Wow! I missed the regular bus that I take all the time to downtown. I’m sure I checked to make sure that it was the right one. I stepped on, found my seat, then before long I noticed that the bus turned right instead of going straight like it usually does to go on the freeway. The natural man said, “what! Oh come on! I can’t believe that you did that!”. But, praise God for the spiritual man ruling! I said to myself, “oh well. God must be up to something”.

We finally got on the right bus to downtown. Did I double check this time? Yep! :). It was pretty much the usual ride in, yet we were praying to remain in the Spirit and not let the weakness of the natural man creep in.

I was about 3/4 into the trip when I heard, “Hey, can I have one of those?”. There was a guy sitting behind me off on my right. I reached over on the empty seat next to me where I had placed a couple of copies of the Gospel of John and gave him one. He looked at it and was surprised. I said. “oh so you have seen them before?”. He said, “yes, I remember them in prison”. I then told him like I always do, “yeah, in there you will see who Jesus is, what He taught, and what we are to believe about Him”. He agreed.

Then he began to open up and share what really happened. He said that while he was in the back corner seat, he noticed “cell phones” sitting in the chair next to me. Then he surmised that he would get closer to me and asked to see one of the phones, grab it, and bolt out the door when the bus stopped and the door opened. Little did he know that God was at work in his life. And soon he would come to the realization of repentance and acknowledging his condition before God.

He told me that he was blown away when he actually realized that it was a gospel of John. Also, he knew that it was God that had worked out the means of getting him to the place he needed to be. As we traveled on the bus, he shared more of where he was with God and how he needed to get back. He had been living a life of drugs and party (he struck me as one who bounced from one place to the other).

We shared with him, like we often do, that God is not far away. And that He knows everything about us. He agreed with that, and felt the guilt of his sin and disobedience. He kept saying, “I know, I know”. We then shared that his next step must be that of true repentance. It was now time for him to stop what he had been doing and turn. He agreed. I could tell that the Holy Spirit convicting power was upon him.

Soon our stop came and we both got off. We noticed that he had the typical belongings such as a backpack, jacket, and stuff. He said in parting that he knew that this was all God. He was still in amazement that God would do such a thing to get his attention. He thank me and said, “you are a man of God”. At these times I always point above and say that its all because of Him. To Him be all the glory. I am just like any other Spirit filled, Spirit led, believer that is desiring and following the will of God for their lives.

Another example of how God works in mysterious ways to wake people up to Himself. The more we stay in the Holy Spirit, and are led of the Holy Spirit, the more we get to be a part of what God is doing in His realm here on the earth.

In closing, there was another part to the story which will have to wait until the other side of glory. There was a man sitting in the seat across from me. Halfway into our encounter, I looked over and he is sitting there listening. And guess what? Here’s a miracle. He has headphones on. But guess what. He put them above his ears so that he could hear everything that was going on. What a God!

Yesterday he gave me the opportunity to exercise this truth. I was returning back to a guy that I had earlier given him a gospel card. He was sharing with me about how he was evolved in a DUI accident recently. He was the drunk driver, and he was showing me all the scars from his operations. (all the time during our conversation there was his can of beer in a bag lying close by). After a while he said Jesus was his Lord and Savior. We then said if that is the case then he has the Holy Spirit inside him which gives him the power to overcome. Then, as I was looking at the paper bag, the Holy Spirit reminded me to speak the truth in love. We then said something like this..

“Brother, as brother to brother, I want to tell you the truth. You must give up your addiction. God’s word says that if don’t, you will not enter the kingdom of God”. (1Cor.6:10). He paused to let this sink in. He confessed that he needed to do it. We said that it is only possible through the Holy Spirit’s power.

As our conversation continued, he became encouraged and let his guard down more. Before leaving to get on the bus, we asked him if we could pray for him. He said yes. As we prayed, we could feel the Holy Spirit with “dunamis” power coming upon him. As he was stepping on the bus, we yelled over to him and said, “that dunamis power is like dynamite!”. He said, “yes, and I believe it!”.

