Shooting Straight, Part 3—Letter Links: "Things I Won't Do"

Submit Yourself to God

(ML #2224, DB 8.)

1. Long ago the Lord gave us a beautiful illustration of what yieldedness is in the oldie-goldie classic Letter, "Diamonds of Dust": "Watch the diamonds of dust! They don't TRY to sparkle & shine. They just let the light shine THROUGH them! They don't try to WORK to shine or move. They're not trying to get anywhere; they're not in a hurry! They just FLOAT so quietly on God's air—& only get stirred up when HE blows up a storm. But even then they settle back into their place when it's over!" (No.3:17)

2. "They twist & tumble in their TOTAL YIELDEDNESS to the breath of His Spirit!—That total lack of any will of their own, just floating on God's air.—Tumbling‚ rolling, scintillating, shining‚ exhilarating, so beautiful!" (No.75:24)

3. This simple little Letter also shows us WHY we need to be yielded to the Lord: "The light itself is INVISIBLE!—It can only be seen in the reflections of all those little diamonds of dust! People can only see GOD as WE reflect Him, like little diamonds of dust! They have to look at US to see GOD in our reflection of Him.—God's light can only be seen if YOU reflect it! So, `Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works & glorify your Father which is in Heaven!' (Mat. 5:16) If the DUST weren't there, the LIGHT couldn't be seen; & if the LIGHT weren't there, the DUST couldn't be seen! It takes BOTH!" (No.3:9)

4. The Letter then explains somewhat sadly, "You may never see the little diamond of dust again, for some of them just flow into the light, sparkle for a moment, & then vanish back into the darkness. They only have their MOMENT of Truth!" This is then followed by an encouraging & hopeful thought: "But if it could STAY in the Lord's Light, it could sparkle its life out to the end, like a candlestick that gives light to the whole house until it is finished! The longer that little grain of dust STAYS in the light, the longer it SHINES—& the longer it stays a DIAMOND!"—And that's what THIS lesson is really all about: How to STAY in the Lord's Light so that you can CONTINUE to be one of His jewels‚ a YIELDED & USEFUL tool in His Hands that He can fully use to accomplish His plan & purpose!

5. God has a very SPECIAL PLACE for each of us in His Kingdom, & He has a SPECIAL JOB, a UNIQUE MISSION for you which only YOU can fulfill! But there's only ONE WAY that you will even be able to FIND His Will for your life—much less be able to FULFIL it—& that is to be truly YIELDED to Him!—Only then will you be able to "let your DUST become DIAMONDS that show the BEAUTY of GOD!"‚ bringing the Lord's wonderful Life, Love & Light to as many folks as you can!

6. After all‚ this is what the Lord has His children here FOR in the first place: To WITNESS to OTHERS so they TOO can find the Heavenly Love & Salvation that WE have found in Jesus!—And the wonderful thing is, WE don't have to witness & do the Lord's work in our OWN strength.—In fact, if we do, we'll just make a mess of things!—We just need to YIELD to Him, to "let go & let GOD", & HE will then do the work THROUGH us!

7. People have got to see JESUS coming THROUGH you! But if your witnessing is too full of YOU‚ they'll just go on & figure that what you're saying is a waste of time—no different from what everybody else is preaching. So you can see how IMPORTANT your yieldedness to the Lord is—for YOUR sake, for lost SOULS' sake & for GOD'S sake! This is why He tells us that it's "NOT by (YOUR) might, nor by (YOUR) power, but by MY SPIRIT, saith the Lord! For we have this TREASURE (the Lord & His Love) in EARTHEN (fleshly) vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of GOD, & NOT of US!" (Zech.4:6; 2Cor.4:7)

8. Jesus even said of our work for Him, "My yoke is EASY‚ & My burden is LIGHT". (Mat. 11:30) So we don't ever have to worry about carrying too much or pulling too big of a load. We just need to learn to YIELD to JESUS & let HIM do His work THROUGH us! For without Him we are nothing & can of our own selves do nothing!—But as we "cast our cares upon Him", we "can do ALL things through Christ!" Hallelujah! (Jn.5:30; 15:5; 1Pet.5:7; Phil. 4:13)

9. Jesus says, "Abide in Me & I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me & I in him, the same bringeth forth MUCH fruit, for without ME ye can do NOTHING." (Jn.15:4,5) This has always been one of my favorite passages, because I knew I was nothing & I could do nothing without the Lord, but that if I'd just abide in HIM, HE'D bring forth the fruit, the LORD could do it! PTL!

"NOT MY WILL, BUT THINE BE DONE!"

10. To really find the Will of God in our lives, we have to be totally yielded to the Lord! JESUS gave us the best example of yieldedness when He knelt down in the Garden of Gethsemane &‚ knowing that He would soon face a horrible & cruel death on the cross, prayed, "NOT MY Will, but THINE be done!" (Mat.26:39) Unless we are yielded to the Lord & willing to lay down our lives for Him, we cannot even find what His Will IS. SUBMISSION is the FIRST step. And if we are unwilling to take THAT step of submitting ourselves to Him, we won't be able to go on to any OTHER steps, & will never accomplish what God wants us to!

11. God's Word says, "I beseech you, brethren, that ye present your bodies a LIVING SACRIFICE, holy & acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this World, but be ye TRANSFORMED by the renewing of your mind, that ye may PROVE"—or KNOW—"what is that good & acceptable & perfect Will of God." (Rom. 12:1,2) So the FIRST requirement in finding GOD'S Will is having NO will of your OWN!—Utter surrender, utter yieldedness to God of your mind, of your body, of your own will!—THEN you'll know! As someone has said‚ "The major part of knowing the Will of God is to be prepared to DO it BEFORE you even know what it IS!"

12. If you're a CHRISTIAN, if you're SAVED & have JESUS in your heart, it's important that you realize & understand that you are NOT your OWN! Jesus BOUGHT & PAID for you & your salvation with His Own blood, & you can't just do as you please! (1Pet.1:18,19) You don't just belong to yourself, you belong to the LORD & to GOD'S WORK & to the FAMILY! "Know ye not that ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a PRICE! Therefore glorify GOD in your body & in your spirit, which are GOD'S!" (1Cor.6:19‚20)

13. If you really believe the Bible, that Jesus bled & died on the cross to save you from Hell & to give you eternal Heavenly life, you should be willing to do ANYTHING for Him!—Go through ANYTHING for Him just in plain THANKS for your SALVATION! Amen? Your life BELONGS to Jesus! He bought & paid for you, so how can you not give Him your ALL & surrender YOUR will to His?

A SEXY BRIDE WITH NOTHING TO HIDE!

14. Although He bought & paid for us with His Own blood, Jesus didn't buy us just to make us His SLAVES, His servants who HAVE to do what He commands. He said, "I have not called you servants‚ but FRIENDS!" (Jn. 15:15) He wants us to be His friends, who do His Will not just because we HAVE to, but because we WANT to, because we LOVE Him. In fact‚ He not only wants us to be His friends, but His Beloved, His BRIDE!—"That we should be MARRIED to Him Who is raised from the dead‚ that we should bring forth FRUIT unto God!" (Rom.7:4)

15. His saved children, His genuine Church, are His Bride, & He, like any husband, wants a YIELDED & SUBMISSIVE wife whose desire is to love & please Him. But sad to say, most so-called Christians today—like a lot of independent & rebellious System wives—are married to Him in name only, & have forsaken Him & His Love & His Word in their HEARTS! They maybe go to a church building once a week, but they never really FELLOWSHIP with Him‚ don't go to BED with Him, don't have sweet LOVE–MAKING & thrilling spiritual ecstasies with Him.—And they certainly don't want to conceive & bear & have to take care of any more CHILDREN for Him!

16. This is why God has in these Last Days raised up our FAMILY, His sexy NEW Church!—A young NEW Bride bursting with energy & a passionate love for her Bridegroom! He wants a Bride that He can fuck the daylights out of with His Spirit & His Word, His Seed & His Love, to make her PRODUCTIVE & FRUITFUL, to bear everlasting children for the eternal Kingdom of God! "For herein is My Father glorified," Jesus said, "that ye bear MUCH fruit!" (Jn.15:8)

17. To be the kind of Bride He wants, you've got to first of all have enough FAITH in His Love to OBEY & come, & strip off all of the outer garments of appearances, cover-ups & false fronts, & expose yourself to the Lord, TOTALLY YIELDING yourself to Him in submission & humility. You must be willing to be stripped BARE before Him. You're just you, & that's what He wants, YOU!—ALL of you!

18. So you've got to drop everything, forsake all, come to Him & be willing to be stripped bare‚ abandon all false cover-ups, & just expose yourself to Him. And then you've got to let Him make love to you & FILL you with His Spirit & His seed, the Word of God, which, when conceived in responsive hearts, brings forth FRUIT, new-born babes into the Kingdom of God! Hallelujah!

GIVE GOD A CHANCE!

19. The Lord knows that the more yielded & obedient we are to Him, the more He can then USE us, & the HAPPIER we will be & the greater BLESSING we'll be to OTHERS! There is always so much urgent soul-saving WORK that He wants & needs done, but He has trouble finding willing WORKERS.—"For the HARVEST is PLENTEOUS, but the LABOURERS are FEW!" (Mat. 9:37) He's more willing to use, empower, anoint & pour His blessings out upon us than we are to receive them. He's usually just waiting for us to step aside & get out of the way so that He can take over & use us to do things HIS way! But until we surrender our OWN will & fully submit to Him & HIS Will, He'll NEVER be able to use us as much as He'd like to.

20. So submission & obedience are probably the MAIN things the Lord is trying to teach us most in our lives.—This is what He's trying to get us to do all our lives long, to SUBMIT to His Will & to be OBEDIENT to Him, which are practically one & the same thing!—You can't very well be yielded to the Lord unless you're obedient, nor can you be obedient unless you're yielded!—It takes BOTH!

21. The whole experience of our whole existence in this life is like a SCHOOLING to teach us what we need to know about the Lord & Salvation & about service, submission & obedience to Him & keeping His loving rules & His LAW OF LOVE.—And the FIRST & most important thing the Lord is trying to teach us is submission in spirit‚ to have a SUBMITTED & WILLING heart, YIELDED & RECEIVING instead of RESENTFUL, WILFUL & REBELLIOUS!

22. HORSES make a good illustration: Some horses can be ridden without a bit or a bridle or spurs or any of these things that are used to MAKE them obey & do what you want them to do. If they are well-trained & used to their master & submitted to him, he can control them with just a halter, without placing a bit in the horse's mouth. A horse can either LOVE its master & GLADLY & WILLINGLY obey & do its duty & its job, or it can be STUBBORN & WILFUL, & chafe at the bit & snap & bite & kick & be very unhappy, "kicking against the pricks" instead of yielding. (Acts 9:5)

23. This is why the Lord tells us, "Be ye NOT as the horse, or as the mule‚ which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit & bridle, lest they come near unto thee!" (Psa.32:9) The Lord "loves a CHEERFUL giver" (2Cor.9:7), & He seldom ever FORCES anyone to do His Will. In fact, if we won't do His Will for LOVE, because we love Jesus, He'd just as soon get somebody ELSE who WILL! He wants & prefers VOLUNTEERS who freely & willingly submit to Him & His slightest bidding.

24. But if you're like a stubborn horse or mule, & you stubbornly cling to your OWN ways & REFUSE to submit to the Lord, you'll NEVER really be what GOD wants you to be or accomplish what GOD wants you to do! You'll be worse than a "HAS-been", you'll be a "COULD–have–been" who never WAS! As someone once said, "God holds us responsible‚ not just for what we HAVE, but for what we COULD have; not for what we ARE, but for what we MIGHT be." But if you'll just YIELD to Him & be willing to accept WHATEVER He wants‚ then you don't need to worry. He'll mightily bless you & you'll be whatever HE wants you to be! PTL!

25. It reminds me of what an unknown Sunday School teacher said to a lowly teenage shoe salesman that he had led to the Lord in Boston. He said, "Dwight L. Moody‚ there is NO LIMIT to what God can do with a man who is YIELDED & WILLING to do His Will!" Moody looked him in the eye & replied, "By the grace of God, I am DETERMINED to be that man!" And he WAS! A short while later he moved to Chicago where he began preaching the Gospel & witnessing to others, & was soon so thrilled to be able to lead other folks to Jesus, that he quit the shoe business & began serving the Lord fulltime! He went on to become one of the World's greatest evangelists, with literally tens of thousands of eternal souls won as a result!

26. But what if Moody had NOT determined to yield to the Lord?—What a sad loss it would have been not only to himself, but to literally MILLIONS who heard the Gospel through his ministry! Well, the same holds true for each of US: If we are NOT yielded & open to God's Will in our lives, & willing to do WHATEVER He may ask of us, we'll NEVER become what God wants us to be!—And if we're not what HE wants us to BE‚ we will never be able to ACCOMPLISH what He wants us to DO.—Which could be very sad, not only for US personally, but also for ALL those that the Lord wants us to somehow help or reach with His Love.

27. "But," you may argue, "I could never do anything great for the Lord like MOODY did!—I'm no flaming evangelist or outstanding soul-winner!" Well, neither was Moody to begin with! He was just a poor farm boy & a below-average student who became bored with life on the farm & so moved to the big city. After several weeks in the city, he set a new goal for himself—to become a big businessman & to make $100,000. Giving his life to God's service was the LAST thing on his mind!

28. In fact, when Moody was first saved, he was so completely ignorant of God's Word & Truth, that when he went before a church committee to see if they would accept him‚ he was refused membership! His Sunday School teacher later wrote of him. "I can truly say (& in saying it I magnify the infinite grace of God as bestowed upon Mr. Moody), that I have seen few persons whose minds were spiritually darker when he came into my Sunday School class, or one who seemed more UNLIKELY ever to become a Christian of clear, decided views of Gospel truth‚ still less to fill any sphere of extended public usefulness!"

