Cy Winskell, in Oji

30 January 2011

Dear Phyllis,

This certainly has been (is) a most unusual trip. Last Thursday I said to Miyuki, “I can almost go back to Thailand now. I have accomplished the purposes of my visit.” But, of course, I had just got started. The basic reason for this trip to Japan in January was to renew my Japanese driver’s license. If that expired, that would be a serious loss. The second purpose was to change my legal residence from Saitama-ken back to Nara. And the third was to get things sorted out with my bank account in Japan. All those things required my actual presence here. The rest is social.

I had four major stops planned. First I needed to cover base with friends in the Kansai (Osaka) area. The next was to go up to Karuizawa to see friends up there. The third was to get back to the Tokyo area to visit friends. And the last stop is a quick run down to Kumamoto, in Kyushu, to see one friend, and speak in a church there. Then back to Thailand on the 17^th of February.

Last Saturday was a blank day, and I decided to call an old friend, Cy Winskell, in Oji, 45 minutes away from Ikoma where I was staying. The fellowship with Cy was probably the best time we had ever had. But two days ago I received a surprising e-mail from him.

Cy had been through some extremely deep water with his mother-in-law and a truly unimaginable, traumatic, experience. She stayed with Cy and Eiko for a period of time. Her presence brought total pandemonium to their home. Cy was fortunate that everyone maintained their sanity, The mother-in-law is now staying elsewhere, but there had been little movement with the enormous issues of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. These unresolved problems are like having giant size craters in the road of life making it virtually impossible to proceed further in their walk with the Lord.

In our fellowship, I shared with Cy the major meeting I had had with Jesus less than two weeks previous. I consider this one of the most dynamic encounters I have had with Christ since being saved. I tried to share this with you a couple of weeks ago in narrating my experience in speaking in a Thai church that Sunday. Since our time of fellowship, Cy has had his own pivotal encounter with Jesus, and wrote me about it.

As we talked about the needs of his wife and mother-in-law, I told Cy, “What they need is revelation – not instruction”. I had gone through this many years ago with the destruction of my family, and my subsequent deliverance from paralytic bitterness. Surprisingly, it was Cy that had his personal moment of revelation that brought him to a higher spiritual plane than anything he had ever experienced. What he shared with me via e-mail is an experiential animation of a basic spiritual truth the Lord has been teaching me for the past three years.

Even now there is no way I can reduce to writing the fundamental things the Lord has been teaching me. I wish I could. Anything I attempt to share with you will be woefully defective, but I want to make a feeble attempt to reduce to a few words what has been a major revision in my understanding of our relationship with God.

Through reading Andrew Murray’s book on Hebrews, I was genuinely surprised to discover that salvation is a covenant relationship. The Jews are related to God by a covenant God made with Abraham (Gen. 15:12-21; 22:15-18). This covenant was ratified at Sinai at the time of Moses (Ex. 19:4-6). The covenant was virtually a marriage vow. God promised to be their God, and they would be His people. This was a relationship that God had with no other descendents of Adam on this planet. All other nations of the world had their gods and Israel had Jehovah to be their God. In that they were utterly unique. This stood for 2000 years until Christ came, and the unimaginable happened, when the door of the blessing of Abraham was opened to the Gentiles. The Gospel suddenly became a universal invitation to “whosoever-will-may-come”. This is known as the New Testament (covenant). Paul’s letter to the Galatians clearly establishes our entitlement to being in the Abraham covenant (Gal. 3:7,14,16,29). That means basically, we are God’s people.

A covenant is a document delineating the terms of an agreement between two parties. Any document clearly specifies the various terms of responsibilities and advantages each partner has. In a marriage, the vow is, “You be my wife, and I will be your husband” With that both partners vow to have a unique relationship with the other, which is exclusive of anyone outside. That is – “You be faithful to me, and I will be faithful to you. I will love you, take care of you, and not sleep around with anyone else.” If either one breaks that vow, the deal is off. The covenant at Sinai had two sides – the blessing of God if they obeyed, and the curse of God if they were unfaithful (Deut. 27 & 28). Israel was delighted to sign on the dotted line (Ex. 19:8). Tragically, the results were catastrophic. At the time of the Babylonian captivity Jeremiah lamented, “Lord, You have done just what You said You would do” (Lam. 2:17). And for 2000 years Israel has experienced unique abandonment.

