The Emptiness of "Being Good"

By David Hobbs

All over this land there are thousands upon thousands of young people who have been raised in Christian homes, gone to church, followed the Ten Commandments, abstained from the drinking, drugs, and partying of their friends, and yet still feel empty inside. They are wondering where the reward is for being good. “What’s missing from my life? Isn’t being a Christian enough to ensure a happy life? Am I still such a bad person inside that Christianity can’t help me? Should I abandon the faith I grew up in and join my peers who seem to be having such a good time partying?”


If you’ve ever had thoughts like these, it might surprise you to know that some of the best people in the Bible did too, like the psalmist who wrote Psalm 101. Look at all the good things he was doing (NLT).

3 I will refuse to look at anything vile and vulgar.
I hate all who deal crookedly; I will have nothing to do with them.
4 I will reject perverse ideas and stay away from every evil.
5 I will not tolerate people who slander their neighbors.
I will not endure conceit and pride.

In verse 2 he summed it all up by saying,

2 I will be careful to live a blameless life.
When will you come to help me?
I will lead a life of integrity in my own home.

Notgice how right in the middle of his summation he cries out to God, “When will you come to help me?” He was feeling that emptiness that comes from just being good.

This may surprise many Christians, but God’s presence is not drawn by your being good. And this was what the psalmist was experiencing—the lack of God’s presence in his life. “When will you come to help me?” He might just as easily have said, “When will you come and fill this emptiness in my soul?”

If being good isn't the answer, then what is it? What will draw God’s fulfilling presence into your life and mine? Once again the psalmist shows the way by saying “When will you come to help me?” What was he doing? He was crying out to God! God says in Jeremiah [NKJ]: “13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” God responds to those seeking Him, those asking about, crying out to, and searching for—Him.

God does want us to be good--and being good has its own rewards--but He responds to seekers. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” [Mt 7:7]. And it’s in God’s presence, when He comes in response to our seeking, that there is the fullness of joy we so long for to fill our lives (Psalm 16:11).

Don’t join the partying crowd looking for what’s missing in your life; don’t go into the New Age or join a witches’ coven looking for the spiritual pizazz you crave. It’s all there and more in Jesus. But it won’t come in response to passively “being good;” you have to seek Him to get it.

Please get my book, Walking in the Spirit, and see how I found everything I was looking for and all I was missing, by seeking Him. http://www.walkinginthespiritbook.com/.

Revelation Through "Experiencing"

By David Hobbs

God is a God of infinite variety. He speaks and reveals things to people in any number of ways. I have found that He usually develops patterns of revelation in each person that tend to repeat themselves. To some people He gives open visions; to some He speaks through the thoughts of their hearts; to some through dreams; while others see angels and demons and things in the supernatural realm, etc. Rather than giving one person an endless variety of ways of revelation, He tends to use a few for each person and then develops and repeats them.

I say all that to say that the Lord has given me a method of revelation I’ve never heard about, even in the Bible.

Those of you who have read my book Walking in the Spirit, will recall the chapter “Friday Night at the Garden House” (p.107) where Jesus personally came into the garden house as I was praying—my greatest personal encounter with Him. I knew exactly where He was: in the far corner of the room.

But though I knew exactly where He was, I couldn’t "see" anything. I could sense a great light emanating from Him, but not only could I not see it in the natural, I couldn’t see it with my spiritual eyes either. How can I explain it? My spirit sensed the light without “seeing” it.

I have puzzled over this ever since. But just a week ago I had a similar experience and now I think I understand it.

It was Saturday and I was having a bad day. The devil was harassing me as I was walking around the house trying to pray. First he told me my son was going to die on this expedition he’s about to undertake, and not only that, but he was going to die without producing any offspring so his line would die out. As I was pondering these things (and concluding they were from the devil and not the Lord), out of nowhere a spirit of sadness came upon me. It was the most amazing thing—all of a sudden this feeling of sadness washed over me and I just felt like weeping! I realized it was a spirit and not from within me because there was no reason for it. I cry all the time when the Holy Spirit comes upon me, but He comes with a revelation of something that makes me cry—usually a revelation of His goodness or my sinfulness. But there is always a reason. This was just a generalized spirit of weeping that wanted to move through me. (And the next spirit after the weeping spirit would have been the spirit of self-pity!)

[If you want to see a place where this happens in the Bible: in 2 Sam. 18:33 David is prophetically weeping God's tears for fallen humanity and expressing the heart cry that brought Jesus from heaven to earth to die for us. But by 19:4 his tears have slipped into human emotion and self-pity and he has to be rebuked back to reality by the man who caused his weeping to begin with.]

So these were the kinds of things that were happening to me. Even though I didn’t yield to those thoughts or that spirit, just encountering them left an oppressive effect. When I went to church that evening I couldn’t enter in when in the prayer room, and felt completely out of it when I went into the sanctuary for the service. But God … and thank goodness for that … but God! As we began singing and praising the Lord, God started stripping away the oppressions.

Then we sang this new song that I can’t remember very well, but there was a part about the elders and the creatures around the throne crying out to God, and suddenly I received revelation. I didn’t have a vision of the throne room, I couldn’t hear the heavenly worship, yet I was experiencing it exactly as if I was there, just like in the garden house with Jesus.

