be tied down to this World. We'll be willing to fight & die for Him because this World & what it has here‚ even the attractions & the comfort of the physical flesh & its comfortable selfish attitudes, will no longer appeal to us. Our hearts will be 100% dedicated to the Lord & our treasure will be in Heaven. (Heb.11:10)
26. WE'LL BE WILLING TO CHANGE WHEN THE LORD SAYS CHANGE—change our direction, our home, our loved ones, our lifestyle, our habits, our attitudes, our clothes, or our hair‚ because it won't matter to us anymore. Our only purpose for living will be to live & die for Jesus. We'll be willing to sacrifice anything for Jesus & we'll be happy to get rid of the Worldly weights that so easily beset us, in order that we may get the job done. We'll be able to run the race & win.
27. WE'LL BE READY TO MOVE, TO CHANGE, TO GO OR TO STAY AT A MOMENT'S NOTICE. We won't resist change because we know that only with change can come progress in getting rid of the old & overcoming evil, & bringing in the new & implanting the good in men's hearts & minds.
28. SO, OUR GOAL IS NOT SACRIFICE.—OUR GOAL IS TO BE A TRUE DEDICATED REVOLUTIONARY FOR JESUS. Our goal is to be yielded, obedient clay in the Potter's hands, so moldable & pliable that He can make us into whatever He wants & then break us again & make us into something else if the need arises.—A Christian revolutionary so obedient to Christ's call that when He says, "Go!", we go, "Stay!", we stay, "Fight!", we fight, "Abound!", we abound, "Be abased" & we are abased. When He says "Go ye into all the World & preach the Gospel to every creature", we go. And when He says, "Come unto Me all ye that labor & are heavy laden & I will give you rest," we rest in His arms. When He says, "Fight the good fight of faith", we fight with everything that is within us. When He says, "Stand back & see Me fight!", we stand back & see Him win the victory. When He says, "Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price," then we act like it. (Phil.4:12; Isa.30:21; Mk.16:15; Mat.11:28; 1Tim.6:12; 2Chr.20:17; 1Cor.6:20.)
29. WHEN HE GETS DONE MOLDING US INTO THE VESSEL HE WANTS; WE DON'T QUESTION "WHY HAST THOU MADE ME THUS?" When He says, "Lovest thou Me? Feed My sheep," we don't make excuses but we go & feed His sheep. When He says, "He that forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be My disciple", we say, "Yes, Lord, all that I have is Thine. And here it is." (Rom.9:20; Jn.21:16‚17; Luk.14:33)
30. IF WE'RE 100% YIELDED & OBEDIENT REVOLUTIONARIES FOR JESUS, WE CAN'T BE OLD BOTTLES‚ because we are so busy changing, moving‚ fighting, serving & exploding, that we don't have time to get settled down & become brittle & unbendable & stuck in our rut. We're new bottles no matter how old we are, because it is our spirit that counts. If we're 40 years old, we can be just as much a new bottle as if we're 12 years old. But if we're 12 years old & not obedient & yielded‚ we can be just as old bottlish as some 40 & 50–year-olds.
31. THERE IS NO AGE LIMIT IN THE LORD'S NEW BOTTLE ARMY, ALTHOUGH THE OLDER ONES OFTEN HAVE TO FIGHT A LITTLE HARDER to overcome years of getting settled down & weighted down with the cares of this life. But that should make them even better fighters as they know they have to fight all the harder, even get more stirred up & more angry at evil & more enthusiastic for the good. True revolutionaries for Jesus dream the dreams that the World says are impossible‚ but they see them come to pass & materialize before their very eyes, because "With God, all things are possible!" (Mat.19:26)
—"FOLLOW ME!—And I Will Make You FISHERS of MEN!" (Mat.4:19)
DO 1965Compiled 2/84DB 8
1. WHEN JESUS WALKED BY THE SEASHORE, HE CALLED TO THE FISHERMEN WHO HAD JUST CAUGHT THE BIGGEST‚ MOST MIRACULOUS CATCH OF THEIR LIVES, "Come now & follow Me! That's the most fish you'll ever catch, you'll never catch any more than that, that's the ultimate!—So you might as well come with Me now, & I'll teach you how to catch something better!"
2. DID THEY STOP TO TRY TO FIGURE IT OUT?—"Let's see now, what about the house?—What about the wife & the kids?—What about father & mother? Can I get all the bills paid?" Or did they argue, "Well, we don't know how to catch anything better‚ we're fishers of fish!"?—No! They dropped everything on the spot, forsook all, & followed Jesus!:
3. "AND JESUS, WALKING BY THE SEA OF GALILEE, SAW TWO BRETHREN, Simon, called Peter, & Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And He saith unto them, Follow Me, & I will make you fishers of men! And they straightway left their nets, & followed Him. And going on from thence, He saw other two brethren, James & John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; & He called them. And they immediately left the ship & their father, & followed Him!" (Mat.4:18-22)
4. THEY HAD SUCH GREAT FAITH THAT THEY JUST DROPPED EVERYTHING, IMMEDIATELY FORSOOK ALL & FOLLOWED JESUS! How could they forsake their jobs & their own family & friends, without notice, to follow this strange Stranger & His motley crew?—Because He spoke the Truth & they felt it was the very Voice of God!—And because they must have wanted something better, something more than Papa & the business & the fish & the riches had given them.
5. "C'MON!—FOLLOW ME! Forget about old Daddy Zebedee & all the fish & the stinking boat & let's get moving, boys‚ let's go!" After all, Daddy can always get somebody else to help with the business.—There's always somebody willing to make money‚ always somebody willing to take care of the material things. But God can get ahold of very few people who are willing to really serve Him!
6. IT'S A HIGH PRIVILEGE TO BE CALLED BY THE LORD into His Service, & when the time comes, it's urgent, & often He expects you to drop everything immediately! Time & time again, Jesus' acid test for His prospective disciples was if they were willing to forsake all‚ drop everything, leave it all behind & follow Him!—And not even look back, not regret the past & not wish they could go back. And today it's the same: One of God's first tests for every disciple is to see if he loves Him enough to put Him first by forsaking all immediately to follow Him now!
7. BUT SOME HESITATE: "And He said unto another, Follow Me! But he said‚ Lord‚ suffer me first to go & bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou & preach the Kingdom of God! And another also said‚ Lord, I will follow Thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, & looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God!" (Luke 9:59-62)
8. HOW SAD! THE SADDEST STORIES IN THE BIBLE ARE OF THE MEN WHO WERE DISAPPOINTMENTS TO GOD‚ the ones to whom He gave every chance & opportunity to make good, yet they flubbed it & went back, forsook Him or forsook their job, forsook His Work because they weren't willing to forsake something else instead—their wives or their family or their home or their wealth or their pride or their so-called "freedom"!
9. JESUS WOULDN'T EVEN LET THEM GO BACK & SAY GOODBYE TO THEIR PARENTS, much less bury their father! Now that may seem inhumane & unmerciful to some, & I've had unbelievers say, "That's horrible!—What a monster‚ Jesus wouldn't even let the poor guy go back & tell his family goodbye!"—Well, that was often one of their first & greatest tests, & this is why God still often brings division in families today.
10. JESUS SAID, "THINK NOT THAT I AM COME TO SEND PEACE ON EARTH: I CAME NOT TO SEND PEACE, BUT A SWORD! For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, & the daughter against her mother, & the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household! He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me: & he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he that taketh not his cross, & followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me!" (Mat.10:34-38)
11. ONE OF THE FIRST TESTS FOR NEWLY-CALLED DISCIPLES IS OFTEN THE OPPOSITION OF FAMILY & FRIENDS. God allows this to test your faith to see if you really mean business, to see if you really have faith & to see if you really love Him. Jesus doesn't want to divide families, He would rather they all be united in faith & service to Him.
12. IF YOU CAN BRING YOUR FAMILY, FRIENDS, EMPLOYER & EMPLOYEES WITH YOU TO SERVE THE LORD, FINE! But quite obviously the fishermen's father was unwilling to leave his boat & the business & all those nice new fish & follow Jesus along with them, & we never really hear of him again! The father who stuck by the business vanished into obscurity & oblivion, whereas those stinking fishermen sons of his wandered off with a perfect Stranger, & made History that has helped to save millions of souls for Eternity!
13. ISN'T IT RIDICULOUS NOW TO COMPARE THOSE FEW FISH, A BOAT‚ A BUSINESS & EVEN ONE FATHER & FAMILY, which all soon perished, with the millions of immortal souls who have been saved for Eternity through the decision of those simple fishermen to put God first that day, drop everything, forsake all & follow Jesus? Now that we can see the results it's easy to know they made the right choice‚ despite their father's probable objections & the wrecking of his business!
14. JESUS SAID, "IF ANY MAN COME TO ME, & HATE NOT HIS FATHER, & MOTHER, & wife, & children, & brethren‚ & sisters‚ yea, & his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." (Luke 14:26) In other words‚ if you don't love Jesus more than your own parents‚ more than your own fleshly family & relatives, you're not worthy to be His disciple!—If you don't love the Lord & God's service more than your own parents, virtually hating them by comparison‚ then you cannot be His disciple!
15. JESUS HIMSELF KEPT HIS OWN MOTHER STANDING OUTSIDE ONE TIME & WOULDN'T EVEN TALK TO HER, preferring to stay with those who were doing the will of God: "While He yet talked to the people, behold, His mother & His brethren stood without, desiring to speak with Him. Then one said unto Him, Behold, Thy mother & Thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with Thee. But He answered & said unto him that told Him‚ Who is My mother? And who are My brethren? And He stretched forth His hand toward His disciples, & said, Behold My mother & My brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in Heaven, the same is My brother, & sister, & Mother!" (Mat.12:46-50)
16. SO IT COSTS SOMETHING TO SERVE THE LORD, & once you have chosen God & His way, He refuses to take second place to anything or anybody & will not let you put any other gods before Him—not your old job nor your old boss nor even your old family & friends!
17. AFTER ALL, IF GOD IS WORTH SERVING AT ALL, HE'S WORTH SERVING FULL TIME & ALL THE WAY! He says, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, & with all thy soul, & with all thy mind.—And thy neighbor as thyself." (Mat.22:37-40) He says these are the first & greatest of all the commandments in importance‚ & that you shall have no other gods before Him‚ for He is a jealous God. (Ex.20:3-5) He desires your love & for you to love Him first of all‚ above all, & seek first His Kingdom!
18. HE WANTS TO MAKE SURE YOU ARE GOING TO PUT HIM FIRST‚ & HE TESTS YOU TO FIND OUT! Because unless God can prove that you love Him more than anybody or anything else, then He doesn't know for sure whether you love Him enough! Besides that, unless others see that you are willing to give up everybody else‚ even those closest to you, & forsake everything in order to love & serve Jesus, then you're never going to prove to the rest of the World that you really mean business either!
19. THIS IS ALWAYS THE GREATEST WITNESS TO OTHERS: WHEN YOU REALLY GIVE UP EVERYTHING & FORSAKE ALL TO FOLLOW JESUS & devote your fulltime service to Him!—Such a powerful sample of commitment & dedication & living for Jesus speaks so much louder & clearer than all the sermons you may be preaching! This is what will challenge & thrill & encourage & inspire others‚ when they see such a dedicated, whole-hearted example & realize that you're happy serving the Lord fulltime instead of the System, working for the multitudes instead of the mammon, for the many instead of the money!
20. AFTER ALL, MOST PEOPLE WANT SOMETHING THAT IS WORTH LIVING FOR AS WELL AS WORTH DYING FOR! As my Mother used to say, "I'd rather die for something than live for nothing!"—The challenge to really be able to give your life & yourself to something worthwhile, even if it kills you! Why settle for something half-way & mediocre? The Church System & its lukewarm churchy Systemites don't even go one-tenth of the way, & make God sick!—He says‚ "I would that thou wert hot or cold!" (See Rev.3:15,16.) Why not go all the way for the Lord?
21. BUT THERE WERE QUITE A FEW CASES IN THE BIBLE OF FOLKS WHO CAME TO JESUS who were really interested & attracted by the whole idea, yet they were never quite willing to pay the price. They knew He had it & they knew He was it, but they just couldn't quite make it. And that's a very sad thing: When God calls someone & they look back & turn around or even run away, & leave their plough deserted in the field!
22. SOME OPPORTUNITIES KNOCK BUT ONCE!—And then are gone forever! Delayed obedience can become total disobedience if prolonged too long, & you can make up your mind too late if you flounder around, "double–minded & unstable in all your ways"! (Jam.1:8) We can't always be choosers unless we choose God's time, or else we're more apt to be losers!
23. SO DON'T MAKE THE MISTAKE OF PUTTING YOUR HAND TO THE PLOUGH, THE LORD'S PLOUGH, THE CALLING & JOB THAT GOD HAS FOR YOU, & THEN LOOKING BACK! He says, "forget the things which are behind, & press forward to the things which are before!" (Phil.3:13) That's a commandment from the Lord!—Forget the past! —Think only of the glorious things that God can do & wants to do & is about to do right now through you, if you will only yield to & obey Him!
24. "REMEMBER LOT'S WIFE!" JESUS SAID. (Luke 17:32)—When called by the Lord to forsake her old life in the wicked city of Sodom, she was reluctant to leave. And although God warned her not to even look back—because that would mean & show that she'd really like to go back—she turned back anyway & immediately turned into a dead pillar of salt, stuck in the mud outside that wicked city! (See Gen.19:17,26)
25. SO IF YOU'RE SORRY TO HAVE TO LEAVE THIS OLD WORLD & ITS FLEETING PLEASURES & SELFISH INTERESTS BEHIND, like Lot's wife was sorry to leave Sodom & the young man was sorry to have to go on with the Lord without telling his family goodbye, then I'm sorry.—Because unless you have a change of heart & attitude, you are not worthy to be His disciple!
26. DON'T BE LIKE THE RICH YOUNG RULER, WHO CAME RUNNING TO JESUS SINCERELY SEEKING ANSWERS, to whom Jesus said, "Go & sell all that you have & give it to the poor, & come, take up the cross & follow Me, & you shall have treasure in Heaven!" (Mat.19:21) When the young man heard this, it says that he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions!
27. THE SADDEST THING WAS THAT THIS YOUNG MAN'S RICHES HAD NEVER BROUGHT HIM HAPPINESS OR SATISFACTION IN THE FIRST PLACE, or he wouldn't have come running to Jesus begging for an answer to his misery! Yet when Jesus gave him the answer to life & love & happiness in forsaking all for Jesus & others, he went away still full of the sorrows that riches bring, back to his riches which had never satisfied. As rich as he was, he was still unable to pay the price of the joy of giving all!—Which, of course, shows that he loved things more than God! What a sad, sad story!
28. THIS SAD STORY COULD APPLY TO ANYONE WHO'S HOLDING ON TO SOMETHING THEY'RE UNWILLING TO GIVE UP FOR THE LORD. You don't have to have very much to have "great possessions".—It only has to be just a little bit bigger than God in your eyes‚ just big enough to keep you from serving Him, that's all.—Just enough to keep you from breaking loose & shaking loose & serving the Lord.
29. AND WHETHER IT BE FAME OR FORTUNE‚ FUN OR FAMILY, it will not be easy to give up!—And usually the more you have, the harder it is to let go! But if you are willing to forsake a good thing for a better & a greater thing—like the picture of the little girl dropping her toy‚ totally losing interest in it as she lifts her hand to receive a beautiful descending dove upon her finger—God will mightily bless you!
30. FOR YOU WILL NEVER REALLY LEARN TO BE A FULL-FLEDGED SERVANT OF GOD‚ you will never know how to truly trust Him‚ & you will never revel in the fullness of the blessings of really living by faith, until you have forsaken all to follow Jesus!—You will never know the fullness of the joy of serving God to the utmost until you really forsake all to follow Him!
31. BUT GOD WILL NOT NORMALLY OVERRIDE HUMAN WILL. HE'LL LET YOU HAVE YOUR WAY & GO YOUR WAY IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DO WHAT HE WANTS YOU TO DO. Jesus never forced anyone to follow Him, He only said, "Follow Me" & "Come & see"! He doesn't draft you, you have to volunteer. He said, "Pray the Lord of the harvest‚ that He will send forth laborers into the harvest." (Mat.9:38) He'll be glad to send you if you're willing—but you have to be willing. He likes whole-hearted volunteers, 100%ers, forsake-allers—total commitment!