29. But when he found JESUS, & he realized how much the LORD had given for HIM, then he determined to give HIS life to the LORD to do WHATEVER God would ask of him. The Bible tells us, "Draw nigh to GOD, & HE will draw nigh to YOU!" (James 4:8) This is the secret of success of not just Moody, but of EVERY truly great man or woman of God whom He has ever used: They drew close to the Lord & relied solely upon HIM & HIS power & His Word for guidance, strength & inspiration.

30. Despite all of our faults, weaknesses & inabilities, there really is NO LIMIT to what God can do with us if we will simply turn our lives completely over to Him & be willing to let Him make us what HE wants us to be! Of course, that is a very BIG "IF", because we each have our own free will, & we can CHOOSE to either yield to Him & "seek FIRST the KINGDOM OF GOD" (Mat.6:33), or we can seek first our OWN desires & our OWN plans & our OWN ways. The choice is ours—& whether or not we have His full blessing & His help will depend on whether or not we are willing to give HIM first place in our lives.

31. But the trouble with most Christians today is that they seem to be more concerned about having God accept what THEY want to do than they are about accepting what GOD wants them to do! They're trying to put THEIR programme across to God, to get Him to sign HIS name, His approval, to THEIR plans. But the real test of yieldedness is: Are you willing, not to present YOUR programme to God for HIS signature?—Not even to be presented with GOD'S programme for YOUR signature?—But are you willing to sign a BLANK sheet of paper & let GOD fill it in without your even knowing what His programme is going to be?

32. If you're willing to be what GOD wants you to be—not what you ARE, but what GOD wants you to be—THEN He can MIGHTILY use you! God knows you can't make it yourself.—You just have to turn your LIFE, your MIND, your HEART, your EVERYTHING over to the Lord & let HIM make it for you! When you finally get to the point where you just surrender to Him & give up & let go & let God, then GOD has a chance to step in & do it!—And He WILL! Just give Him a CHANCE!

33. When we've yielded & submitted our all to the Lord, then we don't need to worry about ANYTHING.—Our ENTIRE lives are in HIS Hands, under His loving care, & the Enemy has NOTHING that He can get ahold of or lay claim to. In fact, to really overcome the Enemy, submission is exactly what the Lord requires. He says, "SUBMIT yourselves to GOD, RESIST the DEVIL, & he will FLEE from you!" (Jam.4:7)

34. But as long as there's one little dark unyielded corner of your life that you're NOT willing to yield to the Lord, if there's one little part that you refuse to surrender, the Enemy can bother you in that one little thing‚ plague you with that one little thing. This is why God's Word says, "Neither give PLACE to the Devil!" (Eph.4:27)

35. I'm reminded of the story of Huddersfield: A rich landlord desired to buy an entire village, & finally he bought every piece of land in the area.—That is, all except ONE little plot! For there was ONE stubborn farmer who refused to sell his tiny piece of land, & nothing would change his mind! The wealthy land owner even offered the farmer much more money than his little piece of property was actually worth, but the old farmer, fond of his land, absolutely REFUSED to sell! The landlord finally gave up, but encouraged himself by saying, "What difference does just ONE little plot of land make?—I've bought everything else, so Huddersfield is MINE!—It belongs to ME!" But the stubborn old farmer overheard him & reminded him‚ "Oh NO it doesn't! WE own Huddersfield!—It belongs to you & me!"

36. Don't let the Devil be able to say that of YOU to God!: "Aha! Look, God! He's yielded everything except this ONE little thing! So even though he belongs MOSTLY to THEE, a little bit still belongs to ME!" To "overcome the wicked one", & to have the "peace of God which passes all understanding" you must commit your ALL to the Lord. Then, when YOUR will is in perfect harmony with GOD'S will, you are safe under the shadow of His wings‚ & He will bless you with His perfect peace & Heavenly rest! (1Jn.2:14; Phil.4:7; Psa.91)—Like that dear old hymn says:

"You have longed for sweet PEACE,

And for faith to increase,

And have earnestly, fervently prayed;

But you CANNOT have rest or be PERFECTLY blest

Until ALL on the altar is laid.

Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid?

Your heart does the Spirit control?

You can only be blest & have peace & sweet rest‚

As you YIELD Him your BODY & SOUL!"

37. So yield yourself to God today!—Present your life on His altar of sacrifice, ask Him to take & use you for His glory, & He WILL!—As much as you will LET Him! "There is NO LIMIT!" You are HIS child, & He LOVES you & will always do HIS best for you to make you useful & happy in His loving service for others, so that you may bring THEM the same life & happiness that YOU have found in Jesus! So do YOUR best for Jesus by YIELDING to Him TODAY!—Amen? GBY!

Obedience Is Better Than Sacrifice

(ML #2418, DB 8.)

1. I'VE OFTEN SAID THERE ARE TWO WAYS TO TRY TO SERVE THE LORD—THE EASY WAY & THE HARD WAY.—Which one you choose is up to YOU! The easy way is to listen & obey. The hard way is to try to do things YOUR way, like that terrible song, "I Did It MY Way!" If you refuse the easy way of obedience, "the way of the transgressor is HARD", & you will certainly learn the hard way!—Prov.13:15.

2. WHEN YOU MISS THE PATTERN, WHEN YOU MISS GOD'S GRAND DESIGN‚ GOD'S PLAN, GOD'S WILL, WHEN YOU'RE DISOBEDIENT & YOU WON'T LISTEN TO HIS WORD, then you're bound to make a MESS of things! When you get off the track like that, you're like a weaver's shuttle that has left the weaving loom & is wandering off in space, aimlessly throwing thread in thin air!—If it doesn't want to be a part of the Weaver's tapestry, of the Planner's plan or pattern, but wants to just do its own thing & make its OWN tapestry, its own design, it just won't work!

3. PEOPLE WHO JUST GO AROUND DOING THEIR OWN THING, going their own way & obeying nobody but themselves & their own inspiration, following their own leadings & their own mind & their own carnal reasoning instead of obeying the Lord‚ they never seem to accomplish anything that's really fruitful or lasting! Instead of following God, instead of obeying leadership, instead of cooperating with others, they just do it THEIR way, & they're a real mess, & they usually MAKE a real mess!

4. THEY OFTEN TRY TO PUSH THEIR WAY AROUND & BULLDOZE THEIR WAY THROUGH & HAVE THEIR OWN WAY, completely out of the plan of God & off from the design & out of God's Will, disobedient & rebellious!—It's really pitiful! When people are out of control like that, & going off on their own, no matter how TALENTED they are, how TERRIFIC they are‚ what great IDEAS they have, if they're not GOD'S ideas, they'll fall flat on their faces!—Just like SAUL did!

A SAD EXAMPLE OF DISOBEDIENCE: KING SAUL!

5. THE STORY OF KING SAUL IS ONE OF THE SADDEST, MOST TRAGIC STORIES IN THE ENTIRE BIBLE! In the beginning Saul wasn't anything. In fact‚ he was so bashful that when Samuel came to anoint him to be king, it says he hid himself amongst the baggage.-1Sam. 10:21,22. But after awhile he forgot that it was GOD Who had made him what he was. It went to his head & he thought it was SAUL who put him where he was, he thought it was his OWN arm that had saved him & that it was his own brilliance that made him king. So God said to him, "When thou wast LITTLE in thine own eyes I did highly exalt thee."-1Sam.15:17. But when he became EXALTED in his OWN eyes then God had to utterly ABASE him!—Luk.14:11.

6. THE THING THAT FINALLY BROUGHT ABOUT SAUL'S TOTAL DOWNFALL was when he figured he was so smart that he could get along without the Lord. He went ahead in his OWN strength & his OWN wisdom, leaned too much to his OWN understanding & thus DISOBEYED the Lord.-1Sam.13:5-14. So the Lord had to really REBUKE him, CHASTISE him & tell him he was going to LOSE the entire Kingdom as a result!

7. BECAUSE THE STORY OF THE FALL OF SAUL IS SUCH A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF DISOBEDIENCE, LET'S TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT 1 SAMUEL, CHAPTER 15: The Lord‚ through His Prophet, Samuel, had told Saul to gather his army to go & make war against their enemies, the evil Amalekites. He told Saul to kill EVERYTHING-the oxen, the sheep, all the animals, everything!—As well as all the people! (v.3) They were probably all infected & infested with all kinds of evil spirits & diseases, so the Lord told His people to DESTROY them, lest they be polluted by the Amalekites' demonic religion, idolatry & evil ways!

8. BUT SAUL DIDN'T REALLY LISTEN TO THE PROPHET OF GOD & BELIEVE. "Faith cometh by HEARING the Word of God" (Rom.10:17), but Saul apparently didn't LIKE what Samuel told him‚ & therefore DIDN'T hear it & didn't OBEY. He failed to HEARKEN, to HEAR the Word of God, & his failure to hearken led to his lack of faith which led to his disobedience!

9. SO SAUL WENT WITH HIS ARMY TO FIGHT THE AMALEKITES‚ & HE WON THE BATTLE, he defeated the enemy. "BUT", the Bible says, "Saul & the people SPARED AGAG (the KING of the Amalekites), & the BEST of the sheep, & of the oxen, & of the fatlings, & the lambs, & all that was good, & would NOT UTTERLY destroy them. But every thing that was vile & refuse, that they destroyed utterly. (v.9)

10. "AND WHEN SAMUEL ROSE EARLY TO MEET SAUL IN THE MORNING"—Saul on his way back from the battle—"it was told Samuel saying, Saul came to Carmel, & behold, he set him up a place & is gone about & passed on & gone down to Gilgal." (v.12)—Obviously he wasn't coming back to face Samuel. He was beating around the bush, & I don't think he wanted to run into Samuel if he could help it.

11. SO SAMUEL HAD TO GO OUT LOOKING FOR HIM. "And Samuel came to Saul & Saul said unto him‚ 'Blessed be thou of the Lord. I have PERFORMED the commandment of the Lord!'" (v.13) He claimed to have performed the commandment of the Lord, but had he?-No!—He did NOT! What a LIAR! What a HYPOCRITE! And yet he spoke to Samuel so smoothly, he surely must have deceived himself & somehow convinced himself that he had done the right thing. That's the way really disobedient people often do, they lie until they actually believe their own lies!

12. "AND SAMUEL SAID‚ 'WHAT MEANETH THEN THIS BLEATING OF THE SHEEP IN MINE EARS, & the lowing of the OXEN which I hear?' And Saul said, 'They have brought'"—Notice he says "they"—"'THEY have brought them from the Amalekites: For the PEOPLE spared the best of the sheep & of the oxen, to SACRIFICE unto the LORD thy God, & the REST we have utterly destroyed.'" (v.15)

13. "—WE SAVED THE BEST FOR THE LORD! We didn't quite do exactly what you SAID, we thought THIS was BETTER!—But we did EVERYTHING ELSE & won the battle & defeated the enemies!—Look how much we've accomplished!-I only disobeyed a LITTLE bit, not very much! But look, after all, I won a big VICTORY! I OBEYED a whole LOT! I only DISobeyed a LITTLE!"

14. WELL, THERE'S REALLY NO SUCH THING AS HALFWAY OBEDIENCE!—There's no halfway with God‚ there's no 90% of the way with God! The Prophet looked Saul right in the eye & said, "What meaneth then the bleating of the sheep in mine ears & the lowing of the oxen which I hear?—You are a LIAR!" Samuel was saying right to Saul's face, "You DIDN'T do what I TOLD you to do! You DIDN'T slay UTTERLY!"-That was God's commandment, to slay UTTERLY‚ to slay them all!

15. "AND SAMUEL SAID UNTO SAUL, 'STAY & I WILL TELL THEE WHAT THE LORD HATH SAID TO ME THIS NIGHT.' And Saul said‚ 'Say on.' And Samuel said, 'When thou wast LITTLE in thine OWN sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel & the Lord anointed thee king over Israel? And the Lord sent thee on a journey & said, 'Go & UTTERLY destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, & fight against them until they be consumed.' (v. 16–18)

16. "'WHEREFORE THEN DIDST THOU NOT OBEY THE VOICE OF THE LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil & didst EVIL in the sight of the Lord?’ And Saul said unto Samuel‚ 'Yea, I HAVE obeyed the voice of the Lord, & HAVE gone the way which the Lord sent me‚ & HAVE brought AGAG, king of Amalek‚ & HAVE utterly destroyed the Amalekites!'" (v.19,20)

17. NOW IT LOOKS LIKE HE'S TRYING TO EVEN THROW THE KING IN TO TRY TO BRIBE SAMUEL A LITTLE BIT: "Listen, you didn't hear about this, but I even brought the KING back with me!" It shows you how STUPID & how DUMB people can be when they're DISOBEYING God, how deceived they can become! That's how crazy people can get if they don't listen to the LORD! Once you reject the Truth & you don't repent, you don't confess your sin of disobedience & really repent & make things right, you receive "strong delusion", & are apt to go right off the deep end!–2Thes.2:10,11.

18. SAUL CONTINUES JUSTIFYING HIMSELF, "'BUT THE PEOPLE TOOK OF THE SPOIL, SHEEP & OXEN, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to SACRIFICE unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal.'"—Here he is again blaming it on someone ELSE, on "the PEOPLE!"—"And Samuel said‚ 'Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt OFFERINGS & SACRIFICES as in OBEYING the voice of the Lord?'" (v.21,22) All of our little burnt offerings & sacrifices of our OWN works & our OWN way of doing things mean NOTHING without OBEDIENCE!

