A Tale of Horses

 God continues to do all that is necessary to bring YOU into absolute surrender to his will.  After all, haven’t you prayed in one way or another for his will to be done on earth—and in you—as it is in heaven—in the so-called Lord’s Prayer? 

 We live during an amazing era in which God is working in you (as part of the entire worldwide Church). You’re one of his children through which He is pouring out his Spirit to draw all humanity to Himself.

I define the Church as all people everywhere and everywhen in whom Jesus resides permanently in his “unbodied” form of Holy Spirit.  You are the Church. The glorious Church “without spot or wrinkle” is being fashioned into the image of God in marvelous ways.  God is commited to bringing the entire world—and everyone who has ever lived on it—into his coming Kingdom.  However, in order for God to fully commit this great and tremendous ministry into their hands, his children must first submit themselves to his discipline, letting him truly be Master of their entire lives.  Only those willing to be fully used by God are being dealt with in such a manner.  Yes, there is a real work of God going on within those who are called to help usher in God’s Kingdom when Jesus returns to earth.

A Remarkable Vision

 In a minister’s conference a few years ago, God gave a dear friend of mine, Bill Britton, a vision which I want to share with you concerning this harnessing of our wills. Bill has since died and is now with God in his heavenly Kingdom.  Bill was a dear friend who helped me personally in many ways.  I look forward to seeing him again when Jesus eturns or when I die.  Before he died, Bill gave me verbal permission to share this vision in any way I choose.  I’ve shared it with thousands of people.

The following is the vision Bill saw; I have shortened it and edited it in some respects to make it a bit more readable.

                “On a dirt road in the middle of a wide field stood a beautiful carriage, similar to a stagecoach, but all edged in gold, and with beautiful carvings.   It  was  pulled   by  six   large chestnut horses, two in the lead, two in the middle, and two in the rear. But they were not moving; they were not pulling the carriage and I wondered why not.  Then I saw the driver underneath the carriage, on the ground on his back, just behind the last two horses’ heels, working on something between the front wheels of the carriage. 

I thought, ‘He is in a dangerous place, for if one of those horses kicked or stepped back, they could kill him; or if they decided to go forward, or got frightened somehow, they would pull the carriage right over him.’ But he didn’t seem afraid, for he knew those horses were disciplined and would not move until he told them to move.  The horses were not stamping their feet nor acting restless, and though there were bells on their feet, the bells were not tinkling. There were pom-poms on their harnesses over their heads, but the pom-poms were not moving.  The horses were simply standing still and quiet, waiting for the voice of the Master.

Two Young Colts 

                As I watched the harnessed horses, I noticed two young colts coming out of the open field nearby; they approached the carriage and seemed to say to the harnessed horses:  ‘Come and play with us, we have many fine games, we will race with you, come catch us . . .’   And with that the colts kicked up their heels, flicked their tails and raced across the open fields.  But when they looked back and saw the team of horses were not following, they were puzzled.  They knew nothing of harnesses, and could not understand why the horses did not want to play.  So they called to them:  ‘Why do you not race with us?  Are you tired?  Are you too weak?  Do you not have strength to run?  You are much too solemn, you need more joy in life.’ 

But the harnessed horses answered not a word, nor did they stomp their feet or toss their heads.  But they stood, quiet and still, waiting for the voice of the Master.  Again the frisky colts called to them: ‘Why do you stand in the hot sun?  Come out here in the shade of this nice tree.  See how green the grass is?  You must be hungry, come and feed with us, it is so green and so good.  You look thirsty, come drink from one of our many streams of cool, clear water.’  But the harnessed horses answered them with not so much as a glance, but stood still, waiting for the command to go forward with the King.

In The Master’s Corral

          And then the scene changed, and I saw lariat nooses fall around the necks of the two colts, and they were led off to the Master’s corral for training and discipline. How sad they were as the lovely green fields disappeared, and they were put into the confinement of the corral with its brown dirt and high fence.  The colts ran from fence to fence, seeking freedom, but found they were confined to this place of training. And then the Trainer began to work with them, with his whip and his bridle.    What a fate for those who had been all their lives accustomed to such freedom!  They could not understand the reason for this torture, this terrible discipline.  What great crime had they done to deserve this?  Little did they know of the responsibility that was to be theirs when they had submitted to the discipline, learned to perfectly obey the Master, and finished their training.

Discipline and Rebellion

          One of the colts rebelled under the training, and said, ‘This is not for me.  I like my freedom, my green hills, my flowing streams of fresh water.  I will not take any more of this confinement, this terrible training.’  So he found a way out, jumped the fence and ran happily back to the meadows of grass.  And I was astonished that the Master let him go, and did not go after him.  But he devoted his attention to the remaining colt.  This colt, though he had the same opportunity to escape, decided to submit his own will, and learn the ways of the Master. And the training got harder than ever, but he was rapidly learning more and more how to obey the slightest wish of the Master, and to respond to even the quietness of his voice.  

And I saw that had there been no training, no testing, there would have been neither submission nor rebellion from either of the colts. For in the field they did not have the choice to rebel or submit, they were ‘sinless’ in their innocence.  But when brought to the place of testing, training, and discipline, then obedience or rebellion came to the surface; yet I saw that without this there could be no growing relationship with the Master.

The Harness

                Finally, this period of training was over.  Was the colt now rewarded with his freedom, and sent back to the fields?  Oh no.  But a greater confinement than ever now took place, as a harness dropped about his shoulders. Now he found there was not even the freedom to run about the small corral, for in the harness he could only move where and when his Master spoke.  And unless the Master spoke, he stood still. The scene changed, and I saw the other colt standing on the side of a hill, nibbling at some grass. 

Then across the fields, down the road came the King’s carriage, drawn by six horses. With amazement he saw that in the lead, on the right side, was his brother colt, now made strong and mature on the good corn in the Master’s stable.   He saw the lovely pom-poms shaking in the wind, noticed the glittering gold-bordered harness about his brother, heard the beautiful tinkling of the bells on his feet . . . and envy entered his heart.  

Thus he complained to himself:  ‘Why has my brother been so honored, and I am neglected?  They have not put bells on my feet, nor pom-poms on my head.  The Master has not given me the wonderful responsibility of pulling his carriage, nor put on  me the golden harness.  Why have they chosen my brother instead of me?’ And by the Spirit the answer came to me as I watched.  ‘Because one submitted to the will and discipline of the Master, and one rebelled; thus one has been chosen and the other set aside.’

Famine In The Land

   But then there came a famine in the land, and the rich green pastures and flowing streams of yesterday were not to be had.  And one day the colt stood on the hillside on weak and wobbly legs, wondering where to go next to find food; he barely had strength to go on.   The little colt (I was amazed that it never seemed to grow or mature) stumbled here and there across the fields looking for fresh streams and green pastures, finding none.  Still he stumbled, seemingly in circles, always looking for something to feed his famished spirit.  It seemed like there was no use, for good food and flowing streams were a thing of the past, and all the efforts to find more only taxed his waning strength.  

                Suddenly, he again spied the King’s carriage coming down the road, pulled by six great horses.  And he saw his brother, fat and strong, muscles rippling, sleek and beautiful with much grooming.  His heart was amazed and perplexed, and he cried out:  ‘My brother, where do you find the food to keep you strong and fat in these days of famine?  I have run everywhere in my freedom, searching for food, and I find none.  Where do you, in your awful confinement, find food in this time of drought?  Tell me, please, for I must know!’  

                And then the answer came back from a voice filled with victory and praise: ‘In my Master’s House, there is a secret place in the confining limitations of his stables where he feeds me by his own hand, and his granaries are never empty, and his well never runs dry.’    And with this God made me understand that at a time when people are weak and famished in their spirits in the time of spiritual famine, that those who have submitted their wills to God, and have come into the secret place of the Most High, into the utter confinement of his perfect will, shall have abundance, and a never-ending flow of fresh streams of revelation by his Spirit.” 

Thus the vision ended. 

Interpretation

Being born into the Family of God, feeding in the green pastures and drinking of the many streams of the unfolding revelation of his purposes is fine and wonderful.  But it is not enough.  While we were children, young and undisciplined, limited only by the outer fence of the “law” that ran around the limits of the pastures, the Master was content to watch us develop and grow into young adulthood, spiritually speaking.  But the time came to those who fed in his pastures, and drank at his streams, when they were to be brought into discipline and training for the purpose of making them responsible, adult sons and daughters.  

Many of God’s children today wonder why the disciplined ones won’t run after every new “revelation” or feed on every opportunity to engage in seemingly “good and profitable,” dead religious activities.  They wonder why some will not race with them in their frantic efforts to build great works and great and notable ministries.  They cannot understand the simple fact that this group of believers in Jesus is waiting for the voice of the Master, and they do not find God in all this outward activity.  They will move in their time, when the Master speaks.  But not before, though many temptations come from the playful colts.

And the colts cannot understand why those who seemingly appear to have great abilities and strength are not putting it to good use.  “Get the carriage on the road,” they say, but the disciplined ones, those in God’s harness, know better than to move before they hear the voice of the Master.  They will move in God’s timing, with great purpose, and great responsibility.

And God helped me understand that there were many whom He had brought into training who had rebelled against the discipline, the chastening of the Father.  And they could not be trusted with the great responsibility of maturity, so He let them go back to their freedom, back to their dead religious activities, and revelations and gifts.  They are still his people—his Church—still feeding in his pastures, but He has set them aside from his great plans and purposes at this time in history.  So they revel in their freedom, feeling that they are the chosen ones with the many streams of living waters, not knowing they have been set aside as “unfit” for the great work God is doing at this time. 

So faint not, fellow believers in Jesus, for it is God who brings you into the confinement of his will—and not an enemy.  It is for your good, and for his glory, so endure all things with praises and thanksgiving that He has counted you worthy to share in his glory!  Rejoice in your trials, in all your tribulations, and glory in his cross, and in the confining limitations of his harness, for He has chosen you, and has taken upon Himself the responsibility of keeping you strong and well fed, so lean upon Him, and trust not in your own ability and understanding.  

You shall be fed, and his hand shall be upon you, and his glory shall overshadow you, and flow through you as it goes forth to cover the earth.  Glory to God!  Bless the Lord, He’s wonderful!  Let Him be Master of your life, friends, and complain not at that which He brings to pass in your life.

Abundance in Famine

For in the time when famine sweeps the land, He shall feed by his own hand those surrendered to his perfect will, and who dwell in the secret place of the Most High.  When terror stalks the land, those in his harness shall not be afraid, for they shall feel his bit and bridle and know the guidance of his Spirit.  When others are weak and frail and fearful, there shall be those who are strong in the power of his might, and lack for no good thing.  In this era of history when the pointless and dead traditions of the religious systems have proven false, and their streams have dried up, then his Chosen ones shall speak forth the true Word of God.  So rejoice, children of God, that you have been chosen by his grace for this great work in this last hour.

The fence which kept the colts in their own meadows and their own pastures means nothing to the team in the harness, for the gates open to them, and they go forth pulling the King’s carriage into many delightful and wonderful places.  And so to those who are brought into absolute surrender to his will, there is no Law, only grace.  For they move in the Grace of God, led only by his Spirit where all things are lawful but not all things are expedient.  This is a dangerous realm for the undisciplined, and many have surrendered to sin as they leaped over the fence without his harness and His bridle. Some have thought of themselves as being completely harnessed and surrendered to Him, only to discover that in some areas of their lives rebellion and self-will continue to reign.

Let us wait before Him until he puts his noose around us and draws us to his place of training.  And let us learn of the dealings of God and the movings of his Spirit until at last we feel his harness drop about us, and hear his voice guiding us.  Then there is safety from the traps and pitfalls of sin, and then shall we abide in his house forever!

“Dear friends, don’t resent God’s discipline; don’t sulk under his loving correction.  It’s the child He loves that God corrects; a Father’s delight is behind the discipline and correction.”    –God, Proverbs 3: 11, paraphrased

To think about this month

“Dear child of God, don’t shrug off God’s discipline, but don’t be crushed by it either.  It’s the child God loves that He disciplines; the child He embraces, He also corrects!”   –Hebrews 12: 11, paraphrased

Bill Boylan
Life  Enrichment Services, Inc
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated December 2020

The Christmas Story

Note:  I wrote this Christmas story a few years ago when friends asked me to sort of “update” it and make it more readable.  I wrote it to be read serially a little at a time (perhaps a day at a time) for a few weeks leading up to Christmas.

Read it as a family, as a church group, as a Bible study group, by “children” of all ages, or in any number of settings.  It’s designed to make the timeless Christmas story a bit more real to my readers.  I have deliberately taken liberties with punctuation, especially quotation marks.  This issue of The Traveler will be longer than usual in order to tell the entire Christmas story.

Long, long ago, at the dawn of human history as we know it, while the earth was still fresh and unspoiled from the creative hand of God, the Creator told the first Man and Woman that in the far distant future one of their descendants—a unique male baby—would be born.  God told them that one day when that unique baby grew to manhood, He would crush sin and death which had recently entered the world as enemies of the new species of humans.