32. AFTER ALL, JESUS GAVE HIS ALL!—HE CAME & SUFFERED & BLED & DIED FOR YOU to save your soul‚ to save your life for Eternity! So you should be willing to do anything for Him now, whatever He asks or tells you to do! If you're not willing now to turn around & lay your life down for Him, to turn around & live & fight & die for Jesus, Who was willing to suffer & die for you‚ then you're no disciple!
33. JESUS WAS WILLING TO DIE FOR US TO SAVE US, & HE WANTS US TO BE WILLING TO DIE FOR HIM TO SAVE OTHERS! He died for others, He died for us, so He expects us to be willing to do the same! "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)
34. YOU NEED TO REALISE THAT YOU ARE NO LONGER YOUR OWN! "Know ye not that ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price!—With the precious blood of Christ!" (1Cor.6:19,20; 1Pe.1:18,19) Jesus bought & paid for us, we're His property, we belong to Him now! You don't just belong to yourself anymore, you belong to the Lord, & you can't just do as you please!
35. MY GOODNESS, WHEN JESUS DID ALL THAT HE DID FOR US, OF COURSE WE OWE HIM EVERYTHING! Of course we should forsake all & follow Him & try to win as many others as we can! My Lord, you should certainly be willing to die for somebody who saves your life! That's why His Word says, "I beseech you that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." (Rom.12:1) It's only our "reasonable service" to try to give our lives back to Jesus, seeing that He gave His for us!
36. THAT'S THE LEAST THAT HE CAN EXPECT OF OUR LIVES & OUR SALVATIONS! He died to save us, why should we not die to save others? In fact, the Apostle says, "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: & we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." (1John 3:16)
37. JESUS HIMSELF SAID, "EXCEPT A CORN OF WHEAT FALL INTO THE GROUND & DIE, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit!" (John 12:24) And if we will go out & "die daily" for the Lord in His Service (1Cor.15:31), we will bring forth much fruit—more Christians like ourselves to preach the Gospel to more of the lost & win them to the Lord also, that He may have much more fruit!
38. THE LORD INTENDED FOR EVERY CHRISTIAN TO BEAR FRUIT LIKE HIMSELF—OTHER CHRISTIANS! As with any kind of fruit—if you plant an apple, you get a whole tree full of apples, or a mango, you get a tree full of mangoes! Every Christian was intended to bury his life in the soil of God's service & sacrifice, to lay down his life & take up his cross & follow Jesus & bear fruit—more Christians like himself!
39. "AND HE SAID TO THEM ALL, IF ANY MAN WILL COME AFTER ME‚ LET HIM DENY HIMSELF‚ & take up his cross daily, & follow Me. For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it. For herein is My Father glorified‚ that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples!" (Luke 9:23‚24; John 15:8)
40. SUCH FRUITFUL, ALL-OUT, SOLD-OUT, WHOLE-HEARTED, FORSAKE-ALL, WILDLY WILLING WORKERS who'll "die daily" for Jesus & others‚ are few & far between! Have you got the guts to be one? He says‚ "Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver." (2Cor.9:7) Are you willing to "cheerfully give" your all to Jesus?
41. THE LORD SAID YOU'D BETTER SIT DOWN & COUNT THE COST FIRST BEFORE YOU START‚ to make sure you're able to finish what you've begun: "For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, & counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, & is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, & was not able to finish!" (Luke 14:28–30)—If you don't finish the job, you may have done more damage than good!
42. "SO LIKEWISE, WHOSOEVER HE BE OF YOU THAT FORSAKETH NOT ALL THAT HE HATH, HE CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE!" (Luke 14:33) Now some people say you can be a Christian without being a disciple & serving Jesus fulltime. But a "disciple" means a "follower of the teaching", so how can you be a Christian & not a follower of Jesus' teaching? Jesus said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments," & "How say ye unto Me, Lord, Lord, & do not the things which I ask?" (John 14:15; Luke 6:46)
43. A DISCIPLE IS ONE WHO FOLLOWS THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS CHRIST!—Who said, "Forsake all, come follow Me & I will make you fishers of men!" So if you're not forsaking all & following Him & fishing for men, how could you be called a disciple? If you want to follow Jesus one hundred percent, you've got to forsake all & preach the Gospel!—Or you can't be His disciple!
44. GOD COULD HAVE YOU GEARED & EARMARKED FOR A MUCH GREATER JOB & MINISTRY THAN YOU COULD EVER POSSIBLY EVEN IMAGINE! But if you're going to settle for some stinking job at some dead-end place working for Mammon, if you choose that instead of God & His highest & best in His service, let me warn you, you're liable to get stuck & suckered & hooked into the worst mess, & God's curse will rest upon it & He won't bless it & everything you put your hand to will crumble & turn not to gold, but to dust!
45. EVEN SO-CALLED "SUCCESS" IS A GREAT DEFEAT WHEN IT'S A SUCCESS IN THIS WORLD & takes you away from God's Work!—The Devil's success is a defeat for the Lord! So "seek ye first the Kingdom of God, & all these (other) things shall be added unto you!" (Mat.6:33) If you put God's Kingdom first, He'll take care of you, no matter what!
46. WHEN JESUS SAID, "SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD", He didn't mean to seek first the things with which to serve God, nor the means to serve God, but to seek God first & His Will & His Kingdom first, & then all these other things would be added afterwards—"all these things shall be added unto you." (Mat.6:33) But there are a lot of people trying to store up things, trying to store up money, trying to store up knowledge, trying to store up this & that, & saying, "Someday I'm going to serve God, when I have enough of this or that or the other."—When they ought to be serving God right now!
47. WHEN YOU GIVE EVERYTHING TO GOD, THEN HE'LL TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING FOR YOU. But as long as you've got anything that you're holding back, He's going to let you take care of that! If you straighten out your own heart & get right before the Lord & yield everything to Him, forsake all, then He will straighten out & take care of all the other things. But as long as you are double-minded & wavering‚ then things are never going to get straightened out! (Jam.1:8)
48. I'LL NEVER FORGET THE TIME, THIRTY YEARS AGO, WHEN WE'D RUN PRETTY LOW ON MONEY & I WOUND UP GETTING A TEMPORARY JOB WORKING FOR THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY on the twelfth floor of the courthouse in Miami, Florida. One day as I was looking out the window across that beautiful, sunny view of Miami, as clear as I ever heard the voice of the Lord‚ I heard Him say, "Look, the whole World lieth in darkness!" It was a nice bright sunny day, but He said, "Look, the whole World lieth in darkness while you're sitting up here pounding on a typewriter!"
49. I SAID, "BUT LORD‚ I'VE GOT TO SUPPORT A FAMILY!—Lord, I've got a wife & four children & I've got to take care of them! What am I supposed to do, just walk off the job & go out there, start going door–to–door or something & expect You to feed me?" And the Lord said, "Yes!" So I said, "But Lord, You know what my relatives will say!" My wife's father was a churchy Christian & was always giving me his favorite Scripture for me‚ that "he that fails to care for his own hath denied the faith & is worse than an infidel!" (1Tim.5:8)
50. SO THE LORD TURNED AROUND & USED THIS SAME VERSE ON HIMSELF & said, "Yes, & if I don't care for you‚ I'll be worse than an infidel! If you go out & do My work fulltime, if I don't pay you as good or better than a Worldly employer, then I will be worse than an infidel!" So we launched out by faith into His fulltime service again, & He never let us down!
51. THROUGHOUT MANY YEARS OF SERVICE WE HAVE FOUND THAT THE MINUTE WE STARTED OBEYING & WORKING FOR GOD, HE HAS NEVER FAILED TO DO HIS PART, He has always blessed! God has never ever deserted us or left us without our needs. In fact, He has abundantly heaped more than our needs upon us as long as we faithfully serve Him & do His will & preach His Gospel & faithfully witness to others! His Word says, "My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." (Phi.4:19, 1Cor.9:14)
52. JESUS EVEN SAID, "TAKE NO THOUGHT FOR YOUR LIFE, what ye shall eat‚ or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on."—Don't worry about whether you're going to have anything to eat or enough to wear. He says that you're not even to worry about the necessities of life! "Is not the life more than meat, & the body than raiment?" (Mat.6:25)
53. "BEHOLD THE FOWLS OF THE AIR: FOR THEY SOW NOT, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them."—The birds don't reap & store up for the future! "Are you not much better than they?" (Mat.6:26)—"If I feed the birds, don't you think I'm going to feed you?" Don't you think He's more concerned about you?
54. "THEREFORE TAKE NO THOUGHT"—that means fretting, worried, anxious thought. Don't worry about, "What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles"—the World—"seek". (Mat.6:31) That's all the Worldly people live for, that's all they work for!—To have something to eat, drink, wear & live in. They're slaves of things! "For your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." (Mat.6:32)
55. BUT "SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD & HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS; & all these things shall be added unto you!" (Mat.6:33) Put God's Kingdom first! Just obey the Lord & He'll do all the rest! Drop your "nets", follow Jesus, do His work, witness, win souls, go into all the World & preach the Gospel to every creature! Take care of God's business & He'll take care of you!—Because that is His business, taking care of you!
56. BESIDES, HIS WORK IS THE GREATEST WORK IN THE WORLD & gives the greatest happiness, 'cause you're working for the best Boss in the World Who gives more than any other Boss could ever give! He'll make you a hundred times happier, He'll give you a hundred times more friends, a hundred times more love, a hundred times more joy, a hundred times more everything, praise God!—Jesus said so!
57. "AND EVERY ONE THAT HATH FORSAKEN HOUSES, OR BRETHREN, OR SISTERS, OR FATHER, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My Name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, & shall inherit everlasting life!" (Mat.19:29) If you give all to Him, He will give you back one hundredfold in this life!—And in the World to come life eternal!—All this & Heaven too! Give all & you're going to get back not a mere hundred percent‚ not just what you gave, but you're going to get back an hundredfold, a hundred times one hundred percent, or 10‚000%! PTL!
58. YOU'LL NEVER BE SORRY IF YOU GIVE YOUR LIFE TO JESUS! He can & wants to use you to give the Answer, His Love & Salvation, to others‚ if you will "endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ‚ & entangle yourself not in the affairs of this World, that you may please Him Who hath chosen you to be a soldier!" (2Tim.2:3,4) But if you don't, you will lose the reward & another will take your crown‚ the reward that God had intended for you‚ because God's going to get the job done somehow, with somebody!
59. SO "WATCH & PRAY‚ THAT YE ENTER NOT INTO TEMPTATION" THAT MIGHT LEAD YOU ASTRAY from the straight & narrow way which leads to the highest crown & greatest reward! (Mat.26:41) The true followers, the true disciples, those willing to forsake all & truly follow His teachings & obey His Words, are always few.—For "straight is the gate & narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, & few there be that find it; but wide is the gate & broad is the way that leadeth unto destruction, & many there be which go in thereat!" (Mat.7:13,14)
60. VERY FEW GO THE NARROW WAY, VERY FEW FORSAKE ALL.—Because they are either too lazy or unwilling or don't love Him or others enough to do it! He'll usually still try to use them somewhere in what little they are willing to do, but it seldom amounts to much when they're so disobedient & rebellious in the major needed thing that God has called them to do.
61. MY MOTHER USED TO SAY‚ "DON'T TALK ABOUT GOD'S BEST & HIS SECOND BEST & SO ON. As far as the Will of God is concerned, there's only one best, that's His first best, His first choice! And if you take second choice, so-called second best, it's not really His second best, it's your best!" So what you don't want to do is miss His best, "the High Calling of God, which is in Christ Jesus!" (Phi.3:14)
62. AND ALTHOUGH THE REWARDS ARE GREAT, IT DOES COST SOMETHING in self-sacrifice & personal effort to really serve the Lord.—And often it costs in persecution & actual suffering as well! But Jesus Himself promised that if you would suffer with Him, you would also reign with Him. (2Tim.2:12) So what would you rather do?—Reign now a little while living for yourself & suffer a lot of shame later?—Or are you going to suffer a little for Jesus now & reign with Him forever?
63. IF YOU CHOOSE GOD'S WAY, WHEN YOU SEE JESUS & THE RESULTS YOU'RE GOING TO KNOW IT WAS WORTH IT ALL! Giving your life to His service is an eternal investment that will pay dividends in Heaven & souls for ever & ever & ever! You'll never be sorry, you'll always be glad throughout all Eternity that you gave your life to His service! Then you'll hear His "Well done, good & faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!" (Mat.25:23)—Forever!—With all the souls you helped love into His Kingdom eternally!
64. SO WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH YOUR LIFE? What are you doing with your life? Jesus said, "You're either for Me or against Me!" (Luke 11:23) You can't be on the fence!—It's too uncomfortable & dangerous & impossible! Sooner or later you'll fall for one or the other‚ either for Jesus or the Devil's System! "Ye cannot serve two masters!" (Mat.6:24) Who will yours be?—Jesus?—Or the System?
65. YOU EITHER WORK FOR GOD, OR YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO WORK FOR THE DEVIL! So it's up to you!—The choice is yours. He can't choose for you!—You have to make the decision. But if you do choose Him‚ He'll do everything else for you—give you strength, power‚ wisdom‚ life & love. All He asks is that you commit yourself.—Will you?
66. MAY GOD HELP YOU TO HAVE THE FAITH TO BELIEVE GOD & HIS WORD & not man & the Devil's lies, & to drop everything today! "And immediately they forsook all & followed Jesus!"—And to be willing to "go out not knowing where you're going"‚ not knowing how God's going to supply your needs, but willing to obey Him & do everything you can do so that God can do the things you can't do! (Heb.11:8)
67. YOU HAVE TO NOT ONLY HEAR HIS WORD, BUT YOU MUST OBEY & DO IT! "Be ye doers of the Word, & not hearers only." (Jam.1:22) Jesus said that, "Whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, & doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, & the floods came, & the winds blew‚ & beat upon that house; & it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
68. "AND EVERY ONE THAT HEARETH THESE SAYINGS OF MINE‚ & DOETH THEM NOT, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, & the floods came, & the winds blew, & beat upon that house; & it fell: & great was the fall of it." (Mat.7:24-27)—What a sad illustration of the difference between those who build their house upon the Rock of the Word, Christ Jesus, that can stand the storm, & those who build their house on the sand of disobedience!
69. SO MAY GOD HELP YOU TO SERVE THE LORD! "Choose this day whom you will serve!—If God be God‚ then serve Him!" (Joshua 24:15; 1Kings 18:21) Don't be like the rich young ruler, whom Jesus told to "forsake all, give to the poor, & come follow Me" (Mat.19:21), but he went back sorrowful because of the riches of this life, considering them of more value than the riches of Christ & the riches in souls.
70. BUT BE LIKE MOSES, WHO FORSOOK EGYPT! He looked beyond this World because he saw Jesus & had an eye on Eternity & its great rewards!—"For he counted the riches of Christ greater than the riches of all Egypt!" (Heb.11:26)—The greatest & most powerful & richest nation on the face of the Earth in that day, of which he could have been Pharaoh, couldn't compare to Christ!
71. "HE COUNTED THE RICHES OF CHRIST GREATER THAN THE RICHES OF THIS WORLD, because he had respect unto the recompense of the reward"—far greater than all the riches of this whole World combined & all of its selfish pleasures & selfish interests! TYJ! So "he chose to suffer affliction with the children of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of this life for a season." (Heb.11:25)
72. "ONLY ONE LIFE, 'TWILL SOON BE PAST! ONLY WHAT'S DONE FOR CHRIST WILL LAST!"—What are you doing?—For whom?—Will it last forever for Jesus & others? "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose!" Do it now! Now may be your last chance to serve Him & help others! Don't waste another day! Tomorrow may be too late! Don't delay!—Do it today!
73. GOD'S CALLED YOU!—HAVE YOU CHOSEN HIS HIGHEST & HIS BEST? NOW IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!—TODAY!—Tomorrow it'll be gone forever! Did you spend today's precious time for Him & His?—For Eternity?—Or is it gone forever? How will you answer Him? What will you say? How can you face Him & others then, if you're wasting your life on yourself & nothing now? It's better to die for something than to live—& die—for nothing!—Which are you doing? "Start living TODAY! There's only ONE WAY!"—For JESUS!—Amen?
