Breathe!

 

Dear Friends,

 

This is the other article I promised to send and I thank you for your generous and encouraging feedback.

 

“Breathe, before you help others to breathe.”

 

A man can only teach that which he has learned. For me to believe and understand God was easier than to believe and understand prayer.

 

Though my grandmother taught me to speak correctly by repeating the Lord’s Prayer since I was one year old, I did not understand prayer until I lost my wife and retired from the ministry as a licensed and ordained man.

 

Finally, I can say with confidence that, Prayer is the only thing next to God that is clear to me. My predicament is that what I understood about prayer is as clear as a glass of purify water to me but not to others.

 

For years I have tried to communicate my “Eureka” (I found it F=PW2) discovery, but all the feedback I got is a kind response and a blank compassionate stare because, “Prayer is a matter of another world.”

 

Let me tell you what I mean by that, “When Neil Armstrong went to the Moon, he took his own air from the earth to breathe and keep alive.” In the same way, Heaven is another world and those on their way to Heaven must take the air of faith and prayer in order to survive the trip and make it to heaven alive.

 

It is not enough for a man of God to learn to breathe, but he must teach others to breathe by obeying everything Jesus taught.  “Teaching to obey Jesus” is the heart of the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.” It is in service that a man of God must remember the words of Jesus, “As the Father has sent me, so send I you”, we have an example to follow. 

 

In the same way as the world resisted Jesus, they will also resist us.

Look John 12:37 to 50. “Even after Jesus had done many miraculous signs in their presence they still will not believe in him this was the fulfilled the word of Isaiah the prophet: “Lord who has believe our message and to whom has a hand of the Lord been revealed? 

 

For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere: “He had blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts nor turn—and I would heal them.”

 

Notice how God’s own people did not believe Jesus the miracle worker from God, full of power grace, love and perfection.

Notice also that disbelief is part of the sovereignty of God by the prophecy.

‟Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” We have two questions here, “Who has believed our message?” The answer is “No one.” The second question is, ‟To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” The answer is the same as the first, “No one.”

 

Not so fast, there is an insight in this verse that lead us to understand that revelation is equivalent to the whole sovereign, powerful and irresistible arm of God while miracles, as great as they might be, are only the finger of God.

John adds the words, for this reason they could not believe, as Isaiah says elsewhere: “He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn and I would heal then.”

 

The marvelous truth of this passage is that the sovereignty of God who blinded the eyes and deadened they heart effectively can also open their eyes and brings back life to the deadness just as effectively by the strong arm of revelation in Jesus.

 

John adds, “Yet at the same time many among the leaders believe in Jesus.”

 

Let us go back to our original theam of “Breathe, before you help others to breathe.” John 12:41 says, “Isaiah, said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.”

 

Isaiah saw the glory of Jesus hundreds of years before Jesus was born and “learned to breathe Jesus” and could keep it for himself and pass it on to us so we might learn to breathe in and breathe out Jesus.

 

In a way this whole passage speaks of John using Isaiah desperately to communicate as in a prayer that Jesus is the message and the self-disclosure of God. 

A man is his prayer. Nothing reveals more a man than his understanding of faith and prayer.

 

Now let me tell you once again what I have been trying to communicate to you in the last years of my pilgrimage on earth.

 

F=PW2.

 

“FAITH IS EQUAL TO PRAYER UNDER THE WILL AND WORD OF GOD. IF WE TAKE JESUS AT HIS WORD IN THE LORDS PRAYER, IT WILL LEAD US TO AGREEMENT WITH GOD AND OUR FELLOW MEN WHEREBY ALL THINGS WILL BE A PRAYER AWAY, AND NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR THEM WHO BELIEVE.”

 

That is power. “The kingdom of God is not a matter of words but “Power”.

Try going to the moon without the power of a rocket and the life given oxygen tanks and you find out how futile your efforts shall be. In the same way, try going to heaven without Faith and Prayer and you will find out FUTILITY in capital letters.

 

Isaiah saw revelation as the strong arm of God and he found irresistible the revelation and he spoke to others about Jesus.

 

I confess that there was a time after I come to know the Lord that my testimony lacked the power of God because it was self centered and not Jesus centered.

 

Now that my intimacy with God is greater than ever, I am like Isaiah crying, “Who has believed our message Lord?” To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

 

To my moaning and groaning like my daughter Keila and Elijah, I also cry out to God, “Lord, I feel like I am the only one left to stand up for Jesus in my generation.” Then like Billy Graham when frustrated I also fearfully pray, “Lord forgive me or help me.”  

 

These were the words of a penitent man on duty that believes the Word of God: “The faithful Prayer of a righteous man availed much.” I stand on the righteousness of Jesus and his name. 

 

Gerry Gutierrez. 

 

PS. Adorable Boy and a super star girl. This picture is a Prayer breathing life.