Centuries slowly passed and no such baby was born, even though each passing generation of God’s followers continued anticipating year after year after year the baby’s promised birth.  From time to time through the passing centuries, God would remind his waiting children that the time would surely come for that special baby to be born. God does not look at the slow passage of time the same way we humans do.

 Some 2000 years before the birth of that special baby, a man named Abraham, called “The Friend of God,” had faith in God’s promises. 600 years later, the great leader, Moses, also believed the special baby would be born some future day.   As the centuries wearily plodded on, the nation of Israel’s King David believed God’s promise, too—fully a thousand years before that special event.   And  the  ancient prophet Isaiah knew about it some 700 years before that special baby was born.  God inspired Isaiah to write about it in these words:  

                    “God Himself will give a sign: a child shall be born to a virgin!  And the child shall be named ‘Emmanuel,’ meaning ‘God with us.’  For unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given.  And the government shall be upon his shoulders. These will be his royal titles: Wonderful. Counselor. The Mighty God. The Father of eternity. The Prince of Peace.

“His ever-expanding, peaceful government will never end. He will rule with perfect fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor, King David.  He will bring true justice and peace to all the nations of the world.  This is all going to happen because God himself will do it!”

Another prophet, Micah, who also lived 700 years before the birth of that special child, wrote: “O Bethlehem, you are but a small village in Israel, yet you will be the birthplace of the King of all time and eternity!”

Still, the long centuries rolled on.  But at long last the time was finally beginning to draw near when God’s special baby would be born.  God began to orchestrate great and marvelous events in the starry heavens and on the waiting earth.   Wise men from the fabled land of Persia—men who were scientists and astronomers—had read in the stars and ancient books about a king to be born soon in the nation of Israel hundreds of miles to the west.  They began to make preparations to embark upon a long journey to pay homage to the baby who would soon be born King of all humanity.

As great events were occurring in the starry heavens, God then began to cause certain events to take place in the world’s leading empire—the great Roman Empire—by causing the most powerful world leader of that time—Emperor Caesar—to establish an entirely new government tax and census bureau so that the baby would be born exactly where Micah—700 years earlier—had prophesied he would be born.  The stage was almost ready now. The Jewish people were living in expectation of great events. They were oppressed by the occupying Roman armies, but convinced the long-awaited King would be born soon.

Two people in the Jewish nation who had true faith in God and looked for a King to come were a man named Joseph and a young, teenaged girl named Mary. To that faithful couple came the first stirrings of God’s Spirit, preparing them for the birth of the special baby.  Another who had true faith was a Jewish priest named Zachariah. He was in the holy city of Jerusalem for his annual two-week tour of duty as the officiating priest at the Temple.  The offer of a lifetime came for Zachariah this year—he was chosen to offer incense to God all alone in the great Temple—a tremendous honor.  Listen to what happened to Zachariah:

Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth were godly people, careful to obey all God’s laws in spirit as well as in letter. But they had no children, for Elizabeth had been unable to conceive, and now they were both very old.  One day Zachariah was going about his duties in the Temple and it was his day to burn incense before God.  Meanwhile, a great crowd stood outside in the Temple court, praying as they always did during that part of the service when incense was being burned.  Zachariah was in the sanctuary when suddenly an angel appeared, standing to the right of the altar of incense!  His clothing and face glowed with a bright light.  Zachariah was startled and terrified.  

But the angel said, Don’t be afraid, Zachariah!  For I have come to tell you that God has heard your prayer, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son!  And you must name him John.  You will both feel great joy and gladness at John’s birth, and many others will rejoice with you.  John will be one of God’s great men.  He will be filled with God’s Spirit even from before his birth!  And he will persuade many people to turn to God.  He will be a man of rugged spirit and power like Elijah, one of God’s ancient prophets, and he will precede the coming of the King, preparing the people for his arrival.  He will help adults to believe like little children, and will change disobedient people to true faith. 

But . . . but . . . my wife and I are too old to have a baby.  This is impossible, stammered Zachariah.  Elizabeth and I are both too old to have a baby!  Then the angel replied, I am Gabriel.  I stand in God’s very presence.  It was He who sent me to you with this good news!  And because you haven’t believed me, from now until John is born—and he WILL be born!—you will be unable to speak. For my words will certainly come true at the right time.  Meanwhile, the crowds outside were uneasy, waiting for Zachariah to appear; they wondered why he was taking so long inside.  When he finally came out, he couldn’t speak to them, and they realized from his gestures that something strange, unusual, and wonderful must have happened to him inside the Temple.  Soon afterwards his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and went into seclusion for five months. How kind God is, she exclaimed, to take away my disgrace of having no children.

Now wonder-filled events began to move even more rapidly. The wise men from Persia had already begun their long journey by camel train to seek out the new King whom they knew would be born soon.   Among the angels of heaven there was mounting excitement as they anticipated the great events soon to occur on earth.  After all, it wasn’t often God dispatched the mighty angel Gabriel himself on a special mission to earth.

Finally, time and eternity—and heaven and earth—are about to touch as events began to unfold more rapidly now.      A month after Elizabeth had gone into seclusion, God sent the same angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in the region of Galilee, to a teenage virgin named Mary, who was engaged to be married to Joseph, a descendant of King David.  

Gabriel appeared to Mary and said, Hail, favored lady! You have been specially chosen!  God is with you in a special way!  Confused and disturbed, Mary wondered what Gabriel meant. What was he saying to her?  Suddenly she felt very uneasy. Don’t be frightened, Mary, Gabriel told her, for God has decided to wonderfully bless you! Very soon now, you will become pregnant and give birth to a baby boy.  You are to name him Jesus.  He shall be very great and shall be called the Son of God. And God shall give him the throne of his ancestor, King David.  And he shall reign over the earth for all time and eternity.  His Kingdom shall never end!  Mary asked Gabriel, But how can I have a baby?  I’m still a virgin.  I’m not married to Joseph yet.  I don’t understand.  Gabriel replied, God’s Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of God shall be inside you, so the baby born to you will be the Son of God.

Furthermore, six months ago your aunt Elizabeth—‘the barren one,’ people used to call her—became pregnant in her old age!  Truly, every promise God makes comes true.

Mary replied, I am God’s servant, and I am ready to serve God in whatever way He chooses.  May everything you said come true.  And then Gabriel disappeared. Mary wasted no time, hurrying a few days later to the highlands of Judea to visit Zachariah and Elizabeth.  At the sound of Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth’s child leaped within her and she was filled with God’s Spirit.

Elizabeth shouted a happy greeting and exclaimed to Mary, You are favored by God above all other women, and your baby is destined for greatness beyond belief.  

What an honor this is, that the mother of God should visit me!  When you came in and greeted me, the instant I heard your voice, my baby leaped inside me for joy!  God has given you this wonder-full blessing to be the mother of his Son because you believed what God said. 

Mary responded, Oh, how I praise God.  How I rejoice that He is my savior!  For He took notice of me—his lowly servant girl—and now generation after generation shall call me blessed of God.  For He, the Mighty Holy One, has done great things for me.  His mercy rolls on from generation to generation, to all who reverence him. How powerful is his mighty arm to those who are humble!   He has satisfied people with hungry hearts.  And he has helped his servants, the people of Israel.  He has not forgotten his promise to be merciful. 

Mary stayed with Elizabeth about three months before returning to her own home.  By now, Elizabeth’s waiting was over, for the time had come for the baby John to be born—and it was a boy, just as Gabriel had promised.  The word of John’s birth spread quickly to her neighbors and relatives about how kind God had been to her, and everyone rejoiced.   When the baby was eight days old, all the relatives and friends came for the circumcision ceremony. They all assumed the baby’s name would be Zachariah, after his father.  But Elizabeth said, No, he must be named John. What? They exclaimed.  There is no one in all your family by that name. 

So they asked Zachariah, talking to him by gestures.  He motioned for something to write on, and to everyone’s surprise wrote:  His name is John!  Instantly Zachariah could speak again, and he began praising God.

 Wonder fell upon the whole neighborhood, and the news of what had happened quickly spread through the Judean hills.  Everyone who heard about it asked, I wonder what this child will turn out to be?  For the hand of God is surely upon him in some special way.  Then his father Zachariah was filled with God’s Spirit and spoke this prophecy: Praise the God of Israel, for He has come to visit his people and redeem them.  He is sending us a Mighty Savior from the royal line of his servant, King David, just as he promised through his prophets long ago.  Zachariah continued to prophesy: And you, my little son, John, shall be called the prophet of the glorious God, for you will prepare the way for the true King, the special Anointed One. You will tell people how to be saved through forgiveness of their sins.  All this will be because the mercy of God is very tender, and heaven’s dawn is about to break upon us, to give light to all who sit in darkness and death’s shadow, and to guide us to the path of peace.

The baby John loved God and when he grew up, he lived out in the lonely wilderness until he began his public ministry to the nation of Israel.  Finally, the great mystery of the ages, hidden for centuries of time, now began to be fully unveiled.  The curtain between time and eternity is drawn back.  Now, here are the facts concerning the birth of Jesus:  His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph.  But while she was still a virgin she became pregnant by God’s Spirit.  Joseph, her fianceé, couldn’t understand how Mary had become pregnant, and, being a man of principle, decided to break the engagement, but to do it quietly as he didn’t want to publicly disgrace Mary.

As he lay in bed considering everything, he fell asleep and began to dream.  In the dream, an angel stood beside him and said:   Joseph, don’t hesitate to take Mary as your wife!  For the baby within her was placed there by God’s Spirit.  And Mary will give birth to a son, and you shall name him Jesus (meaning Savior), for He will save people from their sins.  This will fulfill all of God’s promises through the prophets in ages past.    When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel commanded him. He went ahead with the marriage and brought Mary home to be his wife, but she remained a virgin until after the baby was born.  And Joseph named the baby, Jesus.

Here’s another account about the birth of Jesus:  About this time Caesar Augustus, the Roman Emperor, ordered that a census for tax purposes should be taken throughout the empire. It was late spring of the year and everyone was required to return to his ancestral home for this tax registration. 

Because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to travel 80 miles south to Bethlehem in Judea, King David’s ancient home—journeying there from the Galilean village of Nazareth where Joseph and Mary lived and where Joseph worked at his carpentry business. Bethlehem was about 80 miles north of Nazareth through the Jordan River valley.  Joseph took with him Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant by this time.  The trip took about a week; they had to go slowly because of Mary’s late-stage pregnancy.  When they arrived in Bethlehem, there was no room at the village inn, so they stayed in a stable in a hollowed out cave in the hills near the village.

While they were in Bethlehem, the time came for the baby to be born, and Mary gave birth to her first child, a son.  The midwife and other women helped Mary wrap the baby in a blanket.  For a makeshift cradle, they took a small feeding trough used for the domestic animals in the stable, cleaned it, packed it with fresh straw, and covered it with a cloth.  That enchanting, clear spring night some shepherds were in the fields outside the village, tending their flocks of sheep.  Suddenly, an angel appeared among them, and the landscape shone bright with the glory of God. 

The shepherds were frightened, but the angel said, Don’t be afraid! I bring you the most joyful news ever announced, and it is for everyone!  The Savior—yes, the special Anointed One, the King, the Lord—has been born tonight in Bethlehem!  How will you recognize Him?  You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a feeding trough in a cave!  Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of other angels—the armies of heaven—thousands upon thousands of them—praising God:  Glory to God in the highest heaven, they said, and peace on earth for all those who please God!  When this great army of angels had risen in the night sky and returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, Come on! Let’s go to Bethlehem!  Let’s see this wonderful thing that has happened.

They ran to the village and found their way to Mary and Joseph.  And just as the angel had said, there was the baby lying in the feeding trough. The shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had told them about this baby.  All who heard the shepherds’ story expressed astonishment, but Mary quietly treasured these things in her heart and often thought about them while the baby Jesus grew to be a man.

When the baby was a little older and the family was living in Nazareth, the astronomers from Persia finally arrived in Jerusalem, the capitol of Israel, asking Where is the newborn King of the Jews?  For we have seen his star in far-off eastern lands, and have come to worship Him.  King Herod was deeply disturbed by their questions, and all Jerusalem was filled with rumors.  Herod called a meeting of the religious leaders. Did the prophets tell us where the special Anointed One would be born?  he asked them.  Yes, in Bethlehem, they replied, for that is what the prophet Micah wrote about almost 700 years ago.  

Then Herod sent a private message to the wise men from the East, asking them to come see him; at this meeting he found out from them the exact time when they first saw the special star. Then he told them, Go to Bethlehem and search for the child. And when you find him, return and tell me, so I can go and worship him, too.  After this interview, the astronomers started out again. And look!  The special star appeared to them again, stopping right over the house where the young child, Jesus, was living. Their joy knew no bounds! 

Entering the house where the child and Mary his mother were, they knelt in front of him, worshiping Him. Then they opened their presents and gave Him gold, frankincense, and myrhh.  But when they returned to their own land, they didn’t go through Jerusalem to report to King Herod, for God had warned them in a dream to go home by another route.  After the wise men left Bethlehem, an angel of God appeared to Joseph in a dream.  Get up and escape to Egypt with Jesus and his mother, the angel said, and stay there until I tell you to return, for King Herod is going to try to kill Jesus.

