The Miraculous Power of Pain & Suffering – By Thomas Koester

When I get strong, I get lost. When I get busy, I get independent. When I get successful, I get lonely.

I was down and out from October 11th, 2013, through mid-January 2014. Life had been hard and painful, but God has never been closer than he’s been with me through those difficult months. I’ll tell you, my dear friends, I’d rather be laid up and laid out with God by my side than lonely but successful in the world any day.

I had gotten to the point in my suffering that I began to thank God for my injuries and sicknesses. I began to see the blessings and the beautiful breaking to my stubborn heart and the fresh and living water flooding into my dry soul. My pain in a miraculous way allowed God’s voice to become magnified, and the whispers of “I love you son” filled my troubled mind in those long and dark, painful nights.

I truly want God, but he’s not necessarily in my busyness, nor is he in my business. He’s not in my self-imposed deadlines, or in the deadlines of others, which weary my body and mind, and cause me to strain and to force my goals above Gods’. He’s not in the coulda, woulda, or shoulda’s, nor is he in my goals of independence and worldly success. God is definitely not in my confused tantrums, my sulking, or complaining.

God is in the midst of suffering; he’s nearby the crushed and the weary, the sick and the lonely. Our God is with the widowed; he’s with the fatherless and alien. He hears the cries and prayers of the broken, the injured, and the weak.

“He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle.” Isaiah 42:3 (NLT)

When I get strong, I get lost. When I get busy, I get independent. When I get successful, I get lonely.

I want God, and therefore, I welcome the pain and suffering so that I might gain all that he has for me through it. This is the process that can get us found in God, which can make us strong in the right things and focus on eternal values, which can bring contentment during our seasons of affliction.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not looking for pain and suffering, only that when it comes, the goodness and presence of God is magnified through it, and therefore, I can revel in it and celebrate because of it. Through it, I have learned that our greatest changes can result from what we suffer. Pain and suffering are powerful for our good!

So, while my body was aching and writhing in pain and anguish, my soul was soaring with God. I worshiped God and thanked him through so much of my illnesses and injuries. The pain still lingers, and the scar, which I now bear on my left leg and knee, will always remind me of God’s faithfulness to me all the way through it.

And so, I thank God for all of it.

One day, I was complaining to my wife, Toni, about a difficult client. I was through and ready to cut the relationship and take a significant loss just to get out of the misery.

Then, Toni pulled the “Book of Job” on me:

“Has not God provided through this person?” she said, and then continued: “Do you really to
throw people away because they sometimes cause difficulty?”

Wow! I was called out and convicted. Thank you, Toni!

I had set aside, not only heaven’s provision for me, but I had set aside God’s provision of grace and mercy towards the one whom God set up to bring such needed financial provision.

“Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not also receive evil?” In all this, Job did not sin with his lips. Job 2:10

I am not deformed, but I am being transformed. The more we complain and lay blame, the slower our remaking through our braking goes. In my recent story with my client, God used my wife to get me back on track and with God’s program.

Our complaining always works against God’s transforming work, and so we fail to see how God masters evil for our good. Our complaining and blaming causes us to only see the badness of evil, rather the goodness of God in spite of it and His creative use with it.

“I form the light and create darkness: I make peace and create evil: I The Lord do all these things.” – Isaiah 45:7

Ha, I’ve not heard that verse preached in Church!

So, if God masters light, darkness, peace, and evil, how can we be destroyed in the day of pain, sickness, and disease? How can we lose if what we fear can not keep us from winning? How then shall we live, if even evil and the day of disaster, is under the control of such a loving and caring Heavenly Father?

I’ll tell ya how we should then live – in Total Victory and with an Overcomer’s Spirit!

Hey, there’s power in what we suffer, no matter how miserable or deadly! But you gotta put away the complaining and start the thanksgiving and praising.

I was just a young teenager of 14 years old when I got a hold of a book titled “By What Standard” by the late Dr. Rousas John Rushdoony, the father of Mark Rushdoony.

Like the late Dr. Rushdoony, the life and story of Job, set the standard of who God is and His power over evil. Page 185 through page 205 of By What Standard is what impacted me most in my life as a teenager. The Book of Job established my foundation for all my understanding of the ways of God and the ability of God. The Book of Job became my standard of biblical understanding and godly comfort.