19. NOW HERE COMES THE CLASSIC QUOTE WHICH IS SO FAMOUS: "'BEHOLD, TO OBEY IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE, & TO HEARKEN THAN THE FAT OF RAMS!—For REBELLION is as the sin of WITCHCRAFT, & STUBBORNNESS is as INIQUITY & IDOLATRY! Because THOU hast rejected the Word of the LORD, HE hath also rejected THEE from being king!'" (v.22,23)

20. THE LORD IN THIS SCRIPTURE BRINGS OUT SOMETHING THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T SEEM TO REALISE, that stubbornness is really REBELLION. And not only that, but that they're both as bad as WITCHCRAFT & IDOLATRY, things that most people wouldn't even THINK of being guilty of! But most people don't think a little stubbornness or a little disobedience is very bad, to disobey the Lord a little bit, be a little bit stubborn‚ hard to change. Most people seem to think that's part of their "virtue of independence". But when it comes to being that way with the LORD, He classes it as being as bad as witchcraft & idolatry, which means dealing with the DEVIL!—BEWARE of being stubborn & rebellious!

21. SO THE GREAT KING SAUL HAD TO BE REMOVED FROM HIS POST because of his disobedience, rebellion & stubbornness! God was THROUGH with him, He had to toss him on the scrapheap of history‚ an unusable tool!—A BRITTLE‚ UNBENDING, UNYIELDED tool who kept going his OWN way & kept going further & further astray till God had to choose just a little shepherd boy out of the field‚ a little nobody, to take his place.—David!

22. SAUL HAD THE LORD'S ANOINTING AS LONG AS HE OBEYED. But when he started disobeying & rebelling against God's Will‚ disobeying the Prophet, he LOST the anointing! (See 1Sam.18:12) His problem was that he had gotten TOO SMART!—He got so smart that he became a SMART-ALECK, a know-it-all who thought he knew better than GOD, better than the Prophet! He was so sure of himself that he became rebellious & disobedient & went his own way & wrecked EVERYTHING!—Including smashing his own career & destroying his own family. God forbid that this should ever happen to YOU! Amen? If you stay humble & yielded & obedient to the Lord & His Word, & keep in line with God's blessings, it WON'T!—PTL!—Stay close to JESUS!

"THE LEAST OF THESE COMMANDMENTS!"

—Mat.5:19.

23. THERE'S NO LITTLE DISOBEDIENCE TO THE LORD, ANY DISOBEDIENCE IS A BIG ONE! Why?-Because ONE little disobedience usually leads to MORE, & becomes the little camel's nose or the little rip in the tent or the little hole in the dyke that brings on the final flood!

24. AS IN MOUNTAIN CLIMBING, IT SOMETIMES TAKES ONLY ONE LITTLE MISSTEP TO BRING YOU DOWN ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM! So don't ever think you're going to be able to get away with, "Well, I'll just disobey in this one LITTLE tiny thing, I'll get away with it!"—Because that's just unlocking the door for everything ELSE to flood in! That one little tiny sin might be the little crack in your armor where the Devil begins to seep in. Then his gas of deceit begins to poison your mind because you disobeyed‚ & pretty soon you're TOTALLY off the track!

25. THERE ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS LITTLE DANGERS IN GOD'S WORK!—Look what resulted from one "little" disobedience & wrong decision in the Garden of Eden!—Gen.3. And look how one little Tower of Babel has caused Worldwide confusion & untold wars between nations ever since!—Gen.11. One little haircut cost Samson his life & almost lost the kingdom!—Jud.16. One little lunch cost a young Prophet his life!—1Kgs.13. One hasty disobedience by Saul caused him to lose everything!—1Sam.13. One little look by David divided the kingdom & nearly lost it.—2Sam.11. One little deal brought death to the Savior!—Mat. 26:14-16.

26. IT ONLY TAKES ONE WEAK LINK TO BREAK THE WHOLE CHAIN! It only takes one rotten apple to rot the whole barrelful! It only takes one little hole in the dyke to start a flood! (See the Rhyme Book, Pg. 322) It only takes one tiny careless flame to start a holocaust! It only takes one tiny temptation to compromise just a little to bring about total defeat! The Bible says that it's the "LITTLE foxes that spoil the vines!" (SoS.2:15), & that it only takes a "LITTLE leaven to leaven the whole lump!"—Gal.5:9.

27. GOD HAS RULES FOR REASONS, & WE HAVE RULES FOR REASONS! What are the rules for? Just to make it hard for you?—Just because God's mean to you & He doesn't want you to have any fun? WHAT are the rules FOR?—Because God hates you & He doesn't want you to enjoy yourself?—No! He's a LOVING parent Who knows the dangers‚ & therefore He makes the rules because He LOVES you & wants to PROTECT you & KEEP you, & He wants you to KEEP the rules to help keep YOURSELF!

28. SOME FOLKS THINK THAT BREAKING THE LITTLE RULES IS A SMALL THING. But the Scripture says‚ "He that breaks the LEAST of these commandments & shall teach others so, is least of all!"—Mat. 5:19. And "whosoever shall keep the WHOLE law & yet offend in ONE point, he is GUILTY of ALL!"—Jam.2:10.

29. —WHICH MEANS IF YOU'LL BREAK THE SMALLEST ONES, YOU'LL BREAK THE BIGGER ONES, & even the GREATEST as well, & could wind up a TRAITOR to the cause! "For he that is faithful in that which is LEAST, is faithful also in that which is MOST" (Luk.16:10), but he that is UNfaithful in the LEAST will also be UNfaithful in the MOST, & we cannot trust him with anything!

30. IF GOD CANNOT TRUST YOU TO KEEP THE RULES, HE CERTAINLY CANNOT TRUST YOU TO RUN THE WORLD! We are now in our TRAINING period in THIS life in preparation for ruling the WORLD in the NEXT! If we do not pass THESE tests & complete THESE grades & learn THESE lessons in THIS life, we shall certainly be unfit to RULE in the NEXT & shall surely be the LEAST of ALL in the coming Kingdom of God on Earth, raised to everlasting SHAME & CONTEMPT before ALL!—Dan.12:2.

31. ONE THING THAT GOD SAYS THAT HIS WORKERS NEED IS TO BE "FOUND FAITHFUL" (1Cor.4:2)‚ which means LOYAL & OBEDIENT & BELIEVING! Therefore, anyone found UNFAITHFUL in keeping the little rules will probably be found DISLOYAL, DISBELIEVING, DISOBEDIENT & UNFAITHFUL in OTHER things as well, & can be trusted in NOTHING, & has lost his usefulness to God! And if they don't REPENT, they are therefore good for NOTHING but to be CAST FORTH & trampled under the feet of men who are BETTER able to care for the Kingdom of God & take their place!—Mat.5:13.

32. WHEN PEOPLE START GOING THEIR OWN WAY INSTEAD OF GOD'S WAY, WE CAN'T TRUST THEM ANY MORE! When they start doing their OWN thing instead of what WE tell them to do, we can't trust them any more. When they start breaking the rules & the customs & the advice & the instructions that I have given this Family, even over the tiniest, littlest things because they think perhaps that they are bigshots‚ or that they are EXCEPTIONS to the rule & they don't have to pay any attention to those little rules, then we can't trust them any more!

33. SO OFTEN THE THINGS THAT SEEM LITTLE TO US ARE SO IMPORTANT TO THE LORD!—That's why it's so important to OBEY! The Lord doesn't always bang you over the head & tell you, "Look, if you don't do it, something major is going to happen or not happen!" But He usually waits for YOU. Because otherwise‚ if it was always so obvious & you KNEW, you'd DO it. But He just sort of waits for an extra step of WILLINGNESS, a step of cooperation, your being yielded & willing to do it. And THEN He usually shows you what He's going to do as a result.

34. OUR OBEDIENCE IN THE SMALL THINGS IS SO IMPORTANT! Often you may not feel a huge urge to do something, maybe just a little thought‚ you just know it's something you OUGHT to do. Nevertheless, it may be VERY important, & the Lord may be waiting on you to act on it before He shows you how important it is or does something MAJOR! He doesn't always want to tell you it's so important, so major, because then you'd go right ahead & do it because you know you NEED to. But He often wants to see if you'll just obey that LITTLE check, that "still small voice", & be willing to just obey & be "faithful in a few things" simply because they need to be done.

35. SO IT'S NOT ONLY THE LITTLE DISOBEDIENCES THAT ARE IMPORTANT, BUT JUST AS IMPORTANT—IF NOT MORE SO—ARE THE LITTLE OBEDIENCES‚ & they will result in BIG BLESSING & BENEFITS from the Lord! If God finds you will obey in the little things, & that you will wash the dishes or wash the clothes or vacuum the floor when you're told to, THEN He knows He can trust you to tell you what's next! But if you're not willing to keep busy just picking up papers in the yard or whatever else it might be, why should He tell you anything else?

36. MOST OF THE GREATEST SAINTS I'VE KNOWN WERE LITTLE PEOPLE WHO JUST DID WHAT THEY THOUGHT SHOULD BE DONE—without anyone hearing about it or even knowing they were around. But they were always there when you needed them, always quick to jump & always willing to see a need & respond. And to me, that is the greatest sign of really great leadership: Being WILLING to do whatever NEEDS to be done! If there is nobody else to do it or nobody else WANTS to do it or is WILLING to do it or CAN do it, we should always be willing to do ANYTHING we are asked to do or that we see needs to be done that nobody else is doing!

"LET ALL YOUR THINGS BE DONE IN LOVE!"

—1Cor.16:14.

37. THE LORD WILL HARDLY EVER MAKE YOU DO ANYTHING. He likes you to freely CHOOSE & YIELD to Him because you LOVE Him. He always prefers VOLUNTEERS, not draftees! Our whole work is built on this concept. We have no forced slave labor!—Only WILLING & CHEERFULLY–GIVEN volunteer labor!—"The LOVE OF CHRIST constraineth (compels, forces) me!"—2Cor. 5:14. We should all be working together out of LOVE for Him & each other, in loving & voluntary cooperation.

38. NEITHER THE LORD NOR WE CAN MAKE YOU BE RIGHTEOUS!—We can't FORCE you to obey. You have got to WANT to obey. Otherwise you're going to find some way to disobey! That's why in our Family, thank the Lord, we try to rule in LOVE, & if people love us & love the Lord, then they WANT to please, & they WANT to obey & do what's RIGHT, & enjoy it!

39. THIS FAMILY WASN'T BUILT JUST ON TOUGH RULES, IT'S FIRST OF ALL BUILT ON LOVE & CONSIDERATION & SYMPATHY & COMPASSION!-The rules & discipline ARE very important, but LOVE is the most important thing! You can be so obedient to the Lord that you even "give your body to be burned" (1Cor.13:3), but if you're not obeying because you LOVE JESUS, it profits NOTHING!

40. WHAT THE LORD LOOKS ON IS NOT JUST ALL YOUR HARD WORK, BUT YOUR MOTIVES.—WHY are you doing it? Is it because you have that same driving passion which motivated the Apostle Paul & all the Apostles & all the martyrs & every great man or woman of God?—That irresistible compassion which SHOULD motivate EVERY child of God in everything they do, everything they say‚ everywhere they go, with everybody? The great fanatical Apostle Paul summed it all up in these few famous & ringing words which have cried out from the heart of every true Christian in every true good deed he has ever done, & for which indeed he is willing to die: "THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRAINETH ME!"—2Cor.5:14.

41. IF YOU DON'T HAVE COMPASSION‚ IF YOU DON'T HAVE LOVE, if you're not obeying & serving because "the LOVE of Christ constraineth me", then you're missing the whole POINT of it all! Our folks are all supposed to be working & serving & ministering for one reason, trying to save lost souls, & trying to help the soul-savers!-Really‚ sincerely, honestly CONCERNED about them, not just doing some kind of formal, mechanical job, going through the motions without the power thereof.—2Tim. 3:5. What's the power?—LOVE! And if you haven't got THAT power, you haven't got ANYTHING!

42. SO WHY ARE YOU DOING IT? Is it because the Love of Christ constrains you? Is it because you really love the brethren? Is it because of a real love for souls?—May the Love of Christ constrain us ALL!—In Jesus' name, amen! "For the greatest of these is LOVE!"—1Cor.13:13. Do YOU have LOVE?

BRAVE & CHEERFUL VOLUNTEERS FOR JESUS!

43. THIS IS NOT A DICTATORSHIP, & YOU CAN ALWAYS DO AS YOU PLEASE.—Of course, if it doesn't please ME, & certainly if it doesn't please the LORD, then you can take your do-as-you-please somewhere ELSE! This is how we got where we are at & why we're accomplishing so much for the Lord today!–Because I INSISTED on people loving & obeying God whether they liked it or not! And if they DON'T like it, they can LUMP it & GO somewhere ELSE!

44. GOD'S A TOUGH COMMANDING OFFICER WHEN IT COMES TO OBEDIENCE IN HIS ARMY, where nothing is more important than His War against death to save lives! My Lord‚ if somebody saves your LIFE, you should be willing to DIE for them! Jesus saved our souls‚ saved our lives for ETERNITY, & we should be willing to do ANYTHING for Him now, WHATEVER He tells us to do, ANY kind of a battle, ANY kind of a fight, no matter whether we always understand it all or NOT!

45. WE'RE HIS SOLDIERS, He can send us into any battle He wants to whether we understand it or not, or whether we think it's worth it or not! It's HIS battle‚ not OURS! HE'S the Commander, HE'S the One Who has to understand, HE'S the One Who gives the orders, WE just OBEY!

46. WE SHOULD BE WILLING & HAPPY TO JUST GIVE OUR LIVES TO THE LORD & to the Lord's WORK, not even knowing WHY or what FOR!-Like Abraham going out‚ "not even knowing whither he went!"—Heb.11:8. My, how many times that Scripture came to me when He called me to do the same thing! The Lord asked me to do things & I didn't even know why, but I just OBEYED & DID them, went out not even knowing why or where! The Lord was asking me to do the unknown, but I did it!

