“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord GOD, “That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the LORD. Amos 8:11 There is a famine in the land. We never  tend to think of a famine coming to the shores of North America, but there is a famine none the less. As I traveled, I have gone to many churches across the nation. I have seen and heard some surprising things that you would not expect to see in the house of the Lord. As trends and fads come and go, and as pastors and leadership seek church growth, they have sometimes taken their cues of “how to do it” from the successful business world around them. That is sometimes their first mistake because church is not a business. It is so much more! In the business world, the highest goal is for profits. Money motivates. While the church of God needs money to operate, it should never be the chief motivator in how we do things. Pleasing God should be our first agenda. We do not please God when we push our worldly agendas and seek worldly favor.

  Recent trends in the church have been to make the atmosphere more and more like a night club, with all the flashing lights, dark sanctuaries, and although we do not serve alcohol, we prepare gourmet coffees and snacks for all.  If the presence of Almighty God is not felt in His house, making these kinds of changes will not change God. It will however change us. I fear for the next generation of believers who have not experienced the power of  God in a way that absolutely overwhelmed them.  It is not a carnal thing, but a deeply spiritual thing. Yet we prepare the atmosphere around us so our carnal flesh is impressed, while it is our spiritual man that needs to be addressed.

Preach the Word!

As our scripture has said, there will come a day when there will be a famine for hearing the Word of God. What are you teaching your children? What are you preaching to your congregation? What kind of spiritual nourishment are you providing those you are discipling? Is it the philosophies of men, good books, psychology or  ‘how to’ helps? It may be good stuff, and it may be helpful, but are they getting the Word of God?  It is well documented that most Bible believing Christians do not take the time during the week to read their Bibles. Today it is easier than ever before. There are special apps for your electronic gadgets that can put the Word of God at your fingertips at any moment of the day. But usually we are far too busy to read a verse, let alone a chapter.  Preach the Word!

Learning to Listen

  How do we expect the Words God has for us to penetrate our wilting souls?  We need to relearn what it means to listen. The scripture did not say it was to be a famine of the Word of God, but a famine of hearing or listening….. We are easily distracted! Did you know that the specific clause “hear the Word of the Lord” occurs 32 times in the NIV?  So what are we listening to? You might remember how in Revelations 2 and 3 the phrase “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” is frequently repeated. We are to listen with our spiritual ears to the Word of God. But if we do not read it, or listen to it as someone else reads it, we will be spiritually enduring a famine. God gives us His wisdom and knowledge in many different ways such as through singing, counsel and encouragement, but the chief way we are to hear his Words are from the Word of God. When we neglect this, we suffer, as a church and as an individual. God has given to every believer the Holy Spirit who is to teach us and make the Word come alive in our hearts. But we still have to dig into the Word for ourselves. Too often we have a church full a spiritual babies who rely on others to feed them their daily portion of the Word of God. When this fails to happen, they fail to thrive. Your spiritual diet will be no better than what those around you give to you, unless you are mature enough to get into the Word for yourself. A feast awaits the spiritually hungry man or woman of God in the Word of God. J. H Keathly puts it this way:  We can play church and do a kind of “nod to God” routine putting in our appearance physically while we are in essence absent spiritually. Result? We don’t even come close to truly hearing the voice of God. Why? Because we have removed our hearts from the Lord. We have become passive listeners because we aren’t really prepared physically, mentally, and spiritually to hear the Word of the Lord. Church attendance is often simply a part of our plan to pursue life on our own terms. We attend church not to really meet with God or listen in order to know, love, and serve Him, but to feel good, have an experience, to hear beautiful music, to hear an eloquent speaker, to see people or even to be seen by people. We attend church to soothe our consciences and maybe earn a little of God’s favor. In this case, one’s religious activity is a kind of insurance policy—a protection we think. But we are dead wrong if we think this way because such reasons do not line up with what God says to us in His Word.  If your pastor has become a passive listener, pray for him. If you have become a passive listener, repent, and get back to the basics of reading the Word of God, seeking your spiritual nourishment for each day. There is no substitute for hearing the voice of God speaking into your own heart to your own special needs. In your family, make it easier to focus on the Word of God by removing distractions. Help your children to listen by keeping it interesting and practical to their daily lives. When it comes to paying attention at church, leave the coffee in the foyer, use the bathroom ahead of time, and bring your own Bible to church. Mark sections that are particularly meaningful. Pastors, make it possible for people to read their Bibles by turning up the lights and clearly giving them references to scriptures. If we are not prepared to listen so we can respond with our hearts, let’s face it, we are simply playing church and we are withholding our hearts from the Lord. Our religious activities then become an experiment in futility. (H.J. Keathly)

