A Vision of Jesus

By an anonymous friend of David Hobbs

During October (2012) at the "Embassy of Heaven" campus in building #200 at the Church of Glad Tidings (Yuba City, Calif.), there were 10 days set aside for concentrated worship, fasting, and prayer led by the new AHOP (Ascending House of Prayer) group. On the last 3 days the worship went round-the-clock, using pre-recorded music from 10:00 p.m. until musicians came the next day. 

On Thursday morning October 25th around 1:00 a.m. I had a vision of the LORD dancing to the music of Kimberly and Alberto Rivera, from what I believe is their "Royalty" CD. There were others in the room but they had all fallen asleep. I was the only one who saw the vision. When He appeared I could no longer hear snoring in the room. The stage, light bars, instruments, and carpet were gone. The center of the round room ceiling has large wood support columns that join together at what looks like a tinted window, but these vanished also. A bright light was shining through the center of the ceiling upon the LORD as He danced to the Rivera's music. I had the sense that the Father was looking down on Him with delight.

He (the Lord Jesus) was dressed in unusual clothing. He was wearing what appeared to be a white gown similar to what men wore in the 1800s when they slept. Over the gown was a plain, white, four-cornered garment like a prayer shawl, but with a hole in the center which the LORD had placed His head through. It had strings hanging down from each corner. He danced in the bright spot light with His arms under the garment, using them to create a wing effect. He danced, spun completely around, danced some more, then spun back around the other way. He didn't seem to have sandals on. But the most unusual part of the whole vision was his height; He looked to be 11 or 12 feet tall! 

While watching I was overwhelmed at how beautiful the Lord is! But the "beauty" I experienced was not, "Wow! Look how pretty He and this whole scene is." This "beauty" involved a preciousness, a purity, a simplicity, a level of my senses being awakened to what I didn't even know existed. The Lord, the clothing, the colors, the light, the music were all peacefully singing "life..." "life..." "life..." "life...." During this early morning vision I saw "eternal life" from a new perspective. I was thinking, "Wow, what we have here [on earth] is so lifeless compared to what He has waiting for us!"

I started crying, and after blowing my nose and wiping my eyes it was over. Later that morning I left resolute to set my heart and mind on the living "things above" rather than so much on lifeless "earthly things." It's been a few months since this occurred, and I thank the Lord for giving more time and practice to cultivate this attitude.           

Connecticut Shootings

By David Hobbs

I must admit to some ambivalence to the tragic news of the shootings in Connecticut. On the one hand I grieve over the innocent children, so suddenly and horrifically cut off from this world, leaving behind traumatized parents, siblings, friends, extended family members, even the entire community. On the other hand, I also grieve over the national hypocrisy so blatantly on display to everyone but the participants.

There has been an outpouring of such overwhelming sadness it could almost be called an “orgy of grief.” There is even talk of never reopening the school where it happened. Yet where is the national mourning over the 20 babies brutally aborted 180 times every day of every year for the last 40 years since abortion was legalized? Where is the grief over them?

Our national blindness is staggering. And yet no one dares mention that the emperor has no clothes.  “But Brother Hobbs, Brother Hobbs, those babies in Sandy Hook were cruelly shot, numerous times.” Tell me an abortion that is not violent and vicious! Partial birth, where the skull is punctured and the brains vacuumed out? D&E, where the baby is dismembered and the pieces vacuumed or removed with forceps? Saline solution, where a powerful saline solution is injected into the womb and the baby is chemically burned to death before evacuation?

We respect the grief of those involved in Sandy Hook, but how about the grief of God over the brutal deaths of 53 million babies in just the U.S. in the 40 years since Roe Vs. Wade? Each baby was given conception by the Holy Spirit and entrusted into the care of man. Each one came with gifts and talents, potentialities for greatness, callings and a destiny it could achieve with proper nurturing and care. Think of the baby Jesus, entrusted into the care of Mary and Joseph, with the calling and destiny to save mankind. Though Jesus was unique, yet He is also a picture of every baby that comes into the world—a gift of God to mankind for its good. The Bible confirms this: “Behold, children are a gift (or heritage) of the Lord,
 [t]he fruit of the womb is a reward.” [Psalm 127:3 NAS].

