In the states, they are going crazy with lotteries. People are winning millions of dollars for a one dollar ticket. When you look at that, your eyes, your heart and soul can become so defiled, so blinded, so veiled to the truth and the reality and value of one step higher in God. You lose sight of it forever, because it feels like nothing compared to material gain. And people in the Church have done just that—the teachers have encouraged it, they have encouraged us to keep our eyes on the money and off of the glory. They have told us that we can have all of the world that we want to have and have God too. I want to ask you, if it were so, then why do we not have all of what God wants to give? It is because we have traded the profane for that which is priceless. We have given up the priceless for the profane.
To have one deposit of glory put in your soul, even one time in this life, is worth whatever price He might ask you to pay to have it. And my dear brothers and sisters, I want to tell you, there is a price. You will not get it for nothing. You will not be casual with the God of glory and step into heavenly places of God. He demands separation. He demands repentance. He demands purity and He has every right to demand it.
He demands it because you cannot contain the glory without it. Your soul has become so filled with the cancer of the world that it cannot contain the glory in its current state. If it could, you could have it. He yearns to give it to you. He yearns to draw you in and reveal Himself to you. He yearns to draw you in, down the blood-ridden path and ask you to die so that you might truly live. He wants to embolden your soul to contain His glory and His power.
If a man is going to be a doctor, he will spend many hours a day, every day, for many years studying medicine. How many of you would want to go to a doctor who had no more than a year of medical school? He is going to study many years, many hours every day to learn all about his field—we are glad about that, right? When you are laying on the operating table and he is cutting into your heart, I can promise you that you are glad that he has the years of education behind him, amen?
The world accepts that and the Church accepts it, yet Paul said to make holiness a vocation. We are to spend the same kind of effort growing in holiness, growing in the likeness of Christ, that a doctor would spend learning his vocation. Those who do this know Christ and experience the deep mysteries of the Kingdom of God; those who do not live shallow lives in Him. Why? Because our hearts are hard. Our souls are ridden with the cancer of the world—they are so defiled.
How many of you have been to the ocean and have seen mollusks, barnacles and that sort of thing that attach themselves to rocks? Have you ever seen a rock encrusted with them? It is ugly, right? It is ugly to me, very unattractive. I see that and say, “God, why did you make these to do this? This is ugly, I do not like it.” But that is what our soul looks like to God when it is encrusted with sin and His glory cannot grow there. It is like the example of the old wineskin. You put new wine in an old wine skin and what happens? It cracks and it breaks—it cannot contain it. A soul that is encrusted with sin cannot contain the glory—it would destroy you, it would destroy your soul. The only way to get the encrustment of sin off your soul is through repentance. It is the only way, allowing God to take you through the trials that you must go through, allowing you to hate that sin like He hates it.
People will say to me 20 years of working this process through sin, they will say, “How can God love me when I am so ugly?” What I am going to say to you is the truth. Do you know how God sees you? He looks at you, each and every one individually, like you look at your little baby—He cherishes you. You are so valuable, so important to Him. You are the most valuable treasure that He has, and when He sees the sin encrusting your soul, it brings Him great pain for the damage that has taken place to one He loves so much.
Let me give you an example that maybe you can relate to. You have a child, five or six years old. You watch this child grow up and they are just radiant, so full of the zeal for life, zest, full of life and vigor. One day that child wakes up and you know they have cancer. You know it. All of the signs are there. Your mother’s intuition, your father’s intuition says, “My son has cancer.” So you take that baby to the doctor and the doctor confirms it and says to you, “I do not know what the end is going to be; we will do our best.” The child goes in for surgery and they remove all the cancer they can find. Now the child is in a hospital wing taking chemotherapy treatments, hair is falling out and he is vomiting and in terrible pain. What is happening to your heart? What is happening to your heart as you watch that cancer eat away at your little boy? What is happening to your heart? How many nights are you going to go home and cry yourself to sleep for the pain of watching your son?
Time goes on and you hope you have contained it, only to find out that you did not. He is back, going through the cycle again, sick and getting sicker, and every day the tears are falling. “God save my son! Do not let my son die! Heal my baby!” Is your heart breaking? Do you feel like you do not have enough tears to cry for the pain and watching all that he is going through? Can you relate? That is how God feels when He sees sin eating away at your soul. He does not hate you for the sin. He hates the sin for the destruction and the way that it tears you apart and the loss of relationship you are incurring every day. It grieves Him and it brings Him great pain. He weeps.
I have been prayng, “God show me what happens when a child of God sins against you. What do you do? Help me understand Your heart in this matter.” And then I was lifted up into the Spirit and I saw it. I saw a child of God sin against the Father and I saw Jesus rise up off of His throne and throw Himself down on the floor. He began to weep and weep and weep, saying, “Father forgive him! Forgive Him! Forgive Him! Forgive Him for he knows not what he is doing! Have mercy Father! Have mercy!” And He cried and He wept and he shook, until finally the Father said, “ He is forgiven!” Then I looked at the saint who had sinned and they had not yet repented, but Jesus was already weeping before the throne, in great agony that mercy, not judgement, would come upon this child of God.
I watched, and it was a long duration before this child of God finally repented and turned. I realized that had Jesus not fallen on His face and wept for that child of God to have the hand of mercy stretched forth to that child, repentance never would have happened. You are able to repent because Jesus procures for you the graces needed for the repentance. Have you ever known such love?
To be continued next week…
In His Amazing Love,
Nita Johnson