74. P.S. ALTHOUGH GOD'S BASIC PRINCIPLES OF FORSAKING ALL, PREACHING THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREATURE & SEEKING FIRST HIS KINGDOM NEVER CHANGE, a thorough reading of the Gospels makes it clear that He calls different people in different ways. Jesus & His fulltime, forsake-all disciples had many undercover friends, members of the System, who didn't always give up their businesses or their professions, perhaps because they could do more good for the Lord's Work from their positions of influence within the System.
75. IT'S A HIGH PRIVILEGE & A SPECIAL CALLING TO BE ONE OF HIS FULLTIME DISCIPLES.—Jesus had only 12 to 70 fulltime disciples, who were with Him & followed Him around almost continuously. But He also had many thousands of others who received His Words & believed & spread them to others, including a great company of the priests & even some secret believers amongst the Sanhedrin‚ the rulers & the rich‚ who were important & necessary, friends, helpers & protectors whom God had ordained for this ministry!
76. BUT WHATEVER YOU DO‚ MAKE SURE YOU DO IT WITH THE RIGHT MOTIVATION—because you want to serve the Lord & win others into His Kingdom. If you believe that God's highest calling is to "go into all the World & preach the Gospel to every creature", if that's your motivation & that's what you really want to do—or make it possible for others to do—if you're "seeking first the Kingdom of God & His righteousness," the Lord will bless it & He'll be with you & help you! So let's work together for His glory!—Amen? C'mon!—Let's go!
—By MariaMaria #198DO 28623/93DB 11
1. Dear One‚ Thank you for your very sweet letter along with your questions. I would like to be able to just wave a magic wand and make everything better for you and your little ones, but changes take time, and problem situations take a lot of prayer and counseling and hard work to resolve. However, I hope it will be some comfort to you to know that the sacrifices that you and your husband are making now for the sake of the Lord's work are no greater, and in fact not as great, as those you would have to make if you were living a selfish life in the System. The sacrifices you make now in the Family are for the greatest possible cause, while the sacrifices you would make in the System would have no eventual "well done, thou good and faithful servant" attached to them. Your Father in Heaven, Who sees in secret the heartache you sometimes go through, will someday reward you openly (Mat.25:21; 6:4).
2. Below is a letter I wrote one of your leaders who was herself having some trials over the fact that she and her children often had to be apart because of her work. She said this note was an encouragement to her, and I know she would be happy if I would share it with you in the hope that it may be a comfort to you as well.
3. Dear shepherdess, I love you! God bless you! I really felt for you when you were describing your battles in not being with your children—not just for your own sake, of course, but because the children miss you. It's very difficult, especially when you know that if they could be with you and you could be caring for them and training them‚ not only would you probably be able to do it better because of your years of experience in childcare‚ but they would be happier‚ more content, and not having to go through a difficult separation, which results in problems for you, and them, and those who care for them.
4. It makes your heart ache because it's so difficult for them to understand why they can't be with you, or you with them. We feel terrible when our children have difficulties and we can't do anything to prevent it; we can only pray for them. But often it seems that this is part of our (and their) forsaking all for Him and His work—forsaking mothers and fathers and children so we can put His work first (Mat.19:29).
5. When you think about it, most of the mommies in the Western world nowadays are having to also forsake their children as they daily go out into the workplace, usually leaving their children with strangers who are paid to care for their child as well as many others, and who often have insufficient dedication or experience to do such an important job of caring for little lives. And often‚ and worst of all, they don't have enough love to care for them properly. On top of that, they're thrown in with many other children from all kinds of different backgrounds with all kinds of problems!—All this for financial reasons. Their children experience the same type of problems that yours are experiencing, though I'm sure much more intense, and in addition, all kinds of other problems that ours will never have to go through, thank the Lord!
6. Most of these worldly parents and children are enduring all of these sufferings just to "make ends meet." We endure because we know that "the sufferings of this present life are nothing to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us" when we see Jesus. We endure, because if we suffer with and for Him, we shall also reign with Him (Rom.8:18; 2Tim.2:12). We and our loved ones have "chosen to suffer affliction with the people of God" for Jesus' sake (Heb.11:25), rather than to suffer affliction with the people of the world for worldly gain. At least our children will grow up knowing that the times their parents couldn't be with them, they were serving God and helping others, not merely working to have the same nice house and car and clothes and food as the neighbors. They'll have parents whom they can admire and be proud of, because they're giving their lives to help those in need, and to give them the greatest gift of all‚ God's love and Eternal Life.
7. We know that Jesus will care for them even when we can't personally, and they're in the care of others, and they will learn this too. If we do His business, He'll take care of our children‚ who are His children. Maybe here they'll not always have everything that we would like them to have‚ but this life is but for a moment, and when they see Jesus it will all be made up to them, and much much more! We can never outgive God. Lift up your eyes and look with hope toward the future, which is as bright as the promises of God!—And try to look past the problems of this life, which is so temporary, to what the Lord has in store for you very soon. The victory is in sight!
8. You and your husband have been good soldiers‚ and I'm proud of you! Keep it up! I love you!—Love‚ Mama.
(Note: With the implementation of the Love Charter‚ it is the right of our children to remain with at least one of their parents. If both parents are in WS, a legal guardian must be assigned to their children. See Point H in The Rights of the Children, pg.40 of the Charter.)
(ML #3178:11–26, GN 783)
11. (Jesus speaking:) Don't you think I felt the same way as you when I was in the halls of Heaven and My Father asked Me to be a sample to you? I had to forsake My Heavenly life to go down to Earth to become a human being. And on this Earth I had to keep very strict rules.
12. Don't you think that was a sacrifice? It was, My children, it was. But it was worth it because I loved you and I wanted you to be happy. That was worth more to Me than any of My Own happiness, My Own joys, or My Own pleasures. And I went through all things such as you go through. I was tested in all things that you get tested with.
13. But you may say, "Well‚ You were the Son of God! Of course You could do these things! It was easy for You!" But you must realize that I was put in human flesh. I was given your desires. I was given your human nature. So, yes, I was tempted in all things. Yet because I knew what I must do, and I knew of My calling, and I knew of My Father's will, I did it without hesitation.
14. Forsaking all is a subject that is very dear to My heart, for I forsook the halls of Heaven to come down to you, to come to this Earth. This was My first test—to leave that which I loved, which was familiar, which was comfortable to Me, and to strike out into a world which was unfamiliar, unknown, uncomfortable, where I knew not exactly what lay ahead. But I did come down to you, and I experienced many forsake-alls in My life. You don't have all the words—they're not all written—but I could tell you of many, many times, day after day, when I had to forsake all to do My Father's work.
15. Finally I had to forsake My parents again, My brothers and sisters, My friends, the world that I knew which was familiar and comfortable to Me. I had to forsake all of that to strike out into the wilderness to hear My Father's Words, and to receive the new commission that He had for Me. But, thank God‚ I obeyed. Because if I hadn't, where would the world be today?
16. Thank the Lord for your fathers and mothers and loved ones who struck out and forsook all before you—who forsook their selfish desires‚ their passions, their personal and private goals in order to live together and to have all things common. In this they found great joy, great unity, and great strength. This was the foundation. This was the obedience that was required for them to be able to go into all the world.
17. These were the building blocks and principles that I laid out through your Father David for My Endtime Family, that they might be enabled and empowered to strike out and to go into all the world and to create the Family that you have today‚ to win the millions and millions of souls that have been won up until today.
18. I ask you, will you carry this torch, or will you drop it to the ground? Will you carry on these principles that I have laid out‚ and that I have proven time and again over these many years, that they are fruitful and do work?—The principles of forsaking all and living together, of sharing your possessions and having all things common, as I have said in My Word.
19. These things do work; they have produced the wonderful Family that you have today! But I ask you, are you continuing in these principles? If any man will do My will, he will know of the doctrine, whether it be of God‚ or whether I speak of Myself. When I was on Earth‚ this was the Word that I spoke to those who challenged Me and wondered if what I said was the truth. I simply told them to try it! Those who obeyed, who forsook all and followed Me, found that it did work, and it will work today.
20. I am the Lord; I change not! My resources‚ My supply, My providence, My blessings and My benefits change not. All these are available to you today. For those who reach out the hand of faith, all these things are available in abundance to you today.
21. You know, there is a true story that I put in My Word, the story of the prodigal son. You remember that one, don't you? The prodigal son was sort of a spoiled rich kid who always had whatever he needed. He came from a fine family and he had it good. His parents loved him, and he and his brother were good friends. But he never really appreciated what he had. He thought to himself that he needed more excitement in his life. He said, "I want to get out and see the world and what it's like. I want to get around and be worldly-wise."
22. So before he left home, he asked his dad for his portion of the inheritance. Of course his dad was very sad that he had made this decision to forsake his position in the family, to leave his inheritance, and to go out on his own. But he knew his stubborn son and knew that this was the only way he would learn, because of his stubborn will and shallow attitude. So he gave his son his portion of the inheritance, and the son was on his way. He went out and squandered it all—wasted it on riotous living and just playing around at foolish games, doing nothing of real value or importance.
23. Well, when the hard times came—and they always come for backsliders—he was reduced to nothing‚ and he decided to go back to his family and beg for help. His dad, of course, loved him and was glad to have him back. He welcomed him home with open arms and a feast of thanksgiving! It was a happy reunion!
24. But what happened in the family after the prodigal son left is this: The dad gave the responsibility and honor to the brother that remained true to the cause. Sad to say, the poor prodigal son lost his birthright and rewards to his brother who remained. Of course he was still part of the family and was loved by all, but he didn't have the trust, the respect, the honor, or the responsibility that he could have had if he had not made the wrong decision to turn towards the world.
25. And did you know that the worldly son regretted his wrong decision the rest of his natural life? And even now, Here in the Heavenly Kingdom, he still regrets that he didn't stick it out and remain a dropped-out, forsake-all follower while he had the chance. How very, very sad, don't you think?
26. You know, you only have one life and it will soon be past, and only what's done for Me and by Me and through Me will last! Your own ways and your own works will not remain and carry over into the Heavenly Kingdom unless it is Me working in you. Do you get it? I believe you do! (End of message from Jesus.)
(ML #3186:17-48, GN 791)
17. (Dad speaking:) "All through life, my brother, if you'd be a happy soul‚ keep your eyes upon the donut, and not upon the hole!" Probably the first thing that's on your mind right now is, "What on earth is Dad talking about the donut for?" Well, today I've come to give you a message about being a missionary and the requirements for being a fruitful messenger of God. I'm singing that little song about the donut because it kind of ties into what I'm going to talk about. I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the sacrifices you're going to have to make in order to be a disciple for Jesus‚ a missionary to His lost children. But before I get into any of the requirements or any of the stipulations, I just wanted to remind you all to keep your eyes on the donut and not upon the hole!
18. At this point, I'm using the "hole" to represent the things you have to give up for the Lord, the sacrifices you have to make, and the things you have to forsake in order to be one of His missionaries. The "donut" is all of the promises that the Lord has made for those who are willing to give their lives that others may live. So remember that little illustration when you read this little talk from me. Keep your eyes on the positive and think on the good things—the things you're going to gain, not the things you're going to lose.
19. In order to be a missionary or even a disciple, for that matter, there are certain requirements that I've made throughout the years, but more importantly, there are certain guidelines that the Lord's given for those who want to be His disciples. He said, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me" (Luk.9:23). Now that seems pretty clear to me that if you want to follow the Lord and be useful to Him and His Kingdom, you're going to have to forsake yourself and follow hard after the Lord. That could mean forsaking some hankering for the world that you have. It could mean forsaking some worldly attitude that's become a part of your way of thinking. It could mean forsaking some of your selfish ways. It could mean forsaking some of your worldly trips.
20. Now this is a prerequisite for anyone who wants to be His disciple: The Lord said thousands of years ago that if we want to come after Him‚ then we have to deny ourselves and our own fleshly desires and wants, and take up our cross daily and follow Him! Taking up your cross daily could mean any number of things. It means something different for each individual, and each of you need to desperately come before the Lord and see what He's requiring of you, and whether you're in the country of His choice and in the center of His will.
21. Maybe the Lord is asking you to give your life to others and go to the field of China to be a missionary. This will include learning the language and studying hard in order to be able to reach the Lord's Chinese children. Maybe that's the cross the Lord's asking you to carry‚ and if you deny yourself and your own ideas, your own desires, your own hang-ups, and pick up that cross, you'll find great rewards for your labors and glory in your tasks.
22. Maybe the Lord is asking you to pick up the cross of going to India and giving your life to the Lord's lost children in that field‚ and if you deny yourself and give up any hindrances in your life for the Lord‚ you'll find great rewards and glory in your tasks.
23. Perhaps the Lord is asking you to go to Bosnia, Africa, or some South Sea island, and if you deny yourself and throw off the weights of the System that are holding you down, and go and be His love, His face, His hands, His feet, His concern‚ His representative in these lands, then you'll find great rewards and glory in your tasks.
24. I'm not just spelling out these requirements for those of you who aren't on the mission field yet, I'm putting everything out on the table for all of you—whether you're on a mission field or a home field. These requirements are for anyone who wants to be a follower of Jesus. As He said, "So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath‚ he cannot be My disciple" (Luk.14:33). These requirements are for anyone who wants to be a disciple, for anyone who wants to keep in step with the way the Lord's leading.
25. The Lord said, "If any man"—and that means any man or woman can fulfill this requirement—"will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." Then He goes on to give a warning: "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it." And then a promise: "But whosoever will lose his life for My sake and the Gospel's, the same shall save it." That's a pretty powerful verse if you think about what it means, and what it means to you if you apply it to your life!
26. The Lord is saying that if you try to save your life by holding on to the weights and burdens and System influences and attitudes, if you're not willing to cast off the burdens of your problems, if you're not willing to yield and obey in certain areas of your life, if you're trying to save your life and enjoy the pleasures of sin for a time, you'll lose your life—it's plain and clear! Well, one thing's for sure, you'll lose your life and usefulness to the Lord.
27. If you're not willing to forsake the things that He's asking you to forsake, if you're not willing to yield the things in your life and heart that He's asking you to yield, if you're not willing to obey when He calls you to go out into a place that you know not, then how are you going to receive the promise?
28. Will you be one whose last words will be, "If I only had"? "If I had only forsaken my trinkets and toys of the world! If I had only forsaken my selfish desires. If I had only forsaken my lust for material comfort. If I had only forsaken my desire for System knowledge. If I had only learned to live together with others. If I had only taken up the challenge to be a missionary for Jesus!" Will you be one who only saw the promises of God from afar off? Or will you be one who is persuaded of them and embraces them?
29. The promises of God are without repentance, and what He has promised, He is able and willing to perform in your life. He is not a God that lies or that breaks His vows and promises. He promised that if you'll lose your life for Him and the Gospel—by laying down your life in order to spread the Good News throughout the world in these Last Days—then you'll save your life! The Lord will not only preserve your life, but He'll give you joy unspeakable and happiness over and above what you've ever imagined possible!
30. There are rewards on the mission field that only those who are willing to lose sight of the shore and launch out into the deep are able to find! Just traveling across the seas doesn't make a missionary out of you, but it's a step in the right direction. You've gotta make sure that your heart is right with the Lord. A verse that comes to mind is, "No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God" (Luk.9:62). And you could paraphrase that by saying, "No man, woman, family, or young person that decides to go to the mission field and puts their hand on that plow, but looks back with remorse to the things of this world—or worse yet, carries their vices and weights with them to the mission field—is fit for the Kingdom of God!" Well, that may be a pretty strong statement for some of you‚ but it's the truth!
31. If you aren't willing to strip yourself of your false cover–ups, your layers and layers of unnecessary clothing and gadgets, then you're not going to be of much use to the Lord anywhere, let alone on the mission field. In fact, anyone who stubbornly clings to the things of this world and refuses to yield certain parts of their life to the Lord is not going to last in this Kingdom of the Family very long.
32. Time is getting shorter‚ folks! How many times do I have to tell you this before you're going to take me seriously? How many times does the Lord have to tell you that time is short before you start acting like you believe Him? There's coming a time real soon when everyone is going to have to toe the line and give their all to Jesus. Even the world is going to have to humbly submit to the Lord soon enough‚ so it's going to happen, beloved. It's going to happen!