Andrew Murray brings out that the Old Testament (Covenant) and the New Testament (Covenant) are basically the same. Both are conditional. Both are based on, “I will do this IF you will do that”. But there is one fundamental difference. Murray brings out that the flaw of the OT was there was no provision to enable Israel to fulfill their side of the bargain; and in the NT that need is met. The difference is; “Jesus is the mediator of the NT” (Heb. 8:6). That is Jesus is the co-signator (the responsible person) of that agreement. He is the One who has to come up with the goods. I heard a brother preach on this text a year ago where he said, “Jesus is the one who has co-signed for us, so we better live a good life so the burden won’t fall on Him.” The bother got that exactly backwards. It is not our life, but His life. He is the One who lives the Christian life – not us! He is the One who fulfills the terms of the agreement – not our trying. It is Christ in us! This is the provision in the NT that God as made to fulfill the terms of the agreement. This may sound a little off the wall, but I believe anyone would agree that it is Christ’s life – not mine – that works.

The thing that was the key to Cy blessing was what I shared with him about Lord’s revelation to me of Luke 12:37. Jesus wants to serve us. The essence of Cy’s encounter with Jesus was that the Lord told him that he was carrying a burden he was unable to bear. And Jesus said, “I will carry that burden for you.” With that, tons fell of Cy’s shoulder, and he soared like an eagle in praise and worship to the One who freed him. This is just one feature of the NT. By revelation the Lord revealed this to Cy which brought him into freedom like he never dreamed was possible. He said he can scarcely stop the tears from flowing.

I was a little bewildered by Cy’s e-mail. I certainly can rejoice with him in his new deliverance, but it is a bit of a stretch to imagine how my little testimony had much to do with it. What the Lord said to me, and what He said to Cy are quite different. But one point is the same; it is Jesus who fulfills our end of the bargain with God. He is the fulfiller, and – in Cy’s case – He is the burden bearer.

One of the most consistent spiritual truths the Lord continues to impress upon me is the basic thesis of the little book I have written on The Inverted Kingdom. Cy has encouraged me to try to make that a little more available. When I first wrote it, I thought I would write a short 30 chapter devotional book taking one spiritual principle at a time. Today I am up to 47 and still have more to go. The book is poorly done and needs a total revision, but the truths I have tried to expound are clearly there. This may be something the Lord wants me to work on soon.

This trip is a poignant example of how the ways of God are backwards. As I have just hit a little of over the 1/3 mark of my time in Japan, it looks like a washout. After fulfilling the basic technical reason for the trip, I took off last Thursday for the first leg of my major tour. I drove to Otsu, about two hours from Ikoma, to see my dear friend Sam Benedict. From there I was going up to Karuizawa, and then on to Tokyo. Friday morning I called my friends, the Ganahas, in Karuizawa to tell them I was coming, and confirm that I could stay there. Sister Ganaha told me she had just gotten out of the hospital, and they were not in a position to have a house guest.

Tragically, they are the only family I have in that area to stay with. That means everything in the Karuizawa area is cancelled. In like manner, I have been requested not to visit New Life League, which means I have no place to stay in the Tokyo area. With no place to stay, either in Karuizawa or the Tokyo area, half of my purpose for this trip is wiped out. Instead of having a tight schedule for four weeks I now have a blank two weeks on my hands with virtually no place to go or anything to do. I am back staying with my family the Hirotas at the moment, and can stay here indefinitely, but it is a real set back not to be able to see the many friends I have in my old stomping grounds in Japan.

What has happened so far has been excellent. I greatly enjoyed my time with Sam, as I have with everyone I have seen so far. But what the Lord has in mind for the next two weeks is a mystery at this point.