47. I'LL NEVER FORGET THE TIME WHEN I WAS IN CALIFORNIA TEACHING SCHOOL, I'd finally gotten a good job, sufficient income, had two homes, three cars, two TV sets, lots of money, & God suddenly told me, "Go, sell all that thou hast, give it to the poor & come follow Me!"—Mat.19:21. "But Lord," I argued, "I've finally arrived! I finally have enough to take care of my family—a house for me & my children & wife, & another house for my Mother & Father & widowed sister!" But He said‚ "Sell it ALL, give it to the poor & follow Me!"

48. SO WE OBEYED, FORSOOK EVERYTHING, LEFT EVERYTHING, SOLD EVERYTHING & gave the last $30 to the poor—us—& we took off, not knowing whither we went or what we were going to do, just trusting the Lord & living by faith, serving the Lord & witnessing wherever we went! And God never failed, in fact, He supplied ABUNDANTLY! We never lacked for anything! We never lacked for gasoline‚ we never lacked for food, we never lacked for a place to park, even if it was by the railroad track or in a garbage dump!

49. IN THOSE DAYS I'D ONLY CAUGHT FIVE LITTLE FISH—ONE LITTLE WIFE & FOUR LITTLE CHILDREN.—Those were the only ones I'd been able to persuade to serve God fulltime with me. But when I OBEYED the Lord & quit my job & sold everything, left it all behind to serve God, He ultimately led us to start the FAMILY‚ & now we have 12,000 FULLTIME fishermen!—And they've already caught MILLIONS more fish & literally BILLIONS have had a chance & have heard the Word through our ministry! PTL! TYJ!

50. SO YOU DON'T ALWAYS HAVE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT GOD IS GOING TO DO. Like Abraham being asked to go up in the mountains & sacrifice Isaac, all you have to do is OBEY! The LORD knew what He was doing with Abraham, He was TESTING him to see if he was going to obey no matter WHAT, to see how LOYAL he was, how FAITHFUL he was‚ how OBEDIENT he was.—And when he STOOD the test, THEN he was ready to become the Father of all the faithful! (See Gen.22)

51. WHEN I WANT TO GET A JOB DONE & I WANT TO SEND A SOLDIER INTO THE FIELD TO DO BATTLE, I expect this same kind of faith & obedience that God has always expected of ME! A good soldier should be willing to give his life to carry out an order‚ if necessary, with no questions asked, much less any protest!—Just "Yes, Sir!"—Period! Only the most loyal & dedicated can take that kind of army life!

52. BUT THAT'S WHAT I EXPECT—& WHAT I BELIEVE GOD EXPECTS—OF OUR PEOPLE! Our folks should ALL be willing‚ cheerful, enthusiastic volunteers! "The Lord loveth a CHEERFUL giver!"—2Cor.9:7.—Not those who only reluctantly, begrudgingly, grumblingly drag their feet & follow far behind! What are YOU?

THE SCHOOL OF "HARD KNOCKS"!

53. IF GOD'S CHILDREN REFUSE TO OBEY, & INSIST ON DISOBEYING, He is not going to let them get away with it! He says, "If My children forsake My law‚ & walk not in My judgments; if they break My statutes, & keep not My commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the ROD & their iniquity with STRIPES."—Psa. 89:30-32.

54. GOD ALWAYS GIVES US THE OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN THE EASY WAY FIRST, BY OBEDIENCE, just doing what we're told, sometimes without even knowing why. But then if we DON'T obey, if we INSIST on learning the HARD way, finding out why, God will let us go through it. He's a kind & a good Father, & He will let us learn the hard way just like a parent with a young child who keeps insisting on touching the hot stove. If that's what it takes‚ if that's the only way the child will learn not to do it, in His mercy & Love He'll let us go ahead & touch it so we'll learn.

55. THE LORD INSTRUCTS US, HE WARNS US, HE LAYS DOWN THE RULES, BUT IF WE JUST FLATLY REFUSE TO HEED & OBEY, then He has to let us learn by bitter EXPERIENCE, trial & error, by our mistakes! If we won't learn by the SHORTCUT of OBEDIENCE, then we have to learn by the HARD KNOCKS of DISobedience & His consequent judgments, His spankings & chastisements. And though it may not seem like it to us at the time, even this is a PROOF of His LOVE, the fact that He spanks us & chastises us for being naughty when we refuse to obey. "For whom the Lord LOVETH He chasteneth!"—Heb.12:6.

56. HE'LL ALWAYS TAKE CARE OF YOU. He not only takes care of you when you're GOOD, but He even takes care of you when you're NAUGHTY! He still loves you, He'll always take care of you, & sometimes He'll take care of you with a good spanking, to try to make you BE good!

57. AS LONG AS YOU KEEP TRYING TO PLEASE THE LORD & obey & stay in His Will & do your best to serve Him‚ He'll do His best for you. But if you go running off & get OUT of His Will, then you do not have that extra power, the sustaining power & protection of the Holy Spirit! You can't even feel like you have the right to claim it when you know that you're not doing His highest & His best & serving Him the way you know He wants you to. I've been there & I know.

58. LET ME TELL YOU, I FEAR GOD, & I'M AFRAID NOT TO OBEY THE LORD!—And you don't need to give me any credit for it, it's because I've found out by personal EXPERIENCE what happens when you DON'T!—Especially when you KNOW better & you're RESPONSIBLE & you WILFULLY go against the Lord! Whew!-It's DANGEROUS business!

59. HAVE YOU READ THE STORY OF THE YOUNG PROPHET WHO LET HIMSELF BE LED ASTRAY BY THE OLD PROPHET? (See 1Kgs.13 & ML 1857) He disobeyed the Lord & was KILLED! I thank God that most of the time I've obeyed the Lord. But the few rare times that I ran away from His Will, I'll tell you, if I thought GOD'S Work was tough, things got a whole lot TOUGHER when I DIDN'T do it!

60. I AM FULLY PERSUADED THAT YOU CAN GO THROUGH THE FIRES OF HELL NOW, & I have been through it myself upon occasion when I felt like I was almost lost & damned & went through the very FIRES OF HELL on THIS Earth in THIS life for my sins!—Which, thank God‚ in my case, caused me to REPENT, to confess & cry out for mercy to the Lord to be saved-not saved again, but to be saved from my SINS & from my PUNISHMENTS & His severe CHASTENING & the very flames of suffering through which He caused me to pass for my disobedience!

61. I TRIED TO REFUSE JUST ONE LITTLE ASSIGNMENT THAT GOD GAVE ME TO DO ONCE & HE SLEW ME! He literally slew me, & I woke up DEAD in bed, facing Dr. Koger in the Spirit World! (See "Another Holy Ghost Story!", ML 679) I'll tell you, even in the hereafter when I was dead, I immediately repented, asked God to forgive me & said‚ "Lord, if there's any way to go back & undo the damage & do the right thing"—I didn't exactly say please let me—but "I wish there were some way I could go back!"—And instantly I woke up alive again, lying in my bed as I had been before!

62. LET ME TELL YOU, THAT LITTLE LESSON SURE MADE ME HIGH-TAIL IT BACK TO, YOU MIGHT SAY, MY "NINEVEH"‚ Miami, Florida, to shout the Message of God‚ despite any consequences or suffering or persecution!—And we did wind up going through a LOT of suffering & persecution there. But as a result of that drastic chastening, I've seldom ever gotten out of His Will since then, I've seldom ever disobeyed the Lord since then‚ & never really completely backslidden. I've tried to follow Him more closely than ever!

63. I REALISED THAT THE HAND OF GOD WAS HEAVY & THAT IT'S A FEARSOME THING TO FALL INTO THE HANDS OF AN ANGRY GOD!—Heb.10:31. I didn't want a repeat of that performance, so I have tried to follow Him very closely & very obediently, humbly, ever since! And you can see the Worldwide results today in our Family, & the millions of souls saved through one man's obedience to the Lord! TYJ!

64. IT'S ALL THE LORD, NOT ME; ALL I DID WAS OBEY! But it's a serious thing to disobey. So now when the Lord says, "Jump!"—I JUMP! When He snaps His fingers, I say, "Yes, Sir!" And when He tells me to do something, I DO it! And that's really the best talent that a Prophet has, to OBEY INSTANTLY & do what God tells him to do no matter what!—Whatever the circumstances over which he has no control.

65. THE MAIN JOB OF A PROPHET IS TO JUST OBEY! And since ALL of you are Prophets of God also, all sons & daughters of God, that's YOUR main job too!—To OBEY & DO what the Lord tells you to do! Just trust & obey & leave the consequences & results in the hands of the Lord. PTL? Just TRUST the LORD & have FAITH!

"WATCH & PRAY!"

—Mat.26:41.

66. WHEN YOU'RE JUST A NEW BABE WHO IS IGNORANT & UNAWARE OF GOD'S WORD & WAYS, He doesn't always hold you to blame for things when you don't even realize how important they are. But as you grow older & you learn they're wrong‚ but you insist on doing them anyway, disobeying the Word of God, then God IS going to blame you for it. Then they become sins. (See Lk.12:48; Heb.10:26‚27; Jam. 4:17)

67. THE BIBLE SAYS THAT "THE TIMES OF OUR IGNORANCE, GOD WINKED AT, but now He commandeth all men everywhere to REPENT!"—Acts 17:30. In other words, once you've got the light of the Word, the Truth, you're supposed to believe it, receive it & obey it! Once you KNOW better, He expects you to quit going your own stubborn, rebellious way! So that's my prayer for you‚ that you'll all stay CLOSE to the Lord & continue to faithfully serve Him & be literally AFRAID to disobey!

68. "WATCH & PRAY THAT YE ENTER NOT INTO TEMPTATION" THAT MIGHT LEAD YOU ASTRAY FROM THE STRAIGHT & NARROW WAY which leads to a higher crown & greater reward!—Mat. 26:41. We hope that you all will succeed & WIN "the race that is set before you" (Heb.12:1), but as the Apostle points out, though MANY run the race, only a FEW can win the glory for the most EXCELLENT service!—1Cor. 9:24.

69. SO MAY THE BEST WIN!—TO THE STRONGEST!—But sometimes to the WEAKEST who depend more on the LORD'S strength than their own wisdom‚ & who are the most loyal, faithful & obedient without fail & without question unto the end!

70. OF COURSE, ALL OF US HAVE DISOBEYED & MADE MISTAKES AT TIMES, but you should LEARN & PROFIT by them, & learn to at least TRY not to make them again.—And through such lessons you should learn to become even MORE faithful, loyal & obedient each step of the way. The GREATEST crowns will go to those who are the most so, those who do the best job in the LONG run, despite some stumblings along the way.—So there's hope for ALL of us, praise the Lord! Amen?

71. ONLY THE LORD CAN DO IT! No one else can keep you faithful or make you obey‚ no matter how hard they lay down the rules or try to enforce them. You have a free will, you're a free moral agent. God has given you the majesty of your own personal CHOICE, & like everybody else in this World, He's given you the power to choose to do good or evil, & YOU have to choose. You have to be WILLING & WANT to obey! "Know ye not‚ that to whom ye YIELD yourselves servants to obey, his servant ye are to whom ye obey?"-Rom.6:16.

72. (PRAYER: ) SO WE ASK YOU, JESUS, TO JUST HELP US TO YIELD TO YOU, TO OBEY YOU, & THEN WE KNOW THAT YOU WILL DO THE REST! Help us all to stay close to You, in Thy Will, Lord‚ & obedient, yielded, following moment by moment. Every moment keep our hearts right with You‚ Jesus, our motives right, our will right, & EVERYTHING right with You.

73. HELP US TO STAY CLOSE TO YOU, JESUS, IN THE CENTER OF THY WILL, LORD, then we know we're in the center of Thy provision & protection & blessing & usefulness, where we have nothing to worry about. We can just trust You utterly by faith because we know we're being obedient & doing Thy Will. And that's all WE can do‚ Lord, the rest is up to YOU.

74. SO WE JUST ASK YOU TO KEEP US OBEDIENT, DOING THY WORK, faithfully preaching the Gospel of Thy Love, winning as many eternal souls into Thy Kingdom as we can! Please help us to keep on the right track, which is in Thy WORD & obeying it! All we have to do is OBEY, Lord, & do what You tell us to do, & let You show the way as You give us the strength & the power to do it. You'll do it ALL if we will just do our part & OBEY & GO & try to bring forth FRUIT, in Jesus' name. Hallelujah!

75. ARE YOU OBEYING THE LORD? Trust & obey Him TODAY!—Amen? GBY!

Prophecies on Yieldedness

(ML #3044, Lifelines 23.)

1. Over the last year, the Lord has been pouring out His Words to us in such great abundance! He's given us revelations, He's given us comfort and encouragement, He's given us counsel on many different subjects. He's answered all our questions. It never ceases to amaze me that He speaks to us so specifically, clearly, and with such perfect insight and marvelous wisdom.

2. One topic the Lord has spoken about in a number of prophecies is the importance of yieldedness. As we all know, yieldedness to the Lord and His will plays a paramount role in our lives‚ as it does in the lives of all Christians. Your yieldedness determines the degree to which the Lord can use you in His service. It also has a great deal to do with your happiness and contentment.

3. I'd like to share these wonderful messages from the Lord with you. Please read them prayerfully, asking the Lord to show you everything He has for you, so that not one word will be wasted, and you will benefit personally from the many important lessons contained therein. Of course, not everything in a prophecy given to or about one individual is applicable to another; nevertheless, there are always many important things which we can learn from the experiences of others and the counsel the Lord has given them.

