Jan 13
27
What Jesus Is Teaching me Today; …Right NOW (9)
LESSON NINE: “The Broader View, Is Unnecessary”
You have a chosen purpose, a “calling” and for that a broader view is unnecessary. What the broader view is necessary for is so that you are constantly aware that your narrow view is just that and you are open to being given the ability to listen carefully to others whose view is also narrow and different than yours, so that they too, will be able to listen to your narrow view and not falter.
In this body bag, as you prefer to call it, and also a narrow view, you do not have the capacity to focus broadly and I AM telling you that attempts to do so will only serve to fragment what you have been given and thus cause that gift to lose its power and momentum …don’t try.
Now you can understand synergy – which is not the blending of two similar substances into a bland mix causing myopia in all the participants, but the dynamic, seeming chaotic, bringing together of two individual, potentially violent forces by LOVE. This is why I have led you to see the multi-dimensional nature of my appearing as a Prophet to some Muslims; the Only begotten Son of God to some Christians, Elder Brother or Master Teacher to yet others; the Messiah to some Jews, Great Teacher to others; An Ascended Master to Hindus and an array of other titles to many others. Am I troubled by any of this? Only by the refusal of each holding on to a narrow view which prohibits them from seeing the essence of my arrival on the scene which was and IS, at this very moment, an act of SUPREME LOVE!
Yes, tell the story. . .
This old poster is from Brad's ministry days.
As you recall, LESSON EIGHT was comprised of the story about the mother of a business consulting client of mine unwittingly choosing death instead of LIFE. This story, today, is about that same client asking me if I would be willing to go to Pakistan for a preaching and healing crusade. He happened to have met a Pakistani man who had been converted from Islam to Christianity and who was in my client’s town for a “Christian Leadership Symposium.” He was fascinated by the man’s story of how he now was the pastor of a congregation of Pakistanis who were also former Muslims.
My client shared over the phone how he felt impressed to offer to pay for a flatbed trailer, an outdoor loud-speaking system and provide monthly support so that this Pakistani pastor could broaden his ministry. The man gratefully accepted the offer and asked my client if he knew an American Evangelist who might be willing to come and put on an evangelism crusade.
Over dinner, my client’s wife insisted that what he should do is have a man of great faith and healing power rather than an evangelist – “let the people see the power of God at work and hear the message. She urged my client to tell this pastor about the work I had done in their lives.”
A gift everyone has access to.
This woman would always turn a deaf ear to my insisting that I did nothing WHICH IS THE TRUTH! I would harp at her continuously that the reason she and her husband, who had quit a pastoral ministry to go into business, didn’t see the miraculous on their own is that they refused to walk in the authority available to them and instead were always looking to some man who had what she described as “the gift of faith and healing.”
When he called me to ask if I would go, he prefaced the conversation with I know what you are going to say – “that the man needs to begin walking in authority – well, why don’t you go over and explain it to him and his congregation and take part in some meetings; Gail has a vision for this, will you consider it?”
Ego took over and I was immediately thrilled at the prospect. At that moment I wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but I reveled in the thought that I would be known as the man who had brought the transforming and healing power of Jesus to hundreds if not thousands of Muslims!
My client purchased a first class airline ticket that would take me to a stopover in Singapore, then to a 24 hour stopover in New Delhi, India and then on to Lahore, Pakistan for a week of meetings. I was ecstatic …having never been to India or Pakistan.
Why take the risk Brad?
The trip was scheduled for several weeks hence. My client had paid for 10,000 leaflets to be printed up with my picture on it (no less). Pakistan at that time was under Muslim law which forbade proselytizing and imposed severe penalties for those who engaged in it. More fodder for my ego. Imagine, being on the cutting edge under the threat of death!
As the time grew closer I realized I had some serious preparation that was needed. I was not about to do this under my own steam. I sensed a deep need for a time of intense prayer and fasting. About ten days into a fast, no intake of anything but water (period); one night, about two a.m., I was awakened from a deep sleep and felt the need to get on the floor, face down and pray. I heard the words “Don’t go!” I stood up and immediately began “testing the spirits” – fasting, as you know, can produce hallucinations. I was assured that this was SPIRIT talking to me.