Tonikaku, the Lord has assured me that He is still with me (that is unbelievable) and He is the One who sets the schedule and lives His life in me.

Praise God!

                             bill

Yasuhiko and Miyuki Hirota

23 January 2011

Dear Phyllis,

Well I’m, here. I’m back in Japan again. In one sense it is good to be home and in another sense it is sad.

The trip getting here was fairly uneventful, except it was a long one. Sunday night my friend, Dave Moore, took me to the bus terminal in Chiang Mai. Thai buses are as cold as a meat freezer and I always wear a jacket when I take a night bus. In my rush getting out of the door I forgot to take my jacket. I had about 30 minutes before the bus left and asked Dave if he would go back and try to get my jacket for me. It is just about a 15 minute drive from my house to the bus station. I waited until the last minute but Dave didn’t make it in time. Good try anyway. Fortunately the blanket they provide on the bus was adequate to keep me warm, and I was pleasantly surprised to find Bangkok warm enough that most folks there were still in short sleeve shirts.

 I got out to the new Bangkok airport around 7:00 AM, and had a 12 hour wait for the plane that night. I took the Vietnam Airline which went first to Saigon. That was the first time I had been in Vietnam for three years. Then that night I got on a connecting flight to Osaka arriving in Japan around 7:00 Tuesday morning. From there I took trains out to Ikoma, arriving at the Japan Mission headquarter around 10:00 AM. I was excellent to see my dear friend Neil Verwey for a couple of hours. He loaned me a truck to use for a month while in Japan. From there I took the truck to my Japanese family, Miyuki and Yasuhiko Hirota’s home, where I will base out of while here. Altogether it was about a 40 hour trip door to door.

  Yasuhiko and Miyuki Hirota were the first fruit we had when we went to Ikoma in 1982. When we moved to Ikoma, we went to the Sears section of Seiyu Department store to buy a US stove. The department head there was highly enthused with Americans and directed a large number of people out to Ikoma to meet us. The first one was a young man who liked airplanes. Yasuhiko came out to talk to me about airplanes, and was saved within a few weeks. Shortly after that I got a phone call from a career lady who had gotten stung with a bad business deal. The Sears lady, Kajino san, had gone to a fortune teller who told her she was going to die of cancer in three months. She was terrified until the set time passed uneventfully. Then she knew the fortune teller was a phony. Miyuki didn’t want to make a mistake, and knew Kajino san would not direct her to a fortune teller she couldn’t trust. When Miyuki asked Kajino san what fortune teller was reliable, she told her the best one she knew was Bill Cook in Ikoma. Miyuki came out to see me for fortune telling advice.

The first question I asked her was what she wanted. She replied, “I am looking for a partner. I don’t want to get married but I want someone to tell me what decisions to make in life.”

“You have come to the right place. I know the perfect One to lead you.” And I introduced her to Jesus Christ.

Miyuki was unusual. She got saved the first lick off the bat. She had signed a contract to go to New York to be the manager of a Japanese restaurant for six months. When she got back from New York, she had no place to go and wound up living with us for the next eight months. During that time Yasuhiko came out every night to hold her hand while they sat in front of our fireplace. In order to get some sleep, she decided the best thing she could do was to marry him. That was 28 years ago. Yasuhiko and Miyuki are now 60 years old, but, to me, they are still the young couple I knew when we first went to Ikoma.

When my world disintegrated in 1990 I had no place to go; I lived with them for eight months. Since then they have always been my Japanese family. They are as stable, mature, Christians as you will find anywhere.

When we first moved to Ikoma there was something almost like revival for a few years. There were a number of very outstanding Japanese families that got saved. The meetings were fantastic, and the fellowship was like being in heaven. Everyone craved Sunday. Things would start at 9:00 in the morning and go full bore until midnight Sunday night. Everyone hated to quit and go home. It was only the most dire necessity that forced us to close things down to go to bed at midnight. The freshness of salvation, the reality of Christ, the intensity of Christian love was something like you seldom see on this earth. Man howdy, it was fun! Of course, others got saved. How could you stop it? The door to heaven was open and anyone who entered in was intensely anxious to drag their friends in also. That was 25 years ago. Much has changed.

