I seldom go places anymore due to my
afflictions. I'm a homebody by nature. I went out to eat last night, which I
rarely do. I asked if I could sit outside, because of my suffering
and didn't want to be around people. The burning, tingling, pain and neck
tension all overwhelm me at times, as last night. I have a noticeable limp
in my right leg when I walk. If I walk for a while it's not as noticeable.
It's when I sit down and then get back up that my leg doesn't want to move.
I ordered a turkey and cheddar sandwich with some potato soup. I ate the soup and only half of my sandwich. I just didn't feel too well. I felt like crying. I tried to shift in my chair due to the radiating pain down my right leg. It feels like a razorblade is passing across my nerves (from my neck down my right arm and leg) into my right finger and right toe. And then there's the chronic tension inside my neck, which feels like the back of my neck is being ripped out. It never goes away. It feels like a golf ball is stuck in my neck, ready to burst out.
I have constant toothache-like neck pain (where the bone is located in back), which radiates into my facial area. The other night it felt like a knife was behind my right. My face feels sore all over continually. The pain radiates from my neck upward. Since it's close to my head, it makes me irritable understandably. If that wasn't enough to endure, then there's the burning, tingling and both of my arms feeling like swollen air-bags all the time. That second surgery really messed me up.
When I left the restaurant I left Gospel of John and a $20 tip. My meal was only $20. I drive a 20-year-old car so I have extra money to give to the homeless and share with others. I hate money. People can have it all if that's what they love so much. My Bible says you CANNOT serve God and mammon (wealth). It's impossible. The difference between the two mindsets is staggering!
I knew a couple that were so money-hungry that they wouldn't even leave a nice tip after a meal. They are consumed with making their next dollar. The are jealous of anyone who has anything, because they want it all. It's so sad and sinful. Their minds are cloudy with the love of money. Every dollar counts to them and they dare not let one escape. My afflictions have changed my entire view of life and everything. Money means absolutely nothing to me.
The mind who loves God is vastly different from the mind that only loves wealth, pleasures and the cares of this world. Jesus warned about these hindrances to soul-winning in Luke 8:14-15. People who care about money DON'T care about the things of Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:20-21). My afflictions are a blessing from the Lord in that they humble me daily. I just have to be careful not to allow my sufferings to overwhelm me with grief and depression. I have a ministry of suffering.
People sometimes get nervous when they sense that I'm suffering, because they don't know what to say or do. There's nothing they can do. I used to try to break the tension by telling people that I have Peripheral Neuropathy. I said that one day and a married couple in their 50's literally took two-steps backwards. That hurt. I don't have Bubonic Plague! They sincerely didn't know what that term meant, so I don't use it anymore. So then I started telling people that I have a damaged spinal cord, but that freaked some people out. So now I just tell people that I have a messed up neck. This is better.
These are heavy burdens I carry, but the Lord promised that He wouldn't give us more than we can handle (1st Corinthians 10:13). My sufferings have brought me closer to God. Due to a series of adversities in my life, I started this ministry for the Lord in April of 2002. Like a pregnant woman in travail, I had so much to tell the world. My neck problems started in March of 2004. At that time my website was still very small, but by the end of 2004 this website took off and hasn't stopped growing in popularity since (as infamous or famous as it may be). I have more visitors in one week today than I had for the entire years of 2002, 2003 and 2004 combined. Praise God!
My sufferings have matched the growth of this ministry. I believe that God gave me a thorn in the flesh—yes, to humble me and test me; but first and foremost to give me a more perfect understanding of the grace of God. God has opened my eyes through afflictions to precious truths I never could have grasped had I not been afflicted. God has given to me a more tender heart and humility and understanding that all the gold in the world cannot purchase. Thank you Lord! Scriptures that I had read my entire life started to take on new meaning. Passages that I had glanced over and nothing moved me before, now struck me to the heart as if God had written His Words just for me when He authored them. No one wants to suffer, but there are lessons and blessings that can only be learned through much suffering and pain.
God has given me a voice to preach the truth in cyberspace. It could end at any time if it be God's will, but until that time comes I'm going to uplift the King James Bible, elevate the precious Lord Jesus Christ, contend for the Christian faith, preach the Gospel to get sinners saved, love sinners with the truth and expose government tyranny and crimes that enslave men and destroy liberty. There is much work to be done, and the fields are ripe unto harvest, but the laborers are few. What opportunities, talents, skills and resources has God given to you that can be used for Him? What group of people can you reach that others can't? Everyone has a field of opportunity, uniquely given by God to them.