That same night Joseph left for Egypt with Mary and Jesus, using the expensive gifts given to Jesus by the wise men to support them on the journey and during the years they stayed in Egypt.  They stayed there until King Herod’s death, finally returning to Galilee to the village of Nazareth again, where they lived until Jesus was thirty years old and began his public ministry.  In Nazareth Jesus grew both tall and wise and was loved by God and all the villagers.

 Years later, when Jesus was about to end his ministry here on earth, knowing he was about to die for the sins of us all, he told the Roman Governor, Pilate, the very reason he had been born on that mysterious night thirty-three years earlier was to die.   About thirty years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the beloved Apostle Paul was thinking of the stories he had heard about Jesus’ miraculous birth.  While he was thinking of that wonderful starry night long ago, God inspired him to write these words:

 When just the right time had come, the precise time God alone had decided, he sent his son, born of Mary, to buy freedom for all of us who were slaves to sin.  Because of Jesus, God could purchase us back from the slave market of sin, reaching out to us, and welcoming and embracing us as his very own children.  And because we are his sons and daughters, God has sent his Spirit into our hearts, so now we can call God our Dear Father. 

Now we are no longer slaves to sin, but God’s own free sons and daughters—his very own, much-loved children.  And since we are his sons and daughters, everything God has belongs to us!  God planned all of this before time began when he decided he would come to earth as a special baby to be born in a stable in a hillside cave near Bethlehem.

After Jesus had been resurrected to new LIFE, here is what one of his followers wrote:   It was not long afterwards that Jesus rose into the sky and disappeared in a cloud, leaving his friends and followers staring up into the sky.  As they were straining their eyes for one last glimpse of Jesus, suddenly two white-robed men were standing there among them, and said, Why are you standing here staring at the sky? Jesus has returned to heaven, and some day—just as he departed from here—this same Jesus will return.

When he returns on great roiling clouds of heaven (just as He had promised on numerous occasions that He would), He will not come again as a helpless baby cuddled in swaddling clothes and lying in a feeding trough.  No, He will appear the second time as a full-grown, eternal Man, the mighty King of kings and glorious Lord of lords, reigning for all time and eternity from his heavenly throne in our hearts and lives!  The governments of earth will be upon his shoulders.  He is the Mighty God and Father of Eternity.  He is the Prince of Peace.  He lives in us and among us in all his glorious fullness.  We are his people and He is our God.  He is making all things new. And of his growing and expanding Kingdom there shall be no end!

 And that, my friends, is the true and complete story of Christmas . . . 

“When the proper time had come, God sent his Son, born of a young pregnant virgin….”   –Galatians 4: 4

“Jesus actually became flesh and lived awhile among us; and we saw the glory and honor and majesty of the Father’s First-Born Son, full of grace and truth.” –John 1: 14 

Thought for the month

“This is how much God loves you:  He gave you his son so you won’t perish because of your sin; by receiving and trusting in Jesus you can have a wonderful, whole, complete, and abundant life now and in eternity.”    –John 3: 16, paraphrased

Bill Boylan
Life Enrichment Services, Inc.
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated December 2020

Enough For Our Journeys

Continued from last month

Money—or the lack thereof—plays a very important role in the basic happiness and mental and emotional health of most people.  Like it or not, money often governs the way you think, feel, and live your life on a daily basis.  If you don’t have enough money, then money often becomes the focal point of your world, and it will negatively affect almost every aspect of your life.  

However, if you do have enough money for your life’s journey, it will free you to pursue God’s plans and purposes for your life in a positive way.  Anyone who feels that money is not important is deceived.   Money is important.  Money is necessary in today’s world!  It is wonderful to live one’s life here fulfilling God’s great plans and purposes for one’s life; to spend one’s time “creating” wealth and prosperity in order to show love and do good in tangible ways is a fulfilling and productive way to live. 

And yet there is a religious prejudice so great that some people honestly feel it is a great honor to be poor.  To strive to be poor—as many truly do—is wrong; it is a great weakness; one who does so is being untruthful to God’s revelation of wealth; to seek to be poor is to be unkind to one’s fellow humans.  Yes, if we can create wealth by honorable and biblical methods, we ought to pursue the goals of wealth and prosperity.

Often (not always), people are poor because of faulty teaching, wrong beliefs, or because of incorrect choices they have made along their journey.  And . . . some people are poor because they are lazy.  But God does not want his children to be poor.  It is not spiritual, holy, or godly to be poor.  God wants his children—you—to have enough for your journey and for that of your close traveling companions.

 “But, wait a minute,” You say, “Jesus—the very one whom we are called to follow and emulate—became poor; it says so right in the Bible!”   You’re absolutely right.  The Bible does say that Jesus became poor.  But don’t stop there; read the entire reference where that is found:  2 Corinthians 8 :9:  “Though Jesus was very rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich.” 

Jesus was poor only in comparison to the tremendous riches he left behind in heaven while he was here for 33 years.  But while he was here he was not poor in human terms; Jesus always had enough for his journey—and for that of his close traveling companions—while he was here on earth.   For example, Jesus’ ministry and entourage was large enough that he required a treasurer.  A treasurer is not necessary unless there is a lot of money in the “treasury.”   Another example:  Jesus wore a seamless robe.  That’s equivalent to a man wearing a fine, tailor-made, very expensive silk suit in today’s male fashion terms.  Jesus paid taxes.  In order to pay taxes, he either had to have an income, own a home, or both.  My personal opinion is that Jesus owned a rather spacious home in his headquarters city of Capernaum, but it’s not a belief I would argue about.

Was Jesus Homeless?

Perhaps you’re questioning right now:  “Maybe  you are correct in what you have just said about Jesus, but  what about that time Jesus said, ‘Foxes have  dens to live in, and birds have nests, but I, the son of Man, have no place of my own, not even a place to lay my head.’?”  Here’s at least a partial answer to your question.  At the time Jesus made that statement, he was passing through the region of Samaria on his way to Jerusalem.  He sent his disciples ahead to make arrangements to stay the night in a nearby Samaritan village.  The citizens of that village turned them away, because most Samaritans would have nothing to do with their Jewish “cousins” (much like the antagonism today between Jews and Palestinians in modern Israel).  So . . . in response to being turned down for a night’s lodging, Jesus made that statement.  He was simply saying that he was having difficulty finding a place to stay that night on his journey to Jerusalem.  He was not saying he was so poor that he never had a decent place to sleep.  Well, there you have it.  Just a few examples to illustrate that Jesus was not poor during his 33 years here on earth.

 What’s my main point?  God does not want us to be poor either during our mortal journey here on earth—no matter where we live or in what type of society or culture we live!

The Root Of All Evil!

 Here’s another point.  Someone will say: “The Bible declares that money is the root of all evil!”   Not True . . . The Bible claims the love of money is the root of all evil.  The greedy grasping for money is the root of all evil.  The inordinate preoccupation with obtaining money is the root of all evil.  Money in itself is neither good nor bad; it is merely a medium of exchange used for commerce during this life.  In fact, money can often be the root of much good!  It is the unholy fixation and striving for money to pursue one’s own ends that is evil—not money in and of itself.   It is when a person makes an idol of money that it is wrong.  Think of what you could do if you had more money and were motivated by God in what you did with that money.  Think of what you could do for your family and loved ones; for your Church; for missions; for the spread of God’s Kingdom on earth.

Often we have a prejudice against money because we have a prejudice about how some wealthy person has misused his or her money.  But that’s a problem with those types of people, not with the money they have.  Not all wealthy persons misuse their money.  Yes, a few do, and they are the ones who are most often in the public eye—their greed, their dishonesty, their pretentious opulence.  But what of those who produce wealth and then quietly—behind-the-scenes—give much of it to God’s causes, to charity, to good works?  We don’t hear of them because they do not make the headlines and the news.  There are many more of them than there are those who misuse and abuse their wealth.  Many, many wealthy people are godly Jesus-believers who give, and give, and give back to God because they know Who it is who has given them the power to create wealth and prosperity.   And why God has given them that power.

Your Acres Of Diamonds

 The question now becomes:  “How do you find your ‘acres of diamonds’”?  How do you create wealth?  How do you become prosperous?  God asked Moses:  “What is that in your hand?”   God has given each of us—God has placed in each of our hands—certain talents, skills, knowledges and abilities in order to create wealth and become prosperous.  They are right at hand;  you have in your own hands all you need to create wealth and prosperity.  Your “acres of diamonds” is something within you, something within your scope of influence, something in your own hand that God has given you to create wealth and prosperity. 

Ask him to help you dig deep and find it.  Ask him for wisdom and insight, for creative, inventive, and ingenious ideas, for thoughts you can act upon, and to bring people into your life who can help and assist you.  When you ask God to help you begin to create wealth and prosperity, in a manner of speaking that puts him in a position where he unleashes unseen forces to go to work on your behalf, where wonderful events begin to align in your life without any human explanation, and miracles begin to take place.

One thing to look for is this:  Find some product or service people want and need, and then seek by godly and honest principles to fill that need.  Know what others need, and then invest your time and energies in supplying that need.  Success is almost certain to follow.

True Success

 By the way, would you like the biblical definition of success?  Here it is:   “Success is for me to steadily and consistently move toward accomplishing God’s plans and purposes for my life, according to my potential; it is a journey, not a destination.”  Note:  we gave you the definition of “prosperity” last month.

Does where you are located make a difference in your ability to create wealth and prosperity?  What if you live on the wrong side of the tracks or in a big city slum area?  What if you live in a poverty stricken rural area?  Does it make a difference where you live or what your background is?  Does your lack of formal education make a difference?  Does it make a difference whether or not you have adequate startup capital?  No, it does not.  Does your appearance, your weight, your age, your sex, your race make any difference?  No, they do not.

With modern technology, communication, and transportation, you can meet a need almost anywhere in the world if you find the right product or service.  Do not feel you need to move to a big city.  Do not feel you need to move to the suburbs or to a less densely populated rural location.  For most of us, our “acres of diamonds” are right at hand; we already own it, or possess it, or think it—but we have yet to act upon it.  Find the need, ask God for wisdom and insight; ask God for a spirit of discovery, creation and invention—and then do it.  “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your strength,” declares the Bible. 

Yes, God has given you the power to create wealth and prosperity for you and your close traveling companions on life’s journey.  Ask him how.  Obey him when he tells you.  Give back to him some of the wealth and prosperity he gives you in order to spread his Kingdom on the earth.  Be part of God’s great purposes to enrich the lives of others with the wealth and prosperity God will bring into your life.  Find your “acres of diamonds” right in your own back yard, right at hand—and then be a channel of wonderful blessings to others as you help them locate and work their own “acres of diamonds”.  During a long and arduous part of our life’s journey, my wife and I discovered part of our “acres of diamonds” when God taught us how to get completely out of debt in a relatively short time.

We hope this teaching about discovering your own “acres of diamonds” has been helpful to you.  We pray for God to bless  you.  We wish you true success, wealth and prosperity during your own journey along the King’s Highway in fulfillment of God’s great plans and purposes for your life!       

“When you give [money] to God [by giving to other people], God will return your gift to you [through others].  [[God is your Source; people are simply his means, his instruments.]]  When He gives back to you [when you need it], it will be baskets full:  pressed and squeezed down, shaken back and forth so it gushes out and spills over—a full measure.  The measure you use to give is the measure God will use to give back to you.”  –Luke 6: 38, Paraphrased and Amplified

To Think About This Month

“God, I know I make mistakes with money; help my mistakes to be in giving, not in being stingy.” 

Bill Boylan
Life Enrichment Services, Inc.
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated December 2020

 The year was 1870.  In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USAmerica, Russell Conwell, pastor of Grace Baptist Church, presented a lecture he entitled “Acres of Diamonds.”   The lecture struck a responsive chord in the hearts of his audience, and in years to come he presented the same lecture over 6,000 more times in scores of different settings, ranging from small churches to the packed-out courts of European royalty.  Millions of people paid to hear that famous lecture, and Conwell used most of the proceeds to establish and maintain Temple University. 

Ancient Persia

Here is my updated, revised, modernized version of Conwell’s lecture entitled “Acres of Diamonds.”  Dr Conwell had been among a group of tourists journeying down the Tigris River in what is now Iraq—what was once part of the ancient Persian Empire.  Their guide was one of those people who loved to entertain his patrons by telling them stories about the area through which they were traveling.  Here is a condensed version of one of the guide’s stories.

Long, long ago, there lived in the area a Persian farmer named Al Hafed.  He owned a very large farm with orchards, fields of grain and lush gardens.  Al Hafed was a contented and wealthy man—contented because he was wealthy, and wealthy because he was contented.  One day a passing traveler stopped to rest for a while.  While visiting, the traveler told Al Hafed a legend about how the world began.  The earth had been created a ball of fire; as flames burst through the cooling crust they cast up the mountains and made the hills and valleys.  The crust of the earth that cooled quickly  became  granite; that  which  cooled less quickly became silver; and even less quickly, gold; and after gold, diamonds were made.

The old traveler exclaimed:  “Diamonds are congealed drops of sunlight!”  The old traveler went on his way and Al Hafed began thinking about diamonds. After thinking about diamonds and how much they were worth, he went to bed    that night a poor man—not that he had lost any of his wealth, but poor because he was now discontented, and discontented because he thought he was poor.  He decided he wanted a mine of diamonds.  He sold his farm, collected all his outstanding debts with interest, left his family, and away he went in search of diamonds.