Yasuhiko, Miyuki, and several of the old timers are still hanging in there, but everyone complains of tsukare (fatigue). Christianity has gotten old. It is no longer the exhilaration to go to church it was 25 years ago. As I have traveled around slightly the first few days I have been back in Japan, rather than walking in the warmth of fellowship that once prevailed, there is heaviness in the air. I suspect this is a universal problem that is common anywhere after a pleasant breeze of a moving of the Spirit.

I said, it was good to be home, but yet there is a measure of sadness. As I was riding the train up the hill from Osaka to Ikoma Tuesday morning, there was a sadness that came over my heart. Looking down on that enormous city. I thought to the teeming millions that live there, and only the slightest percentage have any clue about salvation. Jesus left heaven to pay the ultimate price to deliver them from the grip of the devil, and bring them into the Kingdom of God. All has been made ready. There is nothing more to be done. All they have to do is go in.

God gave Japan a unique opening 66 years ago. When the 2^nd WW ended in 1945 Japan had an opportunity like no country has ever had in human history. The very foundation of Japan – emperor worship – was completely wiped out.

 Japan is unique in that for many centuries she had been totally isolated from the rest of the world. In 1859, Admiral Perry sailed up Tokyo bay and opened Japan up at gun point. For the next 50 years the Japanese were surprised to see what the outside world looked like. Around the turn of the century she noticed how the western nations were colonizing other countries and they wanted to get in on the act. In around 1915 they took Korea and parts of Manchuria. In 1917 they got in a war with Russia over Manchuria, where the Russians sent their navy to fight Japan. Admiral Togo was waiting for the Russians in the Sea of Japan and, in a decisive sea battle, sunk the Russian fleet. After that they felt invincible. They continued to expand and pushed all the way down China to the Indochina peninsula.

On December 7^th 1941 they attacked Pearl Harbor and woke up the sleeping giant. Japan had never lost a battle until the Battle of Midway. From that moment on they started being pushed back until Hiroshima terminated their fighting spirit. On August 15^th 1945, Japan unconditionally surrendered, which opened the door to an unprecedented opportunity. For the next seven years Japan was ruled by an absolute potentate in Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur said his ambition was to bring Christian values to Japan, and pleaded for missionaries. At no time in history has any country been so thoroughly prepared for the Gospel. In the early 1950s it was easy to have thousands listen to the Gospel and get a huge response. When I first got to Japan in 1958 you could pass out thousands of tracts and seldom see more than half a dozen being thrown on the ground. But the Gospel has been like water on the back of a duck. There has been much sowing but little fruit.

In the early 1980s we had a bit of a time of refreshment from heaven. In Kobe we saw one fellowship go from 10 to 100 in a year. That was when they craved Sunday. This time, as I have traveled slightly around, the numbers are about half of what they were 10 or 15 years ago.

 Of course this is not the way it is supposed to happen, but in reality this is extremely common. As I have searched my heart for a cause and cure the only thing I can come up with is that there was more of an enjoyment of Christian fellowship that a strong personal walk with Jesus. You can’t blame anyone for enjoying the intense Christian fellowship at that time. There is nothing like it. But the name of the game is Jesus.

As I have listened to several complain of fatigue – they are just wore out – the word that has come to my heart is Matt. 11:28; “Come unto Me all who labored and are heavy laden.” Surely this must be the cure for fatigue. Watchman Nee was imprisoned for the last 18 years of his life. He had no access to Christian fellowship. The last thing he ever wrote was a simple note he was able to send out of prison where he guardedly shared, “I have found how to maintain my joy.” This is the only answer I know. The joy of the Lord is knowing Jesus.

