I WANT TO DO "GOOD" ...

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts …” Matthew 7:11. It is difficult to discern what “good” is important to receive. The conflict we have is that we ask God, and receive, but differently from what we expect. Even from evil people, it is possible to receive food; it is immediate and easy and requires no work. To be fed in such a way is good for the short term, but afterward, you’re hungry again; as well as being dependent on evil people! It may be more painful to learn to feed yourself, but then you are fed for more than just a time.

It is possible to receive good things from evil people, but in the end, they don’t give a real answer. Something is still missing from what they give. But when we receive from God, it is not only good, it produces LIFE.

In Isaiah 35:8, the prophet speaks of a highway and a road that shall be in the desert. Everyone likes to walk on a highway – it’s smooth, easy, straight and good. When I was a young Christian, I wanted the highway too. It is like being fed by someone who is doing “good”. It is easy and requires little effort.

Jesus says the way to destruction is wide and easy and the way to Life is narrow and difficult. When God pushes you to believe, His way is more difficult than what you find by yourself, in your own freedom. Many times the way God asks us to go looks like something that, to us, He would never ask! The Bible promises prosperity and long life and goodness to God’s followers, this is famously and everywhere taught; however, this is promised to those who follow the Word of God, and the Word of God teaches sacrifice, and not only sacrifice for those we love and who love us, but also for those who hate us and persecute us.

I was praying recently and saw in my mind a young man, in a beautiful resort by the beach. He had just had some fine champagne, the bottle swimming in the icy water, and was going out for a walk. In one of the most beautiful places on earth, with a gorgeous sunset in front of him and perfect weather, his experience was empty. He saw the waves curl gently onto the sand and sink into it, but run away again. This young man was active in a great church, had a great family and a successful career; he was highly thought of by all who knew him. Because his church was a bit on the dry side for actual experiences, he would sometimes go to a yoga class or to see an astrologer, or a medium, to try to gain some mystical touch or be reminded there was something else other than just what he could see. Not bad, right, as long as you don’t believe the mumbo-jumbo that goes with it, what could it hurt? But as he stood there in the sand, he felt all these things to be like the waves – running over and through him and washing away again.

He had no one to share his plenty with – he had no one with him!

I was like this before – my heart sitting alone in all the treasure God had given me. I was like the man at the pool of Bethesda; I could see the angel coming, see the water move, but could not get to the pool in time. I thought I had it all, and thought I had God with me, but I was only using God to do FOR me, not to be with me. I was a man of impure lips because God was not IN me. When you preach the Word of God, but it is not confirmed, this is what is happening. When Isaiah saw his vision, and said his lips were unclean; they had to be purified by fire, which the angel applied to him with the burning coal. The Holy Spirit fell on Pentecost as a fire that lit on the disciples; they were purified by the light of that fire.

Now, I pray every night, and have the sweet Love of God to be with me. That is more than all I had before – not a concept of power, though power comes with the presence of God – a relationship with One Who never leaves me. My wife and I live together, of course, and I see her everyday, but sometimes, like the other night, I really “see” her and she’s not just someone I live with but someone who is “with” me – really with me, who I know will never leave me behind or desert me. That is how it is with Jesus - He is with me all the time! But in order to have this, I had to let go of all those things I thought were the important ones, just like I had to leave behind other women to have my wife. I had to leave the highway – the wide, easy path, and hit the road – go where it is difficult and narrow, but pure, just as the lips of the prophet, because of His Light.

The New Age and to an extent, even Christian denominations, promise enlightenment, miracles, mountain-moving, healing, speaking with other tongues, all of which have a real counterpart, for which these are substitutes. They do not end in perfection, as do the gifts that come through the Word of God.

People feel paralyzed and empty today because they don’t have God inside, but only outside – they are not purified by the fire of the Holy Spirit, which must live IN us. Our lips should reflect the Light of the Word of God.

Before, I played the role of the believer: I preached Jesus and said He was with me, and had miracles and signs and thought that was all. But for all that, He was not IN me. Paul was the best-educated, most “religious” man of his day, would have been the youngest member of the Sanhedrin, but something was missing in him. I was the same. It was as if I were Noah, who after he built the ark, ended up drunk and nude in the new earth. I did not go to perfection. Then, I had a vision where I saw the narrow way – God becoming man.

When we build tradition with our faith, we’re whitewashing the tombs of the prophets, not getting what they had. For every person, Christians and not, the way that we take has a detour to the narrow way - Jesus. God needs to cover you with the Light that He has, the same as He did Mary, and Paul and the Prophets. This does not come by anything else: science or knowledge, or religion – the “good gifts” from evil people, but from Jesus, as in Matthew 24 – where Jesus says everything will pass away, but His Words will not pass away. What God has taught me is to come back to His Word, leaving behind all the things I valued that did not make me perfect: preaching, casting out devils, making miracles, but with my unclean lips. The disciples before the resurrection were like this – they preached, they did miracles, yet Jesus constantly said to them “Oh ye of little faith!” This was because they said the Word of God, but it did not live IN them – it was incomplete. After the resurrection, and after the falling of the Holy Spirit, not only did they preach the Word of God, they lived the Word of God. They were going to perfection. After Pentecost, when Peter and John crossed paths with a paralyzed man, he asked them for alms, but Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none, but I give what I do have: in the Name of Jesus, get up and walk!” He had gone into perfection; he didn’t just use the Word of God, he embodied the Word of God.

God says that I can have anything I ask for in faith; yet He is not my valet to give me everything I ask, to save me from all pain and strain – the highway, the wide way to destruction. It is not the faith of Abraham I need, or of those who lived in caves and had nothing, because all this is just looking at the cross, but not going “through” the cross. To go through the cross is not to just accept that Jesus died for me and saved me, but to give my life to Him. Not to say “thank you” to Him for all the good things I have: my raise and my car and my home and my clothes and my social standing, but that He elected me to receive eternal life. He is perfection, the perfect Man, the perfect sacrifice, the only way to save us. Not popes, or bishops or ceremonies or buildings, but only He, the perfect answer.

Paul said in I Corinthians 13, 'I want to show you a more excellent way': God loved us so much, He became a man to take the place of all the “good things” that cannot make you perfect and lead to death; to put you in HIM, the Way, the Truth and the Life. This all came to me as I prayed on the deck where I am waiting to put the Tent, and when I stood up to go, I began to cry. I needed the Love of God. Paul said, living the principles of the Love of Christ, let us go into perfection! If I have the Love of God, though, I will Love my brothers. Do you know the Love of God? It is in Jesus – go to Him, give yourself to Him! Find His Love! Go into perfection!

As you may know, I pray every morning very early, so email me what you need to be prayed for and I will pray with you for it. My emails are cravanzola@yahoo.com, and jm.cravanzola@gmail.com. Email me your prayer requests or write to me by snail mail at 295 W Palmer Mill Rd, Monticello, FL 32344.