Search Results for: Friends and friends of friends

From Living Loved • Winter 2013

Shelly in Colorado

Thank you for stunning the religion out of me and speaking in a tone of absolute love that gave me the freedom to leave employment at a church and find real community with the body of Christ. Last week a friend of mine was asked to leave children’s ministry because her husband did not come to church. It destroyed her. Then I read in the final chapter of So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore where a group of angry church-goers are equally hurt by church leaders. I realized that what happened to my friend is just a chance for her to encounter real intimacy with Jesus. In the last three years, I have fallen so deeply in love with Father. I have found him in every hurt and blessing. I count my trouble as waters gone by. What I love most about you both is your biographies. They weren’t filled with degrees and accolades but just a journey sharing the love of God with others. I want my bio to be the same. I have put so much attention on my career when my job is loving as Christ loves.

Ingalill in Sweden

He loves Me…. Well, here is one more I am reading it slowly, as I don’t want it to end – The message of the book is transforming my life and bringing a freedom I always have longed for. I said to my husband, that it feels as if old mindsets are crashing down as the truth of Gods fatherly love for me is invading my mind and heart!

Carolyn in Canada

I’ve listened to Transitions and I can say that it sounds like “home” to me. You have a wonderfully soothing voice and the God that you know is a God that I want to know. What you speak about speaks to my spirit and I can hear the Divine Amen.

Alena in Canada

I can’t thank you enough for sharing your experience, your journey and your insights! You’ve introduced me to a God I’ve never known but always wanted and given me hope that I can know Him as you know Him.

Tom from Wyoming

Your Living Loved article, “Betrayal, Forgiveness and Reconciliation” is a God-inspired piece of work if ever there was one. Your understanding of the issue of betrayal and God’s method of handling it is nothing short of a revelation, and you have a real gift for expressing your thoughts in a clear and relevant manner. I am one of the legion who have struggled mightly with betrayal for many years with not much hope until now. Thank you for showing me how I’ve mishandled it, and then revealing God’s path out of the darkness.

Sharon from Australia

I appreciated latest newsletter. Thanks for taking time to distill what you have obviously learnt from life experience on this important topic. I felt relief and peace reading through it. Succinct, sensible, logical and easy to understand. I have waded through a number of books on this topic and felt overwhelmed with information and rules and processes that I have never been able to apply or remember when required. I am grateful.

Alan in Missouri

Re: “Betrayal, Forgiveness and Reconciliation”. This is just beautiful! Wherever the Lord has had to take you to write such things which are living I applaud Him, and you for choosing to stay the course when so many other ways were open to you.

Jill in Texas

I am being transformed by the reading of the book He loves Me. As the wife of a minister for some 33 years, I’ve walked many years with the Lord. One trial after another sent me into a tailspin of depression and anxiety. I am coming out of it, slowly. With the guidance of a christian therapist, I bought this book. I looked through it thinking, “Eh, it’s okay, but I know God loves me.” It has taken me reading it a second time to “get it” and boy am I getting it. I have finally convinced my pastor husband who is weary in well-doing that he must read it. He has just begun…

Judy in Canada

My old friend and I spent 3 days at a hotel with your The Jesus Lens DVD and she was so blessed. The weekend ended up being a spiritual retreat that really fed us both and strengthened us. I received added blessings by my being able to listen to more of your super disk on the 8 hour drive to see her. I have just ordered another copy for her and two more for friends. You have really led many of my friends to liberty in Christ and onto a different road where they seem to be pretty well ‘dancing’ along their spirituals way now. Our spirits have really been revived.

Lauralee in Australia

I really wanted to tell you how much your writing has brought healing into my life. I had recently lost a baby boy plus previously twin girls. Anyway, through your encouragement I have come through the depression, finally I ‘get it’ Jesus loves me, God does exist and there’s nothing that can separate me from Him! I love your books and have passed several copies around to friends. My favourite is He loves Me. God has gifted you with such insight into the freedom found in just being loved. I am so tired of church people that have agenda’s, create issues, praying against this & that. If we all just loved and be loved this ‘junk’ that they are praying about/against would fade away!! I feel most peace when I read your books/newsletters so if peace is my guide then I am convinced your teaching is spot on. In fact I know it was through reading He loves Me over & over that has quite literally saved my life!