Actually I was there, in the Spirit. My spirit was in the throne room and I knew exactly why the creatures and elders and angels were crying out, “Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God Almighty!” I was experiencing exactly what they were experiencing that made them cry out. (Remember this: they were not crying out because they had been commanded to; they were crying out because they were experiencing the holiness of God and it was the only possible response to such an overwhelming revelation!) For the rest of the song I was totally caught up in worshipping and experiencing the holiness and glory of God.

Then the worship leader took us right into another song. “Whoa! Not so fast!” To go back to singing, even a worship song, would have taken me out of the throne room to a lesser place. It might still have been the inner court, but it wouldn’t have been the throne room. “I’m going to sit this one out,” I thought. I sat and covered my face with my hands and relished the throne room a little while longer as the rest of the crowd sang away out in the court.

I was blown away by the experience, and days later I’m still jazzed by it. That’s what I want! Hopefully it’s what we all want—the Presence of Jesus, experiencing the glory, experiencing what it is that makes the elders and creatures cry out nonstop day and night “Holy! Holy! Holy is the Lord!”

But getting back to my original point: all this without seeing or hearing anything supernatural! It was a revelation of experiencing. Please tell me that makes sense! I don’t know how else to describe it.

I may never see anything supernatural; I may never again hear the sound of the worshipping angels like I did once long ago. But God has other ways to reveal supernatural things to us. Praise God for that!

Tony's Story

By Tony Vasquez

Global Firenet Ministries

Elk Grove, CA

A short time ago my bride Jo and I needed to go to the P.O. in a nearby supermarket to mail a past due bill. I decided to stay in the vehicle to catch up on some calls I needed to make. Moments had passed when the sound of urgent tapping on the car window startled me. It was Jo. She had an anxious look as if something urgent needed attending.
“There’s a man on the corner with a shopping cart whom I think needs help! He is near the entrance of the supermarket,” she exclaimed, hastening me to help him.
As I approached the cart, there stood a fairly well-built thirty-something man of African descent, about 5’ 10” in height, with his arm bound in an Ace Bandage from his fingertips to his elbow and braced in a makeshift sling. He was speaking into his cell phone in great agitation with what appeared to be all of his possessions in the shopping cart he was guarding.
“Hello, my name is Pastor Tony; is there anything I can do to help?”
Responding with a troubled look, he explained in a strong, African accent, “I work in a job in trucking and I hurt my hand on the job early this morning. The foreman took me to a clinic where they told me my hand was broken. Since I had no medical coverage, the foreman told me he couldn’t use me like this and he dropped me off at this shopping center.”
“Do you need a ride home?” I asked.

LOVING THE STRANGER
“I live in Boston. I have just enough on my card to pay for a plane ticket; I don’t have enough to pay for a cab to get to the airport from here. The taxi said the faire would be about $100,” he said in clear frustration.
“My wife and I will be glad to take you to the airport, no charge,” I smiled. “But first would you let us pray that Jesus would heal your hand?”
His eyes shifted to the ground as if searching to answer. “You cannot pray for me,” he spoke in almost a whisper. “I used to serve Jesus but am in a backslidden state. I ran from Jesus to come to America to make money. I am too ashamed to ask Him for help now.”
“What is your name?” I asked, trying to redirect his focus, “are you African?”
“I am Ben, and I am from Nigeria,” he responded.
“Well Ben, as friends of Jesus we can tell you for sure that Jesus wants to heal you!” Before he could say another word, my wife Jo and I placed our hands gently on his shoulder. “Jesus, You love Your son Benjamin. He needs his hands to work. Heal him we pray, amen.”
“Ben,” I said, “before you get to the airport the Holy Spirit will touch you. God is not a child abuser. He is a healer!”

A WILD RIDE
About ten minutes into what could have been a very quiet ride I heard our passenger sniffling quietly.
“I’m sorry about your pain; I’ll try to stay in the lane with less bumps,” I said, trying to comfort him.
“I am crying because I don’t deserve this!” he said. “The pain in my hand is all but gone!! Only my thumb hurts now!!” He continued moving his fingers in amazement. With tears of gratefulness streaming down his beautiful brown face, he prayed in humility, “Jesus, I come back to You. Thank you for my life! I will go back to church and seek your face. Amen.”

HIS WORD IS TRUE
With great joy and kindness, we began to tell him the truth of God’s word: that the call on his life was without repentance (Rom. 11:29). He began to weep again in wonder, declaring, “God has found me again today! I know He knows me; I will go back to my church and preach.” He was still wiggling his fingers hoping to be completely healed.

SUDDENLY
When we arrived at the airport twenty minutes later and went to the ticket counter, the young man’s hand was still slightly pained. We gave him some extra cash for food after helping with his luggage. As soon as the boarding pass was put into his hand, Benjamin shouted in amazement, “No pain! No pain! The pain is all gone!”
It was as if Holy Spirit was confirming to him at the last moment that his place was to be home with his wife and children in Boston. He then excitedly unwrapped his arm, banging it with his left hand and waving the previously pained hand for everyone to see. “THANK YOU JESUS!” he exclaimed, now expressing his freedom by dancing for joy as only an African can.

Wow! Jesus sent a blissful, renewed man off to his wife and children whole; no longer looking for the riches the world brings, but the riches of the souls of men. What a thrilling LIFE: To be part of the Kingdom of God!

Email Tony and Jo at globalfirenetministry@gmail.com