Come back to the well to be refreshed.

Transcription

1 Come back to the well to be refreshed. Brendan Mc Crossan

2 Come back to the well to be refreshed. Brendan Mc Crossan

3 Come back to the well to be refreshed. Brendan Mc Crossan One The water I shall give will never dry up John 4-4-New International Version (NIV) Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph 6 Jacob s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, will you give me a drink? 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. 11 Sir, the woman said, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock? 13 Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. 15 The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I won t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water. Have you grown tired from all that is happening with you, have you dried up seeking things that you have forgotten, and seeking after other things like I have? I have been seeking after healings and miracles for a long time now and I am seeing the lord do those things day after day, till the other day when I felt

4 the lord say to me to Come back to the well! come back to when I first met with Jesus, oh my, how I loved Jesus. Later on that morning I went to a church that I had never been to, whilst I was on holiday,and a lady pastor was speaking,and she spoke on Ezikael-47 - on the waters that flowed from the throne of God, and the lord brought Ezekiel back here by the look of it many times, for it says he returned to this place, to return means that he must have been there before, and I believe this is what God is saying to me now and maybe to you also- return to him personally. When I first met Jesus I couldn t get enough of him, I spent every spare minute I could get with him, ministering to him in praise and in song. I loved every moment with him loving him and being loved in return. My life was exciting, being able to spend time with Jesus singing in the spirit and praying in the spirit and in English, with a fervour that didn t end; I couldn t get enough of Jesus I knew he was with me everywhere I went. Then very slowly over the years my focus turned to God the father and to the Holy Spirit which is what God desires of us, and to whom Jesus points us to; but in all of this I was beginning to leave Jesus behind, forgetting it was him that made all these things I was experiencing happen. Then slowly over the years I acknowledged Jesus more in praising his name than seeking him alone, I stopped taking time out seeking him for himself, and slowly my love waned, I still loved him of course and thanked him for all he done but he was fading into the background bit by bit. I never lost sight of God not even for a second but all my attention was in getting things from him, not just loving him for himself alone, or for who he was. I wanted miracles, healings, signs and wonders, and secretly deep in my sub consciousness I was seeking things in truth, for me, not for his glory. Yes I said it is for your glory Lord, but can truth be found in me, there was enough of me in there to outweigh his glory and inserted mine. I told myself, all for your glory Lord, But was it? Two You have left our first love Revelation 2-1-New International Version (NIV) To the Church in Ephesus

5 2 To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. 2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. )3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. 4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand I forgot the lord Jesus and he being first before his works, and I substituted his works for the works I desired, and so forgot whom saved me = Jesus. Before I met Jesus I didn t know about his power of healing available to me, and the gifts of his own Holy Spirit, so I just knew him as saviour, and that he saved my spirit and gave me his. I was to learn much later about miracles and healings and word of knowledge, which could and would be mine. I did what the word of God said to do, Go out into the entire world and proclaim the gospel, and heal the sick, Mark and do healing services, and I did these services with gusto and saw many people saved, and healed from cancer, Spinal Bifida, arthritis and Parkinson s disease, and many more diseases and pain, and it was awesome, to be a part of it being used by God. Mark Living Bible (TLB) 15 And then he told them, You are to go into the entire world and preach the Good News to everyone, everywhere. 16 those who believe and are baptized will be saved. But those who refuse to believe will be condemned. 17 And those who believe shall use my authority to cast out demons, and they shall speak new languages. 18 They will be able even to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won t hurt them; and they will be able to place their hands on the sick and heal them. Then this became the most important things to do, and so I did healing services in bars because the churches were not interested in miracles and healings, and watching God do the impossible was just incredible, but I didn t realise that the enemy was working secretly against me because of what I was doing, and healing services became the most important thing in my life, and he was slowly stealing the Joy of watching God do the impossible, and had me believing God was using me because there was no one else interested, he was working on my pride, and I was slipping down that slippery slope, with my eyes being