4. Since the prophecies are very simple and clear, they speak for themselves, and there is no need for me to include explanations after each one. I have limited myself to commenting only on those points which I feel need some slight clarification.

5. May the Lord bless you and make this reading time a very fruitful one. I love you, and am proud of each of you for being willing to be what Jesus wants you to be.

The Contentment of Yieldedness!

6. (Prophecy‚ Jesus speaking:) Yieldedness brings contentment! He who has a yielded heart and a yielded spirit has contentment, for he has faith that that which he does and that which he experiences is of Me. He doesn't fight against it, he doesn't kick against the pricks, and thus he is content. But he of an unyielded spirit and an unyielded heart fights against it. He kicks against the pricks and becomes discontented and unhappy.

7. As he that is unyielded does not have contentment, neither does he that comes to Me with set plans and set ideas, saying, "This is the way that I wish for it to be. This is the way that I feel it should be. This is the way that I want it to be." For he whose mind is set and not open to Me cannot receive the things which I have for him, things that go contrary to that which he thinks, the things which are truly the plan and will of God.

8. When the mind is set and is not moldable, not fluid‚ it becomes hardened, and it becomes very difficult for it to receive the things of My Spirit. When the plan is set in the minds of men, it is more difficult for them to be yielded to Me and to the things that I want to do. But the minds and the hearts that say to Me, "Not my will but Thine be done," are moldable, are flexible, and thus can receive that which I give, and thus are more content and happier.

9. The root of discontentment lies in the heart and mind of man, when the mind is set and the heart is set and they are not open to that which I have planned, which I have designed‚ and which I have ordained.

10. Look at these matters with an open and yielded heart, not having set down the plan which you have decided in your own mind. For when you set the plan within your own mind and it doesn't work out according to that which you thought‚ you are disappointed and think that things aren't going well. But if you come to Me with an open heart and are prepared for all that I have for you‚ then you will see that I do all things well.—Even though I may not do things the way that you have planned, nor the way that you have thought.

11. Oh, what peace and contentment comes to the hearts of those who are open to Me, whose minds are not made up! When I bring forth something new, they flow with it and say, "Yes, yes, I will go here. Yes, yes, I will do this," because they don't have their minds made up as to how things should be. When I bring forth new things, they do not say, "Oh‚ it cannot be this way! I do not wish for it to be this way, I wish for it to be that way! I have already decided in my mind the way it should be, and that's how it should be‚ and it should be no other way!" He that reacts in such a way when he hears of the moves of My Spirit and the will of My Spirit has great discontentment and great turmoil, for he does not yield to Me.

12. But he that is open and willing to receive with an empty heart, not full of self, not full of his own plans, not full of already-decided decisions, shall have great contentment, peace of heart, and peace of mind.

13. So be moldable! Be open and be prepared for those things that I will show you. If you will receive them with an open heart and an open mind‚ and if you will be willing to move according to My plan and operate according to that which I show you, you shall have contentment, and you shall have peace‚ and so shall your struggle cease. For in Me there is great peace, and in Me is great contentment for him who is yielded and open and does not have his mind made up.

14. Operate according to the plan of God and not the plan of man, and you shall have rest in your heart, rest in your mind, rest in your soul, and rest in your spirit. You will know just what contentment and such rest can bring! (End of prophecy.)

Understanding—The Reward of Yieldedness!

15. This next prophecy was given for a leader who, some months earlier, had been asked if he would be willing to temporarily step down from his position and go to a WS Home for a period of rest and retreat and refilling. It was extremely difficult for him to agree to this, as he did not see that he needed to pull back from his heavy work load. He loved his work and the field he was in, and to be asked to leave it was a tremendous forsake-all for him. The Lord had spoken in prophecy about the need for him to step down in order to take time to heal his spiritual wounds‚ but he didn't see that he was wounded, nor why the Lord would ask him to take this time away, and he was quite adamant in stating that it was unnecessary. This leader was normally yielded and open, but this was an occasion when he was quite unyielded.

16. His teamwork, and even his mate, agreed that he needed the time away, but he just didn't see it at all. The Lord gave him quite a lot of time to get used to the idea and to yield‚ but still he held on to his own opinions and thought he was right. He reluctantly agreed to step down and to join the WS Home, even though he said he didn't understand the need for it. God bless him, he did it by faith because the Lord and his shepherds and teamwork all felt it was necessary.

17. The break from his field work and the time at the WS Home did him wonders! As the months went by‚ he realized just how much he had needed the break and the close shepherding. After a number of months‚ the question came up as to whether it was time for him to return to his job on the field. When we asked the Lord about it, He gave the following:

18. (Prophecy, Jesus speaking:) There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of destruction. Is this not the lesson that I have taught you? You were so sure that you were right, so sure that you saw the truth, so sure in your own mind and in your own heart. You did not listen when others told you. You shut yourself off to their counsel and to their shepherding, for you were so sure in your mind and in your heart that you were right.

19. I have shown you that you were wrong‚ and you have seen this. But this is a lesson in principle, that though you are convinced, though you are sure, though you feel beyond a shadow of a doubt that you know the best thing to do, the best way to do it, the best time to do it in, that doesn't necessarily make it so.

20. (Mama:) The Lord is referring to his being so absolutely sure he was right about not needing the time away from his job. Because he had closed his mind to this truth and rejected the counsel of the Lord and others, and because he thought he knew what was best, the Lord had allowed him to be deceived into thinking he was absolutely right. He was absolutely sure, but he was still wrong. How then can we be absolutely sure of something, and know that we are in the Lord's will? Can't we be absolutely sure of the Lord's will? Yes, of course! In finding the Lord's will, you can be absolutely sure that you are on the right track if you have no plan or program of your own‚ if you are yielded to whatever He wants to show you. If you use the seven ways to know God's will and He has confirmed His plan for you, you don't have to worry that you've gotten it wrong. As long as you are yielded to whatever He wants and desperate to find what that is, you can be assured that you won't be misled.

21. (Prophecy continues:) It is in listening to Me and listening to others that you have the safeguards that you need. But what good does it do to listen if your mind is made up? What good is it to listen if you reject all that you hear, because of your own surety of mind, thinking that you know best? Is this not pride? Is this not self-righteousness? Is this not unyieldedness? For he that thinks that he is right when he is wrong, is he not proud? Is he not self-righteous? Is he not unyielded? Is he not shutting himself off to the counsel of others?

22. I say to you, seek the humble road. Seek to listen. Do not be so sure of your own mind and of your own strength and of your own wisdom. Do not become solidified in your own thoughts and your own desires and in your own will. For even though you had My sheep at heart, you were unreceptive to My way. Can you shepherd My sheep? No, only I can shepherd them. You can shepherd them only if you let Me shepherd them through you.

23. Now, as you return, will you go with an open and receptive heart? Will you go in the spirit of, "I am willing to do anything to serve my King, my God and His children"? Or do you even now return with thoughts of the way things are going to be? Are you limiting Me in your mind? Or do you go with an open and receptive heart?—A yielded heart that is willing to do anything that I ask? Are you willing to do even the things that you don't want to do? And are you willing to trust Me for the outcome?

24. I have brought forth victories in your life‚ and why?—Because you yielded. You did not understand, but you yielded anyway. That was the key that unlocked the door to victory. So, dear son, you have seen the joy that I can bring to those who yield to Me. Let this lesson be etched into your heart and into your mind and into your soul and into all your being, that in yieldedness and in faith are the blessings of God. Let it be etched into your heart and mind that the ways of man are not the ways of God, that the thoughts of man are not the thoughts of God, unless man is yielded.

25. Are you ready to return? Have you learned these lessons? Do you understand those things that I have done in your life? Do you remember how rock-solid‚ granite-solid your mind and your heart were? Do you remember how right you thought you were? Do you now see how wrong you were? Do you now see the rewards of faith and of yieldedness? Have you learned these things?

26. Do you feel you are ready? Can you translate these lessons that you learned in the quietness, in the hospital, back to the field, to the battlefront? Have you recovered from your grievous wounds? For I open the window of opportunity for you to return, but I say it is according to your faith. Seek Me! Cry out to Me! For as you were given the choice to come, so now you are given the choice to return. So seek Me in prayer and draw nigh to Me, that I may reveal My will to your heart.

27. I am proud of you, My son, My general, for yielding unto Me. You have been given the gift of understanding, because you took the step of faith. That which you did not see, you now see; you now understand. I love you for your faith. I love you for your willingness to step aside, not knowing what would become of you, not trusting in those about you and barely trusting in Me. But you now see the rewards of faith, the rewards of yieldedness, for I have given you peace in your soul. I have opened your eyes which were so blinded. I have brought you into My bedchamber and I have loved you as a bride. I have healed your wounds.

28. So do I put before you the question: Are you ready? Do you feel ready? Come to Me with an open heart, a yielded spirit, a flexible mind‚ and seek My face that I may show you My will. (End of prophecy.)

The Root of Unyieldedness!

29. (Mama:) A very precious and faithful Family member wrote to me asking if I would pray for him, as for years he has been fighting a battle against an angry, impatient spirit. The following is what the Lord said to him.

30. (Prophecy, Jesus speaking:) You are like a gardener in My Kingdom, and I have given you a choice plot of land which is your place of service in My Family. I have given you many, many valuable seeds to plant in your garden, which are the many gifts and talents that I have given you.—Your gift for witnessing; your gift for singing and songwriting; your gift for composing music; a gift of good looks and strength; a fighting spirit in the face of obstacles; a will to stick, even when things go wrong.

31. Also, I have given you many blessings, and many experiences in being used in many ways‚ traveling in many countries.—And especially in giving you a beautiful family, a wife who loves you‚ and precious children who love and need you. So this is your beautiful garden that I have given you.

32. I am the Master Gardener. I am the Master Landscaper. I have placed in your hand these seeds‚ and you have planted them and watered them and tended them. But as I look upon your garden, I see that there is an ugly, evil weed that is defiling it, and it has been a troublesome, bothersome weed. In all the years that you have faithfully tended your garden, there has been this weed, and many times you have gone after it with a zeal! You have tried to root it out. You have chopped it down and you have burned it. You have so wanted to rid your garden of this ugly weed.

33. But to rid your garden of this weed‚ you must go down deep beneath the surface and the topsoil. You must look much deeper and find the roots, for there is a source of this weed. There is one root deep down that is the source of this weed.

34. It is from this source that it sends out its little runners‚ and the little weed will pop up here, or it will pop up there, and you'll go chasing after it to try to cut it down! Then you'll run over there to that corner of the garden and cut it down. Then you'll run across over there and cut it down‚ and it just keeps popping up here and there and here and there! Even though you cut it down, it still keeps popping up again. That's because the root is underneath the surface, where you can't see it. That's what you must go after! You must dig down and grab that root and chop it out! Pull it out by the hand of faith so that your garden can be forever rid of this ugly, bothersome, evil weed!

35. This root has many branches. It is solid and strong and embedded deeply in the soul of your garden plot. It is a root of unyieldedness. If you want your garden plot to be beautiful and free from this evil weed, then dig down deep and cut out the root of unyieldedness and all the sins that go with it. Yield yourself completely to Me and say, "Not my will but Thine be done!"

36. When you have absolutely no plan of your own, when you are completely moldable in My hands, when you are willing to give up anything‚ to pay any price, to suffer any sacrifice, to be nothing in the eyes of those around you; when you completely yield yourself to Me and the only thing that you want in your life is to be free from these things so that you might have Me and My Spirit more abundantly, then you shall find deliverance, and your garden plot shall be more beautiful than ever before! It shall flourish! You shall continue as My faithful gardener, and people will look upon your garden plot and they will marvel at the beauty, and it shall glorify Me.

37. Many shall come to you and behold your family, your children, your gifts, your talents‚ your songs, and it shall glorify Me and it shall be a testimony of My greatness! Once and for all it will not be the great you that they will see, but they will see a humble gardener, one who lifts up his hands and says, "Behold, it is not me that has created this beautiful garden, it is the Master Gardener—all glory to Him!" (End of prophecy.)

The Hidden Diamond Set Free!

38. (Mama:) The following was given for Jondy (Hosea), who has now moved to a very difficult mission field and has spent time learning the language and becoming one with the people of his chosen field.

39. (Prophecy, Dad speaking:) Oh, Jondy, Jondy, how I love you! How proud I am of you! Sometimes when I was there‚ I wondered if you were going to make it. But I'm so proud of you now‚ so proud of you! You've really done the right thing. You've really taken on the cloak of humility. You've laid down and let others pass over you. You accepted what the Lord has for you, and it's in that acceptance that He can make you great. Remember, Son, it wasn't until I was quite a bit older that He finally used me in the way that He really wanted to. It wasn't until my children were older, when I'd done that job, that He could use me for the new job.

40. Remember, He took virtually everything away, and I went to a new people. I even had to learn a new language‚ the language of the youth, and slowly He began to use me in a new way. It's interesting, isn't it, how He's done the same with you? So don't worry if it's slow goin' at first, because that's how He works. He teaches a lot of things in that slowness, that period of patience when you feel that He's going to do something in the Spirit. It's not happening yet, but you know it's out there!

41. In those days you have to be patient, you have to keep yielding in the little things‚ because those are the times when He tests to see if you're going to say "yes" on this little one, and "yes" on that little one; if you're going to praise a little here, a little there, and thank Him here and there; if you're going to treat those that He brings your way with love and care so that you prove yourself faithful in those little things‚ and He can trust you to be faithful in the big things. And, Son, that's what He's doing with you.

42. Jondy, you're like a large and beautiful diamond! But you were deeply embedded in the depths of the earth, and this diamond could not be seen; instead, what was seen was the rock around the diamond. It was as if everyone knew the diamond was there, and they were trying to chip away at the rock to get to the diamond, but the rock was stubborn and hard and it wouldn't crack. But as it yielded to the chisel, the hand of God, that hardness and rockiness began to fall away and the diamond began to become exposed; and more and more, day by day, this diamond is exposed to the light and shines!

