Inquiring of the Lord

22 April 2018

Dear Phyllis,

Oh my goodness did we have a good week! Several things happened that were a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but neither time nor space will permit me to share that with you today. Last week I was speaking in Beulah Christian Church and in one hour barely got through what I consider my most important message. This was the secrete of David's life. This was the one thing he desired of the Lord and sought after (Ps, 27:4). Fifty five years ago I choose this to be my life verse and preached about it for 30 years. And then when my life collapsed the Lord said to me, “You have been talking about this verse for 30 years but you never practiced it.” I said, “Okay, I will quit paying for the salvation of my family and give myself to this one thing of “beholding the beauty of the Lord and inquiring in His temple”. For a couple of weeks I would get up early in the morning and just sit quietly before the Lord gazing on the beauty of the Lord and never saw a thing. That brought up four basic questions. (1) Are you supposed to see something? (2) What are you supposed to see? (3) How do you see it? (4) And if you don't see anything – why? The pursuit of those four questions became the core of my life.

On the question of whether or not you were supposed to see something, on the basis that the Scripture speaks so much about seeing the Lord, I assumed the answer must be yes. But what were you supposed to see and how? And why was it that I saw nothing? In answer to my prayers the Lord began at the end to give me some answers.

The answer to why I didn't see anything was so simply that it was stupid. If I was looking at a news paper and someone said, “Look at this” - I looked but didn't see anything – what would be the cause? Very poor eyesight. The Lord showed me the reason I couldn't see things was because of poor eyesight. But then He said he had some medicine that would cure it (Rev. 3:17,18). I replied, “Lord, if You have got some eye salve that will help my blindness, sign me up as a customer. What is the price and how do I get this eye salve?” I am not sure this would be the same for everyone but I know what the Lord told me.

If you have poor eyesight and want to see spiritual things better the first price you will have to pay is time. If you are not willing to spend a great deal of time waiting before the Lord daily, forget about trying to see anything. Only the ones who are willing to pay the price of time will ever have 20-20 spiritual vision. We live in such a hurry-up, right-now world that we don't have time to wait quietly before the Lord for an hour or more. At best we read Our Daily Bread at the breakfast table and call that devotions.

Jesus gave us an important principle, if we want to have spiritual eyesight, when He said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Mt. 5:8). That seems to be one of the primary requirements. It goes without too much argument that if the heart is gunked up with filth there isn't much of a chance of seeing God before the great day of Judgment. We will all see God then, but that may not be such a happy occasion. Pure in heart may be speaking about a clean heart but it also may be referring to an uncluttered heart. Pure could stand in contrast to diluted – mixed with other things. One of the prices Jesus said to me that I must pay if I wanted His eye salve was that I had to cut down on competing interest. If my mind was filled with half a dozen other topics it made it extremely difficult to get a clear view of Christ. Mental discipline is difficult but to a limited degree we all are responsible for what we allow our mind to dwell on. Fortunately Jesus does have some eye salve that helps poor spiritual eye sight and without it we won't see much.

I was surprised at what Jesus told me was the means of seeing the beauty of the Lord. For several years when I preached on Ps. 27:4 I told my listeners, “What you do is set aside time to be with the Lord, then you fill your mind with thought of Jesus sitting on His Throne”. Wrong! Dead wrong! Obviously the only way we are ever going to see anything is by the Holy Spirit but there is a fundamental difference between IMAGINATION and spiritual REVELATION. Imagination is internal – revelation is external. I can sit with my eyes closed and imagine a lot of things, but if I don't open my eyes and allow light from outside to hit my eyeballs I won't SEE anything. Revelation is something that comes to us from outside our mind by the Holy Spirit. And imagination closes the door to the Holy Spirit.

