MY TIME IN GOSPEL ASSEMBLY AND VIETNAM
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1 Tim.
6:11-12 But thou,
O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness,
faith, love, patience, meekness. [12] Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold
on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed good
profession before many witnesses.
BY: ROBERT MASON
|
Robert W. Mason in 1967 |
I want to write this to all
those who might think that talking about all these things is negative. It's
only negative to the point of releasing the hurt.
Having come out of Gospel Assembly
Church but also having been to the jungles of Vietnam, the first part of
survival is recognizing and admitting what your enemy is. We have worked for
years trying to identify the enemies we were facing.
It was not easy to fight the
invisible enemy in the jungle. We never knew who was friend and who was foe.
When I came to the church in Des Moines, I thought I knew who was the
"enemy." As with Vietnam, the longer I fought, the more I knew we
didn't know who or where to fight. This war lasted 365 days and nights for me.
I did learn that the Lord was
my "point man" in every way and in each fight. It was so easy to turn
to the Lord, my Rock. The one thing I found out was that it was "He and
I." I never felt silly or less of a man for having my contact with the
Lord. It was my personal contact with Him that kept me.
In the church, someone else
came between Jesus and me. That was my first mistake. I let someone take over
my personal contact with the Lord. I found out almost too late how important
that personal relationship was. This was a loss that affected all those that
attended the local Gospel Assembly Church.
I wanted others to know that as
you try to come out of this control group, we need to focus on the Lord and our
personal contact with Him. We have to start that one on one relationship again.
Where we were, it wasn't taught that way. Now we must restart this direct touch
with God. We gave up our own personal role and allowed others to think, pray
and say what God's will was for our lives.
This was easy to lose but hard
to get back. I don't care who says he or she is the "ONE," the way is
through Jesus. Not through someone else or somewhere else. First, it's back to
the Lord, "one on one," then we can reach out to others.
Return to the Lord and secure your
personal contact to the Lord then we can branch out to other parts of our
lives. The Lord is our cornerstone, and I want us to wash away the past
mistakes. I want us to fight the good fight but not alone. God never left us,
we just allowed someone to come between Him and us. Let's get back to our unit
fight.
Let go of the past hurt and let's grab a large share of the Lord,
"ONE ON ONE."
Pastor James
Freeman's Encouraging Words