6 taken off of Jesus and placed squarely on me and my power in the Holy Spirit. Two Come to me all you who labour and I will give thee rest; When I first came to Jesus, I was a sinner of the highest qualification; I excelled in sin in every way, in thought word and deed, and on that first day that he came for me I loathed God, I thought he was an evil God who killed the families of those who served him, then I heard a priest speak of this God Jesus who suffered and died for us, and who took our sins upon himself and set us free from the penalty of them= hell. Later on a weekend where I heard that priest speak of the new God of love; I had a supernatural experience where he saved my very life. I was a builder and was working on a derelict house restoring it, when I met with a government house inspector, and we went into this house and he examined work that I had done, then he asked could he see upstairs, and we went to go up the stairs. On the third stair an invisible hand was placed on my chest pushing me back from going any further, I felt frightened and stopped, saying I wasn t feeling well and could we leave and thankfully he agreed. Later on that day I went to a marriage encounter and it was there I got saved as that priest spoke. After the weekend was over I discovered that a man went into that house after the inspector and I left and he went up the stairs, and in the front room he was killed by British undercover soldiers who were laying in wait in that house waiting till someone came for all the weapons and explosives that one of my former workers placed in that empty house. He was killed by these soldiers who would have killed me and the inspector if we had gone up those stairs. So this new God I was to discover later on that day would give me a chance for salvation which thankfully I accepted. I discovered years later that Albert the house inspector got terrible afraid and wanted to run out of that house, as he filled up with fear as we were going up those stairs and was so relieved to be asked by me to get out; he never came back to that house, and I hated working in it as I always felt the presence of the man who was killed, and sometimes imagined I saw his spirit. That was one job I was glad to see the end of, but it showed me the love that God had for me and helped change my thinking; I often thought did that man get a warning also and disobeyed it only God knows. Then when I began to get to know God, this incident and others where God spared my life supernaturally, like for example on Irelands worst tragedy, on

7 Bloody Sunday where thirteen people were murdered by British soldiers and fourteen wounded, God spared my life as soldiers tried to kill me, in one incident I was walking down the street in the middle of a protest march marching for civil rights, I saw a soldier on top of the old post office roof get down on one knee and I saw into his eyes which was impossible as he was too far away from me to really see into his actual eyes but I did and I knew instantly that he had picked me out to kill me, so I dropped a stick I was carrying from under my coat and placed myself behind a man so the soldier couldn t see me, and then he fired his rifle at another young man and hit him, thank God he lived. But later on in that day other soldiers tried to shoot me and thank God he protected me. That is the God I serve and love; now I want to get back to this saviour of mine- Jesus Later on I had an experience of his awesome love when he baptised me in his Holy Spirit and the cleansing of my sin I felt was glorious, it felt like awesome pure water gushing through me and never ending, I couldn t get enough of him and his Holy Spirit. I spent every moment I could praying to him in my new heavenly language ~ tongues. I delighted in his company; I didn t have to imagine I was with him for I knew I was. Then later on I decided to spend an hour every day singing to him and ministering to him, and my Parish priest allowed me to use a room above the church, so for a few years I sang my heart out to him worshipping him daily for that hour, and I loved it, for I came away feeling filled with love. I ministered to him and to him alone, singing new songs as the Holy Spirit gave me new song after song, and I had many, many heavenly experiences with him, and one time he showed me what I used to be like, and the difference in me now. There s no one like Jesus who can show you what you re really like for he knows you through and through. I was worshipping him praying in tongues one day, and with my eyes wide open I saw this large lump of rough coal hover in front of me, and as I looked at it in amazement it suddenly changed, and became a diamond of the same size and shape, but still the same size roughness and portion. I wondered what it was and then Jesus spoke to me and said; the coal was how I used to be, dark, filthy and rough, but now he made me a diamond still the same size and shape and roughness, and I had a sense that he was going to break off pieces of that diamond and make it perfect in the end. Did you know a diamond is created by the earth s pressure on a piece of coal? Slowly over millions of years the coal is crushed till it attains the size and shape the earth created it to come to be, and God like a diamond merchant, chips away at the diamond till he creates the perfect diamond, and he removes any flaws and rough pieces till perfection comes, and it is the same with Jesus, he chips away at all the rough and flawed parts till he has attained the perfect