“But Brother Hobbs, Brother Hobbs, abortions are not my fault; don’t blame me!” Neither is Sandy Hook, yet we all grieve over the loss and look for ways to prevent its reoccurrence. Approximately 15,000 abortions have happened (U.S.) in the week since the shootings took place. Who is mourning them?

Useless Prayer Meetings

By David Hobbs

Last post we looked at clueless church meetings, especially as they pertained to improper protocol in praise and worship. God is so gracious; He overlooks a lot of things. But we should never let that be an excuse to continue in cluelessness. Make no mistake—as much as He loves us—our cluelessness and failure to rightly apply His word do limit what He can do through us. Paul said, “Brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant… (1 Cor. 10:1). Cluelessness and ignorance can be pitied and passed over, but they can never be blessed!

The topic this post—The Church Prayer Meeting.

Though God loves prayer, and commands us to “pray always and not lose heart,” I think it’s a close call on whether the average church prayer meeting does more harm than good.

Here’s the bugaboo: in the Kingdom, everything rises or falls on faith. Only prayers prayed in faith accomplish anything. Without faith it’s impossible to please God.

But here’s how the average church prayer meeting operates: The pastor asks for prayer requests. In a small church he might go around the room. And each person probably has two or three requests.

Each request brings up a problem: “My Aunt Bea just learned she has cancer.”

“O No!” thinks the congregation in their hearts.

The next person says, “Pray for our nation.”

(“Yeah, this country’s in a mess!”)

“Pray for my co-worker John, his wife just left him.”

(“Oh No!”)

“Pray for my son Bill, he just got picked up for robbing a liquor store to buy drugs.”

(“Acch that’s terrible!!”)

“Pray for me, I’ve still got stomach ulcers.”

(“Still? Oh no!”)

And so it goes. By the time we get done taking the requests and are ready to pray, the congregation’s heads are filled with these serious problems, many the same as the last prayer meeting. Who still has faith to pray to Jesus and expect it to make a difference? We may have come out of the praise and worship part of the meeting touched by the Holy Spirit, our eyes on Jesus, filled with faith in His power and goodness, believing He can do anything. But now our eyes are focused back on the problems of the world, and all that faith and power of the Holy Spirit has drained right out of us. When we finally go to prayer, it’s more of a wail than a prayer because our hearts are overwhelmed by the problems (that even with our prayers we don't seem to be able to fix).

We actually end up praying prayers of unbelief containing unspoken accusations. While we’re praying,  we're thinking in our hearts, “Lord I’m going to pray for this again even though I’ve already prayed for it umpteen times and you haven’t answered yet. You must not care about me or this problem; either my prayer’s too weak or you’re unable to handle it or maybe you’re just indifferent; but I’ll pray anyway because I’m such a soldier…” And God’s up in heaven holding His nose against the stench of our self-pity and unbelief!

That’s why I said that our prayer meetings can do more harm than good. They can actually foster unbelief, murmuring and doubts in the hearts of the believers. Why should we do satan’s work for him?

In the Bible we are exhorted to examine our ways. That’s what the Book of Malachi is all about: the prophet takes Israel to task through case after case where their worship practices are doing more harm than good. In Malachi 1:10 God cries out for one man who would rise up and “shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar!” (Sounds like many churches" prayer meetings!)

We have to find ways that will foster faith, not unbelief in God’s people. In my monthly, intercessory prayer meeting for the National Governor’s Prayer Team, we start out the hour-long meeting with a tithe of 6 minutes of silence, allowing time for each person to slow down, get in touch with God: examine their own life and repent as needed, and have opportunity to entreat the Holy Spirit to come and pray God’s burdens through us. When it's time to pray out loud we pray as the Holy Spirit leads, without listing all the problems.

I’m using that as an example, not saying that’s what everyone should do. It’s too easy to simply adopt someone else’s practices rather than waiting on God to develop our own.

Those of us responsible need to search our ways with the help of the Holy Spirit, let Him identify the problems and give us strategies to overcome them. Just because churches have always done it one way is no reason to continue, especially when it’s counter-productive! It’s time to take the practices of our church meetings to higher levels so He can manifest Himself in greater ways.