Like Job, it is blind faith and trust in the Almighty, whereby God shall succeed in spite of our lack of understanding and even confusion. Our suffering is not the end of the means, but the means to an end, forewhich Satan’s must comply with God’s will over our lives and our wellbeing.

So, the key is to invest all of your faith and trust into God’s will, and pain and suffering will become allies to your transformation and glorification.

“In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.” – Hebrews 2:10

Was it not God who invited Satan to consider His servant Job?

Did not God establish the boundaries after he invited Satan to afflict Job?

The Book of Job, chapters one, and two.

God masterfully controlled darkness, sickness, and disease over His servant Job, but He also displayed His power over the Prince of Darkness.

The Book of Job reveals how Satan must obey the very boundaries that God sets up, leaving Satan and all evil under the power of the God of the Universe and Creator of all things. And yes, including all angelic beings, and even those who’ve failed at the Heavenly coup d’état of God’s throne and power, and dare I say, they failed miserably!

‘God spoke to Cain:”Why this tantrum? Why the sulking? If you do well, won’t you be accepted? And if you don’t do well, sin is lying in wait for you, ready to pounce; it’s out to get you; you’ve got to master it.” – Genesis 4:6-7

We can master sin because God has mastered evil, and his Son, Jesus Christ, has vanquished our sin. He destroyed death and conquered the grave! But tantrums and sulking leave you vulnerable, and instead of victory, you’ll end in defeat.

So, we can thrive in pain and suffering, in loss and betrayal, and evil shall not destroy us. Evil becomes a weapon in the hand of God, disarming our enemy and thwarting evil’s plan for our destruction.

Do you want to disarm the Evil One? Then, praise God in the midst of all that hell has unleashed and bask in the suffering with thanksgiving. Trust fully in the God who knows what He is doing and the limits for which evil must obey.

Can we lose?

“No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Romans 8:37

Put your faith and trust in God and become transformed and not deformed by all that you suffer.

Your pain may be your breakthrough into victory and validation that you are a true son or daughter of God and not a fatherless victim.

As a victor, you, too, will see The Miraculous Power of Pain and Suffering.

My Failed Masquerade – By Thomas Koester

God Wants Us As We Are And Not What We Pretend To Be.

It’s been a long season of letting go and stripping down. It’s been a time of pruning and preening, until all the old feathers are removed and the old eagle remains perched, cold, vulnerable, and flightless. It’s a time of humility and powerlessness. It’s a time whereby I’ve become blind, deaf, and mute. I long for even the faintest whisper from the Almighty; a glimpse of his existence, and acknowledgement of my prayers.

It’s a time where others are making my decisions, not because I am a king (my time of reigning has deminised) but, because God’s interest are sonship and not kingship at this time in my life. God must have his way, or I will become too strong, too hardened, and too important. While my flesh yearns for such strength, independence, and self-importance; yet, His Spirit calls me heavenward.

So, I am sent back into the womb; into seclusion; into the hands of God to be reformed, kneaded, and made pliable, until my obedience becomes instinct, and my quality becomes refined. The purest gold is crystal clear and what we call beautiful, God calls dross.

In our human fragility and stubbornness, we cease the process of humility way too early. If it’s our own deconstructing and demolition, we blame it on the devil. If it is a friend or neighbor facing such travails, we jump in to save and to fix, and so short-circuit God’s best work in them. As singer/songwriter, Jill Phillips has so artfully penned into song,

“…God is both the builder and wrecking ball.”

And this truth gives good reason I cling to hope; amazingly, through it all, our God is in control. My deconstructing can be a good thing, if it is God swinging the wrecking ball.

Religious-populace thought, has dwarfed my perception and need for God. The extractible biblical principles and acquirable blessings “by cause and effect,” granted me the promised land of goodies without intimate relationship with Yahweh. I have become an idolater and have joined the ranks of “Christians,” who have reformed and refashioned their gold and silver into objects of worship. We call it “Yahweh,” and have found a way to satisfy our itch for deity worship and maintain our addiction to sin.

We’ve even learned to worship our worship! And crave “the anointing” more than the Anointer.

We’ve convinced ourselves and others that God as “Love,” trumps God as Justice, Holiness, and Righteousness. Oh, but how many of us do cry out for true justice, righteousness, and holiness?

