The Melody of the Holy Spirit

BookBanter Podcast

This past Thursday, I appeared on a podcast called Book Banter with FINDING THE SAFEST PLACE ON EARTH. The host of the show is Dianne Burkhardt, a woman from Kansas who now lives in Berlin with her husband, whose job brings them there. She’s a fascinating person with a remarkable story of recovery from a terrible accident. You can find her website at BurckhardtBooks.com. I recommend checking it out.

There is a six-hour time difference between Berlin and Minneapolis, so the show was recorded at 9:30 AM my time and 3:30 PM her time. My interview will air in the last part of May, and I’ll notify you about that when the time comes. In the meantime, her interviews can be found on  BookBanter.Buzzsprout.com.

The formal interview lasted an hour, followed by another hour of conversation with her. As I mentioned, she’s a captivating woman, and it was a significant achievement for me to be featured on her show with my book. This is the most prestigious podcast I’ve appeared on, and I was honored that she selected my book for discussion.

If you haven’t gotten a copy of my book yet, here’s the link for you to get one:

https://bit.ly/SAFESTPLACE

If you have read my book but haven’t left a review yet, I’d really appreciate it if you could do so at this link. A sentence or two would be great. You don’t need to critique the book.

https://bit.ly/ReviewSafestPlace

About Joseph

Joseph is a member of our church’s prayer group who puts his actions where his faith is. He believes that Jesus came to save and heal and that He works through His faithful followers today to continue His mission on earth until His work on earth is done. Every year, he travels to Uganda for a week in God’s service to preach the gospel and be an instrument of His saving grace and healing touch. This year an 85-year-old woman named Pat also went to Uganda for the week. I received this note from Joseph yesterday.

“Wow!! Today was amazing. To God be the glory. Before we left for the orphanage we prayed for the manager Harriet at the hotel. She was tormented by a spirit at night and also wanted prayer for favor to keep her job and also for her son’s dad to help financially raise their son. We prayed as we were led by the Holy Spirit. She asked also for prayer for her grandmother who needs healing. We agreed to see her grandmother tomorrow after the hospital to minister healing.

“When we got to the orphanage 200 orphans greeted us with songs and dancing showing how grateful they were for supporting and praying for them.  Pat shared an encouraging word that was well received. I shared the importance of being born again and living this life with the Holy Spirit inside you. I told them that Jesus loves all of us He created and desires that none us go to hell but go to heaven. But Jesus will not force you to love Him and not drag you into heaven kicking and screaming. I made an appeal for all the teachers, staff, and orphans to surrender their life today completely, repent, believe and confess the Lord Jesus. I asked who wanted to make that decision. Most of the hands were raised. They confessed out loud with their mouth and believed in their heart as Pastor Moses led them in prayer. Praise Jesus!!! I told them how important that decision is and how the angels rejoice in heaven over just 1 sinner who repents. They are definitely celebrating today!!

“We went to the Church of our Savior this evening. We spent the first part of the service praying and preparing our hearts to receive from the Lord. I shared on evangelism and the power of prayer. The message was received well. Then we prayed for 3 young women who wanted us to lay hands on them to receive the Holy Spirit in His fullness. They received and we prayed in the Spirit to close out the service. Thank you Jesus for the Holy Spirit!

“When we arrived back at the hotel, two security guards approached us and said they heard we pray for the sick. Simon the security guard asked if we could go and pray for his father in law Joseph. He was paralyzed from a stroke. When I found out it he was about 5 hrs away I told him I’m not in control of our schedule and driving and didn’t think we could on this trip. The other security guard said his son was 6 years old and will receive an operation early tomorrow morning at the hospital  for a growth in his throat that makes it difficult to eat and breath. I told him we will be at the hospital tomorrow around noon.  Pat suggested we pray tonight and there’s no distance in the Spirit. We all agreed. I shared a testimony with them of a lady who requested prayer a year or so ago that wanted prayer for her mom dying of cancer in France and couldn’t travel back to her daughter in Uganda. We prayed for her and she was healed completely and I got the testimony after getting back to America. That built his faith. Before we prayed we asked Simon and the other man if they were believers and born again. Simon said yes but he fell back into sin and messed up. We prayed for him and he repented and renewed his relationship with Jesus as his Lord and Savior. Then we prayed for Simon’s father in law Joseph to be completely healed and all paralysis and sickness leave in Jesus Name! Then we prayed for the 6 year old boy to be completely healed and that the tumor or growth shrink and disappear in the Name of Jesus.