8 shape he decided on from the moment he chose that rough diamond, and that diamond, rough or flawed or smooth, is you; he created you for his royal diadem, his crown of precious Jewels. Any good Jeweller can look at a new found rough diamond and see the potential in it for beauty and perfection, some even take years studying a diamond imagining how it should be cut and in what way; and God knowing all, could see the perfection in me, and also in you, for we are his Jewels. Malachi 3-17-Living Bible (TLB) 17 They shall be mine, says the Lord Almighty, in that day when I make up my jewels and I will spare them as a man spares an obedient and dutiful son. It is not too often we get a chance to see how God sees us and this was a beautiful experience of his love being shown to me, and I delighted in him, singing praise to him and adoring him, for nearly every time I went to that upper room above the church; I imagined it happening all over again in my mind. It was the most realist experience I ever had up to that time. One other day as I worshipped him I found myself supernaturally standing at the cross on Calvary and looking up at his blood stained face; I knew then that he done all this for me; I never saw into his eyes, they were totally covered with blood, I saw his mother and all those around him and was immersed in sorry for all he suffered for me and for you and for all mankind. It was a very humbling experience. How I loved him; and then through the years my gaze shifted off of him and onto God the father with Jesus in the background, sometimes coming to the front, but mostly now in the background. I knew what Jesus done for me, and I saw the tremendous things he done for me in the word, as the word became alive for me. For instance I saw that before he even made this world he decided to make me, and to make me like himself ~ holy and without a single fault of failing, spotlessly clean, Ephesians I saw that it was his plan to make me like himself, he being God as part of the Holy Trinity, and he making me in his own divine image first. Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that crepes upon the earth. 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.-tlb

9 People question how Cain could after he killed his brother, go out into a far off land and find him a wife? Read that scripture text again and see what God really said. God said, let us make man in our image, then he said let them them meaning there was more than one, have dominion over the fish of the sea. God chose out of all the people he made, two people, Adam and Eve to be the forerunners of the dynasty of Christ Jesus; this was the linage that God chose to introduce the saviour of the world, for Adam and Eve sinned, not everyone, just them two, and they blew it for everyone; then many years later Jesus would come and make things right between God and man again by taking their sins upon himself, and restoring man and woman back into favour with him again, as was the original plan until the devil dipped his oar in. Jesus came and sacrificed his very life suffering terribly so as to take the punishment for my sin and yours; and in doing so he redeemed man from sin and by his stripes at the flogging at the pillar he took our sickness and bore all our {my} diseases. This was the Jesus I had come to know and love until things changed. Love is a strange thing it can be so uplifting at one moment and next moment you can be so low it hurts when someone you love does you wrong. Jesus never withdraws himself from us, it is us that moves away for one reason or another; he is the same, yesterday today and forever. It is us that change, forgetting our true love and letting things of this earth get in the way of our relationship with one another and with God also. When I saw that God created me in the exact image of his own divine Son Jesus I was overwhelmed with joy and love for Jesus and for God the Father whom I was just getting to come to know. My gaze shifted off of Jesus for a while as I realised it was all God the fathers plan to use Jesus to save my spirit and to save mankind, that it was all God s plans and I thought not really Jesus plan; though deep down I knew that Jesus and God are the one person, but it shifted my attention from Jesus to the Father and in the power of his own Holy Spirit I started to experience miracles when I prayed. So I strayed deeper into what I thought was a relationship with Father God; as I said earlier this is what is supposed to happen but the enemy perverts this thinking to make us feel we have left Jesus and gave him up for the father, even though we know from scripture that they are one and the same; may they be one as we are. John 17:11 New International Version I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.

10 In the next scripture I seen that it was all God the fathers plans that Jesus was willingly used in just the same way as I am willingly used in his plans and so are you, but it was now God the Father who was getting all my attention, and miracles and healings were now become a daily occurrence for me, as I began praying for the sick, and seeing God heal them, now in Jesus name, and the shift from Jesus himself to his name began. All this took many years, not minutes, or hours or days, or weeks, but years. Ephesians Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 1:5 Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 1:6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. 1:7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; 1:8 Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; =TLB And so the change in me began when I focused on his name and not on my redeemer himself, the shift of my daily gaze moved from Jesus my saviour, my hero, my lord and my God, to the name of Jesus, it was the name and the power in that name now I needed, not the man behind the name; to be used in the necessity of seeing miracles and healing happening for me through the power in the name of Jesus. You may not think this is important to you; but have you shifted your gaze away from Jesus himself to his Holy name, for at the name of Jesus every knee must bow in heaven on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus is lord. We have a very deceitful enemy, the most cunning being in existence for he has been here since God created him in heaven trillions and trillions of years ago; he has been around before God created man and he knew mans blueprints and hated man for man and woman took his place as the chosen one before God. He knows every weakness that man and woman have, he seen their blueprints as God was designing mankind, and he knew their weakness, and he, over the centuries used his knowledge of their makeup to bring about their sinning against God, and he subtly does so successfully.

