NewYorkNY

THREE THINGS:

1). I'll share something of my days here in NYC- my doubts/inadequacies, but God's Goodness and Provision, 2.) His miracles here, and 3.) An admonition against self-righteousness, and the condition of The Body of Believers in The USA and our nation.

Being here again has been the usual sifting process.

Always, I'm eager to see dear friends here, and to visit Believers in The Lord anywhere I go, but having to deal in reality with much anxiety- I mean of really knowing my own huge inadequacies spiritually, feeling that still, there are so many areas of my life vulnerable to The Enemy, and yet, supposedly to go boldly- this is a reason for asking for much prayer.

Nobody does this thing known as real life, solo.

I always feel that because of my own hypocrisy, people see right through me. I don't trust God as I should. Sometimes, I do, yes, but certainly not consistently. Thankfully, it's not about me or our performances, but God's Goodness.

I forget and relearn this daily. I sometimes wrestle most with feeling welcomed wherever I am.

I don't fit in anymore in the world of sin, yet there are Righteous and real people too, and I don't know how to relate to them. Yet I need others- and not to be dependent as I used to be so neurotically insecure, but bluffing to appear holy.

Not unlike living in Israel, New York City is a large mirror of [my own] sinfulness- everything is seen much more clearly here- no grey areas.

In myself, I see self-righteousness, religious pride, general lack of compassion for people, due to my own self-centeredness or brokenness, on occasion, when I forget God (He never forgets about us), I feel loneliness, then of course, sexual brokenness.

I have been repenting of a lot of late. I want to turn away entirely from doing wrong. Easy to say... but there are times, I go way off track.

God has always provided extraordinary Grace to more than sufficiently, in my experience, walk us through whatever we face. We have only to ask... And at most times when I don't.

2). Was waiting on the train on Staten Island, to go to Times Square Church www.timessquarechurch.org Sunday P.M. Missed it by a few seconds. Got discouraged. That meant everything would be off, by at least another 1/2 hour, and I'd be really late (never did make it to the actual service).

I asked God whether I should just forget about it. Stayed a bit longer waiting on the platform, and then two ladies came up; sat down. We started talking about 9-11, about the world these days, about Israel, and everything we all watch too much of on T.V.

I got into a heated religious discussion with one lady who was kind of a pain in the ass. She seemed out in left field (to use an appropriate baseball analogy here), and weirded me out a bit.

She was argumentative, and we sparred a bit, debating of course, things, religious, until I just became frustrated. This wasn't going right- and I didn't feel like it was God's love in me.

Even though I was so sure I was right about what I was saying, it was in the wrong spirit.
Does that make sense? Like going on a green light because it's your right, but getting hit because someone else was coming the perpendicular direction, running their red.

You'd be dead right.

So I cried out silently to God for help, chilled out, and she and I ended up on the later train alone together, talking. She shared the pain of coming off of crack cocaine- now 4 years back, after she'd called out in desperation to God. I could relate to calling out. We weren't different.

So I decided to be vulnerable and real, sharing my struggles in life with her, and how God is becoming my Father Who I was always searching for in really jacked-up relationships.

She began to cry. Great! I've made a hardened New Yorker cry! This definitely was not going according to plan.

And she said she knew God sent me to let her know that He had her son safe, who died two years ago of AIDS, because of his desperate need to be loved by a father that he actually never even knew.

There's a Grace we don't know when we haven't suffered through some things. But it's a place of Safety- where we are forever free from the eye of the Enemy - if only we'll remain there by faith, and obeying what God tells us to do.

She gave me her number and begged me to call her. She said she wants to talk to me more, and since I have nothing to say, please pray. I'm planning on calling today or tomorrow. Jesus is the Only Way- God's Love is so REAL and powerful.


On the ferry ride past the Lady Liberty (France's last unselfish act) in the New York City harbor, and over to Ground Zero, felt I should talk to this one guy out of hundreds and hundreds.

He turns out to be an Israeli. Please pray for an opportunity to bless him later on. He's working here, trying to save $ to travel a bit more down the East coast, before he goes back to Israel. I cannot remember his name, strangely, but remember where he works near here, so plan to go see him this week too. I told him he could go traveling with me if he wanted. He's thinking about it. If it's supposed to be, it'll happen...

Ground Zero is where I absolutely lost it. Found the name of my friend's husband, and father of her boys, who was lost there (as I generally do when I visit), but I was just blown away this time.

So it's easy to share successes, but I found that I couldn't handle the frustration of things not going as I thought they should. It wasted me, and I've been having to ask God to forgive me for getting my eyes off of Him, and onto me. So destructive- I begin to sink immediately. And it's so easy too in this zoo.


O.K., Yesterday A.M., after a time of prayer with my little Italian family I'm staying with here, the Franceschini's (best meatballs and sauce on the island), we three went over to The Jewish museum. We'd asked for opportunity to share God's Love with His People.

En route and on the train before we got on the ferry, ended up speaking Spanish to a Grandparently couple from Argentina, and, of course, out of all the destinations in The City, they're heading directly to the same spot.

This sweet Jewish couple lived also on a kibbutz in Israel (for a lot longer than I had), and of course, spoke Hebrew (and Yiddish) too. Played violin for them, and we all were together a good bit of the day. Great times. They are planning to come over for supper here soon...

On the way back, ended up speaking about Israel with this young Jewish guy from the Ukraine who was sitting across from us on the train. Alex. Marketing executive in Manhattan, not religious at all- he listened intently to us all talking about God's Love.

So those were some really good times- very encouraging to me- which I need frequently, in that I screw up still a lot. So we get back (tired), and all-of-a-sudden, and for no reason, I become incredibly discouraged for a while. It was weird. That's why I think it's a big spiritual battle here.