 So what a person to do? We must prepare to listen to the voice of God.  God still speaks to mankind today. He never changes. He spoke in ages past and He will speak to you if you are willing to listen. Pastors, preach the Word as God gives it!  Don’t give in to the fads of the day. Don’t soft pedal the harsh truths God wants His people to hear. Let the anointing flow unhindered in your life. It will change those who are willing to hear!.   J. Johnson

Praise reports and prayer requests…..

Pray for revival!  Pray for those whose lives are filled with arrogance, struggling with forgiveness,  anger and doubt.

Pray for the Johnsons as they seek a new place of full time ministry...a church that needs loving  leadership. Pray as they intermin pastor in Wisconsin churches. Pray for grieving families who have lost loved ones (R. Janowski family, E. Yingling family). Pray for Evangelists, Missionaries, and Teachers. . Pray for US Army Chaplain Steve Maglio.

Pray for those needing a healing touch in their bodies: J. Berens (cancer) Rosemary (chemo treatments) Joyce Johnson (healing her muscles and feet —neuropathy) Praise the Lord, Joyce’s tumor is gone! Pray for those who are in a famine of the Word of God. Pray for the nation, for the President, for our service men and women, for Israel, for Christians in Muslim countries, for the unsaved,  and don’t forget to Praise and thank the Lord! 

 

Dear friends,

Please continue to pray for us as we seek God’s future for our lives. Praise the Lord! We are so thankful and so appreciate each of you who take the time to pray and write. Your financial gifts are so important and needed. Even though the tumor is gone, we continue to face many added bills from the treatments for Joyce’s cancer. Your cards and notes are so encouraging. God bless you all! God is faithful and we anticipate great things in the future……Serving the Master!  David and & Joyce Johnson

Update…..Joyce is getting stronger each day. We rejoice in the Lords touch. Together, on June 17th, we will be celebrating our 40th Wedding Anniversary. Praise the Lord for so many wonderful years together.  PS...Daves birthday was June 2nd.

Anointing of Humility

  When I look through the bible at the many heroes who served and loved God with all their hearts,  one thing stands out to me. They were men and women of great humility. They often did not believe in their own ability to do anything for God. But their total obedience to Him caused them to step out into territories that on their own abilities, would cause them great fear and trepidation. Joseph was such a man, even as a young boy. He was totally obedient to his father, taking  food to his brothers. He loved his God and paid attention to the dreams God gave him. He spoke those dreams to his family who mocked him and cruelly treated him like a stranger instead of a member of the family.  When accused wrongly, he humbly took the punishment in spite of the facts. He continued to love his God, in prison, in rejection, though ridiculed and later forgotten, by both his brothers and fellow prison-mates. He acted  with honor and integrity at all times, as a representative of God’s  household.  Revenge was not in his vocabulary. He could have imprisoned his brothers, withheld food, and had them beaten. Instead he choose to take a higher pathway.  He loved them   in spite of their previous bad behavior, throwing him down a well, selling him as a slave to a caravan,  and then lying to his father about his whereabouts.  Normally. Most red-blooded Americans would  have taken the occasion to rant and rave, then inflict punishment , imprisonment, torture or whatever seemed appropriate. But Joseph loved God above all else. Though he arose to great power in Egypt, he  remained humble before his God. It is a picture of Jesus, who came before His accusers, having done nothing wrong, nothing worthy of death or  even punishment—-and who took all the pain, all the punishment, all the inconvenience and  all the mocking rebukes of carnal men. Even to the high price of dying on a cross. Philippians 2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Both Joseph and Jesus had an anointing of humility that caused them to rise above the situations they faced, never turning aside, never giving in to anger or vengeance. They were unusual in every aspect.