11 But Jesus destroyed him in every way, he took off of him his power and authority, and stripped him of everything except one thing, his mouth, and in his mouth lays every lie and deceit that he learned throughout history. And so he knows every weakness that we have, and he manipulates them; even subtly turning our thoughts off of Jesus by saying we should only be praying and fellowshipping with Father God now and not with Jesus; but he does it in such a way that makes it all seem genuine, bringing us closer to Father God, but secretly moving us one step at a time away from Jesus and our relationship with him. He is the craftiest being alive on this planet. Jesus wants us having a relationship with his father, but remember something here, he is also in the father, and in the Holy Spirit also; and he wants us having an evenly dispensed relationship with all three parts of himself as the Godhead, for no part of him is jealous of the other part. For we also are filled with the Godhead; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, this is what Jesus done for us, and it s his doing amazing things for us that blesses us. So the enemy tries to make us think we are doing wrong when we talk to Father God or The Holy Spirit or with Jesus individually, this is a devious act of his, trying to get you to feel and think you re doing something wrong, which you are not. When I went to the Father for something at the start, the devil used to make me think I was leaving Jesus, and this distressed me at the time, and this went on for years until I realised there is no jealously between the Holy Trinity, as they are all equal, and one. Two Keep your eyes on Jesus; The author and finisher of our faith Sadly I took my eyes of him himself and placed them on his name, and I have lost out on my relationship with him, but now knowing where I have gone wrong I can repent and safely return to him and be assured of a glad welcome; In all of this I have done no wrong, neither have you, if like me you have done the same. It is the age old devil that is trying to destroy our relationship, and not God, being angry, hurt, or offended by us He just wants to bring us back into a deep relationship with him Jesus and the Holy Spirit again. For me, I had my eyes focused on healings and miracles done in his name that took my eyes off of him briefly, my attention was on the power of his name and not on the love Jesus has for me.

12 I need to keep coming back to the well to be refreshed, to come back into a serious relationship with him again and again. Don t be deluded, the enemy will try later on to do the same again using different methods. How Jesus loves me, and I need to keep reminding myself this love is real, for what he sacrificed for me was his very own life, and the pain I feel in my body at this moment in time is nothing to the pain he suffered on that cross, and at the scourging at the pillar, to wipe away all my sins, and to take upon his body my sickness and diseases; this is real love and needs to be kept before me at all times. Yes there are times when I will need his name to defeat the enemy or for a healing, but I must never forget the man behind the name. I know that relationships develop and grow stronger and different through the years but we must never forget the first love we had with the saviour and friend, and we need to come back to the well and drink from it soaking up the new life with him in us. Jesus is my lord forever and forever and I can never forget that, he loves me forever. At this moment in time I have a feeling on me that God, including Jesus, has departed from me; I am standing on his word that he took my sickness and bore all my disease, and since the day I decided to make my stand in what little faith I have, I feel like I am on my own, and that God has cleared off somewhere on holiday and left me to face the enemy alone and in terrible pain. Of course this is not true; I just don t feel his presence anywhere around me, I don t hear from him and feel so very alone like he didn t care about me and my suffering; but he done something for me when I first came to him. I used to hear these two men talking at the prayer meeting I was attending. One week Joe would say he had a bad week; then George came around and prayed with him and he was then uplifted, and then it was George s turn the following week. I began thinking I don t have that experience so I went to God and complained that I didn t get these high and low experiences, and God spoke to me saying, if ever you feel like I have deserted you, pray in tongues, then you will know my Holy Spirit is still there with you. And for many years since then I done that when I was going through a dark time, and I could pray in tongues anytime I wished, as the Spirit of God remained inside me, never ever leaving me alone. The ploy of the enemy is to get you to think God has deserted you leaving you defenceless, and this is just one of these times I am going through at this moment in time. But this time I have more knowledge for I know I am filled with the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and I know the Trinity will never leave me for I have become a part of them and them of me. God allows us to go through empty times in our lives for a reason and a season, say like mine at this moment when I had stepped out beyond Jesus guidance