Of the seven churches in Revelation 2 & 3 the one I least like is Laodicea (Rev. 3:14-21). This is the perfect description of the church in America and Japan – very wealth and very dead. But recently I have noticed two unique blessings the Lord offered to believers there. The message is clearly personal. Jesus said, “If any man hears My Voice…” To all seven churches Jesus offered, “To him that overcometh…”; but, uniquely, to those in Laodicea He added, “as I overcame”. This clearly is a word of instruction to all of us. The way to overcome is to do it like Jesus did it. How did He do it? By close fellowship with the Father, and a complete surrender to do the will of God. And the second unique blessing was a promise to have them “sit with Me on My Throne” (ver. 21).

Tragically, Japan is not in the midst of revival at the moment. But this may be a special time of opportunity to walk with Jesus without the support of a warm Christian environment. And maybe for those who do, the Lord might have a special reward.

Tonikaku (anyway) it is good to be here;

                                                                         bill

Explain Something to Me

9 January 2011

Dear Phyllis,

 

The other day I had a minor argument with the Lord. It wasn’t really an argument, but as I was reading His Word I ran across a subject that I flat didn’t understand. What I read didn’t make a lick of sense. I told the Lord, “That is ridiculous. That can’t be true.” Realizing that there is a strong possibility that the Lord may be correct, and I may be mistaken, I repeated a request that I have made many times over the years. “Lord Jesus, would You please explain this to me?” No, He hasn’t told me what that means yet, but I was reminded of many times I have encountered that problem over the years; and the amazing graciousness of the Lord in opening my eyes to see wondrous things written in His Word.

I have told you several times, that this is one of the best periods of my life. Spiritual truth has never been more exciting. Jesus has never been more real. I have never been more blessed and thrilled in knowing the Lord than I am right now. I feel like I have just been saved six months. One of the things that has come into clear focus is an answer to a request I made 19 years ago, asking Jesus to explain something to me.

When my life came to an end 20 years ago I was plunged into darkness like I thought was impossible for a Christian to experience. EVERYTTHNG went sideways! It seemed like I was on the wrong side of the fence with God. I was praying desperately, and it seemed the Lord’s response to my prayers were the dead opposite of what I had asked. The more I prayed the worse thing got.

When I hit the jolly bottom I was reminded of a decision I had made 30 years previously. As I very young missionary, I heard Joe Carroll preach a tremendous message on Psalm 27:4. “ONE THING have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to BEHOLD THE BEAUTY OF THE LORD, and to enquire in His temple.” Joe pointed out that this was the secrete of David’s life. This was the thing that made him so outstanding. David was an incredibly gifted man with a wide array of amazing talents; ranging from being an outstanding musician, to being a warier, and the greatest king Israel ever had. But David shared he was never interested in majoring on any of these gifts. He really only wanted ONE THING, and he said that was what he was seeking. I had chosen Ps. 27:4 as my life verse, and made that the goal of my life also. I had preached on that subject several times. But when I hit the bottom the Lord clearly spoke to me, “You have been talking about that verse for 30 years, but you have never practiced it. You have never actually sought what you were talking about.” That was a surprising revelation.

 I decided, “Alright, I am going to stop praying for my family and for a solution to my problems; and only seek on thing.” The next morning I got up very early, got a cup of coffee, and sat down before the Lord to have devotions. I said, “Lord, I am not going to pray about a thing. I am just going to sit here for two hours gazing on You and be filled with Your beauty.” I did that for a month and didn’t see a cotton picking thing. Man howdy, did that raise some serious questions!

 The first question was, Are you supposed to see anything? The second question was, What are you supposed to see? The third one was, How do you see it? And lastly, If you don’t see anything – WHY? The answer to these questions became the focus of a very serious discussion I was having with the Lord every morning. That was 19 years ago. Today I know the answers.