Kent on the blog

False belonging is trying to find meaning and peace that is outside our true belonging inside the circle of Father Son and Spirit. When that is out of whack all our external longing gets malformed and we spend our lives trying to scrape meaning and affirmation and happiness from others and from things. It’s a destructive enterprise. When we come home to ourselves and learn to be at peace in that solitude…our inner world…the kingdom within….then all our outward activity isn’t of the needy kind… it’s of the giving kind. It redefines what healthy relationship is and what healthy individuality is. The false belonging all has to do with the malforming effects religion has on us. It leaves us attempting to scrape meaning and affirmation from a god that does not exist. It’s made up from within the dark fallen mind. And it is completely self centered and self serving.

Kate in Belgium

I was given a copy of He loves Me by a dear friend. It has so blessed me and set me free. I can hardly believe the difference between before I started reading it and now. Thank you so much for sharing what the Lord has indeed revealed to you. I sense a freshness inside and a new trust in him like I had when I first came to faith.

Steve in Indiana

Nearly every time I re-listen to the “Jesus Lens” I think about sending you an email to thank you. So… here it is. Thank you. I am grateful to have been one of those in attendance and passed along DVD’s of the “Jesus Lens” to friends.

Valerie in Virginia

In addition to being eternally grateful to Papa for the love he has shown through lives of men such as yourself and how sharing that love with those who read your books and listen in to your teachings and podcasts… I absolutely love hearing about your love for your family, your daughter and son… and your precious grandchildren. Having grown up with a dread of my own earthly father, and seeing how that has impacted my ability to rest assured in the love of my Papa… I find it heartwarming to see that there are men out there who openly adore their children and grandchildren. For those of us looking in… and catching a glimpse of your life, it makes your message and the sharing of your life’s journey more credible. Have a wonderful, and wonder filled day!

Sharon in Australia

I am learning a lot through Lifestream Journeys just looking at how people respond to each other on your website. How they resolve conflicts before they escalate and how they empathize with those in some sort of trouble or pain. I like the way many of them don’t preach. They seem to come alongside and stick to sharing from their own experience of God. So they don’t come across as if they have all the answers. That is a refreshing and honest way to go about things. Some don’t have any advice at all, just empathy. I am changing the way I respond to those around me too as a result of what I have learned from your website. More honest, less know it all.

Tim in California

I am writing to say thank you for your incredible work. I have instinctively known that there are problems with institutional church for many years, but could never quite verbalize them. I began to discover others outside the box about two years ago, (during a time that included) a near fatal automobile accident, a divorce, and receiving the left foot of fellowship from my church. I have been detoxing for about eight months and discovered your ministry only about six weeks ago. In that time I have read The Shack, So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore, and The Naked Church; listened to the Transition audio recordings repeatedly, along with many episodes of The God Journey, and am now about 2/3 of the way through He Loves Me. The past 72 hours have seen some of the most profound revelation I have ever received and I think I finally “get it.” I realize that this is merely crossing a threshold into a whole new journey, but I am overjoyed to have finally reached this point in the process.

Claire in Holland

Your book He Loves Me is so life-giving and clear about misconceptions in thought patterns and I am only at 30% of it. I can’t wait to finish it. DaRon in Tennessee God has put within you the ability of a “locksmith”. You have an uncanny ability to put language to what may be stirring around in the hungry heart, and unlock a confirming peaceful assurance that God indeed is still in the “business” of loving people to a place of rest & wholeness! Thank you for all you do. You’ll never know how much it means to us. I couldn’t have imagined when I was a young “buck” in my thirties, that living loved and walking with Jesus could be so incredible and so full of wonder! Keep slingin’ that freedom!

Jimmy via email

I just listened to the early and middle letters of The Jesus Lens. It reminds me of when I first got saved, when I just loved Jesus read the Bible and grew without fear.

Tricia from Illinois

I just want you to know how thankful I am to you for the books you have written and your website. I have downloaded many of your teachings on to CDs and I listen to them when I drive to work or drive my kids around. I cry almost every time because I can’t believe what you say, but when I hear it , it rings true with my spirit and then when I check it out in Scripture, holy cow! It’s true! I always thought and read the bible as rules to how I should live and God would punish me if I didn’t follow them. I only started to question what I thought was true about 8 months ago after reading The Shack and So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore. I just sat and cried for probably an hour after reading He loves Me!

