Hi all,
Barb is recovering nicely from her right knee replacement and left knee ‘revision’, nearly 1 month ago. Thank you for your prayers. About 10 years ago her left knee was replaced, but she badly damaged it in a fall last November. In surgery they found when she fell, she ‘blew out’ a tendon and broke the plastic internal parts to that left knee. (Who knew you could do that?) So that had to be replaced and repaired. Then her right knee was fully replaced. At this point she gets around with a walker and is getting better day by day. Again, thank you for your prayers.
For US partners: Our address is: CWOWI, PO Box 40, Broken Arrow, OK, 74012
As we don’t live in Mounds anymore, the PO Box 70 in Mounds will be shut down the end of the year – for those who use their bank’s ‘bill pay’ options please have them change to the PO Box 40 in Broken Arrow. Thank you!
KWOWI (Kids Without Walls International); Please visit www.cwowi.org, then click ‘network’ on the top menu, then ‘updates’ to see some of what’s going on in Uganda and Kenya. You can also click KWOWI along the top to see some of the children receiving support. We are behind our goals for the site of being able to directly choose children to sponsor, but it is coming along.
Deep Believer Interviews: I am recording a 2nd Deep Believer YouTube interview on Monday, so it should be posted on September 24. The first one has had over 118,000 views in 1 month and she asked me to return for a 2nd interview.
We are now in that time frame of September-March the Lord talked about, with more intensity in November through March – change over in government in Europe, political events in the US, the shift of focus to Europe and Asia, inflation and economies of the world sinking – all the start of a rough few months. But for those who maintain their peace and love walk, His grace will provide and sustain…amazing grace.
Something light to share: Due to Barb’s surgery it had been about 3 weeks since we had Chris for a home visit. Last Friday Barb felt secure enough for me to go get him, and he was both concerned and curious about her knee surgery. Saturday morning he and I sat on our sofa, and he was thoroughly enjoying being home as we watched a recorded Formula 1 (F1) car race.
Suddenly my angel was in the room, gave me a message from the Father about some things coming up in our lives, then just stood there, smiling. As Chris and I talked and watched the race, he kept standing there smiling as he watched us. After a few minutes, a little concerned as to why he was doing that, I asked why. He said:
“I’m enjoying watching your family, and how family works. We don’t have this in heaven. Family was created by your Father, for you (mankind). I don’t have a father and mother, we were created directly by your Father for Him, and it is Him we serve.”
Due to a previous visitation with the Lord, I had learned that the angels do indeed belong to the Father. In that visitation the Lord responded when I had asked if we can command angels and He said:
“You don’t even know how to pray as you should, what makes you think you know how to tell an angel what to do? The angels belong to the Father.” When I asked for chapter and verse He said: “Have you not read in the days of my flesh when I was in the Garden; I said I could ask the Father and He could send 12 legions of angels? Have you not read that for over-comers I will acknowledge I know them before the Father and His angels?” The angels belong to the Father. (Matthew 26: 53 and The Revelation 3: 5)
Faith where?
One of the things I shared in the 2 online Zoom meetings this month was the Lord’s emphasis on faith in His power rather than in man’s wisdom, which is what Paul in I Corinthians 2:5. A couple chapters later in 4:20 he said it again a different way to makes his point: “For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.” Our faith should first and foremost be in the power of God we see in our lives, not in words on the page.
The 1st century church didn’t have the New Testament like we do. When they talked of the Word of God they didn’t think ink on a page of a thing called the Bible. The gospel of John told them the Word of the Father became flesh and lived among them – so the Word of God to them was first and foremost the person of Jesus Christ.
When we read the NT and it talks of the Word of God, we think it means the pages of the New Testament.
For instance, in Hebrews 4: 12 which many know by heart: “For the Word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even to the dividing between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and critiques the thoughts and intentions of our heart.”
We read that and say that is the written Word of God – chapter and verse. Many pastors and Bible teachers will tell us to ‘get into the Word’, and generations of Christians have been raised to think Hebrews 4:12 says words on the written page are powerful and divide between soul and spirit and critique our thoughts and intentions. But that is not what that passage says.