43. Son, you're letting the rock be chipped away, and there's a special beauty that's coming out! Let it come out to the fullest! Let Him take away all the rock, so you will be nothing but a large, beautiful diamond that reflects and refracts His beautiful light! You are a beautiful‚ beautiful diamond! The Lord's made you that way—a loving man with a tender heart—but you've been encrusted and encased. Continue to shed the stoniness, the hardness, the pushiness. Son, let the diamond out, the love, the tenderness that's there. Don't be afraid, it won't hurt you, and you won't be hurt. For though the diamond is clear and beautiful and radiates, still it is very strong. (End of prophecy.)

Keep Your Heart Soft Through Yieldedness!

44. (Mama:) The following prophecy was given for a person who had been unyielded in various ways for a period of time. This message shows the dangers of not yielding to the Lord even in the smallest ways, as unyieldedness breeds further unyieldedness.

45. (Prophecy, Jesus speaking:) Oh‚ the danger to those who choose not to yield unto Me. Oh, the danger to those who choose to only yield a part of their heart unto Me, who yield much, but will not yield all.—Who hold on to one part of their heart and say, "I will give of the other parts, but I will not give of this part, for this part is mine and I will not yield it."

46. Those parts of the heart that are yielded unto Me are Mine, and I protect and keep them. I hold [that part of the heart] within My hands. I keep it warm, I keep it soft, I keep it moldable. But the part that is not given to Me, I cannot hold and keep soft, and it hardens. Though the rest of the heart is soft and moldable‚ this part of the heart begins to harden, and it grows harder. As it grows harder, it grows bigger, for unyieldedness breeds further unyieldedness.

47. He that will not yield in one area begins the process of the hardening of the heart. I will continue to try to keep the rest of the heart soft and moldable and warm, but as the hardness continues to grow, I have less to work with, until the heart becomes divided, one part hard, one part soft. To the soft part of the heart I can speak, I can kiss‚ and I can blow the warmth of My breath. But the hard part of the heart receives not these things, and thus is open for the attacks, for the words and the breath of Satan, the Enemy, the Devourer‚ him with the hardest heart of all. This hardness becomes his territory. And while I work on the softness of the heart‚ as I massage it and warm it, so does he work on the hard part of the heart, to make it even more rigid.

48. There are parts of this one's heart that are soft and moldable, but there is a part of her heart that is rigid, very rigid. She must recognize that the hardness grows, and it has grown‚ and it continues to grow, and thus I have less softness to work with. The only way that the hardness of heart can become softness of heart is if all of the heart is given to Me, if all is yielded to Me, so that I may again begin to work on the hardness; that I may again begin to breathe the warmth of My breath upon it; that I may kiss it with the warmth of My kisses and the warmth of My Love‚ so that eventually it may become fully soft once again.

49. But this requires great forsaking—the forsaking of self, the forsaking of selfishness, the forsaking of this one's own ways and own desires and own demands. This is a choice that she must make: Does she wish to have the softness of heart? Or will she allow the hardness of her heart to continue to grow and grow until it becomes as a heart of stone—unyielded, unwilling, no longer moldable, no longer soft, but only hard and rigid in its own ways and in its own desires?

50. Oh my daughter, place your heart in My hands that I may massage it back to life—full life! Let Me shatter the hardness of your heart. Let Me remold and remake it‚ through the tender touch and warmth of My hands upon your heart.

51. The choice is yours. For I do not force My Love and the warmth of My loving hands upon your heart, but I am there, ever ready, ever willing, ever able to soften that which is hardened. But you must desire it. You must ask for it.

52. But know this, that if you desire it not‚ then shall the hardness continue to overcome the softness. Then will you have less of Me. And know that as the heart goes, so goes the spirit. For he that has the soft, warm, moldable heart, is he that is soft and moldable in spirit. And he whose heart has become hardened does also become hardened and rigid in spirit.

53. As the spirit goes, so is your life affected accordingly. For he who has a soft and loving and moldable spirit is loved‚ is desired, is wanted by those around him. But he that is hard in spirit is not wanted or desired by those around him. So the condition of your heart affects all aspects of your life.

54. The amount that you allow Me to hold, to mold, to warm your heart, directly affects all that you do, all that you are, all that you will be. So give Me your heart‚ all your heart, My loved one‚ lest the hardness overwhelm you. Let Me breathe on it‚ let Me kiss it, let Me warm it, let Me melt it. Do not hold back from Me. Do not hold back any part of your heart, for in doing so you give a wedge, a place, to the Evil One.

55. As a cancer that grows from a small cell until it overwhelms the strength of the whole body‚ so is the area that is held back from Me—the unwillingness, the unyieldedness to let Me have full control. And this grows and it grows until it damages and it weakens and will eventually destroy, if it is not stopped.

56. So give Me your heart, My loved one, that I may hold it in My hands and that I may heal it completely, softening all parts. But you must give it all to Me, so that I can work on all of it, so that it may once again become moldable‚ warm and loving. (End of prophecy.)

57. (Mama:) The next four prophecies from the Lord, a spirit helper, Dad and Grandmother were given for someone who'd had repeated serious problems with unyieldedness in some areas of her life. The overall message from the Lord is one of strong correction and warning about the dangers of wrong attitudes and ongoing unyieldedness. The Lord explains how she would yield eventually, but because her yielding was often so delayed, coming only after she had gone the wrong direction for a while, she had to endure a lot of disappointment, discouragement, depression, defeat, and agony of spirit that she would otherwise have been able to avoid. When she would see the error of her ways and finally decide to yield—which she often did, thank the Lord—it was much more difficult for her to get back on the path of yieldedness than it would have been if she had chosen to yield right from the beginning.

58. Many times over the years this person was very sweet, cooperative, and open to the counsel of others‚ and during those times her service for the Lord was very fruitful. Unfortunately, however, this problem with unyieldedness in some areas kept cropping up, and when it did, it greatly hindered her usefulness and spiritual progress. The Lord was very patient with her, giving her numerous opportunities to learn to be more yielded, allowing her to spend many hours with shepherds who tried to help her in her weak areas, and repeatedly speaking words of love, instruction, encouragement and correction to her in prophecy. But in spite of all this, she persisted in her waywardness, and ended up having to learn a lot of lessons "the hard way." The following prophecies were given when she was having difficulty yielding and listening to the counsel of others, being convinced that she was right and others were wrong.

The High Road or the Low Road?—The Choice Is Yours!

59. (Prophecy‚ Jesus speaking:) Oh, that this one would just yield and would just say "yes," for a simple "yes" would bring the relief that she seeks. But her "yeses" are so delayed and are fraught with such hard work. When she comes to a crossroads‚ instead of taking the upward road, she starts on the downward one. After going downward awhile, she realizes this is the wrong direction. So then she must climb upward over the steep cliffs and the jagged rocks, and thus she cuts and bruises herself and works so hard to get to the upward road that she was supposed to be on in the first place. When she gets on it, she sees that this is the right way‚ the right path, and she goes merrily along her way.

60. (The picture is that the higher road slants upward and the lower road slants downward‚ so the farther you go on the downward road, the further away you are from the upper road. When she realized she was on the wrong path‚ she couldn't go back the way she had come, but instead she had to climb straight up the cliff from the low to the high road. It wasn't as though choosing to travel on the upward road was so terribly difficult or required an expenditure of great self-effort. When you came to a crossroads it only required a simple "yes," a yielding to the Lord, for you to take the path of the high road. As she traveled on the downward road, it was like the road represented time. She could not turn around and go back in time to the point where she made the wrong decision and get back on the upward road. The only way to get from the lower road to the upper road was to climb the steep cliff joining the two.)

61. (Prophecy continues:) But then comes another fork in the road, and instead of just saying "yes" and continuing on the upward path, she resists and she kicks and she fusses and she fights and she starts downward once again‚ only to later realize that she is heading the wrong way and that she must climb the cragged edges once again. She must once again go through the suffering, the torment, the pain‚ the torture, the depression, the discouragement and the defeat, until she finally drags herself up on to the high road and goes merrily on her way.

62. But the solution is so simple! She must only say "yes" and follow the high path from the beginning! These choices are not choices that are only put before her, but before all of My children. Day by day My children must make choices, they must decide to take the high road or the low road. If they miss the high road, they can still get on it, but it's very difficult and they must work at it. But if they just say "yes" at the crossroads, they carry on in the high way and they progress and they grow and they're strengthened. They don't waste their strength climbing from the low road to the high road; instead they use their strength for My service and My purpose.

63. The choice of the high road is just that!—Simply a choice! When you choose it and you walk on the high road, things are so much better. Though the high road has its battles and there are boulders in the way that must be overcome and pushed off or climbed over, it is not like the cragged edges or the steep cliffs that must be climbed when you miss the high road in the first place. (End of prophecy.)

64. (Prophecy, spirit helper speaking:) She should say "yes" to us, for we try to help her. We try to show her the high road. We point the way. We turn her that way and we say, "This is it! This is it!" But she says, "No! I want to go my way! I want things to be my way! I don't want it to be someone else's way‚ I want it to be my way!" And thus she starts down her low road. But then she sees her way is not the way of happiness, but the way of death, and thus she has to start her high and hard and difficult climb.

65. Oh, that she would just listen! Oh, that she would just listen to us. Oh, that she would just listen to others. Oh, that she would just believe that her way is not the right way. Her ways are not our ways. Her thoughts are not our thoughts. But if she would say "yes," simply "yes," then her thoughts could be our thoughts, because we would have an opening in the Spirit to get through to her and to influence her mind and her heart and her spirit more easily.

66. But when she is stomping her feet and saying‚ "I want my way!" there is nothing we can do, for the barrier between her mind and heart and us is too thick, and we cannot get through, so we must let her go her way. Then we have to work to help her to understand and to make the hard, hard, hard climb. But these are her choices‚ and this is of her own choosing. Because she wants her way and insists on her own way and her own thoughts, she cannot accept the things that we try to show her, and it makes it difficult for her to even accept the Word, the Words of David, because she is constantly saying, "I want my way!"

67. But now is the day of choices, for now are the children of David set free to make their own decisions in a much fuller and greater way, and they are more fully responsible for these choices. This is the way we have set it up‚ and this is the way we want it to run. Because as the times grow darker and more difficult‚ the children are going to have to make their own decisions and choices. They are going to have to learn to listen to us and to seek us for our guidance, and for our strength, and for our wisdom, for the gifts that we are unto them. The days of commanding and insisting and pushing and saying, "You must do this and you must do that" are over. For now is the day of the whispers. Now is the day when those who will listen will hear, and those who refuse will not.

68. We have helped to carry this one and to shield her for many years, but there is now a change. This is a day of change, and it is significant. Many things, both there and Here, are changing, and the way we will all operate together will change. For the days ahead are dark days, and we must all work together in a new way. Now all must make choices. All must begin to hear the whispers and to yield and to say "yes."

69. We are no longer allowed to hedge her about so closely. She is going to have to decide. She is going to have to make her own choices now. We are there to help, we are there to lead‚ we show the way, but she must stop demanding and insisting. She must begin to yield. For the path from the low road to the high road is going to be much steeper and much longer a climb, because the low road descends even faster and the high road ascends even steeper; thus the further down the low road she goes, the further away from the high road she is.

70. So her choices are important. She must choose. She must choose this day whom she will serve. If the Lord be God, serve Him! Say "yes" to Him, and follow closely. But if Baal, the Baal of your own desires and your own mind and your own insistence be god, then serve him. (End of prophecy.)

71. (Dad speaking:) Come, my child, come! I'm calling you from above! I'm calling you to take the high road. Come, the way is good, gentle and easy! There's much for you there. There's much you can do, much you can bestow on others. There's so much love you can give. But it's there on the upper road! Please come! I'm calling you, and great, yes, great is your reward in Heaven!

72. Hold that fast which thou hast; let no man steal thy crown! Don't look to the right or to the left. Just look upward‚ always upward, climbing upward! Come! Please come, my dear! I'm calling! I'm calling! Take the upper road, for there is much for you there! (End of prophecy.)

Take the Humble Road!—Grandmother's Confession!

73. (Mama:) The following prophecy from Grandmother is a good lesson to us all about the importance of not being so sure of ourselves, and about the importance of listening to others. The Lord allowed Grandmother to speak about her own experiences of not listening to others and consequently getting out of God's will.

74. (Prophecy, Grandmother speaking:) David told you about the times when I missed the Lord, when I went off doing the things I thought I should do‚ and when I thought I was so right, when I wasn't! I wouldn't listen. I was pretty headstrong, pretty sure of my connection, pretty sure I was always right, but I wasn't always right. Sometimes David even told me that I wasn't right, but what did he know? He was only my son! I was the evangelist, I was the prophetess, not him. Sometimes I thought too highly of myself, just like you. Oh, the Lord used me greatly, no doubt about it! I had my ministry and I had those that I ministered to. But sometimes He wanted me to go a certain way or do a certain thing and I just didn't want to do it. (See "Lost Opportunities," ML #1425; "Shove Off," ML #953-3; "The Making of a Man," ML #1719.)

75. Then He withdrew His hand a bit and things happened to me, things that wouldn't have necessarily happened if I had just been more yielded, if I had listened more. I was a bit like you—I thought everything should always go my way, and when it didn't, it really bothered me. Sure, the Lord still used me. He used me to witness here and there and He used me to comfort people. I was good at that‚ I could comfort them, and I knew He was using me some. But when I stepped out of His will and didn't do the things that He really wanted me to do, I didn't accomplish near what I could've accomplished.