The question of what you are supposed to see was also a major lesson. Several years ago Todd Bentley was a rising star in the charismatic world. My fiend Mark was a big Todd Bentley enthusiast. One day we were on a long trip and Mark played a couple of Todd Bentley messages in the truck. Basically I thought much of what Bentley was saying was very good. His message was extremely close to mine on Ps. 27:4. Bentley was a hyper-spiritual man. Like Paul he had been in heaven several times and seen a number of people in heaven. But there were four things about Bentley where I would take exception. One was Paul had his celestial visitation and was silent about it for 14 years, and it was only after necessity forced him that he mentioned it (2 Cor. 12:2-4). Secondly, Paul said he saw things that were unlawful to talk about. Bentley, like Paul, had had a number of celestial visitations and he was having conferences telling people about it. Thirdly, the essence of the Bentley conference was to instruct people how to access the spiritual world. For those who want to get in touch with spirits there may be some merit to Bentley's teaching but I am not sure that is what Paul had in mind when he wrote to the Ephesians. In reading Pauline epistles I don't see much material on how to access the spirit world. My forth point of question about Bentley was what he saw in heaven. He said he saw and talked with Jesus. He said Jesus was sitting on His Throne and was handsome. He said Jesus had a massive chest and huge biceps. He must have been Mr. World on steroids. That's odd. John had a similar experience and was caught up to heaven. He too saw Jesus sitting on His Throne, but the Jesus John saw was much different than the one Todd Bentley talked with. John said Jesus was like a Lamb that had been slaughtered. Maybe Jesus had just gotten better in 2,000 years and now has a 48 inch chest and 30 inch biceps, but I really don't think so. Since then Todd Bentley was having a conference in Lakeland, Florida that was being hailed by the charismatics as the greatest move of the Holy Spirit since Azusa Street. It turned out that while Bentley was enjoying this unprecedented outpouring of the Holy Spirit he was living in adultery with his secretary. He wound up divorcing his wife and has been proven to be as phony as a $3 bill.

That was a horrible time when my life disintegrated and Jesus didn't answer my prayers. But in light of what He taught me through it well justifies the pain. So far I have covered three of the points of the questions I had when I decided to quit seeking anything else but beholding the beauty of the Lord and enquiring in His temple. Because the Bible talks so much about spiritual seeing and OT prophets were known as See-ers I assumed we were supposed to see something. Then the Lord taught me something about spiritual blindness and the cure. And Jesus explained some principles about spiritual revelation – that it can only be by the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit doesn't show us something we won't see anything. But the last point of what are we supposed to see may be the most important. Unfortunately we are out of time and space and I will have to postpone that point until next week.

Until then all I can wish is for you and all of us to be looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.

Have a good one – sayonara (bye-bye), bill

Life's Weather

15 April 2018

Dear Phyllis,

Well winter is definitely over in Thailand. The temperature is up to a comfortable 100 F every day. Two weeks ago we had an unexpected severe cold snap where the thermometer dipped to the low 70s and I almost froze. It got so cold in the morning I had to go inside and put on a T shirt to work in my shop. Then towards evening it got so bitter I had to put on a long sleeve shirt. I closed the window of my bedroom and slept under a blanket. But from now on for the next nine months we can expect very reasonable weather. We are right at the end of the dry season, and surprisingly this is the time for flowers to bloom. In the states and Japan we wait for spring rain to bring out the flowers but in Thailand the prettiest time of the year is when it is the driest.

That is the way it should be in the Christian life. Samuel Rutherford said, “Grace blooms best in winter”. That is true. It takes severe testing to bring out the finest qualities of grace. It doesn't take much grace to be happy when the sun is shining and a warm south breeze is blowing, but when every thing goes bad and the chilly north wind of adversity is in your face, that is when grace really looks the most beautiful. It has been said, “When the going gets tough, the tough gets going”; and you really don't know who is tough until the hard times come.

Three months ago I ran into a church by mistake. I was looking for a friends church and got lost. I finally saw one that looked like the one I was after and went inside to ask if that was James church. No. Wrong one. But it was after 11:00 and I decided to stay anyway. As the service went on I wondered, “What kind of a church is this?” To find out I decided to give it one more try to see who they were. Beulah Christian Church has become my new home church. I say this is the best church I have found in Thailand and am now a regular member. I have been anxiously waiting for a chance to speak and today was my first time up.

When I knew I was on the schedule this Sunday I asked the Lord what he would have me to say. I thought He said to speak on “What is your goal in life?”. For two weeks thoughts have flooded my mind. My mind went back to a message I heard Joe Carroll preach in 1962 on David.