Becky via email

Thank you for So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore. I seriously think it saved my sanity. After attending a church with my a Christian friend scary thoughts entered my mind. The church always made me feel more scared after walking out of it, rather than loved. I felt God was mad at me every second of every day. I had the urge to search on the web and that led me to your book. I wish I could write enough to express to you what it did for me. I was trying to check off boxes in hopes of getting my salvation. I was being smothered and I started to feel there was no way I could ever keep up with all I had to do. Please just know this book is amongst my favorites. it signifies the return of my life. You don’t even know me, but your words brought me back from the deepest, darkest most frightened state I had ever been in, in all my life. Who wants to live every day feeling damned, even though they love Him so much?

Go to Lifestream News

By Brenda

I listened to your podcast on ‘Where is the Power?’ and wanted to share some of my thoughts. I really do appreciate your emphasis on relationship. It’s been the place of deepest wounding in my life and the deepest healing. The healing, as you guys know, is in the love relationship with the God of the universe.

As a result of several factors, I was involved in homosexual thoughts, feelings, and relationships from my early years. Mostly, it was hell in the hallway. It was hell in the whole house in one adult relationship, with stalking and harassment and physical and emotional abuse that resulted in the need for legal protection. However, those things are not the reason I no longer relate homosexually. I no longer relate homosexually because Abba loved me right out of those ways.

I have a very wise friend who said once that God uses everything to bring us to himself because he loves us so much. She was so right. He has used my own circumstances, deliverance, inner healing, worship, prophecy, sermons, books, a few longsuffering friends, the scriptures, spiritual warfare, journaling, etc., etc., to heal me. Even with the ‘power’ gifts, it is interesting how he used the nature of relationship, not the manifestation of the power itself, to bring about the healing.

Mostly, though, he just loved me to himself. He wooed me, chastised me, laughed with me and cried with me, he never let me go. He convinced me of his love for me in the trenches and there in the depths of my being, I received it. In the midst of all this, he began to change my desires. This, too, was hell in the hallway. Deep betrayal of trust and emotional wounding does not easily lend itself to unfailing love, transforming power. How grateful I am for a Father who suffered long and hard to convince me of his love!

It’s been many years since Abba began his loving transformation of my heart; I’m a few years shy of 50 and am always amazed when I reflect on the difference in my life now. What I see is that the love of God IS the power. I have full-on accepted this love; it sustains me daily. Though sometimes I fail in loving others the way he loves me, I never worry if Father still loves me because I failed (in that or in anything else, for that matter).

He continues to prove to me that no matter what life brings, he is with me in it, loving me through it. I am so blessed that I am my Beloved’s and he is mine.

“Where is the Power?” It’s in his love. Mhhm. Oh, yeah.

Back to Stories

German Translation (PDF 263k)

I have to be a bit vague on some of the details here, because the writer of these emails, Jamal (not his real name), lives in an area of Ethiopia dominated by Muslims who persecute those known to be Christians in that region. He was in the States on an education visa, and at the end of his studies he had an encounter at a service station that started an amazing journey…

After a rainy night at the state fair and missing his daughter’s performance in the musical he want there to see because his daughter had given him the wrong time, a frustrated Doug stopped at a gas station on the way home. He was thirsty so he went inside instead of paying at the pump. It was during the Olympics so he asked the Ethiopian gas attendant, Jamal, what athletes he was watching and what sports were big in his country. Jamal asked Doug why so many American athletes say that God helps them. Doug told him about Jesus and answered his questions for about 20 minutes. Jamal said he wanted to learn more and Doug gave him his phone number as they walked out of the gas station in the rain, at the end of Jamal’s shift. They talked a couple short times after that, over a gas purchase. Now Jamal was a graduate student in a doctoral program at a local university. He called Doug several weeks later and wanted to meet for lunch before he left to go back to Ethiopia.

They met at a deli for lunch. Doug would often have to write words down and let Jamal look them up in his dictionary. He drew the 4 spiritual laws cross diagram and showed him verses in the Bible. Jamal asked about prayer and then, without another word, he dropped to his knees right there, bowed 3 times and prayed out loud for forgiveness in his broken English.

He wrote Doug the following email that evening:

11/1/2004

Since my tongue will not say correctly so many of the words I can write I wish to tell you in this way my deepest gratitude. I wish there only was more time to learn from you more what is beginning in my heart this day. When I come first to America I am thinking that my heart is full of many dreams. But really it is only my head that is filled with these. My heart was still beneath the smiles filled with many pains and wounds, many because of my own hands. This I am trying all the time I am here to hide from all around me yet mostly from myself. I am looking for the “special magic” of America that so many peoples from over the world are longing for to find some success only to know that it can not fill up the emptiness leftover from past hurts.

