“How To Walk With God”
Session Three
Part C
By Nita Johnson
NOLA Revival Services June, 2011
From last week:
When you understand His ways, you will begin to realize He might be disrupting your ways to teach you His ways.
Proverbs is not just an old boring book. It’s such a vital piece of our walk with God. I spent years in Proverbs and it can help you get through any trial. It gives you so much information about how to walk with God. What does the book of Proverbs say? It says to search for wisdom as for hidden treasures. You need to open it up and dig them out. Dig out the Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding and Prudence of God. As you are digging, God is doing a work in you to help you receive it.
I love to read the writings of the Jewish sages. I am telling you that I do not think I have read a theological commentary ever that has the depth of understanding of God as these Jewish sages who are not even saved. They meditate on the Word and this is a gift has been given to them. The gift is given to the Jewish people to be bearers of the precepts of the Lord, so even though the Spirit of God is not in them, He is around them and leading them into His way. Still blind in the respect to the Messiah, but as they meditate on the Word hour after hour, day after day and that gift becomes operative, it teaches them. They just have not been able to step far enough over to realize that Jesus is the Messiah.
When Jesus finally appeared to Paul, how did he recognize Him? He recognized Him by the Word that He had been studying. Paul was a trailblazer. The Greek of the New Testament depicts him as a pioneer in his day of the study of scripture and he understood so much that when the Lord appeared to Him and he lay there blind for three days and nights, his heart was bursting with truth. He just laid there while truth was bursting out of the inner parts of his heart as he compared in his mind scripture with scripture and he saw that it was all about Jesus. He realized that the kingdom was different from what he had thought. His heart was exploding with the truth he had been taking in for all those years.
Then what? He has to go out to the desert because he does not want to be taught by man. He had spent all those years at the feet of Gamaliel. He knew how to study and meditate on the scriptures. He knew how to find out every wonderful detail about Messiah. The Jewish sages are a marvel to read even though some of their words you just want to skip over. Some of my favorite scriptures are those through which I have experienced the greatest meaning and deepest revelations. I look in some of these books and they just do not get it. But where they do, it is like drinking sweet wine, it is so rich. If they can do it, we can do it.
At a very early age my granddaughter Tiffany had several visitations from the Lord and was also taken to heaven. Somehow, in the midst of all that, a hunger for the Word was created in her. I tell you the truth—by the time she was five or six years old, she would read the Bible through every year. I’m telling you the truth. So Jesus comes to her one night and tucks Himself into the little corner of her bed. He leans over right next to her and whispers in her ear: Tiffany, Tiffany. Tiff. She wakes up and looks over and who does she see? Jesus! She was overwhelmed. He whispers to her: I wanted to come and tell you how proud I am of you because you read the Bible every day. Tiffany, the Bible is My Word and you read it every day and you love it and I want you to know how proud I am of you because of that and I want to take you on a trip.
There were two angels in the room. He had come down in a great big basket—like the basket of a hot air balloon. The angels were standing guard beside the basket and He said: I want to take you for a ride, would you go in my basket with me? (Remember He is talking to a child.) She said: Yes, Jesus, I would.
He put her in the basket and took her to heaven. This next part is the reason why I am telling you this story. While in heaven, He said: Tiffany, may I have your Bible? (She had brought her Bible to heaven with her.) She handed it to Him and He said: I would like to teach you out of the book of Ruth. I want to help you understand why the book of Ruth is in the Bible. He sat down and taught her the book of Ruth. That is amazing. After that, He showed her some personal things in heaven then brought her back. She lay back down and He said: Tiffany, there is one more thing I have to tell you before you go to sleep. I am noticing that you are watching a lot of Bible videos. I want you to know that I am so glad you are doing that, because you are filling your heart with My Word by reading it and watching it on children’s videos and I am going to reward you for that. Then He left.
When Tiffany told me this story, I asked: So, what did He tell you about the book of Ruth? She said: Grandma, it is in my heart until I need it. She was about six years old at the time.
God wants us to love His Word. Look what He did for that little six year old who loved His Word enough to spend time in it every day so she could read through it in a year. That was not necessarily the goal, she just wanted to read the Bible and it just worked out that she read it through every year. I have no idea how many times Tiffany has read through the Bible. If God can build that kind of hunger in a child, how much more should He be able to build it in you and me? We need it more than she did. We need to be eating the meat that causes our spirit to become strong. Someone might say: I have problems that I am trying to overcome and still cannot. I keep fighting and battling and still nothing. I would ask them: How much time do you spend in the Word? They might say something like: Well, I am awfully busy. Well how much time do you spend in the Word, 10-15 minutes a day? They might say something like: Well, I do take it to Church. And then I tell them—that is why you are not overcoming. You are not spending enough time in the Word.
You do not know that it is strengthening you, but it is. You may not think the Word is doing anything for you and you may think you do not understand what you read, but if you are reading it, it is cleansing you of the things that keep you from Jesus. It is cleansing you of the things of the world and healing your soul. The Word is healing and repairing your soul to submit to your spirit. It heals and strengthens your spirit man. It is a great way to learn that it is not about you; it is about God and Jesus in everything and in every way.
Once, I was in prayer with my dear friend Bonnie. During this prayer time the Lord took me up to heaven and showed me certain things in heaven. When we were all finished with my tour, He then took me to a room and said: I want to show you something for Bonnie and I want you to tell her about it when you see her. He then led me inside the room. Bonnie was sitting there. He left me by the door, walked over to her and said: Good morning Bonnie, I brought you here so I could teach you My Word. Bonnie was so excited and said: Lord, what do You want to teach me? He said: I am going to teach you today and even more in the days ahead, but we will start here.
I stood in the doorway watching Him teach Bonnie out of His Word. When He was finished, He came back over to me and said: I want you to tell Bonnie that this is what I have in store for her—a personal tutoring time with Me to learn My Word—if she will press in.
God wants to be our teacher. He wants to make these scriptures life to us. I love this scripture – Deuteronomy 32:46-47 He said to them, Set your [minds and] hearts on all the words which I command you this day, that you may command them to your children, that they may be watchful to do all the words of this law. For it is not an empty and worthless trifle for you…
To be continued next week…
In His Amazing Love,
Nita Johnson