33. The Lord is giving you a head start now by requiring a greater level of dedication from you. He's giving you an easy way out by allowing you to buckle under and toe the line and forsake the weights that are holding you down right now before the tough days of the End begin.
34. He wants you to forsake the weights and any problems, hang-ups, attitudes, worldly ways, or areas of unyieldedness that are holding you down. He wants you to take stock of your life and prayerfully consider which areas you need to grow in and be strengthened in, and what areas of your life you need to change in, because He wants to give you a head start. He wants you to take off the weights so that you can begin running with ease now, without the things that hold you down and hinder you.
35. The time's coming, folks‚ when you'll no longer be able to do as you please. There's coming a time real soon when you won't want to make one wrong move. You won't want to take one step without the Lord's guidance. The whole world is about to walk into a battleground with snipers and mines and bombs everywhere. I'll tell you what‚ you'll be glad then that you got rid of your unnecessary spiritual baggage that's weighing you down, because when the End comes‚ you're going to need all of the speed, agility, skill and preciseness you can get! You're going to want to be as close to the Lord as you can get, so you'd be wise to get rid of whatever it is in your personal life that's keeping you from being a do-or-die soldier. You'd better get rid of whatever is distancing you from the Lord, the Word, or the Family.
36. The Lord has made a call for everyone to be missionaries, and not just missionaries, but His disciples. The call is to be followers of Jesus, not followers of the world. The goal is to be followers of the Word, not followers of our own selves. The goal is to be a disciple, and whatever it takes for you to be a sold-out follower of Jesus, then that's what you need to do!
37. The steps to becoming a dedicated follower of Jesus once again will be different for everyone. For some of you there will be more steps to take than others. For some the steps will be a little more difficult than for others. But I'm telling you, there are steps for everyone to take. No one is exempt, and everyone needs to take a good‚ hard look at their individual lives and make the changes necessary to be a disciple, to be a missionary. But although the steps may be different in each individual's life, the promises that the Lord has given still hold true and will still be fulfilled in you.
38. Sure, the life of a disciple, the life of a missionary, is not an easy one. I'm the first to admit that! But I'm also eager to add that you'll never regret living a life of sacrifice. What you gain in return is so much more weighty, so much more glorious, so much more rewarding than anything you ever gave up, that it almost makes you ashamed that you ever flinched about having to give something up for the Lord.
39. I'll tell you what, when I was received into the gates of Heaven, I fell down on my knees and told the Lord that I was unworthy. Everything that the Lord gave me was worth a million times a million times more than anything that I'd given up in my life on Earth! (Note: When Dad says "a million times a million times," that's not a typo or a mistake but an actual indication of the size of his reward! As the Lord said at the time of Dad's graduation, "By My side is the Queen of Heaven, and we do bestow upon [David] great love and great honor, and a mighty reward, for great is the reward of your Father David! I have prepared a place for him that is beyond words! The beauty and the magnificence is beyond your comprehension." From "Dad's Heavenly Welcome," para.7,8, GN 609.)
40. I know that when you're in your earthly body, in the physical realm, having to give up something that you enjoy, having to give up an ungodly habit, having to give up something that you want to do‚ having to give up a part of your heart that is unyielded to the Lord, can feel like death. Yet when you get up Here, trust me, each of you is going to be so ashamed of the fact that you didn't give and sacrifice to the Lord more cheerfully. Of course‚ the Lord doesn't hold anything against you‚ but you'll be so overwhelmed by the glory that will be bestowed upon you for sacrificing for the Lord and His Kingdom, that I can guarantee that you're each going to shed quite a few tears.
41. I always knew that God was fair and just and righteous and good‚ but when I got up Here and found what the Lord had in store for me, I saw that He was way more than fair! The point I'm making is that He'll reward you greatly—not just enough to make your sacrifices seem worthwhile, but He'll reward you so much that it'll make you cry and wonder how you could have ever squirmed and murmured about having to give so little to Him when you're faced with everything you receive in return!
42. No, I'm not telling you this to make any of you feel bad or condemned. We're all humans and sometimes have our carnal eyes on the things of this world‚ the things that we enjoy. We're all naturally selfish and it's hard for us to continue growing and being loving. Humans are all naturally carnal, so sometimes it's a trial to have to forsake certain things of the flesh that we enjoy.
43. I just wanted to let you know about your rewards in Heaven, so that when the Lord asks you to give a part of your life to Him, or when He asks you to forsake some ungodly influence in your life, or when He asks you to be a missionary and forsake the things that are holding you down and holding you back, you'll be willing to say yes to Him, just in plain thanks and appreciation for the greatest gift that one could give anyone—the gift of eternal life! We should be willing to give our full heart, our full lives, and our full time to Him just for that one awesome gift of eternal life. But it doesn't stop there—He gives and gives and gives again!
44. I'll tell you what, you are no fool to give a life that you cannot keep in order to gain a life that you cannot lose! You've got only one life and it will soon be past; only what's done for the Lord and others will last. All of the times that we live for ourselves, all of the times that we wallow in the mire of the System, all of the times that we feast on earthly pleasures will vanish into oblivion. The only things in your lives that will stand the test of time, the only things that you'll be able to bring with you into the Next Life will be the things you gave to the Lord, the things you did for Him, the souls you brought with you‚ and the battles you won.
45. If you're going to give your life to Jesus, then why not go all the way? He went all the way to the cross for you. He bled and died for you! He came to this ungodly Earth and He took upon Himself the form of a man and walked this dusty road called life all because of you. He was touched with the feeling of your infirmities. He was persecuted and got weary of sacrifice, but He did it for you—just you. He did it out of love for you—just you.
46. Will you take up the cross that He's given to you‚ and only you? Will you walk this dusty road of life even if you're weary of sacrifice, out of love for your Lord and Lover Who gave His life for you? Will you pick up the cross of dying to yourself and carry it, just like He carried His cross up to Calvary for you? You have only one life to live for Jesus, and this life on Earth is slowly coming to a close. This life, this world and all that it has to offer, will soon be no more, and all that you'll have left will be the memories of your life for Jesus, your life as His disciple, your life as His missionary, and the fruits thereof in the form of His spiritual and physical children.
47. It's such a small thing to give up the things that are holding you down and hindering your usefulness to the Lord‚ when you look at things this way. To think that the Lord is going to honor you when He comes in the glory of the clouds of Heaven, if you're not ashamed to be called His and His alone and come out from among the world and be separate! But if you choose to be counted with the world and you're ashamed of Him and His Words in this adulterous and sinful generation, then the Lord's going to be ashamed of you when He comes in the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory.
48. You have only one life, and only what's done for Jesus and for lost souls will last! Make your life count and make an investment by being a 110% disciple and missionary for Jesus! It will last forever and you'll never regret giving your life to the One Who gave His whole life for you. I love you! (End of message from Dad.)
(ML #3418:76-82, 123-139, GN 1005)
76. (Jesus:) Sometimes how you look at things comes down to a matter of how much you're willing to give all, to serve, to have no reservations left for yourself at all, to truly be a slave of whatever I ask you to do without hanging on to any personal desires of your own. That's really what a love slave is. When you give your life to Me, that's what you're doing, and that's really what I'm looking for—those disciples who are so in love with Me that they are willing to completely surrender their personal agenda; all they want to do is whatever I ask, no matter what‚ with no questions asked.
77. There are slaves and servants in the world today who do this for their worldly masters—day in and day out. If their master says "do this‚" they do it; if they say "do that," they do it.
78. And really‚ that's what a true disciple of Mine does. Of course, because they are My disciple and My love slave, I'm a lot more understanding and generous than worldly masters, and I allow a great deal of freedom. Being a love slave for Me isn't the same as being a slave for those in the world. In fact, I am so liberal‚ sometimes people hardly know they're love slaves. And because I have given people free will, they can be loosed from being My love slave whenever they wish. Those who are My love slaves are slaves of their own choosing.
79. But those who are My love slaves and continue to be My slaves, giving their all, are those who remain the happiest. Those who continue to say, "I want no will of my own; what do You want me to do today? I'll do whatever You want, I don't care what it is. Please just let me serve You‚ I beg You. I'm unworthy to do anything and I'm so thankful to do anything for You!"—they are the ones who are the happiest. Total bondage to Me brings total freedom and happiness. Total yieldedness is total fulfillment.
80. When My love slaves who at one time had forsaken everything and had no agenda except doing whatever it was that I asked‚ begin to put restrictions and limitations on what I ask, they begin to run into problems. When they begin to say, "I prefer to do this" or "I prefer to do that‚" then they begin to feel unchallenged and discontent. Whenever I have called someone to be a 100 percent follower, but they begin to want their own way, then they begin to lose the happiness they had when they completely abandoned their life and will to Me. The more they try to do what they want to do, or think they want to do, or think they should do or deserve to do, the more unhappy they become.
81. I have a place for each person, and only as you fulfill that place will you find true and lasting happiness. Actually, you don't have to find happiness; you don't have to look for it. Happiness is the fruit and byproduct‚ the natural result and state of mind that follows when you come to Me and you say, "Jesus, please help me. I love You and I want You. Thank You for saving me. What can I do for You today? What do You want me to do? I'll do anything, I don't care what it is. Just let me be Your love slave. I only want to do what You want me to do and I have no plans or will of my own."
82. Are you still doing that? Are you giving your will 100 percent to Me, or do you have plans of your own? Are you still forsaking all every day? Or do you have work or things you like or want to do above Mine? No matter how long you serve Me, the secret and the formula is always constant, it never changes: "Not my will but Thine be done." In total abandonment and total slavery to Me is complete happiness, contentment, and fulfillment. (End of message from Jesus.)
123. (Mama:) I want to share with you a beautiful open-heart prayer that one of our young members of WS recently prayed. She had been going through a time of lesson learning and getting back to her First Love, and in conjunction with that the Lord had asked her to forsake a love relationship. He made it clear that He wanted her full attention and that she needed a time of being undistracted in order to be strengthened spiritually. While she knew it was the Lord and wanted to do it, she understandably had a hard time leaving it behind. This prayer she prayed was a milestone and brought a breakthrough in the spirit for her.
124. I'm sharing it with you not because I'm promoting leaving behind love relationships, or saying that there's anything wrong with them when they're within the Lord's highest will. But there have been and will continue to be times in each of our lives when the things the Lord asks us to forsake, or the changes He asks us to make, come with a significant personal sacrifice. This is something that the Lord does with all His children who are dedicated to Him and want His very best. Everyone who really loves and serves the Lord will at some time in their life be asked to give up something very precious to them. The Lord does this as a test; He does it to see if we love Him enough to make a big sacrifice for Him; He does it to draw us closer to Him and help us put Him first; and there are also usually reasons specific to the situation why He asks it of us. Putting the Lord and His work first is one of our foundation principles, something we still believe in and practice out of love for our wonderful Husband. It's never easy at the time, but the Lord really blesses and honors it, and once you've come through to the other side, you realize that not only was it worth it‚ but that in fact it was necessary to bring you back to the place of complete yieldedness and humility and being clay in the Potter's hand once again.
125. The Lord hinges a lot on the decisions we make for Him—whether or not we choose to yield and give something completely to Him often determines future rewards, blessings, fruitfulness, anointing‚ happiness‚ etc. He can't give us those blessings and rewards in full measure when we have held something back from Him. And by the same token, He is able to pour them out more abundantly than ever when we freely and wholeheartedly give Him whatever it is He's asking of us. Sometimes it's so difficult, you can wonder if you'll even live through it and ever be happy again. But I guarantee you that the Lord's way is best, and the quicker and sooner you yield completely, the sooner deep happiness and satisfaction and the many blessings and rewards of obedience find you. I know that sounds callous and unfeeling if you're really experiencing a difficult forsake-all or change. But it's the truth, and it's been tried and proven many times. There's just no way around giving it all up‚ and then letting the Lord replace it with whatever He knows is best.
126. In this dear girl's case‚ while she had tried to give up this love relationship like the Lord was asking her to‚ she was still hanging on to it in her heart. She realized that she was giving it up conditionally—in other words, telling the Lord that she would give it to Him if He promised to give it back to her in the future. Because of her indecision and lack of full commitment, the emotional battles she was constantly going through began taking a toll on her body, and her health began suffering as well. It was a tremendous relief to her when she got to the point where she saw clearly how she had not given it up completely, and was able to pray this prayer in full yieldedness. It brought about an instant change in her emotional and physical health, and while she still had battles from time to time‚ there was a marked improvement, there was a victory!
127. I pray this prayer is an encouragement and a strength to any of you who might be going through something like this. After praying this prayer, this woman received beautiful promises and reassurances from the Lord, and continued to hear from Him daily on her path to victory. Her channel to her Husband was her salvation through this time‚ and gave her the strength day by day. I wanted to share her prayer with you as it's a beautiful example of yieldedness, and I'm confident that the Lord will speak to you with beautiful, complete and specific promises for your situation as well, if you ask Him. Dear Husband, help us all to be willing to give You freely whatever You ask. Whatever You do, You do it in love—and in the end, even if it's terribly difficult, we'll find that it was worth it all—and not just worth it, but things will be better than ever!
(Note: Because she refers to the person she was in a relationship with, we've given him the initial C.)
128. (Prayer:) I don't know where to begin this prayer, Jesus, except that I'm tired of taking steps backward rather than forward. I'm tired of fighting for what I think I deserve, need, and want, as opposed to completely accepting what You're doing in my life and what You want of me. I've been stubborn and self-centered, and I've not been doing everything You've asked me to.
129. Yes, I've wanted to follow what You've said, but I've made it so contingent on what the end result would be. I realize now that that's the approach I've been taking all along: "I'll do this for You, if You'll do that for me." Oh, Jesus, I'm so sorry; I've been so wrong.
130. I look now at what this stubbornness has done to me, where I've ended up for trying to push things my way, and it's a sad and pitiful state. My spirit feels defeated, my body is all but collapsing, and I've even allowed myself to believe that there's no reason to move forward any longer.
131. Your plan was not to see me suffer unnecessarily, but rather to grant me the victories I've long desired. So if I feel I'm suffering now, the question that I really must ask is what am I doing wrong?
132. The truth is, I have been so wrong!—Wrong in the anger I've felt, wrong in the way I've wanted to find something or someone to blame this all on, wrong in the way I've tried to hold on and salvage what I could of C's and my relationship. I've been wrong in the unfair feeling I've been harboring, wrong in the way I've given in and allowed my body to take the toll of my emotions, wrong in not fighting like I should. And mostly wrong in not believing and standing on Your Words and promises like I should've been, but trying to find a reason to make them be what I wanted them to be all along.
133. I've caused enough ruin in my life and I've placed enough blame elsewhere; I have to move forward now. I'm fighting for my life—both spiritual and physical—and I will do everything I can to not surrender to the Enemy my usefulness to You that he's been trying to steal away for so long.
134. You called me to serve You‚ Jesus‚ and I answered that call; I said that I would serve You no matter what. I've wanted to go the distance for You, but I've also allowed myself to be tied down and limited. I've attached myself to C and have refused to go forward unless You guaranteed that I would have him back. This has only hurt me more, because You wanted me free—free from all ties—free of my attachment to C.
135. I've wanted C as a proof that You loved me enough to give me someone who would love me in the physical, someone to share my life with. But C's love for me was as nothing compared to Your love for me. Your love doesn't fade, it's not altered by time or circumstance; it's constant, enduring, and unconditional. Yours is the only love I really need.
136. When it really comes down to it, I value my service to You, my love for You, my place in this Family, and my life, far above my love for C and above my friendship with him. So right now I choose to despise my love for C, what he and I shared, and all the dreams I had, in order to do Your will. I count it as nothing compared to what I have in You.
137. This is my stand, Jesus; this is what my heart wants—to follow You completely. I asked before that You would ease the emotions that I had for him, but now I ask that You remove everything from my heart and mind that is causing me to hold on to him. I don't want it any longer. I don't want to feel hurt, emotions, questions‚ emotional love‚ attachment‚ or anything like that toward him. I want it gone!!
138. When I look at him, I don't want the memories of what we shared to haunt me; I want to look at him and see another brother in the Home. I don't want to worry myself or care about whether or not he and I will even be friends, or what he chooses in life. I want him to no longer have a gauge on my life. I release him. I don't want there to be any more "me and him"; I am only Yours‚ Jesus. C can no longer be a part of my life like he was before.