He traveled the world in search of diamonds—crossing raging rivers, scaling rugged mountains, wandering through deserts, enduring harsh jungles.  When his money was all spent, and he was truly poor—truly poverty stricken—Al Hafed cast himself into the ocean to die, a broken and spent man who took his own life in a strange land.  Meanwhile, one day the person who had purchased Al Hafed’s farm led his camel out into one of the lush gardens to drink. 

Curious Flash of Light

As that camel put its nose down into the clear water of the garden brook, the new owner noticed a curious flash of light from the sands of the shallow stream.  Reaching in, he pulled out a black stone having an eye of light that reflected all the colors of the rainbow; he exclaimed:  “This is lovely; it resembles the sun congealed in a stone.”  He displayed the stone in a prominent place in his home.  On his journey home the old traveler stopped again at the same farm to rest, this time visiting with the new owner of Al Hafed’s farm.  When he saw the stone, he recognized it as a diamond.  The old traveler and the new owner rushed to the brook in the garden and stirred up the white sands with their fingers and found more and more and more diamonds. And thus were discovered the famed diamond mines of Golconda, some of richest diamond mines of all time.

The guide concluded his story to the tour group with this moral.  He said that had Al Hafed remained at home and dug in his own garden, instead of wretchedness, starvation, poverty and death in a strange land, he would have had “acres of diamonds”—because every shovelful they dug up on that old farm brought up wonderful diamonds, some of which have decorated the crowns of many of the world’s monarchs. 

A Similar Tale

Here is a similar tale about events which took place closer to home.  In 1847 a man owned a ranch in central California.  Upon reading that gold had been discovered in southern California, he sold his ranch to a Mr. Sutter and started off to hunt for gold in southern California.  Mr. Sutter, the ranch’s new owner, put a mill on the little stream on his newly purchased farm; one day his little daughter who had been playing near the mill, brought home some sand, placing it in front of the fire to dry.  As the sand sifted through the little girl’s fingers a visitor saw bright, shining flakes of gold.  And so began the gold rush to central California, one of the largest gold rushes in all of history. The man who had sold his farm in central California to search for gold in southern California never found gold—gold that had been on his farm all along just waiting to be discovered.

And Another Story

Here is yet another story—one that took place in Pennsylvania.  A man owned a farm in Pennsylvania, but decided to sell it so he could work for his cousin collecting coal oil in Canada.  He sold his farm for $833.00.  He had scarcely left the farm before the man who purchased it went out to water his cattle.  He discovered that the man who had sold him the farm had put a heavy plank across a stream on the property.  The plank was placed so that it acted as a partial dam, holding back some scum-covered water above the plank so the cattle could drink the clear water that flowed below the plank.  For 23 years the previous owner of the farm had been damming back a flow of coal oil worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  The city of Titusville, Pennsylvania now stands on the site of that old farm.

One Final Story

 One final story.  A man was a professor of mining and mineralogy in Massachusetts.  He sold the old Massachusetts farm on which he had been raised, and moved to Wisconsin to work for a mineral mining company.  The farmer who bought the old farm went out to dig potatoes, and as he was carrying them in a large basket he had to pass through a gateway in the stone wall surrounding the potato patch.  The ends of the stone wall came so close together at the gate that the basket barely passed through.  So the farmer set the basket down, and began to remove some of the stones, first from one side, then the other.  He noticed one of the stones was actually a block of native silver, later to be assayed as worth $100,000!  How many times had the professor of mining and mineralogy passed by that stone in the gateway?

You may ask, “What do these stories have to do with me?”  Simply put, it is this:  All those men ought to have been wealthy, but, instead, they were poor.  They ought to have been rich; in fact, they were; they just didn’t know it—until it was too late.  At a time when you should be wealthy and prosperous, you may be poor.   God wants you to prosper.  A reference in a little book near the back of the Bible says this:  “Dear friend, I pray you may prosper in every way and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.” 

Deuteronomy 8: 17 and 18 tell us this:   “You may say to yourself, ‘my power and my own ability have gained . . . wealth for me,’ but remember that God gives you power to create and gain wealth, and he does it to fulfill the covenant he made with your ancestors.”   Yes, God gives his people power to become wealthy and prosperous.  God wants all his children to have wealth and to be prosperous.  But you must understand why.  Why was Abraham prosperous?  Isaac?  Jacob?  Joseph? Job?  David?  Solomon? Joseph of Arimathea?  And in our times such Jesus-believers as J C Penney, R G LeTourneau, Mart Green, and many others?

                The definition of wealth in the Bible is “to have all that is necessary—all that is sufficient—for one’s journey through life.”  

The definition of prosperity is similar:  “to have enough for one’s journey on the road of life—and enough for one’s close traveling companions such as family, loved ones, business associates, employees, and the like.” 

There are 3 reasons God gives people the power to prosper and to be wealthy.  As with so much that God does for us, each of the 3 reasons can be perverted, misused, and abused because we all too often make wrong choices in each of our lives.  Here are the 3 reasons God gives people power to be wealthy and prosperous:

1. So that God’s people will free themselves from the cruel bondage of debt and then remain financially independent. 
2. So that God’s children will be in a position to help finance the spread of the Kingdom of God throughout the entire earth until all people have had an opportunity to learn about God’s great salvation for all people through Jesus.  
3. To help other Jesus-believers have a better income and thus also help them become free from debt and then help finance the spread of God’s Kingdom throughout the earth. 

Yes, for those 3 reasons—and for those reasons alone—God has given you the power to become wealthy and prosperous.  Yes, I know there are many things in this life more valuable than money; yes I know there are many things in this life money cannot buy.  There is much in this life sweeter and holier and more sacred than money.  Nevertheless, the committed Jesus-believer knows there is not one thing in this life that cannot be greatly enhanced and even sanctified by the use of money. Love is the greatest thing in this life, but fortunate is the one who loves who also has wealth.  Money has power to do much good.  For a person to say, “I do not want money,” is to say, “I do not want to love my fellow humans and do them good.”

To be continued next month

“Give your money back to God by giving to others; then God will return it to you through others—with bonus and blessing, good measure, stomped down, and shaken together.  What comes back to you will be given back to you using the same size ‘measuring cup’ with which you gave.” –Paraphrased from Luke 6: 38

To Think About This Month

God, I know I make mistakes in handling the money you provide me.  I want to make mistakes in being generous, not in being stingy!

Bill Boylan
Life Enrichment Services, Inc.
E-Mail:  leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated December 2020

In the first issue of The Traveler in September 2009, I wrote:  “Each of us is a traveler through the eons of time and beyond—into our final, eternal state of being!”

For a couple of reasons, each September’s issue of The Traveler is very similar to the September issues of  previous years.  First, because we are constantly adding new e-mail addresses to our mailing list—and each year’s September issue brings everyone—old and new readers alike—up to date at least once a year.   Second, each September’s issue serves as a constant reminder of who we are and why we write The Traveler, sending it FREE to thousands of readers and students around the world each month.

A reminder:  we are all on a journey, a sojourn, a pilgrimage.  We are all wayfarers, wanderers, and “visitors” journeying through this life toward our True Home in Jesus’ soon-coming Kingdom!  We are not journeying through the land of the living on our way to the land of the dying.  No!  We are journeying through the land of the dying on our way to the land of the living!

And for all of us—no matter our age—this mortal journey comes with great heights and great depths . . . with periods of overwhelming joy and bleak sadness at times . . . with long straightaways and messy detours . . . with deep relationships full of love and with existential loneliness . . . with sunny days and with stormy days . . . with great happiness and deep disappointments, but the journey goes on for each of us.  On this lifelong journey, we can never go pastward, only futureward.  We cannot change our past—only  use events of the past as stepping stones to propel us into our exciting, bright futures with God.

Our past does not necessarily equal our future.  Our future is up to us, “co-creating” it in cooperation with God.  Our future can be despair-filled or hope-filled, based on our daily choices and decisions we make in response to God’s direction and guidance in our lives.

The Bible—the written Word of the one, true, living God—is our lodestone, our GPS, our compass, and our gyroscope to give direction, balance, and guidance to our lives as we travel unerringly toward our True Home at the end of our mortal journey.  That is why we stress and emphasize the Bible in all our teachings and writings.

“Annual Report”

This issue of The Traveler marks the beginning of our eighth year of publication.  In September 2009, we sent our first issue to approximately 65 family members and friends; it was merely an experiment.  At the time, we didn’t have any concrete plans to continue writing and publishing it each month. rom that humble beginning seven years ago, The Traveler is now being read and studied each month by thousands of people around the world on 6 of earth’s 7 continents.  Monthly, we receive responses from as near and far away as Australia, Eurasia, Asia, Africa, South America, and throughout North America.

Most of the responses we receive are positive and encouraging.  Some are quite negative and mean-spirited.  Oh well, it takes all kinds . . .   But overall, it looks like God uses The Traveler each month to fulfill and answer many human needs and questions.  Please think of each September’s issue as my “Annual Report” to all of my readers, so you may develop a feel for what this ministry is all about, and so you get to know more about me personally.

If what we teach helps you, that’s great.  If not, that’s okay, too.  We never argue or try to force our views on others.  We just share what we find in the Bible about our journey.  Do we feel we have a “corner” on truth?  No!  Do we feel we’re better than others?  Nope!  Do we feel everything we teach is totally and completely true and accurate?  No.  No. NO!  We’re simply believers in Jesus who happen to believe the Bible is God’s sole, written revelation of Himself to all humankind.  We feel God wants us to share with others what we learn about Him and about what He’s doing these days among those of us living on planet Earth.  

Quick Recap

In comparison with the limitless and boundless state of being called Eternity, our mortal lives here in time and space on Planet Earth are as brief as a morning fog that vanishes as soon as the rising sun hits it.  Our short lives here are designed to be lived only in preparation for LIFE in Eternity.  Years ago, God summoned me and equipped me to teach the Bible and related subjects to the worldwide Body of Jesus (the Church) without any exclusiveness.  I’ve tried my best to obey Him and to live a decent life while attempting to help other people prepare for LIFE in eternity!

Trapped In Time and Space

I’m “trapped” inside my own skin and can’t really do very much to influence other people except by my prayers for you and by my writings and teachings.  But God is not trapped or limited in any manner, and He can range unlimited throughout the earth, meeting the overwhelming needs of many people, wherever they are located. I pray daily:  “God, from your  unlimited, inexhaustible, abundant resources meet the overwhelming needs of people for whom I pray and for whom I write.”  That’s the most and best I can do for my readers.

Orthodoxy?  Heresy?

Some of the responses I receive are from a few readers questioning the “orthodoxy” of my teachings, whatever that means.  Some have even labeled me a “heretic” (whatever that means, too), but I usually respond to them:  “I’m a happy heretic.”  Long ago, I chose not to blindly accept  without question the teachings of others—even though their teachings might be widely accepted among many people in the Bible-believing world.  And I choose not to unthinkingly and unhesitatingly accept the religious “party line” without ample evidence from the Bible alone. 

I’m an orthodox nonconformist . . .  I try to teach and write what I honestly believe the Bible discloses about God’s character and nature, about his vast creation, and about his relentless, eternal love and grace He extends to all humanity.  I first grasped his extended grace over 60 years ago and my life has been God-filled and grace-filled ever since!  Marvelous grace of our loving God!  Greater than all our sin!

     As many of you know, my autobiography, entitled Him ‘n me, was published a few years ago and seems to be a source of encouragement, enjoyment, enrichment, and inspiration to many people around the world.  My fourth book (about Holy Spirit) entitled Friends Forever, was published in 2012.  Both books can be ordered through any major bookstore and on amazon.com.  It is also available for e-readers.  I think you’ll find my fourth book to be a real “God thing” about Holy Spirit.  Many people don’t know much about Holy Spirit, the “forgotten third person of the trinity,” or they have been misinformed about Him and what He does in our lives.  I feel Friends Forever will help clear up many such matters.  I encourage you to read it for personal enlightenment and encouragement, as well as for group Bible study.  I don’t make any money from my book royalties; all proceeds are given to our ministry, Life Enrichment Services.

Here At Home

Meanwhile, I continue to write new teachings and update previous teachings posted to our ministry web site.  I add one new teaching an average of every few months or so and usually update two or three teachings every month.  Right now, there are about 60 of my life’s teachings on our web site.  I invite you to visit there any time and study my teachings.   Of course, they can all be downloaded and printed.  Use them any way you see fit.

During the past year, we hosted and taught a weekly Bible study in our home as well as in other places in our community. We have witnessed the Holy Spirit genuinely change and transform people when they apply the liberating truths of the Bible to their lives.  I cannot change other people.  Only God the Holy Spirit can do that.  That’s his job; that’s what He does best.  It’s not my job to change anyone.  I just teach the Bible as I understand it and let the Holy Spirit use it to liberate and transform people as only He can do.  My task is to plant seeds in the lives of others and cultivate and water the seeds with prayer.  God’s tasks are to grow the seeds and harvest them when they are ripe!  Each day I make it a point not to confuse whose tasks are whose!