But today I am praising this Jesus who sends you into my store in the rain to tell me that his love is the gift that heals what no man can see or touch. As your words come to me I can feel him touching this pain that I am hiding for so long. Can it be this easy that he would bring to my heart the joy of his forgiveness as a present like your Christmas every day? I am wondering how I must pay for such a freedom treasured. In my country if you wish to be free from prison you must bring money to the police and guards from your family. How then can Jesus way be so free? I am wishing I had some of the money left I am paying to the University and knowing that it would not be enough. This I am thinking as your words from Jesus talking are flowing through me like water poured over the cracks in dry stone. Then I see that it was never easy because of what Jesus has paid for me the blood poured from his heart. And I am seeing him with scars and brokenness because of the things I do. Yet knowing that he says to me -This is for you so you may be free.

Now I cannot wait any longer. So I am asking how I can open this gift? When you are telling me prayer is not remembering words from writing down somewhere else but turning away from the road of myself and toward Jesus and telling him all that is in my heart. So I am kneeling on the floor in the restaurant to ask Jesus for this forgiveness and he is with me making the wounds of my heart like new flesh.

Now I am thinking when I am coming to America my wallet is full and my heart is empty and now I am going home and my wallet is empty but my heart is full. I am dancing inside myself. Now the story I am telling as I go to home is not about America but about God’s son and the gift of his peace and freedom.

I am also asking you to thank your church for the Bible. I will be reading and writing to ask you many more things I need to learn. Thank the church also for the prayers they have been giving to Jesus for me.

Your friend,
Jamal

Doug got another email from him the next day that said he was struggling to pray in English when Jesus spoke to him in his language of Swahili. Jamal wrote, “Now I know your Jesus is not just the God of Americans but of the forgotten peoples as well.”

With a minimum of what most people call discipleship, Jamal returned to his native country with the simple encouragement to read the Bible, talk to God and follow him as he makes himself known to you. Here is what has happened since, in Jamal’s own words in emails he has sent to Doug:

11/8/2005

I am writing once again to you for sharing with your friends. Tell them again that I am not having a translator like at University and so I am very sorry for this bad mistakes in writing. If there heart is like yours in love they will understand and be glad.

Many days have past and I have not written you. Your heart must be filled with wonderings about me. Sorry I am for this beyond words for I cannot count how many times I wished to write to you or am thinking of you or needing from you answers but I am not in a place where e-mail works until I return to a larger city. This I am planning to do many times but the journey is so long and always something happen to keep in a greater working.

For my days in America I am trying to fill my head with knowing and remembering of things taught so that I can come back to Africa and use this learning for my family and the peoples here. But God has always planned another way that my heart would be so full of Jesus that this is all I am able to share.

So now in every village I am first planning of helping people in living ways to find some success in the world, now God is building the “living stones” that you were telling me the reading of in Peter’s letter. This is best for in many places now there could be no building of my hands big enough to hold them all. All this God is doing as we share the Jesus of our hearts and his great love.

In my city I am beside myself because it seems there is a mountain too high for any climbing between the people and the words of Jesus. They are saying that these words are for the white man only and there is no place in the heart of Africa for them. When hearing this I am in sadness deep within my heart too much for words of any kind to tell. I am melting on the inside and afraid I will run into the sand and be soaked up. I am wishing to speak to you and not able to eat for many days. Then I am remembering some of your words sent to me from Jesus’ brother James to ask God for knowing what to do. So I am talking to Jesus many days and then my mind is remembering the story you told me of the man from Ethiopia, how that in the great success time of Philip, God is saying by his Spirit that what is more important is to go to the desert and tell one man from Ethiopia about Jesus story. So I am reading from this Acts in my bible to the peoples. This I am saying there everyday and it is as though the mountain is falling into the sea of God’s mercy for this people and their dry spirits are drinking of water that is ever living.

But also a door is opening inside of me and I am walking now the path of some of your teaching to me and more. Before this too much of this is only words spoken about a far off place made of dreaming. But now I am not dreaming because this I see when I am awake in the day. This people with me and myself are learning to ask of Jesus from their hearts and the answers are too many for the telling. And so wonderful to see that even then they are hard to believe. And the greatest thing of all is that in the asking by this peoples to God they now know this is not the power of Jamal but the power of our Jesus.