76. I should've helped Aimee. (Aimee Semple McPherson. See ML #1719.) He really wanted me to, but I thought I was right. Even David told me I wasn't. I was just certain I was right.—But I wasn't, and I paid for it. When I stepped out of His will‚ I paid for it. He still loved me, He still took care of me, He still supplied for me, I knew His loving hand was upon me, but I lived with a regret that I'd stepped out of His greatest will at that point.

77. And you know, it can happen to any of us—anybody! You can be going great guns for the Lord and be mightily used in His service. But as soon as you stop listening, as soon as you stop following Him, as soon as you stop yielding‚ as soon as you stop being willing to listen to others, you begin to drift. You're so sure you're right, you're convinced of it, no one can tell you anything different.—But you're not! So then you find out. But you find out too late, because that opportunity has gone by and you've missed it, and then you pay.

78. Well, you try to make the best of it and the most of it, and you try to convince yourself that the Lord's really using you. And He does use you. He doesn't abandon you. He loves you. He knows you served Him, and He's not going to just completely cast you aside. He'll use you a bit. That's what He did with me. He used me some, a little here and a little there. But deep down in my heart I knew that I was in a dry and desert place, because I'd missed the road to the will of God.

79. Oh, there were little wells here and there, little blessings, so that I knew He was taking care of me. But the deep well with plenty of water and support, the well of usefulness‚ I missed it. That didn't mean that all my past life was wasted and I wasn't rewarded for the things I did. Oh‚ I was‚ gloriously—as you will be! But to step out in your own way, down your own path, confident that you know what He wants for you, leads to a place of lesser service.

80. Oh, Dear, Dear, take the humble road, take the yielded road! Don't make the mistake that I made. I regretted it. And though He used me, I lived knowing that I'd missed a big and great opportunity. Things could've been different and would've been different, but I made my choices and He allowed me to. But because I love you, because we Here love you and He loves you‚ He wanted me to give you this message.

81. Take the humble road; don't lean to your own understanding. Yield. Yield to Him, and yield to those that love you. Yield to those that are only seeking to help you, Dear, as we are all seeking to help you. Won't you let us help you? Won't you please let us help you? (End of prophecy.)

82. (Mama:) What a beautiful message from Grandmother about the importance of listening to others and staying in the Lord's will. Getting out of the Lord's will because of our insistence on doing things our own way is a very dangerous thing to do. Look where it got Dad when he no longer wanted to work with his mother and he ended up in the army and almost died. That was a "dry spell" for sure! But when he repented‚ the Lord delivered him and he was able to once again get back to the Lord's highest.

83. In fact, the Lord promised this very thing to the one to whom Grandmother was speaking in this message. He said that if she would repent and get back on track and make the sacrifices required, He would again be able to use her, even more greatly than ever before.

84. Although Grandmother talks of the "dry spell" that she experienced when she got out of God's will, this should not be taken to mean that all dry spells that you may experience in your service for the Lord are indicative of being out of God's will. Even when you're doing all you can to obey the Lord and follow closely, sometimes you still go through difficult times. Sometimes this happens because the Enemy is fighting you, to try to discourage you, distract you or cause you to give up. You may go through a dry spell because the Lord is testing your faith, or because He is purging you and trying to make you into more of a fighter. So just because you experience a time when you may not seem as fruitful as before, or you may not feel like you have as good a connection with the Lord as before, or you may be battling extra hard for support or open doors or to see the fruit of your labors, this does not necessarily mean that you are out of God's will.

85. However, in this case, Grandmother is warning about the problems that go along with disobedience and unyieldedness‚ which can very well cause us to get out of God's will, and how we can regret it later. She makes it clear that our lives are much more fruitful and blessed overall if we listen to Him and others.

86. As you read this message from Grandmother, I hope your reaction was to feel convicted to be more yielded and prayerful in your decisions, and more open to others' counsel. However, upon hearing this strong warning from Grandmother, instead of being convicted, you might have been tempted to feel guilty or condemned, especially concerning past mistakes, demotions‚ or wrong decisions, etc. Your tendency to feel this way may be intensified if you presently feel unfulfilled in your work for the Lord, or you feel like you're not being used to your full potential. If you're frustrated or confused, or if you're still trying to find your "niche" in the Family where you feel you can really accomplish something‚ you may wonder if somehow, somewhere along the way you have missed God's highest will in your life.

87. It certainly is true that when you get out of the Lord's will, you can have some pretty dry and difficult times. In such a case, the Lord's blessing cannot be fully on your life, you struggle in a place of lesser service, and you "have to pay" for your disobedience, as Grandmother put it. Sometimes these difficult times can last quite awhile before you are able to have another opportunity to do as much for the Lord as before.

88. It is possible that as you have been reading these prophecies, the Lord has spoken to you about wrong decisions you've made recently or in the past, or maybe He has been trying to show you that you have gotten out of His will by saying "no" to Him, or that you missed some of His important instruction because you were not heeding His checks or you stopped reading the Word, through which He could have led you step by step. If you feel something is not right in your life, you may be able to look back and mark a definite moment in time when you made a decision that took you out of God's highest will. But on the other hand, sometimes you can become very dull in the Spirit through repeatedly rejecting the Lord's checks and ignoring His still, small voice, to the point that eventually you don't even notice it or hear it any more, and so you don't realize how off track you are. If after reading these prophecies you feel you may be out of God's will, please take time to sincerely pray about it. The Lord will show you, if you want to know and have a desire to get back to the center of His will.

89. Of course, it's difficult for others to judge whether you have missed the Lord's highest will in your life in some way; that is something that you personally have to determine in prayer with the Lord. But one thing I do know is that the Lord has great mercy and compassion and love, and if you have gotten out of God's will in some way, if you're sincerely wanting to get back to His perfect will, He will make a way! Listen to this wonderful, encouraging counsel from Dad from the Letter "Keep On Believing":

90. "If you have somehow missed God's will, and you have somehow missed His highest and best‚ and it seems that the golden opportunities that He's offered you have all passed you by and disappeared into the distance‚ and left you alone and lonely and sad and downhearted and discouraged and defeated and almost in despair at the end of your rope‚ don't give up!

91. "Lift an ear to those Heavenly voices that are singing to you to encourage you that all hope is not gone! There's still hope! There's still opportunity! Maybe God's going to send along another bus, and maybe you can still catch one that's coming on a little later schedule.

92. "Maybe you missed the first one and didn't get there as soon as you should have, but maybe you haven't missed the last one, thank God! He's still going to be merciful to you and send along another one so that you can get back in His will and back in His service and you can find His highest and best, and follow His direction to your Heavenly destination in His service, carried along by the power and the Love and the will of God to where He wants you to go, with the ease of the power of His Spirit‚ instead of struggling along in the weak energy of your flesh.

93. "Don't quit! Keep on believing, God answers prayer! Just keep on believing and trusting Him, and repenting for having missed His best and His highest and the center of His will. Repent and ask God to forgive you for your failure and your sins and your shortcomings and your lack of faith. Ask Him for another chance, and I'm sure He'll send you another bus‚ another opportunity, another chance at His will and His highest and best in His service so that you can truly serve Him; and the bird with the broken pinion can fly perhaps even higher than before!

94. "So keep on believing, don't ever give up! Keep on believing, don't be discouraged! Keep on believing, don't quit! Keep on keeping on! And whatever you do, keep on going on for Jesus! Don't ever quit, don't ever give up, don't ever get discouraged, don't ever get down or in despair! Don't depart just because you feel like you've missed the last bus. Keep on waiting on the Lord a little longer and I'm sure He'll send you another bus, another chance‚ another opportunity!

95. "If you're truly sorry and you really want to find His will, I'm sure He will send along another bus of golden opportunity to pick you up and lift you up and lift your spirits and encourage you and inspire you and thrill you and strengthen you and heal you and carry you along in the power of His Spirit to the glorious victory of your Heavenly destination! Hurry! Have faith! Catch the Bus!" (ML #1268:60-62,66-70).

96. (Mama:) The Lord has an important job for each of you, so please do all you can to stay yielded and in His perfect will, where you'll be a lot happier and He'll be able to use you to the full! We need you!

Comments on Interpreting and Applying This Counsel

97. (Mama:) If you're trying to shepherd people in their decision-making, either your children or those in your Home or your flock, please be very prayerful in your application of these messages from the Lord. It's true that unyieldedness is a serious thing, and the Lord gave strong warnings of the serious negative repercussions that a person may suffer if they're so convinced that they're right that they refuse to listen to others, or they insist that things be done their way, or they make wrong decisions because they're so full of their own thoughts, ideas and already-decided plans. It is indeed a very serious mistake to get out of the Lord's will or to let your heart become hardened through unyieldedness. However, as a shepherd or parent‚ you need to be very careful that you don't misapply or over-apply this instruction from the Lord, which could cause you to react harshly or condemningly toward others. This Word from the Lord must be interpreted and applied in love.

98. If God is anything, He is Love, and He sees each one of us through the eyes of Love. And even though He knows our faults and failings and our mistakes, when He thinks about them, He doesn't think, "What should I do to punish them for those things?" Instead He thinks, "How can I help them to overcome those things so they will be happier and more fulfilled? How can I do it in the way that will hurt them the least and help them the most?"

99. Just remember‚ dear ones, He's in love with you! How do you see the one who you are deeply in love with? How do you view their faults? Even if you are aware of them, don't you usually try to overlook them? Don't you try to give them the benefit of the doubt? When you have to correct them for something, don't you try to do it as sweetly and as lovingly as possible? This is the way Jesus is with you. This is the way He wants you to be with each other, and not just those that you particularly like, but each one that you interact with.

100. Also remember that Jesus looks on our hearts, our motives. He knows the thoughts that we can't even express, that we hardly understand ourselves. He is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. We only see the outside, the outward manifestations, and we often interpret these incorrectly. Knowing that we fall so short of correct judgment, the only safe thing to do is to act and judge in love. We still have to come back to that little, though very profound, principle in the Word that says, "As ye would that men should do unto you‚ do ye also to them" (Mat.7:12). If you'll keep that in mind in all your dealings with others, you won't go wrong. How would you want to be treated?

101. Now, don't take this to the extreme and say, "Well‚ I wouldn't want to be shepherded at all or given any correction‚ so I'll follow that direction with others and not give them any shepherding or correction either." You know this is the wrong thing to do, and ultimately you know that you must have shepherding and you must have correction, and you would be very disappointed if you didn't receive it. That certainly would bear bad fruit in your life.

102. What the Lord is talking about, of course, is treating others in a loving way, which includes giving them what they need‚ as well as what they want. There are many children in the world today who have grown into adults and have become very bitter at their parents for not giving them the correction they needed, because it stunted their growth and prevented them from forming the strong character, the disciplined life, that they could have otherwise had.

103. So correction is needed, yes, but it must be loving. Firmness is needed, but it must be compassionate. How do you want to be corrected? What corrections in your life have helped you the most, and why? What shepherding has done the most for you‚ and why?

104. Even though each of us needs love, each of us is different. "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart." We have to be careful not to apply our own standard of yieldedness to everyone else right across the board. You can't say, "Well, I yielded to the Lord in this area for X amount of time, so everyone else should be able to do the same. I had tremendous jealousy battles, but the Lord delivered me and I'm completely free of them‚ so everyone else should be able to have the same kind of victory." Or, "I'm in a similar situation as someone else, but I don't have the same battles with loneliness as they have, so there must be something wrong with them." Or, "The Lord corrected me in a certain way for something when I got out of line, so He should be giving the same kind of correction to them. He expected me to get the victory in such-and-such amount of time‚ so they should be able to do the same."

105. Remember that not only does the Lord treat us differently, each as the unique individual that He has made, each with different reactions, different abilities, different amounts of time needed to understand our problems and to overcome them, etc., but He also allows us some leeway when we are trying to make decisions and we are trying to learn our lessons. He gives us time. He doesn't just slap us down at the first sign of unyieldedness. He has patience and takes it into account if we are trying and praying and wanting to yield, if we are saying, "Lord, I believe—help Thou my unbelief!"

106. If you're still in the time of decision and you're not in a hardened state because you haven't yet made a decision not to yield, then the Lord gives you time, especially if the point you are trying to yield on is not urgent. The Lord knows you can't work on everything all at once, so in some areas He's more lenient, depending on your situation‚ the lessons you need to learn, and the urgency of the matter in question.

107. Some people just don't seem to be able to yield right away in some things. Take the "Loving Jesus" revelation, for example. Some people received it right away; others struggled. Some struggled for a fairly long time. But the Lord was patient, and in fact, He said He'd wait as long as necessary. (See ML #3030:1-20.) So you can't make blanket statements about the timing of how the Lord works in individuals' lives. You can't say that if a person doesn't yield to something right away, his heart will get hard and stony. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. You don't know. Only the Lord knows! So the best thing to do is to give people the Word and let them make their own decisions.

108. I understand how you shepherds and parents would want to jump in with strong counsel and dire warnings to try to prevent others or your children from making wrong decisions. I can see how you could get worried when you see someone going the wrong way and you'd want to nip it in the bud and set them straight right away. You have legitimate concerns, but instead of rushing in there to try to do it yourself, you need to let the Word do the work. And equally important, you have to pray. Pray especially that the one making the decision will be open, receptive and yielded to the Lord's will, and also pray that if you need to counsel someone, that you will be wise, loving and Spirit-led.

109. If you as a shepherd are counseling someone and trying to help them to yield to something in their life, such as a difficult change, some instruction or correction, a disappointment of some kind, or the forsaking of someone dear, etc., you need to be very sure that you're not just basing your counsel on your own feelings or preconceived ideas or past experience, etc. You shepherds are responsible to pray, counsel together‚ and hear from the Lord when you're helping people to find His will. You can't just counsel someone off the top of your head, without praying or seeking the Lord‚ and then expect the person to automatically yield, just because you are the shepherd and they are the "sheep."