Mainstream Christianity has reinvented God. He’s become a benevolent and tolerant God, full of winks, giggles, and thumbs-up at our sins.

So, I’ve been quiet and introspective. I’ve taken a look under the hood and it’s time for rebuilding and rethinking. Twenty-first Century Christianity is finally equivalent to First Century Phariseeism, only without the dark and flowing robes and phylacteries.

We’ve convinced ourselves that observances and the mastering of principals and rote make us acceptable to God. We are all white on the outside, but dead and dirty on the inside. We shut our ears and mouths to our own inner immorality and conflict; we direct the attention of others to our outward achievements and ministry appointments. We protect our own duplicity at the cost of our own identity.

We prefer to live in the shadows; not too much in the light or too much in the darkness. In the end, it is God we must convince, and He sees through our masks and into our hearts. There are no shadows with the Almighty!

We’ve become the generation who’d see to the arrest of Jesus; treat him as an imposter, a fake and a phony; his presence an annoyance, and his outspokenness a disturber of our traditions. We’d cast him out of our carpeted and high-tech sanctuaries and chase him and his homeless faction back to 73rd and West MacArthur.

We simply would not recognize Jesus of Nazareth, nor agree with his lifestyle and “unsuccessful demeanor” and lack of corporate-ness.

I’m on a quest to find the simplicity of what Jesus taught. To archeologically excavate and rediscover what decades of religious debris has covered over, like the sands of time.

So, that’s what has been going on in the inside. The outside is a different story. It must be mastered, or it will become my master. And this is my battleground. It’s an ancient battle fought by many, and won by so precious few. My prayer is to join the few, by relying on God’s grace and power, through Jesus Christ.

Our Sunday morning masquerading must come to an end. The pretense and fakery must be replaced with humility and honesty, or else we’ll become master Pharisees. We must capture our first love again and shed our sophisticated and false adult-selves and become God’s children again.

God wants us as we are and not what we pretend to be. Jesus didn’t come for fakers or liars, but for the broken and humble.

Pretenders pretend that their sins and shame are covered behind their false personas. Their so-called salvation is their masquerade, which, by the way, only assures them a full dance card outside with sweaty dogs and demons.

“Blessed are those who wash their robes. They will be permitted to enter through the gates of the city and eat the fruit from the tree of life. Outside the city are the dogs—the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idol worshipers, and all who love to live a lie.” – Revelation 22:14-16

I pray, that we as a redeemed people, can leave all the religious fakery behind and get back true redemption and rejoin God in redeeming this world. Because, if you haven’t noticed, this world is headed full speed towards hell.

Blessed are those that remove their masks and cease their love affair with living a lie.

My prayer is that God will also help you fail at your masquerade. Amen

The Blessings of Poverty – Thomas Koester

Today the choice is yours. Go, sell all that you have, give to the poor and you will have riches in heaven.

A few years ago I met a homeless man, named Aaron. Aaron wouldn’t say he was homeless but instead, he’d say he’s houseless. He and his dog were used to living outside and on their own. In other words, Aaron had chosen poverty as his lifestyle. He didn’t yearn for more, but only just enough to get by each new day. He had little to no envy for guys like me or even a desire to acquire more than he could carry in his backpack or bedroll.

Maybe Aaron had chosen a better way. He chose poverty long ago.

As our economy is slipping away, banks failing, and baby formula scarcity, Aaron has learned to live without, while we cling to what we have. Now, he’s watching men like us lose everything. He’s witnessing our agony and hearing our complaining and woes.

For Aaron, he has known no difference and no loss, because he had little investment in the world, and therefore, the world has taken little from him. Amazing! Now, it is Aaron who speaks wisdom. Not necessarily with words, but with his life. He chooses a better way. He’s become, my counselor, cheerleader, and advocate.

Our pain and hardship are not the sharpening of steel or the clanging of iron; it’s not the heated furnace, the violent remaking, reshaping of our lives, but the hand of correction ripping the world out of us.

Why? It is because we are true sons. It is because God is our True Father, and he desires that we live no longer in the World. We stink of worldliness. Our attics, garages, storage rentals, living rooms, game, and family rooms are witnesses of this fact.