David was one of the most gifted, outstanding, men in the Bible. He is the only one where God said he was a man after His own heart (Act 13:22). He was easily the greatest king Israel ever had. But few people realize he first came to prominence as a musician. Saul was having problems being harassed my evil spirits and they said, “Let's see if we can find someone to calm him down by music”. David had the reputation as being the finest harpist in the country and was brought to play before Saul to calm his spirit (1 Sam. 16:14-23).

David is probably best known for being the man who killed Goliath. When the Philistine giant challenged Saul's army there wasn't a man in the country that would face the giant until David showed up. David said, “I'll take him on”, and when he cut off Goliath's head he was a national hero soldier. David was a great poet. He wrote one third of the psalms we have in the Bible. He was a brilliant military man and a leader of men. He took 400 men who were disgruntled with life and molded them into an army to be feared. He was a great statesman. His 40 year reign was sandwiched between Saul and Solomon. In the the days of Saul Israel was a very poor country. There were only two swords in the entire country and the Israelites didn't own a file (1 Sam. 13:19-23). Solomon followed David as king and during his reign Israel was the riches county in the world. In 40 years David had taken that rag-tag poor country and made it into the prosperous nation that Solomon inherited.

David was truly a multi-gifted man with many talents. But if we would ask him, “What was your goal in life? What was the one thing your wanted to accomplish?”; I believe he would tell us what he wrote in 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 INQUIRE in His temple”.

When I heard that message by Joe Carroll I thought, “That has got to be the most important message I have ever heard. If that was David's goal I couldn't do better than to make it mine”. I choose it to be my life verse and the goal of my life. For the next 30 years I preached a number of plagiarized Joe Carroll messages and was very satisfied with my position.

Then in 1989, 1990 my world collapsed. My wife left me and I lost everything including, my marriage, my family, my home, my ministry, all my support, and my friends. From 1989 to 1992 I frantically and furiously fought to save my family. I prayed until I'm sure God got tired of hearing me. At my lowest point I wound up a honey wagon man driving around Ikoma pumping out toilets and septic tanks. (A honey wagon is a vacuum truck to pump out toilets. We call it honey wagon because the contents look somewhat like honey.) Driving a honey wagon is not a very fulfilling job and at night I couldn't go home and say, “I really had a great time pumping out 20 toilets today”. I had no friends and nothing else to do. My life wound up three phrases – having devotions in the morning, driving a honey wagon for 8 hours in the day and sleeping at night. I wound up going to bed at 8:00 and getting up every morning at 3:00 AM for devotions as I had no friends and nothing else to do.

As I started meeting with the Lord at 3:00 Am Jesus spoke to me. He said, “You have been talking about Psalm 27:4 for 30 years but you have never practiced it”. David said the one thing he was going to seek was beholding the beauty of the Lord and the one thing I was pursuing was the salvation of my family. I said. “Okay, I quit. I will stop praying for my family and seek just one thing – to behold the beauty of the Lord and and be on speaking terms with God.”

The next morning I got up at 3:00, got dressed, and had a cup of coffee. Then I sat down before the Lord and said, “I am not going to pray about a thing. I am not going to ask God for anything or even thank Him for anything. For two hours I am simply going to sit here and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.” I had been doing this for a few weeks and was talking to a girl at church one Sunday. I asked her if she had ever done that. “No” “Try it. Set aside 15 minutes every day; don't pray abut a thing but just sit there quietly before then Lord gazing at His beauty. Then come in next Sunday and tell me what you saw.” The next Sunday I asked her, “Did you do it?” “Yes” “What did you see?” “I didn't see a thing.” “Neither did I.” I would wait before the Lord every morning but my mind was all over the place. I never saw a cotton picken thing.

That brought up four major questions; (1) Are you supposed to see something? (2) What are you supposed to see? (3) How do you see it? and (4) If you don't see anything – WHY? Answering those four questions became to focal point of my life. That was 26 years ago. Today I know the answers.

I was supposed to speak in church for 30 minutes this morning. I spoke for 1 hour and this is as far as I got.

See you next week, bill

Prayer

8 April 2018

Dear Phyllis,

There are so many things on my heart it is hard to know what the Lord would have us consider today. As I was praying the other morning the subject of what moves God came to my heart.