139. I want a new start on all of this. I want to give C back to You completely this time, no looking back. Help me now as I make this commitment. I call on the power of the keys to be there for me, to give me the grace and faith to fight on, and mostly the peace that comes from doing Your will alone. Amen. (End of prayer.)
(ML #3444:43-96, GN 1029)
43. (Timothy Concerned:) What I wanted to tell you was that I blew it by trying to be in two worlds at once. I loved the Lord and Dad. I loved the Family. But one of my big problems was that there were some things I didn't want to give up. God asked me to forsake all, and though I tried, I didn't make it. The main reason is because I didn't burn my bridges. That's an old expression‚ but the meaning is obvious—I didn't make it impossible to go back to the past.
44. While I did want God's will, and I was trying to be obedient and make commitments to change, I still held on to some ties to the past‚ the Chain way of looking at things, and my relationship with Rachel, which the Lord was asking me to forsake, along with ties to many old-timers in the Family who were considerably off the track at this time. The Chain operated very much in the arm of the flesh, disregarding the Letters or using them to enforce the "letter of the law" instead of operating according to the Spirit. Dad was trying to pull us away from that and get us to let the Letters be the leaders.
45. Rachel had gotten tripped off in a relationship with one of her "fish," and the "deceitfulness of riches and the cares of this life" had pulled her away from obeying the Word. Outwardly, it wasn't so obvious. Neither of us discerned at the time that we were on that broad way that leads to destruction.
46. That's what happens when you reject the truth: You receive strong delusion and end up believing a lie. We had what we considered legitimate, logical reasons for what amounted to not following the Word nor obeying its counsel. I entertained thoughts of what I'd do if things didn't work out for me at Dad's house. All this amounted to one word that brings about spiritual defeat: compromise.
47. I was trying to keep one foot in Dad's house and one foot in the world—"the world" that was available to me. Those ties were subtle—as I said, they looked logical and reasonable—but they were enough to undo my ties to Dad and the Word and bring about my downfall.
48. You know the story. You know what it's like when the Lord puts a challenge before you, asking you to make some kind of big change in your life. Obviously for you there has been the S2K, then the "Conviction versus Compromise" Letters, and most recently the Feast 2003. Those are pretty heavy challenges, and I don't know what kind of impact they had on you. Possibly you had a big turnaround, and if so, that's great. And if so, you're probably not the person I'm talking to.
49. But what about you who thought those Letters were too extreme? Are you sort of waiting to see how things develop, what happens next? Have you been reading the Letters and thinking things like, "Yeah, well, I'll do that later. I have plenty of time. It's kind of ridiculous to expect us to make those sacrifices now because it's definitely not the Endtime. My friends are doing okay, and even some of them in the System are doing great, so what's the big deal?"
50. And what about the ex-member site? Have you been chatting there with your old friends? You probably figure that, too, is no big deal‚ and you're just keeping in touch. Maybe you think it's not important for you to have conviction with those guys because they're out in the System and they wouldn't believe you anyway, or they wouldn't be changed. You just want to keep being their friend‚ and that doesn't mean you don't like the Family‚ right?
51. Well‚ I know that line. I felt something similar. Not that there was an ex–member site or even an Internet back in my day‚ for that matter. But the lines, the excuses, the justifications were the same. I thought my mindset was pretty reasonable, too. I wanted to be "tolerant" and "open-minded." I thought Dad had been too hard on people‚ and I thought I'd sort of do a little PR on the side, showing myself to be able to relate to people and keep them as friends—at least that's what I thought.
52. The position I took seemed logical and good to me. I honestly didn't think it was wrong. In fact, I thought Dad was wrong. I didn't really see the point of causing such upheaval in the Family, as it seemed so counterproductive. So I was just going to do a little fixing of it on the side.
53. Man, was I deceived! I was so ignorant. I didn't see it at the time, obviously. I thought I was doing the right thing, as many of you do. I know your motives might be pretty good, and you're trying to "love people‚" and definitely you place a lot of value on being open-minded. That sounds good. There's only one real downside to it, which I didn't see until it was too late. (See also ML #3322:80-99, GN 925.)
54. That mentality, that spiritual stand, that way of living leads to some pretty dangerous compromises. Because it looks like love and understanding, or tolerance and open-mindedness, it's hard to see the danger to your spiritual life, how these seemingly logical and necessary compromises affect you and drag you down. That's what happened to me. I honestly thought I was moving the Family forward, doing the right thing. I thought eventually Dad would "come around" and then he'd even thank me for being intuitive and keeping my friends in touch and friendly.
55. The sad thing is, it doesn't work that way. Dad didn't "come around," because he was right. I didn't save the day. I didn't help to keep anyone as a friend in the long run. The truth of the matter is, I was wrong, I made some bad decisions, and I had a lot of pride. It's pitiful.
56. Of course, I sort of felt that something wasn't totally right at the time. I knew I was going against Dad's counsel. I can remember a few times when I consciously made decisions that were contrary to what Dad told me. There was something inside me that made it almost impossible to yield to what Dad was saying.
57. You know that feeling, I suppose, when you're under conviction and you feel kind of sick. You know God is speaking to you, but there's a hefty price attached to what He's asking you to do. There's some kind of change necessary or you'll have to give up something, and it's making you sick. The longer you wait and toy with the idea of not obeying, the longer you consider other alternatives, the more uncomfortable you get. It's a gross feeling, like a weight on your chest; it makes you feel dirty and you know there's something wrong.
58. No one can bear that for long; it's too much of a bummer. So you're eventually forced to make a choice. You can't just hang in the balances. If you've thought a lot about it and made up a counter scenario in your mind to the one God is offering you, then that other alternative begins to not look too bad. If you choose your "other way" instead of whatever God is telling you through the Word, then that's a bad decision.
59. But of course, God won't smack you down for one bad decision. He's patient, He'll give you another chance. In fact, He'll probably give you many chances. But what happens—and this is the trap that you don't see at the time‚ or at least I didn't—is that the next time you have some plan other than what God says, it's much easier to choose that one. You get a little numb after a while. I did. Pretty soon, it doesn't take much time at all before you can easily convince yourself of the validity of your plan over God's.
60. The conviction really wanes and you don't feel it nearly as much. You don't get that sick feeling in your stomach, that guilty feeling from knowing you're making the Lord sad or not living up to what you know to be the truth. Pretty soon, you're fairly convinced that how much you obey God's Word is a matter of personal choice‚ that there are many "good" options and it's just a matter of each person going according to his own faith. By the time you reach that stage, it's pretty hard to get through to you; your convictions are so watered down by that point that you can't feel the Lord's tug. At that point, you're in trouble. Believe me, I know.
61. I didn't realize it at the time‚ but what drove me to reject Dad's counsel and way of seeing things was that I still had a love for the world. Oh, there's that word again the big bad "world." That's a Biblical term‚ as you know, and it can be many things. In my case it was mostly putting my image before others instead of being God's image to others. I just couldn't bring myself to look so "revolutionary" in front of my friends and lovers‚ those I'd hung out with. I had a certain reputation, I had a lot of contacts, I looked a certain way—and I liked all that. I was pretty smart, but not as smart as I wanted to be, so I was trying to be more intellectual‚ more "cultured." I liked that too. I had developed sort of a self–improvement plan, one that I thought made me more attractive, and I had convinced myself that I'd be a better Family member if I could relate more to others or "become one" more.
62. Many of my decisions were rooted in pride. I know pride is a very general term, and you've read plenty about how bad it is. Dad and Mama have preached the dangers of pride for years and years. You're probably sick of hearing it. I didn't understand it nearly as well as you do, because we didn't have so much counsel on it. But I knew enough, if I had been honest with myself, to know that the mentality I was taking on, the decisions I was making (even the ones I wasn't fully aware of myself), the priorities I accepted, were contrary to the Bible. I was no longer dropped out, not really. I was no longer not a friend of the world. I was no longer separate. I had somehow forged a new religion within my mind where I honestly hoped I could live between the two worlds. Ha! It's pretty ridiculous when I look back, but at the time it seemed reasonable.
63. My problem was that I didn't want to give up some things. I liked my image‚ my friends, my little quest for worldly wisdom, and my "open-mindedness." I liked not having to give up those who weren't really with us anymore. I liked thinking I could still be their friend and hang out and keep up communications, even if it meant a bit of compromise here and there. I didn't have to be as extreme as Dad, or at least so I thought.
64. It really bugged me that Dad was blowing people away. I thought it was unwise and unnecessary. I wanted things to be more "normal." Can you relate to that? Yeah, well, as Dad taught from the beginning, there are no neutrals. You can't really be a friend of the world and a friend of God.
65. There were choices that Dad (and the Lord through him) put before me. Dad knew I was a really proud man. Mama knew too. They tried to help me. I was sort of a salvage case. They were trying to salvage me for the Lord. Dad talked to me about my inordinate respect for System wisdom, books, supposed great masters, etc. You might have read that in "Teaching Great Masters" (ML #996, Vol.8). It's not that those things are evil in themselves, but I had too much of them in my life if I was to be a disciple. You can't be a true man of God, powerful in the spirit and focused on your calling, if you're wasting time sucking up to the System, as if the System has all the answers.
66. I enjoyed reading books. The Word was fine, yes, but I resented the fact that Dad and Mama were so "narrow-minded," in my opinion. I had read many enlightening books, at least I found them so at the time. It really rubbed me the wrong way that Dad and Mama were so "simple." Dad was an extremely intelligent man, and I related to him quite well along that line‚ but he never went out of his way to impress people or to do things that would minister to his pride or image or reputation, and because he was so unpretentious‚ it made me embarrassed to be with him in public. His main interest was witnessing and being true to the message. It bothered me, because I thought if he'd act and look more like executives or leaders in the world, the Family could go a lot further in being accepted on a larger scale.
67. I didn't like to be seen with him and Mama. I'm sorry to have to say all this, but that's how I felt. They dressed so simply. They were so plain, so simple. They were openly different from people of the world, and I didn't like that. I didn't want to have to be different. And I didn't like it when people thought I was or when it looked like I was. In my heart I started to step away from them and their lifestyle, and my actions eventually followed. Dad was always praising the Lord, "The Lord did this‚ and the Lord did that." And Mama was always "amening" him. To me‚ because of the way I was accustomed to living‚ having been in the Chain‚ they were "square." In your modern terminology, you would probably say they were just "so uncool."
68. I wanted to be cool. I wanted to be admired. Why did people have to look down on us and why did we always have to be the ones in the limelight as "fanatical," and "the sex cult"? Dad and Mama certainly weren't "cool," and they weren't admired for their beliefs by the mainstream. They didn't conform to the System when it came to issues of our faith. They were obviously "different" because our beliefs were obviously different‚ and it made me uncomfortable. I began thinking that the way Dad and Mama were wasn't the way to be.
69. All those "thoughts" left the door wide open for the Enemy to come in full force with his lies and delusions. It was my pride—my desire to look good, be accepted, be respected, admired, whatever you want to call it. It was pride. But I never thought it was my pride. Never. Not once.
70. I thought I was being open-minded. I wanted to know both sides of the story. And I studied both sides of the story. Words, words‚ words. Are they powerful! You'll never quite grasp their power until you're on this side and you behold with your eyes the spiritual power behind "words," both written and spoken.
71. If you could see how words appear in the spirit and the spiritual forces behind them, you'd be shocked! I've been given permission to give you a glimpse of both sides of the spiritual spectrum when it comes to words. I won't be able to adequately explain it, but I will convey it to the best of my ability.
72. If you could "see" the spiritual force behind the words you take in when you read God's Word, you would see light so bright and powerful it would blind you, with power so great not a single earthly force could measure up to it! When you receive the Word of God, it comes in with such peace, flowing, and filling your spirit and bringing warmth. You become one with this light and power, yet you don't necessarily "feel" anything like this when you read the Word. You do sometimes experience a measure of this light and power when the word "speaks" to your heart, or something "jumps" off the page that you read, or all of a sudden you experience an answer to a question of your heart. These are just infinitesimally minuscule manifestations of what is taking place in your heart and spirit and in the spirit world.
73. You are also often affected by opposing forces of the Enemy that do all they can to negate this process of empowerment and stop this spiritual enlightenment from taking place. Thus you sometimes feel tired when you read the Word, bored, or disinterested. Your mind tends to wander, you think of other things, and there are a multitude of other distractions that can minimize the full force of the Lord's Word in your spirit.
74. When you read anything other than the Lord's Word, either because you desire to or for work purposes, in the spirit you are in a blanket of darkness. Some of what you read may have a measure of light in it. Some of the words you read seep off the printed page or computer screen or whatever avenue you are reading from, and it's like a vapor that twists and turns and rises, going up, up, up to your eyes, and then disappears into your spirit. It travels to your heart‚ where it is discerned by your spirit. You either absorb the good and eschew the evil‚ or you see the evil and do not eschew it, but allow it to enter. That's when the light that is within you starts to become darkness. And as Jesus said, if the light within you be darkness‚ how great is that darkness!
75. I deliberately chose to let those vaporous words of worldly knowledge in to "improve" myself. I didn't believe what Dad said in the Letter‚ "You Are What You Read." The principles were fine‚ but in my mind I thought‚ "That's not the case all the time." That little thought got me off the track. It was logical to me. I compromised and I paid the price.
76. After I'd been with Dad and Mama for a year, Dad asked me to sign a Letter he was sending to Rachel ("The Nebuchadnezzar Revelation," ML #763, Vol.6), when she was having serious problems and was on the verge of leaving both her ministry and Emanuele. Signing it would mean I was declaring my loyalty to him and Mama rather than Rachel, and that I didn't agree with what she was doing. [See ML #778‚ Vol.6.] In the end, I refused to sign it, out of misplaced loyalties. I'm sure Dad was concerned about me by that time. But he kept loving me and trying to help me.
77. I was vacillating. That second time around [when I did sign the letter], I was a man convinced against my will, so I was of the same opinion still. I was double–minded at this stage of my life. I had chosen my will over the Lord's will, which was being asked of me through Dad. We didn't use prayer and prophecy as often as you do now. Nevertheless, I had the spiritual weapons I needed to do the job at the time.
78. I did agree with Dad when he gave me the ultimatum, but by then I had already compromised in my heart and was on my way out, as you see by my departure soon after that incident, which is documented in the Letters. I wasn't getting in the Word at that point, so I would have my moments of truth, only to be sucked into the darkness again because my foundation wasn't built on the Rock, on the Word.
79. It doesn't take long to be confused in heart and spirit when you're disconnected from the truth, from the Word. That's the scary part that some people don't seem to realize. They think, "Oh, I have the Word in my heart. I've memorized all these verses." If you don't keep the Word alive, if you don't use the Word and live the Word, you'll lose it, especially if you're taking in all the pleasures of the world. So that's a little bit more of the background of the state I was in.
80. I hope this is helpful to drive home the need for the Word Revolution. The Endtime will be a test for many. There will be those who fall, not having obeyed. There will be a great dearth of Word in the land, and all those who have obeyed in asking the Lord everything, exercising their gift of prophecy; those who were faithful to review and memorize, to read the written Word, to study to show themselves approved before God‚ will be thankful in that day. They will be as the wise virgins, but it will still be rough and even they will miss not having the abundance of Word that is so readily available today.
81. Back to the problems I had with the Word. It's a dangerous sign when you can't stand up for the truth, when you won't admit that you believe the Word. That's the beginning of the end. Things go downhill fast after that. At least that's what happened to me. I'm sure it really disappointed the Lord and Dad, and after that, something changed inside me.
82. Instead of battling to make the right decision‚ I had made the wrong decision‚ and then I scrambled to justify it, even if only in my mind. That opened the door to a lot of justifications and lies from the Enemy—compromises, really. I was just trying to make myself feel better. But when that happens, it's not too long before you have no conviction left, because those justifications are never Word-based, or even if they seem to be, they're just twisted interpretations of the Bible or the Letters.
83. After a while you don't hear the Lord's voice so clearly, and eventually you've gone so far back in your mind, with one wrong decision after another, that it's almost impossible to turn around. You've built such a vivid, detailed‚ logical explanation and justification in your mind for your decisions that you're a slave to it. You're in bondage to it; you feel you've gone so far that you just have to keep going.