In addition, we continue to be involved in various ways in our local church, Destiny Foursquare Church.  It’s a lively church with a husband and wife team of Pastors—with great teaching, music, and fellowship.  And, I continue to conduct part-time, private counseling using a unique, very effective method of biblically based counseling called theophostic  counseling.  Finally,  after returning from China last year, God asked me to begin to “restructure” my life and slow down a little to prepare me for other tasks and ministries He has in mind for me.

The Most Important Tasks We Should Be Doing!

I honestly feel the most important thing any Jesus believer must do is introduce other people to Jesus!  After that, the second most important task for each of us is to constantly disciple, mentor, teach, and train newer believers in Jesus.  At any given time, I’m usually discipling 4 to 6 other, younger Jesus believers on a weekly basis.  In my own view, if you claim to be a believer in Jesus and you are not continually discipling other, newer believers, something wonderful and fulfilling is missing in your life!  It makes no difference who you are or where you are or what you do or how busy you are, or how adverse your circumstances,

The Bible mandates that it’s part of God’s plans and purposes for each of us always to be introducing others to Jesus and then discipling them!   No excuses!  If you claim to be a believer in Jesus, you ought to be discipling at least one other believer all the time, and then—when finished discipling them—“releasing”  them to—in turn—disciple a minimum of one other, newer believer.  Yes, if you’re not discipling others regularly and consistently, something wonder-full is missing in your relationship with God!  Introducing other people to Jesus and then discipling them is a matter of priorities; you have to MAKE the time; you won’t find it.  Remember, Jesus commands each of us to “go and make disciples” in every nation in which we live and travel.  It’s not a suggestion; it’s a command!

China:  The Sleeping Dragon

Our international focus remains primarily on China, that wonderful nation where Anne and I taught and ministered a number of years ago.  We financially support some Jesus-believer workers there, and are excited about what God is doing in that great nation.  I made these two predictions about China in the early 1990’s, and you can hold me accountable for them:  I predicted that by the year 2015 China would take over the world—not militarily, but economically.  I also predicted that by 2025 China will be the most God-believing nation on this planet, perhaps the most godly nation the world has ever known!  Impossible with humans; a small matter for God!

We also focus some of our giving and support to Jesus’ servants in the nations of Israel and Mozambique.  God is also doing some wonder-full and amazing things in those two nations.  

Travels

I don’t do as much traveling now as I did in years past:  to teach, to minister, to conduct seminars, etc.  However, in August 2014 I spent most of the month ministering on a short-term missions trip in the eastern European nation of Belarus.  Like many people, I have sort of a “bucket list.”  One event that’s been on my bucket list for over 40 years was to attend the International Southern Gospel Convention, held in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, the home of famed Dollywood created by Dolly Parton.  I was finally able to attend that convention two years ago and also got to visit Oak Ridge, Tennessee (The Atomic City), where I lived as a child during World War II.  I also got to visit with some dear friends in North Carolina.

I was excited to be able to go on a brief missions trip to China again in April of last year; I simply planted “Good News seeds” while there—trusting God to grow the seeds and bring them to harvest.  And Anne went to Alaska in July 2015 on a brief missions trip to serve some first first-nation people there.

Books Given

About 10 years ago, 4 very important books were published here in USAmerica; only time—and eternity—will tell the worldwide effects these books have had in the lives of hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions!—of people around the world.   The 4 books to which I’m referring are The Prayer of Jabez, The Purpose Driven Life, Hope Beyond Hell, and Victorious Eschatology.  If you haven’t heard of them or read them, you must have been away on some other planet for the past decade or so.  We scour thrift shops and garage sales to find used copies of each of those books . . . and then give them away to as many people as we’re able to.  We’ve never kept count, but I suppose we’ve given away hundreds—perhaps thousands—of them.  And we’ve seen God use them to transform many lives!  I re-read and re-study each of those books every year, along with a dozen or so other books I re-read each year or so.

A Very, Very Ordinary Man

For those readers who don’t know me and have asked who I am, please understand very clearly that I’m just an ordinary man, a very nondescript, normal believer in Jesus.  My name is Bill Boylan.   I’m married to a lovely wife named Anne, have 3 biological children and one step-daughter; 3 grand-children, and two great-grandchildren.  There is nothing special or outstanding about me.  There’s no way I stand out in a crowd.  I live in a modest home on a quiet residential street in the relatively small community of Rapid City, South Dakota, in the northern Great Plains region of USAmerica near the beautiful Black Hills.  The world-famous Mount Rushmore is only about 25 miles from our home. 

I pay my household expenses every month, help clean our house, wash most of our dishes, assist with our laundry, make our bed most mornings, drive a 17-year old pickup, and wear jeans and a sweatshirt or T-shirt most of the time.  I get sick and grouchy from time to time.  I love to watch silly sitcoms on TV.  And I confess that I love science fiction books, TV programs, and movies.   My hobbies are occasionally hiking in the nearby Black Hills, mall-walking, reading, and writing.

My roots go down deep in this locale.  My brother and his wife live nearby on the cattle ranch originally homesteaded by my great-grandparents in the 1870’s.  But my roots are not too deep; I’m ready to be “uprooted” either when I die or when Jesus returns to planet Earth to awaken me from the sleep of death and inaugurate his eternal Kingdom on Earth.

78 – 18 = 60

 So far, I’ve lived here on planet earth as a mortal for 78+ years.  In the 18^th year of my mortal journey, I invited Jesus into my life and since then I’ve been serving Him for the past 60 years.  fter Jesus returns to Earth, I plan on continuing to live here on Earth in his Kingdom as an immortal being for many thousands more years and then—later—in Eternity, beyond all limitations of time and space—permanently headquartered here on planet Earth in the city of New Jerusalem.

 Most of my employment years were spent as a public school teacher, a medical administrator, and as a mean, tough old sergeant in the U.S.  Air Force and fulltime Army and Air National Guard.  I’ve always been bi-vocational as a so-called “lay person.”   I retired from full-time secular employment a few years ago.  I simply try to let Jesus live his own life in and through me each day.  I want others to see Jesus wrapped in his “Bill Boylan skin” and be drawn to Him through me.  All of us are Jesus’ hands, feet, and mouth in our day-to-day world.

Please don’t tell anyone I’m addicted to McDonalds’ sweet tea; you’ll often find me at a nearby McDonalds sipping sweet tea and visiting with friends, reading my Bible, or reviewing my Bible memory references.  I’m very “generic,” a mixture of Irish, Scottish, and German.  I’m not tall and handsome, I’m not very smart, and I’m not very wise at times.  I’m so very ordinary, you wouldn’t believe it.   I’m human; I sin and make many mistakes.  Just ask my wife and children and friends who know me well—and love me in spite of myself, in spite of my faults, failures, and shortcomings. 

Yes, I’m very ordinary.  But . . . I do love and serve the EXTRAORDINARY God Who lives inside me in his “unbodied form” of the Holy Spirit!  That’s the key.  That makes all the difference in this world and the next.  That same awesome, holy God lives permanently within you in his Spirit form, too, and wants to take your “ordinariness,” change you and transform you, and do EXTRAORDINARY things WITH you, IN you, THROUGH you, and AS you! 

The name of our ministry is Life Enrichment Services; we are a bona fide, legal, not-for-profit religious ministry  incorporated in our state and with our national government.  With God’s inner empowerment, we want to serve you and enrich your life in any way we are able to.  In its most basic definition, “enrich” means to fill your life with good things from our good God.  We pray for you to experience marvelous miracles in your life and in the lives of others whom God brings across your path each day as you continue on your journey through time and space with God, enroute to your final Home in Eternity!

Please feel free to contact us by e-mail or through our website.  We are always here to help you and encourage you in any way we are able to.

Let’s continue journeying on together. . . !

“And now to him who can keep you on your feet, standing tall in his bright presence, fresh and celebrating—to our one God, our only Savior, through Jesus, our Master, be glory, majesty, strength, and rule before all time, for the present time, to the consummation of all time, and in eternity!”  –Jude 24 & 2 5

To Think About This Month

“God, help me travel my journey in such a way that when it comes time to die, the only thing I will have left to do is die.”                                                   –Anonymous

Bill Boylan
Life Enrichment Services, Inc.
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated December 2020

Continued from last month

Beginning around the early 1800’s until approximately World War II, the major evangelistic and missionary efforts to carry the Good News about Jesus to the rest of the world originated in institutional churches of the United States and Europe.  That is no longer true.  The bulk of global missions efforts now originates outside the Western Church.

Western nations are now becoming a major missions field for missionaries from other nations!  Moreover, many foreign evangelists are now targeting North America and Europe as major unreached evangelistic fields.  It is one of the most significant paradigm shifts in all of Church history!

In 1900, the majority of all authentic Jesus believers were found in North America and Europe.  Now, 100+ years later, two-thirds of all Jesus believers are in Asia, Latin America and Africa.  For example, 100 years ago there were perhaps 500,000 authentic Jesus believers in all of Latin America—from Mexico to southern Chile.  Today, there are 40 million Jesus believers in Latin America!  The figures are even more staggering in Asia and Africa. 40,000+ people become Jesus believers each day in China.  South Korea’s population is almost 75% Jesus believers, contrasted with fewer than 2% of them being Jesus believers in 1900.  In Japan, since 1980 hundreds of thousands of her teeming millions have committed themselves to Jesus.  Other Asian nations, even Viet Nam, are experiencing similar explosive growth in new converts to Jesus.

 “U. S. News and and World Report” (November 22, 1993) featured an article “The Lure of the Orient”, stating that the world’s economic center of gravity has now shifted to Asia.   So, too, has the world’s spiritual center of gravity  shifted to Asia (and to Latin America and Africa).  The Christian “world” western Jesus   believers   live   in   today   is   far,  far different than the Christian world of a few generations ago.  On one hand, this paradigm  shift is good news: the efforts of past generations of western missionaries have succeeded; a large part of the non-Western world has been penetrated with the Good News about all God has done for humanity through Jesus. 

On the other hand, the Western Church is no longer strong and healthy in relation to the Church in the rest of the world.  In fact, Dr David Yonghi Cho, pastor of the world’s largest Christian Church (800,000+ members!) in Seoul, South Korea, stated recently that the Western Church is the Korean Church’s “ailing elder brother.”

et’s consider a few more examples of the Church’s paradigm shift before we consider ways to “treat” the ailing elder brother and restore it to its former health and vitality.  The traditional Western Church is largely middle class, middle aged, conservative and “defensive.”  By contrast, the Church in the remainder of the world is poor, full of teenagers and young adults, and on the offensive spiritually.  This young, powerful Church is keenly attuned to the stark realities of poverty, hunger, political oppression, and the supernatural  realm.

The North American and European Church has a monocultural view of the world and of reality.  The thriving Church of Asia, Africa and Latin America has a multi-cultural, pluralistic view of life on planet earth, allowing them to be much more flexible, innovative, and sensitive than the Western Church to the massive movements and strivings of people worldwide—and is much more open to ethnic multiplicity.  North American and European missions activities and methods are fast becoming relics of the past.  In contrast, the Church of Africa, Asia and Latin America has developed a 21st century global vision and is taking the Good News about Jesus to the unreached, using methods and logistics undreamed of by the West.  In addition, they espouse and practice a concept of “power evangelism” in ways generally unknown and unrivaled by the Western Church of the past few generations.

Restoring The “Ailing Elder Brother”

First, the western Church needs to welcome and embrace those “foreign” missionaries and evangelists who are now streaming to the West.  Western Jesus believers need to radically shift their own paradigms and come to understand the reality of the sweeping changes which have occurred since World War Two.  The “ailing elder brother” must understand it can no longer practice business as usual.  The traditional Western church which worships within four walls of a church building at 11 a.m. Sunday morning is no longer worshiping and ministering to God and the masses of unreached people in an effective manner. 

For example (as noted last month), the rapid growth of the so-called mega-churches of the West is misleading.  Reliable surveys disclose that 60 to 95 percent of the numerical growth in churches that average 400 or more members is due to “transfer growth,” not to new conversions.  In contrast, the explosive growth of Third World mega-churches is due almost completely to the influx of new converts to Jesus.  Also, the Western Church can survive—and thrive—only by abandoning traditional clergy and laity roles.  The clergy must equip and train so-called laypersons to do the full work of ministry.  Laypersons must be freed to minister in creative and ingenious ways where the unreached are—not where they are invited to come once a week on Sunday morning.

It is still true that most personally meaningful events in the lives of ordinary Western citizens occur at home; in addition to its regular services, the western Church must incorporate regular meetings in homes.  Next, the Western Church must yield full equality to women in ministry, leadership and service.  Finally, instead of exclusively initiating and supporting more missions activities based in North America and Europe, the Western Church must begin to support and assist more non-Western, indigenous missions activities.  The Western Church must share its expertise, training, and resources with non-Western missions.  Western Jesus believers must serve them and become partners with them, allowing them to assume full leadership while the western Church remains in the background as helpers and supporters.