We are in it deep. Oh man, does it hurt to watch these things disappear; house-by-house, boat-by-boat, car-by-car, credit-card-by-credit-card; life!?

The World gives, and the World taketh away.

The truth: because we are true sons, and God our True Father, he is choosing for us. We stinketh of the world, we stinketh of “flesh,” and if we truly want the presence of our Father, we must be baptized in the Fire of His Holiness! We must be pure because he is pure.

We must repent of our worldliness, the sooner the better. To chose poverty is a better process than being overcome by poverty. You will like it better.

“If you want to give it all you’ve got,” Jesus replied, “go sell your possessions; give everything to the poor. All your wealth will then be in heaven. Then come follow me.”That was the last thing the young man expected to hear. And so, crest-fallen, he walked away. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and he couldn’t bear to let go. Matthew 19:21-22 (The Message)

The virtue of poverty is more beautiful, more stunning to Poppa God than the finest fashions the world offers. For through a lesser garment, He can see the radiance of his Son, Jesus, and, therefore, so can the World.

Before, the World could only see the world in our lives. Heaven was at a loss because of the riches we adorned ourselves with, masked the greatest gift a father could bestow, the Glory of the Son. The radiances of Jesus are muted by our worldliness.

We shall soon be better dressed. Poverty is the latest fashion but seldom chosen. Not the poverty of what the world would think. But, the poverty of Christ. The setting aside of all his rights as God, to become a simple man, shows us that simple men can change the world. To confound the Wise. To sap the strength of the Strong. To confuse the Sophisticates. To baffle the Wealthy. To enrage the Religious. To magnify Christ. To point to Heaven. To reveal True Life, Real Living. To unveil True Freedom. To bring us to our True Father.

This world is not our home, never was, and never will be. We’re Evangelical Sojourners. The sooner we evangelize, the sooner we will journey home, our True Home.

“If the walls of your life have boxed you in, then kick the walls down, and make a dance floor!” – You Got To Keep Dancing – By Tim Hansel

Oh, how freeing it is to dance in open spaces. How much more we can see God when our lives are less cluttered with junk? Let’s get changed, let’s dance!

Don’t confuse worldly poverty with spiritual poverty. They are not the same. Those who choose spiritual poverty, are the wealthiest of all. Their investments are held in the security of heaven’s gates. Their wealth will never end and will never know depreciation or recession. It will not rust or wear out. No government shall confiscate it nor tax it.

Even if one were to choose physical poverty, blessed are we, for:

“Blessed (happy, to be envied, and spiritually prosperous–with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions) are the poor in spirit (the humble, who rate themselves insignificant), for theirs is the kingdom of heaven!” Matthew 5:3 (Amplified Bible)

“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God and his rule.” Matthew 5:3 (The Message)

Being needy is the state of poverty, which profits us the most. It is more easily attained by choice, rather than theft, confiscation, or repossession. The former comes by release and opened hands, the latter by ripping, tearing, and white-knuckled gripping.

Why is it “…more blessed to give than receive?” Because in giving, we increase our capacity, we make more room for the kingdom of God within. In receiving, we crowd and burden ourselves with more earthly responsibility and possession. Soon our possessions possess us, and not the Spirit of Christ.

If it all must go, let it go, that we may gain Christ. Only let it be done for love, not for ambition, recognition, title, or position, but simply because of the love of God. Less of me, my wants, desires even hopes and dreams; more of Christ and what pleases him, so that in all of our potential emptiness, we fully contain all of Christ.

Christ was cursed on his own because he chose a better way. He chose not the kingdoms of the world as offered by Satan. Not the leap off the temple heights, to attain a spectacular ministry of men and angels, nor independence by commanding stones to become bread.

Rather Christ chose to live in simplicity, neither owning nor possessing. He chose silence before accusers, seclusion instead of acclaim, prayer instead of food, and sinners instead of the righteous. He accepted the ignominy of the cross, and the poverty of a borrowed tomb, and left justice to his God. In seclusion, angels ministered to him when he was starved, naked, and thirsty.

Brennan Manning, the celebrated lover of God and author, wrote:

“I think moments before Christ gave up his spirit into the embrace of his Father, his Father whispered the following words:

“Come away with me my love, my lovely one come. For you the winter is over and gone, the snow has melted. The cooing of the turtle doves can be heard on the land, the flowers are in bloom. Come away with me my love, my lovely one come. Your face is beautiful your voice is sweet. Come away with me my love, my lovely one come.”