Nothing like experiencing God while you’re living! What a God!

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Yesterday, I had just started my prayer walk in Santa Ana, when down the sidewalk I saw a guy leaning against a wall. When I got up to him I asked him how his day was going. He said that it was not good. I said, “oh no. What’s up”. He paused for a second and said that he had just got out of jail. I said, “really”. Then I encouraged him to look to the Lord for help. Then….

He rolled his eyes back and said, “Yeah. My parents are pastors”. I said, “really”. Then without a beat, we said to him… “I bet church was crammed down your throat”. He said, “Oh yeah”. I said, “It was probably all, “church, church, church” wasn’t it? He didn’t hesitate to answer and say, “Oh yes!”. I said that it was probably church three and four nights a week. He again said, “Oh yeah!”.

In my forty plus years of ministry, I have talked with countless people who have been affected bigtime by the church that unbeknowingly has portrayed “God in a box”. By example the church has taught that most everything about God has to do with church, and in church.

The countless people who have been affected, the majority of them have been young people. Most have not been “PK’s” (Pastors kids). They were just brought up in church and they saw very little of God outside of the four walls.

Imagine for a moment… that you were raised in church. Every time you heard about God it was church related. When God was spoken, the next word was church. Your thinking and your belief was that “God was church”, even though this was not taught literally. But this is what you saw by example. This is what you heard. This is what you came to believe in the box. And…

By the time you graduated from high school, you couldn’t wait to “jump headlong into the world”. And you did…. You finally were set free from the “Box”. It was if you had been in prison all those years, and now you were set free. Sad to say… you were now free to escape the god that you were taught by example.

Whatever happened to “Relationship?”, IE, A relationship with God? Isn’t a relationship supposed to be all the time? Also, whatever happened to “Experiencing God” in daily life?

A personal relationship with God should be first and foremost. It should be above and beyond “church”. The question should be asked…. If church was taken away, would I still have a relationship with God? What about when “Covid” hit? Were you still able to continue in a relationship with God even if you couldn’t go to church? Sure it wasn’t the same, but did you grow during that time in your one on one relationship with God? We should have.

We who are Christ followers, need to be modeling to our kids, our family, and to the world, how a Christian lives in the world. They should see how our relationship personally with God is first in our life. Basically, HE IS LORD. He is supreme, above all. And, we should be portraying that He is even above our church. Our relationship with Him is first, and everyone should see and hear that He is. Our families, neighbors, and friends, need to see us as “joyful”, “peaceful”, and “contented” outside of church. It should be In our daily routine. It should be at our place of employment as well. Basically, the world should see and hear God in us.

In closing. Experiencing God while we are living is what is missing in our world today. People need to see us living outside of four walls, they may never go to church. They need to hear us talking about how we experienced God in our workplace. How when we went here or there and saw God working. How we prayed for God to give us someone to share with today, and He did!

We need to show them something they are missing, and that being a relationship with God. And how they can experience Him on a regular daily basis.

And for those who think that I am against church, I am not. Church certainly has its place. It’s just that I see a big void in our world today. And I arrive at that conclusion by all the people that have borne this testimony, and that being…. “I need someone more than church”, “church alone didn’t do it for me”.

God help us! If all we have to offer the world is “church”, then we are sadly wrong.

Here is the beautiful “God part”.

We asked him if we could pray for him. He said “sure”. So we did. After that, he went quiet. We sat there praying quietly. Then….

We looked over at him, and we saw his head dropped, and he was praying. We could hear him praying. He was asking God to forgive him for “stealing, taking drugs, drinking, etc”. He asked God to renew him, and to restore him to his family. When he finished praying he stuck out his hand and we shook each other’s hands. We shared that the reason for our encounter today was that God was not far away and that God loved him. He smiled back.