It heals the sick when there is no doctor or medicine, it brings a doctor who is lost to the home of people who are made well by his care, it brings food to the hungry paid for by other Christians who know us not. They tell the driver, take this food west until someone asks you for it, we do not know where only that this is what Jesus is telling us to do. And they are driving no more because they are running out of gas in front of the house where we are praying to ask Jesus for this food. And then we are praying to Jesus our thanks for them and this people we know not and that he will provide them gas for driving back and no one is coming all night to the village but in the morning David is walking by the truck and smelling gas and we are finding the tank so filled it has spilled out onto the ground. And the boss is saying who fills this truck up with gas and the men sleeping in it all night are saying no one has ever done this. SO we are knowing this is Jesus doing. In another place we are praying for the rain water to come for the people are dying because there is not rain for many days. Then the rivers are flowing with water and the drums are celebrating and the drums from the mountains close by are coming back from up the streams of water and saying how can there be celebrating when here is no rain and how can there be water in the valley when there is no rain in the valley or the mountain.

But all this and more God is doing to say to this people that his love for them is great but the gift of Jesus for them is greater. And the people are kneeling in the road and the dust and the desert and the cities and the stores and the homes and like me in the restaurants to ask Jesus to fill their hearts and this he is always doing.

I will write to tell you more and ask you many things. But tell those people who have been asking God for us that he is hearing and now we are asking for them to live in this love that is shared opened to us by our Jesus. That he will bring healing to the hearts of your people also. That he will fill them with the wonder of our hearts because his hand reaches out beyond the seeing of man to do more with you than even bravest hearts can dream.

Your friend,
Jamal

8/3/2006

It has been too long since last I wrote to your friends and to you something other than ordinary days and many questions. Here many are praying every day for the spirit of his love to fill each of you up so that it flows over you like the waters that are too much for a dam in the river. When this happens you will all be living as the clay pots you have me reading about in Paul’s letter Corinthians. That is how it has become with us. I am remembering that here so many of the wells are having water bags in them for pulling up to get the water and that no one is ever remembering what the bag looks like but only the taste of the fresh water when they are no longer being thirsty.

Tell the peoples you know that they can be praying for us also. Everywhere we are going people are turning from their old ways to walk after Jesus. This He is doing and there is nothing ever before in front of my eyes such as this. For people that are always in fear since being tiny children are finding the peace of our Jesus. Mostly they are being born in the parts of the land that are following the Islam that is afraid and filled with rage. (Not all of Islam is walking away from peace, but our hearts are sad for those who are).

But now some are becoming angry and filled with hate toward us because of the changes inside the peoples who are knowing Jesus. One brother has been beaten so badly that he is very near to die. But the power and trust in Jesus is with him and he is smiling and saying we should change his name to Job because he is reading those words of Job who is saying even if they are killing me I will still trust only in God.

And we are learning what he is saying. As we are running from a village in the night’s blackness so thick that there is no seeing because the angry men there are coming will shouts of death on their tongues. One brother John is falling off the road and a stick is going through the top of his leg to be out the other side and the blood is everywhere. And we are hearing the voices and shouts following after us and Samuel is saying to us that John will be dieing from the bleeding and that he cannot keep running and we are saying back to him that if John is staying that they will be killing him anyway and so what can we do. And Samuel is saying back to us that the letters of Doug to us are always telling us to be praying first and thinking after so that is what we should do. So now as the lights and voices are coming closer they are praying for Jesus to help John and I myself am learning what the Bible is saying about watching and praying, and thinking later that this is meaning something different. And the bleeding is stopping and so we are breaking off the branch and saying if there is no bleeding then leave it in the leg until we find the doctor. And as the angry ones are getting closer we can see from their light that we are in a deep ditch by the road and they are running right past us but not one of them is seeing us and then we are escaping to another village where things are being safer.

When we are finding the doctor and he is pulling out the stick and cleaning the leg inside then there are two children coming to the doctor who have been hurt and he is leaving to look at them and then coming back to us and saying who is it that is helping John and we are saying that our Jesus is working through Samuel to do this, but he is not understanding us. So he is taking Samuel to one of the girls and saying that he should be sowing up the vein in her leg so that it will not be bleeding or else she will die and there is no time to wait but to help both girls or else the one will be dieing. Samuel is saying to the doctor that he cannot do this because he does not know how. The doctor is saying back to Samuel, How is he then sowing up the big artery in the leg of John and why he will not help to heal this girl as he has done his friend. Samuel is saying that all he can do is to do as he has done with John and the doctor is saying to do it, but he is not understanding. So Samuel is kneeling beside the bed and praying for Jesus to help the little girl and the doctor is screaming that the girl will be dieing, but the Jesus who hears is with her and she is being made well. The nurse who someone is running to find is coming and hearing the doctor and she is walking in and looking at the young girl and taking off the clamp and saying the doctor is working very well on her with the sowing and there is no bleeding. And the doctor is saying her mind has been lost and he is coming to see. And when he is looking down he is seeing the sowing that Jesus is doing on the young girl is perfect and looking just like the sowing on the leg of John and then he is saying if he does not see this with the eyes of his own that he is not believing that Jesus is the healer. After Samuel is speaking to him then kneeling next to Samuel in the blood of the little girl and he is believing in the blood of Jesus and becoming one who will follow Him. This is the real miracle of Jesus.

