Posts Tagged ‘Doctrine’
The Night The Blind Lady Ran The Aisles
The Night The Blind Lady Ran The Aisles
The grandfather’s clock struck 12:30am as the CB radio crackled with static and mundane conversation. A female voice called, “Pastor Ballestero?”
I picked up the microphone and responded. The caller was Mary Swift, a blind lady. With a voice choked with tears Mary said, “I really need God. I want to repent. Tell me how to be saved.”
I was ready for bed and completely caught off guard by her interest in God and her request for guidance. I sat down in my Lazy Boy chair and began to answer her questions.
Mary was someone who I mainly knew from Amateur and CB radio. I had heard her voice for several years. None of her family was in church, nor did they seem interested. Mary’s midnight call was a major event in her family.
I carefully explained to Mary about the need for repentance, baptism in Jesus Name and the Holy Ghost speaking with other tongues. I knew that many were listening to our on-the-air Home Bible Study. I read several verses from the book of Acts chapters 2, 8, 10 and 19.
Every time Mary responded, I could detect sniffles and hear the tears in her voice. When I finished, it was about 1 am.
Mary asked, “Can I be baptized tonight?”
“You sure can,” I said, “I’ll meet you at the church at 1:30!”
My wife Marcia and I met Mary and her husband John at the side door. I baptized Mary in Jesus Name and she received the Holy Ghost while still in the water.
That was Wednesday night; it was also our Bible Study night. At church, I stood at the pulpit and announced the wonderful news of our new baby ‘sister’ in Christ.
I looked at Mary. With unseeing eyes, she was beaming with joy. Mary was sitting beside one of the most precious older women in the church who immediately had taken the new blind lady under her wing.
When the church heard the news of Mary’s hunger and midnight conversion, they yelled with excitement and began to run the aisles.
Mary, new to Pentecostal worship and demonstration, asked the older woman beside her, “What are they doing?”
“They are running the aisles,” was the reply.
“Why?” Mary wanted to know.
“Because you got the Holy Ghost.”
“I want to run the aisles too.” Mary said, “Here, take my hand and lead me.”
The older sister beside Mary was always responsive in worship, but was not one to run the aisles. Tonight however, she had no choice. She took Mary by the hand, and together they ran several laps around the church.
For years some had depended on excuses to exempt them from running the aisles. Tonight saw a blind Sister Mary running. They knew they didn’t have any excuses now. They all got up and ran with her.
That was the night every body ran the aisles. The blind led them in praise and rejoicing.
That makes me ask the question, “What are we waiting for?”
Why do we hold our praise and demonstration in reserve?
Are we waiting to feel condemnation before we worship too?
Worship is everybody’s business.
There are no excuses not to praise the Lord.
Mary continued to worship every service and never tired of running the aisles assisted by her friend.
When she told me they were moving south, I shed tears. Her husband wanted to buy a farm down in Arkansas and she had little choice in the matter. John has never gotten in church to my knowledge.
Thank you Sister Mary Swift. Your desire to lead in worship lingers heavy on mind after all these years. What an example you were to us all. Bless you!
Worshippers are the ones you miss the most.
No Nutritional Value
No Nutritional Value
The evening camp meeting service was over in Ontario. I stood there talking to three Outfitters and five Hunting Guides. The men were all from Ontario and New Brunswick, Canada. They were talking to me about the moose-hunting story that I had told in my sermon.
After a few minutes, one of the Outfitters said to me, “Brother Ballestero did you know that if you were stranded and had nothing to eat but moose meat, you would eventually starve to death? Even with your stomach full? It has basically, no nutritional value. It’s too lean, besides.”
“No!” I said. “That’s unbelievable! I didn’t know that,”
I stood there in unbelief. Just the thought of having a full stomach and yet not being fed caught me off guard.
While I knew that the old Outfitter was probably not a nutritional expert, there were years worth of practical and sound advice being dispensed here for my benefit. I chose to believe him. That’s what he did for a living. He organized and guided moose hunts. He was a woodsman.
My mind immediately went to the lunch conversation I’d had with Brother Wade Bass. He and I had eaten at the little roadside café in Henrietta, Oklahoma back in July. Because he was fighting cancer, his Doctor had him on a very strict diet. He ordered only a salad for his meal.
“Do you have any ‘Romaine’ lettuce?” He’d asked the waitress.
While she went back to the kitchen to ask, he explained to me that he had to eat a lot of salad on his diet. He said that Iceberg lettuce had basically no nutritional value in it, so that’s why he’d asked for the Romaine.
