Ant's View

27 January 2019

Dear Phyllis,

If an ant would set out to walk around the earth and write a letter home each day describing the wonder and the marvel of what he saw, the frustration of the ant would not be as great as the problem we have with the limitation of human speech and knowledge to describe the beauty, the greatness, the worthiness, (and I don't know what other adjectives) of God and His wonderful Son. As I sit down to attempt to write you a letter today and I have no idea where to start. I feel like I am sitting before a table with 100 pieces of a puzzle, each one of which is more wonderful than the other. But how in the world you can put these pieces together to make one composite picture I don't know. My mind is filled with thoughts that I long to share, but they are so disjointed that it is impossible to make one theme.

We see Jesus in three phases. There is the pre-Bethlehem Jesus who was with the Father in eternity past. It was this Jesus who was commissioned by the Father to speak all things into existence. It was this Jesus by whom all things were created and for whom all things were created (Col. 1:16). We know very little about this Jesus other than He was with the Father, He was One with God, and He was God (Jn. 1:1-3) . It was this Creator-Jesus that holds all things together. To comprehend this Being is utterly beyond any possible human thought or imagination. This tells us something about His power, but very little about His moral character.

The mystery of all mysteries, this Creator-Being divested Himself of all the attributes of God to became a Man and lived here among us within the confines and all the limitations of humanity. He was born as a baby, grew as a child, was tired, slept, hungered, thirsted, and suffered physical pain. He participated with us in every experience common to man. This is the Man-Jesus. By this He physically demonstrated to us His real nature and was a Being we could comprehend. He identified Himself with us so that we could identify ourselves with Him. This is the Jesus of the four gospels and the one we know best.

Then there is a third Jesus who has returned to be with the Father and is now there as our representative, advocate, and mediator. We know a little about this Jesus as He has sent His Spirit to be with us and live in us. This is the Resurrected-Ascended-Seated-in-Heaven- Jesus But even so, this Jesus is so far beyond us it is difficult to fully appreciate. To know this Being is as difficult a task as it would be for an ant to walk around the world and write home telling about what he has seen.

At a very low time in my life the Lord reminded me of the verse I had chosen to be my life goal, but had never pursued. It was the David's goal in life. He wrote, “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 enquirer in His temple” (Ps. 27:4). That was a good idea to emulate David, but I had never done it. When I decided to quit every thing else and devote myself to seeking that one thing, I came up with a blank. I said, “I am not going to pray asking the Lord for anything, but just sit here for an hour beholding the beauty of the Lord.” I did - and I didn't see a thing. That raised a lot of questions. Are you supposed to see something? What are you supposed to see? How do you see it? And if you don't see anything – why? Twenty five years later I know the answers to those questions and I have seen the Lord. Oh my goodness He is beautiful, but I can't describe Him. Todd Bentley said He has been in heaven and seen Jesus several times. He said Jesus has huge biceps and a massive chest. Really? That doesn't sound like the Lamb of God John saw (Rev. 5:6). If John had a problem describing Jesus in heaven; it is so much beyond me I won't try. Let me simply say the first thing the Lord taught me is that the beauty of the Lord is not what He physically looks like but His moral character. When I started to examine this, I began to see some of the beauty of the Lord. But He is even so much more beyond this. There is a spirit world and it is only by the Holy Spirit that we can see spiritual things. We don't get that by intellectual reasoning.

Perhaps the greatest thing the Lord has taught me in recent years is the inverted ways of God. The ways of God are dead opposite to the ways of man.

The greatest joy we can have in this world is not by gaining the positive, but getting out of the negative. It is not by climbing a hill but by getting out of a hole. If you climbed Mt. Rainier and looked from the top you would not be a thrilled as you would be if you were stuck in a mine shaft for a week and got out. I was delighted when I got my one year Thai visa in Laos last week, but I wasn't as happy as I was when I got my lost waist pouch and passport back in Udon Thani last Wednesday. I appreciate the blessing of God but they are not as wonderful as the mercy and grace of God to cleanse me of my filth.

An innocent man may stick his chest out and thump his chest declaring, “I'm right”. But that man knows nothing of the joy and relief of a man who is guilty as the hound, and knows his only hope of salvation is mercy, and is then be forgiven. Forgiveness has greater joy than blessing. Job might have appreciated the blessing of God, but that did not compared with the joy that was his when he realized he was a guilty worm before God, repented in dust and ashes, and was forgiven. A healthy man knows nothing of the joy of a sick man who recovers. It is a blessed sickness that summons our wonderful Physician, our Lord Jesus, to our bed to stretch forth His tender hand and heal our sin-sick soul. Without our problems we would never know the wonderfulness of our Lord.

It is my needs that qualify me for a candidate for Jesus provision. Oh thank God for all the minuses in me that provide an opportunity for Jesus to fill with His plus. I am not a mound for Jesus to stand on but a hole in the ground for Jesus to fill. And that makes Jesus wonderful. Oh what cause do I have to thank, praise, and worship Jesus every day! Oh, the beauty of the Lord is tremendous!

Yesterday the Lord reminded me of the marriage of Cana. The governor of the feast was right when he said, “Every man sets forth the good wine first at the beginning.” This is the way of the world, but Jesus holds His beat wine for last. What a message this has for us! I was thinking the other day about the sad finish many of God's greatest servants have. Corey ten Boon's last years were terrible. She lay helpless imprisoned in a fragile body unable to do anything. Watchman Nee died in obscurity in prison having never been released to continue his tremendous ministry. Henry Martin died alone and was buried in an unmarked grave in Persia. Many of God's great heroes burn out like a candle down to the end of the string, flicker, and die. How sad. But our book and God's book are different. We might get to the last page of our book, but God still has many more chapters left in His, Our end is not His. He has saved the best wine for last; and regardless of what the scenario may look like for us at the moment our best days are still in front of us.

Gomen nasai (I'm sorry) for a poor disjointed letter. What I am trying to say is that Jesus is wonderful, beyond our comprehension, but His ways are different than ours.

Thank you for your fellowship in Christ,

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