“Please believe and stand with us that Jesus touched all these people today and that He will be glorified and the Name of Jesus will be exalted in Uganda and everywhere these testimonies are spoken. Please keep tomorrow’s schedule in prayer as we go to the hospital and lay hands on the sick, and minister healing to their body and mind. Please pray for Harriet’s grandmother who we will visit after the hospital. Believe for complete healing for her eyes and entire body! Please pray for more divine appointments everywhere we go to preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God, heal the sick, and deliver those oppressed by spirits.

“God bless you, Joseph and Pat”

Lest you think Joseph is some wild-eyed zealot who thinks he can heal people, I can attest that he’s as “normal” a guy as your next-door neighbor, but he believes that salvation and healing are for today, and he believes that through faith and empowerment by the Holy Spirit, any faithful follower of Christ can be used by God to bring salvation and healing to a fallen world. I myself have been used by God to bring salvation to lost souls in jails and prisons, but I have not yet been an instrument of healing. I believe, I believe. Holy Spirit, help my unbelief.

THE SAFEST PLACE ON EARTH

On that day you will realize that I am in My Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
John 14:20

When He was on earth, Jesus was with His apostles and disciples. Jesus is telling them here that when He is taken into heaven, through the power of the Holy Spirit, they will spiritually be in Him and He will be Spiritually in them. And this is the case yet today.

Friends, this is not a good thought on which to smile and proclaim. Jesus said it, so it’s a fact, and each person has to experience this reality in their inner being as an actuality and not a concept.

The Safest Place on Earth is in God’s Kingdom here on earth, in Christ and Him in you. You live in His boat if you live in His Kingdom, and He lives in you. It is unexplainable, but if Jesus said it, it’s the truth, and you take it on faith.

Are you in His Kingdom today, or is He just a stray thought every now and then? Are you living in Him, or are you asking Him to bless what you have chosen to do? Jesus is not a puppy dog following you wherever you go; you’re the puppy dog.

CONSTANT PURSUIT

At the weekly prayer meeting at our church yesterday, Don, a retired pastor, brought up that we need to be in constant pursuit of Jesus.

I thought about that and wanted to add some flesh to that statement. Living in the Spirit is a constant pursuit, yes, and it does not happen naturally. In fact, the natural life — that which we inherited from Adam — is our default disposition. Our theme songs in the natural life are “I did it my way” and “The world owes me a living.”

How do we constantly pursue God and live in His Spiritual Kingdom here on earth? There are no secrets here. The answer is always the same.

1. Prayer and Worship: Regularly engaging in prayer and worship helps deepen a Christian’s relationship with God. This can include personal prayer, attending church services, and participating in communal worship.
2. Bible Study: Reading and reflecting on the Bible is crucial for understanding God’s teachings and applying them to daily life. Many Christians also join Bible study groups to discuss and learn together.
3. Service to Others: Serving others and showing compassion is a central tenet of Christianity. This can involve volunteering, helping those in need, and performing acts of kindness.
4. Living by Christian Values: Christians strive to live by values such as love, forgiveness, humility, honesty, and integrity. This means making ethical choices and treating others with respect and kindness.
5. Sharing the Faith: Evangelism, or sharing one’s faith with others, is important for many Christians. This can be done through conversations, inviting others to church, or simply living a life that reflects Christian values.
6. Community Involvement: Being part of a church community provides support, fellowship, and opportunities for spiritual growth. It also offers a sense of belonging and accountability.
7. Personal Growth: Christians seek to grow spiritually and become more like Christ through practices like confession, repentance, and spiritual disciplines such as fasting and meditation.
8. Loving God and Neighbor: The greatest commandments in Christianity are to love God with all one’s heart, soul, and mind, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Matthew 22:37-39). This encompasses all aspects of Christian living.

Are you pursuing God constantly. You can use the eight reminders above as a checklist.

INTENTIONAL

Living in the natural world is the default position of every man and woman who has walked this earth since the fall of Adam and Eve. To live in God’s Kingdom here on earth is a choice. It is intentional, like leaving one building and entering another.