84. I've had plenty of time to think about where I went wrong. It's not that from one day to the next I decided I'd leave the Family. It was gradual. My conscience became dull and I created a false reality for myself. I think this happened as a result of a combination of things. It's not just one decision, but it's many, and together they eventually change the direction you're going; in fact, they change you. You become a different person, because you are the sum total of your decisions, your convictions, your character‚ your integrity, your love for God and your hatred of the world.
85. I wouldn't let go. That was my problem. That's where I went wrong. I wouldn't let go of my image‚ my desire for knowledge and so–called culture, my "open-mindedness," my friends. Dad tried to tell me, the Lord tried to tell me, the Word warned me, but I loved these things. At the end of the day, I loved these things more than God, more than Dad and Mama, more than the Family. It came down to love of self, I suppose. That's how I define pride.
86. There was a period of time when the Lord was trying desperately to get me to drop out of the System again, to distance myself from the world, to be separate from my compromised friends, Rachel and her crowd‚ and some of those I had met while FFing. He was calling over and over again, waiting to see if I'd stand with the Word, with Dad and Mama. He gave me quite a few chances. But over and over I kept holding on to pride, image, reputation, friends. It seems so crazy now, but at the time the spiritual battle was extreme. The argument in my mind was screaming at me. And oh, that sick feeling in my stomach when I'd harden my heart to the Lord's prodding.
87. Does any of this sound familiar to you? As I said, I know things are different for you and life is much more complicated in the Family today. Your choices are probably less clear-cut, and the blessings or judgments for right or wrong decisions are not so evident, at least not immediately. But I can't help but believe that some of you are feeling a lot like I did inside. You have friends who have left, some of you have lovers who have left. You don't want to cut them off, you don't want to be extreme; in fact, maybe your motives are to try to love them back into the Family. Maybe you want to prove that you can be a worldly-wise missionary, that you can be educated in the ways of the world and still serve God wholeheartedly. And possibly you think it's not really necessary to take a stand for all that radical stuff being published, the Letters that are causing quite a bit of uproar in the Family. I thought Dad was extreme with the RNR. Maybe you think Mama is extreme in some things too—the CvsC series, for example? Not having System jobs maybe? Not pursuing higher education? Not reading the writings of your apostates?
88. What is it in the Word today that's stuck in your craw? What's bothering you? In what ways do you think you know better than Mama and Peter? How do you think you're going to "improve" the Family by being more mainstream, more normal? Are you holding on to your image, your reputation? How are you a friend of the world? What have you said no to?
89. Take it from me, these are important decisions. It takes a while before you see the full ramifications of compromise, of putting your own pride, image or friends before the Lord. But it comes back to you, eventually.
90. Many of you are at the same place I was years ago. You're hanging in the balances. You still hear the Lord's voice of conviction. You still have a sick feeling in your stomach at the thought of saying no to the Lord. But you have taken exception to the Word. You're thinking some bad things about Mama and Peter. You think they've made some mistakes, that they're too extreme, that they aren't seeing everything right. You're wondering how to be friends with those who are no longer with you, because you don't want to be seen as weird or brainwashed or a robot, controlled by prophecy and "weird stuff" like being Jesus' bride, being in subjection to leadership, living by rules, etc. You don't want to be a beggar; you don't want to be poor.
91. I can't tell you what to do. No one can. I don't know how far you've gone in your mind battle of God against the Devil, the truth against your pride. I'm not God; I don't know what you're thinking or the times you've said no to God. But I do know that if you're reading this, then there's still time to make the right decision. If you're still in the Family, at least enough that you're getting the GNs and reading them, then it's not too late for you to really look at your life and make the right choices.
92. No matter how far you've gone, no matter what bad things you've said against the Lord or the Word or Mama and Peter, no matter how much you think you hate life in the Family, if you call out to Jesus He can make everything right. If you think your life is crap and you feel you can't go on, believe me‚ leaving is not the answer. Holding on to your pride and reputation is not the answer. Clinging to your friends who are living in the System is not the answer. All that becomes dust that just slips through your fingers and you're left with nothing.
93. I know how difficult it is to not care about your image or reputation. I know how hard it is to stand up for the Word‚ which can seem so weird or extreme sometimes. I know how hard it is to turn around when you've been justifying your actions for a while. I know how afraid you can be. It's so hard. Too hard, in fact, for carnal man. You can't do it. You can't forsake all. You can't be humble. You can't forsake your pride and confess your sins. You can't be a missionary. You can't be separate from the world. You can't give up those things you like so much. You can't do any of that. Only God can. But that's the key. He can!
94. You don't know me and I don't know you. But take it from someone who's been there, done that. Turning your back on the Lord and the truth is a hellish way to live. Compromising for gain, to keep your friends‚ or to make money, will come back to you as empty pipe dreams. Not standing up for the truth or the Letters, thinking you'll have more effect by being the friend of those outside the Family, even those who fight the Family‚ will only hurt you. You won't change anyone that way.
95. That's all I have to say. You can take it or leave it. No one can force you to choose God's way. That's between you and God. You might think this message is hype, or the figment of someone's imagination, or some kind of mental coercion. You can think that if you want to‚ but I'm telling you, this is God's love for you. He's allowing a poor failure like me to come back and try to show you what's happening to you. I know the road you're taking. I'm really sorry that I failed to live up to the truth I had been given.
96. God damn pride, reputation, compromise, higher education, image—these will all lead you to hell. Not the real Hell, the damnation of Hell, but the hell of failure, the hell of turning your back on the Lord‚ the hell of not living up to your calling. Take my word for it‚ it's not worth it! (End of message from Timothy.)
I promise you, My sweet bride, that your sacrifices will not go unrewarded. I swear to you that you will receive a hundred times more than what you have forsaken. That which weighs so heavily upon your heart today, that which is given at such a great cost, that which causes your heart to ache, and that which causes you to cry out for My mercy in the depths of your spirit, will soon be much easier to bear.
The time will come in the not-so–distant future that you will look back upon these days of forsaking and this time of crushing, and you will see My promise fulfilled, that as you put your Isaac on the altar, and as you gave Me that which was most precious to you, I opened the windows of Heaven and poured upon you blessing upon blessing, so great that it seemed more than you were able to receive.
My love and blessing will be so overwhelming to you that you will kneel before Me, raise your hands in thanksgiving, give Me the glory and praise, and say, "Oh, I thank You, my Lord, that You gave me the grace to give all. I thank You, my Lord, that You gave me the faith to trust You. I thank You, my Lord, that You have heard my prayer. And now You have given me my heart's desire, more than I ever dreamed possible!"
So trust Me through this time of testing, through this tunnel of darkness, through this squeezing of your heart, and know that I will cause it to bring forth good fruit in every way. Because you have been a cheerful giver, I will give unto you cheerfully and abundantly.
It is an utter forsaking that I require. It is not only a willingness to forsake your belongings or your ministry or your job or your mate, but it is a forsaking of your own self and your pride. Lay these down before Me and come with nothing in your hands. I will hold you and I will not let you fall. I will take you up into My arms and I will reward you many times over for this sacrifice and your yieldedness to Me. It shall not be a loss, but you shall gain and flourish and reflect the tenderness of My Spirit upon others.
Others shall find comfort in the comfort that you have found. Your brokenness shall bring unto many the sweet understanding, sympathy and comfort that they long for and need. You cannot see it now, but through your yieldedness and forsaking of your pride I will shape you into a vessel most dearly used by Me and cherished by others. So hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take your crown. Know that I will not fail you, but I will fulfill My promises unto you. Fear not, only believe, and accept My Words of love. Not one thing that I have promised will fail.
Sometimes I require individuals to forsake their personal desires that they might unite with the body as a whole. Although it is a sacrifice and a denial of self, they receive My blessing. For in unity there is strength. In unity there is My blessing, and in obedience you receive special power. This is why My Family is special to Me, because of the willingness of My children to deny themselves and to deny their personal desires to do what's best for the Family, for the whole unit, for My bride‚ for My church.
This denying of self, this giving of one's life, is a daily requirement. Many have done it once or twice‚ but I love My children because they do it daily. I reward them with special faith for obeying‚ for believing‚ for receiving and for obeying My Word and for following My instruction.
So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath‚ he cannot be My disciple (Lk.14:33).
1. This is God's first test to every disciple: To see if he loves Him enough to put Him first by forsaking all immediately to follow Him now! The Lord seems to make the entrance exams hardest of all!
2. Once you have determined to serve the Lord‚ you can't lose—anything but your life!—Or maybe your wife or husband or children or mother or father or houses & lands or your money—but what is that in comparison to all He offers you?
3. The Lord brings you out so He can bring you in.
4. Don't remind yourself of your losses. Forget the past and live for today!
5. The worst thing you can do is constantly remind yourself of what you've forsaken.
6. A woman who was called to be a missionary but instead married a millionaire showed my Mother through her mansion & said sadly: "See all that I traded God for?"
7. The more He gives you, the more you're going to have to forsake!
8. You can't just "forsake all" once.—You've got to keep doing it every day!
9. You have to keep leaving Egypt every day, or you're going to build up a new Egypt.
10. If you keep forsaking more every day, the Lord is going to keep giving you back more.
11. Forsaking all is not just something you do once & for all‚ you have to constantly be forsaking in your heart. Every day you're forsaking the Devil's voice & temptations to try to suck you back into the old ways & the old system!
12. When you give everything to God, then He takes care of everything! But when you hold something back for yourself, then you must take care of it!
13. Sometimes God makes you forsake a thing or lay it on the altar just to see if you're willing to forsake all to follow Him, when He intends to give it back to you—like Isaac.
14. Don't hand me any of that stuff about "Then why did God give children to me, just to take them away again?" That's why He gives us everything, damn it!—Just to give back to Him for His Glory! If I hadn't given my children to God you wouldn't be here!
15. Give to God as though you never expect to get it back.
16. When He could trust me with them, God gave me back many things that I gave up for Him.
17. People's pasts really have to be buried or they're apt to plague them later.
18. If you don't keep forsaking every day, you keep accumulating everyday.
19. How can you take something away from the man who's given up everything?
20. You don't have to be rich to be attached to your riches. I knew a poor man who was attached to his shack‚ he loved & worshipped his little shack. He wasn't willing to give it up. You can even be a poor man & still trust in the little wealth you have. It's not how much you give that counts, it's how much you have left!
21. You will never know the fullness of the joy of serving God to the utmost until you have forsaken all to follow Jesus Christ.
22. You don't have to have very much to have "great" possessions. It only has to be just a little bit bigger than God in your eyes. It only has to keep you from serving God. It only has to be just enough to keep you from breaking loose & shaking loose & serving God.
23. I don't understand how anybody can give God less than everything.
24. Why can't we, the Family, make at least the same sacrifices for the Lord that soldiers & sailors & marines & businessmen make for their jobs & their work?
25. When you consider that military men go away for months & years at a time to fight their nation's battles in far-off fields & even suffer injury, sickness, death & all kinds if dangers away from home & family just for the sake of patriotism or their country, or even the draft because they're forced to go, & businessmen spend most of their time away from home on the road or at the office, I'd like to know why some of our people are so reluctant to be willing to leave home & family & wife & children & forsake all, as many used to do readily & without second thought, to serve the Lord in this Family in extremely important & urgent work which can't be done at home or with their family but has to be done alone in the field?
(See also No.B, F, S, 23, 34, 42, 203, 225, 251, 314A, 510, 542, 568, 641, 657‚ 673‚ 721, 727, 731, 778, 783, 880, 897‚ 1332, 1653.)
26. PSA.45:10,11 Forget also thine own people‚ and thy father's house; So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty: for He is thy Lord; and worship thou Him.
27. MAT.13:44 Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field.
28. MAT.16:25‚26 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole World, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
29. MAT.19:21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven.
30. MAT.19:29 And every one that hath forsaken houses‚ or brethren, or sisters‚ or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My Name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.
31. MAR.10:29‚30 And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My sake, and the Gospel's, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the World to come eternal life.
32. LUK.12:33 Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the Heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.
33. LUK.14:33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple.
34. PHI.3:8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things‚ and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.
35. PHI.3:13,14 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before‚ I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
36. HEB.11:27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured‚ as seeing Him Who is invisible.
The Treasure Vaults of Heaven
The persistent morning light pierced the wooden shutters of Don Alejandro's bedroom. Turning once more on his satin sheets and feather pillows, he opened one eye, then the other. Pausing a moment, he crossed his arms, looking up at the vaulted* ceiling as the light played on the immense tapestries on the walls. Bathing himself in the sensations of the new day, he felt nothing but happiness and gratitude for the life he had. He arose‚ put on his new silk robe, a treasure from the mysterious East‚ and walked to the window.
He threw open the shutters, drew his breath and marveled at the beauty around him. He observed the hard–working peasants carrying their loads, the neat rows of stone houses‚ the magnificent cathedral rearing its head above all other buildings, and beyond the city walls, gardens, fields and woodlands.
As he eyed the country road twisting off into the distance, the realization fell upon him fully: this was the day he had been looking forward to for so long. He rang the butler's bell, and with his assistance, carefully chose his clothing, topping his outfit with his newest, most distinguished coat. He ran his carefully manicured fingers across the fabric and gently coaxed his hair into place. At last‚ prepared for this day of days, he descended the staircase, greeting the servants with a condescending nod.
After a hasty breakfast, Don Alejandro motioned to his horseman. "Is everything prepared?" he queried. Upon being assured that it was, he stepped outside and signaled his approval. His fine carriage was ready, and sixteen horsemen were to accompany him. His butler was directing the placement of two large leather trunks. Don Alejandro grasped his personal satchel at his side. If anyone knew its contents , he thought, I should be in fear of my life.
He pursed* his lips and motioned to his servants, who stepped back in silent obedience. He tapped the doorframe of the carriage and they were off. As they rolled swiftly through the narrow streets, he bowed superciliously* at the many men who bowed or tipped their hats to him. Passing the grand cathedral which lifted its twin towers to the heavenlies, he thought of the place he had bought in the heart of the bishop and in Heaven. He thought of the expensive mahogany pews he had reserved, waiting to be filled with his progeny*.
As they passed through the town gates, Don Alejandro resituated himself in the commodious* carriage. He relaxed and allowed himself the luxury of ruminating* on the reason for his journey. Ah! Sweet Maria Teresa! How blessed was the man who would take her in his arms and call her his own! She was a vision of beauty, worth the fifteen-year wait. Her bloodline was impeccable, and though still so youthful, she had the regal bearing of a queen.
After years of bachelorhood, Don Alejandro was to visit the home of Maria Teresa's parents and formally petition her hand in marriage. There would be no hesitation, for it had all been arranged years ago. Of course, his future relatives were anxious to give the hand of their precious only daughter to such a one as Don Alejandro. His generous gifts to their household had assured him a place in their hearts. How lovely she would look at his side. He thought of the children she would bear, and how handsome or beautiful they should be. What to name them? Alejandro snapped back to reality; it was certainly too early to pick names.
Presently they entered deeper into the forest. Don Alejandro crossed himself* and shooed the first fearful thought from his mind. Checking once more the location of his satchel, safely tucked beneath his seat, he reassured himself with the thought of the sixteen armed men surrounding him. The clicking of the horses on the stony path‚ the regular thumping of the wheels‚ the occasional sound of the whip whistling through the air—all this brought peace to his mind and slumber to his eyelids, and he returned to his rest and reflection. It was to be a long journey.
The morning wore on and Don Alejandro felt the first pangs of hunger. He opened the curtain‚ peered out at the greenery and saw to his delight a small clearing‚ a perfect spot to lunch. He ordered a halt‚ to give himself‚ as well as his men and horses, ample time for rest and provisions. A servant brought a comfortable low stool for Don Alejandro to sit on, as the others relaxed beneath the trees. The light reaching down through the trees dappled the layers of leaves with the appearance of diamonds and emeralds. The simple lunch of dark bread, cheese, apples, and full-bodied wine never tasted so good. Crossing his legs and petitioning a light for his pipe, Don Alejandro studied his surroundings.