Prayer has long been a major subject for me and I have come to some unusual convictions about prayer. The phrase “prayer changes things” is almost universally accepted as a fact. Most people think if you only prayer hard enough about something you can get it. May I say flat out that ain't true. To start with is the will of God. If what you want is not the will of God you can pray 'til the cows come home and still come up empty. No one ever prayed more for their family than I did for mine and I lost everything. And I thank God for it. He had something better in mind for me. It is dangerous to lust too intensely for something. You might get it (Ps. 106:14,15); and that could prove deadly. Sometimes it is the mercy of God not to give us what we crave for.

But the phrase “prayer changes things” strikes me as odd. Jesus told us the story about the poor widow who hounded the unjust judge until she got what she was after (Lk. 18:1-8).There certainly is such a thing as persistence in prayer and Jesus taught this story that we should pray and not faint. It has been suggested that the alternative to prayer is fainting. If you don't pray you will faint – and who wants that? But many still feel that their dilemma a is similar to hers and if they just stay with it long enough they can move God's hand to help them. They say prayer can move mountains. I don't think so. I would rather think Jesus can move mountains and Jesus doesn't have to be worn into submission. I believe church history and eternity will reveal that there have been thousands of hours of unanswered prayer because it was prayer amiss (Jm. 4:3). Perhaps one of the purposes Jesus had in telling this story was to demonstrate the intensity of the widows persistence rather than to teach prayer can wear away problems like water on rock.

I am somewhat at a loss to know what verb to use, but one that comes close is intensity. Jesus said that the kingdom had suffered violence and the violent took it by force (Mt. 11:12). Battering rams are not going to break down the gate to heaven but violence may open them. Violence is a very intense action.

The first year I was the director of the language school I faced a serious problem. Mrs. Tanaka was a very popular teacher. She was also a wonderful Christian but I knew she was also weak to pressure. When her mother died I knew she was facing a serious problem about bowing before idols and offering things to spirits. This is one of the most serious problems in Christianity in Japan. It is the rare Christian who won't compromise at funerals and for those who do they face terrific social pressure. I knew Mrs. Tanaka was not the kind of person who would defiantly take a stand; and if she compromised, what was my position? I said if it was adultery she would be fired on the spot, and to me, bowing before an idol was as serious as adultery. Therefore I settled in my mind that if she bowed she is finished. I also knew that few missionaries and pastors feel as strongly as I do on that subject and the language committee would not support me in my hard-line position. For several days I wrestled with this issue in my mind but came to the adamant position that if she bowed I would fire her and resign as director of the language school. Right or wrong was academic, but it was a life or death issue with me.

The day before the mothers funeral we had a terrific snow storm in Karuizawa. Mrs. Tanaka struggled to wade through two feet of snow to come to school. When she got there she had a serious heart attack. The next day, when I visited her in the hospital, she looked up at me and said, “Cook sensei, today is the day of my mothers funeral”. I looked at her and replied, “Yes, I know, and that is the reason you are here”. The Lord thought enough of both Mrs. Tanaka and me to keep us from that funeral crisis and laid her on her back to save the language school. Few Christians in Japan are as serious about compromise as I am but because I was very intense in my conviction the Lord saved me.

In the gospels the people who stand out the most as those who were the most desperate. One was Jairus (Mk. 5:22-43). His daughter was lying at deaths door step. She actually died. He fell down at Jesus feet crying, “Lord help me. Please come”. Another one was the woman of Tyre (Mk. 7:24-30). She is my favorite woman in the gospels. She raise such a commotion that the disciples pleaded with Jesus to send her away. At first Jesus ignored her, then He said, “I'm sorry, lady, but I am only sent to Israel and it isn't right to take the children's bread and give it to dogs”. That has got to be the coarsest, rudest, remark in the Bible, but the reason Jesus said it was to bring out the incredible character that He knew was in her heart. She came right back and said, “True Lord, but the dogs eat the crumbs under the table”. That was one of the pinnacle moments in the life of Christ. She took the breath away from Jesus, and He remarked, “Oh woman, great is thy faith!”. Of all the people Jesus met in the gospels she is probably the gold medalist. She was one of the most intense.

Another hero is blind Bartimaeus (Mk. 1o:46-52). When he heard Jesus was passing by he made such a fuss that people rebuked him. When he heard that Jesus had heard him and was calling for him he threw down his garment and rushed to Jesus. That garment was the only worldly possession he had, but – “Hang the garment, let me get to Jesus”. In all three cases these are very intense people.

