It was toward the end of 1981, and I was still on radio throughout the USA, and was still popular.
I received a dream which terrified me.
In this dream, there was an established piece of land. All of a sudden, one entire end of land broke and slid away ... then another went ... then another ... then another. It was silent and it was terrible to see this.
I heard these words: "It will be all right through January, but in February it will break loose."
I told the dream on my radio broadcast. I didn't know what was coming but I knew something really devastating was ahead. It was approximately November, 1981, when I began telling this dream to the radio audience.
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February, 1982, came and went and nothing happened!
People called me a false prophet and left in large numbers.
I had no idea what had happened. I knew the dream was from God. I never stopped believing the dream was from God but it wasn't until approximately 2016 that God revealed to me the truth about this February vision.
The vision did come to pass in February, 1982.
The vision was what would happen concerning me. The people in large numbers were going to leave me, slide away from me!
I began laughing when I realized what this February vision really meant. It was terrible to go through at the time, but after 34-years had passed and I saw what it was, it was funny to me.
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While it was extremely difficult while this was happening in 1982, as the years passed I became grateful to God that I was not in the big-time ministry. I was still doing the work of apostle/prophet but in a very different way than we ever imagined.
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In 2009, there was a movie, Julie & Julia, where a young woman was writing daily on her computer at home on something called "a blog".
This was so exciting to me. I thought how wonderful it would be to get to do that. The problem was, I didn't have anything to say ... so I thought.
In March, 2012, God gave me a dream:
In the dream, a woman was singing. I said, "It's a little voice. But it's a nice little voice." Then in the dream I saw this was a way for the church to communicate. And I recognized it pertained to a blog.
Immediately, I called Pam Padgett in our church group, and asked her if she could set up a blog for us. Pam had been a computer programmer at FedEx and had just retired. She said she didn't know anything about blogs but she guessed she could find out.
Within 3 days, we had a blog and were publishing exhortations for the church.
Jesus Ministries Exhortations
It is a little voice. But indeed it is a "nice" little voice.
It costs us nothing at all to do this. The messages go out daily.
And much to our surprise those writings go all over the world.
WWW?
The first day, we had 2 page views from people in Germany!
We were stunned. We knew nothing about blogs and had never before realized this was going all over the world instantly! WWW (World Wide Web)
Since that time, we have had more than 650,000 page views of our blog with an average of 15,000 page views per month!
It is a "little voice" but it is a "nice" little voice ... just as God showed me in that dream in 2012.
We still marvel at this means of speaking the Word of God throughout the entire world daily!
And it is all done from my own home and without leaving town!
I am now 80-years-old and can still do this work daily ... whereas I wouldn't be able physically to do the other type of ministry work, travelling from city to city and speaking to church groups.
I'm in awe of God setting all this up and putting me in the right place at the right time with the right skills to do this. (I've always been a writer and I love writing.)
God saved the best for me till last, just like God did with the prophet Job.
Job 42:12 So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning:
There was still more to come in the years ahead!
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In November, 2015, thoughts began coming into my mind that I needed to purchase a new Kindle e-reader.
I resisted these thoughts for I had a perfectly good first-generation Kindle e-reader. I didn't need a new e-reader, so I thought.
But the thoughts kept coming on this.
Finally, just before Thanksgiving, 2015, I purchased a new e-reader ... a fifth-generation Kindle Fire.
It was much more complicated than my first generation Kindle.
I tried to find a user guide which would show me how to use this device but the guides were all too advanced for me. I had very little computer skill and I needed a guide which showed me how to enlarge the letters and how to make the screen brighter. The writers of manuals seemed, for the most part, to expect the reader to know how to do these simple tasks. But I didn't know.
Pam Padgett would send me emails to tell me how to do these things.
When about 6 emails stacked up, I realized we needed to write a guide for non-computer generation people and to graphically illustrate every step showing how to use a Kindle so older people could learn to operate this magnificent device.
I could see how much it would help people my age to learn to use a Kindle or iPad tablet before they had to go to a hospital. It would keep them in touch with everything from the hospital bed. That would mean a great deal. In fact one woman in our church group was in that position. She was 83 at the time she began learning, from our book, how to use a Kindle. A year or so later she had to go to hospital. Because of the Kindle she could read the blog, send and receive emails, hear hymns played on internet, and be in touch with us. It helped her life so much.