Then he saw it.... What was it there, beyond the trees? He cocked his head and squinted his eyes trying to make out the form on the ground. After a few moments of contemplation, he could contain his curiosity no longer. Trying to maintain his appearance of being dignified and nonchalant, he sauntered past the small brook‚ past the rows of saplings to the foot of a gigantic oak. There, lying nestled in a coarse brown blanket lay the figure of a man.
Don Alejandro studied his ruddy cheeks, the thin line of hair forming a low wreath around his head, and noted on his finger a filigreed* gold ring of extraordinary beauty. With his boot he nudged the sandaled foot.
"Are you alive, my man?" he called.
Again he tapped the foot, and once more a bit harder, calling again, "Are you alive?"
Hermanito Daniel sputtered, wiping the sweat from his face and the sleep from his eyes. Looking up, he saw a tall slender man with long black boots towering over him, with a sword glistening at his side. The sun shone directly in Daniel's eyes and he could see little else. He grabbed hold of Don Alejandro's hand and helped himself to his feet. He looked around, and was obviously surprised that the sun stood as high in the sky as it did.
"Why thank you, my good sir, for waking me. How time does fly. I stopped for only a moment to rest my weary feet and here it is high noon. I have miles to go. I must be off. God be with you."
And so‚ without any further introduction, but with a smile which carried the innocence of a child, Daniel trudged off down the road, through the trees, out of sight.
Don Alejandro shrugged off the odd, perplexing feeling that overcame him. He sharply called his men together and within moments they were on their way again. Don Alejandro was comforted once more by the serene clatter of the wheels and the horses. He felt the carriage slow down, presumably for a passer-by. He peered through the curtain slyly, to see a sturdy broad-shouldered figure, whom he recognized as the same man from just a short while ago. Just as he passed the man, he let the curtain drop, uneager to face this man's contented smile once more. Contented, he thought with disgust, contented with next to nothing.
He returned to his thoughts of the beautiful Maria Teresa. Numerous scenarios passed through his mind as he went over and over their introduction, and imagined their first embrace.
The day stretched on and the afternoon began to fade. Don Alejandro regretted their rather long stop for lunch. The horses' heavy panting indicated their need for rest, but Don Alejandro fought the urge to signal to the horsemen to stop. We must pass through the woods before darkness is upon us. We must be close to the forest's edge, he thought.
Suddenly he stiffened in his seat sensing something. He heard no sound, saw no movement, but a sinister stillness filled the air. There was an uncanny presentiment that danger was near. The horses whinnied*, falling back in their steps, brushing one against another, desiring to turn aside with nowhere to go. The driver's whip urged them on.
Suddenly a scream tore through the forest. Then another. Then another. Then the sound of metal on metal, the clashing of swords. A thud! Don Alejandro was thrown to the ground as the carriage lurched to the side and tipped over. He didn't hear the robbers' cries as they overcame his men. Though good soldiers, they were heavily outnumbered by the well-armed thieves who had the advantage of surprise and knew the forest well. He didn't hear the unloosing of the horses. He didn't hear the unloading of the large leather trunks. He didn't feel the hands groping beneath the seat for his satchel. He knew only the sharp pain in his head, followed by what seemed to be a long, deep dreamless sleep.
Hermanito Daniel walked along the rocky road, smiling at the birds singing overhead. Though no longer in his youth, he walked at a brisk pace, humming to himself. He thanked God for the sunlight drifting down through the treetops. He thanked God for this path, tiring as it was to walk along, through the forest. He praised the Lord for his simple but practical sandals. He remembered the humble cobbler who had presented them to him.
He remembered the dark night, the terrifying thunder, the desperate look on the face of a man whose beloved wife was dying in childbirth.
"Come pray for us, Brother!" was all he had said. Daniel recalled the prayer, the familiar verses: "Let them call for the elders of the church and let them anoint him with oil in the Name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up."
He had had no holy oil, but with a fervent prayer and a gentle kiss on the feverish brow, the woman's pain had ceased, and a beautiful, perfect little boy was born. They called him Danielito. How old must he be now? The last time Daniel had seen the child he was a curly-headed tot who hid in the skirts of his mother when his parents, in reverent tones‚ introduced Daniel to their miracle child‚ his namesake.
There were so many more stories. Daniel praised the Lord again for his simple life of faith. Like the disciples of Jesus‚ he had been called to go out and preach the Kingdom of God, to heal the sick, to cast out devils. Freely he had received and freely he had given of all that had come into his hand. He had no money, nor purse to hold it in. He had only the clothes he wore, the simple blanket folded over his shoulders, the sandals on his feet, the treasured, hand–copied manuscript that contained the Words of his Lord‚ and his one gold ring. But he knew that wherever he was led, the Lord would supply. He had never failed to give him a place to lay his head. Sometimes it was in the shade of an oak tree. Sometimes it was on the soft grass shared with the sheep of the field. Sometimes it was a generous bed in an inn. Sometimes, like baby Jesus, he slept in the warm hay of a stable.
Daniel knew well the road he was traveling, as he had passed this way many times. He knew each bend, each overhanging branch. The forest creatures had no fear of him and gathered around him like old friends. He was not alone. He had no fear of nightfall, for as much as he enjoyed the warm sunlight he also enjoyed the twinkling stars and the crickets' song. He walked quickly, but unhurried.
He did not know where he would be at day's end or where the next morning would take him. At each turn or fork in the path he prayed for direction, always carrying in his heart the desire to be of service. That night he was led to a mossy glade by the side of the road, which he made his resting place. He luxuriated in his velvety green bed, warmed by a doe who lay beside him nestling her fawn.
The next morning‚ as he read the familiar story of the Good Samaritan from his worn manuscript, he was particularly touched by the Lord's command: "Go thou, and do likewise." Praying that the Lord would guide his feet and help him minister in the way He saw fit, he humbly requested his daily bread. In his deep pockets he felt the last crumbs of the coarse biscuits given him by a woman whose twisted arthritic fingers had been straightened. He raised his eyes heavenward. "Jesus, You were in all points tempted like me, and surely You must remember the pangs of hunger in the wilderness. I have no doubt You will supply."
Daniel threw his blanket over his shoulders‚ placed his sandals on his feet, and carefully wrapped his precious manuscript in a cloth. He passed a stream of cool crystal water and drank deeply. Ignoring the growls in his stomach, he walked on. Soon, a dazzling brown pheasant crossed his path. She seemed to be beckoning him to come where she walked. Daniel followed, careful to avoid stepping on any low nests. Within a few moments he found a bush laden with blackberries, dark and succulent*. There were more than enough to fill his hunger. Then a honeybee landed on his hand and led him to her hive. Fearlessly he reached deep within, grasping a section of the comb, filled with luscious sticky nectar. The birds joined him in his song of thanksgiving as he continued on the road.
Daniel recognized the last bend before the forest's end. He quickened his pace, hoping to reach the village before nightfall. He looked forward to seeing his many friends there. The Lord had done numerous miracles in this place, and helped Daniel to win many souls and touch many hearts. This was one of his favorite stops. He busied his mind praying for each of the Lord's dear followers here.
As he turned the curve in the path, he caught his breath at the sight of the overturned carriage. He ran to the side of man after man, examining their grievous wounds. He was almost weeping, praying over the souls of the men who had died such violent deaths, and for the souls of those who had committed such a heinous crime. When he at last came to the carriage, he recognized the tall‚ slender man inside. He remembered the boots, the impeccable clothes. He took his blanket and wrapped it around Don Alejandro's head.
Feeling the faint pulse, and hearing the shallow, labored breathing of this stately man, Daniel knew he was still alive. He felt the surety of faith, and summoned to mind the many healing miracles God had performed through him. He knew that the Lord could heal this man, whatever his injuries.
He claimed the Words, "Greater works than these shall ye do because I go unto my Father." Though there was no one around to hear, Daniel uttered aloud a prayer of power and eloquence, claiming verse after verse of God's promises.
There is a moment when the plea of man reaches the heart of God, when the Word claimed in faith demands the answer. God sent His messenger to Daniel's heart saying, "It is done. Your prayers have been answered."
As thrilling as the battle is the flush of peace and victory. Daniel felt the quickening pulse, heard the deeper, relieved breathing, and watched his fluttering eyelids opening. Daniel raised his arms to thank the Lord for another answered prayer. Thus motionless they remained, the impeccably dressed man gazing upon the face of his "savior," and the humble itinerant* reaching his arms up to his God.
Don Alejandro awoke from his coma to see an angelic face, bathed in the glory of the morning sunshine. He had never seen such a face—a face enraptured by such peace, such glorious victory. He thought perhaps he had passed on into the heavenly realm and was seeing the face of Christ Himself‚ but as he studied the features he began to recollect having seen this fellow before. He lay there trying desperately to remember when or where, but he could not think clearly. Even his own name eluded him at this moment.
Where was he? Who was he? How was it that he lay like a child in the arms of this stranger? Then he looked around. He studied the crushed form of the carriage, and a short ways beyond, he saw one of his footmen lying on the bloodstained ground. He looked at his own once–fine coat, now muddied and torn.
Daniel looked into Don Alejandro's eyes.
"You've had quite a shock‚ my dear sir. Do you know how long you have been here? Do you feel all right now?"
Don Alejandro did not answer because he did not know how to answer. Thoughts crossed his mind, but they seemed to find no passage to his lips. He lay there stunned‚ too weak to move‚ seemingly hanging between life and death. Not knowing what to do, and wondering if the man might again succumb to his pain and leave this weary world, Daniel began to softly quote his favorite scriptures.
"The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me."
Don Alejandro had never heard these words before, yet now he felt their soothing, loving touch deep within his soul. A warm glow filled his body. A rush of life and hope filled his being‚ cutting through the bonds of fear.
After some time‚ he looked around once again, and the memories of what had happened began to come back ... the coach, the sound of horses' hooves, the rattle of the wheels on the rough stones, the whip, the screams. Slowly he remembered the nightmare which had befallen him.
"Oh no, my treasures. They have taken my all. I am lost!" he called out at length.
Tears began to fall as he thought of how his journey, which had begun so joyfully, had now turned to such terrible tragedy and loss. A cloud of immense despair descended over him, and the momentary ecstasy he had felt at surviving the ordeal faded as he faced his problems.
Daniel watched the emotions surge across Don Alejandro's face‚ and sensed his need for encouragement and comfort. There was a deep gash across his forehead, though the flow of blood had now abated. Daniel carefully removed Don Alejandro's stained jacket and tore a long piece of fabric from it, which he wrapped turban-like around the wounded man's head. He helped him rise to his feet, carefully supporting him, to test his strength.
The physical pain Alejandro felt was nothing compared to the sorrow that now engulfed him. The belongings he had carried with him on this journey represented all that was dear to his heart: golden candlesticks which had been passed down in his family for many generations, a diamond tiara* of priceless value, a ring of rubies and diamonds. They were gone, never to be retrieved. He remembered his mother passing these family heirlooms into his hands, and the joy and pride he had felt. How could he face his fiancée now?
For the first time in his life Alejandro didn't know what to do. As a child, he had carefully studied the courtesies needed in his day. He had applied himself diligently to his studies, and acquired much knowledge and learning, and had always been able to direct his steps and decide what he would do or where he would go. Now he found himself in another man's care, an inferior by visible appearance, though he also knew he was indebted to this one who had saved his life. He realized that his first impression of Daniel as Jesus was a fantasy, and yet he knew he was in the presence of someone who did not fit into his concept of the common man. He felt that he must stay close to his rescuer, and that if he followed him, he would somehow regain his treasures.
Darkness began to descend upon the forest, and Daniel did what he could to help Don Alejandro pass the night as comfortably as possible. The village wasn't a great distance away, but Don Alejandro was in no condition to walk, and Daniel was in no condition to carry him such a distance. He looked through the overturned carriage and found some blankets, which he arranged within the cabin to accommodate his friend for the night. He then found a few small provisions, a bit of bread and cheese, and half a bottle of wine. Ignoring his own needs, he generously offered them to Don Alejandro. Daniel blessed the bread, praying for this poor man's continued healing, and thanked the Lord for the most precious gift—His mercy.
After Alejandro had taken what he wanted, Daniel placed the bottle to his own lips. Then he sank back on the dark earth outside the carriage, opening the door to a corner of his heart where he seldom ventured, remembering a life that was no more, before drifting off to a calm and peaceful sleep.
Daniel awakened with the morning's first light and the birds' song. There was something so beautiful about the forest mornings, a freshness that existed nowhere else. He looked through the latticed ceiling of the trees to the clear blue above and longed to fly upward to his heavenly home. He always put on a cheerful smile and blessed the God of Heaven for the simple, but unusual life he led.
He knew that when he was with others he was called to lead them ever upward into the heavenly light, but he had moments like this morning, when he found himself empty and longing. It wasn't a physical hunger‚ but a feeling of loss or mourning for all that he had laid aside and given up in his service for the Lord. He knew that each day would be as a field of battle spread out before him. He knew that without the strength he drew from the Word and prayer, he could not take a single step.
He presented his soul, like a beggar's empty basket‚ to the Lord. Always faithful‚ always caring for His lone messenger‚ the Lord poured peace into Daniel's heart. He took the feelings of emptiness and loss and replaced them with a heart full of joy. It was not a quick process. Daniel lay silent for several hours, praying and being filled with strength from on High as the sun gained strength in the morning sky.
A stream of light passed through the carriage door to light up the face of Don Alejandro. He remembered previous mornings, rising in comfort in his elegant room. But it was now noon, and he awoke with a start‚ feeling so different. Never had the sunlight seemed so golden. Never had the green of the trees been so glorious. He touched his bandaged head, and wondered why he felt no pain. He looked out to see Daniel digging trenches in the forest floor. Not even giving a second thought to where Daniel would have gotten a spade in such a remote area as this‚ Don Alejandro rose slowly and leaned cautiously out the door, expecting at any moment to fall.
He was urged on by some intangible presence‚ like a babe searches out the presence of its mother. He wanted to look deep into the eyes of the man who had brought him back from such depths. He stood a moment watching as Daniel gently dragged the last of the bodies and placed it in the ground, covering it with soil. Then Daniel kneeled to place the last of the hastily constructed wooden crosses on the mounds.
"So, you are up at last, my friend," said Daniel, "and in good time too‚ for we must pay our respects to these poor men who gave their lives defending you."
He took Don Alejandro's hand and asked the Lord's mercy on the men who had died. He prayed that the Lord would take them as His Own even if they had never received Him during their brief lives.
"What do you say, my friend? Do you feel well enough to walk? The village isn't far, and I have friends there who will be more than happy to offer us a hearty meal. Then we can send a message for someone to come for you. Does that sound good?"
"I haven't even thanked you for all you have done for me," said Don Alejandro weakly. "It all seems so unreal now. I don't even know how long I lay there before you came along. It must have been an entire day. I thought I had died, or would soon enough, but somehow this morning I feel fine, stronger and without pain. I am just a little bewildered."
"Shall we walk as we talk?" asked Daniel. As the two men started toward the village, he continued. "I haven't introduced myself. I am called Daniel. I remember seeing you the day before yesterday in the forest where I was resting. You awakened me."
"Ah, yes. My name is Don Alejandro. I was riding to the next town with my horsemen, carrying with me some precious, irreplaceable treasures to give to my future bride. We were attacked and robbed. It truly is a miracle I survived, though I almost wished I had died. I have never felt at such a loss."
Changing the subject, he asked, "Are you a monk? Where did you receive your Holy Orders?"
Daniel smiled to himself, "I am not of any particular order really. I was called; it was a little irregular. I was given a commission, and though I would prefer to have the company of others, I spend much of my life alone with my Lord, traveling as He leads me, and ministering to those as I am led. I have no home to call my own. Like the Son of Man, I have not where to lay my head. Surely it was He who led me to you in your moment of need.
"I prayed for you, and I humbly ask you to understand that you were healed by God. It was a miracle. I surely thought you dead, but it was the Lord Who touched you, my friend. He has His reasons for sparing your life, so don't despair and wish He hadn't done so. It was part of His plan for both your life and mine that we met as we did and participated in His blessing."
"You speak eloquently," Don Alejandro noted, "and not as the humble man you appear. I discern that you have some unique background; somehow you are not like other holy men I have met. There is something special about you. I go often to the Cathedral of Saint John, but there is something different about you that is disconcerting* me. Tell me more. I need to know more of this power of healing that you speak of. I have heard of the black arts*, but surely this must be somewhat different."
