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All rights reserved. This book is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America. This book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain or profit. The use of short quotations or occasional page copying for personal or group study is permitted and encouraged. Permission will be granted upon request. Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version. Scripture quotations marked NIV
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Spiritually speaking, the Spirit of God gives us a blood transfusion replacing our corrupt, human life-blood with the divine life-blood of Jesus.
the corporate church of Jesus in the West is weak, anemic, and sickly. Many ministers have pumped His blood out of their sermons and given us a transfusion of entertainment—feel-good and self-help sermons that have no power in them.
The only thing that will revive the people of God is to spiritually pump the blood of Jesus back into our lives.
I consider myself to be a normal, everyday American person living a normal, everyday American person’s life. I don’t think of myself to be anyone special. I had no idea that I was born for a purpose or that God had a plan for my life. Does that sound like you? Do you know why you were born or God’s plan for your life?
someone gave me a birthday card that I opened and read. It says, “You were made by a loving God for His special purpose. May today be a celebration of His wonderful plan for you.”
I was busy living my life and doing things that American people do.
It was not just knowledge or information; it was revelation and God’s revealed Word has God’s life in it.
with His life manifesting Himself in me, through me, and out of me. In other words, I had a spiritual transfusion of the blood of Jesus. It is this revelation that has been burning in my soul for over forty years.
I am not talking about religion or even “getting saved” but an encounter with the Creator of the universe.
When God shows up, everything changes. Your world is turned upside down. Nothing will ever again be the same. The meaning and purpose and focus of your life are set forever. For those who don’t believe I can only say that a person who has had an encounter with God is never at the mercy of someone who only has a doctrine or argument about God.
I could not move. These are moments you never forget. You see, the infinite Creator can only reveal a little of Himself to finite humans. If He manifests too much of Himself, we would die.
I was 32 years of age when I had this encounter that would forever change my life. At the time I was at the peak of my career path enjoying my position as Corporate Director of Management Information Systems Training and Standards at a large oil company in Houston, Texas.
While there is a difference between faith and presumption, the Lord gave us the faith to trust Him to take care of us as we followed His call and plan for our lives.
book by Frances Roberts entitled On the High-road of Surrender (King’s Farspan, Inc., 1973).
“My Words Cannot Wait.” I turned to page 38
“The hour is late, and the time for ministering is limited. Delay not, but hasten to finish the work. I have other work for you, and it only waits the completion of the present task. Do that which is nearest at hand. I shall open a way for its fulfillment, so you need not hold back, wondering how the provisions will be supplied. Lacked you ever in the present? Have you not acted in each case with faith in Me as your only hope? Yes, child, I say to you, walk on. There are no limits to the promises of God. “My words cannot wait; but you have held them as though you thought the future would wait.
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Peggy and I have been married for 50 years and been in the ministry for over 40 years.
My name is Booker and I write books. Peggy’s maiden name is Harper and she plays the harp (autoharp).
publishing companies didn’t want to publish a book by an unknown author.
We had stacks of rejection letters and pre-printed rejection postcards.
This was not something we could do or wanted to do; it was something we had to do.
Have you ever sat down to read the Bible, hoping it would all make sense to you, but it didn’t make sense?
tangled with rituals, events, customs and strange happenings that didn’t seem to fit into any pattern.
the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament)
From now on when I refer to the Hebrew Bible I will use the phrase “Old Testament” simply because that is the name most people use when referring to the first part of the Bible. This is not to imply that the Hebrew Bible is outdated and no longer relevant or that it has been replaced by the New. It is old only in the sense that it was written chronologically before the “Newer Testament.” In fact, the teachings in the New Testament are simply a continuation of the teachings in the First Testament as they find their goal in Jesus.
The story is that God has entered into a blood covenant with Himself for mankind through Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, Messiah of the Jews, and Savior of the Gentiles. And all who will, may enter into the covenant with Him. The blood covenant is the “scarlet thread” that runs through the entire Bible.
You will see God’s order. You will see God’s heavenly pattern.
May the One True God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob bless you
It was like putting together a stamp book. If you’ve ever done that, you know how dry your mouth is after licking all those stamps.
Perhaps this describes your experience with the Bible. If so, that is all going to change.
I was blessed with a good education and had been successful in my profession as a computer consultant. Because of my background, order and logic were important to me.
The biggest mystery of all was how the Old Testament and the New Testament were related.
I always thought that the Old Testament was written for Jews and the New Testament was written for Christians. I thought they were different books for different people. Wow, was I ever wrong!
How could this dusty Old Testament, written by men thousands of years ago, in an oriental, agricultural setting have anything to say to a modern, sophisticated, westernized technologically oriented, freeway driving, city slicker?
I could program a computer, interpret the financial pages of Wall Street, and quote the buzzwords of the latest management fads, ...
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the Bible is a spiritual book that can only be understood as the Spirit of God reveals it to hungry hearts,
the main reason why I couldn’t understand the Bible. He showed me that I had an idol in my life. That idol was my career. It was more important to me than God. Because I pursued my career with great zeal, it brought me material comforts and the praise of men. Yet, it was a costly idol.
this is a tradeoff no human being can afford to make; because only God can satisfy the longings and cries of a human heart. Only God can bring peace to a restless soul. Only God can fill that void within each of us.
it was a barrier keeping me from knowing the fullness of God. I was experiencing what I call the “Christian credibility gap.”
God could not reveal Himself to me through the Bible, because I would not draw near to Him.
in the midst of worldly success, I knew I would never really be fulfilled until I sought God with my whole heart
God was showing me that He gave the entire Old Testament as a picture of His salvation message in Jesus of Nazareth. The picture was in shadow form represented by what had seemed to be meaningless rituals, customs, places, names, and unrelated happenings.
God showed me this was the whole reason why He gave us the Old Testament. It was to point us to Jesus who was God in the flesh coming to reconcile His creation to Himself.
Every time Jesus opened His mouth, He claimed to be God.
But Jesus made His claims within the framework that the people were anticipating and would understand. That framework was the Old Testament shadow that would direct people to Him as the light of the world.
God’s eternal covenant plan required Him to become one of us in order to redeem us. God became our “near-kinsman” in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
Since He is God, He naturally knew everything He would do when He became one of us.
Therefore, He painted this shadow of Himself in the Old Testament so that everybody would recognize Him when He arrived on the scene. This is how the entire Old Testament points to Jesus. It is a picture of a person.
if we were going to meet someone who had never seen us before? Why, we would describe ourselves in great detail and even decide beforehand where we would meet. That way the person looking for our coming would recognize us when we show up.