Just when I think I have that thought ingrained in my mind, I don’t have it at all because an idea is a concept. It is not the real thing. Christ living in me is not a concept. It is a reality. It is a fact.

When Christ says, “Remain in Me and I will remain in you,” it is as if He were standing in front of me saying those words. Not a thought of His standing in front of me but His actual spiritual being. It is as if I can see Him with my inner eye, speaking to me and wanting me to draw closer to Him.  

Yours is a Kingdom of love,
And we are a world of hate.
You are a God of truth,
And we are a people of lies.

You ask us to go Your way,
And we stay on our own chosen path.
You say, “Will you follow Me?”
We respond, “Maybe sometimes we will.”

Will we ever stay close to You, Lord,
So close that we’ll not go astray?
Will we turn from the world and ourselves,
And live in Your Kingdom this day?

Don’t Steal a Police Car, Part 2

For the next eight months, I met with Cate every Monday for 45 minutes. She was now saved but needed to be discipled, and she needed to learn the essentials of Scripture. We also talked about her court hearings that popped up every couple of months as the justice system moved along at its normal pace for cases such as this one—slow, very slow.

Her behavior in jail was exemplary once she became saved. The guards were amazed at the difference in her. She visited with the chaplain (me) every Monday. Every Sunday found her in church services both in the morning and in the afternoon. Whatever Bible studies there were for women, she was there. Whatever other Christian presentations or gatherings there were, you could find her in the audience. She signed up for a Teen Challenge drug program that met in the jail on Wednesdays for a couple of hours. Her hope was that she could get a downward departure for her eventual prison sentence and be sent to Teen Challenge in Minneapolis for 13 months, and then be out on probation.

We talked about what she should say at her court hearings and who she should get to testify or write letters to the court on her behalf; I wouldn’t be doing that because a chaplain does not get personally involved in the machinery of an ongoing adjudication of a criminal case. Encouragement and counsel yes, actual involvement no. Cate also had a case worker giving her advice.

She had a hunger for learning Scripture and read with due diligence the assignments I gave her each week to discuss the following week. Every time she danced through the door of the meeting room, I asked her the same question, “Who are you Cate?” And every time she answered with the same words and the same grin on her face, “I am a child of God.”

I became convinced that the transformation of Cate was so complete and the support for her so great that the judge would grant her the departure of her sentence and allow her to go to Teen Challenge for a year instead of prison. She and I talked about it and prayed about it. And then the day of her sentencing arrived. We were hopeful for the outcome. But …

You don’t steal a police car. There was no mercy shown. Cate was sentenced to one year in prison followed by a lengthy parole. I never heard from her again and had no idea of what happened to her when she was released and whether she got her kids back, until …

a request was made to a Monday noon prayer meeting at our church to pray for requests from church members and calls into the church office. I am regular member of that group, and there it was: “Would you please pray for my mother who is undergoing [a health issue]”, and it was signed by Cate [and her last name]. I found out from the church office what her phone number was and gave her a call. When she answered the phone, the first thing I asked was, “Who are you Cate?” And she immediately answered, “I am a child of God.” And so she is. She has her children back and is living an active Christian life of dependence on God and involvement in a church.

Don’t Steal a Police Car

Some years back, I was meeting with a young woman in a county jail whose life had fallen apart because of her addiction to methamphetamine.  We’ll call her Cate, though that’s  not her real name. She was in her mid-thirties and her addiction became so bad that child services took away her two children and placed them in a foster home. That’s the point where some people would have enough incentive to stop using and try to get their kids back. Instead, Cate upped her intake of meth until she became psychotic. Her psychosis developed into extreme paranoia, especially with anyone involved in law enforcement.

Early one morning, Cate left her apartment, still in her bedclothes, jumped in her car, and drove off to someplace that she could not recall when relating her story to me. A policemen in a squad car pulled her over for erratic driving. He demanded that she get out of her car. Because he felt she might jump back in her car and drive off, he stood between her and her car. At that point, she became terrified that he was about to kill her, and she had to escape as quickly as she could. Since she couldn’t get into her car, she only had one other option to escape—the police car behind her. She didn’t make it very far before another police car in the vicinity stopped her, pulled her out, and hauled her off to jail.