 Which nations must western believers begin to aid and serve in their missions efforts?  Currently (early 21^st century) the top ten missionary sending countries from the non-Western world are India, Nigeria, Zaire, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Kenya, Brazil, the Philippines, Ghana, Zimbabwe, and South Korea.  I predict that in the not-too-distant future, China will top them all as vast numbers of missionaries from the “Sleeping Dragon” begin to march forth to carry the Good News about Jesus to the unreached peoples of the world.  Concerning China, I invite you to read another teaching on this web site entitled Shang Ti and Sinim.

Right now, those top ten nations have the missionaries to send forth; the western church has the money to support them, money which non-western Jesus believers will accept as long as western believers make no efforts to use the money to control them.   They even want western believers to work side by side with them as helpers, co-laborers, educators, thinkers, and theologians—as long as westerners don’t seek to control!  Can the Western Church humble itself enough to serve in those capacities?  After all, western Jesus believers are used to being in charge.  A significant paradigm shift, indeed!

The face of the worldwide Church has changed—markedly and permanently.  How should those in the western Church respond to this change?  More than anything else, they must humble themselves and become servants to the non-Western Church.  Western believers must make room for power-full, new, non-western leaders who don’t look, act, talk, and think  like we do.  We must learn to submit to their God-ordained leadership.  One of those non-western Church leaders I refer to is Pastor Joseph Prince from the New Creation Church in Singapore.  You can view his type of pastoral leadership and some of their church services at josephprince.org.  The western Church must give money.  Those in the West have been tremendously blessed with enormous wealth in comparison to the relative poverty of most people in the rest of the world.  God holds the western Church responsible and accountable for their wise management of that great wealth.  Western believers must share their wealth with non-Western brothers and sisters who are carrying the old, old story about Jesus in such power-full new ways to the unreached people of the world—including the unreached in North America  and Europe.

Change Is Not Coming.  It’s Already Here!

Yes, there has been an historic paradigm shift in the worldwide Church of Jesus.  No, those in the western Church have not been left out nor left behind in God’s great plans and purposes for humankind.  But their roles and status both at home and abroad have changed forever.  They must accept that change, adapt and fashion themselves to it, and return to the mainstream of God’s worldwide evangelistic and missions activities.

Western believers must remove their heads from the sands of time, stand tall, and stride forward hand-in-hand with the amazing new masses of non-western believers whom God has called to proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the world as the 21st century marches rapidly into the future of Church history.

Jesus said He will build his Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against its forward movement.  It’s not the gates of hell western believers must be concerned with. 

Rather, those in the western Church must ensure they are not the ones standing in the way of the march of the rest of the worldwide Church as it seeks to bring all the world’s people into God’s glorious Church marching down the corridors of the 21st century!  For example, those western European Jesus believers living around 300 A.D. who were forced by Imperial Roman edict to begin meeting in special Church buildings rather than in homes probably had a very difficult time changing from “church in the home” to “attending” church in a church  building. 

It probably took them a while to feel they remained authentic Jesus believers after they began meeting in Church buildings with all the activities and events that began to accompany such meetings—after hundreds of years of having met exclusively in homes for worship, service, and ministry.  Those early Jesus believers would no doubt understand and sympathize fully with the mindset displacement many western Jesus believers are presently experiencing as they move from church buildings to the church also meeting in homes.  My own view for the “church in the now” is a compromise view:  yes, meet weekly in homes, but also meet with other believers in a church building once a week, each type of meeting fully connected to the other for maximum impact on those who are not yet believers in Jesus.

                    “Hallelujah!  God has finally begun to totally reign over all creation and all humanity.  Let us be glad, rejoice, and Give God the glory due Him, because the marriage of Jesus to his completed Church has finally come.  The Church has prepared herself with fine, bright, pure, linen, representing the righteous acts of God’s people.  Greatly blessed are those invited to the marriage feast of Jesus, the  Lamb  of God!”                                                                                                          –paraphrased  from  Revelation 19   in the  Bible

To Think About This Month   

“The Church of Jesus is not composed of perfect people—especially me!  Why, then, do I get so upset if a fellow Jesus-believer in the Church sins or offends me?  We in the Church have a long way to go before we will be Jesus’ perfect bride invited to His  marriage feast.  In the meantime, I must remember that no Jesus believer is yet whole and complete (including me!).  Let’s be patient and forgiving of one another.  We’re all still God’s works in process!”  

Bill Boylan
Life Enrichment Services, Inc
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated December 2020

I wonder what readers might think if they were to read this teaching about Church in the early 22^nd century, 100 years from now?   Will they feel my teaching was timely, appropriate, and accurate?  Or, might they feel I was a “false prophet” when I wrote it and none of the things I wrote about came to pass? 

 Of course, I won’t be here in my present mortal state to be a part of the worldwide Church—the Living Body of Jesus—a  century from now, but some of you could be.  But, I’m here now—near the start of this momentous century–and I want to share some thoughts with you about the condition of the 21st century Church.  For the most part, I will be focusing on the Church in North America and Europe, but will also consider the worldwide Church as a whole.

Whenever I teach about Church, I always make a distinction between the “western” Church of Europe and North America and the Church in the rest of the world, namely much of Asia, South America, and Africa.   The “eastern orthodox” churches generally headquartered in Russia and eastern Europe are another matter altogether;  I won’t address them in this teaching.

 I read and hear a lot of speculation since the turn of the 21st century about what might happen to the Church during the next 100 years—and beyond.  Some are saying it’s the  era of the mega-church.  Some are saying the Church must go “underground” in order to survive.  Others are saying, “We don’t need to be concerned about the future of the Church; after all, it’s going to be raptured any day now.”  Still others are saying rich and colorful liturgy and sacramental tradition will draw to Church those people who have lost their spiritual moorings.  And so it goes . . .

I hesitate to add some of my own thinking—one  more viewpoint—about  the  future  of  the Church, but I feel my viewpoint needs to be shared.   I begin by stating  I  am  a  Futurist.   All who claim to be authentic Jesus believers should be futurists.   Sadly, however, many of them are “pastists,” almost always looking back to the past to remedy Church problems, challenges, and errors in an attempt to “upgrade,” change the Church, modernize it, restore it, or purify it.  True, we need to look at the past, but only in an attempt to see from where God has brought a present generation as it heads into it’s future.  This is particularly true concerning the Church. 

Definition of “Church”

Here’s my generalized definition of “Church” based on what  the New Testament teaches:  “The Church is everyone everywhere and everywhen in whom Jesus lives in his ‘unbodied form’ of Holy Spirit.”   However, in this teaching I am narrowing down that definition and thinking more of only one portion of the Church—the present-day Church on earth, specifically the western Church of North America and Europe at the beginning of the 21st century.  Some feel the Church of the past is a “model” or “pattern” we should go back to in order to reclaim something (fire, purity, holiness, etc.) the Church has lost through 2,000 years of time. 

I don’t see the Church of past ages as a pattern; I see it being a storehouse of knowledge and experience from which we can extract certain practices and behaviors, adapt them to the present, and move toward our futures.  We should all be futurists in that sense; after all, we’re all going to live in our futures—from our next breath onward.  If the western Church continues on its present course, by the beginning of the 22^nd century, I predict it will look and be far different than anything we now know as the Church!

In George Washington’s time, only 17% of the colonial population attended traditional Sunday morning Church services.  In our day approximately 65% of the population claim they “regularly” attend traditional Sunday morning Church services (not necessarily every Sunday morning, however, but occasionally—enough to claim “regular” attendance).   In reality, on any given Sunday, far, far fewer North Americans (and Europeans) are actually in attendance at our traditional, institutional Churches; yet, it is still a far higher percentage of regular attendance than In the colonial era.  

For the sake of making a point, however, let’s say that attendance on a given Sunday morning really is 65%; nevertheless, every available statistic and bit of historical evidence indicates that Christianity in America during colonial times was much, much stronger and healthier than it is in the period in which we live, even though we have a much higher percentage of people who attend churches in our day.

In our era, millions of people in the western Church claim to be committed Jesus believers,  and yet the fact is we live in a Post-Christian (almost an anti-Christian) society in which historical, traditional, institutionalized western churches are losing membership in alarmingly large numbers.  Even though regular attendance remains relatively high right now, those numbers are declining very rapidly—and will continue to decline markedly as we continue our journeys into the 21st century.  So far, nothing seems to be reversing that trend.

Interestingly, recent statistics report that great numbers of people who claim to be deeply committed Jesus believers are not dedicated to the traditional, institutional Church.  Attending Church is not a significant and meaningful part of their day-to-day and weekly  lives.  They have forsaken virtually any type of regular, systematic Church fellowship, choosing rather to stay home on Sundays and “worship” with the televangelists and television preachers and televised Church services, or do something else. 

This is causing a great deal of isolation, insulation, and disenfranchisement among millions of western Jesus believers.  They are losing any sense of the necessity for Jesus believers gathering together regularly for fellowship, worship, and ministry.  They are losing a sense of corporateness, community, and “body life.”  They are losing the vitality of koinonia (Greek for “relational fellowship among Jesus believers”) the Bible emphasizes as being imperative for  growth, maturity, and witness as Jesus believers.

We hear of many large and growing mega-Churches centered in the large urban areas of The West. Yet if we look at how they are growing we learn that most of their growth is “transfer growth,” not new-conversion growth.  And, almost as many people leave the mega-Churches as enter them.  In fact, many of them even have special “back-door ministries” aimed at attempting to stop the “leakage” of the thousands of people who leave such churches after attending for a brief period of time. 

By contrast, in Africa, South America, and Asia the mega-Churches are growing by new conversion growth, however—which seems to be how God intends the Church to grow.  The fastest growing, new-conversion-growth Churches in the world are in the nation of China where the vast majority of its 150 – 200 million Jesus believers meet secretly in homes for worship, service, and ministry.  It must be noted, too, that perhaps the “healthiest” portion of the Church in the entire world today is the Chinese Church which, for the most part, knows very little about traditional, institutional Church worship and life.

There are significant reasons for possibly believing that the traditional Church and its services as we know them in North America and Europe could cease to exist within a few generations.  One reliable researcher believes that over one third of all Church buildings in the west could lock their doors by the year 2050 simply because the traditional Church has ceased to be a significant factor in the lives of most North Americans and Europeans.  Added to that is the fact that many other types of non-biblical religions and religious practices are growing rapidly in The western world, among them the Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, New Age Churches, Wiccans, and others of a similar nature.

A Temple Is Not A Temple

Speaking of Church buildings, God has clearly stated for the past 4,000 years that He does not permanently “live” in buildings constructed by human beings.  True, in the Old Covenant era before the coming of Jesus, God did live temporarily in various tabernacles and temples He commanded to be built.  But those man-made structures of the Old Covenant era were merely object lessons, temporary “pictures” God used to teach how He related to people.  He made it very clear throughout that era that for Him to live in buildings was merely temporary.

 During Jesus’ life and times the Old Covenant era closed and the New Covenant era was ushered in; under the New Covenant, God no longer lives in buildings in any way, shape or form.  Instead, he made it abundantly clear that humans were the temples of God—that his living presence is fully manifest in humans (individually and together), not in buildings.  Nevertheless, there is a deeply rooted mindset among most Jesus believers that we must gather together in special church buildings in order to worship, minister, and serve God.  That is such a deeply held belief that even when people acknowledge that God does not live in buildings constructed by humans, in most cases one hears a “Yes, but . . . ” 

Dear reader, there is no “Yes, but . . . ”  God no longer abides in buildings made by humans.  Period!  Yet, because of the upbringing and basic mindset of large numbers of western Jesus believers, many continue to feel they must somehow remain vitally connected to an institutional, traditional Church which meets on Sunday mornings (or some other day of the week) in order to consider themselves as being authentic Jesus believers.    Many feel this way in the face of overwhelming biblical, historical, and current evidence to the contrary.  One does not have to go to a traditional Church building on Sunday morning in order to live a vital life as a Jesus believer. 

True, the Bible teaches one must be vitally connected to other Jesus believers in order to maintain a consistent, good and godly lifestyle, but that connection does not have to be a Sunday morning connection in a building.  Having  said all that, yes, I worship God in a church building, usually on Sunday mornings with a large number of other Jesus believers—and believe very strongly that’s exactly where God wants me!  Hey, I’m just an ordinary  human trying to obey God.

For the western Church to not only survive but thrive, they must resume the practice of gathering in homes for worship, ministry, and service to their communities—as well as in so-called church buildings.  The basic unit of all societies is still the home.  Right now, I believe those Jesus believers who meet primarily in homes have a vague, subtle, undefined, unarticulated feeling that they are merely performing some sort of experiment or that they’re doing something that isn’t quite “right” in terms of their choice of “Church.”   

Among such believers, there is a prevailing feeling that they’re outside the mainstream of Christianity or that they border on being cultish.  Or that in time what they’re doing might become a failed experiment.  There’s even a feeling among such believers that they don’t want to invite “normal” and “ordinary” people to join in and participate in what they’re doing in homes, because most people want to attend a “real” Church.  Those meeting primarily in homes know in their spirits and minds that is not the case, yet that mindset is still present and nags at their consciousness telling them that somehow if they’re not connected with the traditional, institutional Church buildings something is not quite right with them.  Once they see that meeting in homes as well as in church buildings just might be God’s will for them, then they will experience new growth and new Life flowing through them. 