At that exact moment the weary and impoverished son, bloodied and beaten, naked and pierced, inhaled his last and final breath and said; “It is finished!” He hung his head and died. His broken body swept up into the loveliness of his Father.”

Because he chose poverty, he has made us all rich. Because he chose death we now live.

Today the choice is yours. Go, sell all that you have, give to the poor and you will have riches in heaven.

Your retirement is in heaven not here on earth. You may have earned it and saved for it, but there is a higher call, a higher law, and a higher love. Only a few find it, and less than a few stay with it. Those who endure, understand that their reward is not here, but in an eternal kingdom that’s not of this world.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus of Nazareth.

The kind of poverty Jesus is speaking about is seldom understood and even less seldom lived.

According to Jesus, no poverty, no Kingdom. If you have a problem with this, take it up with the King of kings.

The poor in spirit are blessed because they chose wisely.

Be blessed!

The Prodigal Father – Turning Your Heart Towards Your Children – By Thomas Koester

Don’t wait for your kids to find your heart, be brave and pursue theirs. It’ll change everything!

Before a nation collapses, the family collapses. Before a family collapses, the father collapses. Therefore, the fall of nations is the failure of fathers.

After a three-year hiatus due to the pandemic, Toni and I finally went to a movie theater in Angels Camp, California, to watch the sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water.” We watched it in 3D at 48 frames per second. Wow!

The movie’s subtitle should have read, “The Way of Fathers.”

While the cinematography, special effects, action, and acting were all superb, the portrayal of the father’s role was unmistakable and powerful! Matter of fact so was the mother’s role. The importance of parents and family is something we rarely see in movies produced in Holywood.

While James Cameron wrote a fantastic story and script, the importance of fathers taking responsibility for their children was something to behold. Just like in the world of Avatar, our world needs strong, uncompromising fathers to survive!

I see the role and importance of fathers in the Bible, from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of the Book of Revelations. From the last book of the Old Testament, the final chapter, and the last two verses, and to the opening of the New Testament, in the Book of Luke, chapter one, verses fifteen through seventeen.

Malachi 4: 5-6 (Last Old Testament Book)

“Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives. His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

Luke 1: 15-17 (One of the First New Testament Books)

15, ff “…And he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even in his mother’s womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to their Lord God. 17, And he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the unbelievers to the wisdom of the just men: to make the people ready for the Lord.”

John the Baptist was the second Elijah spoken about in the Book of Malachi. It was his job to stir the hearts of fathers to their sons and daughters. Otherwise, the mission of Jesus to reconcile the lost sons and daughters of Israel to his Heavenly Father would have met hardened hearts.

Our roles as fathers are not only the most significant societal and cultural role; it is the single most important relational/spiritual role our children can have here on earth. Malachi is pointing out that a father’s estrangement (absence) from his children has the potential of cursing our land and creating avenues of destruction throughout our cities and towns. Estranged and absent fathers make ungodly and rebellious children. It also hardens the children’s hearts against the love of God, his Heavenly Father’s role, and ultimately His plan of salvation for them.

Do you fathers understand your role and responsibility in God’s plan of salvation for your children? You will be held to account. Do you want to stand before God as a deadbeat dad?

There can be no more significant failure in a man’s life than to turn his back on his marriage and children.

The career is not worth it. An affair is not worth it. Money is not worth it. One more drink is not worth it. Your girlfriend is not worth it. Even your “ministry” is not worth the sacrifice of your children.

Suppose you’re on the fence about your marriage and your responsibility for your children. Suppose you’ve walked out of your marriage and your kids’ lives. Suppose you’re in an affair or about to enter one. Even the promotion in work or ministry could take you away from your wife and kids. Consider the impact on their lives and future and our culture before you walk off the cliff of selfishness. It is not worth it, men!

Go back home to the wife of your first love. Go back home to the family you’ve left behind. Go back home to the most extraordinary life a man can live. Rescue your wife, save your children and save your legacy!

Reconciliation becomes possible when fathers turn their hearts back towards their children, taking responsibility and becoming accountable for them. To reverse the curse, which is undeniably present in our culture, we fathers must turn back to God and walk in His ways so that we can again point our children to a greater Father to embrace, love, and walk with throughout their lifetime.