To answer my questions, the Lord began at the last one and worked forward. The answer to my last question – Why don’t I see anything? – the reason was simple. Poor eyesight. Fortunately, Jesus said He had some medicine for sale that would help that problem (Rev. 3:18). I said, “Lord Jesus, if You have something to help my eyesight You can put me down as a customer. How much is the medicine?” The Lord replied the price to pay for this medicine was TIME. If I wanted ot see better I was going to have to pay the price of time – waiting on God.

The answer to the next question – how do you see? – was surprising. In former years, when I had preached on this text, I told the audience. “When you pray, just picture in your mind Jesus sitting on the Throne.” Wrong! There is a vast difference between imagination and revelation. When you try to imagine, you shut the door to the Holy Spirit making it impossible for Him to give revelation.

 Over the years I have found this to be very important spiritual law. I have found the mind to be an enemy to spiritual revelation. The mind is not the master of spiritual truth. The Holy Spirit must be the master. As long as the mind refuses to accept truth that it cannot understand, there is no way the Holy Spirit can explain that to us. But if we say, “I don’t understand this, but I accept that this is true exactly the way You have written it.”; that is the first step to revelation. In beholding the beauty of the Lord there is a fundamental difference between imagining the scene and the beauty of the Lord as revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.

 When I can to the question, “What are you supposed to see?”; the Lord explained a major thing to me. This has been a significant step forward in my approach to spiritual truth. Spiritual things are internal – not external. Somehow I thought the beauty of the Lord was something external. Todd Bentley says he has had many celestial visitations. Like Paul, he has been caught up to the third heaven and seen things in heaven several times. He has seen Jesus sitting on the Throne. He said Jesus is handsome. He has a massive chest and huge arms. Really??? This sounds radically different than what John saw when he was taken up to heaven to see things to come (Rev. 4:1; 5:6). John didn’t see Jesus as a handsome being with long wavy blond hair, but the Lamb that had been slain.

To answer my questions, the Lord took me to the basic question – What is the beauty of the Lord? When I got the answer to that, my search was over. The beauty of the Lord is not something external but HIS CHARACTER. Unquestionably this is what makes Jesus beautiful – His character. This is the true beauty of anyone. Some of the most gorgeous females in Hollywood are some of the ugliest persons in America. And some of the most homely people I have met are the most beautiful Christians. Jesus was never more beautiful than when He was hanging on the Cross.

Gomen nasai (I’m sorry). I know I have told you all this before. Some of my stories are so boring, you soon forget them. I can tell them two or three times and each time it is liked the first time. But this fundamental principle that spiritual things are internal – something of the heart – is a subject that has increasing been accentuated to me. In the OT the worshipers brought sheep and goats to a physical altar to be sacrificed. But the day has now come when the true worshipers worship God in the spirit and in truth. It is not what we are on the outside, but what we are on the inside that counts.

I have found in exegesis, scriptural interpretation, if I associate the verb with the noun, often that makes things clear. That is: eyes – seeing, ears – hearing, teeth – eating, lips – speaking, feet – walking, etc. The noun is the external thing, but the verb is the spiritual action. The Bible is not given to change our outward appearance but to change our heart. It is the heart that is important.

When the Bible says, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings” (Isa. 52:7); it certainly doesn’t mean that the feet have painted toe nails. We talk about the beauty of helping hands. We talk about broad shoulders to carry a load; a man with a backbone to take a strong stand, etc. The action is the outward expression of the heart. That is why connecting the verb with the noun has helped me understand many things in the Bible.

Spiritual truth is clearly something internal. It is the heart that is beautiful, not a 45 inch chest. As I have read and reread the four gospels telling the story of Jesus many times, I have been overwhelmed at His character. His humility, His utter obedience to the Father to do only the will of God; His forgiveness for the wayward; His wrath against the wicked. Oh my goodness, the more I see of His character the more I am overcome with His beauty.

Phillip said, “Lord show us the Father and it will suffice us.” Jesus replied, “Have I been with you so long a time and thou hast not known Me. He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” (Jn.14:8,9). His character was the very Person of God. A 14 year old boy asked me at a Bible study one night, “Mr. Cook, what is God like?” I didn’t know how to answer him that night, but I do now. Look at Jesus. That is what God is like.