I became just briefly hopeless while out buying groceries- and that's not me. Yes, I get down like anyone, but this was a strange thing. Thank God, He is not worried- and lets us relax at times, and just enjoy family.

So we all ate comfort food, and watched a great movie- Frequency- about fathers, and destiny- and God spoke such encouragement to me through it.


3.) I've noticed as I travel from place to place, that there's a real tendency among Christians toward ranting and raving against certain cultural maladies (there are many to draw from).

Then there's this usual pitch about how wrathful and angry God is, and how, for example, the sinners down in New Orleans may deserve to become Atlantis. Maybe. It's a sinful world.

But by that logic, I should be shoveling coal in the cellar of hell- wearing wool thermal underwear, sweater and mittens- oh, and a hat.

I mean, yes, evil does seem to be increasing (or is it just me?). Yet, I always am thinking, you know, I am The Body of Believers, The Church, and I am the nation, in a way. I am dealing with sin in my own world all the time- and that's more scary than going to the dentist or watching C-span to see what Congress is doing.

How can I be consumed with societal wrongs, when I am the one who has the lumber yard in my own eye, vs. the speck in someone else's?

It is as if we judge ourselves to condemn sin in others, if we are not squared away in our own hearts and homes. Ironically, this is the one most often quoted verse of the Bible by those who otherwise don't know it.

Yet we know it. But we must BE it; the Real love of God to people.
I remember what hell I've been spared- places like NYC help me to recall in vivid detail, how very fortunate indeed I am, to be alive.

There are many sad examples of people who over time, just became hardened because of sin, and then, they become zombies. Why not me? I don't know...

We must be compelled by compassion for people, looking deep and asking God to change us in areas where we don't reflect Him.

If we don't repent of our lovelessness, we become very religious candidates for hell itself. That's where self-righteous people go, because they don't feel that they need God's Grace- they try to be "good enough" on their own merit or works, or deeds.

That's ridiculous, because God isn't interested in our righteousness- He says it's like filthy rags. There really are no good people. There are nice people. Some of whom are Christians.

But we have all screwed up. Some of us are honest about it.

Those are not my words or opinion, but that of Jesus Christ-

(You can read it for yourself, at the end of this letter: John 3, where Jesus Teaches Nicodemus.)

Religious superiority or pride keeps us deceived into thinking that we don't need to repent. How tragic and deadly.

3.) Lastly, I want to speak of trends I see that have developed in religious circles I've visited particularly in the United States:

There is this diabolical tendency toward manipulation and or control in different forms. Sometimes it's in the form of drama and emotionalism. Sometimes dead traditionalism- but teachings taught by man- a form of godliness, but denying the POWER thereof (LOVE).

The Word of God is compromised because the show must go on, and money must roll in. There are limitless attempts to separate people from their money or their reason, or both.

THIS IS NOT GOD. HE never attempts to control or manipulate us in any capacity. He loves us.

Americans seem in particular vulnerable to emotional manipulation. The media are fueled by it. Even the catastrophes we experience seem only to go as deep as the emotions- we should be giving and praying - already!

But in the church, manipulation serves to confuse, and there is this danger, because it belies real repentance- turning away from disobedience- which places us in harms' way, and makes us vulnerable to the Enemy. Many sheep are led astray by wolves in sheep outfits.

This is not a secular problem, but a spiritual one- a lack of discernment is a judgment.
So many places I go, emotionalism is what people settle for, calling it - of all things - "Praising" or "Worshipping God". Yet there is little change, no cross, and no cost involved. No sacrifice in praise, just a mentality of overdue personal (self-centered) blessings.

No cost love is not love. Manipulation is not love. Control is not love.

Furthermore, there is religious pressure to pretend and to perform, because everyone seems to have it together.

Pulpits and lecterns are sometimes filled with preoccupied and selfish people, mesmerised with the world, who are so ego-centered as to make Freud blush, and their own duplicity and lack of reality is creating a subculture of people who are in abject misery, not knowing what to believe, or how to live.

This cannot continue. God will not suffer His Character to indefinite misrepresentation.

This scares me. Because I'm seeing areas in me where I still misrepresent Him. I don't want to.

There is also the tendency toward religious structures built upon the fear of giving God absolute control to be The Lord of our lives. Yet nothing less is True or Real.

People tend to stay with what's comfortable and familiar, being willing even to be manipulated by those entertainers in leadership who are in compromise with sin, and yet, selling their souls bit by bit... complacency takes over, and everyone's asleep in the day of disaster.

If we are not acting upon The Truth of the Word of God, it evaporates into a judgment against us. We say it is true with our nodded heads or "amens", and do nothing- to our shame. This must change, for life as we know it is about to become rearranged considerably.

Only those who are connected in relationship with The Lord will be able to endure. This is so clear in Scripture in the story that Jesus told, of the two groups of women, one of which didn't have enough batteries for their flashlights (electric torches for you Brits and Euros), when the time came.

We must know God personally- and have Fruit that backs that up. Love is key. Talk is cheap; labels useless.

"The Anointing" as I've hear it mislabeled, is not simply a feeling, but it is the Authority of God comes via proximity in obedience to Him- this should be our everything- closer and closer relationship with Him.

This grieves me at times in particular, because I see still in me areas that I can't seem to surrender. Yet I must, or I won't make it. I have to trust Him; live in Faith.

Well, this may comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.



Baruch Haba B'Shem Adonai (Blessed is He Who comes in The Name of The LORD!)
We should be looking for the SOON return of YESHUA!
www.watch.org
In Jesus' Name,
SHALOM,
REUEL

JOHN 3
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with Him." In reply Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."
"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.
"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
John 3. 16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have Eternal Life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of Light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the Truth comes into the Light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."