Doyne

1Jo:4:18: There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

I recently began to examine my inner-self intently and have decided to focus on the "beam in my own eye". As I examined the mistakes and achievements that i have made in my life I noticed 3 distinct conditions in my actions that actually revealed my beliefs at the time they occur. 1. I was trying to please other people. In my life and at church I was trying to do everything right and be just right in order to please my pastor and others around me. It worked briefly but was inevitably doomed to failure. 2. I was trying to please myself. In my rebellion I often withdrew from everyone. With hurt feelings hiding behind my ego and pride and licking my wounds I conved the overall attitude "I'm gonna get mine and who cares what you do". 3. I was trying to please God. This is the place of power, blessings, growth, warmth, and the training ground for experiencing as well as giving true love. Make no mistakes in the matter Love is the key to walking in Gods Kingdom....... So who do you love??

I am very much big picture minded concerning the word. I need to understand what it means and says overall in order for it to become functional in my life. I also trust the Holy Spirit who reveals all truth to us. Scriptures can help to make a point at times but over the years I have seen them quoted to a destructive end as well as good.

Every little test. every trial and tribulation. every desperate need. every seemingly hopeless situation. every dark and gloomfilled hour......... Is simply another opportunity to give God glory, to see his glory manifested, and to bear the light in a world filled with darkness. A man who truly does not fear death, can surely accomplish something. Thanks for the great encouragment you all are to me.

I can honestly say that I love you but you must understand it is the love of your brother in Christ. I don't actually know you or what happened in your life but i can assure you that mine has been no bed of roses. Yet it is the suffering in my life that actually strengthens me and draws me closer to God. I made a couple of intersting discoveries along these lines. First I had to forgive myself for feeling the hate and rage that was within me. It made me feel so separated from God and everyone else I was tormented and couldn't seem to locate the source. I thought that I had to forgive the others who had abused me but as it turns out I could say that but i couldn't do it until I had first forgiven myself. I know it dosen't make sense to my flesh man either but it is true. I also discovered that as I drew closer to God by allowing myself to actually be forgiven, I became able to embrace my suffering and that ended it! Seriously when I started to praise God for using the sin and other crap in my life to make me stronger and to be truly thankful for my good as well as my bad I got stronger than i have ever been. Third do not lean too much on anybody else..... lean on God and the Holy Spirit who is the comforter. We people will inevitably let you down or hurt you if you put too much trust in us. we won't mean to hurt you but it will just happen that some time or another we will not be there for you. God will never leave you nor forsake you. No sin, no pain, no devil from hell and not even an angel from heaven can separate you from God and his love for you is eternal. His love never has been conditional and is not based on how good you are, what you believed, how you are now nor how you were then. His love is eternal it was before you were born and will remain after we are gone home. God loves whether we know it or not. Why did he allow me to be hurt and other good people to suffer like you well first of all he didn't. We suffer and die in this world because of sin. Sin from Adam all the way to us. Sin is the true source of all suffering but not the cause of it many times. I mean to say that a person may not have cancer because of some sin they commited but cancer exists because of the sin that exists in the world. The scripture says to be the friend of the world is to be the enemy of God. That is why God said that to us to help us understand he will not dwell or share us with sin. Anything that turns our focus away from him is considered sin even what is normally a good thing. I only say that to try and help you understand not to overdo your good works to try and compensate for the past bad ones. Just let it all go by turning to God and dropping everything at his feet, all of it the good the bad and your heart. Hope this encourages you -- we do love you.

I personally have been baptised 3 times.... as baptist at 12 years.... came up the same sinner I was going down. Later a pentecostal insisted I had to be baptised in the name of Jesus so i let him.....also came up a sinner still. You can get an emotional experience and be baptised 50 times you will still come up a sinner......saved by grace alone. and that by believeing in God who sent Jesus for us. I say this because of John 5:24 and I trust what is recorded that Jesus said far more than what Peter taught. Not to disrespect Peter but he dosen't exactly have the greatest track record acording to the other scriptures written including the 4 gospels. I'm refering to where Paul had to challenge him for teaching you must be circumsized and separating himself from the gentiles when James showed up from Jerusalem. The point here is to look at the big picture revealed by the whole word of God and not just one liners. John 5:24 says it all for me. However a person who has been saved, and chooses God will do everything and anything within his power to please his dear father, including Baptism as well as many other works...after all it is the works we do that clearly demonstrates what we believe (our faith) far more that the vain words we speak. Scripture reference: Joh:5:24: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. If you Believe God: M't:22:37: Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. M't:22:38: This is the first and great commandment. M't:22:39: And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. M't:22:40: On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Peter and Paul: Ga:2:11: But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. Ga:2:12: For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. Ga:2:13: And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. Ga:2:14: But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? Ga:2:15: We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, Ga:2:16: Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Ga:2:17: But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. Ga:2:18: For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. Ga:2:19: For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. Ga:2:20: I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Ga:2:21: I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

I have come to realize that as long as 'we the church' continue to follow our current path we are dooming our younger generations to the declining moral standards in this world. I am moved to tears when I think about the reality of living in this sinful world without God. The suffering, the misery, the deception, the degradation, and the lack of love that comes from Godlessness. As an evangelist I have recently had to adjust my entire ministry approach as the Holy Spirit is revealing more truth to me. I mean I'm all for most of the current evangelism methods but for me it was just not my calling. I've tried most methods from tracts, door to door visits, jail and hospital, way of the master methods and such. Nothing stops the urging of the Holy Spirit to do something more..... Then God began to reveal the simplistic truth of his will, the Bible, and his Kingdom. I have become extremely fundemental in my teaching. I stopped disecting the bible bit to bit and looked at it from a whole prospective. I asked God to help me see it from the big picture view (more likely the way he does) and some very intresting truths were instantly revealed and are easily seen. First I realized his "big picture will" and that always has been for his children to turn to him and trust him whole-heartedly. Then I began to see my true relationship to him, adopted son, joint heir with Christ and ambassador to his Kingdom. I began to realize the true power in the name of Jesus Christ and the authority he has entrusted us with by that name. I discovered that I am to be light in darkness and stop seeking the sin in others and even to stop trying to correct sinfullness in anyone but myself. We are supposed to "be the church" not just "go to a church". If we look for darkness in others we are only seeing the speck of the true sin within them anyway. Suddenly several scriptures come to light mainly "get the beam out of your own eye so that you may see clearly to get the speck out of your brothers eye." Another is "if the light within the darkness is darkness then how dark that darkness must be." We are children of God called into the light in order to be Gods light within a darkened, blind and sinfilled world. I now teach that we are to be light seekers and that in the blackest hearted individual there is a light no matter how dim and depressed that we can see if we will seek it and then we can nurture that one good thing into a glimmer of hope that can be kindled into a real flame and a life can be saved. If a lost person sees me working on my own sin within me. If he sees me tending the flame of Gods light within me. When he sees that example being set forth to him then he can think about himself and eventually be persuaded to make a real decision for righteousness. True conversion only comes from being able to make a choice and that from the information being provided. Too often have I heard the unsaved say they would rather perish than to spend eternity with the so called christians they knew. This is directly related to them witnessing the darkness within some church goers. They have to be able to witness the light of Gods true church those of us who are sincere and who do love our neighbor enough to try our best to keep ourselves un-spotted from the world at large. Sorry this message is not able to be conveyed in short form as i now know what I must preach for the rest of my term here on earth. Love you all DR