Once in the jail, she was certain the guards were going to kill her. After two weeks of having no access to meth, her paranoia diminished to the point that she came to realize what a pickle she was in. That’s when she asked to see a chaplain, and that’s when I first met Cate.

As was my usual protocol, I asked what her relationship was to God. She had gone to church as a child and young adult but hadn’t had anything to do with religion or God in several years. I asked her why she wanted to see a chaplain then, and she said, “I ain’t got any other good options left.” I met with her once a week for at least a half hour per visit to explain to her who Jesus was, that He had come to earth to save us from our sinful nature, and how she could be saved. She was always a bit glum when she came to meet with me in a small room with big windows. Why wouldn’t she be? She was heading to prison and had lost everything she had, including her two kids.

After I felt she had enough information to make a decision for Christ—or not—I showed her a series of drawings I always used to explain to her how she could be born again and become a child of God. I gave her the drawings and a Bible so she could look up specific passages in the Gospel of John before we met in a week. I didn’t feel she was ready to make a decision that day, and I didn’t want to force her into a “deathbed confession” of faith.

The next week, Cate came almost skipping into the  meeting room and had a smile on her face that I’d never seen before. The glumness was gone; a spirit of joy replaced it. I suspected what had happened and asked her in high anticipation, “Who are you Cate?”

She answered with one foot in the room and one foot in heaven, “I am a child of God.”

To be continued next week.

God Loves a Murderer

God has a special place in His heart for Shawn Tyler Benson, who shot a woman in the back of the head some years back and is presently serving out a 40-year sentence in a Minnesota prison.

I’ve written about Shawn before. He’s a gentle soul who committed murder when he was so high on meth that he didn’t know who he was or what he was doing. He was not saved then but became born-again when he picked out a Gideon New Testament from a jail book cart and started reading from the Gospel of John, a very good gospel to read if you aren’t saved, or even if you are and want to know why Jesus came to earth, why he had to die on a Roman cross to redeem us from our sinful selves, and what our reaction to Him should be.

I met with Shawn in that jail for more than a year – every Monday afternoon. He calls me about once a month from prison to share the amazing things God is doing in his life. He’s more blessed, peaceful, and alive in Christ than many believers not incarcerated. His natural life is in a prison, but his spiritual life is in the Kingdom of God here on earth, and that’s what’s most important to him.

Shawn called me last week to tell me how much God loves him. He had read about a devotional he very much wanted to obtain, but he hadn’t told anyone about it. The next morning the devotional was sitting on his bed when he came back from breakfast. He checked with all the believers in that prison that he knew and who might have done something like that, but they had not put it there, much less able to get into his cell. He checked with the guards in his cell block. They knew nothing about any book being put in his cell. There was one option left. God loves Shawn so much that He put the devotional in his cell [in Shawn’s prison, no one has a cell mate].

Lest you think there must be some natural explanation for the devotional suddenly appearing, ask yourself what the natural explanation is for anyone being born-again, for cancers to be suddenly healed without explanation, for one person to step out of a plane crash alive, or for one house to be standing amidst blocks and blocks of devastation in the Los Angeles wildfire.

God loves a righteous person who is obedient to Him, who seeks Him with all his heart, and who follows Jesus with every fiber of his being. Yes, God loves a murder and continues to bless Shawn right and left. I could tell you many more stories about Shawn’s blessings, but then this would be a posting of several pages.      

The 4-H Club

I was on a phone call with a friend from Texas yesterday, and he told me he was now a member of the 4-H Club. Given that he’s a physician and wouldn’t know a haystack from a bushel of wheat, I was a bit mystified until he told me what he meant.

“Pat, now that I’ve turned 80, I have become a member of the 4-H Club.”

“Um,” I said, “what does that stand for?”

“Glad you asked,” he said. “The 4 H’s stand for:
Here
Healthy
Happy
Hopeful”

Given that healthy is a relative term as one grows older, I joined the 4-H club this morning. The most important H for me is Hopeful. Jesus died on the cross for my sins and was resurrected to open the door into heaven for all who change their residence from the natural world to God’s Spiritual Kingdom here on earth.

I’m waiting for my membership certificate to arrive in the mail any day now, but I don’t know who sends them out or how long it takes. It’s all part of the divine mystery of life.