I knew a garbage truck driver that hand wrote the Gospel, Scripture-by-Scripture, on 3x5 cards and passed them out to folks on his routes. Don't make the mistake of thinking that no one will listen TO YOU, because when you witness the Gospel you have no idea who is listening in their heart.
You never know what God's Spirit is doing in someone's heart. There are so many suffering people today. You can see it on their faces. They need answers, but all they're getting is garbage from televangelists who only want to their money. I heard a beautiful Scripture last week while listening to Alexander Scourby read the Bible (I love the audio Bible). Proverbs 29:10, “The bloodthirsty hate the upright: but the just seek his soul.” Even when a wicked person is trying to harm a righteous man, the righteous man is seeking to win his soul to Christ. Isn't that beautiful?
I often feel as Job who said in his sorrow and misery...
Job 10:1, “My soul is weary of my life.”
The Way Of The Wicked World
We are living in a selfish generation where most people don't care about others. In fact, people can be cruel. My eyes were opened to how selfish people could be in 2007 when I had stomach surgery for a umbilical hernia. I asked the surgical center to call ahead to the pharmacy for the pain meds, so I wouldn't have to stand in line. I had just come off the anesthesia from surgery. I had a big bandage on my stomach. I went to K-mart pharmacy and 15 people were waiting in line. Some got mad when I walked up to the pick-up counter. I lifted my shirt and showed them my 8x8-inch stomach bandage. I told them I had just come out of surgery. One woman angrily said, “That's your problem.”
They continued to make insults and were angry. I was numb. Even the employee behind the window didn't care. He said, “Get in line like everybody else.” I told him that the nurse had called, but he said he didn't know anything about it. As is often the case in these apostate times, no one cared. I could feel the Devil at work around me... that spirit (Ephesians 2:2) which worketh in the children of disobedience (the unsaved). Won't it be great when Jesus returns and “YOUR JOY NO MAN TAKETH FROM YOU” (John 16:22). John 16:22, “And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”
When I had my second neck surgery in 2010 the nurse said the van driver would have my meds. When I got into the medical van the driver said they were supposed to give me my pain meds back at the hospital. She said she couldn't go back. I ended up in a CVS Pharmacy at 11 p.m. at night the day after my surgery. As a result of the commotion just 2-days after surgery I ended up in the Emergency Room. I went into the Emergency Room crying. Oh the neck pain was so bad! That 2 mg. of Dilaudid in my IV tube never felt so good. One Percocet 5/325 is worthless, like candy. I used to take 2 Percocet 10/325's every few hours for pain. Now I take 40 mg. of Oxycontin every 6-hours.
A word of advice to others is to always REFUSE to get surgery unless you have your medications IN HAND before they operate. You don't want to end up standing in a pharmacy line after surgery. These incidents wouldn't have happened if I had done this.
If I told you the whole story (which would require a book) you'd be shocked in unbelief. Only God in Heaven knows the abuse, cruelty, mental anguish and torment of soul that I endured during my first and second neck surgeries. Yet God saw me through. Things can happen to a person that aren't noticed by others, because they're just a small contributor or part of the big picture. Meanwhile you're suffering in unbelievable torment and no one cares or knows what's happening to you, because they're not in your shoes. It was far worse than death. I believe that my life's testimony makes the angels cry. I really do. You just don't know. You couldn't possible know. Many people would have killed themselves. I'm so thankful that God gave to us Job and the Psalms, documenting the sufferings, mental anguish, frustrations, pain, grief and sorrows of Job and David.
Kindly, I wish everyone could know, so I wouldn't feel so alone. I'm glad that the Bible says one day my life will be known to all. Matthew 10:26, “Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.” Until then I must suffer. That picture of a man burning at the beginning of this article is exactly how I feel much of the time, and feel now as I type. A life of pain is no life at all; but if it be according to God's will, so be it. I truly need all the prayers I can get, even as I pray for all my web visitors, friend and foe alike, daily.
I couldn't express in words what I have endured since this ministry began, but God knows and He has brought me to this place in my life for a purpose and I want to PLEASE GOD. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has made everything beautiful in HIS TIME. Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.” That word “world” is the fascinating Hebrew word olam olam and means “concealed, that is, the vanishing point.” Literally, God has hidden His divine times from mankind so it will always remain a mystery in this earthly life.
Yet, people sinfully put God on trial for being God and doing exactly what He told us He would do. My friend, there is an awesome God in Heaven. Nothing ever occurs to Him because He knows all. God doesn't have to keep track of the number of hairs upon our head, because He always knows everything about all things. God is omniscient (all-knowing).