How awesome was it to see him pray on his own accord to God. I believe that God heard his prayer of repentance. Remember “Francisco” in prayer.

I was so blessed this week to see again how God takes the simple gospel shared, and through it, saves a soul.

I had just returned from out on the streets, and was headed to get water at the local water store. There was a young guy named “Jesse” who assisted me. We had basic conversation while we were filling the bottles. After, I walked over to the counter to pay for them. I then asked him if I ever shared Jesus with him. He said that he didn’t think so. So we shared with him the basics of the gospel. He listened. When we finished, I said that he could even be saved right here, right now. He looked surprised that it could be so simple. So, he prayed to God in his own words, raised his head and smiled. We gave him the gospel of John so he could read it in his spare time. He thanked us for sharing everything that was said. We walked out and encouraged him to now go in faith believing, and to expect change. To God be the glory! The simple gospel shared is our responsibility. God gives the new birth!

The main definition we use today for “repentance” is taken from the Greek meaning of the word “Repent” or “Repented”. It says, “to think differently, or afterwards, i.e. reconsider”. Most pastors and  teachers of today would say that repent means to “change your thinking about Jesus, and to change your thinking about sin”. Also, “to change direction”. This is, of course, one meaning of the word. However, we must dig much deeper into the word and its biblical meaning to arrive at a sound understanding so as to use it in today’s culture. When we see its meaning in a more complete way, then we can apply this meaning to today’s culture in the sharing of the gospel.

We must start first with the “Hebrew” definition. If we take the words “repent, repented, and repenteth”, we come up first with, “to sigh, i.e. breath strongly”. By implication, it means, “to be sorry, rue”. Rue? What in the world is that word? Webster defines it as, “to feel penitence, remorse, or regret for, to feel sorrow, remorse, or regret”.

The actual word “repentance” only appears once in the Old Testament. It is found in the book of Hosea, chapter 13, verse 14. Its meaning is “ruefulness”. There again is that word.

Another meaning for the words, “Repent, repented, and repenteth”, is “to turn back, away”. This definition is also used for the words, “turn” and “turned”. This is certainly seen in the Old Testament with the “Children of Israel” where they were continually going away from God, then turning back to God.

Before we leave the Hebrew definition, we must look at some examples of repentance in the Old Testament. This helps us to better understand by seeing actual examples of these word definitions. One main thing that repentance was in the Hebraic culture was that it often involved covering themselves in “sackcloth” and sitting, or covering their head in “ashes”. This was a physical example of what was going on in the heart of a person that was repenting. They would show their grief, their loss, and their humility before God by doing this. They believed by doing this from the heart that God would “turn and repent” from His anger towards them.

Job said, “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Jb.42:6).

King Ahab, “rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth, fasted, and lay in sackcloth” (1Kin.21:27).

The Lord said to King Josiah, “because your heart was tender, and you have humbled yourself before Me….and have rent your clothes, and wept before Me, I also have heard you,” (2Kin.22:19)

In the book of Jonah, just after he arose and went to Nineveh to tell them that God was going to “overthrow” their city, they all “believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth”. The king did as well. He made a decree to all the people that “man and beast be covered in sackcloth, and cry mightily to God, and turn every one from his evilway,”. “And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do to them;” (see Jonah, chapter 3).

Jesus himself also used Old Testament examples when referring to “repentance”. Just after He “upbraided the cities” because “they repented not”, he used “Tyre and Sidon” as an example and said that “they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes” (Mt.11:20-21).

Can we see that true repentance that God receives involves, “humility of heart before Him?” Could this humility possibly open up one’s heart to receive? Along with humility, what about the word, “Contrite?” This was a common word in Hebrew culture. It meant, “crushed, to collapse, smitten, dejected”. In our English definition, it means, “grieving and penitent for sin or shortcoming”. The Psalmist wrote about its importance,

“The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as those who have a contrite spirit” (Ps.34:18).