I knew the book we wrote could be very helpful to older generations:
Graphically Illustrated Kindle Fire 8 Guide: (For non-computer generations)
I could see how much it would help people my age to learn to use a Kindle or iPad tablet before they had to go to a hospital. It would keep them in touch with everything from the hospital bed. That would mean a great deal. In fact one woman in our church group was in that position. She was 83 at the time she began learning, from our book, how to use a Kindle. A year or so later she had to go to hospital. Because of the Kindle she could read the blog, send and receive emails, hear hymns played on internet, and be in touch with us. It helped her life so much.
I knew the book we wrote could be very helpful to older generations:
Graphically Illustrated Kindle Fire 8 Guide: (For non-computer generations)
Pam had the computer knowledge to do this. I am a writer. So we wrote a book and found we could publish the book directly on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) without cost to us ... and Amazon would distribute the book all over the world!
I had finished all the writing for the book and Pam was working on getting the book in the publication form required by Amazon.
I was bored. I had little to do now that the extensive work on the book was finished.
A thought came into my mind (from God) ... "Maybe I could write ministry books and publish them on Amazon."
Now we are to the essence of God's plan in all this.
Not only could we publish e-books but we could publish the book in paper format and without any cost to the ministry.
Amazon has worldwide distribution for books and has a "free" e-book program where each book can be given away 5 days out of each 90 day cycle.
This suited us very much.
We didn't care about earning money from the books. (Amazon required us to charge at least 99-cents for the book in standard sales, to get book into their "free" book distribution program, which we felt was very important in sending it to people all over the world.)
We just wanted to make the books available all over the world to the church everywhere!
I began writing: Taking Thoughts Captive
I kept writing and we ended up with the following ministry books for the church in both e-book & paper form on Amazon:
- Taking Thoughts Captive
- Faith in God
- Following God by HIS Spirit
- Dealing with Destructive Thoughts
- Dreams from God
- Prayer to God
- The New Testament Church
- Promises From God to the Church
- Overcoming Through God
- Building Your House on the Word of God
- Escaping the World God's Way
- Great is Thy Faithfulness
- 12 Volumes: Exhortations for the Church
- Holy Bible (KJV) / New Testament, Psalms, Proverbs
- Proverbs
- Faith Building Moments from the Old Testament and Today
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Since publication, the books have been distributed to more than 1000 people per year, in many countries of the world!
We are delighted with the opportunity.
You see how one little step, purchasing that new Kindle Fire, was used by God to bring all these books into publication!
Isaiah 55:8-13
For MY thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways MY ways, saith the LORD.
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
So shall MY word be that goeth forth out of MY mouth: it shall not return unto ME void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
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HYMN: I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVES
I know that my Redeemer lives
And ever prays for me.
A token of HIS love HE gives,
A pledge of liberty
I know that my Redeemer lives,
A quick'ning Spirit HE;
I know eternal life HE gives
Amazing grace to me.
I find HIM lifting up my head;
HE brings salvation near;
HIS presence makes me free indeed,
And HE will soon appear.
HE wills that I should holy be:
What can withstand HIS will?
The counsel of HIS grace in me
HE surely shall fulfill.
Jesus, I hang upon Thy word:
I steadfastly believe
Thou wilt return and claim me, Lord,
And to Thyself receive.
(To hear this hymn played on piano and to follow along with the words, click on the following link and then when it appears on screen, tap on the play arrow, >)
I know that my Redeemer lives
And ever prays for me.
A token of HIS love HE gives,
A pledge of liberty
I know that my Redeemer lives,
A quick'ning Spirit HE;
I know eternal life HE gives
Amazing grace to me.
I find HIM lifting up my head;
HE brings salvation near;
HIS presence makes me free indeed,
And HE will soon appear.
HE wills that I should holy be:
What can withstand HIS will?
The counsel of HIS grace in me
HE surely shall fulfill.
Jesus, I hang upon Thy word:
I steadfastly believe
Thou wilt return and claim me, Lord,
And to Thyself receive.
(To hear this hymn played on piano and to follow along with the words, click on the following link and then when it appears on screen, tap on the play arrow, >)
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