  Humility is often something we do not like to talk about, because mere mention of it seems to point to the fact that we think of ourselves as being humble people. Most of the time we are not. We are however, learning and growing daily to be more and more like Christ. 

  I have noticed in the scriptures that talk about humility, we have two basic choices. We can humble ourselves and reap a reward and favor of the Lord, or, we can let God humble us as He punishes or  takes us through hard times.  Moses was a very humble man, yet the people he led into the wilderness were not. God allowed them to experience hard times to bring out the humility as they slowly realized who was really in charge of their lives—God.  Numbers 12:3 (Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.) Deuteronomy 8:2 Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.

  All too often we have the arrogance of heart that produces such irreverent pride, it is revolting to God.  I believe one of the reasons that He gave us all the power of the Holy Spirit, was so that the Holy Spirit could convict us of our sin of pride. The more time we spend in the presence of a Holy God, the more we tend to realize that we are lacking in humility. Nothing we can do or say can cause us to be righteous in His eyes. We need hearts that recognize the greatness of our God, who  see God as the answer to every shortcoming we have.  We have all met some arrogant people in our lives. It tends to gag me when I meet them in  ministry leadership roles. I pray for them, praying that God will reveal Himself to them and that they may realize that their pride and arrogance is objectionable to both God and men. However, the spirit of humility, tends to attract us as we see them sharing the love of God with transparency and love.

  Having gone through major illness this last year, I have discovered many lessons in humility. I watched as the certified nursing assistants did their job with servant hearts, cleaning up their patients, not just because that’s what they got paid to do, but because it was ingrained deeply in their hearts to be a servant to those in need.  They took abuse, extreme discomfort, criticism and a severe lack of appreciation. Yet they were stronger for it.  I am grateful for their loving humble care.  All they wanted was some kind words and an occasional “Thank you!”

  When we humble our hearts before God, we become repentant, and repentance brings revival! We all want revival. We want the next generation to experience intimacy with God and we want them to be able to pass it on to their children. It can only happen when we allow the anointing of humility to flow through our lives.

  Lord,  anoint us for humility, and deliver us all from the need for approval, that we may only love you. Deliver us from the need for words of praise by men, and instead seek your words of encouragement as you did for your Son, Jesus. Matthew 3:17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”  Teach us to praise you and appreciate your loving heart.  Let our spiritual beings be anointed with the oil of humility that we may reflect Jesus to all we meet. Its not about us...it’s about Him. It’s not about my desires,...but His. Lord, keep me from the fear of being forgotten, ridiculed or wronged. May you be glorified though my life and behavior!

  J. Johnson

Sand Castles

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a sensible man who builds his house on the rock. Down came the rain and up came the floods, while the winds blew and roared upon that house—and it did not fall because its foundations were on the rock. “And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not follow them can be compared with a foolish man who built his house on sand. Down came the rain and up came the floods, while the winds blew and battered that house till it collapsed, and fell with a great crash.” Matthew 7:24-27 (JBP)

  Have you ever been to a sandy beach and built a sandcastle? I used to do that as a child and then watched the waves come in with the tide and wash away all my efforts until the beach once again was flat. God has called each believer to be kingdom builders. We are to build His Kingdom. However, we have been at play, building with the wrong materials and building what we want to build. God expects much more from each of us. He wants us building on the Rock, Christ Jesus, and He wants us to build something that will endure the storms and waves. What have you been building.