The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword….and v13 continues: “Neither is there anything hidden in His sight. All things are open and naked before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Seeing then that we have Jesus as our High Priest, who has gone into heaven, let us hold fast to our faith. For He isn’t one who can’t understand our infirmities for He was tested in all points like we are, yet without sin. Let us come boldly therefore to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy, and grace to help in time of need.”
CLEARLY the Word of God in v12, that living and active Word, is the person of Jesus Christ who sees our heart and is touched by the feeling of our infirmities – the text says knowing He IS touched by our trials and tribulations, let us come boldly to the Father to receive help.
Our faith is in the power of God, not in the written page – the written page has flowed from the True and Living Word –
As it pertains to the promises…
This is why I tell people who say they are ‘standing on the Word’, which always means finding a verse and claiming that as their own for their healing or other situation – to get alone with the Father and Lord in worship, in prayer, and let the person who is the Word, give them His Word on their situation.
It is NOT a New Testament truth to just pick a verse and ‘stand’ on it – it IS a New Testament truth to let the Person who is the Word of God give you a word – that our faith rest in the power of God and not in man’s wisdom.
For Instance, in Acts 13:47 Paul and Barnabas have been sharing about the Lord to Jews and Gentiles, and the Jews rejected his claim Jesus was raised from the dead. As a result he told them their blood is on their own hands, for they were going to preach to the Gentiles:
“For this is what the Lord has commanded us; ‘I set you to be a light to the Gentiles to bring them salvation to the ends of the earth.”
Paul said that’s what the Lord told them – that sentence was first uttered by Isaiah in 49:6 as a reference to Isaiah’s ministry and Messiah’s. Paul didn’t just pick that verse and say, ‘This is what I’m standing on’. No, he said the Lord lifted that verse in Isaiah was for his ministry as well. So that Paul’s faith was in the power of God, not in a written verse. Read through the Bible, yes…but look for the Father to quicken a verse to you by His Spirit – you’ll feel it in your spirit, it will ‘jump out’ at you to get your attention. Often that is the way the Lord will pull a written verse out of context and let you know that in your situation, it is a promise to you too.
This is the way we live…
Barb and I have never made any major move in our lives unless we have a word from the Lord on it first. We’ve never just picked a verse to stand on – we’ve paid the price to pray, worship, rearrange our time – whatever it takes until He or the Father speak to us.
There was 1 time in our marriage, just once, that I went against what I just wrote above. We had a word from Him that we were to move to Boulder, CO from our home in Tulsa in September of 1980. But I moved us there in May just after graduating from Bible school in Tulsa. I was immature at age 22, eager to get going in ministry, so moved 3 months early. Those 3 months were the hardest of our lives. Money was scarce, and I had to work at one point, 3 jobs for no ministry opportunity arose.
Beyond that, Barb had an accident in early June that nearly killed her and our then 6 month old baby, Chris. When September came a church asked me to be their pastor, and things smoothed out in every area of life. The Father did make up for my disobedience, though He gave enough grace to get through those 3 months of disobedience.
The Lord was gracious, but it was a lesson learned. First, get a Word from the Living Word, and second, don’t think that just because you have a ‘word’ from Him you can move in your own timing. Third, don’t be presumptuous to think God will make up for your little disobedience because you heart is in the right place. He won’t. What you sow is what you reap. There is grace in the midst of the immaturity, for Barb was spared and healed, and we got through those 3 months. But I never made that mistake again.
Our faith is to be in the power of God and not in our wisdom. If you’ve been taught to pick out a verse and stand on that, you can see that isn’t in the NT. In fact as I showed, they didn’t have a NT to pick a verse to stand on. They had to get a word from the Word of God, and He who discerns our thoughts and intentions, gives us His word.
And don’t be lazy – the world is filled with lazy Christians who want some prophet to ‘give them a word’ – and the excuse of ‘I don’t know how to hear Him’ is no excuse is it? For those who pay the price to turn their attention with their whole heart to find Him, He will be found. For many, divine healing or divine provision is just one of their options. If prayer doesn’t work they will do what they feared and go through the treatment. Or they will do what they don’t want to do and go to a relative to borrow money.
But when a person encounters a situation they need to ‘hear from the Lord’, then set yourself to do so. He is faithful. He is the Living Word of God.
Amen – blessings and thanks for being in our lives, John Fenn