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps.51:17).

Isaiah the prophet wrote of God saying,

“For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and revive the heart of the contrite ones” (Isa.57:15). Here he uses “humble” together with “contrite”. Towards God, I don’t think we can have one without the other.

In the last chapter of Isaiah’s book, he records the Lord as saying,

“But to this one will I look, on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit,” (66:2b). Here he uses “poor” together with “contrite”. Again, I don’t think we can have one without the other.

In the “New Testament”, the Greek meaning of the word “repentance” is “compunction”. What in the world does that word mean? According to Webster, it means, “anxiety arising from awareness of guilt (awareness of conscience), distress of mind over an anticipated action or result”. Wow. Can you see where in today’s culture we would not even bring up this word and its definition. It would be offensive to say the least. Yet, we must get to the true definition of repentance and what it involves, what it looks like, even in today’s culture.

The word “repent” is the one Greek definition that we all like. It’s the one that can easily be swallowed. Again, it is, “to think differently or afterwards, i.e. reconsider”. However, did you know that “morally”, it means the same as the word “repentance”, which again, means, “compunction”. We must take the complete meaning of the word to arrive at “True Repentance”.

True repentance has to do with “feelings”. Now that’s a hard one to swallow. Maybe that is why we have left it out in today’s culture? We don’t want to bring up our feelings. They are personable. Yet, in true repentance they are going to have to be expressed, for they come from the heart. They are going to have to be acknowledged. And that, mainly, and most importantly, towards God Himself. After all, who was offended in sin, first and foremost?

Two of the most famous people in the bible regarding “repentance” were David, and the “prodigal son”, right? And what did their confession consist of?

David said, “For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, and You only, have I sinned, and done evil in your sight,” (Ps.51:3-4).

The Prodigal son said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven (against God in heaven) and in your sight, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” (Lk.15:21).

Did these two confessions not require “humility”, “sorrow”, “compunction”, etc. of heart to God? They sure did. It was not just a “change of mind, or direction”. It was true repentance.

In closing, I have spent the last 40 years plus looking at, studying repentance. It has always amazed me at how real and necessary it is in the bible. It’s a sure subject that a child of God cannot escape if he, or she, wants to be a student of God’s word. And most importantly, how necessary it is in “salvation”. True salvation cannot be received without it. And, if we are going to be following Jesus’ command to “go into all the world and share the gospel”, we must have a proper understanding of repentance. After all, Jesus himself gave the command before He left this earth to preach “repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Lk.24:47).

There is more to understand regarding repentance.

I hope you were blessed by this study! I was

He was not your average guy who was walking down the sidewalk. He was dressed nice, good looking, strong and fit. He had a certain desperateness about him though. He was on edge. He said he was running from his wife, and that she was supposed to be in the area looking for him. However, I am certain that there was more to the story. He also said that he hadn’t slept much in the last week. If I were to guess, I would say that drugs were also a problem in this guys life, even though he had not confessed to it. Yet, he didn’t look like your typical addict.

We asked him if he had been born again. That led to him saying that he was raised a Christian, and that he went through the steps of giving his life to God when he was a kid. He said that he now believed that he was a god. Yep, “that he was a god”. And he also said that we all have many gods inside of us. This is where we had to step in and correct him.  We told him that if he had been truly born again, he received the Holy Spirit at that time, and that God was in him and that was all he needed. He then went into some off the wall stuff about gods. This of course, let us know more of what we were dealing with and where he was at.

In the course of our conversation which lasted some 45 minutes, we told him that God loved him, and that it was no happen chance that we were there talking to him. We shared what town it was that we were from, which was a few miles away, and that he was the first guy in this area that we had any real conversation with. This caught his attention a little more. He had that look in his eye.

In closing,  he understood that God was after him. Oh, another thing that he was struggling with was forgiveness. He didn’t believe that God could forgive him. I assured him that that was the reason that Christ died for him. He was not ready to take that in, and I’m sure that that had a lot to do with his running.