In the Old Testament, they only burned a “memorial portion” of all the grain offerings on the altar (see Lev. 2). I’m convinced this has a spiritual application with our prayers. We don’t need to pray for every single need. God knows them far better than we do and is well able to handle them all. He doesn’t need our prayers, but does want us to pray so we experience the joy of partnering with Him. We pray for the “memorial portion” of our needs as He puts them on our hearts and trust Him with the rest. 

Clueless Church Meetings?

By David Hobbs

I am dismayed at the mentality prevalent in many American churches. For all the talk about a personal relationship with Jesus, how many of our actions actually stand in contradiction to that! Alas, how deep go the traditions of the fathers and this American idea of “doing church services.” Do we really come together to meet with Jesus or do we merely come together to have a church service? They are not the same thing!

Let’s consider singing as an example. Say your church sings the old gospel songs and you have to pick some out for the service. You find some songs you like, but which one do you start with? Does it make a difference? If you’re only a song leader and your idea is to have a lively service, you start with some fast, upbeat ones, then transition into a few more worshipful ones and call it good.  Or you could do it like one song leader I know: no matter what 4 songs she picks out, she always sings them in the order they appear in the hymnal.

But what if you are a worship leader wanting to draw the people into an encounter with Jesus? What then? The Bible is clear about God’s preferred pattern: “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise,” from the Psalms.

It’s like this: When we come together at church, Jesus also comes and is “peering in the window” at us. (Because we meet in Jesus’ name, He is always there, according to His word.) Therefore our first duty is to acknowledge Him, welcome Him, and give Him what He loves: praise and adoration. Some people have been going to church their whole lives and still don’t have a clue that God is a Being who loves to be praised and worshipped. He loves it so much that Psalm 22 says He inhabits the praises of His people!

When we welcome Him, acknowledge Him, thank and praise Him, He enters through that “window” into our midst. Then we sense His presence and know we have connected with heaven. Now we can really have church!

But way too many song leaders seem to be oblivious to this reality and start with any old song, most of which are aimed at the believers instead of to Jesus: songs like “When the Roll is Called up Yonder,” or “I’ve Got a Home in Glory.” Even petition songs like my favorite “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” are inappropriate for starting a service. Let’s first welcome Jesus into our midst with a song like “Praise Him! Praise Him”), then warm Him and feed Him with praise and worship with a song like “Jesus is the Sweetest Name I Know” before we start asking Him for things. Otherwise it would be like your wife meeting you at the door as you’re coming home from a hard day’s work with a plunger in her hand telling you the toilet’s plugged up! How about a hug and a kiss and a “welcome home” first?

Sound like making a mountain out of a molehill? Recently I was at a service that began by singing “Fill My Cup Lord.” We sang other songs in similar vein; Jesus was never welcomed, invited in, thanked, honored or praised—just asked for things and treated with familiarity like our pet cat. What a way to treat the One who died that we might live! Jesus never showed up; there was a noticeable lack of anointing; then we went into prayer with similar results. At the end, I imagine the dead meeting was blamed on inclement weather keeping many people home.

Singing “Fill my cup Lord; I lift it up Lord; come and quench this thirsting in my soul” right off the bat before the anointing comes is a lie anyway. We are not even aware of a thirsting for God until we are breathed on by the Holy Spirit—He has to awaken our thirsting before we can sing about it!

This is not rocket science. This should be Christianity at a very basic level. Jesus didn’t die so we could walk on streets of gold, have a home in glory-land and be reunited with predeceased loved ones. He died so we could be with Him where He is (John 17:24), and that includes here on earth now, as well as in heaven in the hereafter. But often His attempts to meet with us and be with us are stymied, like they were at that meeting, by our cluelessness.

The whole focus and purpose of our meetings should be on meeting Jesus through the Holy Spirit. After that we can proceed according as He leads. Until that happens we dare not push ahead with “business as usual.” Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Sadly too many churches are very busy “doing nothing.”

Paul said to the churchgoers in Corinth (1 Cor. 15:34), “there are some [of you] who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame.” That is still true in the churches of our day. Going through the motions of doing church meetings doesn’t cut it. 

