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Warring for What? (updated 8/16/08)

Progress digitizing Faith Assembly recorded sermons: through May 1998 complete, as well as January 2000 through September 2001, and October 2003 to the present.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Finished Philippians

God has quickened in me a fresh sense of the moving of His Spirit. Several things have happened that I have not included in my blogs, because I was waiting for the proper time to share them.

1) On October 12, 2009, God supernaturally gave me the ability to lose excess weight. It is by no means through my own will power, because lack of personal will power is why I could not lose weight before. It was just, as it were, >Click!< I now can look at food as an option, and enjoy some, instead of a compulsion where I had to gorge myself. At the time God touched me, I weighed about 268 pounds, but I am using 265 as my starting point for keeping track. Eighty days later, on the last day of 2009, I weighed only 225 pounds — that is a 40 pound loss in 80 days! I had not shared it, because I did not see it as anything to boast about, because I knew (and still know) it was (and is) a supernatural intervention by God, and I did not see any other significance. I have shared it with other people, and invariably they want to know what foods I am allowing and what foods I am not allowing, or how many calories I am eating, and so on. NONE OF THAT! I can eat as much as I want of whatever I want. The only thing that has changed is that I can also say “no” to food, which I just could not really do before. I don’t keep track. I just eat a little instead of a lot. As of October 12, I was wearing waist size 44 trousers. Today I am wearing waist size 38 trousers, and even those are feeling looser day by day. I bought a new belt, and within a week I took it in two notches, and a couple weeks later I realized when I buckled it, I had taken it in another notch, with only one notch left, so I will have to get another new belt soon! As of today, February 2, 1020, I was under 218 for the first time. It is not going as fast now as it did at first, but that is all a matter of my will... yes, now it is a matter of choosing, and I still can choose to eat, and enjoy it! When we had company last Saturday night, my wife, Rene, and several of my daughters, worked together to make lasagna and other things, and I enjoyed two generous servings, together with cheesy garlic bread, corn, lettuce as a salad, and I don’t know what all else. I can only say, it is all glory to God, nothing I could do without Him.

2) I am not sure what day it was exactly, but in preparing for the teaching of this past Sunday morning (“The Battle is the Lord’s”), God gave me that fresh sense of the Spirit moving which I mentioned at the beginning. This came at a moment when I was feeling a need to draw back — not from God, or from this work, but just to back away from the forefront, to try to conserve resources. Instead, God gave a challenging and encouraging word about moving forward courageously. One illustration was David: what if David had decided it was time to conserve resources just when he had to face Goliath? Now, the Lord is still working as to what He has in mind for Faith Assembly in the days ahead, because it is one thing to back off in the name of “conserving resources,” and it is another thing to be wasteful of resources. Remember, David killed Goliath with a mere sling and stone. Now THAT was conserving resources, in a sense; but, it also was using the resources he had to the utmost. That is the distinction I am making. But, this was all sealed when God connected the weight loss with this renewed sense of the moving of His Spirit. The weight loss is not my doing. I could not make it happen by my own will. The same is true of the moving of the Spirit. It is God’s time and God’s power. But, we must also act differently than we did before, just as I am acting differently about food. It is not me, in either case. It is God. But, I have a quickened expectation of God’s moving just as surely as I can see the visible results of the weight loss.

3) I am expecting God to provide a different and better situation for our meeting. When or how, I am not sure, but I am considering how we as a body can begin to seek God’s wisdom and direction for gathering together the resources He has provided, and prepare for His leading us to that better situation. There are many things we can do in the days to come, to “get ahead,” in preparation for God’s next step for Faith Assembly.

It is very stimulating and encouraging to see God beginning to move. I liken it to a relay race, when the runner in, say, the last lap of the race sees the runner from the previous lap approaching. The last runner is the “anchor man.” He actually begins to run before the previous runner arrives. He matches the steps and pace, so the handoff of the baton will occur without a loss of the rhythm and pace of the race. Then, with a fresh burst of speed, the “anchor” drives with all his might to reach the finish line first. God is calling Faith Assembly to move onto the track and to start running now, to receive the baton for the next lap — which surely appears to be the final lap! — and to run with confidence! I do not believe it is a handing off of the baton to someone else, but that this is what God has been preparing us for these many years; that there is an enabling power we’re about to receive as God thrusts us forward into the stage of the race that we are about to enter.

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