And we are telling him that all this is not us that we are like the bags in the well that no one remembers and Jesus is the living water. This is not what happens every day but our Jesus is always able to show us that he has power to do what no man can do if when doing it he is showing himself to those who will believe. But we are with John trusting him if we live or if we die. And to some this would be the words of fear, but to those who hear the voice of our Jesus in their hearts this is the life of freedom and the road of peace and they are walking down that road with us.

Please be asking your peoples to pray for the peoples telling the story of our Jesus to those who are living in fear in the villages of the angry people. Every day the danger they are living in is real and we are needing Jesus to protect them and to pour his water of life out through them. If this you will be praying for us, then you must know that we are praying for you this also.

Your friend and brother because of Jesus,
Jamal

8/20/2006

We are still feeling in our spirit that this thing that Jesus is doing here is not for outsiders to control or pay monies for and for the faith of the peoples here to turn to them instead of our Jesus if this is happening. How could they be leading us somewhere that Jesus could not? How could they be sending more money and things for helping than Jesus can? No he is wanting the people here to be trusting only him and walking the path deeper into his love.
I am taking the advice that you are giving me to not be using your name as much here for this same reason because you are saying that God is the father of me and of you and that we then are only brothers together in him. This I am always knowing because this is what your heart always shares with me even when it not among the words that you are speaking. As you told me this is to protect the hearts of others who must be like Peter on the water and always looking to Jesus with his name always upon their lips.

Yet sometimes when Samuel is being stubborn then we could say to him let us ask our brothers for help and you would be one who would be helping and then I could be using your name sometimes.

I was beginning to be wondering how it is that faith is growing in the peoples. Not just the faith of beginning to turn to follow Jesus but the growing faith in the hearts that journey with us. I am reading in many places about how Jesus is saying to the disciples…”What has happened to your faith that it has disappeared?” This I am not wanting to happen to the people here.

I am reading this in Luke’s letter chapter 1 and this is what Jesus is saying in my heart about the journey he is walking with us

“…to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

Walking in the morning SON and the path of peace,
Jamal

Back to Stories

“It is my deep conviction that we must be wholly prepared to abandon anything that retards our moving toward the place where Christ is all and in all, where we come to overflow with that which has flowed over us. This is true even though we may have to forsake things we have been taught or conditioned to believe are essential ingredients of church life.” – John Beaumont in Revelatory Adventure.

A God-filled Nobody

By John Beaumont

$12.00 (Paperback – 280 pages)

We’re out of books here, but some of his other contacts at left might still have some. As well, you may find a copy here.

Book Description

Sara and Wayne met John Beaumont and his wife Mary during their 2004 trip to New Zealand. These are some of God’s pioneers who have helped blaze a trail for believers who yearn to live outside the box of religious obligation and embrace the fullness of God’s life and freedom. They are as genuine as people that Sara and I meet on this journey. They words and their lives line up as they have grown in Christ. If you’d like to read more of the things we shared during our time with them in New Zealand, check out these summaries that I included in my blog. I’ve also included an article drawn from a previous book of John’s that is now out of print about the Jetty and the Raft. I think you’ll enjoy it too! I’ve also included an experience John had caught up in a vision to God’s glory and a song he heard while there that I think will bless and inspire you.

This is a book about the amazing grace of God as John shares heart-warming experiences in his own life and ministry over the years. He writes of first-hand participation in outpourings of revival and shares personal lessons has learned on a journey that has taken him all over the world to help God’s people live in freedom and reality.

John has written other books including Revelatory Adventure and God In My Dreams. You can download copies of his books here.