As he walked away,  he turned back and heard me saying,  “Remember Eddie,  God loves you”. He smiled and said, “I sure hope so”. I said,  “why do you think we met? “. And off he went……

Pray for Eddie!

I said to him, “Well, what about you? Where are you with Jesus?”. He said that half of his family was Catholic, and the other was Christian. He said that he was in the middle. That’s when i sat down next to him :). I then told him that i was raised Catholic as well. He sat up to listen.

We then told him what we have told many Catholics that we have met before. “At least you have been taught the basics. You know about the Virgin Birth, His Death on the cross, and His resurrection”. He agreed. This is where we shared with him his need to believe personally. He needed to believe that Jesus died for his sins and that God raised Him up to conquer death, the wages of sin.

This is where he said, “Lately, I have been really feeling the weight of a few sins in my life”. I then told him that that was a good thing, and that Jesus died for those sins. We then asked him if he wanted that weight to come off. He looked surprised. We also told him that he didn’t need to go to a “priest” to have his sins forgiven. He could have them forgiven right here on the bench.

I then said, “does that sound to simple and easy?”. He kind of agreed. We then began to ask him if he for sure knew that he has offended God. He said that he had offended some people. I reminded him that that is the same as offending God. I said, “Do you remember what Jesus said were the two greatest commandments?”. He didn’t remember. We told him that the second one was, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. His head dropped.

I then said that we all have sinned and fall short. We all have especially broken the first two. Have we always loved God with all our heart, soul, and mind? And of course our neighbor as we love ourself? He agreed that he had not. This is where i asked him if he would like to be forgiven right now. At that second, the bus drove up and he stood up. I said that he could pray on the bus and receive forgiveness of sins if he wanted. He said thanks, and off he went to the bus.

I believe that he did. Do i know for a fact? No. If he didn’t, he surely is a big step closer today. Bless the Lord! The God who loves him! To send a nobody to him today :).

Later we headed out the door to the place we believed the Lord to go. When we arrived, after prayer, we shared several  Holy scriptures (when was the last time you heard that?) on one of our regular corners for about an hour. Afterwards, we believed to go across the street to share. After about thirty minutes, i had noticed out of the corner of my eye, a guy standing to my right about 10 feet away listening to the Word. When i looked over at him while still reading the scriptures, my spirit bore witness that i had seen this guy pass by me as i was reading on the other side of the street, maybe a couple of times, not sure.

After another ten, twenty minutes, i stopped and looked at him and said, “hey, how’s it going?”. Then he immediately went into spilling out tons of “unbelief”. It has been a while since God has brought to us a guy by like him in such condition. I remember many of times in the past where they would come up and spill out their unbelief in many different forms. Here was a young guy, 23-26, who said when i asked him when he had believed in the Lord Jesus, said that he believed when he was 7 years old. He also said that he believed until he was 23.

After we continued to listen, we had to finally interrupt him from his continuing unbelief. We asked him, “What happened?”. He said that he was over in Iraq. I said, “Ah, so that is what happened”. No, he said. Then he said that he still believed, still prayed, and still read his bible. Then, he went into saying how his superiors, government officials, etc. had showed him that the bible was not true historically, and that there is many other manuscripts, etc. that prove this or that. He was packed with information. Some of it may have been true, but at the core of his being there was unbelief.

We went back and forth for just a little bit. From experience, i have learned that the worst thing one can do in a public environment is to get into an argument over anything pertaining to God, the bible, etc. Unbelievers passing by have no clue what’s going on. All they hear is “God”, “Jesus”, “Bible”, etc, and immediately think within themselves, “Oh no, here we go again. More arguing about religion”. “Glad I am not apart of that”.

We finished shortly thereafter. Unbelief had manifested itself. The word had did its “slice and dice”. It’s hard stuff for sure. No one likes to have the Word of God prick their heart to the core, for sure.

