The Melody of the Holy Spirit

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.

HISTORY LESSON—THE HOLOCAUST

On the way to the VA (Veterans Administration) and back, forty miles both ways.

What happened to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust? I asked the Holy Spirit as I left my house in the early morning and headed to St. Cloud, Minnesota. Then I stilled my mind and waited for input from Him. This is not a “Thus sayeth the Lord” proclamation; it’s thoughts that came into my mind in my words as I meditated on the matter.

Only in God’s Kingdom can this be explained. God would not have let six million of His chosen people die and go to hell. He is a merciful and loving God. It’s mankind that is cruel and hateful, in this case the Nazi regime.

First of all, the Jewish state of Israel would not have come about in 1948 had it not been for the Holocaust, and Scripture shows us Israel will play a central role in The Last Days. But would God allow six million of His chosen people to go to hell for that end. No, somehow in some way God had mercy on these six million, but how?

There would have been no pride left in those six million as they were stripped of their clothing and sent to the gas chambers or otherwise killed. They would have been like sheep led to the slaughter, and Isaiah 53 tells us we all are sheep who have gone astray and that the Lord has laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all. In their pitiful state, asking for forgiveness would have been the one thing left for them that they had any control over. They would have been humble and poor in spirit.

Then a light flashed in my mind, hopefully from the Holy Spirit, since I was driving 70 miles per hour on Interstate 94. Could Jesus have been thinking of those six million Jews at the Sermon on the Mount with the first and the eighth beatitudes.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the Kingdom of Heaven. Who would have been more poor in spirit than those six million.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs in the Kingdom of Heaven. Righteousness means being in right standing with God. God chose the Jews to be His chosen people from whom a Savior would come. That’s righteous. And God wants His chosen people to give up themselves and surrender to Him. That’s all that was left for those six million.  Did every single one of the six million ask for forgiveness and surrender their lives to their Creator? Most likely not. But they had the chance to do so.

How God worked all that out, I don’t know, but I do know that God is a merciful God and would not have let six million of His chosen people be sent to hell. Jesus died for them as surely as He died for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and King David—as surely as He died for you and me.      

ABOUT JUDAS

On my drive to the VA in St. Cloud and back last week, I asked the Holy Spirit to give me another installment of what I call God’s History Lessons. I don’t give Him the subject matter; He gives it to me. And I don’t get a word-for-word “Thus sayeth the Lord,” from Him but more His insights that are deposited as thoughts in my mind that I write out later with my words. The topic on that trip was About Judas.

Why did Jesus choose Judas to be one of His twelve apostles when He knew he would sell Him out for thirty pieces of silver? Jesus would have been arrested in some other way and have fulfilled His mission to be crucified on a cross and resurrected three days later in the flesh. Judas was not crucial to the story of salvation. I asked the Holy Spirit that question, and the history lesson began.

Jesus taught the truths and foundations of the Christian faith often through stories, which we call parables, so His followers and us today would not forget them. After all, who forgets a memorable story? A few examples of these stories in the New Testament are the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, the owner of a vineyard, the ten virgins, and the rich young ruler. In the example of Judas, the story is given to us in a real person. He was the son of perdition and would have been lost for eternity even without his famous betrayal.

Here’s the lesson the Holy Spirit imparted to me. Judas was close to Jesus for three years but sold Him out for money (an idol). Then I thought, “How else do His followers sell Him out, keeping in mind that I’m one of His followers?” A list of sell-outs quickly came to mind—money, power, position, a job, drugs, alcohol, wanting to be liked by the world, and all the other ways we say, “I have my rights, it’s all about me, I deserve this, don’t cross me, how dare she do that to me, I will do it my own way, and those people don’t deserve any mercy from me.”

The examples of selling out Jesus were all about what other people do, of course. That thought lasted about ten seconds. Then I realized I also sell out Jesus more often than I’d like to admit. This is not confession time, but I fit into the list in the paragraph above when I am not living in Christ as fully as I should, when I do not put Him above me in this or that situation, when I say I will not follow His command in this instance though I know better, and whenever else I choose to live in the world for a time instead of my true home—His Kingdom here on earth.

As a side note, there are at least four prophecies about Judas in the Old Testament—three in Psalms and one in Zechariah. God knew what was going to happen to His Son, that Judas would play a role, and that He would teach a lesson through the betrayal of one of Jesus chosen twelve.  

Trusting a Spiritual Mentor

“On a personal level,” Jack continued, “my sister-in-law has been diagnosed with breast cancer and my favorite uncle died last month of a stroke. Our good friends were hit by a large car that couldn’t stop on an icy road in December. They’re lucky to be alive. Where’s the goodness of God in all this? Where’s the safety?”
Jack ran out of breath as he finished his litany and sat in silence.
“You see the world as all bad news, don’t you, Jack?” Manny asked, “filled with turbulence, trouble, chaos, and crime. To you, life is unexplained chaos.”
Manny paused.
“Don’t you think there’s any joy, peace, or safety on this earth—or anything good? Don’t you see that your wife and two boys are a blessing to you?”
Jack looked at him with a blank stare.
Manny challenged Jack with a question that framed everything he’d been asking himself.
“Would you like to find the safest place on earth?”
“Where would that be?” Jack responded in a voice empty of emotion.
His voice gained a sliver of hope as he said, “Is there such a place? Could you show me where it is?”
Manny’s face lit up. “Yes, there’s such a place, and I can help you find it. Are you willing to let me guide you?”
Jack thought to himself, “What do I have to lose?”
But how could he agree to follow the directions of a man he’d met only thirty minutes before?
There was something about Manny he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He spoke with a voice of authority and credibility. His face had an aura of understanding and compassion. The timbre and inflections of his voice resonated with strings in Jack’s created being called hope and joy, the vibration of which he hadn’t felt for years.
In the fourth chapter of John, Jesus said to Peter and his brother Andrew, “Come follow Me,” and “they left their nets and followed Him.”
Later, He came upon James and his brother John in a boat with their father. When Jesus called them, “immediately they left the boat and their father and followed Him.”
The four of them didn’t think twice. Jesus asked; they followed. It was that way with Jack responding to Manny’s question.

From Finding the Safest Place on Earth

Available at: https://bit.ly/SafestPlaceonAmazon

Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. John 15:4

“We know the Holy Spirit lives in us from the time we are born-again. So too does Jesus and His Father, since the two are one, as Scripture tells us. However, if I say, ‘Jesus lives in me,’ the focus is on me. If I say, ‘I live in Jesus,’ the focus is rightly on Him.

“So, Jack, instead of asking Him to come into your world, where He already is, you go into His world. If you are remaining in Him, you will do as He does. You will seek to please Him instead of yourself. You will not so much ask Him to help you in your endeavors as to ask Him what He wants you to do–in His kingdom.

“If you focus on Christ abiding in you, the influence of the natural world, your self-centered self, and the temptations of Satan are in competition with the presence of Jesus.
“That’s what happened to you at the retirement party last night. Jesus was living in you, but your wanting to please Dr. James and all the people there was greater than your wanting to please Jesus. Satan nailed you when the world took over and you lost your Jesus focus. There was too much of the world and you; there wasn’t enough of Jesus. The first toast set the agenda, and it all went downhill from there.”

From Finding the Safest Place on Earth

Available at: https://bit.ly/SafestPlaceonAmazon