In 2012 Wayne reconnected with John to glean some of the lessons of his journey. Out of that conversation John wrote a brief article about Passing the Torch to a new generation. You can download the PDF here. A couple of months later, he added a new article entitled, Jesus is Building His Church, which encourages us to rejoice in the work Jesus is doing, instead of being discouraged by that which most people call ‘church’.

Table of Contents

Foreward

Introduction

1. Childhood and Youth
2. India
3. New Zealand
4. Africa
5. Europe
6. United States of America
7. Retirement

Overseas Distributors

In the United Kingdom:

John Langford
1 Harness Close
Wimborne, Dorset
BH21 2UF, England
Email John

In the Republic of Ireland:

David Rice
“Four Seasons” Ballylusk
Ashford, Co Wicklow
IRELAND
Email David

In New Zealand:

John Beaumont
27/472 Linwood Ave
Christchurch, 8006 NEW ZEALAND
Email John

In South Africa:

Jamie Campbell
P.O. Box 5
Wellington, Cape Town
South Africa, 7654
Email Jamie

In Australia:

Bruce Kerr
34 Highview Avenue
Nambour, Queensland
4560, AUSTRALIA
Email Bruce

Foreward

I have just finished indulging in a huge feast. The table was groaning with goodies, and I sampled everything! Instead of feeling overfed and lethargic, however, I feel greatly invigorated. In fact, I feel slimmed-down for action. I was running a race, and I know I am all the more ready to continue!

…These are the best words I can find to describe my experience of reading this new book by John Beaumont!

Over the twenty years I have known John, any recollections-of-the-past he has mentioned, in preaching or in conversation, have always been something of a treat. His anecdotes never failed to be worth listening to: amusing, or intriguing – and yet invariably nourishing. They fed our spirits. They strengthened our responsiveness to the Lord Jesus.

Now, in these “memoirs” John has, as it were, provided us with a banquet – a table laden with his recollections from many different parts of the world. I have feasted at this table with great pleasure, and I know that I am stronger, and spiritually fitter, as a result. There is no doubt whatsoever, in my mind, that many Christian people, across the globe, are going to be richly blessed as they read the pages ahead.

I would like to mention three truths of which I have become much more sure, as a result of reading this book. I am not saying that God will necessarily underline exactly the same principles in every reader’s heart. I merely want to emphasise that John’s reminiscences seem to highlight priceless biblical truths.

The first is: “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.” It is clear throughout the book that John always made a determined practice of listening-to-the-Spirit before replying or reacting in any situation. He consciously set aside the expectations of those involved, or his own opinions based on previous experience, and listened for the Spirit’s voice. Over and over again, there was a remarkable outcome. (You will find numerous examples in what John has written.) Most of us pay lip-service to this principle, of course – but very few of us really put it into practice. I think this book will help us to deeply desire to be “led by the Spirit”.

The second principle which came across powerfully to me was this: “Speak the truth in love”. John was always willing to speak the truth, even if it was going to be very hard for the hearer to take. However, each time he first-of-all sought the Spirit’s guidance on how the truth spoken could become up-building in the person’s life. Speaking-the-truth-in-love doesn’t mean presenting the truth in a palatable way. (Sugaring the pill, which is what most of us try to do!) It means presenting the truth in a productive way.

Lastly, I want to mention the unusual biblical phrase “married to another – even to Him who is raised from the dead”. (Romans 7:4. A.V.) John’s happy marriage to Mary shines through these pages – but so does this other marriage of his! (Isn’t it wonderful that the love-relationship with one’s spouse, and the love-relationship with Jesus, are not mutually exclusive. In fact, we learn lessons about each partnership from the other partnership.) Whether we are married or single, however, I am convinced that reading this book will help us all understand more clearly what the Authorized Version meant when it said we should be “married to another…that we might bear fruit to God”.

Well! You are at the starting-end of the table. I have tried to give you a glimpse of some of the good things that lie ahead. I know that, in the end, your plate may carry a different selection to mine. But I genuinely believe you will step out, after you have finished, renewed and refreshed, and better prepared than ever to run the race that is set before you.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Stan Firth – Sutton, Surrey, England

Introduction

This is an attempt to share some of life’s experiences and lessons in such a way that it becomes solely a testimony to the grace of God. The credit is all His for anything worthwhile coming out of my life. On the other hand, the blame for every flaw, fault and failure is mine alone. Over the years I have asked Father to allow me to be, and remain, a hidden man, even though frequently in the public eye, only aspiring to be a God filled nobody.

Years ago I dreamed that I saw people gathered for a memorial service at the end of my earthly life. It was being held in a community hall rather than in a church building.