Continued next month   

“Through followers of Jesus . . . gathered in churches, God’s extraordinary and diverse plans for all humanity—in all it’s infinite variety, is becoming known and even talked about among angels!”   –paraphrased  from  Ephesians 3: 10  in the  Bible

To Think About This Month

“When you invited Jesus to take up permanent residence in your life, you automatically became a member of the worldwide Church; there can be no “lone ranger” believers who choose to disassociate themselves from the church and not meet with other believers!”  

Bill Boylan
Life Enrichment Services, Inc
leservices38@yahoo.com 
Revised and Updated December 2020

Shining Example

This will be the last issue for our teaching about light which we began last April. I don’t want to stretch out this teaching about light—and maybe bore you.  Please read Romans 13: 12 – 14. Here we read that we who are believers in Jesus are to put on armor of light. You might want to compare and contrast this reference in Romans with Ephesians 6: 10-18.  The armor of light means simply to put on—to be “clothed with”—Jesus as we are told to do elsewhere in the Bible. Ephesians 5: 8 and 9 and I Thessalonians 5: 5 teach us that we are God’s “children of light” and should radiate goodness, righteousness, and truth in our daily lives.

Note in Philippians 2: 15 that we are bright lights in the sense that we are guiding stars or beacons shining in a dark world; the terms “guiding stars” and “beacons” are nautical terms in the sense that in the past a ship’s captain would use a guiding star to fix a position and follow a beacon such as a lighthouse beacon shining out from a perilous shore on a dark and stormy night. 

When the Bible teaches that we are beacons, it not only refers to light in the sense of spiritual illumination but also in the sense of natural, physical light that is even now resident within our bodies—in our spirits—hidden by the veil of flesh, waiting to burst forth from our new light-bodies we will receive when we are resurrected upon Jesus’ return to earth.  Even though veiled by flesh, the light is there nonetheless—flickering, slowly increasing in intensity and in radiated output.  Years ago, I heard a scientist state that human blood is really “congealed” light. Whether or not that’s true, it’s an intriguing statement.

We have only the down payment now, but it is a foretaste of that body we will one day have—a body like Adam’s; yet, even more like Jesus’ own glorified body which far surpasses Adam’s light-body just as the brilliance of the noonday sun far surpasses the reflected light of the moon.  At this point, please set this aside for a few moments, locate and meditate very carefully upon Proverbs 4: 18 and 19.

In the context of what we are just now studying, Holy Spirit will open your inner, “spiritual eyes” to see some deep and wonderful truths in these references.  Isaiah 9: 2 tells us that great light will shine upon those who walk in darkness and the shadow of death.  What causes a shadow to disappear? When the source of light is directly above the object casting the shadow.  This, I believe, signifies our being directly “above” or “taking dominion and authority” over the fear of death, our last enemy to be destroyed.

Once again because I feel that the Bible itself—without any human intervention or comment—affords the clearest teaching on a particular subject, Please read the following references in their entirety, simply allowing Holy Spirit to teach you what He wants you to learn.  These passages are speaking about you and to you: Isaiah 60: 1-3; Ephesians 6: 12 and 13; 2 Peter 1: 19; and 1 John 2: 8 and 11.

Ages Yet to Come Before the Eternal Realms 

At this point I’ll just briefly mention the basic biblical teaching concerning the ages to come, because there is much misunderstanding among some of God’s people about the successive, overlapping ages of time.  There are “spiritual ages,” so to speak, (sometimes called salvific ages)—ages that transcend time and space. And then there are chronological ages of time. The chronological ages of time continue to roll on—and will continue to do so until the end of those ages . . . when time shall end and cease to be.  Many people see this age in which we now live as being the final age of the chronological ages of time—which will eventually be swallowed up into eternity. My own view is that there may be many more ages of chronological time yet before creation is swallowed up by the timeless state of being called Eternity. 

Eternity doesn’t go on and on and on forever and forever. No! Eternity is a state of being in which there is no time, and everything is absolutely simultaneous. Please understand I try not to be dogmatic about my view, and I remain open to additional light and understanding.  During these successive and overlapping ages, the children of God—arrayed in glorious light-bodies as was Adam before his fall and Jesus as seen in Revelation 1—will be playing active, co-creative roles in restoring, rebuilding, and replenishing the earth and universe before the advent and onset of eternity at the end of the ages of time.

How will this restoration and rebuilding of the universe take place? The simplest explanation I can furnish is to look at the action and effects of light in both the natural and physical realm.  And as restoration by the action of light occurs in the natural universe, so restoration will occur in the micro-universe within the minds and spirits and bodies of fallen humankind—by direct reaction to the light of the children of God shining upon them.

The Marvelous Process of Photosynthesis

How does light “create” life in the physical realm? By the simple, yet so very complex, chemical process of photosynthesis to which we previously referred.  Throughout the ages of time and then in eternity until the entire universe is restored and reconciled to God, his children, outraying God’s life-giving light from within, will be the indirect sources of life for the entire micro- and macro-universe, for all that is natural, for all that is spiritual.

Of course, we only see dimly the “how” of such matters, but as Adam was to have complete dominion over the earth, so will we have co-dominion over the universe, sharing it all with Jesus. As Jesus is, so we shall be . . . in a sense; yet, he is always the infinite God, while we will always be finite created beings.  He is the One by whom and in whom all things are and were created, and the One by whom all things consist; we, as members of His Body, the universal Church, will share in that continual creation and sustenance of the entire universe.

By a process of both physical and spiritual photosynthesis, our glorified light bodies will literally bathe the universe and all created things everywhere in the warm life-giving light of Father God’s loving and tender care for His creation.  The process of photosynthesis is not only an action of “creation” but also a process which brings healing and cleansing. Regarding this matter of healing and cleansing, please look up and seriously meditate upon and ponder the following references: Isaiah 58: 10, Daniel 12: 3, and Daniel 5: 11.  We shall also be directly involved in the divine government of the universe by being those through whom God delegates his authority and through whom he will govern the universe in righteousness. Justice shall at last prevail in all the affairs of all humanity.

         Remember, God’s true justice is to make all wrong things right!

There will be honest and humane laws and “courts” of law, presided over by those who have God’s laws as part of their very own nature. And, yet, there will be judgment upon the sins of humanity until all sin and wrongdoing is at last eradicated from the universe.  Regarding this matter of future government and judgment, please turn to your own Bible and ponder the following references; I give them for you to look up without comment on my part because there are some biblical matters that simply cannot be further expanded upon by human comment: Psalm 90: 8, Isaiah 51 :4, Daniel 12: 3, and Hosea 6: 5.

The Glorious City of God

The “seat” of God’s government (whether literal or spiritual, or both) will be that glorious “city” we see in Revelation 21: 23-25 and 22: 5. Note the presence of the light of God in this marvelous city of God. It is a city, yet it is a living organism composed of believers in Jesus from all the ages of time.  Consider the effects of photosynthesis by which trees of life will dispense life, health, and healing to the world. There will be no night there, for the entire universe will at last be bathed in the glorious sunlight of God’s love.

 I conclude this study of light and darkness by simply stating: Through God’s redeemed children—who will be fully restored into the image of Jesus—a time is coming when the entire universe will have found rest at last and will be bathed and sustained in the reflected light of Father God radiating from his children throughout the infinite, eternal realm.

All creation will be bathed in the life-giving light of Father God flowing out through his children to the infinite vastness of the universe and of eternity. Jesus—THE Light—will be at the precise center of all, but there will be no circumference!

                  “Let the Light from within you (Jesus) shine brightly so that people around you can clearly see your good works and thus be drawn to Jesus, thereby glorifying Father God in heaven.”   –paraphrased from Matthew 5: 16 in the Bible

To Think About This Month 

“Some bright Morning the reflected light of God shining forth from his redeemed sons and daughters will bathe the entire universe, transforming all dark matter and dark energy into LIFE-giving Light.”

Bill Boylan 
Life Enrichment Services, Inc.
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated December 2020

Effulgence

continued from last month

Aren’t you glad God created light? There wouldn’t be much (if any) life anywhere without light. In fact, it’s almost impossible for any of us to imagine no light.  We have a number of tourism caves and caverns near us in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota; usually, when the tour group is deep in the cave, the guide turns off all the lights for a few moments. Wow! Total darkness is really dark!

I thought I’d throw in the word, effulgence in our headline, just to impress you once again about how I really do know some big words. Just a little humor there . . . You can look up the meaning of effulgence in any good dictionary.  Scholarly estimates inform us that since the creation of humanity there have been approximately 50 billion people upon this planet, of whom 8 billion are now living; by what amazing process does Jesus illumine every person who comes into the world?

Other references in John’s gospel (8: 12 and 12: 46) tell us that Jesus is the Light of the world and that whoever follows him will not walk in darkness.  Are you walking in darkness, are there areas of your life that are still dark? Are you following him? If you are, the amount of God’s light you have in your life is somewhat a test of true discipleship, of a true follower of Jesus.

We remind you that last month we learned that Jesus is the sole expression of the glory of God; He is the light-being, the outraying of the nature of Father God.  Jesus is not only the light of the world in a spiritual sense, but He is also the only true light of the world in the sense of natural light throughout the universe.  As the creator and sustainer of the atomic structure of the entire universe as we read in Colossians 1: 16 and 17, Jesus is the very First Principle, the First Cause, the sustaining power by which all things adhere together, consist, and have life.

Jesus actually “binds” together the entire created universe, all things visible and invisible. Jesus is the elusive “God Particle” physicists have been searching for the past few decades (and think they may have found not long ago).  His actual being is the very outraying of all light in the universe as it flows forth from God the Father. Jesus’ unveiled being is brighter than a thousand suns, far surpassing the brilliance and splendor of countless galaxies.  Don’t limit Jesus to his humanity—to a babe in a manger, to a human of flesh and blood. He is far above everything in all creation and has “ascended” and returned to the heavenlies.  Yes, he is fully Man, but don’t forget that he is also fully God, and that one of his characteristics is that he is THE light. We have already seen just a dim glimpse of this in the first chapter of the Revelation.

Preview of Coming Attractions

There are other Bible references that reveal this facet of Jesus’ nature and being. How often we have skimmed over the amazing account of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mount in Luke 9: 28-36 and Matthew 17: 1-6?  You recall the incident: Jesus, accompanied by Peter, James, and John, went up on a high mountain. There Moses and Elijah appeared in a vision and were talking with Jesus. As they talked, the veil of Jesus’ humanity was momentarily stripped from him and the disciples caught a fleeting glimpse of the true person of Jesus.  The disciples saw his face shining clear and bright as the sun, and his clothing became white as light. This is Jesus now—as he really is—no longer veiled by his humanity.

 Mark 9: 2 uses the word “transfigured” referring to Jesus’ “change” on the mount. That same word is found in 2 Corinthians 3: 18 where we read of how we are gradually being transfigured, changed, and restored into the image of God.  Think of it—as he was on that mountain, brilliant in scintillating splendor—so shall we be one day, helping to illuminate the entire universe with the outraying of Jesus from within us. Did Peter, James, and John realize that they were seeing what they would one day become?  Do we realize what God has in store for his children? Everything—and more—that the first Adam lost, we shall regain as God the Holy Spirit transfigures—metamorphosizes—us into the very image of the Father’s only begotten Son, Jesus.

A Shadow is Not a Shadow

Peter, a short while after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension back into the heavenlies, experienced just a slight foretaste of this bright splendor in an interesting incident in the 5th chapter of Acts. Do you recall how people kept bringing the sick to Peter that perhaps by just his shadow falling upon them they might be healed?  Interestingly, in the original Greek language the word here for “shadow” is not a word meaning a dark spot cast by something in the path of the sun’s light.

No, it is a word meaning just the opposite of shadow. It means effulgence.  It means a shining of divine energy, a radiance as of a beam of sunlight. So it was not Peter’s shadow that healed; it was God’s healing light within him, an actual, tangible light emanating out from within him that healed the people.  Thank God for at least this one New Testament glimpse into what God has in store for his children as they are filled more and more with the light of God, now veiled by human flesh.

The Word of God, the Bible

We must not, of course, overlook the second most important light ever to illuminate the spirits and minds of men: the written Word of God, the Bible.  But again—as with the matter of angels—it is not within the scope of this teaching to dwell at length upon such verses as Psalm 119: 105, Proverbs 6: 23, and scores of others which declare the written Word of God to be a lamp to our feet and a light in the darkness.  Entire libraries are filled with writings upon this subject and our devoting so little space to it here is certainly in no way intended to minimize the fact that God’s written Word is, and always shall be for the ages of time and eternity, a light to lighten human hearts and minds to the truth of God and Jesus.  Jesus and the written word of God, the Bible. What a dynamic duo!

Other Lights In the Darkness

And we would also be derelict in our discussion of light if we neglected God’s people who are types of “lights” to their generations—people such as Peter, Paul, “Saint” Francis, Jeanne Guyon, John Hus, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John and Charles Wesley, Dwight L. Moody, Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, Anne Graham Lotz, Beth Moore, Joseph Prince, and the like.  Certainly such people of God as these have been and are lights of God in a unique sense in their own generations.