The success of marriage and unconditional commitment to our wives and children must exceed the failure rate of broken families and absent fathers. If this tide cannot be turned, then as Malachi has prophetically declared, our land will indeed become cursed and worsen rapidly.

Repair the breach, men! Turn your hearts back towards your sons and daughters. Repair your marriages and live up to your commitments. Turn your hearts back to God and walk with Him as your True Father and listen to His advice and wise counsel. After all, He is the Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Wonderful Counselor, and Prince of Peace. God is everything we need as men to become the fathers our sons and daughters need and our land requires.

To those sons and daughters that have lost their fathers due to death, you can still turn your hearts back towards him. Forgiveness is your most significant path to a new life, to a new future, and to become healed from your heartache.

This is the only path to a cure; to reverse the curse and restore our great Nation through restored families! Get it done, men!

…It may only take “20 seconds of courage.”

Make this your New Year’s Resolution, a Revolution For the Love of your children.

Prodigal fathers, come home!

“Just Do It!”

Put Your Faith In God and Not Politics – By Thomas Koester

A 2023 Forecast…

Judgment is approaching, and it’s just around the corner. But it’s not for the world. No, its time has been reserved for a day yet coming. This impending judgment is not for the lost but for the so-called righteous who condemn and toss out people of poverty, of thirst, with no coat nor cot…

… They failed to see the less fed and less dressed as Jesus in their midst.

So, our homes and our houses are spitting us out. Strangers and foreigners pick through our belongings and move in while we’re out. Our treasures and trinkets were collected and sold, carted by strangers who brag of their gold.

Church buildings, sanctuaries, temples, and steeples are auctioned and sold to other people. Coffers and budgets are empty and bare; velvet-lined plates are far less of cash, coin, and fare.

While worshiping in style of pagan delight, God’s Word came and went while we slept in the light. Prophets and priests proclaimed prosperity and health; we forgot about holiness and exchanged it for wealth.

Judgment can be averted but not with mere prayer; there must be repentance and dust in the air, sackcloth for clothes and ashes for hats, tears of repentance and confession ne’er held back.

To avoid the perpetual crushing of God’s fair assessment, far better to repent than go down in besetment.

“Dear Children, keep yourselves from idols,” warned John. But none took him seriously, so we fashioned and formed them one after another till our houses became filled up to the rafters!

The window is closing; the door has long since shut. No politician, talk show, or New York Best Seller can reverse all we have glut.

Now that the coffers of both State and country are emptied and spent, the people rise in loud cries and lament:

“Give us our water, our dirt, and our hay, and we’ll work even faster, and bricks we will lay — our sons and our daughters will pay, Pay, PAY!”

The party is over — It has been for some time. Only God can help us in judgment. He will refine. He’ll not listen to our cries and our whimpering whines but only of a bride, forthcoming in beauty divine.

Put you faith In God and not political might; His Kingdom is here within you, so fight, Fight, FIGHT!

Not man and his flesh do we engage and embattle but the kingdom of darkness in principality and power.

So ready your hearts; your homes get in order; God’s coming down, but not for the rapture hour!

Healing Your Wounded Heart – Your Greatest Day – By Thomas Koester

Don’t live with the pain. Time is not the Healer of all wounds; that’s a lie. God is the Healer.

“Keep thy heart more than anything that is guarded; for from it flows the issues of life.” Proverbs 4:23

“A wound where there are no tears is a wound that cannot be healed.” Author, John Eldredge – Ransomed Heart Ministries

A splinter under the skin, if left alone and ignored will eventually fester to a point of infection. Your body is rejecting the foreign object no matter how small it is, the pain calls out for your attention. If you ignore it too long, you could end up in the emergency room.

How about your heart?

Why ignore the pain?

Your heart is more precious than a finger; you can live without a finger, but you cannot live without your heart.

Sometimes we’re strong in the wrong things and at the wrong times, but to be weak in the right things and with a humble heart, can get God’s attention.

If you are hurting, in pain and are crushed in spirit, heart, and soul, you may be at the greatest turning point of your life. You may actually be dwelling with God in a high and protected place, but you must share your tears with God, or you’ll be swallowed up in bitterness and left alone on earth.