Encouraging the Next Generation

By David Hobbs

The life of every person is built on a foundation of many seemingly inconsequential things. History is full of stories of how famous people’s lives were directed often in their youth on the path that later took them to earth-changing accomplishments, either for good or for evil. Vincent Van Gough really wanted to be a preacher, but after having that door repeatedly slammed in his face, became the famous (though tragic) artist we know today.

As adults, and especially parents, we have enormous influence over young people’s lives, more than we imagine or are aware of at the time. We never know when a "prophetic moment" might occur that can alter their life course.

There are two incidents that happened long ago that I still remember (and came back to me in prayer today). The first involved a lad whose name I never knew. We were installing a new youth pastor who was up on the platform. The senior pastor called up the elders and Servant Council members to lay on hands and pray over him. He also called the young people of the church to come up and join in.

I was on the platform as a member of the Servant Council. As we gathered to pray, the Holy Spirit came upon us. There happened to be a lad maybe 10-12 years old standing by me. As we moved in, there was only one spot left to get in and lay hands on the new pastor. I was about to fill the gap when I became aware of this young lad. I could tell he wanted to go in and pray but he was hanging back, unsure if he was “old enough” to play such a key part. Part of me wanted to move in myself, since I was so “important” of a person. Wasn’t this the province of adults? And spiritual ones at that? What did his prayer matter anyway? But the gentle Holy Spirit laid His hand on me and held me still. “Let him go." I turned to the lad and invited him in with a wave. Eagerly he stepped forward, laid his hands on his new pastor and joined in the prayer for him.

The Holy Spirit had obviously moved on him and he was open and sensitive to His leading. What if I, out of an inflated sense of ego, had shut him out. In his disappointment, might he have said in his heart, “There’s no place for me in this religion stuff,” and from that time on begun looking elsewhere for a place to fit in? Hard to believe? It happens all the time in just such small ways, but we don't realize it until much later, when it’s too late to do anything about it. Thirty years down the road, when we're ready to retire, we look around and suddenly realize there's no one coming behind to take our place.

There was another time: I was out with my two young sons, Joe and Jon. Joe was about 5 and Jon maybe 3½. We were exploring down at the railroad tracks and were under the bridge where it crossed a creek. We had been throwing rocks into the creek and were now trying to get back up to the tracks. The slope under the bridge was very steep, but it was concreted so there was good traction. Joe zipped right up, but Jon, looking at the steepness of the slope, was afraid to try. “I can’t, I can’t,” he kept saying. I could have carried him or pulled him, but I wanted him to see that he could do it for himself.

Jon had self-esteem issues because he was slower than others to catch on to things and so seemed less bright. He used to come home from kindergarten and tell Marcine, “I’m stupid.” She realized that it must be the kids at school telling him that. He was the classic kid who would have fallen through the cracks in the public schools because it took him longer than the other kids to figure things out, and the teachers wouldn’t have had the patience to wait, but would have moved the rest of the class on without him, leaving him hopelessly behind and convinced that he was stupid just like everybody said.

That was the main reason we took them out of public school and began homeschooling all three of our boys. After Jon was free to proceed at his own pace, we saw that once he grasped a concept, he owned it forever.

So I wanted Jon to discover that he could climb the steep slope all by himself. I began encouraging him, “Come on Jon, you can do it. Daddy’s right here; I won’t let you fall; go for it!” After much encouragement, Jon went for it. Once his feet hit the cement and didn’t slide, in an instant he realized that he could make it and scampered the rest of the way up just like his brother had done.

Wow, what a victory! I shouted “Way to go Jon; you did it!” And shared in his triumph.

But what if I hadn’t been there? What if Jon had been raised without a father, as many boys are? What if, in a similar situation, he had had a fearful mother who screamed: “Don’t try and climb up there! You’ll fall and break your leg!”

One little victory; I’m sure mixed with many others. And now Jon is an extremely competent electrician, able to fix most things, with a lovely wife and a new baby girl.

My point is that with Jon it could have gone either way. It was not a done deal, how he turned out. Parenting him took some effort (and many others in our church played an important part too!) With the other lad it took a sudden moment of spiritual sensitivity. But wasn’t it worth it? And isn’t that what we’re called to?