Our entire teaching this far has been only preparation and introduction to what will now follow throughout the rest of this teaching.  Let’s begin to personalize our subject of light, and now dwell at some length upon the real “meat” of what I really want to share with you. And that “meat” is to see how you and I are involved in this matter of light, both natural and spiritual.  We come now to see where we fit into God’s plan to illumine the present darkness upon our planet. We live in both God’s Kingdom and the “kingdoms” of this world; in a sense we are bi-locational.  It is also true there remain pockets of darkness (some large, some small) throughout this world’s kingdoms. Some pockets of darkness might remain for ages to come, but they will grow increasingly smaller as God’s light illumines more and more of this world and its dark kingdoms.

You Are The Light of the World!

Let me make a very simple statement first, a statement so simple, yet very far reaching in its fullest implications and ramifications. That statement is: I am the light of the world. You are the light of the world. We are the light of the world.  Before you begin to think “blasphemy” and “heresy”, or ask “Who does he think he is?” I invite you to turn in your Bible to Matthew 5: 14 and read it very carefully where Jesus said to his followers: “You are the light of the world.”

Of whom is Jesus speaking when he proclaims “You are the light of the world?” His followers. His disciples. You. Me. Yes, you and I are the light of the world. Are you offended? Are you trying to explain it away because of some incorrect religious teaching you have received?  If so, you need a power-full work of the Holy Spirit done in your life to teach you the basic truth of this simple statement by Jesus. I had been a twice-born follower of Jesus for almost 18 years before the raw and awesome truth of that simple statement took root in my heart and mind.  If it hasn’t happened to you yet, when the Holy Spirit really begins to reveal to you the simple truth of this verse, an entirely new universe of God’s plans and purposes for humankind—for you—will unfold in your spirit and mind.

You will begin to see and acknowledge to God a new humility in the face of his awesome plan for the creation, redemption, and restoration of the universe. Do not shy away from—nor let anyone rob you—of the simple truth that you are the light of the world.  A simple fact must be understood and then you will see how it is so that you are the light of the world. Only that part of you which is the direct outraying of God’s own nature is involved when Jesus declares you are the light of the world.

Only your spirit is involved at this point in time, as we read in Proverbs 20: 27 that the spirit of humans is the candle of the Lord. Presently, it is the spirit component of your being which is the light of the world. After you are resurrected from among the dead, then your whole person, body and soul, as well as spirit, will be the light of the world. 

 We now turn to a very brief survey of the Bible to better establish the fact that you are the light of the world.  What did Jesus say about this, besides his profound statement in Matthew 5: 14? Have you let that statement sink in yet? Is the Holy Spirit even this very moment planting that truth deeper in your heart? Do you believe it? It cannot be explained away . . . No, the original language of the Bible does not say something different.

Do not say, “Yes, but . . . “ Simply believe it; it is a basic truth necessary for the unfolding of God’s entire plan for this world, for this age, for the ages to come, for eternity. 

 At this point we would like for you to stop and read the following biblical references before continuing on with studying this teaching; please don’t go on with this teaching until you have read and meditated upon these verses: John 12: 35 and 36, 46; Ephesians 4: 18.  As we are filled with light, we become children of the light, and Jesus, the self-sustaining light of the world, shines out through us so that we become lights to the nations to bring salvation to the entire earth. See Acts 13: 47.

What did Jesus actually mean when He said his followers are the light of the world? Various biblical references teach very clearly that our GOOD WORKS are the light of the world—our good works that God uses to shed his light on other people to introduce them to Jesus.  Please allow God to do whatever deep work in you that is necessary for you to be the means of bringing his Good News to the entire earth? Will you be displayed to the entire creation as one of God’s children? See Romans 8.

        John [the baptizer] was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light. Jesus was the real LIGHT!   –From John 1

This teaching will be concluded next month

To think about this month

“Speak not lightly of faith, for but a single strand can span the darkness into the light of God beyond.”   –Author unknown

Bill Boylan
Life Enrichment Services, Inc
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated December 2020

Turn On The Dark

 I’m beginning a new topic this month, and it may take a few months to finish it.  The topic is:  light.  This is based on a teaching I first presented way back in the 1970’s, but I’ve changed much of it and updated it quite a bit for this issue.  As we study together about light for a few months, I hope Holy Spirit will use it to liberate you inside just a little more because of what Jesus has done for you.  Remember, Holy Spirit permanently implanted within you and fused with your spirit is Jesus in his “unbodied other form.”

I pray for Holy Spirit to take whatever truth you find in this teaching and use it to release you into the true freedom of God’s love, light, and LIFE, because John 8: 32-36 teaches us genuine inner freedom is found only by knowing and experiencing the Source of truth which is Jesus.  A simple reminder:  it’s not truth alone that sets us free; it’s knowing the truth that sets us free!

Let’s jump right into our study of light.  To do so, let’s first look at what science and the Bible teach us about the origins of light…and darkness.

Frankly, about the origins of both, modern science teaches us absolutely nothing of a concrete or conclusive nature; scientists simply cannot give any plausible explanation about how light—and darkness—originated.  Nope, science cannot tell us much about the origins of light and darkness; all their attempts to do so are purely speculative theories and hypotheses, not facts.   On the other hand, even though science discloses nothing conclusive about the origins of light and darkness, we can learn much from science about the properties, action, “composition”, speed, and effects of light and darkness.  lease understand; I’m not anti-science.  I’m merely saying that science doesn’t have all the answers.

What Does the Bible Teach?

As is so often the case in dealing with natural phenomena, we must turn to the Bible—not science—for a definitive statement about the origins of light and darkness.  For example, we read in Daniel 2: 2 that light dwells with God.  That is to say, light is part of the essence and “substance” of God.  It is part of his person, makeup, and nature.  Light is embodied and personified in God.  od is light (1 John 1: 5).  All natural light (including the entire range of the spectrum, both visible and invisible) and all spiritual light or illumination are outrayings of God’s very own Light-Being.  

Light has its origin in, and emanates and radiates from God.  From the largest galaxy in the universe to the tail of the tiniest firefly—all light originates with God, because God is Light.  Psalm 104:2 teaches that God is clothed with light.  1 Timothy 6: 16 teaches us that God lives in light (not as in the focus or beam of an external light as an actor before a spotlight, but that He “inhabits” light).  He is light, and He is surrounded by light.  James 1: 17 sums up the matter of the origin of light by stating clearly that God is the Father of all that gives light.  Also, we must not overlook the classic statements about the origin of light at the time of creation as found in the first chapter of Genesis and Isaiah 45: 6 and 7.

Definitions

Now let’s briefly examine the nature of light and a definition of light.  The simplest definition of light is that it is a radiant energy, luminous energy, or a “force” which illuminates that with which it comes in contact.  Light is the basic life-giving source throughout the universe.  By the marvelous chemical process of photosynthesis, light “creates” life by converting radiant energy to chemical energy.  Later, we’ll cover in more detail “spiritual” as well as natural photosynthesis.  

Light is generalized throughout the universe, and where there is not light there is darkness, intense cold, and generally chaotic conditions.  Light, by its curbing and limiting power, is inherently “stronger” than darkness.  Various  spectrums, degrees, and types of light possess healing qualities—such as vitamin D in sunshine, the soothing, healing qualities of infra-red light, or the awesome power of laser light used in modern medical and surgical techniques.

Of course, I have been writing so far about natural light; if your inner, “spiritual eyes” are open, I’m certain you have already begun to see some awesome implications of spiritual light, too, however.  By simple definition, spiritual light possesses in the spiritual realm the same illuminating and healing powers as natural light in the material realm.  Darkness—which is also a created phenomena as we read in Isaiah 45: 6 and 7—is simply the absence of light or a “force which interferes with the radiation of light.  As already mentioned, where there is no light, there is cold, chaos, and little or no life, because the amazing process of photosynthesis is rendered inoperative.  

Spiritual darkness is for a person to be lacking in spiritual illumination, to be lacking in a personal relationship with God which you can have only by personally inviting Jesus to take up permanent residence in your life.  The Bible uses the expression “kingdom of darkness” to illustrate the milieu and lifestyle of those who have not yet been born again into God’s kingdom of light.  Here, please take a few moments to read and ponder Colossians 1: 12 and 13 and John 3: 3 – 8 in this study of light and darkness.

Thus far in discussing the origin and nature of light my thoughts have been largely introductory.

Lights Among Us

Until the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth in human flesh as the only begotten Son of God, the brightest “light” the world had yet seen up to that point was Adam.  He was a glorious, scintillating, shining being arrayed in light.  He was iridescent and glowing.  [See another teaching on this website titled Whole In One about Adam’s original state.]  This was Adam in his perfection and innocence before his fall into sin and death.  Adam was literally clothed in light before his transgression and sin in Eden; he was a spectacular light-being, beyond human language to describe.  

The artistic representations we see in religious books and magazines picture Adam in the garden before the fall as a kind of “Charles Atlas” or Tarzan-like Superman.  These drawings and pictures fall far short of what Adam was really like—clothed in a garment of light that literally shone as the noonday sun, scintillating with all the colors of the spectrum as he walked and talked in unbroken fellowship with God, the Father of Lights.  Only the last Adam, Jesus, as John saw Him in Revelation 1: 14 – 16, can compare with, yes, and surpass in glory, the first Adam as he was before the entrance of sin into the experience of humankind.

Only the cleansing blood of the last Adam can restore fallen humanity to that awesome place of bright fellowship with the Father of Lights that Adam once knew.  How very far we see humanity has really fallen when we see with our spiritual eyes what Adam was like before his fall.  The next great man of light to appear on this planet was Moses.  But how dim was his light compared to that of Adam.  His relative dimness compared to Adam’s brightness certainly shows the ravages of sin upon the human race in just a few thousands of years.  

We all know—or should know—the story of Moses’ testings and trials as God molded and shaped him into the great leader of God’s people for that generation—as God shaped him into the forerunner of a greater Prophet—Jesus—who was yet to come.  We read in Exodus 34:29 that when Moses descended from Mt. Sinai with the two tablets of stone, he had been so close to the living god that “the skin of his face shone and sent forth beams of light by reason of his speaking with God.”  The New Testament commentary of this event (2 Corinthians 3: 7) tells us that Moses’ face shone with brilliance and glory.     Yes, the light of God shining from within Moses, much dimmer than that of Adam, shows us how far humanity had fallen by Moses’ time; and yet it is a prophetic picture—a foretaste—of that which is yet to be.

Another human to have within his being a portion of the light of God was John the Baptizer.  We read of his light in John 5: 35.   Yet we do not see his light; he was merely called a light.  Adam was clothed in light; Moses’ face shone with light; John was merely called a light.  Do you see how sin in the successive generations of humanity has slowly dimmed the actual light of God shining forth from his children?  We see the progressive—or should I say regressive?—ravages of sin down through the centuries of human history.  From being clothed in light, to merely being called a light.  How very far we have fallen!

Another Species of Light-Beings

Not only do we read of a man who was clothed in light, of a man whose face shone with light, and of a man who was called a light, but we also read of another race or species of created beings who share these characteristics of light:  Angels.  However, since it I not within th scope of this teaching to discuss these other created beings, I refer you to only two biblical references as a starting point if you wish to pursue a further study about angels:  Matthew 28: 3 and Revelation 10: 1.  The angels, too, are clothed in light.

Jesus, The LIGHT of the World

There is one light, of course, which is the Light.  I refer to Jesus, and let’s now study at length that wonderful light4.  One basic point at the outset:  all of the characteristics—and greater—regarding light that were a part of the first Adam will, of course, be part and of person and nature of Jesus, the Head of an entirely new race of supernaturally created beings.  Whatever the first Adam had, the last Adam, Jesus, possesses in far greater measure.

I want to pause again to point out that every time I refer to light in this teaching, I am referring to light in the sense of actual, literal light as well as to spiritual light.  Let’s not spiritualize away the actual, nor literalize away the spiritual. 

Many of my readers are familiar with the description of Jesus in the first chapter of John’s Gospel.  It seems clear that here the description of Jesus as the light of the world is primarily spiritual; on the other hand, in the first chapter of the Revelation to John we read of Jesus as the actual, literal out-raying of the light in which God dwells.  Let’s look at a few verses in John 1.  In verse 4 we read that Jesus, the light, is the LIFE of all people.  

Could we say that through a process of “spiritual photosynthesis” Jesus gives LIFE to all humanity?  If not now, by the end of the ages of time?  What profound depths of truth we still need to have the Holy Spirit teach us about how Jesus gives LIFE to all people. In verse 5 we read that the light of Jesus shines on in the darkness and that the darkness cannot overpower that light.  In verse 9 of John 1, we read that the true Light illumines every person who comes into the world.

This teaching about Light will be continued next month.

   “God spoke:  ‘Light!’  And light appeared.  God saw the light was good and separated light from dark.  God named the light Day, he named the dark, Night.  It was evening, and it was morning….”             –Genesis 1: 3 – 5

To Think About

In tragedy and despair, when an endless night seems to have fallen, hope is found in realizing the companion of night is not another night, that the companion of night is day, that darkness always gives way to light!

Bill Boylan
Life Enrichment Services, Inc
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and updated December 2020