110. You can remind people of the Word and prayerfully share your views or personal experiences‚ but those who have reached the age of accountability have to make their own decisions. You can't force people to yield. Before the Love Charter, in many situations people had to yield. They were "held in by bit and bridle " (Psa.32:9). But now we're seeing that some of that former yielding was not from the heart. Those days of "forced" yieldedness are over.

111. As the above prophecy said, "Now is the day of choices, for now are the children of David set free to make their own decisions in a much fuller and greater way, and they are more fully responsible for these choices. This is the way we have set it up, and this is the way we want it to run. Because as the times grow darker and more difficult, the children are going to have to make their own decisions and choices. ... The days of commanding and insisting and pushing and saying, `You must do this and you must do that' are over. For now is the day of the whispers. Now is the day when those who will listen will hear, and those who refuse will not."

112. If people are given the Word, if they know the truth and what the Lord wants, and if they're aware of the consequences of not yielding‚ then they can make their own decisions. Some people need to learn by experience. They need to learn by seeing the fruits of their mistakes.

113. It's different with small children, of course, because they have not yet reached the age of accountability. It depends on the maturity of the child, but generally speaking‚ children need to be pretty firmly handled concerning little unyieldednesses, because they need to form good habits of obedience. But once children reach the age of accountability, they need to be given some freedom to make their own choices.

114. You also need to understand that there is a difference between a person having a battle during the time when they're trying to yield or in the midst of deciding whether or not to yield, and their actually making a decision not to yield. For example, not too long ago the Lord showed Peter and me that we needed to take a little three-day vacation to rest. Initially I wasn't very yielded to the idea; I dread going anywhere because of the effect it has on my eyes. I murmured and figuratively "stomped my feet" in protest. But immediately afterwards I felt very bad for reacting so negatively. Peter and I prayed and the Lord sweetly said He forgave me. He called my bad reaction an unguarded moment. So while that was bad, it wasn't the same as deciding to be completely unyielded, because I did catch myself and repent very quickly and went on to do what the Lord wanted me to do. I also saw that I'd had no reason to get upset and rebellious, because the Lord very sweetly allowed us to take our vacation at home, and we had a very enjoyable few days relaxing and resting and enjoying the Lord and each other.

115. So when you're making decisions or shepherding others in their decision-making‚ please remember that the Lord has mercy and gives us some time when we're in the process of deciding to yield. He does everything He can to help us make the right decisions, and even if we're having a difficult time yielding, even if we are momentarily unyielded, if we see the error of our ways and ask His forgiveness and do our best to do whatever it is that He's asking of us‚ He will readily and lovingly forgive us.

116. This does not mean, however, that there is no need to even try to yield right away, or that we can just entertain our little unguarded moments and act like spoiled children if something doesn't suit us or if we don't get our way. We have to ask ourselves, "How many unguarded moments will the Lord allow?" The danger is that unyielded reactions can quickly become a habit. Certainly if we allow such unguarded moments frequently, it won't please the Lord, and it will cause a gradual dulling of our spiritual senses. Each time you allow yourself to react in the wrong way‚ it becomes easier and easier for you to do so the next time you're tested, and like the prophecy warned, unyieldedness leads to more unyieldedness. So even little unguarded moments can eventually lead to serious unyieldedness if not wholeheartedly fought against.

117. As you prayerfully study and read over the prophecies in this GN, remember that while the Lord allows you to make a choice between being yielded and being unyielded, and He is not going to force you to be yielded, at the same time He is showing you the dangers of unyieldedness, which should be a good motivation to yield! He's warning you how difficult you make it for yourself when you don't yield or listen to others.

118. When you're making decisions and choosing whether or not to yield, remember, you bring problems on yourself when you're set in your ways‚ not open to His Word‚ and determined to do things your way. Unyieldedness makes it nearly impossible for the Lord to help you. The longer you refuse to yield, the more difficult it is. The more you go the wrong direction, the harder it is to get back to the "high road" of the Lord's perfect will. So the safest thing to do is to yield.

A Question About Yieldedness and Choice!

119. When I was preparing this GN for you‚ one of our YAs raised the question, "With so much in the Family swinging towards free choice and everyone floating to the level of their own faith, I am having difficulty distinguishing between the times the Lord allows you to choose how much of yourself you want to give Him and how He is happy with that, and when your holding back from Him becomes unyieldedness." You will see that Dad's message below confirms and further amplifies what I was explaining above.

120. (Prophecy, Dad speaking:) Honey, about this question that one of the young people brought up, "When can you choose and when does it become unyieldedness?" Well, Honey, it seems like a very complex and complicated question, but really it's very simple. This is a day of choices. The Lord is giving His children the opportunity to make many choices, but those choices must be within His will. He gives them their choice to do this good thing or that good thing or the other good thing. He certainly is not giving them the choice to disobey‚ or to step out of His will and to think they're going to get away with it without suffering any consequences or any punishment or any lifting of His blessings.

121. The idea of the day of choice is not that you can choose to disobey. It's not that you can choose to not do the Lord's will, to do your own thing, or to say "no" to Jesus. The day of choice means that the Lord is giving His children the opportunity to walk through the tunnel of His will and choose from a number of good things. He's allowing these choices for many reasons—because He wants them to be happy in what they do for Him, He wants them to mature and learn to hear from Him, and make their own choices. It's preparation for the days ahead when there will be many, many more decisions, and they will need to have learned how to recognize the choices that are within His will.

122. So it's very important for the kids to understand that the day of choice means the day of doing good things for Jesus‚ not the day of unyieldedness, or the day of disobedience, or the day of going against the Love Charter. When folks say "yes" to Jesus, then He can open His hands before them and offer them a number of wonderful opportunities within the tunnel of His will. Once they say "yes" and yield, then He gives them many choices, because this is the day of saying "yes" to Jesus. And once you say "yes" to Jesus, it becomes the day of choice for you.

123. Unyieldedness is when you say "no" to Jesus. Unyieldedness is when you refuse to obey. Unyieldedness is when you turn your back on Jesus and go the opposite way. When He speaks to you with His still, small voice, when He speaks to you through the Word, when He speaks to you in prophecy, when He speaks to you through your shepherds, but you say "no," then it becomes unyieldedness.

124. But it's like you said, Honey; if you're in the time of decision, you're trying to obey. You're trying to say "yes" to Jesus. Then of course He has mercy. He looks at you with the eyes of love, and He will not be quick and harsh to judge. He will give you time and He will be patient, because His desire is that you will yield. So He's willing to be patient and to wait. Or even if you say "no" to Jesus and then you repent, if you repent quickly as in unguarded moments, or you repent down the line when you have seen the error of your ways, Jesus is so quick to forgive you. He forgets that unyieldedness. It is replaced with the joy that He feels in having you once again saying "yes" and walking closely with Him.

125. So this question of freedom of choice and unyieldedness and the consequences you suffer from unyieldedness can seem quite complex. But the most important things to remember are: Say "yes" to Jesus, listen to His still, small voice‚ and just be yielded clay in His hands.

126. It's always better and safer to yield to the still, small voice of the Lord in your heart and follow closely the word of counsel that He's given you. But even when you find it difficult, even when you're struggling and you're trying to yield, know that He is merciful and He will help you if you call out to Him. He'll help you over the hump‚ and He'll help you to continue to walk down the path of yieldedness. Even if you're caught in an unguarded moment, just cry out to Him and He will have mercy, and He will rescue you and restore you.

127. It's always safer and better to yield. Yieldedness is the safe, beautiful, peaceful path. It's the high road of Heaven. The path of yieldedness is the true highway to Heaven. It's the highway to blessings. It's the easy, gentle, beautiful way. So of course everybody has a choice. But my advice to you is‚ choose to yield. In every opportunity that you can, choose to yield. (End of prophecy.)

128. (Mama:) Thank you, sweet Dad, for helping us to understand! Thank you for making it easy for us, and for taking an issue that seemed so complicated and making it simple. If we can just do what you said, to say "yes" to Jesus, to listen to His still‚ small voice, and simply be yielded clay in His hands‚ we won't have anything to worry about‚ and we'll be making choices that will not only please Him, but will also keep us traveling down that smooth, beautiful, scenic highway to Heaven that is strewn with abundant blessings! Praise the Lord!

More Thoughts from the Lord On Yieldedness!

129. (Prophecy, Jesus speaking:) Behold the power of yieldedness! Behold the blessings that I pour forth upon you for your yieldednesses unto Me. For when you were strong in your own might, and in your own mind‚ and in your own strength, and in your own power, it was not possible for Me to pour forth the blessings upon you that I would, for you would not. But as you began to yield unto Me and to say "yes," and as you began to yield unto those who shepherded you, so I began to bless you and to pour forth My Spirit upon you in new measure. And so will I continue to pour forth upon you My blessings, My Spirit, My anointing.

130. There is great, great power in yieldedness! There is great, great power in love!—Love for Me, love for others, love for souls! As you do embrace the humble man, the kind man, the sweet man, the man that My Spirit makes you, so do I pour forth My blessings, My joy, and the power of My Spirit. (End of prophecy.)

131. (Mama:) This next prophecy was given for one of our female CROs who was feeling very incapable of doing her job because she felt she lacked the more outward, showy gifts.

132. (Prophecy‚ Jesus speaking:) Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth. Do not think that your meekness is weakness, or that your submissiveness and your yieldedness are signs of weakness, or that esteeming others greater than yourself is a sign that you are weaker. These are the true strengths of a shepherdess, and the reason that I have exalted you to a position of shepherdess to care for My wonderful children!—To show them the true riches, the true joys, the true happiness‚ as well as the way that I see things; to guide them and lead them and to help them find My wisdom, My understanding, My Love. You have done well in that you have accepted and humbled yourself. You have humbled yourself and accepted these gifts, for these gifts are humbling. They bring humility and brokenness and loneliness—the things that I can use to help others.

133. Do not feel remorse that you do not have the more showy gifts, but thank Me for the beautiful gifts that I have bestowed upon you that make you a pillar in My Kingdom‚ and make you strong in the sight of your brothers and sisters. Do not think that they do not see these strengths, for they see them very clearly and they are convicted by them. They are encouraged by them and they are inspired by them to follow closer.

134. So continue to let Me lead you through meekness, through submission, through yieldedness‚ and through loving and caring for others. Do not listen to the lies of the Enemy when he tells you that you do not have enough gifts to be a leader in My Family. For I tell you, it is a lie. You have the gifts that are needed and the strength that is needed, for you are dependent upon My Word. As long as you continue to be dependent upon Me and My Word, and yielded to the way I am working in your life and the way I want to use you, I will continue to use you mightily—and even more mightily in battles to come! I will give you strength that you know not of, and will use you to lead and guide your people to victory!

135. Do not fear, or say, "I am but a child," for I will strengthen you and I will help you and I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness. You will go from strength to strength, and victory to victory! So do not listen to the lies of Satan and his words that would try to discourage you and make you feel incapable and insufficient. Remember that your sufficiency is of Me, that your strength comes from Me, and that faith is the victory that overcomes the world, even your love!

136. (Prophecy, Jesus speaking:) Greater love hath no man than this‚ that a man lay down his life for My will, for the will of God, in yieldedness and in obedience. The cross that this one carries is indeed a heavy cross, for forsaking your own will for My will is the greatest forsaking all. But he that bears the cross, despising the shame, will be rewarded with great abundance‚ with great reward. The laying down of your burdens, your desires and your will to do that which you are called to do is the ultimate test of your willingness to say "yes" to Me. But he that forsakes his will for Mine shall receive an hundredfold: blessings in this life, the desires of his heart‚ and great reward in the life to come!

137. (Prophecy:) Be as the wise stewards who invested their talents. What was the key? Was it the knowledge that they had or their experience? No, the key was their obedience to the Master's voice and doing what He told them to do.

138. The yieldedness, the following and the obeying will be the key.—Not as the unwise steward who leaned to his own understanding and to his carnal mind, but as the wise investors who were obedient and listened and heeded the voice of the Master. For as you follow and as you obey and as you yield, you shall bear fruit.

139. (Prophecy, Dad speaking:) The way to be used mightily is not to be doing things in your own strength‚ but to be tapped into the Spirit, and to be operating by the power of God, by the might of God, by the strength of God! The way to be used mightily is to be doing the thing that God Himself wants you to be doing, and the only way you can find that out is by seeking Him, by being yielded to Him, and by really hearing from Him and knowing what is His will.

140. I don't have to tell you that sometimes His will does not coincide with our own plans, our own desires and our own wishes; sometimes, yes, but not always. The problem with so many is they get led around by their feelings or the things that they think they should do‚ and they don't really seek the Lord. They don't listen to the counsel and wisdom of others either. So often their minds are made up as to exactly what they want to do, and it doesn't leave any room for others to help them, or for us on this side to get through.

141. In the end they often learn the lesson, but often at the expense of a lost opportunity, of a bus that's missed. How much better it would be if they would seek the Lord, if they would pray with others, if they would know exactly what it is that the Lord wants them to do.—And it's not past finding out!

142. (Prophecy‚ Jesus speaking:) I have said that it is the day of choices, and as you make your choices to please Me and serve Me and do My will, I put before you a greater selection of choices to please you and to make your life happy and fulfilled. Each step that you make within My will in order to please Me will bring you closer to your own happiness, and you will find the way widening and the choices becoming greater.

143. If you choose your own path, the choices within your life become more and more limited as you step away from Me and away from My perfect will, because you choose to be more in control of your life. But as you give up the reins to Me and let Me control your life, instead of feeling you will be stifled and controlled, a greater anointing awaits you! The choice is yours! (End of prophecies.)