I stumbled across a motivational speech on
YouTube this week by the late famous Earl Nightingale (1921-1989). I don't
like motivational speakers because their goal is usually success and money,
not pleasing God. In his speech, to establish personal goals Nightingale
asks the listener to ask them self the question, “If I could have one thing
in the world, what would it be?” My answer was an immediate, “PLEASE GOD.” I
want to please God, my blessed Redeemer, Friend and Lord. Revelation 4:11
says that I was created to PLEASE GOD, and I can only do that BY FAITH
(Hebrews 11:6). That's my purpose for living. That's my only goal in life.
Enoch had this testimony... that HE PLEASED GOD (Hebrews 11:5).
The Biggest Battles Of Our Generation
You are loved, whoever you may be. I care! Jesus died for every man, woman and child because He loves every one of us unconditionally. Jesus said that all men would know that we are His disciples if we love one another. Love is never sinful compromise. Love is caring enough to speak the truth, even if it means becoming hated and unpopular. The biggest battles that we face today are not same-sex marriage and the Federal Reserve banksters; but rather, the inspiration of the King James Bible and the Biblical meaning of repentance unto salvation. Satan is redefining foundational words of the Christian faith, and in so doing changing the very doctrines of the Word of God. The Gospel is under attack.
The most basic tenets of the Christian faith is that Jesus died, was buried and rose again. This is the Gospel (1st Corinthians 15:1-4). Christ shed His precious blood to wash away our sins (1st Peter 1:18-19). Eternal life is a free gift (Romans 5:15;6:23). To ADD anything to the Gospel is a false plan of salvation. To teach that men must make a drastic change in their life to endeavor in God's ways is a false plan of salvation.
Biblical repentance unto salvation is “a change of mind” that compels a man to believe the Gospel (Mark 1:15); but to teach that a person must have a changed attitude—a desire to clean up their life of sin—is a false plan of salvation. Repentance pertains only toward believing the Gospel; NOT ceasing from a sinful lifestyle. It is a subtle difference, but the difference between free-grace verses self-righteousness.
In other words, the Gospel is the object of true repentance; not ridding one's life of sin, which is what heretics like Ray Comfort and John MacArthur teach. Mark 1:15 plainly teaches that the Gospel is the object of repentance. Men repent and believe the Gospel. That is salvation. Repentance and believing are not two separate steps to salvation; but rather, repentance is a change of mind that prompts a man to believe the Gospel. They are two parts of one step. The man who has repented has believed, and the man who believes has repented. This is why the Gospel of John mentions the word “believe” and “believed” 85-times, but the word “repent” is never mentioned, not even once.
For anyone unfamiliar to the debate, “Lordship Salvation” is the false requirement for salvation that a person surrender their life to Jesus as their Lord (which means forsaking sins, the world, et cetera). They say that faith is not enough to be saved; but that there must also be repentance, which they wrongly define as ceasing from sinful bad habits. Lordship Salvation is a big nightmare and has infected most of our churches today. Romans 10:9 in the New International Version (H.I.V. or NIV) caters to this gang of theological thugs by changing the confession of “the Lord Jesus Christ” to be saved, instead to “Jesus is Lord” to be saved. No wonder this heresy has become so prevalent in churches today.
Do you know what the irony of the Lordship Salvation gang is? They're the one's whom Jesus was talking about in Matthew 7:22-23 when He warned, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” Proponents of the Lordship Salvation heresy attempt to use Matthew 7:22-23 as evidence of their false doctrine; but they leave off Verse 21, which tells us why saying “Lord, Lord” cannot save anyone. Matthew 7:21 says they failed to do the WILL OF THE FATHER. John 6:40 defines the will of the Father as believing on the Son of God.
Men are saved by believing the Gospel, not by changing their attitudes. True repentance is the change of attitude that causes a man to believe the Gospel; not a change of attitude that causes man to to amend his ways, forsake the world and cease from sinful bad habits. A sure sign of Lordship Salvation is when a false prophet says that being sorry for one's sins is not enough to be saved, but that there must also be a desire to cease from personal sins as well.
The truth is that neither are required to be saved. No where in the Scriptures are we told that a person must be sorry and feel remorse (penance) for their sins to be saved. That is Roman Catholic false doctrine. Romans 3:19 says that God's Law was given that all the world might become “guilty before God.” A person need only acknowledge their guilt of sin and believe the Gospel to be forgiven and saved eternally. Thank you for reading this article and God bless you, my friend.
Here is a blessed PROMISE from our great and awesome God and Savior, Jesus Christ...
Philippians 3:20-21, “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”