Daniel chuckled softly as he pondered where to begin. First, he assured Don Alejandro that the gift of healing was a gift of the Spirit of God. He bit his tongue at the thought of all he wanted to say about the holy men, the monstrous cathedrals, the opulence* and decadence* of a church that presumed to spread the Christian faith. Better to stick with my own personal experience and let the Lord sort out the rest in His Own good time. He proceeded to witness to Don Alejandro about the experience of finding Jesus and receiving the gift of salvation by faith. He quoted, "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
"There is one thing that puzzles me," said Don Alejandro. "You dress so simply and appear to be the poorest of the poor, and yet you wear a very fine ring of obvious value. I don't mean to be presumptuous, but I am curious as to where it came from."
"It was a gift from my father. He asked me to keep it always, and I have kept it as he asked. Several times I feared that, living as I do, I would lose it to robbers, and various thieves have attempted to take it from me. But each time, as I begin to witness to these men and tell them of my faith, they fall to their knees in the fear of God and penitence. Therefore I have it with me still, and have fulfilled my father's desire."
"Then he must be a man of some substance?"
Daniel hesitated. The Lord had prepared Daniel's heart for this moment. He knew that all that he had passed through in his life was to benefit others. He knew that he was being called to comfort others with the same comfort wherewith he had been comforted.
"Yes, of a truth he is. I was born Daniel de Vasco, son of a nobleman. I lived on my father's estate and as I grew up, my lifestyle was much as I presume your own to be. I feel I should tell you a story that I rarely share‚ much less think about. Would you like to hear the story of my calling?"
"Yes‚ of course."
The two men were walking at a slow, comfortable pace, but Daniel still took a deep breath before he began his story.
"As a child I often liked to be alone. I wandered through the fields of my father's estate and observed the men who served him. I longed to give them more than what was their lot in life. I longed to help them‚ to in some way become one of them. I felt the call of God as a child. I heard His voice at ten years of age, calling me to give them the love of their Savior. I went to the cathedral and saw the extreme wealth and aloofness of a church that was supposed to give them eternal life. I knew there must be a deeper truth somewhere.
"Then one day I walked through the village square and witnessed the burning of a heretic. I watched in awe, along with the railing crowd‚ and looked into the eyes of this man who was supposedly leading others astray. Our eyes met as the flames engulfed him, and I knew‚ as surely as I knew anything in my life, that he had the truth I was searching for.
"Beside me stood an old man silently weeping. I followed him after the execution, as he weaved his way through the city streets. I watched as he knocked three times on the door of a simple house. I watched as with whispers he was let in. I saw the door close. Making my way home, I knew I must go back and knock three times on that door. I was desperate for answers. One night, wearing the clothes of a servant, I slipped out of the estate unnoticed and made my way to that house again. I knocked‚ held my breath and waited. Someone whispered softly, 'Who is it?’ 'It is Hermanito Daniel,' I replied. I was twelve years old.
"I was let into a garden where there was a small gathering. They looked at me, puzzled, wondering who I was and what I was doing there. I told them I had heard the voice of God. I told them what I had felt at seeing the burning of the heretic‚ and how I sought to know the truth. I said simply, 'I have come to give my life to God.'
"I had never met such loving people. They spent the night sharing God's Word with me. They shared with me the simple joy of salvation and prayed with me. They laid hands on me and asked God to give me gifts of the Spirit. Suddenly all that I had been seeking found me, and I felt God's love and peace in a very clear way. I felt I was floating on air as I made my way home in the predawn light.
"When I awoke the next morning, I saw my father, austere and proud as always, at the breakfast table. I looked upon my life, destined as I was from birth to take over my father's estates and be a member of the ruling class. I was changed in my heart, but I was afraid to let others know what had transpired. I continued to wear my clothes of nobility. I attended the cathedral. I wept myself to sleep and lived in two worlds at once, wondering what I would become if I were to totally give my life to God. More and more I held back in my heart.
"As I grew up, I continued going through the motions of my aristocratic life. I was known as a quiet, introspective young man. My parents sought me a wife, and a wonderful young woman came to share my life with me. For the first time I had someone I could share my innermost feelings with. Evelina was my darling. There was nothing more precious in my life. She was God's gift to me, and I could share with her all that had happened to me, and she understood. We were blessed with a beautiful baby boy and named him Manuel. Then shortly after, we had a little baby daughter.
"My wife often asked me what we were going to do, and she was eager to find God's will for our lives. She was ready to make any sacrifice for the Lord. But as I looked at her and at our two beautiful children, I found myself thinking like my father did. I wanted them to have the best of everything. Little by little I lost the desire to share my faith with others and I feared the sacrifices I would have to make. She questioned me as to why I continued to attend the cathedral. She wondered why I never talked with my father about what I truly believed.
"One day she heard there was a sickness at the home of one of our workers. I asked her not to go, to let it pass, but she was determined to go and deliver some food to those who were ill. I think it was our first argument. I told her to stay and she insisted on going. I watched from the window as she walked down the lane, feeling as if I had a premonition and knew what was going to happen. Several weeks later I saw her suddenly slump over a chair while looking after the little ones. I carried her to bed, from which she never rose again. I wiped her feverish brow and called out defiantly to the God of Heaven, beseeching Him to leave her with me, but she passed away in my arms. I never wept so much in my life. Then during the next nights I lay distraught and helpless as both of my precious little ones also died in my arms.
"As my house filled with mourners, I had to run away and be alone with my grief. I felt such confusion and anger. I knew God was unhappy with the life I had been leading, yet I also knew that He was not the fierce, angry God I had heard of as a child. I found my way to a spot deep in the woods and lay on the ground distraught and weeping. Finally, I called out to the Lord, asking Him to show me the purpose for all of this in my life.
"It was late, and darkness had descended, but suddenly I saw a light moving towards me through the trees. I wasn't sure if I was awake or asleep. I felt like I was dreaming, but my eyes were open and I touched my flesh to see if I was awake. The vision came closer and closer, and within the circle of light I saw the form of a man. He grasped my hand and drew me upwards. The light was clear and golden‚ and my heart longed to stay in this beautiful place. The angel told me he had a special job guarding the treasure vaults of Heaven; he had come to show me the treasure house of God.
"I followed, imagining how great and how mighty this place must be. Surely God has more riches than could be imaginable on Earth. I was excited as we neared the throne room. I could not see the face of God or stand in His presence‚ because I was still in my mortal body; yet simply by being so near to Him, I felt His love and was bathed in the light of His presence.
"I asked the angel why the treasure vaults were so close to the throne room, and he said it is because in the vaults are the things that are most dear to the heart of God. These are precious treasures that He himself guards and preserves beside His throne room. Of all things in Heaven and in Earth, these are considered by God to be most valuable.
"The angel pulled a golden key from beneath his robe and placed it in the lock. I held my breath in anticipation at what I would see. I expected to see piles of gold pieces‚ jewels and precious stones. Imagine my shock when I looked within to find instead a garden with birds‚ cats, dogs‚ a tiny child sitting on the grass smiling at the angels hovering over him. There were lovely young women, handsome young men and dancing children. There were even rough-hewn toys and dolls. I saw old people there too. I turned to the angel in surprise and questioned him: 'Is this the right place? I thought you said that this was the treasure vault. Why are all these people and animals here?'
"He smiled knowingly and said simply: 'These are God's treasures.—They are the things and people which have been given up by His servants because of their love for Him. He guards them here in this special place close to His heart until they will be given back eternally. Everything in Heaven is beautiful and everyone is happy, but these are given a special place of honor‚ because to God they are the most precious treasures that can be given, laid upon His altar and kept there safely until the day of their loved ones' arrival.
"'They are kept here‚ and not just kept, but lovingly cared for and greatly honored. God knows they are gifts of the heart, and the most difficult possessions to relinquish.' With that the angel took my hand and led me out, past the glorious, thrilling presence of God, down through the celestial tiers, back to my place lying on the ground among the trees near my home.
"The silent forest still shimmered from the angel's presence. I sat up and looked around me. My mourning ceased. I felt a calmness deep in my soul. The anger I had felt was no more. I knew what I must do. I mounted my horse and rode past my father's home. They had gathered there to comfort me, but I was no longer in need of comfort.
"I remembered the way to the believers' gathering place, through the winding streets, and I rode there speedily, as if driven by some invisible yet undeniable presence. 'It is Hermanito Daniel,' I called. As before, someone opened the gate, and then quietly beckoned the others. I tried to begin to explain‚ but simply fell before them weeping. I once again felt the hands laid gently upon me. I heard the prayers, the words fitly spoken, and my soul and spirit were revived. At last I explained what had happened in the years since I had met them. There was no condemnation, only loving pardon and acceptance.
"What they gave me cannot be measured in monetary terms. They filled me with the Word of God, and gave me a carefully copied manuscript which I still carry with me as my dearest possession. I stayed some days with them before returning to my house.
"Like the story of the prodigal son, my father ran to embrace me as he saw me coming down the road. He prepared the fatted calf and gave me this ring from off his hand. He asked me never to remove it, to always keep it with me as a token of his unending love. It was as if he knew what had happened to me, and what I was about to do. Before I began to explain about my calling, he said he was ready to let me go. I think I never loved him as deeply as I did in those moments, when I said goodbye and told him what I must do, what I had been called to do.
"That was many years ago, and I still remember his face, holding back the tears as he gave me to God. He is in Heaven now, along with my beloved wife and little ones, in the treasure vault dear to the heart of God. He is not lost, and I know, as surely as I know anything, that I will see him again and, as the Bible says, regain one hundredfold the time that we have been apart. As I live, it seems that more and more of my life and heart is in Heaven and my faith becomes more real to me. Each step I take draws me closer to eternal glory and I never fail to give thanks, not only for all that I have, but also for all I have given up for my King."
The two men walked in silence for some moments before Don Alejandro began to speak.
"Never in my life have I heard such a story. I am deeply touched that you would share such a personal part of your life with me. I have lived a selfish life. I have never known the meaning of the word "sacrifice." I have sat in the cathedral week after week paying homage* to a God I didn't know. At this moment I think I know Him better than I have ever known Him in my life. I thank Him for bringing you into my life, Hermanito Daniel. You have made my pain at losing some of my belongings seem almost foolish. I feel ashamed, but more than just that, I feel like I need to do something with my life, as you have."
At that moment they came upon the village. As they entered, Daniel smiled warmly at and hugged various passersby. A small boy ran to him and clung to his hand as they walked.
More and more children gathered around, calling "Hermanito Daniel is here! Come everyone! See, he is coming!"
A woman ran out of one of the houses with a basket of freshly baked rolls, offering them to Daniel and his friend. Don Alejandro marveled as he found himself seated on the stone seat of the village square‚ with people scurrying around him offering breads, cheeses, and fresh milk.
Someone wishing to help tend to his wounds unwrapped the bandage from his head and said, "There is blood upon the wrap‚ but no mark!"
Daniel looked, not surprised by the inexplicable*. There was no sign of injury on Don Alejandro's head. The wound had not only been healed, but had totally disappeared.
Alejandro ran his fingers through his hair, suddenly feeling uncomfortable and quite out of place. His once fine clothes looked tattered, and his boots were dusty and mud streaked. He felt awkward as the eyes of the village were on him‚ and everyone wanted to hear about what had befallen this man. He begged Daniel to come to his rescue and help him tell what had happened.
Word of their arrival had spread quickly, and most of the villagers were now huddled around as Daniel began. He raised his arms and asked God's blessing on this informal meeting. Then he recounted how he had been walking to the village and had encountered Don Alejandro lying beside his overturned carriage‚ surrounded by his slain guards. He described Don Alejandro's grievous wound and how he had been led to pray and ask for God's healing touch upon him‚ and how the nobleman slowly regained consciousness shortly thereafter.
Then he appealed to those present who did not know Jesus as Savior, the Creator of the Universe and mighty Healer, to ask Him into their hearts. His simplicity of speech reached the hearts of these farmers, shopkeepers, women and children. Those who had not previously met Daniel and been touched by his words now humbly repeated the sinner's prayer with him, and Don Alejandro found himself joining them upon his knees.
Such happiness filled his being that he was no longer ashamed of his disheveled* appearance. He gladly showed the spot where he had had the head wound and held out his bloodstained jacket. He had been the center of attention at many a time in his life, but never had it been such a thrill. He was proud, and at the same time humbled to be used in this way. Most of all, he knew his life would never be the same.
(Fourteen years later:)
The ever-beautiful Maria Teresa adjusted the silver broach on her black silk dress. The thick braids of her raven hair were carefully secured atop her head. A bell rang and announced the arrival of one of her maids.
"The carriage awaits you, Milady," she said reverently.
Maria gave her a hug and ran to knock on the doors of the children's rooms. Carlos and Miguel came, dressed in their very best jackets and trousers. They ran to their mother's arms and fought back the tears welling up in their eyes.
"This is a moment to be proud and strong," she said. "Papa is in the arms of the One he loved most in this world."
The carriages were arranged. In front was the horse–drawn coffin draped with a black cloth. Maria‚ with her sons, sat serenely within the following carriage. A small crowd gathered as they began to move slowly through the streets.
"He was a wonderful man," called one.
"He fed my family when we had nothing!" called another.
A woman ran to kiss Maria's hand. "God bless you as you have blessed us," she whispered softly with tears streaming down her cheeks.
Some children came running by throwing flowers. "Mama, are they the children from the orphanage?" asked Carlos.
"Yes, my son. They have come to pay their respects to your father for all he did to help them."
As they moved slowly through the streets, common men took off their hats and stood in silence as they passed. Joining the procession they began to raise their voices in song.
As they walked past the cathedral‚ a sour-faced priest stood in the doorway. "Look at the honor and respect given this infidel," he muttered, his eyes darting back and forth angrily. "If it was not my solemn duty to say a few words, I would have nothing to do with this man who purposefully defied my power and won the hearts of the people." Casting a look at the guard behind him, he added, "And if you see the heretic who is known to be his friend, wait until it is over and follow him. This may be our moment."
The mass was said in a monotone* of Latin. Then, in the cemetery beside the cathedral, the casket softly dropped into the ground. When it was over, a slight rain began to fall, and the well wishers began to disperse. Maria Teresa, thankful that this ordeal was at last over, asked the driver to take her home quickly. After lovingly tucking the children into their beds, she stood at the window watching for several hours.
"He must know‚" she whispered quietly to herself. "I sent messages. I know he will come."
Daniel wrapped his brown blanket more tightly around his shoulders as he watched the town from the shadows of the trees. He had seen the light of the mansion ahead, but heeded the Lord's clear voice telling him to wait until midnight. He knew she needed him now, but the Lord had indicated that the priest would be on the lookout for him‚ and he must come discreetly. It makes little difference , he thought. We are not to mourn but to rejoice that this precious one has graduated to his heavenly reward. Daniel thanked the Lord over and over.
He remembered his dear friend with joy and a touch of sadness. With a smile he recalled their first meeting, the miraculous beginning of their many years of friendship and devotion to the Lord's work. He had continued as the itinerant minister, but Don Alejandro had been used to reach many in a different way. The Lord had used his position in the community to protect and aid the Lord's work and workers. He had single–handedly stopped the persecution of those dedicated to the Lord and seeking to practice their religious freedom. He had dedicated himself to ministering to the poor and needy. Truly, he has entered into the joy of his Lord. It was the moment to move forward.
Daniel walked more slowly these days. He knew it would not be long until he would join his friend forever. To ease the ache in his legs‚ he praised the Lord softly, a practice he exercised more and more now. He breathed heavily as he lumbered past the garden wall. Although he looked forward to a warm meal and the soft bed in the room that had been prepared for him, he looked forward even more to the sweet fellowship he would have in this household of faith. He looked forward to recalling together the events of the past and thanking God for the miraculous way He had worked in all of their lives.
The light shone brilliantly through the windows of the mansion before him. Like the heavenly light that had guided his life, it lighted his face as he drew near. Heaven beckoned him forward, longing to free him from the darkness of this world. As his body had grown weaker through the years of following his calling, his faith and his love for the Lord had grown stronger. Each step drew him closer to his destination and to the arms of the ones who awaited him there. Placing more and more of his life and love in the treasure vaults of his dear Lord, he thanked the God of Heaven once again for giving him the true riches of life.
Copyright © 2004 by The Family
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