1-800-HEAVEN WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES

Songs from the past seem to amplify the situations that arise in our lives. In this teaching, it all began with a full-body rash that wouldn't go away. I leaned into the verse, “I called upon the Lord, and He heard me.” Did He literally hear His servant in my mercy? Yes, He did. Was I mercifully healed? No. The rash got worse. Yes, He heard me, and I am wonderfully healed. Is that a contradiction? No, not according to my understanding of who God is. He is a loving Father and the healer who has demonstrated His healing power to me and many others over the past 55 years. So how do I justify not being healed physically after pleading for His intervention? I do not. It is not my place to justify what God deems right or wrong. It is my place to believe what He has said simply because He said it. What you have just read is the foundation of what is to come. Let’s take a journey to understand what happens when we see God move and when we do not. I will clarify what is most important: our response, the key takeaway, and the two residual actions that result from the decisions we make under these circumstances.

During my stress over this body rash, for a period of thirty days, it became clear that my visits to the doctors, four in all, to pinpoint where this all started, left me dehydrated and exhausted. My pleas to the Lord were heard, but no physical results were coming. Expensive medication was useless; some made it worse, and some had a minor effect. At one point, I found myself on the floor, writhing in pain from full-body cramps, with pain that was above my high pain tolerance. I scared my wife out of five years of her precious life, and my dogs were unsure what to do but cry as if they felt the pain as much as I did. Slowly, all came back into order, and I went to bed, praying for sleep. The Lord was wonderful and gave me 13 hours of non-stop sleep.

First, I want to stress that everyone goes through trials in their lifetime that come in various degrees of concern and levels of stress that test our ability to stand firm in our confession for Christ, our belief in what he said, and our commitment to His word. Believe me when I say that every trial, in its depth and level, is different. Now that I am 55 years in walking with the Lord, I have found it to be true that each time we go through similar trials, each one has a different intensity, and each one, on the other hand, produces greater maturity in us, to our personal benefit. Even more important, it also produces greater maturity for the body of Christ. We all benefit from each other's trials. It may not be obvious to us now, but as we grow in Christ, the evidence of this grows stronger.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this teaching, there are different responses at the beginning, the middle, and the end of each trial. The most critical is our response at the end of the trial.

First, let me address the beginning of the trial. As I usually do, I will start with an instant in my life that preceded a great trial I experienced. I had been seeking God for understanding of my own heart. At the time, I was a successful business owner. My business was in the fire sprinkler industry, a rough industry in which it is easy to compromise Christian principles. I refused to follow that track, so I was always entirely dependent on the Lord to keep me above water. I hung a twenty-foot sign on my warehouse wall that said, “JESUS IS LORD.” One night at 2:00 am, after putting my children to bed and kissing my wife good night, I headed to the shop to prepare the piping for the next day’s work. I was facing the wall where that sign hung. As I was cutting and threading the pipe, I glanced up at the sign. I shut down the machine and started to cry. I cried out to the Lord and asked, “Lord, I thank you for making me successful. Thank you for all that you have given me. Thank you for blessing me when I was stubborn and doubting. Lord, I have much, but I need something more. Lord, I do not know my own heart. Lord, if I lost everything you have given us and we have nothing left, would I still serve you?” At that point, I was totally broken and seeking an answer, the only thing that mattered to me in my life at that moment.

Making a very long and painful story short, the answer came through the trial of my life. Yes, I would serve him regardless of what came about. Finally, I had the answer that, regardless of what happened, I would serve him. In a very short time, 30 days, I lost everything, and believe me, everything. For months before, circumstances had been developing through ungodly me, working for me, and no one could overcome them. But that was only the beginning. In a very short time, I did the right thing and handed over every contract, except one, to every company in the area where I did business. Sad to say, all that money was distributed to some of the most ungodly men I have ever come in contact with, but I did the right thing by taking the stress off my innocent customers. The warehouse was gone, the trucks were gone, the men were gone, the material was gone. I paid off every supplier and everyone who had handed me an invoice for the work they had done. I paid every man who stole material and tools from me, since they did the work. I was clear. However, in doing the right thing, I lost all the money I needed to pay my mortgage. In four months, we lost the house and all our belongings. We packed up my last truck, a Nissan King Cab, hooked up a 12-foot trailer with personal items, and headed to my brother-in-law's house. There we slept on the floor for six months.

In a short time, I became very ill and visited a doctor who had no clue what to do with me. Up to that point, I trusted doctors, but that experience changed that. The short ending to Oregon is that on day 394, we were heading back to Venture. In a short month, I was in the hospital, dying from a 1350 high glucose reading, with my feet starting to turn blue. Then Dr. Martinez entered and saved my life, and I was headed back to Simi in good health.

The last devastating portion of this trial was that my wife, who was not in great health, took a turn and succumbed to a cancer that was brought about by the massive stress of the two-year trial. In 2005, just days before her 58th birthday, she was granted her place in heaven.