With these two incidents freeze-framed in my mind, I begin to think about spiritual foods and spiritual diets. Or maybe I should have said, “unspiritual” diets.
How many sit every week in church services and hear sermons, sing songs, and then go home pretty much unchanged? Even though they felt like they were absolutely ‘full’? This type of pill is hard to swallow as a preacher, it is something we need to keep close to our hearts.
Is it possible to get ‘full’ on sermons that don’t say much and never seem to change any lives?
It’s possible, I think, to get full on ‘worship’ services that never touch the heart and are not much more than drum beats accompanied with powerless repetitive phrases.
I pretty much enjoy all kinds of Worship. But if I can’t feel God touching my heart, I know there is no nutritional value involved.
There is a big difference too, between being fed the “finest of the wheat” or having to live on a constant sermon diet of Faith, Blessing and Prosperity.
Am I against those sermon subjects? Not at all! Keep preaching them. We need our faith built and we sure could use some prosperity. But there’s more to the Word than just that. Feed me some ‘doctrine’ and feed me some ‘practical living’ sermons while you’re at it. I need something to feed me, not just fill me.
Thank God if you are blessed to be in a good church where you are not only get full, you get fed!
Is God Ugly?
Is God Ugly?
I don’t mean for this question to sound like it borders on blasphemy. It is important for me not to be flippant or sacrilegious about things that are Divine. With that being said, I will ask the question one more time. Is God ugly?
The Prophet Isaiah makes an amazing prophecy about the coming of the Messiah. He describes him and portrays him in a very uncomplimentary manner.
Is. 53:2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
Is. 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
When man makes a grand entry, he normally tries to ‘put his best foot forward’. Why then did Jehovah choose to wrap Himself up in human flesh that apparently wasn’t the best He could make?
The mind of man would think, ‘Why He could have gotten more followers if He’s had some ‘great’ looks. People will follow someone that’s easy to look at. That was not how God planned to present Himself.
When God came to earth in the flesh, there was nothing beautiful about Him. I want to talk about that very thing. Look first at the Old Testament.
1. Noah’s Ark – The wood was covered with pitch. It looked ugly on the outside. No one in Noah’s generation outside of his own family was able to get past the ‘Ugly’. They all perished.
2. The Tabernacle In The Wilderness – The outside of the Tabernacle was covered with dyed badger skins. To those that had been there, they KNEW the real beauty was on the INSIDE. It was on the INSIDE that the golden vessels were displayed. It was on the INSIDE that the beautiful Veil hung concealing the Holiest of Holies. INSIDE there was the Shekinah, the Glory of the Lord.
Once the Israelites got past the Ugly, they found the real beauty.
1Pet. 2:6 Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.
1Pet. 2:7 Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner,
1Pet. 2:8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.
To those that take the time to Know Him and Believe, He is Precious.
- If Living for God is Ugly to you, you just don’t know Him very well.
- If Worship is Ugly to you, you just don’t know Him very well.
- If Giving God the Tenth of your income is Ugly to you, you just don’t know Him very well.
- If Holiness is Ugly to you, you just don’t know Him very well.
- If the preaching of Doctrine is Ugly to you, you just don’t know Him very well.
- If Long Hair on Women and Short Hair on Men are Ugly to you, you just don’t know Him very well.
- If Standards are Ugly to you, you just don’t know Him very well.
- If Separating yourself from the World is Ugly to you, you just don’t know Him very well.
- If the Prayer Room is Ugly to you, you just don’t know Him very well.
- If Winning Souls is Ugly to you, you just don’t know Him very well.
And the list goes on…
When living for God is longer attractive to you, you don’t really know Him very well. It tells me that you don’t really Believe. It tells me you are Disobedient. (1 Pet 2:7)
Can you get past the Ugly? If you can, He will become Precious to you!
Apostolic Expository Series
Christy Ballestero (My Beautiful DIL)
http://marciaballestero.com/
Pastor Anthony & Kim Ballestero, New Destiny Worship Center, Clearwater, FL (My Son)
Pastor Bryan & Christy Ballestero, Temple Of Pentecost, Raleigh, NC (My Son)
James Groce Blog – "Toward The Mark"
Kenneth Bow Blog
Kingdom Speak Podcast
Philip Harrelson – "The Barnabas Blog"
Verbal Bean Ministries
Holy Ghost Radio
The Ballestero Blog 