This had gripped my heart to hear testimony once again about someone who had walked with God at one time, but now had taken up with unbelief. There is always a story from each one as to what had happened to bring about their unbelief. In some cases, it is a “divorce”, or maybe a “death”. Maybe it was when they left home and went off to college. Yet, in every case, their faith was shaken, tried, and tested. It would take deeps roots to be able to stand. This is why we have such needful words of warning in the book of Hebrews. These words are written to “believers”, not to those who have yet to believe.

“Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but encourage one another daily, while it is called “Today”, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if  we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” (Heb.3:12-15)

Yes, i know, it’s hard to swallow the fact that we as believers, can allow an “evil heart of unbelief” to come upon us. This is just what happened to this guy. And we must never think that it could not come to us. This is why the writer of this book said that we as believers need to “hold fast our confidence”, “hold fast our hope”, “hold fast our profession” to the end. (Read Hebrews chapter 3 and 4).

We will continue to pray for this man, that his heart may be turned from the sin of unbelief, and back to God. Amen.

The most awesome thing that took place this week (Tuesday) was the salvation of “Jose”. God chose to save him. We saw him down the sidewalk waiting for the bus. The Spirit said to go over to him, so we did. We handed him a “Born of the Spirit” card, like we usually do, and God took it from there. Before long he was praying to the Father, asking for forgiveness and confessing upon the Lord Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. We (the Holy Spirit and i) prayed with him just after he prayed. It was a beautiful experience to see how God moved at just the right time. What a God! A God who saves!

Later that same day, we met a fellow believer on the bus. Awesome time of fellowship. We sensed that he had a personal struggle going on in which he didn’t disclose. God, being all knowing, knew just exactly what it was. We continue to pray for him.

On Wednesday, we believed God to head out on the train towards Santa Monica. We we got off the bus and got to the train platform, He had a guy waiting there. We approached him and handed him a card. He read it as we stood off at a distance. Afterward, i asked him what he thought of it. He said that he hadn’t heard of the message of being born again like this before. It was straight from John chapter 3. So, it asked the question, “what has he heard regarding the gospel?”. We encouraged him to seek God and be born of the Spirit. And as we have said on many occasions, “It’s like walking into a dark room and flipping the light switch on. Boom! Now i can see!”

On Thursday, we believed God to head up north on the bus. He had a guy sitting in his car right next to where we were waiting for the bus. Come to find out, he was a believer, who was on his lunch from work. We had a good time “fellowship” (two fellows in the same ship :-). We believed for him to be encouraged to step out in faith and share Jesus more often. Yes! Glory to God!                                                                                                            Later that day, we met a young guy on the train who was encouraged by what the Holy Spirit spoke to Him. He believed, but needed a spiritual boost that he was certainly not going to receive from the world. He couldn’t wait to share it with his girlfriend who he was headed to see. It is always a blessing to know that there is no “happen chances” with God.

On Friday, we believed God to go to downtown and preach the gospel. The Spirit gave us liberty and many heard what they would probably of not heard that day. And what was that? That they are separated from God because of sin. But, that God did indeed made a way for them through the cross of Christ.                                                                                After finishing, we were drained physically. We took a break and texted my wife to pray. Soon, we arrived at another corner, and was led to share there. It wasn’t but a few minutes into sharing the gospel, i noticed a guy off in the distance listening. He changed positions every so often. For the rest of the time, probably like an hour, he was there. When we finished, he came over and shook our hand. He was a believer, bless the Lord! He was encouraged at hearing the gospel. He had been praying the whole time. Many times over the years, i have seen this. God sends people to stand off in the distance and pray. That’s the God we serve! Always He has our best interest! He alone knows what is needed so His gospel, mixed with His Spirit, can do what He declares it to do…. speak to people, draw them to Himself.

Hallelujah! It’s good to be back at it on a more regular basis. He is good!