Now, where are we in this teaching on trials? First, the trials we experience are universal yet, for Christians, specific. Mine was in answer to my question. Trials take different forms. Some are designed to answer cries for help, pointing us to an anchor. Some are for adjustment in our attitude and our walk. These adjustments are critical to the direction the Lord is taking us. Small adjustments are like when you're driving and you touch your steering wheel ever so slightly. Other times, they can be harsh, obedient adjustments that reveal things not acceptable to a righteous God. Some come through those we love. These can bring deep scars or wonderful healing and a greater blessing. Some come out of the blue, and we stand stunned or confused about why we are experiencing them. Then there are those for which you know exactly why you entered into the dark and lonely place. These are the most dangerous. Most of the time, these are long and hurtful because you refuse to see that your path was damaging to you and others. Your resistance is in protecting your sin. You know it is wrong, but because you love your sin, you resist the correction. Be very careful what you do during this time of your trial, because there is only one outcome for rebellion.

The second part of the trial is the recognition that there needs to be a personal response in your innermost man. There is only one response that makes sense: surrender and seek His face for clarity. Have understanding. No matter what excuses you give yourself for not wanting to listen, you are still in the trial. It will not go away when you make half-hearted apologies or shallow repentance, because God is not looking for that. He is looking for a change of heart. That’s right, we may do things to look good on the outside, but it’s the heart that the Lord examines. Believe me, God is not mocked. He knows who you are and what kind of smoke camouflage you are capable of. Give in and take instructions. You will traverse the trial fastest if you surrender.

The next part of the trial is the lesson learned. Most of the time, it's not a lightning bolt that goes off in your brain and reveals the right door out of the trial. It can be, but more often it's a progression of understanding. Brother Leonard Fox, a precious brother who moved in the prophet, used to say, “Line upon line, precept upon precept, the Lord will bring clarity.” The man was right. Over my years, this has been the primary way out of the dark places I found myself in. God is loving and persistent in his correction. A slow correction satisfies the lesson in one's life. Believe me, this is the best way. A quick answer is usually forgotten quickly.

Now comes the final stage of trials. But first, let me make one thing clear. This portion is divided into two parts. It is very important to understand this portion because your journey to maturity in Christ depends on a full understanding. The first portion is this. God brings you through the dark places into revelation, insight into why the trial was important for you to go through. This is a step where maturity brings greater knowledge of who you are in Christ. It also shows you that the old things pass away and the new is being revealed. Mark this as very important, “IS BEING REVEALED.” You have not altogether arrived at maturity, but you are being progressively taken into it. Growing in Christ to a perfect man is a corporate goal. Individually, you are growing into that vessel that fits into the whole. Perfectly said, you are formed into the perfect shape to fit into God’s perfect wall in this building plan. However, you are not done. Remember, the perfect tomato on the vine is considered perfect for the chef when the gardener sees that it is all it was meant to be and picks it. You are not ready until Jesus says you are.

We humans always seem to think a breakthrough is the finish line. But it is not. At this point, however, people do something very destructive to themselves. Let me explain it this way. In the Old Testament, the people of Israel cry out to the Lord in their distress, which they brought upon themselves, and God hears them. He speaks to the prophet, and the people say, “We will do as the Lord directs.” Then everything becomes roses, and all is well with the people. So they say, “Let us build an altar here, for the Lord has heard our cry and has delivered us this day.” So they do that; they build an altar and camp out there until they rebel again. That is where most Christians end up after a trial—camping out in the good place. The problem, after a while, is that the Lord moves on, and they miss the traveling orders to follow. We must avoid this at all costs. The result of this hesitation is always becoming at ease in Zion. Being too comfortable at the last watering hole ends in missing the new thing in Christ. However, there is another danger here. Once the altar is built, it's time to renovate and make the old altar more presentable. A little more sprucing up will attract those who become uninterested in that revelation, so they add something to the mix that God never intended to be there in the first place. This becomes a danger to the believer and an anchor to the old altar.

Let me point to 1906, in Los Angeles, at the Azusa Street Revival. Through the precious prayer warrior William J. Seymour, God poured out His Spirit as in the Upper Room. Speaking in tongues, the infilling of the Spirit of God, gave them utterance. A worldwide movement of the Spirit of God brought millions to the cross of salvation. Yes, even in this, the people built an altar. Sadly, they called the altar “CORPORATION.” And many denominations were born, all corporations under the banner of speaking in tongues. The power of God became their call, and they camped out there for many, many years. That is only one example of the danger of building an altar and camping out under the fig tree.

To conclude this teaching, I encourage you to open the Word and find the scriptures that speak to its principles. Normally, I supply them, but in this one, I feel you all need to exercise your ability to study in the word. Make your role as a student in the school of the Spirit a priority. I will eventually make this fully available on my new website, “1-800-HEAVEN.com”, was launched this week. You will find many more useful studies to support your walk.