Psalm 27:4 is even a more important verse to me now. Nineteen years ago I didn’t know how to behold the beauty of the Lord, but since then He has shown me a large number of things. And perhaps someday He will explain the things to me that I don’t understand today.

It is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful knowing the Lord;

                                                                                            bill

It Is Done!

2 January 2011

Dear Phyllis,

As we say in Japan “Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu” (congratulations, it is opened) – the Japanese equivalent of Happy New Year. I hope to shout, “congratulation – IT IS OPENED!” Not the new year but the NEW LIFE. Oh my goodness, it can’t get any more wonderful!

Recently I have been consumed working on restructuring my shop, and time has just become blurred. I am not interested in the date – only the day. I worked all day on Christmas day and worked all day on New Years day. I couldn’t have enjoyed it more.

I went to bed early New Years Eve and got a good nights sleep. New Years morning I went out on my balcony to meet with Jesus and the word came to me, “Behold I make all things new”. I thought I knew where that was and looked at Revelation 21. At first I was surprised that I didn’t see it. I read, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away… And I John saw the Holy City…coming down from God out of heaven…And I heard a great voice saying, ‘Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and He Himself will be their God…”. Then I came to verse 5 and saw, “And He that sat on the Throne said, ‘BEHOLD I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW’. And He said to me, ‘Write: for these words are true and faithful’. And He said unto me, ‘IT IS DONE’…”

 I wasn’t surprised that the Lord told John, “these things are true and faithful”. I know the Bible is true and faithful. I know the book of Revelations is true and faithful. But then it came to me, the special emphasis the Lord gave to this when He told John. “Write it down!” This is a fact! I want people to understand that what I say is true! This is real!

I could understand all of that, but I was confused when He said, “It is done”. That part didn’t make sense. It is generally accepted that most of the book of Revelation is future tense. It is hard to believe that the Seven Seals have been opened. I can’t imagine that the Seven Trumpets have sounded. Certainly Armageddon hasn’t happened yet. I don’t know anyone who would suggest that we are living in a new heaven and a new earth. There is little doubt that all of this is future tense. How can He say, “It is done.”? But then I read, “I am Alpha and Omega (the first and last letter in the Greek alphabet), the beginning and the end.” That made sense. I know that Jesus is the beginning and I know that He is the end.

I know that God ordained that His Son was to be the creator. Paul told us that “All things were created by Him and for Him” (Col. 1:16). The first thing that John ever wrote was, “In the beginning was the Word (Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…All things were made by Him.” (Jn. 1:1, 3). There was a time when Jesus created all things. He was the beginning.

 Then everything went haywire. The devil stepped in and highjacked humanity. The earth became his. Creation went into a state of rebellion against God. By Adams failure all creation went upside down. To correct this something had to be done to undo Adam’s failure. This could only be done by two things. Someone had to come to earth and live the perfect life that Adam was supposed to live. Someone had to face temptation and say “NO” to the devil. Someone had to live a life of perfect obedience and harmony to do the will of God. And the second thing was, someone had to pay the price of death to undo the damage caused by Adam. There was a period of time when all that was future tense. Two thousand years ago Jesus came to the earth to be that Man and bring creation back to the Father. When all had been perfectly accomplished, Jesus could triumphantly cry from the Cross, “It is finished!”. That is why Jesus could say to John in Revelation, “Write all of these things down. It is done.” Jesus is the beginning and He is also the end. His work is all accomplished. It is done – not the future events coming to this earth – but the finished work of the restoration of creation. He is the culmination of all things.

Theologically all this is interesting, but the thing that made it such an enormous blessing was my personal experience in this truth. Right after Jesus told John, “It is done”, the next thing He said was, “I will give to him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely”. When I read that, my mind went back John 7, when Jesus stood and cried, “If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink” (Jn. 7:37). Oh, how that verse has spoken to me so many times over the years! There is no question, Jesus is the fountain of the water of life. He never could have made that invitation in John 7 if that was not true. Millions have come to Him to drink and found that what He said is true. Praise God, I too have come and found that He is the fountain of the water of life. Oh my goodness that water is good!