  I was recently disheartened when I read the facebook comment of a young Christian who has slowly become satisfied with the “freedom” she had found in the contemporary church. Coming from a traditional church, she later found herself in  contemporary church with a worship team who led rocky music,  coffee in the foyer, and the comfort of casual dress. She suggested “Close your eyes. God is in heaven rocking out too.” While we are so busy making ourselves comfortable in God’s house, God is grieving that we are building church sand castles. He knows the hard times ahead, the storms and the waves. While His desire is that we follow His commands, His suggestions, His divine agenda—we continue down our merry path of comfort with our sand pails and shovels in hand, totally unaware that change is coming. It is time we stopped pleasing ourselves and got on our faces seeking God with sincere hearts. If we find ourselves caught up in the thrill of entertainment, or the tradition of doing what everyone else is doing, we need to stop, repent, and find the altars once again. If we think we can bring revival on our own terms, we are wrong. Revival never comes because we have found just the right new song, or the new hip sound. It comes when God’s people suddenly see themselves as God sees them, and they are moved to deep repentance. Repentance is never fun. It causes us to root through the closets of our life and dig out all the junk we have hoarded there. Our lazy spirituality caused many of us to fill the rooms of our life one by one with junk we have called valuable and needed. We no longer have room for Christ. We want our way. We want our stuff. We want our comfort zone. God sees it all as trash. If we are to move to a place of sincere repentance, it demands we change, clean out our lives, and face the reality of what we have become. How many people who call themselves Christians, spend little time reading the Word of God, little time praying, little time at church, and little time serving God in their community. They may give as little of their time, talents and resources as possible. Do you refuse to tithe? Perhaps you’ve convinced yourself that this is an Old Testament concept, when Christ clearly taught us that we are to tithe. I suggest you restudy what Jesus taught in Matthew 23:23 He acknowledged that the Pharisees  were busy tithing on the little things like their spices of mint and cumin, while neglecting more important things. He tells them tithing is important but so is justice, mercy and faithfulness. Hoarding what God gives to us is wrong. We need to be givers, not hoarders. James 4:17 tells us, “If anyone knows the good they ought to do, and doesn’t do it, for them it is sin.” In fact it is a form of rebellion. How often do we go to church, hear the Word of God preached, yet return home doing nothing about it. Our spiritual foundations are shoddy sand. We are about to experience great loss. Danger is ahead in our future. But when we build our spiritual foundations on the Rock, when we recognize our need for more than just comfort and beauty, and we dig deeply in the resources of God’s Word, we discover safety, security, strength and a future that lasts long beyond the wind and the waves. Sand castles may be fun to build, but they always end in ruin. Those of us who have built on solid foundations need to teach the younger generation how to build. Safety is not in size and numbers, not in music styles, not in the comfort of coffee or potlucks. It is found only in the things that will last. Even Solomon recognized the fleeting satisfaction of earthly pleasures after building and having all the things his heart desired—all was vanity. (Ecclesiastes 2:11) Spiritual strength comes with Christ as our Rock, with repentant hearts, recognizing that in us dwells nothing good. God wants us to be His temple, and He wants to dwell within us through the power of His Holy Spirit. He wants our ears attentive to His voice and obedient to His commands. It may mean that we have to break with traditions. It may mean that we surrender our time, our talents and our resources to His will.

  In our opening scripture you may recall that two families were busy building their homes. They may have been equally beautiful, but something was seriously wrong with one home. It was in danger of falling flat at any moment. In the times we live today, we cannot waste our time and resources on building on a risky foundation. It is pure foolishness. We are neglecting the reality of the coming storms. God demands holiness, and he abhors neglect. We must assess the results of what we have built. In a recent programs “Holmes on Homes,” Mike Holmes inspected the shoddy work of a contractor who was adding an addition to an existing structure. There was so much wrong, he was forced to tear it all down and rebuild from scratch. When our foundation is wrong, we need to change, demolish the structure and rebuild with the plans of our Master Builder. Don’t build castles in the sand. Do it right! Your temple and how it is built is an example to the next generation. Build it on prayer, on the Word, on yielding all you have to the Master Builder. Matthew 7:24-27 "These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock. 26-27"But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards. (TMB)  J. Johnson