13 and plan; he allows me to feel empty and lonely and abandoned, and the reason is not his, but mine; I went on by myself in doing things, maybe not the perfect will of God for me, but good things for him that he never asked me to, and so he remained where he was, and is now waiting for me to come back to the well to be refreshed and to catch up with Jesus again. At the well, Jesus asked the woman to give him a drink, and I believe that right now he is asking us for another drink, not the physical drink of water but the drink of obedience, that refreshes him in us; that refreshment that obedience brings to him, a gratification that we are obeying him following in his footsteps. Isn t it strange that when our children do something good it refreshes us, we enjoy what they done, and it gives us drive, a lifting in our spirits? Perhaps this is how God decides to see us and feel, when we follow his directions and guidance from his Holy Spirit, or perhaps not, who knows. Come back to me with all your heart, was a song that I used to sing back in the eighties at the time of the Charismatic movement, I loved this song and it was sung by me almost every time I went to worship Jesus. I worshiped him every day singing to him new songs as his Spirit gave me inspiration new songs every day, and then I started recording them so that I would remember the words, little realising that those songs were prophetic. Those songs were speaking scriptural truths to me, songs like; He lives in me and I in him, and your heart is beating in time with mine, songs that were revealing to me the word of God in song, and I didn t realise it for years till many years later I started learning that we are one in Christ Jesus and that his heart beat in time with mine as I was joined together with him in spirit. songs I knew that God loved me singing to him. Now I find it hard to sing to God for an hour a day; I pray and now and then I sing to him, but it feels empty like there is no life in those songs anymore, and I don t mean the songs his spirit gave me, but other songs that I sing, but they feel lifeless and have no impact with God anymore. Have you ever felt like that? I know deep down that God accepts all prayer offered to him, and every song sang to him is accepted as worship, but is it as real as it used to be, for I know from what he told me many years ago, that any song sung to him is accepted as praise and worship, be it blues, or rap, or country and western, or rock and roll, as long as it is pure and no dirt in it like these modern songs that stink of foul sexual language. I have nowhere to go these days to try and sing aloud again to him, and it is difficult to sit in my concrete garden shed and sing, for I used to sing there when I moved into this new house I now live in; for when my wife told me the

14 whole street can hear me singing, it slowly stopped as I realised the neighbours heard me singing to God and I got embarrassed, and stopped altogether. The devil is a crafty sod so he is, he got me stopped singing in worship, and I cannot sing in my home because I am too loud, and so no singing to him except in a whispered tone. I used to love singing to him and loved the new songs that the Holy Spirit gave me, but now it is hard to sing suppressed, trying to sing enthusiastically when you have to keep everything so low so no one else can hear you. Your spirit cannot be released in such a circumstance and I would love to have somewhere to open my heart out to him and give him a holy blast of great love songs to him. This is my well, where I got refreshment and joy, and I need to get back to that well and drink once more before I completely dry up altogether. Today I went once more to my garden shed, my prayer bunker as I used to call it and I deliberately sang aloud some of the songs I used to sing, and it felt good, silly but good. I was aware of the neighbours but thought what the heck, for on one side of me is a man whose wife I prayed with, and also got him saved, so I know he wouldn t be put out at me singing, beside I learned him the guitar after his wife died, so I was ok with this, on the other side of me is a terrorist family, and maybe they need to hear me sing every day to God in worship, so maybe it is time to get back to the well with singing and stop letting the devil keep me away from ministering to God. This was something I loved doing and the lord loved me doing it also because I had many wonderful supernatural experiences there, like seeing the lump of coal turn into a diamond, and experience standing at the cross, and many more experiences. Ministering to God in song was wonderful and I loved it and so did the lord as I feel he is calling me back to this well again, before I go on doing something else for him. I have started going back to the well again as my focus is back on Jesus and ministering to him in song and praise, so I look forward to exciting times with him again, for he is joined together with me and I in him. Amen

15

16