Isaiah 57:15

“The high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, the Holy One, says this: I live in that high and holy place where those with contrite, humble spirits dwell; and I refresh the humble and give new courage to those with repentant hearts.”

Psalm 51:17

“The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart.”

Let God encounter your tears, after all, He is the Everlasting Father. Share it with Him as your sacrifice. Come to Him crushed, broken, betrayed; come to Him rejected and despised. His Son, Jesus is well acquainted with all of this and more. He allows it to touch your life, not to destroy you, but to draw you closer to Himself.

God wants to father you…

Simply trust and turn to God and surrender your right to be offended; your anger for being abused; your self hatred for being molested, raped, and violated. God specializes with hurting and wounded people, and He’d rather be with you than with kings and queens.

The moment you offer up to God your tears and pain, you are with Him in spirit and in truth.

Isaiah 42:3

“He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the dimly burning flame. He will encourage the fainthearted, those tempted to despair. He will see full justice given to all who have been wronged.”

God won’t exploit your bruises. He’ll not snuff out your heart, even if its barely beating and you feel life is over.

God desires to be your daddy…

Give it all over to God. If you do, He’ll see to it that justice is served, and you can give your revenge a proper burial.

Then, you’ll knock down your walls of despair and make them into a dance floor and you’ll dance with your Abba, just as He’s always wanted.

Don’t live with the pain. Time is not the Healer of all wounds, that’s a lie.

God is the Healer of all wounds, and He’s waiting to hear your cries directed towards Him, so that He may act.

“O my people in Jerusalem, you shall weep no more, for he will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. He will answer you.” Isaiah 30:19

Give it up to God. Let it out and drink in God’s presence and love, and so be healed and restored.

Become healed in the name of Jesus! He came to seek out the lost and broken, and there is no one he cannot save or heal.

Isaiah wrote about the mission of Jesus centuries before He arrived:

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor…

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” Isaiah 61: 1-3

You see, God wants to do an exchange with you, He’ll give you beauty, joy, and praise for all your ashes, mourning, and despair. It happened with me, and it could happen for you too.

This may be one of your greatest days!

Your heart and soul are God’s specialty. He wants to heal your heart and set you free!

The Power of Love – By Thomas Koester

When reading the title of my article, you have to admit; like me, you immediately thought of the hit song by Huey Lewis and the News, or the movie, Back to the Future. Maybe the last thing you thought of is Christianity or the Church.

According to the Founder of Christianity, we are to be known by our love for one another. The world would know that we are Jesus’ disciples by our love. But as you may be aware every Sunday morning, we all gravitate to our favorite flavors of Christianity and tasty preferences of religious delights.

As believers, our doctrine and affiliations should not separate us. We are to be known by our love for one another, regardless of whether we agree or disagree with lesser tenets of the faith.

Love for one another trumps knowledge, prophecy, and tongues. Love trumps Calvinism and Arminianism. Love trumps Premillennialism and Postmillennialism.

Love trumps and destroys bitterness and anything that may divide us. Well, it should, and if it’s not, it means that our love is just a religious pose. Real agape love is powerful and life-changing. It’s dynamic and alive, not at all static or passive.

If Jesus Christ were to walk into our town of Copperopolis on any given Sunday morning, we’d all leave our Church buildings and gather where He is. He, and not the differences in our denominations should be the focus.

Jesus Christ is not a Baptist nor a Pentecostal; He’s not a Presbyterian, a Catholic, or an Independent. He is the where, the who, the way, and the why we are His followers. He is not a denomination, a religion, or a building.

Where is the Church of Copperopolis? Where is the Church of your town or your city?

Jesus Christ is the Great Shepherd of one Church, and we need to act like it, putting aside our petty and religious differences. Let’s save our towns, county, and states and seek and save the lost. They are everywhere that we’re not. They need to witness our love for one another!

We must love one another in front of the lost. We need to show them what they’re missing. They are missing the power of authentic agape love!

We have to love beyond the borders of our denominations, beyond the enforces of sectarianism and the supremacy of the elitists. Without Love, we have no authentic identity as disciples and no real gospel power.

Let the love of Christ Jesus compel us towards unity and love for one another.

Otherwise, the world will be without a witness and the real Power of Love!