But in both cases – the invitation in John 7:37 and the promise in Rev. 21:6 – the only limitation placed on this blessing was thirst.  In John 7:37 Jesus stood and cried, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.” Why is it that so few have come to Him to drink? No thirst. This is the only restriction placed on our relationship with Christ – our thirst. The problem is our abysmal lack of thirst for Jesus. Why is it we find it so hard to have morning devotions? Why is it we find it more interesting to watch TV than read the Bible? Lack of thirst. We thirst the most for the thing we enjoy the most. On hot days when I am working outside, pouring sweat; when I take a break, a glass of cold water tastes like the most exotic wine. When my thirst is the most intense the water tastes the best. I believe the greatest blessing God can give us is an intense thirst for Himself.

 In personal work the most important qualification for someone seeking salvation is their thirst for God. Anyone can find God if they are thirsty enough. In the Christian life, the thing that will determine how far a person goes on with God is his thirst for God. It can be honestly said that anyone has as much of Christ as they are thirsty for.

But, realistically, how is it Jesus meets our thirst? How does He satisfy? The answer is the Holy Spirit. John explained Jesus’ invitation in John 7:37 about coming to Him and drinking by adding, “This He spake of the Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive.” (Jn. 7:39). At the time when Jesus made that wonderful invitation, the promise was still future tense – “For the Holy Spirit not yet given: because Jesus was not yet glorified”. It was some months later that Jesus could declare, “It is finished!”; and it was still another 53 days after that that the Holy Spirit was poured out to dwell among us.

The reason I was so enormously blessed New Years morning was because I could look back 54 years to the moment I first came to Jesus and know from personal experience exactly what He was talking about. I have come to Him and drunk. I know by a changed life that He has given me His Spirit to live in my heart. I know that I am born-again of His Spirit. I know I am a new man. Little did I realize what was involved that night when I first said yes to Jesus. It was liked an arranged marriage to a stranger. Little did I realize Who it was Who came to live in my heart. Since then I have been increasingly overwhelmed with the realization that the very Spirit of Christ Himself has come to live in me.

There is so much in that marvelous declaration, “Behold I make all things new.” In those subsequent verses we see all three tense joined in one. We see past, present and future tense. We see all three tenses in Jesus. He is the beginning and the end. And He is everything in between, right now. He began everything in creation and He finished the job in restoring humanity back to the Father. He was right when He said it is done – past tense. There is future tense in what He has promised when He said, “I will give to him that athirst of the fountain of life freely”. And there is present tense in that He has given us His Spirit to live in us today as we drink from Him everyday.

 And how do we drink? By believing. This is explained with a double emphasis in that wonderful invitation in John 7:37-39. Immediately after Jesus said “Come and drink” He said, “He that believeth on Me…”. And John repeats this by saying, “that they that believe on Him should receive the Holy Spirit”.  We receive the Holy Spirit and we are filled with the Holy Spirit simply by believing. We drink by believing.

I have come to a place in life where I am not the least bit interested in the blessings of God. At New Years it is universal that all people hope for a good new year. That is, they want the blessings of God. They want health, wealth and happiness. They want good health, financial success, and all the good things that come in life. I’m not interested. More than the blessings I want the Blessor. Rhea F. Miller and George Beverly Shea got that one right when they wrote I’d Rather Have Jesus – than anything this world provides today. They hit that one square. Oh my goodness, Jesus satisfies! And in His Inverted Kingdom many of the darkest things are His greatest blessings.

Dear Phyllis, do you see why I got so blessed New Years morning? I have believed and am saved. I do believe and enjoy Jesus immensely. I will believe that what He has promised – “Behold I make all things new” – is true. This is the guarantee for an incredible New Year. Have a good one. Praise God!

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