Tozer said, “If God ever answered 5% of 90% of the prayer that is offered in the average Christian church in America on any given Sunday morning, that would startle everyone so much it would empty the church. And no one thinks this is odd.” Half-hearted prayer is no prayer at all. If the heart is not really in it, is it reasonable to expect that will move God's hand? But one of the things that will bring down the blessing of God is a fierce request from a burning heart.

The other morning one of the teachers from the training course that Pammy just finished came to see me. I asked him how he got saved. The thing that impressed me the most about this brother was the intensity of the man – both before and after he was saved. Before he was saved he was a successful business and made a lot of money. When his life stated to come unglued he went into Buddhism with such commitment that he told his wife he was going to be a monk and live in a temple. His conversion was wild. He was going out to commit suicide and wound up in a church not knowing why he was there. He cried uncontrollably for two days and the second night Jesus saved him. When Jesus spoke to him and came into his heart his response was like everything else in his life. He was 40 years old, he quit everything and went to Bible school with his family. Today he is one of the top men of God in Chiang Mai. The spirit of the man just radiates heat wherever he goes.

There is no record of the Spirit of God coming on anyone and they fall asleep. It can be safely said that if anyone is truly filled with the Spirit of God there is life and that life is characterized by intensity. The opposite of intense is rosy. I don't want to serve the Lord like I am half asleep.

Oh Lord, fill us with fire and so wake us to trim our lamps that they will be casting full light when You come back. Lord fill us with Your Spirit and give us intensity to run our race.

Onegai shimasu (I request), bill

Dispensations

1 April 2018

Dear Phyllis,

He is risen! This was the traditional greeting in the 1^st century church on Resurrection Sunday, and the reply was, “He is risen indeed”. Tradition demands that I say something about the resurrection today, but I would rather not. Several years ago was talking to a Kichijoji brother on Saturday night and asked him what we was going to say about the resurrection tomorrow. He replied, “Every Sunday is Resurrection Sunday” and he spoke on a different subject. Rather than discussing the resurrection of Christ today I would rather consider the resurrected Lord Jesus and the seven dispensations of the presence of God.

Without the Bible we would have very little knowledge about God and His purpose in creation. Obviously, man is the highest and greatest thing God ever created. Man is unique in that he is created in the image of God. And it would seem that the reason God created such a being was that He wanted something like Himself that He could have a relationship with.

The first dispensations of the presence of God was His relationship with Adam in the Garden. How long this lasted we have no idea. It would appear that it wasn't too long, and we have no concept of what Adam's relationship with God was like before the fall except that it was intermittent with God coming down to fellowship with Adam in the cool of the day.

After the fall it would seem that God's relationship with His created being was limited to a few men who walked with God. Enoch was the most famous for that relationship but it also describes how God was with a few individuals like Noah, Abraham, Issac, Jacob, and Joseph.

When we come to Moses and the exodus we see God doing something He had never done before. This was His third dispensation. He choose a nation with whom He made a covenant. The whole purpose of that covenant was that He might have a nation that would be His people and He would be their God. In this Israel was unique in the world and God's presence with them was unique. For 40 years in the wilderness His presence was physical. God told Moses to make a Tabernacle for Him to live in and He presented Himself with a visible cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The epicenter of the presence of God was the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat that covered it. Here He promised to meet with Moses and the priests who ministered there.

In the days of Eli Israel made a mistake in thinking that their salvation was a wooden box. When they lost a battle with the Philistines they said, “Let's get the Ark and IT will save us” (1 Sam 4:3). God showed them that their God was not a wooden box and let the Philistines capture it. But then He showed the Philistines that His Ark of he Covenant was not something to be trifled with (1Sam. 4-6), and reconfirmed that with David when he tried to move it on a new cart (2 Sam. 6). This third dispensations of the Tabernacle presence of God lasted for 1,000 years with the Ark of the Covenant in Moses Tabernacle and later in Solomon's Tabernacle. God committed Himself with a covenant that He would meet with His people there. And He reconfirmed that even in the days of Daniel when he prayed towards Jerusalem (2 Chron. 6:36-38; Dan. 6:10).