As everyone became quiet just before the start, a man I knew rushed in and asked, “Where is he?” No one answered, and so he asked the same question louder and louder. In moments everyone was exclaiming as if it were a chant, “John is not here. John is not here!”

All eyes turned to a friend – not a minister – who slowly walked forward and said, “John is not here, he is with the Lord. We are here to celebrate the grace of God in John’s life.”

I joked with one or two that it wasn’t surprising that the Christian man who rushed in, and who will remain nameless, asked that question. I often felt that he didn’t know where I was even when we were together!

Possibly the first time I shared at any length about the grace of God was in a meeting in Kingston, New York. One of the elders there, Dale Rumble, told me afterwards that for them such a topic had extra significance. They had noted over the years that whenever the Lord intended taking them into new realms of Christian living and serving, it had been preceded by a heightened emphasis on the grace of God.

To me the grace of God is the active expression of all that He is in His intrinsic nature, being extended to a totally unworthy person such as I am. This is in order that we may live a Christ-honouring life as we walk in the fullness of God’s purpose and provision for them.

To put it a little differently, divine grace is all that God is, made available for all that I lack, to enable me to be all that He chooses.

I am most grateful to the Holy Spirit who not only stirred me to write this book, but who has also been my Encourager throughout. My wife Mary has been very supportive as we have shared memories together and discussed the best way to express them. David and Nina Rice have willingly undertaken the task of editing and proof reading. This has been most helpful and is deeply appreciated. At the end of that process I received this letter:

“At a personal level may I say that this has been a very enjoyable and stimulating exercise. The more I read the manuscript the more absorbing it becomes. I do think it is worthy of wide distribution in whatever form seems best to you.

“I would also like to put on record the enormous impact that your life has had on me. I was initially hugely helped by the clarity of the word of the Lord that you spoke in Donegal. Subsequently the biggest impact that your life has had on me was in the way you responded to the Spirit, usually at great cost, when you were staying with us during Mary’s illness, and when we were in Sweden together.

“At that time I learned to stand up in the strength of the Lord and not be afraid of the consequences of obedience. Such things cannot be taught, they must be caught. By the overflow of the grace of the Lord in your life, I caught some things which totally changed and re-formed me and continue to do so. I will always be grateful to Jesus for those experiences as well as the many other evidences of His grace in our fellowship through the years.

Bless Jesus for His faithfulness, grace and love. David”

In the Scriptures, the Apostle Paul didn’t simply follow the custom of his people in wishing others, “Peace.” His greeting was always, “Grace and peace.” I greet you thus today. May you, who-ever you are, ‘be blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ,’ by the grace of God alone.

Excerpts

“The idea that the more we do the quicker God’s kingdom is established is a very common point of view, is it not? Earnest believers strive valiantly to do as much as possible for God. Add up all the gatherings, meetings, rallies, crusades, conferences, retreats, seminars, and like events in every church and every city and town throughout any of our countries and throughout the whole year. Include all of the preaching, teaching, prophesying and exhorting plus all of the singing, praising, worshipping, praying and charitable activities that are undertaken.

In the church as in the world, this is a generation of words, noise and endless activity that is mostly quite futile. Surely, if such things as those I have enumerated could bring the church of God to maturity and fullness, and vast multitudes to repentance and faith, we would be there before now.

No, no, no! What God declares is that he responds to faith rather than to human effort. Man’s best will never do, even if a myriad of us worked ourselves to death almost. Throughout history, again and again God has shown what he can accomplish in a moment, so to speak, that wonderfully pleases and glorifies him.” (pages 35-36)

“Let the younger generation hear this: ‘This is a tremendous day for adventure and discovery. Go for it!’ I take the counsel of a highly esteemed and deeply loved brother in Christ, Dr. Jack Gray, who is many years my senior. He has wisely and rightly written that ‘there are many today whom some have described as church-forsakers, but who are actually church-discoverers.’ We refuse to blindly follow the traditions of men, choosing rather to seek and find for ourselves exactly what God’s plan is for us at the present time.” (page 37)

“This brother, who had not heard me speak in a meeting, told me very earnestly that he believed that God wanted me in South Africa at that time.

I told him that I would be sensitive to the Holy Spirit in that regard, knowing that, if it was the ‘now’ word of the Lord for me, an inner conviction about it would grow in my heart. We should not accept something as the word of God to us simply because someone declares that it is. In the final analysis, only the Holy Spirit within us can declare that.” (page 119)