I got back down on the floor, prone, face down, arguing the fact that all the arrangements had been made, posters had been tacked on power poles and plastered all over the sides of buildings, announcing the meetings …everything had been planned and I had agreed to it …AND I WANTED TO GO! How can this be, this instruction not to go?
I had a vision of my bookshelf in the living room with a light focused on the set of encyclopedias and the volume with the letter “I” was brightly illuminated. I got up and went out to get it and brought it back to my little office there in my home.
You are called by God too, if you will only hear His voice.
I sat at my desk and asked, “what do I need to look up’ …I opened the book and there facing me was a long article about Islam. I read it and discovered some historical facts that I had not been aware of before. Mohammed (or Muhammad if you prefer) had actually been raised in a sect of Judaism along with many Arabs of his day. When Muhammad felt the call of God upon him to be a prophet, his message was rejected by both Jews and Arabs who were in his particular sect of Judaism. Muhammad was given to believe that it had been the same Spirit which had instilled, in him, the urge to be a prophet of the very same God of Abraham who Jesus had proclaimed! Then the definition of Islam that this encyclopedia provided: “Submitted to the will of God.” Those were the three points that this rather long and purportedly accurate historical account, hit me as profoundly significant.
The three points, again, 1. Muhammad was raised in a sect of Judaism. 2. Muhammad believed he was proclaiming the same God of Abraham that Jesus proclaimed. 3. That the definition of Islam is “Submitted to the will of God.”
NOTE: The difficulty with quoting anything from so long ago has to do with the tendency of all written work to be “updated” and modernized and modified and latter being subject to the belief system of the current publisher. I don’t know if those three things will stand up to the scrutiny of today’s common understanding of the prevalent texts available AND I DON’T CARE, BECAUSE WHAT I’M SAYING HERE IS EITHER TRUTH OR IT IS NOT. Is it? Get revelation, not mine or anyone else’s interpretation of anything – GO DIRECTLY TO THE SOURCE!
“What is this to me?” I asked in an almost state of desperation. I heard again, “don’t go!” Back onto the floor, literally pounding with my fists, demanding clarity …and I saw it. What I would be doing by going to Pakistan was merely being involved in getting people who were bound up in one shadow of reality, to leave that belief system for a new shadow of reality. How could this be!!!? Christianity and Islam BOTH were “shadows of reality?”
What will you become if you submit to God's hand.
I needed to be submitted to the will of God – not the emotions that had been driving me …and this encyclopedia article was being used to dynamically and drastically bring this to my mind and spirit.
I was being shown that I was caught up by my own egoistic desires. A sense of peace came over me as I was shown what to do. Later that morning, I called my client and explained to him why I had to cancel. I was disappointed that he took it casually and said not to worry about it, that he would call a very well -known evangelist to see if he would go in my place.
I couldn’t believe the array of conflicting emotions that came over me. Frustration that my client didn’t understand what I was telling him; jealousy that another evangelist would get to take this marvelous trip that had been arranged for me; somebody else would get the credit for all those conversions; relief that the threat of danger had been dumped on somebody else – these latter two insights were extremely painful to my already bruised ego. That other evangelist did go – my picture and name on posters notwithstanding; and “chalked up” thousands of converts to Christianity.
I was, again, given a sense of peace and that I didn’t have to make up any excuses …I got to see the truth about my egoism in accepting the invitation in the first place and was delivered from all judgment related to the evangelist taking the assignment or the client “not getting the truth” from my limited perspective.
I learned to revel in one thing and one thing alone …my individual connection with the SOURCE of everything and from it knowing Jesus in every aspect of his being and doing what I knew I was meant to do because I AM – which sounds worse than egoism, until you understand that it isn’t “i” proclaiming it …but I AM in me.
Well done, relax.
In Freedom,
Brad