The forth dispensation of the presence of God was unique lasting only 33 years when God became flesh and dwelt among us (Jn. 1:14, 1 Tim. 3:16). In a way that never existed before or since; if someone would ask, “Where is God?”, a person could honestly point to Christ and say, “There is God manifested in the flesh”. Phillip could ask Jesus, “Please show us the Father”. And Jesus replied, “Phillip, have I been with you so long and you don't know Me. He that hath seen Me has seen the Father” (Jn. 14:8,9). The presence of God in Christ was something that had never happened on this planet from the days of Adam on.

But the fifth dispensation of God's presence is an enormous mystery. That is where we are today. When Jesus left to return to heaven He promised to send His Spirit to live with His people. In a way far more real than God was there with the disciples and Christ's followers when they walked the roads of Israel, Jesus has come to be with us today wherever we are. The dispensation of the Holy Spirit is a mystery that transcends mans intellect to comprehend. Last week I wrote about the new-birth. Nobody can understand that. Somehow the Spirit of God is united with the human spirit to become one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). The Holy Spirit within us cannot sin (1 Jn. 3:9). And yet if we say we don't sin we lie and are not telling the truth (1Jn. 1:8). The Holy Spirit is both within us (internally) and beside us (externally). Jesus said as a fact that when two or three of His people would get together He was there with them (Mt. 18:20).This is true because Jesus in me meets with Jesus in you. Jesus didn't say to Saul, “Why are you persecuting My people?” but said, “Why are you persecuting ME?” (Act 9:4). The presence of Christ in His Church is a mystery that we don't fully understand.

From the beginning, God's whole purpose in creation was to have a people to be His own. This is both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The OT was external and the NT is internal. The basis of the OT was a set of laws and the rule of the NT is an indwelling Spirit of Life (Heb. 7:16). Basically both Covenants were (are) a marriage contract. I believe the reason God has given us the institution of marriage is to dramatically portray to us the relationship God intends to have with His people. The Church is known as the Bride of Christ. This is confirmed by Eph. 5 and several other places. In Rev. 19 and 21 we see the final culmination. But this has brought me to a problem that bewilders me.

For years the Song of Solomon has been, for me, the greatest jewel in God's treasure box of Scripture. Basically this describes the relationship of Jesus with His Bride. Samuel Rutherford, more than any other author, lived there, and in His letters all he talks about is His relationship with Jesus as Husband and Wife. Theologically he is 100% correct. Experientially this is the way it is supposed to be - but realistically this is embarrassing. Our fallen minds are so perverted it is next to impossible to live in this relationship and talk about it without this looking like sexual perversion. That is why Christians cringe at reading or listening to the Song of Solomon. You get the same feeling in reading the Letters of Rutherford. His letters are full of the language of the Song of Solomon where he talks much about His kisses, His breath, “when we will be in each others arms?”. Even in the gospels we read with a measure of embarrassment of John leaning on Jesus bosom (Jn. 13:23). I can understand why the unsaved read this with an odd feeling. Apart from Rutherford, I don't know of anyone who talks about their relationship with Jesus as Husband and Wife, but I am convinced that he is absolutely correct. We cannot discuss the most intimate relationship between a husband and wife without using the most guarded language. And yet if this is true in a human relationship, is it not reasonable that our oneness with Jesus should be on an even higher plane? I get enormously blessed by many verses in the S. of S. God speaks to me as much through that book as any place in Scripture, but the relationship there and what Rutherford talks about is totally off the board in today's thinking. Lord help us with this that we might be more intimate with You.

The six dispensation of the presence of God will be when Jesus comes aback and set up His Kingdom on 1,000 years on this earth. This is post-resurrection. We will all have new bodies and free of an Adamic nature while we are here ruling things with Jesus. And then there will be the seventh dispensation after the Lord burns up the heavens and the earth and makes everything new. But we know nothing about that.

What I am trying to say is that God has presented Himself with His created man in five different ways since the days of the Garden, but I believe what we have today is the most intimate yet, and our access to God is even closer than Adam, Abraham, Moses, and John experienced. And I believe it is God who is longing for fellowship with us. Thank God Jesus came, died, and rose again. But much more, thank God, Jesus has come back by His Spirit to be with us until that day when we will be with with Him forever.

Hallelujah, bill